Title: Open If You Know How To See
Author: me, laurellejana
Fandom: Avatar: The Last Airbender (ATLA)
Pairing: Toph/Aang (Taang), possible Zuko/Katara (Zutara)
Rating: PG-13 for suggestiveness
Disclaimer: I don't own Avatar: The Last Airbender or any of its characters; I'm not looking to make any money here, just ask a few questions. Like what if they'd gone for Taang. ;D
Spoilers: Through Day of the Black Sun Pts. 1 and 2. It mentions time after the finale, but no Sozin's Comet spoilers there because I don't know any, lol.
Summary: "But for a little while, Toph wanted to be acting in the pure instinct of the moment and not thinking so hard about every tiny thing."
Thanks/Credit: This was originally done and posted in response to belgian_ink's prompt "I dare you" in gemkazoni's Avatar-request meme that I wrote about in my last entry. Well, as all good writers do, I took the raw product that I'd written at 1 in the morning, and ran it through the editing wringer several times with my WONDERFUL beta, sinbani. (Several people to thank here, but she's the most important. Seriously, she made this fic what it is now. Thank you hon!!) The finished product is about 400 words longer, and I'm pretty pleased with it; hopefully you will be too.


“I dare you.”

And that put an end to all his protests, for even in the three years since the war, even as they´d all gotten growth spurts and crushes and hair in weird places, their little tribe had always counted dares as the most serious of challenges. The heat from his blush made her toes press harder into the ground, but her voice stayed steady when she continued. “And don't give me any guff about Sweetness seeing and disapproving. You know she and Sparky are taking their own sweet time about getting back tonight - and you know just why, too.” Toph felt her face heat, so she turned it away, but Aang´s heartbeat didn´t speed up as it once might have at the mention of his best friend´s name. She relaxed and turned her face toward him again.

“Toph! You can't think anything is happening between Katara and Zuko, after they've told us so many times that they're just good friends!”

“Don't be so blind, Twinkle Toes! And don't try to change the subject, are you taking my dare or not?”

He thought about this an uncomfortably long time, and she tried to forget how thoughtful the war had made them all. Even after all this time, no one had entirely gone back to their carefree prior lives. Then again, no one had separated either, still held together by the Avatar´s work for peace. But for a little while, Toph wanted to be The Blind Bandit again, acting in the pure instinct of the moment and not thinking so hard about every tiny thing.

“Only if I get to give one,” was his eventual reply.

“Done deal. Now strip.”

“Toph! At least turn around."

“It's not like I'll be able to see anything, genius.” But she obliged anyway.

And she did see, through her own mode of seeing, how he also turned his back to disrobe. The very slight click and tiny vibrations told her how gingerly he set down his staff. A loud and fast rustle and then several-feet-away plop let her know how quickly he took off the large-wide thing he wore on top. The shuffling and then hop hop rhythm of his feet let her feel how he hesitated and then danced around pulling off his bottoms. So when he turned back to her, she knew that he'd left on that last layer that he wore even while waterbending or just plain swimming. But the dare hadn't necessarily included naked so she didn't complain - not that she didn't want to, but Toph Bei Fong understood as well as anyone about choosing your words carefully and expecting them to be followed to the letter.

“There, are you satisfied?” he asked almost immediately.

“I can't see them yet, so no.” She walked directly over to him and held out her hand, demanding without a word that he finish what he'd started. He took it, sighed, and placed her palm on his jaw.

"I suppose if you're going to get to know what I look like, you might as well learn to recognize all of me." And one of the heartbeats tingling through her fingers skipped a bit at that, though she could not have said whether it was hers or his that did. She waited a moment to grow accustomed to the coolness of him, so different than her own sun-warmed skin had ever been thanks to his communing with the air.

She caressed his smooth cheek first, gaining a feel for how large his face was, and how prominent his cheekbones were (less than her mother's jutting ones, but more than most other people's that she knew). She moved up slightly, pausing just above his cheekbones to warn him that she'd like to explore his eyes; when she felt short eyelashes against her fingertips she continued. His eyes seemed large compared to everyone else's, and she wondered momentarily if he had what people always called a guileless look about him.

It would certainly fit his attitude, she thought. Twinkle Toes wouldn't suspect Fire Lord Ozai of wrongdoing unless he had irrefutable proof first.

Toph feathered her fingers across the bridge of his nose and down its side, but suddenly changed direction when she realized where that path would lead.

Instead, she cupped that cheek and walked her fingers up and around the eye socket to run them against the grain of his eyebrow. Finally, she began pressing the pads of her fingers firmly up his forehead. She lightly ran them up and down his brow, then brushed the slightly raised, gradually narrowing lines that made his first arrow, trailing them down past where it ended to push in his nose.

She said, “Are you ready for me to see the rest?”

He nodded, a movement so slight it only resonated in her toes. But then he pulled her hand back up his forehead and slid the palm across his shaved head. When it reached the neck, she moved herself around until she was standing behind him, and disengaged their hands. Her toes curled involuntarily as she felt his heartbeat speed up. She trailed her fingers down his nape to his back, then lightly feathered them to the left and to the right, following the bands across his shoulderblades and back to his spine. She smiled to herself when he shivered, a smile she knew he couldn't see that revealed thoughts she had only begun to acknowledge, and that she was sure he hadn't guessed. She quickly schooled her face to normal, then gripped his arms and let her callused palms slide down them in a spiral, feeling the tattoos and his goosebumps at the same time. When she was holding his hands she pulled first one then the other behind his back, holding them together with her left hand while tracing his second and third arrows with her right thumbnail. And her feet wanted to dance a fast shuffle when they felt his heartbeat beginning to pound through the ground to them.

Then suddenly she dropped into a crouch, letting his hands go in favor of grabbing his feet. Her knuckles skimmed arrows four and five, and she couldn't resist saying, “No wonder I can hardly feel you walk sometimes, you've got tiny little feet! I should've called you Tiny Toes.”

“As long as they're strong it doesn't matter their size,” he said, and he couldn't quite keep his voice steady. She kept her face turned down because for some reason her smile had returned.

As she ran her hands up his legs she worked her way around to kneel in front of him, and pulled him slightly toward her when the bands went behind his thighs. She could hear him swallowing several times, and wondered what he was getting ready to say. Then her attention was entirely on the heat that was radiating out of his skin and the pounding she could now feel in the bottom of her stomach as well as her feet.

When she finally stood up, and her hands finished their journey at the spot on his lower back that was raised but not smooth, that was scored and rough as though the burn had never quite healed, she pulled him all the way toward her and asked, “So what's your dare then?”

“I dare you to be as honest about your feelings all the time as you were just now.” And he kissed the smart reply right out of her mouth.