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Sokka could feel the adrenaline flood his veins and took a moment to be thankful for the boost of speed it gave him as he flew down the hall. He careened around a corner and clipped a fancy table displaying a decorative red and gold vase, which promptly crashed to the floor behind him. Grimacing, he left the broken pieces spinning on the floor in his wake. The noise was rather unfortunate; any foe who didn’t know where he was before certainly knew now.
Sokka’s mind raced to come up with a plan as he sprinted on. He took a few more turns through the sprawling Fire Nation palace, and was stunned to turn another corner and find—the vase he had just broken on the floor in front of him. Did he just run in a circle? Spirits! He wished now that he hadn’t had that fourth glass of wine with dinner; it seemed to be messing with his normally impeccable sense of direction.
He could hear footsteps now that were not his own. There was nothing for it—he had to get out of sight immediately.
Whipping his head to the side, Sokka noticed an inconspicuous door the same color and texture as the wall around it. He grabbed the handle and jiggled it; it was locked. Wait, no— just stuck. He slipped inside, managing to bang into more than one thing along the way, and shut the door as quickly as possible while staying as silent as possible. He squinted in the dark, but his eyes hadn’t adjusted enough to let him see what objects were crammed into the space around him. He carefully reached out and touched what was either a wooden staff-like weapon or a broom handle. Judging by the still-dripping bucket that clattered to the ground as he knocked it off the top, it was probably just a broom. This was likely a storage space that the palace staff used for cleaning supplies.
He held his breath as the footsteps drew nearer. It sounded like just one person, but they were running straight for his door; he had only seconds now before they would find him and it would all be over. He’d had a decent run of things, he thought, but if he’d had more time, maybe anything more than the barest hint of a plan, he could’ve lasted longer than this—
He gritted his teeth as the door flung open, but it was only Toph.
“This is my hiding place, Snoozles! Get out!” she yelled as loudly as she could while still whispering.
Sokka sputtered, indignant. “Yours?! I was here first!” he whisper-yelled back.
“And you’ve overstayed your welcome. Goodbye.” She took a stance that he could tell was about to earthbend him right through the palace roof.
“Toph, no! Please! I can’t lose again!” he begged.
Sokka reached out and grabbed at her wrist. He must have surprised her, or maybe she’d also had one too many drinks at dinner, because the motion made her do a very un-Toph like thing: she took a step backwards so quickly that she slipped on the slick bucket-drips on the floor. Sokka used the grip he already had on her forearm to keep her upright and tugged her toward him. Unfortunately he tugged a little too hard, and her momentum brought her smacking into his chest as they crashed into the back wall of the closet, where they jostled a shelf that clinked ominously with what sounded like glass bottles.
Tucked in the back of the room, arms wrapped around each other in an unintentional embrace, they stilled as cleaning supplies continued to rattle around them.
“Ow.” Sokka rubbed the back of his head, which had bounced painfully off the wall.
Toph groaned and pushed away from him. “Idiot,” she muttered. “You’re going to get us caught!” She turned and yanked the door closed again, though she slowed before it could slam. They were plunged into darkness again.
Which is when they both realized how very close they were forced to stand in this tiny, crowded closet.
Toph froze. Sokka cleared his throat and let his mouth form words without his brain’s interference. “It’s dark in here,” he whispered.
“Yeah, I can’t see a thing,” Toph deadpanned.
Before he had time to be embarrassed, Sokka thought he heard more footsteps. “Shhh someone’s coming!” He covered Toph’s mouth with his hand.
Toph licked his palm.
“Ugh!” Sokka yanked his hand away.
“Shhh, someone’s coming!” Toph hissed.
Sokka sensed Toph move in the dark and heard a soft click coming from the handle of the door. She’d used metalbending to lock it.
“Hey! We said no bending allowed!” Sokka whispered angrily at her.
“Don’t complain, dummy, I’m helping you too,” she whispered back.
He gasped. “But—you’re cheating!”
“Oh no, I’ve dishonored the highly respectable game of hide-and-seek, how will I sleep tonight?”
“You’re gonna get us disqualified—!” Sokka insisted.
“Shh!” Toph shushed him, though Sokka thought she wasn’t very quiet about it.
“You ‘shh!’” Sokka couldn’t help himself.
They both finally shut up as the footsteps reached their hallway. Then they heard an exasperated moan. “Come on, guys! Not again!” It was Zuko’s voice. He had found the vase. “My advisors are going to kill me after tonight...”
Toph suppressed a snort. It made Sokka smile.
But then Zuko came for the only hiding place in sight: the door leading to their closet. They both stood very still as Zuko’s hand tried to turn the handle of the door. He tried once, twice—and then Fate intervened, and they all heard a loud whoosh and what sounded like a clanging gong from the direction of the throne room. Apparently Fate’s name was Aang, who got overzealous with his air bending when he’d been drinking. Sokka thought that perhaps they were all a bit drunk; hide-and-seek hadn’t sounded like a good idea since they were still kids.
“Avatar!” Zuko grumbled, and he sounded so much like his teenage self that Sokka had to bite his fist to keep from laughing. They heard Zuko sprint towards the throne room.
They waited a very long minute, still and silent and breathing each other’s air. As time dragged on and one minute turned into several, the moment became charged in a way that had been happening more and more often whenever Sokka was around Toph.
Sokka wasn’t sure exactly when it had started, but lately, he couldn’t help but notice how pretty Toph was. Growing up, she had always been the dirty little gremlin that slugged his arm and roasted him whenever he did something stupid. Now, while she still gave him more than occasional bruises and verbally murdered him on the regular (and, okay, she was still generally very dirty), she did all of that with shining hair and alluring eyes and her lips curved up in a tempting smirk and a body that turned heads wherever they went.
Of course, Sokka had always enjoyed Toph’s company, but now he craved it. He found himself creating excuses to visit her, and clambering to get the seat next to her when the whole group was together, and feeling disappointed whenever she gave her customary goodbye punch because, well, she was beautiful and fun and funny and whenever she left his side he felt her absence keenly.
And he suspected she felt the same way. There had been... moments. Moments when Sokka had stared at her too long, long enough that Toph noticed, and her face would break into a brilliant grin to let him know that she noticed. Moments when her touch would linger just a bit longer than necessary, and his heart sped tellingly. Moments when his compliments or encouragement made her blush, while Aang’s only made her eyes roll. Moments when Sokka and Toph played off each other so well that their banter seemed to transport them to another world, one where nothing existed but the two of them, until Katara would cough and they would remember they weren’t the only people in the room. There were plenty of moments that felt like more than just friendly friends, buddy buds, great pals. Those moments were the elephant mandrill in the very crowded room with them right now.
Sokka couldn’t see her in the dark, but she was close enough that he could feel the heat from her flushed skin mingling with his and warming the air in the enclosed space. He was starting to sweat. He took a deep breath and could smell the faint flowery scent of the soap she used on her hair. As he inhaled, his chest brushed up against her arm, and the touch shot through him like a lightning bolt, lighting up every nerve.
He cleared his throat and cut off the dangerous train of thought. “Toph?” he whispered.
“Don’t tell me you have to go to the bathroom.”
“No! Well, maybe, now that you mention it—“ He was cut off by a small ledge of solid earth that jutted up from the ground to jab him sharply in the shin. “Owww, my leg!” Sokka reached out to use Toph’s shoulders for balance as he took the weight off his throbbing limb.
Toph had the grace to wince apologetically. “I’m sorry!” And she actually sounded it too. “I misjudged—“
“Monkey! Feathers! Ah! That hurt—” The need for silence was forgotten as Sokka alternated between shouting and hissing through clenched teethed.
“That wine—everything’s a bit fuzzy—I thought you were farther away—“
“Am I bleeding?! I think I’m bleeding!”
“You’re not— oh, wait, you actually are.” Toph sounded equally surprised and reluctant to answer him.
“You made me bleed!” Sokka whined. “How much blood is there?”
“Just relax, let me—“ Toph knelt down and inspected his wound with gentle hands. Sokka’s pain abruptly felt very distant, because now Toph was on her knees at his feet and that was all he could focus on. He fought to keep his imagination in check.
Then Sokka heard the unmistakable sound of fabric ripping. “Did you just rip your shirt?”
“Tore off a sleeve, yeah. The least I can do is stop your bleeding.” She took the strip of silky fabric and began carefully wrapping it around Sokka’s leg.
“But your shirt...” he said absently.
“It’s just a shirt.” Toph shrugged.
“But I liked that shirt,” Sokka blurted out.
She paused, surprised. “...you did?”
“Yeah... I dunno, it... looked nice on you,” he said gruffly.
“Well... thanks, I guess.” Toph sounded amused.
Sokka cleared his throat. “At least it’s my bad leg.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, the one I hurt on the airships when—“
“I kn— I... remember.” She shook her head. “I mean, why would you prefer to injure an already bad leg?”
“Precisely because it’s already bad! This way I keep my other leg in pristine condition. Duh.”
Toph laughed. Sokka’s heart swelled at the sound.
She finished knotting the makeshift bandage. “There. That should do it.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome for patching you up after I broke you.”
“Eh, I could think of worse ways to spend my evening.” He grinned.
Sokka grabbed her hand and helped her back up, and suddenly they were standing even closer than they were before, their hands linked between them. Neither immediately let go. Toph squeezed his fingers and then gave the back of his hand a single soft stroke with her thumb. Sokka shivered at the touch and hoped Toph would assume it was a reaction to the terrible pain she’d inflicted upon him and not the fact that her skin felt electric against his.
“You gonna be ok, tough guy?” she asked softly.
“I think I’ll survive,” Sokka said, matching her tone.
“You always do.” She smiled fondly.
Sokka was surprised to realize that he could see Toph despite the lack of light. She was close enough now, and his eyes had adjusted so that he could make out her face. As was typical, her dark bangs hung over her eyes. Sokka really wanted to see her eyes. Before he could stop himself, he reached out and brushed the hair away from Toph’s face, tucking it behind her ear. She stiffened at his touch.
“Sorry,” he whispered, his voice suddenly hoarse.
“‘S’alright,” she said breathlessly.
Maybe it was because she hadn’t given him the you better be, jerk he was expecting, or maybe it was because she sounded unusually vulnerable, like she was as affected as he was, that he did what he did next; whatever the reason, Sokka threw caution to the wind, leaned down, and carefully pressed his lips to hers.
There was a heart stopping, frightening moment where she didn’t respond, but then she was surging up to meet him, and Toph’s hand in his twisted to intertwine their fingers, and her other hand went to the side of his face, pulling him closer and pressing their bodies together.
Sokka let out a satisfied moan, and ran his hand along Toph’s waist. Simultaneously, they deepened the kiss, which was precisely when the door of the closet flung open and many things happened all at once.
“Found you!” Zuko yelled triumphantly, and then, “Wha—?”
At the interruption, Sokka instinctively spun Toph so that he was shielding her with his body, while reaching for the boomerang that he’d forgotten wasn’t currently on his person. A stab of pain in his leg reminded him of the injury that his haze of desire had briefly overridden. He cried out and stumbled backwards into Toph, who reflexively threw up a wall that nearly clipped Sokka on the nose as it rocketed up.
But it was too late. Zuko had seen enough. “This whole night was a mistake,” he sighed.
From down the hall, they heard Katara’s muffled yell, “Hey! We said no bending!”
Behind the earth wall, Sokka and Toph were splayed against the back of the closet and covered with fallen cleaning supplies, breathing heavily. Another broom handle was falling right for Sokka’s face; Toph caught it just in time.
“Well... that happened.” Sokka said through gritted teeth.
Toph began to untangle herself. “Was that you protecting me, you big idiot?”
“Maybe... warrior’s instinct, you know...” Despite the very unwelcome disruption, he couldn’t stop the grin that spread across his face. He had kissed Toph, and she had kissed him back!
“Very sweet, Snoozles.” She patted his shoulder. He knew she was teasing, but it still gave him a thrill.
She helped maneuver him in the cramped space so that he was standing on his uninjured leg, arm slung around her shoulder for support.
Even though he was bleeding and uncomfortably crowded and he had Katara and the others to answer to upon leaving their temporary safety, this felt good. It felt right. His body buzzed pleasantly wherever it came into contact with Toph’s and Sokka really wanted nothing more than to press her against the wall and pick up where they left off. It was going to be difficult to forgive Zuko for his disastrous timing. How did he even get through the locked door, anyway—?
Toph’s hand found his face again and turned it toward hers. “Are you really ok?” she asked, not unkindly.
“No thanks to you but also thanks to you, I think I am.” Sokka felt a little dazed, but whether that was from the alcohol, the blood loss, the passionate kiss, the surprise interruption, or all of the above, he wasn’t sure.
“That made no sense,” Toph said, while slowly, distractingly moving her face toward his.
Sokka tried again. “Yes. I’m great.”
“Great, because I’m not done with you yet.” Toph whispered, and she pressed a searing kiss to his mouth. She pulled away too quickly, leaving Sokka chasing her lips with his own. “Come on.”
She lowered the wall and helped him into the brightly lit hallway, where Zuko stood with a pouty Aang (who had been found first, of course) and a tipsy Katara, arms linked with Suki.
Katara gasped when she saw him. “Sokka! Are you bleeding?”
Before she could fuss over him, Toph said, “Nice job, Your Hotness, you’re getting much better at this game. Now, as you probably saw, Sokka and I have some unfinished business to attend to, so, bye.” She started to pull Sokka down the hallway and he limped along willingly, until she paused and called back over her shoulder, “Oh, and yes– it’s exactly what it looks like!” She grinned and whispered, “How are their faces? Are they good?”
Sokka looked between the comically widened eyes and dropped jaws, and happily told her, “Yes, so good.” He grinned and saluted them as they left.
Just before they were out of earshot, they heard Aang say, “She’s right, Zuko. You are getting better at hide-and-seek.”
“No,” Suki said, “I think we’re just getting worse at hiding.”