-Comic Relief-

"I'm the comic relief character."

The statement came so suddenly and so bluntly that no one knew what to do at first. Toph's reaction came in the form of a snort loud enough to attract attention from several other people at the restaurant. Aang and Katara just stared at Sokka. They took a moment to glance in confusion at one another, then resumed gawking.

When Sokka realized that no one was going to respond, he continued. "What? It's true." There was another beat of silence before anyone spoke.

"You didn't order cactus juice again, did you, Sokka?" Katara asked. Aang let out a soft chuckle, and Sokka shot him a glare.

"No!" the warrior retorted. "And I don't appreciate you bringing that up." He crossed his arms and turned slightly away in annoyance. "It only happened once."

"Once?" Toph laughed. "More like three or four times."

"In the last month," Aang added, getting in on the fun.

"You're all exaggerating. It couldn't have been more than twice this month." The other three rolled their eyes and shared knowing looks. Sokka faced them again, saying, "Anyway, my point is, everything I do is comic relief for all the drama in 'our little gang'." He emphasized the last three words with air quotes, then placed his hands on the table to stress his meaning. "Like I said, I'm the comic relief character."

"Character?" asked Aang. "What do you mean by that?"

Sokka looked a little frustrated, but he answered anyway. "The character of our gang – you know – Team Avatar."

"Enough with the 'Team Avatar' stuff! I told you, it's not going to catch on," Katara said.

"As I was saying," Sokka glared pointedly at his sister, "we all have our roles in Team Avatar." ("Stop it, Sokka!") "Toph's our tough, strong Earthbender who doesn't take anything from anyone." The blind girl nodded her head in acknowledgement, satisfied with the way he saw her.

"Katara is the kind, responsible Waterbender who takes care of everyone." Katara calmed down a little. Maybe her brother wasn't such an idiot after all. "Especially you, Aang." Now she blushed and kicked the idiot under the table where no one would see. Of course, Sokka made a big deal about it, rubbing his shin and throwing in a whine for good measure. Aang just looked embarrassed, rubbed his head, and then threw himself into eating with more gusto than was absolutely necessary.

Finally, Sokka got back on topic and said, "And you, Aang. You're the big-hearted, lovable, heroic Avatar who always does the right thing. No matter how annoying or ridiculous it might be."

"Hey!" the Airbender shouted.

"It's true! Remember that time at the North Pole?" Sokka raised his arms as if to ask the spirits what he ever did to deserve it all. "I wanted to leave Zuko in the blizzard and let him suffer. But no." He drew out the last word, and then pointed an accusatory finger at Aang. "You wanted to help the angry jerk, and of course Katara had to agree with whatever you said – like always." A thump under the table let everyone know that Sokka had been kicked again. This time, however, he let it go without acknowledging it. "All our problems would've been solved if you'd have listened to me."

"Are you sure you're not the drama queen of Team Avatar?" Toph cut in, smirking.

"Don't encourage him, Toph," Katara interjected, exasperated.

"Yes, I'm sure! I'm the comic relief character!"

She looked at him for a moment before saying, "Well, you make me laugh, Snoozles."

His head nodded in gratitude of her agreement. "Thank you, Toph. I- Hey!" The earthbender laughed. "I meant," he said, waving a chopstick threateningly, "that strange stuff happens to me."

"And what about the rest of us?" Katara said. "Strange stuff doesn't happen to us? What about Aang? Being encased in an iceberg for one hundred years? Definitely not normal."

Sokka waved his hand at the argument. "That's Avatar stuff; it doesn't count." The Waterbender crossed her arms. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that Toph and Aang were only half listening, eating their bowls of noodles instead. He did, however, notice that their eyes were on him.

"You want examples? Fine, I'll give some to you."

He brought up his right hand and lifted a finger for each instance. "Remember the time I got stuck in the ground and made friends with a saber-tooth moose-lion cub? Not normal." A second finger joined the first. "Then there was the time I was trapped in a cave with an insane band of hippies. How often does that happen to you?" Another finger. "Of course, there was the poetry thing in Ba Sing Se. And there are countless numbers of animals who keep attaching to me!" Sokka crossed his arms, pleased. "And that's just a few."

Katara, Aang, and Toph just stared at him. Aang was frozen in the middle of bringing his chopsticks to his lips, and Toph had several noodles hanging out of her open mouth. She spoke first, not even bothering to slurp up her food.

"You were trapped in a cave with a bunch of hippies?"

"Yes. Don't change the subject."

"Wow, Sokka," Aang said. "Strange stuff really does happen to you." Toph shrugged as if she didn't really care, but Katara remained unconvinced.

Sokka looked smug until he saw the skeptical look on his sister's face. "Oh, come on! You can't say I'm normal! What about the time I got two fishhooks stuck in my thumb?" He held the injured digit in the air as proof, proudly showing off the tiny scar.

Once again, Toph burst out laughing and asked, "Two fishhooks? One just wasn't enough for you?"

"It was your own stupid fault," said Katara, pointedly ignoring her friend. Aang shrugged, showing that he agreed, but he still believed Sokka.

The warrior crossed his arms again and glared across the table. "What is it going to take to convince you, Katara?"

She shrugged. "Proof."

"Proof?" he bellowed, attracting even more attention from astonished restaurant patrons. "You want proof? Haven't I given you enough?" His voice was an octave too high, so he pulled it down until it was even lower than normal. "Alright, fine. I'll show you, then," he said in his deep, manly voice and immediately stuck his arm into the aisle without looking.

It was really just bad luck that had brought the girl past that specific table at that specific time. She had risen from her own chair only moments ago, completely set on stalking away from her now-ex-boyfriend in a justifiable huff. If the twit hadn't grabbed her arm in a pathetic attempt to stop her, she would have passed the table seconds earlier without incident. However, a tanned arm suddenly shot out right in front her without warning. Unable to stop in time, the girl plowed into the arm at full force. She blinked and found herself on her bruised backside, most of the restaurant gawking at her. Enraged, she stood, grabbed the bowl of noodles from the tanned boy, and proceeded to dump the contents onto the miscreant's big head. She let the empty bowl drop onto his wet hair and stomped out in her interrupted huff.

Aang's mouth hung open in shock as Sokka, whose wet face was emotionless, turned to look at his friends. Toph's jaw dangled against her will. Then she gained control and shrugged nonchalantly. Katara just looked amused, her arms still crossed in front of her.

"Are you serious?" Sokka was shocked. "That was perfect proof!" Focusing completely on his sister, he placed his bowl on the table and grabbed the sticky, dripping noodles that clung to his scalp. He set them back in the bowl, wiped his head with the tablecloth, and said, "Okay, Katara. If I'm so normal, stick out your arm and see what happens." Scowling at the challenge, Katara threw her arm out recklessly.

The four companions sat there for a moment in silence before she slowly drew her arm back.

Sokka raised a fist triumphantly. "That's got to prove it! Take that!"

"Oh, let it go, Sokka." Katara rolled her eyes. "All it proves is that everyone is avoiding our table after your brilliant move."

Refusing to look around and prove her right, he remained stubborn. "Right. Good excuse. You just don't want to admit that I'm right." Katara made a noise of frustration, and he switched tactics. "You believe me, don't you, Aang?"

Everyone turned to look at Aang, who froze at the attention, his eyes wide. He'd just placed a few noodles in his mouth, and one was still dangling from his lips. Then he finished slurping it up, swallowed hard, and did his very best to stay out of it.

"I…well…" He rubbed his head and looked back and forth between the siblings. Suddenly determined to keep the peace, he said, "We all have our moments, Sokka."

Groaning, Sokka pushed harder. "But I have tons of moments. Way more than all of you guys put together."

Aang pleaded with his eyes, trying to tell his friend to drop it. Fortunately, Toph saved him by commenting, "You're like a walking disaster. They should lock you up somewhere. Preferably somewhere padded."

Sokka narrowed his eyes and stabbed a finger at her, saying, "Watch it, Toph. I'm on to you." She just laughed, so he turned back his sister. "How do you not see this? Come on! You know I'm comic relief. What else could I be?"

"Do you really want to know?" She looked at him pointedly.

He stood up suddenly, knocking into the chair of the person behind him, growled something at Katara, and turned to stalk out of the restaurant. However, before he could take a single step, the disgruntled patron in the seat behind him retaliated by shoving his own chair back. Sokka was struck in the side, and he stumbled forward, slamming his hands on the table to stop his fall. His palm caught the edge of his half-filled bowl, causing two things to happen simultaneously. He let out a yelp of pain as the rim dug into his hand and bruised the muscles savagely.

The second thing to happen was much more disastrous. Three of the table's occupants – Sokka was too busy clutching his hand tightly and swearing up and down at the man behind him – watched in shock as the bowl flipped off the table. Turning end over end, it sailed gracefully through the air and landed upside down several feet away, spilling its contents on the dirty floor.

Now, even this unfortunate turn of events would have been all right, and it's extremely likely that things would have ended there. But just at that moment, a harried waiter began making his way through the maze of tables towards the overturned bowl. It had been a long, busy day for him, and he was concentrating on the large platter of ramen in his hands. Not bothering to watch his step, the waiter slipped on the mess of noodles, flew off his feet, and tossed his precious ramen dish into the air.

This time, all four – Aang, Sokka, Toph, and Katara – witnessed the edible projectile fly through the restaurant. And all four saw the plate of ramen hit Sokka full in the face.

None of them moved for a long, quiet moment. Toph volunteered a hysterical laugh to break the bubble of silence as she slapped her palm against the table. Aang joined in a moment later, a little more restrained than the Earthbender, but Katara was silent. When Sokka turned to face them, wiping the new spill from his face with the same dirty spot on the tablecloth, he found his friends holding their stomachs and shaking with laughter. Rubbing his bruised nose, he saw that Katara looked on in carefully maintained skepticism. He gestured wildly, trying to silently convince her with this new evidence. However, she continued to look unmoved, and Sokka gave up and resumed his dramatic stalk out of the restaurant.

When the slam of the door had died away and he'd managed to calm himself a bit, Aang turned to his friend, saying, "Come on, Katara. That's gotta prove it. There's no way that was a coincidence." He nudged the Earthbender next to him, who was still snorting uncontrollably. "Right, Toph?" Unable to utter a sound that didn't resemble laughter, Toph nodded.

Breaking into a grin, Katara agreed. "I know. But he doesn't need to know that I'm convinced that he's comic relief. Then we'd have to put up with him being the drama queen, too."

Wow. And yet another long hiatus for me has finally ended. I really don't know where all the time goes. I finished this a looong time ago, but for reason, it never made it to FF. Weird. Anyway, I hope you guys like this one. It's kind of supposed to be funny, but I'm terrible at that, so we'll see. Also, I'm working on an expansion of one of my drabbles, and hopefully it will be finished soon. I get the feeling it needs a lot of editing. Anyway, if anyone out there still reads these, please review!