| By Fruipit | Genre | Rating | Reviews | Updates |
| More from Fruipit | Angst & Romance | PG-13 | None | No update page |
Non, je ne regrette rien[]
Toph had absolutely brilliant hearing. She had not always had her white cane to help her around, and until she was able to use it properly, her ears had been the only guide she had for navigating the world. For Toph, there were almost seven years of complete blindness, with only the aid of a guide or counting steps, before she was given her cane and a myriad of possibilities opened up for her; while her ears became secondary, she never lost her acute hearing. In all actuality, it was more likely that it had strengthened over the years as she grew and was able to better remember and identify familiar sounds. The sound she was hearing now, it was not familiar. Not in person, at any rate. She had heard the sounds of the ocean before, but she had never once actually ventured to the beach.
There was a gentle breeze on her unclothed back, and she sucked in a deep breath. The air was refreshingly salty, swirling around her head and mussing her hair. Toph's tongue darted out, tasting it; it was at that moment she realised she wasn't alone. Another person moved slightly, and though they didn't make a sound, she knew who it was. Who he was.
Sokka's hands landed at her knees, crossed in front of her body, and the fingers gently walked up her thigh. Her own hands moved to meet them, although they quickly parted company as she slid them up his arms, pausing the barest fraction before she began mapping out his chest. He lifted her up, placing her on his lap before reaching down with his lips and gently placing them on her cheek. Toph couldn't help the shiver that ran down her spine at the feeling, and she arched into him the barest fraction.
This was not unexplored territory. She had been in similar places before, however it was different this time. Perhaps because the situation meant so much, made her heart sing so loud, there was an undercurrent of emotional vulnerability that, no matter how hard she tried, Toph couldn't completely quell, dispel, or hide. He seemed to know, though, because as he trailed his fingers up her sides to rest at her waist, or the way his mouth gently caressed the skin of her cheeks, ears, neck, his own confidence that what he was doing was exactly what he wanted to do. Despite herself, Toph found small noises of pleasure erupting from the back of her throat. She felt him smile into the crook of her neck, and the urge to become the controller appeared. It lasted only a few seconds; the utter completeness she felt at having someone hold her, love her, was far better than any dominance she could have over him.
Her steady breath slowly turned into pants as he lathered her neck with sweet kisses, moving up her cheeks but never once touching her lips. It was a beautiful kind of torture, although one she couldn't help but hold onto. Here, with him, she was safe. Here, she was innocent. As his hands bypassed her chest, moving to cradle her head, Toph felt as though nothing existed in that moment, except for the two of them. He placed a kiss on the corner of her mouth, and she couldn't bite the words back as they escaped as a breathy sigh.
"Love you, Sokka...."
It was what he was waiting for, and she felt him smile—a pure upturning of his mouth that convinced her his intentions were deeper than the superficial gratification anyone could achieve. He wanted her there, too. Their foreheads connected a second before his breath hit her, speaking before finally ending her ruinous torture and kissing her on the lips with the pent-up force and passion she needed from him.
"I love you, too," he murmured breathlessly as they pulled apart. She smiled, leaning in again before a sudden noise jolted her away—
—and she found herself, not in the warm arms of Sokka, but the thick sheets of a bed. A door had slammed, jerking her back into the land of the living, although it was not the noise she was focussing on now.
Toph was not thinking about her heart, hammering in her chest, or the way the traitorous tears refused to go away, waiting for a gap in her defences to slip down her cheek. She was trying to forget how warm and safe she had felt, because she was Toph; she didn't need anyone else to make her feel that way. The crushing feeling in her chest proved otherwise. Her blindness had never been a sore spot for her, but perhaps that was the reason Sokka would never look at her the way he looked at Suki.
It was part of the reason why it was so hard for her to identify if she were dreaming or not. It was difficult for a sighted person, when they were in the dream; upon waking, the typical person has the moment of clarity (or sadness) when they realise it was all inside their head. For Toph, it depended on how outlandish the dream was in the first place. She knew, though, that there were more instances where she would wake up, and not know where she was or how she got there, the dream was so vivid. It seemed the only ones she could escape were the ones she didn't want to.
"Oh, God," she whispered to herself. It was a mistake. Everything was a mistake. And now dreaming about him? Ohhhh God. She needed a smoke; she needed something. She brought a bag this week, full of the necessities, because Toph had known something bad would happen. Of course it would. She also realised how stupid the whole thing was—since when did she need anyone else? But, it wasn't about needing. It was about wanting.
She sat on the bed and wondered that perhaps it wasn't her blindness. It had brought them together, after all. She didn't want to think of all reasons she couldn't be with him. She wanted to think about all the reasons he made her feel better. Made her better.
Her stomach twisted painfully as she remembered what she had done the previous weekend. It shouldn't have felt like cheating, but it did. Jet brought out the worst in her, while Sokka brought out the best. She needed that, she supposed.
Sliding from the sheets, she made her way down the hall, gently calling out a name.
"Katara?"
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