avatar: the last airbender: solid ground (toph/suki)
Title: Solid Ground
Fandom: Avatar: the Last Airbender
Pairing: Toph/Suki
Warning: adolescent girls crushing on other adolescent girls and basically being adorable babydykes
Summary: Toph hates the water because she's afraid of it. But she's working on that.
Notes: My femslash11 entry, for insane_duckfish. Let's say this is set while the Gaang is hiding out on Ember Island, towards the end of season three. Rated PG, 1600 words.
Nothing made sense in the water. There was no weight to it, and she couldn't see through it. It was worse than being up in the air; water tried to move her where she didn't want to go. It tried to cover her up, carry her away, make her blind.
Water kind of sucked.
*
The things is, it had to be Suki. Had to be.
Because no way could she ask Katara to do it - Katara would have to be all nice about it, and then Toph would have to puke, or kill herself or something.
And Sokka would pat her on the head and go 'aw!' and then she'd have to punch him. A lot.
Aang? Well there was no way she was going to ask Aang. She was his teacher, not the other way around. She wasn't messing with that set-up, it suited her just fine.
Which left Zuko, which would just be plain old embarrassing, or Suki.
So Suki it was.
*
"Are you sure, Toph?" Suki said carefully. "You hate the water."
"I hate it because I'm afraid of it," she confessed fiercely, kicking at the wooden deck beneath her feet. "And I hate that I'm afraid of it. So let's just get on with it already."
"Well, all right, let's go."
"Wait. I kinda don't want anyone to know about it."
She felt Suki lean in conspiratorially. "Then we'll have to sneak off. What's the plan?"
Toph grinned. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.
*
In the water, Suki put an arm under her middle, bearing her up at the surface. "Move your arms the way I showed you, and try kicking at the same time. Remember, you're sort of trying to scoop the water backwards, to push you forward. Scoop and push. Scoop and push. Hey, that's not bad. How do you feel?"
"Just great," Toph panted, labouring just to keep her face out of the water and all her limbs moving at the same time. "No problem. Don't know why I ever thought this was a dumb thing for a person to do."
"You're doing fine," Suki laughed as she moved slowly alongside Toph in the water.
Although, whether Toph was managing to move at all independently, or if Suki was the one doing all the moving, wasn't clear. Toph kind of felt like she wasn't doing much besides smashing her hands and feet at the water and looking like a giant freak doing it..
"Okay, I'm going to let go of you," Suki said.
"Great."
"I'll be right here."
"Great."
"Okay?" Suki let go. "You got it? Look, you're swimming!"
"Yeah, I got it. I got it," she said between flails. "I'm good! See I'm doing jus-" the end of her words cut off in a gurgle as her face, eager to join the rest of her, went under. And then she sank. Sank like a stone. Which was appropriate, Toph figured, right before she started panicking.
*
A few seconds later, after Suki had dragged her back to the surface, she coughed, spat out a lungful or two of water, and latched onto Suki's arms like her life maybe sort of depended on it.
"That was a good first try," Suki said diplomatically.
Toph gasped - and hey, she never really stopped and noticed how great air was - through the sodden hanks of hair plastered to her face. She said, "I drowned."
"Well you were only a few inches underwater. And the bottom is right here."
"Oh," she said, getting her feet back under her. Tried to laugh. "There it is."
Not embarrassed at all. Nope.
"Wanna try again?" Suki asked. Suki's hands, Toph realised, were on her waist again, firm and solid and nothing like the damn water swirling around, pushing and pulling at them. "This time," she added, "I won't let go."
Toph shivered. It was the water, which was... not that cold, actually. Kind of pleasant. But it was still water and therefore seriously not to be trusted.
She wriggled her toes in the shifting sand and prepared to kick off. She flexed her fingers on Suki's forearms. Solid, she thought. "Sounds like a plan," she said, and held her breath just in case.
*
Toph wasn't a touchy-feely type of girl. Katara was the one with the hugging and the putting hands gently on shoulders, patting people like they were fluffy little owl-kitties. As far as Toph was concerned, if it couldn't be expressed by socking someone in the arm, you should probably keep it to yourself.
The thing was, there was a lot of touching involved in learning to swim. She didn't notice so much at first, too busy noticing all the water up her nose instead. But after a little while she stopped panicking so much and she didn't almost drown every five minutes and Suki's hands all over her bare arms and waist and back were suddenly a lot more obviously there.
So then she found herself torn somewhere between the general need to cling to Suki like a rhino-koala clings to a tree and wanting to throw herself to the mercy of the cruel deep ocean because at least it didn't make her feel so embarrassed and nervous and weird. It only made her afraid for her life, and well, she was working on that, wasn't she.
*
"Not so bad, right?" Suki said.
They were treading water, or Suki was, while Toph held onto her shoulders and tried to get the hang of whatever she was supposed to do with her legs.
"Define bad," she replied through gritted teeth. This was hard. Everything about it was hard. "I really stink at this, don't I?"
"I think everyone stinks on their first try."
"Quit being nice to me!"
"No. Your legs are all wrong, by the way."
"That's more like it."
*
See, she wasn't used to being snuck up on.
With her feet on solid ground, the earth told her everything she needed to know about who was where and what they were doing. In the water, all of that disappeared, and every brush of Suki's clothes or cool, soft skin against hers came out of nowhere; a shock every time.
The lagoon was pretty calm, but a larger swell came up suddenly, taking Toph by surprise. Suki grabbed her closer to hold her steady as they rose and fell together, and it was just too much, bumping up against each other all over, legs tangling and Suki's wet hair in her face.
"Okay!" She pushed away from the girl and let go, bobbing there anchorless, all by herself.
"Hey, you're doing it," Suki said, sounding excited.
Well, not any more she wasn't. Boy, was it time to go.
*
She could hear the waves lapping at the shore, and flailed in that direction till her feet found the bottom and she could drag herself up towards the beach.
"Toph? You okay?" Suki called after her, but she was kind of busy over here and didn't bother replying.
When the water was only swirling at her shins she lifted her foot and drove it down, making a big splash yes, but more importantly striking the sand with the force of all her ability. Even through the shifting, water-logged sand she felt the echo of it; there it was, sweet, solid rock coming up from deep down below. She splashed happily over towards it.
*
Reaching the rocky outcropping was like coming home. She wanted to hug it. She sat on it instead, pulling up her feet and clinging to the rough surface with her fingers and toes, feeling better already.
After a minute Suki sat down beside her, and suddenly there she was - the first clear picture she'd had of the other girl since their feet first hit the shallows.
"Well, that went well," Toph said.
"You did great today, and we'll try it again tomorrow. All you need is to practice some more."
"Yeah, practice."
Suki put a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, it scares you and you did it anyway. You're really brave, Toph."
She thought about that, while her stomach shifted around like it was full of wave-tossed sand. Actually, she had swallowed a lot of seawater, so it probably was.
"Thanks, Suki," she said.
She held her breath, then leaned over, and up a little. And she kissed her, real quick, lips colliding for a tiny, soft, salty moment.
"Oh," said Suki.
"Huh," said Toph, sitting back down. "So. You'll give me another lesson tomorrow, right?"
*
"Hey, where have you two been?" Katara said when they made it back to the house. "Wait a minute. Toph?"
"What?"
"I don't know, you just seem different."
"What? I do not! Different how?"
"Oh, I don't know. Cleaner?" Katara snickered. Toph flopped down beside her on the stairs, while Suki bypassed the two of them with a smile, going on inside.
Toph shoved Katara's shoulder with her foot. "Funny, Katara."
"So where were you, anyway?"
"It's no big deal, Suki was just giving me a swimming lesson," she said. Because come to think of it, she'd never had a problem with brave.