metal doors ripped off their hinges
Title: Subtle
Pairing: Tokka
Rating: K+
Summary: Toph bluntly asks why she wasn’t taken along on the hunting expedition that was really a rescue mission. Sokka gives an answer.
Word Count: 435
Disclaimer: I live with my parents. Seriously now. Avatar: the Last Airbender belongs to Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko, who, for some reason, have agreed to let their amazing series be made into a live action movie.
To be directed by M. Night Shyamalan. (The guy who reasons that since we are evil to plants, they should kill us with their weird suicide toxins, therefore making them the bad guys.)
And wait, what? I don’t own rights?
“So, got your girlfriend back.”
First thing she says in two days after the “What, no meat?” crack. Sokka finds that he’s rather disappointed.
“Suki’s not - “ he starts to say, only to be silenced by a rough palm shoved up to within a centimeter of his nose. Toph makes a sort of grunting noise that indicates she’s not buying it, then spits off the edge of the temple into the deep chasm. Sokka feels oddly like he himself is falling into that canyon. Toph has a way of making him feel like this. Like there’s nothing solid under him. Sometimes it can be good.
“Okay, maybe she is. But…” he shrugs. “It’s not like I’m going to marry her or anything. I mean… on the way back she told me everything that happened to her since she was captured, and I told her everything that happened to us since the Serpent’s Pass. I think that we’re kinda growing apart already, despite working toward a common goal. I’m… I’m just glad she’s okay.”
They sit there, his feet dangling over the edge, she on a low stone bench with her feet firmly on the ground. She snorts.
“You don’t love her.”
It’s not a question. She explains. “I don’t know much, but you don’t feel like yourself when you’re with her. If you were in love…” she wrinkles up her nose and sends another gob of spit into the nothingness. “I think that being in love is being who you really are with the person to whom it matters the most.” She shrugs.
“So why didn’t you take me with you?” She asks as dinnertime approaches. “Why Princess and not me?” There’s no jealousy.
Sokka smirks. “It’s not like I had much of a choice,” he admits. “But if I did… I don’t think I would take you.”
She frowns.
“We were there to rescue people. Not shut down the whole prison.” He gives a dry sort of chuckle and imagines the whole cell block in ruins, metal doors ripped off their hinges.
She shrugs. “I guess.”
“You’re not subtle about anything, Toph. That’s who you are and I like that. When it’s time… you and I are gonna make a great team. You know… when it’s time to end all of this.”
It occurs to him later that the not-subtleness, the stubbornness and the strength, those are all Toph and he loves it just as much as she must love his sarcasm, his intellect and his dependability because that’s who he is. Who he really is. And when they are together, only that matters.