Brawl

After Aang chased Zuko into the tavern, Sokka continued to think up jokes to make at Zuko's expense (what can he say? A man can't change his nature).

Toph wasn't. She was suddenly very aware that she hadn't been alone with Sokka since they woke up this morning and this insane day started. Before now they hadn't really slowed down enough for them to think about the circumstances that they woke up in, let alone talk about it.

Toph was being uncharacteristically quiet. Sokka looked and she was just thoughtfully swirling the dirt beneath her toe. She had her face lowered so her long hair that she refused to have cut hung down and was tickling her nose, and she kept trying to blow it out of the way. She always looked really cute when she did that.

Stop it, he chastised himself, before you get another rock pillar between the legs.

"Ya know, I'm not entirely sure I deserved that," he told her, resisting the urge to grab the painful spot in public.

Toph's face made an accusing frown, "You absolutely did, Meathead. That was too far even for me. You're usually not completely tactless, you're throwing out more jokes than I've ever seen you, what's your problem?

Sokka finally let go of the false bravado he was carrying around since this morning and hung his own head in shame.

"Yeah, I know, I'm pushing it. It's just something I do as a defense mechanism I guess. "

Toph switched from cross to confused, "What do you have to feel defensive about? I mean, things are bad, but more in an abstract, geopolitical sense. It's really only personally bad for Zuko and Aang."

Sokka closed his eyes and sighed, "The cactus juice was my idea, Toph. And I know we don't remember most of last night, but I'm pretty certain that was what got the snowball rolling. This whole mess is my fault."

Toph's eyes widened in worry and she blushed with guilt. This really wasn't the direction she wanted the conversation to go.

"It's just so unbelievably stupid," Sokka almost yelled at himself, causing some passing people to turn for a moment, "Why couldn't I just put up with one kinda-dull night? Why do I need to have everything cranked up to the max at all times?"

Toph tried to be sympathetic, "You're a man who goes all-in. That's what I lo-that's what we all love about you."

Sokka scoffed, "Yeah, not everyone. Maybe Suki was right. Maybe it is 'exhausting' to be around me when I can't even slow down for one night."

This time Toph blushed in a completely different way. This definitely wasn't the direction she wanted the conversation to go. She steered back around to what she was originally giving him a hard time about.

"That doesn't excuse making that joke though. I could feel Zuko's heartbeat, it sounded like he was battling a lion-turtle. I can't believe I have to be the one to say this, but now isn't the time for sarcasm. Right now he needs assurance that we're sure he didn't kill Hu."

There was a brief silence as they both adjusted to Toph being responsible, then she shifted uncomfortably, "we...we are sure he didn't kill him, aren't we?"

"Toph, shame on you!" Sokka responded with fake offense, "Zuko is our friend, how could you possibly think he's capable of something like that, even intoxicated?...80% sure."

They both felt free to laugh now that Zuko couldn't hear them.

"Yeah, you're right," said Sokka, "I guess I should be more sensitive to Zuko and Aang and how their situations are a lot worse than ours. I mean, I certainly can't complain about the position I woke up in this morning."

The words came out before Sokka could stop himself, but then his voice caught in his throat and his eyes widened in panic. You complete IDIOT, he thought, you JUST said you'll stop making jokes, and on top of that you're bringing THAT up?

He secretly prayed that she hadn't noticed, or if she did notice she would just awkwardly let it slide, but her face turned red and she went back to swirling the dirt with her toe.

Talking about this morning was the last thing she wanted to do, but she felt like if it kept hovering over her head it would come crashing down and crush her.

"We didn't," she managed to squeak out, "...we didn't….you know….DO anything, did we?"

Sokka started waving off the idea with both his hands in a bad attempt to appear nonchalant, when in fact he was feeling the most chalant he had in years, "HAHAHAHA WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT nononononono nooooooooooooooo, what, two friends can't happen to pass out in the same bed without it being weird?"

Toph still looked nervous, so Sokka kept trying to cover all his bases, trying to more seriously address what she was probably feeling instead of just playing it off, "And besides, Toph, even if we did-and we didn't-but even if we did…..well, we wouldn't be the first pair of platonic friends in history to get wasted and end up messing around. There's no reason why it has to change anything, we can just forget this ever happened and go back to exactly the way things were." He supposed this was what people meant by "The Bargaining Stage."

Toph stood on her tip-toes, reducing her contact with the earth. It was her version of avoiding eye contact, "So…..exactly the way things were, huh?…...no changes?" she asked, managing to hide her twinge of disappointment, even from herself.

"Yeah. As far as I'm concerned, you're my best friend, and that's never gonna change."

"...best friend."

"Yeah. But I understand if you don't think that. I just hope you can forgive me, but I get it if you can't."

Toph sometimes couldn't believe how spectacularly stupid this man was, "Forgive you? For what? Why are you acting like this is all on you, something that you did? No offense Sokka, but it's pretty hilarious if you think you're capable of making me do anything that I don't want to do. Whatever or whoever may have been done last night, I was a willing participant too." How much more obvious could I possibly make this?

But Sokka just looked even more glum, "Like I said, Toph, the cactus juice was my idea. I don't know why it was so potent, but I told you three drops. You can't really say that you signed up for what happened last night, you just trusted me. Mistakenly, it seems."

Toph's heart sank and her stomach twisted into knots. He wasn't going to stop blaming himself and they were going to have their whole conversation over again.

"Sokka…..what happened last night isn't your fault. It's mine."

Sokka raised a skeptical eyebrow, "what are you talking about, Toph?"

"It wasn't more potent, you told me to put in the right amount just to loosen everyone up….but as I was trying to measure three drops-and I was being really careful, Sokka, I promise-Aang startled me, and I fumbled with the bottle. Half the cactus juice ended up spilling into the sake."

Now it was Sokka's turn to just stand there for several seconds completely blank-faced as Zuko was just doing. The only movement he could manage was quick, repeated blinking.

"Please, Sokka," pleaded Toph, "say something."

She instantly regretted her request as she felt Sokka's heart start pounding so hard she thought he was going to enter his own Avatar state. The Meathead State.

"Are. You. SHITTING ME!?" he growled at her through clenched teeth, "half the bottle? Half the damn bottle!?"

"It was an accident, Sokka," squeaked Toph, trying to shrink down as small as possible. She really should have just kept letting him beat himself up and face no consequences for her mistake, where was the harm in that? "I promise."

"But was it a mistake to still let us drink it?" asked Sokka, getting closer and towering over her. A part of him knew she was already feeling bad, but it was like a valve in him had opened up and words kept spilling out to relieve pressure. He had spent all day furious with himself and now he couldn't stop himself blaming her for letting him feel that way. "You knowingly let us drink half a bottle of that stuff, Toph. Forget pissing off Mai or losing the Earth King, we're lucky we're not dead. Why didn't you just throw the whole thing away?"

"What was I supposed to tell Aang and Zuko? They would have asked why I had to throw out the sake! I couldn't even just smash the whole bottle 'cause Aang and his stupid Avatar powers could just waterbending off the floor again!"

Sokka slapped his forehead, leaving a red handprint, "there are solutions to problems that don't involve smashing everything, Toph. You really couldn't come up with anything else? I guess I really do always have to come up with all the plans, and I apparently also have to actually execute them too. Dammit, Toph!"

He turned and stormed into the tavern before he could say anything he couldn't take back. After hesitating a half second, Toph, swallowing tears, ran in after him.

It was then that she realized that maybe Sokka had a point about her never thinking things through, as all of her sensation of her surroundings suddenly vanished when her feet moved from earth to wood. Now in addition to feeling guilty and hurt she got scared. She should have just backed up back out of the tavern, but her gut reaction whenever she couldn't see and got scared was to cling to Sokka. So instead, she panicked and started running further in, calling out for him, "Sokka wait, I can't-"

Her "see" was muffled as she ran face-first into Sokka's back. At least, she hoped it was Sokka. It certainly smelled like him, she just didn't understand why he had stopped dead in his tracks.

He had stopped dead in his tracks because he was stunned by the scene he saw before him. He saw Aang, the mighty Avatar, sprawled on his back across the floor of the tavern, clutching what was (until now) his unbruised eye, with an ugly monstrosity towering over him with a face meaner than Katara when Sokka had stolen her moon peach pie. Zuko was nearby being held by two figures that seemed to be the platonic ideal of the phrase "dumb henchmen," each with a knife to his throat.

Dragon Tattoo peeled his mouth back in a grin that even Azula would call "a bit creepy."

"Now comes the part where I crush you, pipsqueak!"

He raised his booted foot directly above Aang's skull, but even if he couldn't fight without bending he could still dodge. He quickly rolled backward and sprang himself to his feet with his hands, barely managing to keep his arrow-covering hat on, the ogre's foot crashing into the floor with a loud crack of splintering wood.

"Stay still, you pathetic rabbimouse!" Dragon Tattoo roared.

While most of the tavern patrons were starting to shuffle a few paces away from the scene, with looks on their faces that betrayed little more than mild annoyance (something told Aang that something like this was a daily occurrence here), Sokka had finally shaken himself out of his shock to sprint forward to help the Avatar-in-distress, while Toph kept her tight grip on the back of his shirt and was pulled towards the scene that she was blissfully unaware of.

"Hey! If he's just a rabbimouse, then where's the bragging rights in killing him? I mean look at him, that's like acting tough over swatting a fly, he's not worth your time."

"Thanks for the help, Sokka," said Aang.

"Anytime, buddy."

The valiant rabbimouse hunter then noticed Toph looking very confused (and starting to get angry at all these sighted people for said confusion) beside Sokka, "Well, looks like we've almost got a full reunion here. Maybe if you give me and the pretty girl some quality alone time, we won't skin all of you."

This was the first time that Sokka actually fully realized that Toph had followed him into the building, "Toph, what are you don't here!? You can't see!"

"Yes, I noticed that, Meathead, but you're not getting rid of me that easily. Why is that a problem? Did that guy really try to smush Aang?"

"Please don't use the word 'smush,' it makes me sound like a bug-"

"-and who's the 'pretty girl?'"

"You are, Toph!" Sokka hissed, wishing she would get a clue that they were likely 10 seconds away from a brawl that she'd be helpless in.

Toph's cheeks turned pink. Crap, PHRASING, thought Sokka, "I-I just mean this guy seems to recognize us, and that's not a good thing.

"Apparently the Fire Nation's Most Eligible Bachelor here was just a moment away from successfully romancing Toph when Aang started cramping his style," said Zuko, doing his best impression of his perpetually bored fiance, despite having two knives to his throat.

Now it was Sokka's turn to not take the situation seriously as his cheeks swelled up trying to contain his laughter, a quest he ultimately failed in, doubling over and holding his sides, "Sorry we blocked your shot, lover boy, there's tons of increasingly intoxicated ladies celebrating outside. Though looking at your face, I can see why you would be interested in pursuing a blind girl."

Zuko chuckled despite himself. "You're one to talk," grunted the Fat Yuyan.

"Hey, my face says 'I defended my honor in an Agni Kai,' his face says 'I keep trying to do knife tricks that I'm too slow for."

"What about the hair?" asked Burned Beard, looking at Zuko's mangled scalp.

"If I had to guess, the same that happened to yours."

Dragon Tattoo started to growl, showing all 8 of his teeth. Aang got the feeling he wasn't used to people not just seeing how big he was and crapping their pants.

"Guys," murmured Aang out of the corner of his mouth without taking his eyes off of the agitated gopher-bear of a man Sokka was laughing at, "please do not antagonize the people that have knives at Zu-at Lee's throat?"

Zuko scoffed, "What, these guys? I'm just waiting to take them out until we can learn as much as we can about what happened last night. Go ahead and laugh, Sokka, it's funny."

The Fat Yuyan and Burned Beard just frowned and looked at each other, not sure what to do with that.

"Alright, enough yammering!" Dragon Tattoo bellowed, "I'm not just gonna crush pipsqueak, I think I'm gonna break some bones for all of you! Where's your rich-lookin' friend with the stupid glasses? I wanna collect the whole set."

"KUEI!" Aang, Sokka, Zuko, and Toph all gasped at the same time. They had one more stop they made the previous night where they knew they hadn't lost Kuei yet.

"What happened to him?" Sokka asked, "You….you didn't eat him, did you?"

"Did he leave with us?" asked Zuko.

Dragon Tattoo chuckled, "Yeah, yeah, don't fret, he did. I can see why you would be so worried sick about him, with how sweet you were on each other, it was sooooooo cute. Well sorry, if you want to keep track of your boyfriend, you should handle your booze better."

Zuko didn't want to hear more humiliating tales about him apparently being best buddies with Kuei, so he said, "Well, I think we've heard enough."

He leaned back away from the knives at his throat and pulled on the two arms that were binding his own to bring Fat Yuyan's and Burned Beard's heads crashing together. As they were dazed and staggering, he applied some quick jabs at the base of their necks and they fell crumpled on the floor

"You bastard! I can't move!"

"Relax," said Zuko casually, again sounding like Mai, "you'll be fine in an hour. You're lucky I've studied chi-blocking, a few years ago I'd have had to break your legs."

With his backup on the ground, what was left of the ringleader's cocky attitude seemed to evaporate.

"We're leaving now," Aang told him plainly, "we don't want anymore trouble, we promise you will never see us again."

Dragon Tattoo scowled harder than ever, as if he were the kind of man who considered a confrontation where everyone leaves with the same amount of blood they came in with as an automatic loss.

His scowl turned into a wicked grin, "Well, then I guess I better give you friends something to remember me by," and with one motion quicker than any of them would think him capable of, he reached into a pocket and flicked his wrist, sending a black, tarnished knife straight at Toph's chest.

Time seemed to slow down as, in a split second, Sokka saw where the knife was heading, felt a shock of fear surge through his whole body nearly giving him a heart attack, realized all of the terrible things he had just said to Toph, and for a horrifying tenth of a second, pictured a world without her. Faster than he had ever moved in his life, he darted his hand sideways and caught the knife by the handle, the tip an inch away from Toph's heart. She gasped both at the noise and at Sokka nearly knocking her over while moving to shield her with his body.

By then Aang had closed the space between him and the monstrosity and sent a blurring fast strike directly into the man's center of gravity, subtly sending a short but powerful puff of air from his knuckles. It wasn't enough to send him flying across the room and leaving a weirdly human-esque shaped hole in the opposite wall like he wanted, but it was enough to leave him staggering backward towards Zuko.

Zuko followed up by not bothering with clever strikes or re-directs and fully body-tackling the man to the ground. "YOU SON OF A BITCH!" He couldn't think straight, all he knew was that he was angry. He had been offered up a chance to let out all the frustration he had been feeling all day. He straddled the bastard's chest, pinning his arms to the floor with his knees, and began wailing on him with both his fists, sending one of his few remaining teeth rattling across the floor.

"LEE!" yelled Aang behind Zuko, but it had been so long since Zuko had needed to respond to that name that he didn't notice and remained focused on making all of Dragon Tattoo's face as lumpy and broken as his nose. It wasn't until he felt Aang's tight grip on his shoulder that he stopped.

Zuko looked up and saw that by this point the crowd wasn't just giving them a wide berth and looks of annoyance, they were pretty much all looking their way with very hungry looks in their eyes, some with devilish grins, all showing either gaps or glints of metal in the teeth. Zuko looked to his left and saw what they were looking at: when he tackled Dragon Tattoo, their bag of stolen gold had flown out of Zuko's pocket and spilled half its contents out onto the floor, the coins glinting conspicuously in the red light of the lanterns. Zuko guessed that most of this crowd had never seen that many gold pieces gathered together at one time before.

Zuko lost all interest in the beating and slowly stood up and started backing away with Aang towards the bar, Sokka held a grip on Toph's arm and started moving the same direction. "Okay, my friends, we don't want any more trouble here," warned Zuko. Normally he wouldn't give up just on stubborn principle, but he had more important things to do than break more faces and they couldn't risk it with Toph in here, "Uhhhh…...you know what, it's all yours, you guys have a few rounds on me." It wasn't like they truly needed it.

The crowd's greedy looks left the group and started focusing on each other, before what seemed like a dozen dirty ne'er-do-wells dove for the bag, throwing chairs aside and leaping over tables, ending up in a pile on the floor, punching, choking, and even biting (so uncivilized, thought Aang) each other. During the commotion, these people's Fire Lord, their Avatar, the world's greatest earthbender, and Sokka started to quietly slink sideways like scared rabbimice along the bar towards the exit, hoping to slip out unnoticed.

Before they could get to the door, however, another small crowd had gathered to block them. They had missed out on the initial dive for the gold, but they seemed determined to get something from these (apparently) super-rich marks.

"If one guy has that much, the others must have more!" said a skinny balding man with an eye patch.

"Yeah," said a pointed-nosed man who looked remarkably like a rat (not even a gopher-rat, just a rat), pulling out a crooked, cheap-looking knife, "search 'em!"

Then it seemed like half the people in the crowd started pulling knives out of their pockets (What is this, a dress code? thought Aang) and started moving slowly towards them, having seen what they were capable of and not wanting the first one into the fight. The group backed up what little they could until all four of them were pinned side-by-side to the bar.

Sokka nudged Aang hard with his elbow, "We could really use some waterbending right about now!" he whispered.

"Don't you think I thought of that already?" Aang whispered back, "I don't have my bending pouch."

Sokka just had to take his eyes off the approaching goons to give Aang his full attention as he was in complete disbelief at what he just heard.

"Hey, oh wise genius, we're in a bar."

Aang couldn't even think of a comeback; he was so impressed with his own brain-fart.

If someone hadn't hit me in the back of the head with a bottle like a coward, Dragon Tattoo had said.

Aang looked behind him and saw the shelves behind the bar, laden with dozens and dozens of bottles of various concoctions, and for the second time in 24 hours had the same idea.

He reached out with his bending and felt the water inside the closest porcelain bottle, and whirled his arm to send it flying and then shattering directly into the face of the nearest knife-wielding miscreant. He swayed back and forth for a second before falling over backwards unconscious.

While a second ago the tavern was filled with noise, now you could hear a pin drop. The drinkers further back into the crowd had finally stopped trying to ignore the whole scene, and even those that had been fighting over the spilled gold had now turned their attention to Aang.

"Hey, that guy's a waterbender!" called someone standing over the man Aang had just knocked out, pointing an accusing finger at him. Every single face in the joint set into a glare.

Someone else finally broke the tension, "GET THAT SEALFUCKER!" and every single thug in the building lunged at them.

Aang began windmilling his arms as fast as he could, sending glass, porcelain, and wooden bottles flying in every direction. It managed to be decent crowd control, but the thugs formed a half-circle a few paces away from him, looking for an opening between projectiles where they could move in and skin the Water Tribe spy. Aang supposed it wasn't an option to stop and calmly remind them that the war was over.

Zuko slapped Sokka on the back and signaled towards the exit, "Quick, behind me!" and made a run toward the door. Sokka scooped Toph up into his arms and followed him. Two goons moved to block the door, but Zuko leapt into the air and scissor-kicked each on the side of the head, sending them flying to either side and clearing the doorway.

Aang kept throwing bottles long enough to cover the other three leaving the building before moving towards the doorway himself, still windmilling his arms to keep the doorway clear.

Reaching the door, he turned around for one more split second, "SORRY!" he called back to the barkeeper, who was now hiding behind the bar with only his eyes peeking over, widened in horror at his stock spreading in pools on the floor. Then Aang slipped into the bright early afternoon sun.

They kept running for a couple more blocks just to be on the safe side, shoving their way through the increasingly rowdy crowd, before ducking sideways into an alleyway. They stopped, leaning against the walls of the buildings and panting. Except for Toph.

"Well," she said, breaking the silence, "that didn't sound too bad, from what I could tell."

Zuko gave her a middle finger, even though he knew she couldn't see it, since she wasn't touching the ground. Sokka was still carrying her bridal-style.

Hey, wait a second. "Toph, are you hurt?"

"Who, me?" she asked, surprised, "No, I'm fine, why do you ask?"

"Well…...can you not walk?"

Sokka felt his cheeks flush. "Oh. Yeah. Right. Sorry," he said, quickly putting her down. He was surprised she hadn't objected at all to being handled like that.

"Okay, so one more place we know we visited before we lost Kuei," said Aang, getting them back on track, "Let's get to that temple, see if he was there with us. Come on, it's not too far now.

They continued down the street, trying to make their way through the crowd, which was getting even harder. Now they weren't just celebrating and dancing, but also drinking.

Sokka slowed down, letting Zuko and Aang get several paced ahead of him, and Toph instinctively matched it to stay even with him. He started telling her about what happened in the tavern, informing her that it very nearly was too bad, despite how it sounded. She got even more embarrassed than she was before.

"Wow," she mumbled, "I'm on a roll with this screwing up thing. Sorry you had to cover for me again."

Sokka scoffed, "Toph, that's ridiculous. We both know you've saved my life way more than I've saved yours. In fact, do me a favor and pick more fights in sketchy wooden taverns, I need to even the score."

Toph giggled, "Well, if you insist."

Sokka started rubbing the back of his neck nervously, "Toph, listen…...I'm sorry about those things I said back there. I know you're always trying your best to do the right thing, even if in the heat of the moment it can be hard to tell what that is. I guess I was just trying to unload some of the blame I've been giving myself and you were the only target."

"Cut it out, Meathead. You were right, with just three drops, everything probably would have been great and we would have had a good time. You always try to help your friends too," she cocked her head over to Zuko and Aang, "but maybe we should start telling people before we help them."

Sokka gave her a friendly sideways shove on her shoulder, making her stagger a bit. "Seriously though," he told her, "you've gotta be more careful. What were you thinking running in there after me?"

She responded by raising the earth underneath him up at an angle, launching him in the other direction and landing with a thud on his face. He turned around and frowned up at her.

"Well," she said, standing over him, "I guess I thought it would be okay, since you always have my back, even when I screw up." She offered him her hand to help him up.

"Yeah," he said, smiling as he took it and lurched to his feet, "Always."

They quickened their pace a bit to catch up with Zuko and Aang and Toph slapped an open palm on Zuko's back, "So, your fieryness, tell me, was your sulking session worth me almost getting turned into a shish-ka-Toph?"

Zuko didn't look at her, "Once I got away from you and Sokka, yeah I kinda did feel better. Maybe if you had gotten skewered I'd find a little peace."

"Stop being so moody, Sparky. You're almost certainly not the only person here who ruined their life last night, your massive mistake is just the first one we've gotten to."

Soon they were approaching their target. It looked even tackier than the flyer suggested. It was a thin, unsturdy looking building made out of soft wood and plaster, built to look like a cheap imitation of the Fire Mage's Temple. A sign in front read TAI'S CAPITAL FIRE TEMPLE in gawdy, blindingly bright colors. It looked more like a street food vendor than a spiritual shrine.

All of them felt skeptical, but they walked through the entrance into a front lobby. There was a pair of double doors on the opposite side. The inside of the building was even uglier than the outside. It was decorated with an absurd amount of flowers, and upon closer inspection Aang realized they weren't even real, but made out of silk. There were several small groups of people loitering about the lobby.

They walked up to what looked like a reception desk (another weird thing to have in a temple), with a man working behind it, re-arranging a list of names and times hung on the wall, his back to them.

"I'm sorry, you'll have to come back tomorrow," he told them without turning around, "we're all booked up for the entire day."

"Booked?" Aang asked, confused. He had never heard of a temple taking reservations before.

"Oh yes," the receptionist continued, "Love is in the air today. People think today is good luck, with the news about the next Firelord. They think their futures will be blessed."

Suddenly, the interior double doors swung open, revealing a sunlit courtyard on the other side. A visibly intoxicated man stumbled into the lobby carrying an equally intoxicated woman, "THIS IS MY WIFE!" the man bellowed at the top of his lungs, before continuing back out onto the street.

The receptionist pointed to another pair of names listed on the wall. "Next party!" he yelled over his shoulder and rang a bell, "Now servicing Jin and Lee!"

One of the small crowds began walking towards the doors to the courtyard, a man and woman leading them with interlocked arms, the others loudly cheering and whistling.

A rush of realization flowed through Aang, and he felt a little nauseous at the astoundingly bad taste of it all.

"People get married in a place like this?" he asked, jaw dropping open, "I mean, I'm all about….simplicity," he tried to use the nicest word for cheapness, "but even I would think people would put a bit more thought into it."

"Oh, most of the weddings we perform aren't pre-planned, but are spontaneous acts of passion," the receptionist explained, with plenty of poetic flair in his voice, "We service those who meet their soulmate and are so moved by the Spirits that they cannot delay their love for one moment!"

Zuko scoffed, "So in other words, people get shitfaced and you take advantage of their poor judgement and give them a horrible mistake in exchange for their coin."

The receptionist dropped his dramatic affect as he became annoyed, "Look pal, I'm just trying to run a business, nobody's forcing you to be here."

He finally turned around to face them and scanned all their faces before landing on Aang, and he was visibly caught off guard and tried to go back into salesman mode, "Oh! Avatar Aang! How great to see you again!" he frowned, seeing Aang's heavy bruise on one eye and the developing bruise on the other, "Though certainly worse for wear, I am sad to see."

All four of them tensed as they realized they now had to deal with an entirely new side to the mess they had spent all day in.

"You, uh….", Aang tried to tread carefully, not wanting to give up anything the man didn't already know, "you know I'm the Avatar?"

"Well of course," the receptionist smiled. He clearly dealt with enough alcohol-induced memory loss on a daily basis that it didn't even phase him, "After all, love is my passion, as well as my business," he emphasized, leaning forward and winking, "so of course you delighted in describing in great detail the beauty of your own lady love. You even asked to make use of my messenger hawk to send a letter to her at the palace. Which of course I was happy to provide. It's a huge honor to have the Avatar at my humble establishment."

"What did I tell you?" Zuko groaned at Aang, "'Eyes like the ocean.' Absolutely nauseating."

The receptionist turned to glare at Zuko, "You on the other hand, Mr. Lee, you're lucky I'm letting you back in here at all. I would have kicked you out last night, but the bride and groom paid extra to allow you to stay."

"Wait, what?" Aang asked, "We attended a wedding last night? What bride and what groom?"

The receptionist made what looked like a genuine smile, "Are you serious?"

Toph's insides turned to molten lead as the man gestured at her with both hands, "The bride…"

Sokka's insides seemed to vanish completely as the man gestured at him, "...and the groom!"

For what seemed like a comet's age, all four of them just stood in silence. Sokka's heart was beating faster than a hummingbat, and beat even faster when he realized Toph could feel it. She meanwhile was feeling like she was dying of fever and started sweating like a tigerpig.

The first noise was a soft chuckle coming from Zuko, which then turned into a full on laugh, which turned into him nearly doubling over in hysteria. Toph didn't find the sound of Zuko laughing hysterically funny this time.

"Yeah Toph, you were right," he gasped out, punching her in the arm, "I wasn't the only one here who ruined their life last night."

The fight made this the most difficult chapter I've written so far, since I really don't know how to write action. Hell, many professional published authors don't know how to write action. The actual writers of Avatar have said they usually didn't write a lot of the action in the script and left it to the animators, so I'm in good company.

I know this chapter was a little light on the comedy, but I wanted to inject some actual stakes into this thing, and have Sokka acknowledge that his idea with the cactus was INCREDIBLY not okay, to keep him from feeling out of character. This setup is inspired by The Hangover, but the entire joke of that movie is that all three protagonists are horrible, awful people. In hindsight it might have been better to come up with a different intoxicating incident, like "Last Night Gus."

I also borrowed a bit from the Warehouse 13 episode "Love Sick," my 2nd favorite hangover episode. There's a bit of Sokka and Toph's conversation in there. You should all go watch Warehouse 13.

In my notes I have a long list of scenes I want to include, it's just a matter of figuring out the best order to put them in. So I'm not sure when the next chapter will be done. Could be a week, could be a couple months. I just promise I won't disappear for six years again.