"Sokka why are you such a moron?!"

Katara's face was flushed, and her hair swung violently behind her as she stamped her foot, hands on her hips.

"Why are you kissing Aang?"

The small airbender shrank away from his partner in apparent crime. He had just defeated the Fire Lord, but this was a whole new kind of frightening.

"Why shouldn't I?"

She was exceptionally beautiful when she was angry. Her eyes flashed with all the shining fury of a tidal wave, and Aang wondered how Sokka was still standing in their view. He himself felt distinctly like swooning, or perhaps just collapsing in terror. Even when not directed at him, her wrath was formidable, and Aang did not relish being caught between it and the impending squall of Sokka's fitful temper.

"Plenty of reasons!" Sokka's voice cracked indignantly. He held up his fingers and started counting. "One, we just finished fighting a war-"

"You were sucking face with Suki ten minutes ago!"

"-Two, he's younger than you-"

"He's literally a century older!"

"-Three, it's just weird-"

"HOLD UP!"

Aang sank, quivering, to the ground. Katara was flying, fists clenched, at her brother. Sokka was still pontificating, eyes closed sanctimoniously, and didn't notice until his sister was right in his face.

"It's weird," she shrieked at him, and he finally had the decency to look alarmed. "It's WEIRD?!"

"Well yeah," Sokka stuttered. "It's like-I mean it's like you're kissing your little brother."

Aang grimaced: not this old nightmare. He knew by now, of course, that Katara didn't think that way about him at all. The kissing was kind of a giveaway. But he was heartily sick of this interpretation, and although Sokka was significantly denser in these areas than most people, he couldn't help wondering who else thought of him and Katara like that.

Katara seemed to share his feelings.

"Why does everyone think that?!" she wailed. "I've never thought that!"

Aang looked up sharply. Never? Then how long...?

"Katara." Sokka adopted a gently superior tone. "You act like his mother half the time. There's no romantic chemistry there."

An actual cloud of steam appeared to be gathering above Katara's head. Her clenched fists trembled at the ends of her arms, and at this point Aang just felt sorry for Sokka.

But Katara was apparently too furious even to argue with her brother. Instead, she whipped around, seized Aang by the hand and pulled him to his feet.

"Come on, Aang," she fumed. "Let's go somewhere more private."

She stalked away, Avatar boyfriend in tow. He pulled a semi-apologetic face at Sokka as they disappeared, but half-heartedly. He was more concerned with the potential kissing that might occur in this more private place...

"Zuko!"

The Fire Lord-elect started sleepily from where he had been drowsing against Mai's shoulder.

"I did'n do't!"

"Shut up," muttered his girlfriend. "I was almost asleep."

"T'was Sokka," he muttered back fondly, and she burrowed deeper into his shoulder.

"Well tell Sokka to shut up."

"Isn't that all anybody ever does?" Toph interjected without turning her attention from the Fire Nation helmet she was metal bending into the shapes of rude hand gestures. "Sokka talks, we don't listen, he talks more, we tell him to shut up, he complains-"

"Hey!"

Sokka's voice cracked, and there were titters from the corner where Aang and Katara were sitting, trying to act like the fact that they were holding hands wasn't a big deal. He turned to glare at them: specifically their entwined fingers.

"Zuko, don't you think this is weird?" he demanded.

"What? The fact that you're talking to me while I'm clearly trying to sleep?"

"No." Sokka waved a hand in the direction of his sister. "Them. Being all-" he waggled his fingers in distaste- "couple-y."

"Um..."

"I mean," Sokka rolled right on over any possibility of response. "You and Katara would make more sense than this!"

Zuko blanched. Mai lifted herself from his shoulder and examined Sokka like she might possibly be considering the best way to dissect him alive.

"Hello. I'm right here."

Sokka ignored her, blundering obliviously on to his probable doom.

"You at least had that whole 'oooh they hate each other' thing going on." He cast about for sympathetic faces, but failed to register the utter lack thereof. "A spark, if you will."

His chortles fell on frigid silence. Katara was visibly wincing as Aang's grip on her fingers tightened possessively. Zuko turned a strange blotchy color under the cool glare of his girlfriend. Even Toph stopped humming the tunes to obscene drinking songs. Sokka began to realize perhaps he had made a mistake.

"Come on guys," he squawked. "Does nobody else think this is weird?"

Zuko coughed awkwardly. Aang's tattoos began to look suspiciously shiny around the edges. Then a harsh voice cut through the silence.

"Yup," said Toph. "Yup. Super weird. You're exactly right, Sokka."

"TOPH!" Katara's voice rang with indignant betrayal.

"No, he's totally right," Toph continued over her. "You and Aang have built up a relationship of mutual trust and care, and sure you act like his mom sometimes, and he has a bit of a hero complex, but you're good friends who have had massive crushes on each other for like a year and now you're in a relationship. That's so weird Katara. Why don't you go stick your tongue down Zuko's throat?"

"Still right here," Mai drawled.

Katara beamed gratefully at Toph and squeezed Aang's hand. He squeezed back as his arrows returned to their normal friendly blue. Zuko looked like he wished he were dead.

"Wait."

Everybody turned to look wearily at Sokka.

"What?" Zuko ground out from between clenched teeth.

Sokka was staring, perplexed, at Aang and Katara.

"You guys had crushes on each other?"

So. I watched Avatar this summer. For the first time. Yes, I know, I had no childhood. And while I'm not horrifically opposed to Zutara, I don't understand why people gotta hate on Kataang. So I wrote this. You know, instead of TYD or TBtL, or like, the American Lit paper that's due tomorrow at 4.

Welcome to my life.

Vic