Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
Toph turns early morning cuddles into something more intimate. ———————————masterlist
WARNINGS:: smut, fingering (r!receiving) finger sucking (r!receiving), nothing too hardcore.
For the most part, the bedroom was silent.
The gentle hue of the suns light infiltrated through the cracks in the blinds, a streak of its brightness making a path directly towards your eyelids, disrupting the darkness and comfort they provided.
It had successfully woken you up.
A sigh puffed from your throat as you tried to move away from the sunlight, yet you only found yourself unable to—two heavy arms were wrapped securely around your middle.
Toph.
A small smile graced your lips as the previous annoyance faded away, your eyes peeking open only to be met with sight of your wife’s pale green irises.
She too, was awake.
Staring off right past your shoulder, her arms tightened around you, pulling you snug against her chest.
Although she was blind, she had clocked you were stirring before your own mind even processed it, her seismic sense catching the subtle increase of your heart rate after hours of slumber.
“How’d you sleep?”
She’d murder groggily, her palm dropping beneath your shirt to rub lines down your back, before pausing near the hem of your sleep shorts, fingers toying with the elastic.
“Mmh. Good.”
She’d only respond with a hum, before her hand dipped under both your shorts and panties, finding your ass, gently running the skin over with wide circles.
You pulled yourself deeper against her chest, tucking your nose between the crook of her neck. “..What’re you doing?..”
She smiled as her fingers, slowly but surely, reached the skin of your inner thighs, lightly grazing the flesh, a path of goosebumps erupting under her touch.
“Shhhh.”
It didn’t take much longer for her middle finger to run a slow line up your lips, parting your folds, exposing your cunt to the warm air beneath the blankets.
Her finger glided through surprisingly easily, yet she wasnt surprised. She could feel your heart pounding against your ribs.
You softly whimpered as she brushed your clit, the soft sounds blooming into a real moan as the same finger circled the pulsing bud, causing you to curl into her.
“Toph..”
Her free hand rubbed back up your spine.
“Relax, babe.”
She’d utter smoothly, her other fingers collecting more of your slick as she put more pressure over your clitoris.
She stayed there for a bit, building up the want low in your belly, finally pulling off your twitchy clit just for two fingers to teasingly push over your hole.
“You can tell me to stop.”
Within the next second, she was knuckle-deep inside you.
You bit your lip, trying not to be loud, yet a pitiful whine filled the air anyway.
“Do you want me to stop?”
“N-no!..I don’t..”
She’d smirk, scissoring you open in hopes of fitting another one of her long fingers into your pretty pussy.
Soon enough you were stretched out further, arching off of her as she pumped in and out of you at an achingly slow pace. Her fingers only occasionally pressed over your g-spot, leaving you spewing a constant pattern of pathetic “ahh ah ahhh”s into her skin.
She made up for it by finding your clit once more with her thumb, giving it consistent pressure that successfully brought you to your edge.
“Hmph!! Toph!!!im gonna cum-!”
True to your word, your release coated her fingers, seeping from your cunt and dripping over the bed sheets. Your palm fisted her top as she continued fingering, leaving you wretched, tears coating your lashes as you grew overstimulated, clutching onto her she she rode out your high.
She only pulled out once you were quivering, her free hand cupping the back of your head to pull your face away from her, pressing her fingers against your lips.
Your mouth opened, your tongue meeting the taste of her flesh and your arousal, wrapping your mouth around her fingers to suck them clean.
“Good girl.”
First time writing smut, I apologize if it wasn’t the best (*´ー｀*)
Go here to be added to the taglist ♡
@rei-xy @coconameow
Dividers by @/suupersonic & @/sisterlucifergraphics
Toph turns early morning cuddles into something more intimate. ———————————masterlist
WARNINGS:: smut, fingering (r!receiving) finger sucking (r!receiving), nothing too hardcore.
For the most part, the bedroom was silent.
The gentle hue of the suns light infiltrated through the cracks in the blinds, a streak of its brightness making a path directly towards your eyelids, disrupting the darkness and comfort they provided.
It had successfully woken you up.
A sigh puffed from your throat as you tried to move away from the sunlight, yet you only found yourself unable to—two heavy arms were wrapped securely around your middle.
Toph.
A small smile graced your lips as the previous annoyance faded away, your eyes peeking open only to be met with sight of your wife’s pale green irises.
She too, was awake.
Staring off right past your shoulder, her arms tightened around you, pulling you snug against her chest.
Although she was blind, she had clocked you were stirring before your own mind even processed it, her seismic sense catching the subtle increase of your heart rate after hours of slumber.
“How’d you sleep?”
She’d murder groggily, her palm dropping beneath your shirt to rub lines down your back, before pausing near the hem of your sleep shorts, fingers toying with the elastic.
“Mmh. Good.”
She’d only respond with a hum, before her hand dipped under both your shorts and panties, finding your ass, gently running the skin over with wide circles.
You pulled yourself deeper against her chest, tucking your nose between the crook of her neck. “..What’re you doing?..”
She smiled as her fingers, slowly but surely, reached the skin of your inner thighs, lightly grazing the flesh, a path of goosebumps erupting under her touch.
“Shhhh.”
It didn’t take much longer for her middle finger to run a slow line up your lips, parting your folds, exposing your cunt to the warm air beneath the blankets.
Her finger glided through surprisingly easily, yet she wasnt surprised. She could feel your heart pounding against your ribs.
You softly whimpered as she brushed your clit, the soft sounds blooming into a real moan as the same finger circled the pulsing bud, causing you to curl into her.
“Toph..”
Her free hand rubbed back up your spine.
“Relax, babe.”
She’d utter smoothly, her other fingers collecting more of your slick as she put more pressure over your clitoris.
She stayed there for a bit, building up the want low in your belly, finally pulling off your twitchy clit just for two fingers to teasingly push over your hole.
“You can tell me to stop.”
Within the next second, she was knuckle-deep inside you.
You bit your lip, trying not to be loud, yet a pitiful whine filled the air anyway.
“Do you want me to stop?”
“N-no!..I don’t..”
She’d smirk, scissoring you open in hopes of fitting another one of her long fingers into your pretty pussy.
Soon enough you were stretched out further, arching off of her as she pumped in and out of you at an achingly slow pace. Her fingers only occasionally pressed over your g-spot, leaving you spewing a constant pattern of pathetic “ahh ah ahhh”s into her skin.
She made up for it by finding your clit once more with her thumb, giving it consistent pressure that successfully brought you to your edge.
“Hmph!! Toph!!!im gonna cum-!”
True to your word, your release coated her fingers, seeping from your cunt and dripping over the bed sheets. Your palm fisted her top as she continued fingering, leaving you wretched, tears coating your lashes as you grew overstimulated, clutching onto her she she rode out your high.
She only pulled out once you were quivering, her free hand cupping the back of your head to pull your face away from her, pressing her fingers against your lips.
Your mouth opened, your tongue meeting the taste of her flesh and your arousal, wrapping your mouth around her fingers to suck them clean.
“Good girl.”
First time writing smut, I apologize if it wasn’t the best (*´ー｀*)
Go here to be added to the taglist ♡
@rei-xy @coconameow
Dividers by @/suupersonic & @/sisterlucifergraphics
hihihi!! protective toph whose mean to everyone except us, maybe after a dangerous encounter with the gaang?? save us with your writing🥹
ꫂ᭪ ݁ protective toph who’s only nice to you
content: fluff, nonbender!reader, f!reader, mean!toph, basically what the request says.
wc: 1.5k
₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚
appa’s tired yawns — paired with some of your own — urged you to make a stop in the middle of the forest, deciding to make camp there until sunrise.
you circled the crackling fire lit by zuko, appreciating its warmth during this cold starry night. sokka grilled food over it as the rest of you argued about your travels, again.
“come on, tophh!” aang pleaded, gently shaking her. “we all want to go to ba sing se for a few days, you’re the only one who doesn’t want to!”
“no, forget it.” toph scoffed, pushing him away with a swat of her hand. she crosses her arms over her chest, leaning back against the bark of the tree behind her. “if you idiots all want to go, suit yourselves. i’m not going to that hellhole again.”
katara groans, throwing her arms up in the air. “you always do this, toph! it’s a fine destination, i don’t get why you’re being so stubborn about it.”
“if you want to go so bad, just go!” toph snaps, shutting her eyes in frustration. “i’m not holding you back. i’ll be fine here alone.”
“you know we can’t do that..” aang mumbles, nipping sulkily at the fish handed to him by sokka. “we always travel together.”
katara rolls her eyes, “wow, toph being selfish, what’s new?”
“don’t test me, sugar queen. i’m really not in the mood.”
you and zuko exchange awkward glances at the escalating tension — you two often opted out of arguments like these, since you were the newest additions to the group.
even though you were toph’s girlfriend, it just always felt inappropriate to interfere when it didn’t directly involve you. after all, they knew each other much longer than you did. they could sort this out by themselves; they always did.
“calm down guys,” sokka munches lazily on his half-burnt fish, “just sit down and talk it out. it’s just a trip, no need to get this heated about it. isn’t that right, zuko?” he teasingly leans on him, and the poor boy casts you the most pitiful look ever. it screamed “please help me, i don’t know what to say.”
you clear your throat, trying to lighten the mood with a flustered smile. “sokka’s right! we.. we should just talk it out. i personally think ba sing se is a nice place to—”
“alright.” toph sits up, casually stretching her arms with a soft grunt. “we’ll go, then.”
you all blink, staring at her, stunned into silence for a hot minute.
katara huffs, “didn’t you just say—”
“what’s your problem?” toph cuts her off, her head whipping her way.
“okayyy!!” aang quickly wraps his arms around both of them, nervously hugging them before another fight erupts again. “so, problem’s solved. we’re going to ba sing se!”
zuko prods at your shoulder, and he’s completely incredulous when you turn to face him. “how did you do that?”
you return his bewilderment with wide eyes, shrugging. “i have no idea.”
“it’s ‘cause toph’s whipped,” sokka whispers to both of you, his cheek still pressed flush against zuko’s shoulder. he nods solemnly, waving his now empty stick up and down, “that demon only listens to her girl. seriously she’s— ahh!”
one second he was next to both of you, the next one rocks beneath him shifted to send him flying into the trees behind him.
your girlfriend’s voice pierces through your eardrums, causing you all to wince. “i’m blind, not deaf!”
₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚
the next morning, katara softly nudges you awake, letting out a small laugh at your bed hair. “morning, sleepyhead. we’re almost ready, pack up.”
you nod, half-asleep, and look around you. they’d loaded almost everything on appa, all that was left was you and— oh, toph.
katara follows your gaze and sighs, “yeah, we left that task for you too. please wake that monster up.”
you chuckle, looking up at katara, “hey, that’s my girlfriend.”
“that much is clear,” she stands up, smoothing down her top. “your monster girlfriend.”
you roll up your sleeping bag, then head over to where your “monster girlfriend” laid. legs sprawled in humanly impossible directions, drool leaking out of her lips, disheveled hair pooling messily under her..
only toph could still look endearing this way. well, you seemed to be the only one sharing that opinion.
you smile, kneeling by her side and gently brushing some strands away from her forehead, “sweetheart?”
“mh..” she stirs, features already twisting into an angry frown and she wasn’t even awake yet.
“it’s me,” you add, and her body visibly relaxes. the teal eyes you fell in love with slowly crack open, “.. hm. morning, baby.”
you press a soft kiss to her cheek, but as you’re pulling away, you’re suddenly tugged down to her side.
“toph!” you exclaim, startled and smitten by the cheeky grin on her face. “we have to leave..”
she buries her face into your neck, grumbling sleepily, “but i wanna sleep.”
you exhale, giving her face a light pat. “come on, we don’t have much time. you can sleep on my lap when we get on appa, alright?”
“sweet.” she rasps before pressing a warm kiss to your neck, sending a shiver up your spine. “that’s a deal. let’s go, then.”
of course. that’s what she wanted anyway.
you finish slinging the rest of your stuff over appa, then finally get on the saddle.
“yip-yip!” aang rubs the bison’s head, and with that, you embark on a sweet ride conversing and laughing with the rest of your friends, your grumpy girlfriend snoring on your lap as you absentmindedly rake your hands through her dark hair.
₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚
at aang’s request, you first stroll around the outskirts of ba sing se, where he claimed to know this perfect spot over the walls to view the city in its entirety.
“here!” he happily points to a set of old but gorgeous stairs, spiraling to the very top of the outer wall. “just be careful, the stone’s a little ancient. you know, this was actually built during..”
you hold toph’s hand behind you tightly, slowly marching up the stairs since their width only allowed you to walk one by one, all while aang gave you a free history lesson about their origin.
“this is so annoying,” your girlfriend grumbles behind you, and you bite down on your lip to not laugh at how pouty she sounded.
you don’t know if you imagined it, but you were almost sure you heard a crack at your next footstep.
you look down to check, and before you even spot the crack forming upwards from where you stood, toph’s loud voice rings out behind you to confirm your doubts, “watch out!”
strong arms are immediately wrapped around you, the concrete beneath you giving way and causing you all to plunge down with startled screams.
toph earthbends the wall into a slide, cushioning your fall as she holds you tightly against her when you land.
thankfully, you guys had only climbed up a few feet so the worst part of it was the initial fear, but it might as well have been a volcanic eruption with how worriedly your girlfriend checked your body for bruises.
“are you really okay, baby?” she runs her hands up your waist, ridiculously panicked for someone so carefree. “does it hurt anywhere?”
“toph—” you blush, a little embarrassed at how big of a deal she was making this little fall out to be, “i’m fine, i promise! .. thank you for catching me.”
“yeah, that was real nice of you, toph.” katara dusts herself, glaring at her. “thank you for saving your girlfriend and completely forgetting us.”
toph scoffs, rolling her eyes. “please, it’s only a few feet. and you’re benders anyway, you can take care of yourselves.”
“hello! i’m not a bender.” sokka quips, crossing his arms.
“you have legs and arms,” she replies, completely unbothered as her hands slide down to feel up your legs. “use them.”
he gasps dramatically, clutching his chest. “use them how!? i could’ve died, and it would’ve been all your fault, toph! i hope you know that!”
“oh no,” she deadpans, picking you up bridal style to pepper kisses all over your forehead. “figure it out, dumbass.” her attention is back on you and she smiles, “anyways, princess, let’s take you someplace safe. you got a cut on your ankle.”
he glances between you two and the rest of the gaang — who all simply shrugged, used to this fate —, utterly scandalized, “this is blatant favouritism!”
“boohoo,” she walks off, blowing a raspberry to him over her shoulder. “find someone else to save your whiny incompetent ass from a tiny fall.”
you sigh, flushed with embarrassment and exasperation. “tophie, you shouldn’t be so—”
“shh.” she takes you off guard with a gentle kiss to your lips, effectively shutting you up. she smirks at your silence, “don’t worry your pretty little head about them. they’ll live.”
you look away, cheeks warm enough to cook an egg on them.
.. seriously, ridiculous. she’s ridiculous.
₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚
* i need more awkward zuko representation, that guy is a LOSER i love him
synopsis. sometimes san calls you just so he can cum.
[ (ateez) choi san x gn!reader ] fluff, established relationship, boyfriend!san | warning/s: 18+/mdni, phone sex
home | masterlist | wanna request?
sometimes san calls just to hear your voice and cum.
nothing captivates him quite like you. nothing stirs him into arousal as naturally. but sometimes, thinking of you isn't enough. when he struggles like this to reach a pleasurable ending, you're always a phone call away.
when you answer, the soft way you greet him and underlying sweetness in your voice makes his fist tighten around his length, moving faster as your honeyed tone drizzles down into his gut and he releases a long, shuddering breath.
confused by the silence, you call out, "hello?"
san can't explain the reaction his body has to the sensation of you. the expressiveness of your eyes makes him swoon. the shape of your lips sends his heart into a frenzy. eyes shut and picturing your lips falling into a pout, his head lulls back as he strokes himself.
"mmph," he mindlessly huffs and pants into the phone, smearing the slick of precum over the head of his cock and down the shaft.
he's so close to release, he can't stop to beg you to say his name how you do. like you molded it for your lips. like it's only yours to breathe.
san whines when you curiously ask, "just what are you doing?"
he tries but can't answer, can't let out anything aside broken, breathy whimpers that give him away.
"sannie?"
you call his name in soft confusion, but there's a lilt of sweetness that lets him know it's feigned. because you've always known exactly what you do to him, but you like to masquerade in the innocence of ignorance.
he knows neither of you are surprised when he lets off a series of elongated groans. cum spurts over his hand – his chest heaves as his orgasm spills out of him.
a heavy silence follows his noisy climax as he tries to catch his breath.
finally, you giggle, "what did it this time?"
"you sound so pretty saying my name." he croaks his confession, voice hoarse and head falling back against the cushion of your couch. "i miss you; come home."
you sigh lovingly. he can feel the way your fondness travels and burrows into the cavities of his chest.
"i wish, but i have a mountain of paperwork to get done here before i can." you groan. "and i'd get done faster if you'd stop calling with your...situations."
san snorts. "you don't enjoy getting paid to make me cum in my own hand?"
"hanging up now," you sing. "happy to be of service."
he grins. "come home. i'll be of service."
you hang up without responding, but he gets a text shortly after: ‘can't wait to cum on your hand too!’
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
"Do you ever worry that I'm ugly?" You ask Toph one afternoon, the two of you nestled on the too-big lounge chair of your balcony. You've got your head on Toph's firm thighs, playing with the strength of her fingers as she dozes off in the day's gentle warmth.
"No," Toph yawns, mouth widening large enough to make her jaw crack. "Stop asking stupid questions."
You pout. "It's not stupid, though," you argue. "You've never and will never see me and for all you know, I could look like a troll." Your nose scrunches up. "A nasty troll covered in boils and warts."
Toph chuckles. "That's funny because I literally feel your naked body everyday and I've never felt a boil or wart." Her lips curve into a smirk. "In fact, all I've ever felt is your smooth skin and how hot and wet it gets between your—"
"OK!" You exclaim, shoving your hands over her laughing mouth. "Geez, you're a fucking a menace."
"Only because my silly wife won't stop talking out of her ass," Toph replies before bringing her hands up to your face. You instantly relax into her touch, eyes fluttering closed at the feel of roughened palms and calloused fingertips. "Listen, I know I'll never be able to see you but I can feel you. The slope of your nose and the curve of your cheeks." Her fingers graze the soft swell of your lips. "I can feel you and draw a picture in my head and you come out beautiful every single time."
Butterflies fly around in your stomach, tickling your insides and making your toes curl. Your heart beat fastens considerably and there's no way to hide any of this from Toph. It leaves you wonderfully exposed in such a deeper level that renders you breathless each and every time.
"What if your picture is wrong, though?" You can't help but ask and yelp when Toph squishes your cheeks between her thumb and index finger, comically puckering your lips. She's looking down in your direction, eyes a calming greyish green as they dance with amused fondness.
"I'm never wrong, princess."
And it'd be funny if anyone else had said it, unbelievably cocky even.
But with Toph, you know it's the truth—set in stone.
hihihi!! protective toph whose mean to everyone except us, maybe after a dangerous encounter with the gaang?? save us with your writing🥹
ꫂ᭪ ݁ protective toph who’s only nice to you
content: fluff, nonbender!reader, f!reader, mean!toph, basically what the request says.
wc: 1.5k
₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚
appa’s tired yawns — paired with some of your own — urged you to make a stop in the middle of the forest, deciding to make camp there until sunrise.
you circled the crackling fire lit by zuko, appreciating its warmth during this cold starry night. sokka grilled food over it as the rest of you argued about your travels, again.
“come on, tophh!” aang pleaded, gently shaking her. “we all want to go to ba sing se for a few days, you’re the only one who doesn’t want to!”
“no, forget it.” toph scoffed, pushing him away with a swat of her hand. she crosses her arms over her chest, leaning back against the bark of the tree behind her. “if you idiots all want to go, suit yourselves. i’m not going to that hellhole again.”
katara groans, throwing her arms up in the air. “you always do this, toph! it’s a fine destination, i don’t get why you’re being so stubborn about it.”
“if you want to go so bad, just go!” toph snaps, shutting her eyes in frustration. “i’m not holding you back. i’ll be fine here alone.”
“you know we can’t do that..” aang mumbles, nipping sulkily at the fish handed to him by sokka. “we always travel together.”
katara rolls her eyes, “wow, toph being selfish, what’s new?”
“don’t test me, sugar queen. i’m really not in the mood.”
you and zuko exchange awkward glances at the escalating tension — you two often opted out of arguments like these, since you were the newest additions to the group.
even though you were toph’s girlfriend, it just always felt inappropriate to interfere when it didn’t directly involve you. after all, they knew each other much longer than you did. they could sort this out by themselves; they always did.
“calm down guys,” sokka munches lazily on his half-burnt fish, “just sit down and talk it out. it’s just a trip, no need to get this heated about it. isn’t that right, zuko?” he teasingly leans on him, and the poor boy casts you the most pitiful look ever. it screamed “please help me, i don’t know what to say.”
you clear your throat, trying to lighten the mood with a flustered smile. “sokka’s right! we.. we should just talk it out. i personally think ba sing se is a nice place to—”
“alright.” toph sits up, casually stretching her arms with a soft grunt. “we’ll go, then.”
you all blink, staring at her, stunned into silence for a hot minute.
katara huffs, “didn’t you just say—”
“what’s your problem?” toph cuts her off, her head whipping her way.
“okayyy!!” aang quickly wraps his arms around both of them, nervously hugging them before another fight erupts again. “so, problem’s solved. we’re going to ba sing se!”
zuko prods at your shoulder, and he’s completely incredulous when you turn to face him. “how did you do that?”
you return his bewilderment with wide eyes, shrugging. “i have no idea.”
“it’s ‘cause toph’s whipped,” sokka whispers to both of you, his cheek still pressed flush against zuko’s shoulder. he nods solemnly, waving his now empty stick up and down, “that demon only listens to her girl. seriously she’s— ahh!”
one second he was next to both of you, the next one rocks beneath him shifted to send him flying into the trees behind him.
your girlfriend’s voice pierces through your eardrums, causing you all to wince. “i’m blind, not deaf!”
₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚
the next morning, katara softly nudges you awake, letting out a small laugh at your bed hair. “morning, sleepyhead. we’re almost ready, pack up.”
you nod, half-asleep, and look around you. they’d loaded almost everything on appa, all that was left was you and— oh, toph.
katara follows your gaze and sighs, “yeah, we left that task for you too. please wake that monster up.”
you chuckle, looking up at katara, “hey, that’s my girlfriend.”
“that much is clear,” she stands up, smoothing down her top. “your monster girlfriend.”
you roll up your sleeping bag, then head over to where your “monster girlfriend” laid. legs sprawled in humanly impossible directions, drool leaking out of her lips, disheveled hair pooling messily under her..
only toph could still look endearing this way. well, you seemed to be the only one sharing that opinion.
you smile, kneeling by her side and gently brushing some strands away from her forehead, “sweetheart?”
“mh..” she stirs, features already twisting into an angry frown and she wasn’t even awake yet.
“it’s me,” you add, and her body visibly relaxes. the teal eyes you fell in love with slowly crack open, “.. hm. morning, baby.”
you press a soft kiss to her cheek, but as you’re pulling away, you’re suddenly tugged down to her side.
“toph!” you exclaim, startled and smitten by the cheeky grin on her face. “we have to leave..”
she buries her face into your neck, grumbling sleepily, “but i wanna sleep.”
you exhale, giving her face a light pat. “come on, we don’t have much time. you can sleep on my lap when we get on appa, alright?”
“sweet.” she rasps before pressing a warm kiss to your neck, sending a shiver up your spine. “that’s a deal. let’s go, then.”
of course. that’s what she wanted anyway.
you finish slinging the rest of your stuff over appa, then finally get on the saddle.
“yip-yip!” aang rubs the bison’s head, and with that, you embark on a sweet ride conversing and laughing with the rest of your friends, your grumpy girlfriend snoring on your lap as you absentmindedly rake your hands through her dark hair.
₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚
at aang’s request, you first stroll around the outskirts of ba sing se, where he claimed to know this perfect spot over the walls to view the city in its entirety.
“here!” he happily points to a set of old but gorgeous stairs, spiraling to the very top of the outer wall. “just be careful, the stone’s a little ancient. you know, this was actually built during..”
you hold toph’s hand behind you tightly, slowly marching up the stairs since their width only allowed you to walk one by one, all while aang gave you a free history lesson about their origin.
“this is so annoying,” your girlfriend grumbles behind you, and you bite down on your lip to not laugh at how pouty she sounded.
you don’t know if you imagined it, but you were almost sure you heard a crack at your next footstep.
you look down to check, and before you even spot the crack forming upwards from where you stood, toph’s loud voice rings out behind you to confirm your doubts, “watch out!”
strong arms are immediately wrapped around you, the concrete beneath you giving way and causing you all to plunge down with startled screams.
toph earthbends the wall into a slide, cushioning your fall as she holds you tightly against her when you land.
thankfully, you guys had only climbed up a few feet so the worst part of it was the initial fear, but it might as well have been a volcanic eruption with how worriedly your girlfriend checked your body for bruises.
“are you really okay, baby?” she runs her hands up your waist, ridiculously panicked for someone so carefree. “does it hurt anywhere?”
“toph—” you blush, a little embarrassed at how big of a deal she was making this little fall out to be, “i’m fine, i promise! .. thank you for catching me.”
“yeah, that was real nice of you, toph.” katara dusts herself, glaring at her. “thank you for saving your girlfriend and completely forgetting us.”
toph scoffs, rolling her eyes. “please, it’s only a few feet. and you’re benders anyway, you can take care of yourselves.”
“hello! i’m not a bender.” sokka quips, crossing his arms.
“you have legs and arms,” she replies, completely unbothered as her hands slide down to feel up your legs. “use them.”
he gasps dramatically, clutching his chest. “use them how!? i could’ve died, and it would’ve been all your fault, toph! i hope you know that!”
“oh no,” she deadpans, picking you up bridal style to pepper kisses all over your forehead. “figure it out, dumbass.” her attention is back on you and she smiles, “anyways, princess, let’s take you someplace safe. you got a cut on your ankle.”
he glances between you two and the rest of the gaang — who all simply shrugged, used to this fate —, utterly scandalized, “this is blatant favouritism!”
“boohoo,” she walks off, blowing a raspberry to him over her shoulder. “find someone else to save your whiny incompetent ass from a tiny fall.”
you sigh, flushed with embarrassment and exasperation. “tophie, you shouldn’t be so—”
“shh.” she takes you off guard with a gentle kiss to your lips, effectively shutting you up. she smirks at your silence, “don’t worry your pretty little head about them. they’ll live.”
you look away, cheeks warm enough to cook an egg on them.
.. seriously, ridiculous. she’s ridiculous.
₊˚ ✧ ━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ ✧ ₊˚
* i need more awkward zuko representation, that guy is a LOSER i love him
Summary: Toph has never been good at asking for things. She simply finds her way into your arms, seeking your warmth in small touches and stolen moments, caring little about who notices. Until even silence begins to sound like longing.
Requested by anon
A/N: Oh, yearning Toph, my beloved. I just know she'd be so needy all the time, even if she wouldn't admit it. (˶>⩊<˶)
Word count: 2k
*̥˚ Masterlist ☾ ⋆*
The road had become familiar again.
Dusty paths beneath their feet, Appa's steady breathing during long stretches of travel, campfires under open skies, and the comfortable chaos that always seemed to follow the Gaang wherever they went. It felt almost like old times—except not quite.
There was something new. At first, nobody could quite put a finger on it.
It started small. Toph had always hated unnecessary closeness; or at least that was what she claimed. She cursed at people for crowding her, shoved Sokka away when he got too dramatic, and threatened to bury Aang waist-deep in dirt if he fussed over her one more time.
And yet lately, you kept finding Toph near you. Not casually or accidentally; close in a way that felt deliberate, planned.
When you walked together, Toph somehow always drifted until her shoulder brushed your arm. When you sat down to eat, Toph dropped beside you with natural insistence, knees touching and sometimes her leg even resting atop yours. When Appa flew, Toph sat close enough that your bodies remained pressed together through most of the ride; she leaned her weight against you as if you were steadier than the saddle.
At first, you thought nothing of it, thought that maybe you were imagining it, even if it got your heart jumping into your mouth each time.
Then, you felt Toph's fingers hook loosely into the fabric of your sleeve while you walked one afternoon. She held on for a while, until changing her grip to your wrist, and eventually, loosely tangling her fingers with yours.
You had nearly smiled yourself silly. That was no accident.
Toph, of course, acted like she had done nothing. She could sense the somersaults of your heartbeat while she held your hand, and a proud grin stretched her lips. “Got something to say, sweetness?” she asked, only for you to hear.
You shook your head softly, blaming the sunlight for the warmth on your cheeks. “Nope.”
Toph swung your joined hands back and forth. “Hmph.”
That should have been the end of it. Instead, it got worse. Or better. Depending on whom you ask.
Sokka, ever observant, was the first to notice.
Evening had settled on their camp for the night. The sky was painted in a mix of purples, blues, and oranges. Crickets could be heard on the surrounding grass, and during dinner, Sokka narrowed his eyes across the crackling fire.
Still munching on his food, he not-so-sneakily leaned over to his sister sitting just beside him. “Okay,” he said in a whisper, gesturing toward you and Toph across from him. “What's been going on with those two?”
Katara hummed curiously, and her eyes slowly followed where her brother had pointed. You sat on the dry dirt, leaning back on both your hands, and Toph had all but thrown herself onto you, her head leaning comfortably against your shoulder and one of her hands resting atop your raised knee as she talked, and you nodded along.
“What do you mean?” Katara teased, a small, knowing smile already on her lips.
Sokka threw her a comically wide-eyed look, “What do you mean what do I mean?” His voice rose in pitch; “Toph hasn't let go of her since we made camp.”
“I'm not holding onto anybody.” Toph's voice cut through the quiet, loud enough to be heard over the fire. When the eyes of everyone fell onto her, she had the largest smirk on her lips, chin raised proudly as she made no effort to move away from you. The hand she had resting on your knee squeezed once.
All you could muster was to focus your eyes down on the burning fire as you bit the inside of your cheek so hard it nearly drew blood. Toph was a solid, warm presence against your body, and it nearly got you dizzy. And acknowledging it out loud made you even more aware of it.
Sokka huffed, yet an amused smile broke the fake annoyance. He crossed his arms over his chest and wiggled his eyebrows even if Toph couldn't see it. “If you two have anything to share with the class, I'm all ears.”
Katara gently shoved her brother's shoulder, biting back a chuckle of her own; “Just leave them be, Sokka.”
Toph snorted. “You know I hate gossip.”
That was all anyone would get out of her. And somehow, Toph became even less subtle after that. As though once people started noticing, she had simply decided she didn't care.
And maybe she didn't. Toph had never been good at pretending to be something she wasn't. If she wanted you close, she wanted you close. End of discussion.
That night, the camp settled into silence. The fire burned low, reduced to glowing embers and soft warmth against the chill. Appa snored nearby, with Momo sprawled on top of his fluffy fur. Someone—probably Sokka—mumbled incoherently in his sleep.
You were snuggled in blankets, half asleep, drifting in that soft place between dreaming and waking. Listening to the gentle lullaby of a night under the stars.
Then, you felt movement. Soft and careful. A familiar presence crossing the earth with feather-light steps only possible for someone who understood every vibration beneath her feet.
Before you could fully wake, warm fingers slipped beneath your blanket; you felt the touch on your waist first, bordering on tentative before it grew bolder. A warm hand sneaking beneath your shirt, feeling the shape of your waist, while your blankets ruffled and the weight of a familiar presence settled close beside you.
Then came the kisses. Light, tender, sleepy little brushes of lips against your cheek. Those lips lingered there before moving to your jaw, and then lazily traced a path to the corner of your mouth.
Your eyes finally fluttered open. And Toph was already there, curled into your space. One arm wrapped tightly around your waist, skin to skin, pulling you close with startling possessiveness. Her body pressed firmly against yours like she had no intention of leaving even an inch between you two.
A sound escaped your lips, half a sleepy groan and half a lovesick chuckle. The faint light of the fire was enough for you to make out a vague image of Toph; the orange light softly highlighted the muscles of her bare arm, and her hair had been pulled completely free of her usual bun, now falling messily around her face and over your small pillow.
On the next heartbeat, Toph tucked her face against your neck. Her breathing was warm, her lips brushing over your pulse point and placing a sloppy kiss there. Quiet. Needy.
You blinked, feeling a shiver go up and down your whole body when the sensation of her mouth on you got your breath running shallow. “Toph…?”
Toph only tightened her hold. As if waking you had been necessary solely so you could consciously hold her back. Both her arms snaked around your waist, holding you with the sort of strength only she could pull off.
Your expression softened immediately, a shaky sigh finding its way past your lips. You slowly slid both arms around Toph, careful not to rustle the blankets too much or wake the others.
One of your hands found her hair, burying itself in between the dark strands as you selfishly leaned in; your lips brushed over her hairline, and you breathed her in.
Toph melted. Actually melted. Her entire body loosened the moment you embraced her, though she remained firmly attached, one leg slipping in between yours as if anchoring herself there.
You felt a smile tug further at your lips. You brushed Toph's hair back, fingertips gentle against her scalp as you reciprocated the gesture, pulling her tighter into your embrace. “What's gotten into you lately?” you whispered, nothing but a breath against her skin.
Toph didn't answer right away. She burrowed closer instead. Her nose brushed your neck, tracing a path from your pulse point to right under your ear. One hand clutched at the back of your shirt, bunching the fabric; the other pressed half moons into your skin.
For someone who projected so much iron and stone to the world, moments like this always felt almost shocking. Toph could be so soft. So desperate for closeness. So quietly vulnerable sometimes.
Finally, Toph mumbled into your skin, voice rough with sleep and something rawer beneath it. “I jus' wanna be with you.”
The words were so simple. So unguarded that your heart clenched in your chest. Toph rarely asked for anything directly. Need, especially, was something she usually buried under sarcasm, teasing, or stubborn silence.
But not tonight. Now she was here, wrapped around you like she needed the reassurance of warmth and touch and presence.
You brushed your fingers along the extent of her bare arm, until you found her neck, and then the corner of her jaw. You swiped your thumb over the skin there. “I'm right here,” you promised in a hush.
Toph exhaled shakily. Her mouth hanging open against your neck and her warm breathing fanning over your collarbone. Her fingers loosened against your back the slightest bit.
Your hand on her jaw gently guided her up until you could press a kiss between her eyebrows, then another over her eyelids, then one to her temple.
Toph tilted her face upward and grumbled softly, despite the smile tugging at her lips. “You're being mushy.”
Your nose bumped hers when you mimicked her smile. “And you woke me up for cuddles.”
A pause. Toph's breathing stumbled audibly with a soft gasp when she felt how close you were. Her fingers dug a little more insistently into your skin when her mouth parted with quiet yearning. “… Maybe.” The word fell clumsily past her lips.
The most formidable earthbender she may be, but she crumbled like sand under your touch.
At last, you caught her lips with yours, barely muffling the soft moan that escaped Toph. Both your hands held onto her jaw, tangling with her long hair as the feel of her skin beneath your palms and the softness of her lips moving against yours got you utterly intoxicated.
Toph, in turn, pulled you painfully close. Her strong arms around your body allowed not even air to come between you; her fingers pressed against your spine, leaving gentle marks there as telltales of her need. Her nose pressed into your cheek as she kissed you, trying to come as close as physically possible.
She caught your lower lip between both of hers, softly brushing her teeth over it before soothing with her tongue.
The kiss deepened by instinct rather than intention, a careful surrender neither of you had exactly planned. It was not hungry in the sharp, obvious sense. It was fuller than that. Slower, a little sloppy as you learned each other's shapes for the first time.
It held the pressure of all the almosts that had gathered between you for weeks; the shared silences, the sidelong glances, the touches that had grown bolder and bolder because neither could have enough of the other.
Toph kissed you as though she had been trying not to for too many days, and the restraint had finally broken in the most beautiful possible way.
In the darkness, with everyone else asleep and the world quiet around you, Toph allowed herself to simply cling to you. Allowed her hands to roam over your body unabashedly. No walls, no sharp words, no armor. Just her claiming what was hers.
Eventually, after what felt like too long and not long enough of unhurried kisses, you felt Toph's breathing slowly begin to deepen. She fought it, but sleep gradually pulled her under.
And even asleep, Toph refused to loosen her grip on you. A grin came to your lips, still sensitive, as you felt the ghost of Toph's kisses. You adjusted your arm under her, bringing her head to rest over your shoulder.
Toph groaned sleepily when you shifted; her arm instinctively tightened. Possessive, even unconscious. You suppressed a soft laugh, rubbing slow circles into Toph's back and bringing the blankets closer around your tangled bodies, until sleep began to claim you, too.
The last thing you felt before drifting off was Toph nuzzling faintly into your neck, seeking warmth even in dreams. As though her body knew only one thing with absolute certainty.
Here. With you. This was where she wanted to be.
The next morning, you and Toph were rudely woken up by a ridiculously loud shout of Sokka's voice: “I KNEW IT!”
⋆* ☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆･
Toph’s taglist is open, let me know if you’d like to be added. Or you can follow @talesofesther-library and turn notifications on to know when I’ve posted a new story/chapter.
Thank you for reading this story. Feedback and reblogs are literally what keeps me motivated to continue posting here, so I’d appreciate it if you could take some time to reblog and comment. <3
You do not have permission to repost, copy, or translate my works on any platforms (even with credit), please respect.
Summary: Toph has never been good at asking for things. She simply finds her way into your arms, seeking your warmth in small touches and stolen moments, caring little about who notices. Until even silence begins to sound like longing.
Requested by anon
A/N: Oh, yearning Toph, my beloved. I just know she'd be so needy all the time, even if she wouldn't admit it. (˶>⩊<˶)
Word count: 2k
*̥˚ Masterlist ☾ ⋆*
The road had become familiar again.
Dusty paths beneath their feet, Appa's steady breathing during long stretches of travel, campfires under open skies, and the comfortable chaos that always seemed to follow the Gaang wherever they went. It felt almost like old times—except not quite.
There was something new. At first, nobody could quite put a finger on it.
It started small. Toph had always hated unnecessary closeness; or at least that was what she claimed. She cursed at people for crowding her, shoved Sokka away when he got too dramatic, and threatened to bury Aang waist-deep in dirt if he fussed over her one more time.
And yet lately, you kept finding Toph near you. Not casually or accidentally; close in a way that felt deliberate, planned.
When you walked together, Toph somehow always drifted until her shoulder brushed your arm. When you sat down to eat, Toph dropped beside you with natural insistence, knees touching and sometimes her leg even resting atop yours. When Appa flew, Toph sat close enough that your bodies remained pressed together through most of the ride; she leaned her weight against you as if you were steadier than the saddle.
At first, you thought nothing of it, thought that maybe you were imagining it, even if it got your heart jumping into your mouth each time.
Then, you felt Toph's fingers hook loosely into the fabric of your sleeve while you walked one afternoon. She held on for a while, until changing her grip to your wrist, and eventually, loosely tangling her fingers with yours.
You had nearly smiled yourself silly. That was no accident.
Toph, of course, acted like she had done nothing. She could sense the somersaults of your heartbeat while she held your hand, and a proud grin stretched her lips. “Got something to say, sweetness?” she asked, only for you to hear.
You shook your head softly, blaming the sunlight for the warmth on your cheeks. “Nope.”
Toph swung your joined hands back and forth. “Hmph.”
That should have been the end of it. Instead, it got worse. Or better. Depending on whom you ask.
Sokka, ever observant, was the first to notice.
Evening had settled on their camp for the night. The sky was painted in a mix of purples, blues, and oranges. Crickets could be heard on the surrounding grass, and during dinner, Sokka narrowed his eyes across the crackling fire.
Still munching on his food, he not-so-sneakily leaned over to his sister sitting just beside him. “Okay,” he said in a whisper, gesturing toward you and Toph across from him. “What's been going on with those two?”
Katara hummed curiously, and her eyes slowly followed where her brother had pointed. You sat on the dry dirt, leaning back on both your hands, and Toph had all but thrown herself onto you, her head leaning comfortably against your shoulder and one of her hands resting atop your raised knee as she talked, and you nodded along.
“What do you mean?” Katara teased, a small, knowing smile already on her lips.
Sokka threw her a comically wide-eyed look, “What do you mean what do I mean?” His voice rose in pitch; “Toph hasn't let go of her since we made camp.”
“I'm not holding onto anybody.” Toph's voice cut through the quiet, loud enough to be heard over the fire. When the eyes of everyone fell onto her, she had the largest smirk on her lips, chin raised proudly as she made no effort to move away from you. The hand she had resting on your knee squeezed once.
All you could muster was to focus your eyes down on the burning fire as you bit the inside of your cheek so hard it nearly drew blood. Toph was a solid, warm presence against your body, and it nearly got you dizzy. And acknowledging it out loud made you even more aware of it.
Sokka huffed, yet an amused smile broke the fake annoyance. He crossed his arms over his chest and wiggled his eyebrows even if Toph couldn't see it. “If you two have anything to share with the class, I'm all ears.”
Katara gently shoved her brother's shoulder, biting back a chuckle of her own; “Just leave them be, Sokka.”
Toph snorted. “You know I hate gossip.”
That was all anyone would get out of her. And somehow, Toph became even less subtle after that. As though once people started noticing, she had simply decided she didn't care.
And maybe she didn't. Toph had never been good at pretending to be something she wasn't. If she wanted you close, she wanted you close. End of discussion.
That night, the camp settled into silence. The fire burned low, reduced to glowing embers and soft warmth against the chill. Appa snored nearby, with Momo sprawled on top of his fluffy fur. Someone—probably Sokka—mumbled incoherently in his sleep.
You were snuggled in blankets, half asleep, drifting in that soft place between dreaming and waking. Listening to the gentle lullaby of a night under the stars.
Then, you felt movement. Soft and careful. A familiar presence crossing the earth with feather-light steps only possible for someone who understood every vibration beneath her feet.
Before you could fully wake, warm fingers slipped beneath your blanket; you felt the touch on your waist first, bordering on tentative before it grew bolder. A warm hand sneaking beneath your shirt, feeling the shape of your waist, while your blankets ruffled and the weight of a familiar presence settled close beside you.
Then came the kisses. Light, tender, sleepy little brushes of lips against your cheek. Those lips lingered there before moving to your jaw, and then lazily traced a path to the corner of your mouth.
Your eyes finally fluttered open. And Toph was already there, curled into your space. One arm wrapped tightly around your waist, skin to skin, pulling you close with startling possessiveness. Her body pressed firmly against yours like she had no intention of leaving even an inch between you two.
A sound escaped your lips, half a sleepy groan and half a lovesick chuckle. The faint light of the fire was enough for you to make out a vague image of Toph; the orange light softly highlighted the muscles of her bare arm, and her hair had been pulled completely free of her usual bun, now falling messily around her face and over your small pillow.
On the next heartbeat, Toph tucked her face against your neck. Her breathing was warm, her lips brushing over your pulse point and placing a sloppy kiss there. Quiet. Needy.
You blinked, feeling a shiver go up and down your whole body when the sensation of her mouth on you got your breath running shallow. “Toph…?”
Toph only tightened her hold. As if waking you had been necessary solely so you could consciously hold her back. Both her arms snaked around your waist, holding you with the sort of strength only she could pull off.
Your expression softened immediately, a shaky sigh finding its way past your lips. You slowly slid both arms around Toph, careful not to rustle the blankets too much or wake the others.
One of your hands found her hair, burying itself in between the dark strands as you selfishly leaned in; your lips brushed over her hairline, and you breathed her in.
Toph melted. Actually melted. Her entire body loosened the moment you embraced her, though she remained firmly attached, one leg slipping in between yours as if anchoring herself there.
You felt a smile tug further at your lips. You brushed Toph's hair back, fingertips gentle against her scalp as you reciprocated the gesture, pulling her tighter into your embrace. “What's gotten into you lately?” you whispered, nothing but a breath against her skin.
Toph didn't answer right away. She burrowed closer instead. Her nose brushed your neck, tracing a path from your pulse point to right under your ear. One hand clutched at the back of your shirt, bunching the fabric; the other pressed half moons into your skin.
For someone who projected so much iron and stone to the world, moments like this always felt almost shocking. Toph could be so soft. So desperate for closeness. So quietly vulnerable sometimes.
Finally, Toph mumbled into your skin, voice rough with sleep and something rawer beneath it. “I jus' wanna be with you.”
The words were so simple. So unguarded that your heart clenched in your chest. Toph rarely asked for anything directly. Need, especially, was something she usually buried under sarcasm, teasing, or stubborn silence.
But not tonight. Now she was here, wrapped around you like she needed the reassurance of warmth and touch and presence.
You brushed your fingers along the extent of her bare arm, until you found her neck, and then the corner of her jaw. You swiped your thumb over the skin there. “I'm right here,” you promised in a hush.
Toph exhaled shakily. Her mouth hanging open against your neck and her warm breathing fanning over your collarbone. Her fingers loosened against your back the slightest bit.
Your hand on her jaw gently guided her up until you could press a kiss between her eyebrows, then another over her eyelids, then one to her temple.
Toph tilted her face upward and grumbled softly, despite the smile tugging at her lips. “You're being mushy.”
Your nose bumped hers when you mimicked her smile. “And you woke me up for cuddles.”
A pause. Toph's breathing stumbled audibly with a soft gasp when she felt how close you were. Her fingers dug a little more insistently into your skin when her mouth parted with quiet yearning. “… Maybe.” The word fell clumsily past her lips.
The most formidable earthbender she may be, but she crumbled like sand under your touch.
At last, you caught her lips with yours, barely muffling the soft moan that escaped Toph. Both your hands held onto her jaw, tangling with her long hair as the feel of her skin beneath your palms and the softness of her lips moving against yours got you utterly intoxicated.
Toph, in turn, pulled you painfully close. Her strong arms around your body allowed not even air to come between you; her fingers pressed against your spine, leaving gentle marks there as telltales of her need. Her nose pressed into your cheek as she kissed you, trying to come as close as physically possible.
She caught your lower lip between both of hers, softly brushing her teeth over it before soothing with her tongue.
The kiss deepened by instinct rather than intention, a careful surrender neither of you had exactly planned. It was not hungry in the sharp, obvious sense. It was fuller than that. Slower, a little sloppy as you learned each other's shapes for the first time.
It held the pressure of all the almosts that had gathered between you for weeks; the shared silences, the sidelong glances, the touches that had grown bolder and bolder because neither could have enough of the other.
Toph kissed you as though she had been trying not to for too many days, and the restraint had finally broken in the most beautiful possible way.
In the darkness, with everyone else asleep and the world quiet around you, Toph allowed herself to simply cling to you. Allowed her hands to roam over your body unabashedly. No walls, no sharp words, no armor. Just her claiming what was hers.
Eventually, after what felt like too long and not long enough of unhurried kisses, you felt Toph's breathing slowly begin to deepen. She fought it, but sleep gradually pulled her under.
And even asleep, Toph refused to loosen her grip on you. A grin came to your lips, still sensitive, as you felt the ghost of Toph's kisses. You adjusted your arm under her, bringing her head to rest over your shoulder.
Toph groaned sleepily when you shifted; her arm instinctively tightened. Possessive, even unconscious. You suppressed a soft laugh, rubbing slow circles into Toph's back and bringing the blankets closer around your tangled bodies, until sleep began to claim you, too.
The last thing you felt before drifting off was Toph nuzzling faintly into your neck, seeking warmth even in dreams. As though her body knew only one thing with absolute certainty.
Here. With you. This was where she wanted to be.
The next morning, you and Toph were rudely woken up by a ridiculously loud shout of Sokka's voice: “I KNEW IT!”
⋆* ☾ ⋆*･ﾟ:⋆･
Toph’s taglist is open, let me know if you’d like to be added. Or you can follow @talesofesther-library and turn notifications on to know when I’ve posted a new story/chapter.
Thank you for reading this story. Feedback and reblogs are literally what keeps me motivated to continue posting here, so I’d appreciate it if you could take some time to reblog and comment. <3
You do not have permission to repost, copy, or translate my works on any platforms (even with credit), please respect.
TW: 18+, modern!au, inspired by love island! femme!reader, masc!toph, dialogue heavy i apologizeeee, descriptions of making out.., sexual tension EVERYWHERE, edited this fast so again pls ignore any and all mistakes</3
SUMMARY: Your first night and morning in the villa as a bombshell prove that a connection between you and Toph is quickly developing
part i. getting messy in bed
WC: 7.7k
A/N: i know a lot of you are fiening for that love island drama and i promise it’s otw!! just laying the foundation yet again before we can dive in 🤍
DISCLAIMER: all characterizations are purely speculative and fictional, based on my interpretation of each character's mannerisms and portrayal in their respective source material. please keep this in mind!!
The villa is almost eerily silent. All the islanders can hear are their own heartbeats in their chests, and the shaky breaths leaving their lips.
Azula, the host, wears a mischievous smile. She says your name again as she addresses you. "You have already made quite an impression."
"I would say so." You say, holding up your red-stained hands . "I think I might've left a few marks." You set your eyes on Toph as you finish your sentence. Her milky white irises don't meet yours, but you see her position move away from her partner slightly so that it's inclined more in your direction.
"You definitely did. The real question is, did you enjoy those kisses?"
"Yes I did." An easy laugh falls your lips. "Some slightly more than others."
Toph sits up slightly at your response, instinctively turning toward the sound of your voice. Her unfocused gaze settles in your direction with startling precision, sending a pleasant chill down your spine.
"Anyone in particular you want to share?" Azula asks.
You look over at the boys and Toph, slightly swaying in your heels like you're trying to decide whether to spill or not. "I don't kiss and tell."
But a certain earthbender hears your heartbeat betray you. It skips ever so slightly when she turns your way, just enough to make a slow smirk spread across her face.
Interesting.
Maybe she'd gotten under your skin too.
"Well, to my handcuffed islanders who weren't blindfolded...how are you feeling?"
"I feel blessed." Sokka says slightly dazed smile. Beside him, Syzu lightly smacks his arm, although her expression doesn't convey anger, she clearly looks a little upset.
"Wrong answer." Waika shakes her head, while Zuko can only sigh in disappointment.
"What? It was a joke!" Sokka rubs his arm, although the spot didn't hurt it was more a comforting action to soothe his bruised ego.
"I've had worse nights." The rasp in Toph's voice is as clear as ever, the sound making goosebumps dot your skin.
Azula tilts her head, "I'd say a few of you had a lot more fun than the rest."
Kuse's eyes remain fixed on the crimson paint decorating Toph's chest, shoulders, and the side of her neck.
"…You've got a lot of red on you." Her tone is casual enough, but there's an edge beneath it that doesn't escape anyone.
Toph kisses her teeth lightly. "Really?" she replies dryly. "Wouldn't know."
A few awkward chuckles pass through the group.
Kuse presses her lips together before speaking again.
"I just mean…" She gestures vaguely toward the paint covering Toph. "Looks like somebody took a liking to you."
Toph shrugs one shoulder.
"I didn't exactly have much control over that."
Kuse can't help but roll her eyes and huff. "Guess not."
The words linger between them, neither of them seeming interested in filling the silence that follows.
You watch the exchange unfold from a few feet away, your curiosity growing with every passing second. Whatever had happened before you'd entered the villa, it was obvious there was more going on beneath the surface than either of them was willing to admit.
"Girls," Azula draws everyone's attention again. "I know you might feel a bit blindsided by what happened earlier, but...don't worry, I didn't forget about you."
The girls look at each other with bated breath.
"Please welcome, Jet!"
Waika, Syzu, and Kuse start to yell enthusiastically, while Katara only claps, Toph almost has to move away from Kuse because of just how loud she's screaming near her ear.
The male bombshell walks down the stairs toward the group, his sun-kissed skin glows beneath the villa lights, his lack of shirt revealing his toned abdomen. His short, shaggy brown hair falls effortlessly across his forehead, and the easy confidence in his stride suggests he already knows the impression he's making.
Waika and Kuse exchange knowing looks almost immediately.
"That's your type," Waika whispers, nudging Syzu with her elbow.
Syzu's cheeks warm. "I mean…" She tries to suppress a smile. "He's definitely attractive."
Sokka narrows his eyes. "I don't like him already."
"You don't even know him," Zuko says with an amused shake of his head.
"I know enough."
Jet stops just short of the oversized bed, slipping one hand into his pocket as he surveys the group with an easy grin. "Ladies."
He gives them a small nod.
"I've gotta say…" His eyes sweep over the women one by one. "You all clean up pretty nice."
A chorus of giggles answers him.
"Jet, welcome to the slumber party." Azula greets him, her sharp, golden eyes sweeping around the bed to catch every shift in posture in the villa girls. "We've been waiting for you."
Jet chuckles under his breath. "Glad to be here."
"Jet, everyone seems a little tied up, so why don't you take this as an opportunity to get to know the girls a little better?"
"Don't mind if I do." The brunette rubs his hands together with excitement.
"After all, there's always room for one more." Azula nods towards the girls. "So have fun."
Jet wastes no time before climbing into the bed, and kneeling in front of a smiling Kuse. "Hey." He murmers.
Kuse doesn't respond, only leans forward to meet his lips. The sound of wet smacking fills the villa, Kuse's girl friends jaws dropping slack in shock. She doesn't seem to be holding back, whether it was retribution for what you and Toph had done while she was blindfolded, or pure attraction, no one could quite know.
Toph grimaces. "Eugh." She turns toward Aang. "Can somebody tell Romeo and Juliet to come up for air before they pass out?"
Aang lets out an awkward laugh. "I…don't think they're listening."
Sokka snickers from the other end of the bed.
"See? Blindness has its perks."
Toph points in his general direction without missing a beat. "Keep talking, Snoozles, and I'll remind you why you sleep with one eye open."
Everyone but the couple kissing has to hold back their snickers at Toph's comeback.
Jet parts from Kuse, leaving her lipstick smudged and her hair a little more tousled than before. She watches him pull away with a mischievous smile, though it softens as she follows him with her eyes.
His attention settles on Katara.
Jet's eyebrows lift ever so slightly. "Wow."
Katara lets out a sheepish laugh, instinctively tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "Hi."
Aang's smile falters almost imperceptibly. He knows Katara is beautiful, of course he does. From the second he had walked into the villa she had grabbed his attention.
But knowing someone else was looking at her the same way… It leaves an uncomfortable knot twisting in his stomach.
Jet kneels in front of the waterbender. "I've been wanting to meet you."
Katara smiles politely, glancing at Aang for only a split second before looking back at the bombshell. "Really?"
Jet's response comes by closing the distance between them. The kiss is passionate, but more respectful.
Nothing like the one he'd shared with Kuse.
Even so, Aang finds himself absentmindedly rubbing the back of his neck, his fingers lingering over the blue arrow tattoo there.
When Jet finally pulls away, Katara smiles again before scooting back toward her handcuffed partner.
Aang doesn't say anything. Instead, he waits until she's settled beside him before quietly leaning toward her. "…You okay?"
Katara turns to him, immediately recognizing the uncertainty hidden beneath the question. She smiles warmly before bumping her shoulder against his. "I'm okay."
Only then does Aang realize he'd been holding his breath. He lets it out slowly, the knot in his chest loosening just enough for him to smile back.
Jet finishes off with Waika and Syzu, turning up the heat with them, knowing that they were still open to exploring options in the villa. He climbs off of the bed after, then makes his way to your side.
"Good job." You give him a side hug and a smile.
He returns it, "You too."
"Islanders," Azula announces once the excitement surrounding the challenge begins to settle. She waits until everyone's attention is on her before speaking again. "The Sleepover Challenge has officially come to an end. Feel free to wash off the paint..." Her gaze sweeps across the villa, lingering on the crimson stains decorating several of the islanders before a knowing smile tugs at her lips. "...although I think the mess is only beginning."
With that, she steps away, leaving the islanders to disperse around the villa.
The oversized bed empties quickly as conversations immediately begin breaking out. Sokka insists he had been the biggest victim of the challenge, earning an eye roll from Waika and a shove from Syzu, who reminds him that he certainly hadn't complained while it was happening. Aang quietly follows Katara toward the outdoor showers, the waterbender bumping her shoulder against his before slipping her hand into his.
Toph waits until most of the villa has cleared before stepping down from the bed herself. She brushes at one of the dried streaks of paint across her forearm, watching flakes of red fall uselessly to the ground.
"You coming?" Kuse asks.
Toph nods once.
Neither of them speaks on the walk over.
The showers are already running by the time they reach them. Cool water pours over their shoulders as they scrub away the paint, the red and blue swirling together before disappearing beneath the stone grates.
Kuse glances over a few times before finally speaking. "...Are we good?"
Toph keeps her attention on the bandages wrapped around her chest, rubbing away the last of the paint that had dried into the fabric. "I don't know."
Kuse lets out a quiet breath. "I already apologized."
"You did."
She waits for Toph to continue.
When she doesn't, Kuse breaks the silence herself. "I just don't want this to turn into a whole thing."
Toph rinses the soap from her hands. "I think it already is."
Kuse presses her lips together. "...What am I supposed to do?"
Toph shrugs. "I don't know."
The answer hangs between them for a few seconds before Kuse reaches over to turn the water off. "Alright, Toph."
She grabs her towel first, drying her hair as she starts back toward the villa without waiting.
Toph takes her time.
By the time she finishes drying off, the rest of the islanders have already gathered around the fire pit.
Waika waves Kuse over the second she spots her.
"Come sit over here." Jet pats the empty seat beside him.
Kuse doesn't hesitate.
"You surviving?" Jet asks as she sits down.
"Barely." She smiles. "I think my lips are still numb."
Jet laughs. "I'll take that as a compliment."
"You should."
Across the fire pit, Toph settles onto one of the couches beside Sokka just as he hands her a drink.
"You look thrilled."
"Why wouldn't I be?"
Sokka nods thoughtfully.
Toph leans back against the couch, absentmindedly rolling the cold glass between her palms while Sokka launches into another story.
Every so often, Kuse's eyes wander across the fire pit.
Each time, Toph is already in the middle of another conversation. The earthbender doesn't approach her or seem to be bothered by her proximity to Jet.
Kuse watches for another few seconds before Jet asks her about her background. She turns back toward him almost immediately.
The conversation around the fire pit carries on late into the night.
By the time everyone finally heads inside, Toph and Kuse have barely exchanged another word. They climb into the same bed they had shared every night since entering the villa, but this time neither of them reaches for the other before turning off the lights. The space between them isn't large, yet it feels noticeably different than it had been the night before.
᯽
Several hours later, you stir awake.
Your throat is dry.
Trying not to wake anyone, you carefully slip out of bed and pad quietly toward the kitchen, the cool stone beneath your feet helping chase away the remnants of sleep still clouding your mind.
The villa feels completely different at night. The bright chatter from earlier had been replaced by the gentle crashing of waves somewhere beyond the garden walls.
You fill a glass with water and lean against the counter, taking a slow sip.
A second set of footsteps enters the kitchen.
You glance over your shoulder, nearly jumping out of your skin at the sound.
It's Toph.
She doesn't seem surprised to hear someone else awake.
"Couldn't sleep?" you ask quietly.
She lets out a small huff. "Nah. I was sweating too damn much."
A laugh escapes you before you can stop it. "Yeah, fair."
Toph opens one of the cabinets, reaching for a glass without hesitation before filling it from the tap.
You both rest your backs against the counter top of the kitchen sink, a comfortable silence settles between you too. It's odd that neither of you feel the need to speak and fill the silence, considering this is your first time being around Toph after she had stuck her tongue down your throat in the sleepover challenge.
Finally, you break the silence, a shy smile curving the edges of your lips.
"Just so you know…" You take another sip of your water before glancing over at Toph. "You were the one with the most red paint on you."
The earthbender's eyebrows lift. "Yeah?"
"Mhm."
A smirk slowly finds her lips, she kicks off the kitchen counter so she's now standing in front of you, each of her toned thighs just inches from your soft ones. Your breathing picks up, something that makes Toph smirk.
"Sounds like somebody was keeping track."
"I was." You don't even try to deny it. "I had to know if I'd gotten my point across."
Toph lets out a small huff through her nose. The callused palm of her hand comes up to cup your chin, tilting it towards her. "And what point was that?"
You lean into her touch, your eyes dipping down to her lips before settling on her milky eyes. "That I thought you were attractive."
Toph doesn't answer right away. "Thought?"
You bite your bottom lip to suppress your wide, growing smile. "I think you're attractive."
Toph's thumb moves to press onto your lip, the corner of her mouth threatening to betray her as she does it. "…Subtle."
Your own hand comes to meet the back of Toph's, wanting to feel as much of her skin as possible. "I never claimed to be."
"No," she agrees. "You definitely didn't."
The two of you remain like that for another moment, neither seeming particularly interested in being the first to pull away.
"So this is your strategy?" Toph asks. "Walk into the villa, kiss half the Islanders, then tell one of them they were your favorite?"
A quiet laugh escapes you. "I kissed everyone because it was my job."
"And me?"
"I kissed you because I wanted to." You admit, the tension between you and Toph is so heavy you feel like you can't breathe.
Toph responds with a small tutt. "Careful."
"Why?"
"You've known me for less than a day." She reminds you. "And you're already laying it on thick."
"I know."
You smile, gently tracing your thumb across the back of her hand. "I figure life's too short to pretend I don't like someone."
Toph is silent for a second. "You always this honest?"
"When I mean it."
She studies your face in silence, her thumb absentmindedly brushing against your cheek once before finally dropping back to her side.
"...That's dangerous."
"For who?"
A small grin tugs at her lips. "We'll see."
The words hang comfortably between you.
Neither of you seems eager to break the silence until you glance toward the hallway.
"I really should let you get some sleep."
"Yeah... you probably should." You wish she wouldn't, though.
You and Toph walk back together in silence, both of you replaying your interaction over and over in your minds.
When you step into the bedroom, moonlight spills through the windows, just bright enough to make out the shapes of the sleeping islanders scattered around the room.
You instinctively lower your footsteps, Toph following a pace behind.
As you reach the end of the room, you turn toward the empty bed assigned to you. At nearly the same moment, Toph steps toward the opposite side of the bed she shares with Kuse.
The space between the two beds is narrow. You both adjust your path just enough to pass each other before continuing on.
Toph's hand is already resting on the edge of her mattress when she pauses.
"...Hey." She whispers in your direction.
You glance over. "Yeah?"
She nods toward the gap the two of you had just crossed. "You didn't wait for me to move first."
You look back for a second before answering quietly. "I figured you already knew where you were going."
Toph is quiet for a moment. "...Most people don't think that."
You give a small shrug. "I didn't really think twice about it."
A faint smile tugs at the corner of Toph's mouth. "...Huh."
You continued to surprise her.
"Goodnight, Toph."
"Night."
᯽
The following morning begins much like the previous one. The girls once again gather in the glam room, the sound of hair dryers and curling irons quickly filling the space. Makeup bags litter the countertops, perfume hangs faintly in the air, and the chatter starts long before anyone is fully awake.
This time, however, you find yourself among them.
The moment you step through the doorway, Katara's face lights up.
"There you are." She immediately crosses the room before pulling you into a quick hug. "I was wondering when I'd finally get to steal you away."
You laugh, wrapping your arms around your fellow waterbender for a brief second before letting go. "I think everyone's been stealing me."
"You brought that on yourself."
"I know."
Katara shakes her head with an amused smile before handing you the empty seat beside her vanity.
"I still can't believe you're here."
"Neither can I."
Syzu pauses halfway through brushing mascara onto her lashes, looking between the two of you. "…Wait."
Waika's head snaps up from where she'd been curling her hair.
"You guys know each other?"
You and Katara glance at each other before laughing.
"Seriously?" Waika asks. "I get the vibe that you guys recognized each other last night."
"Not even close." Katara smiles. "We've trained together before. Trust me, if you've seen her bend, you'd remember it."
You groan. "Katara…"
"I'm serious." She laughs. "She's one of the best waterbenders I've ever sparred with."
Syzu's eyebrows shoot up. "Seriously?"
Katara nods without hesitation. "I've sparred against enough waterbenders to know. She's ridiculously good."
"You make me sound way better than I am."
Waika lets out a low whistle. "So not only did you walk in here causing chaos…" She grins. "…you're secretly an amazing bender too?"
"Katara's just being her sweet self." You groan, covering your face with one hand.
The room fills with laughter.
"I like you already." Syzu says, smiling warmly.
"So do I." Waika nods in agreement.
Across the room, Kuse quietly closes the cap on her lipstick before speaking for the first time.
"I guess that's what happens when you already have people in your corner."
The room grows just a little quieter.
You glance toward her as she offers you a polite smile.
"I suppose it helps." You answer easily.
"It definitely makes things…easier." Kuse continues, adjusting the strap of her tube top. "You get to walk in already knowing someone."
Katara's smile softens. "I don't think it changes much."
Kuse shrugs. "I'm just saying, most bombshells don't get a familiar face."
You nod thoughtfully. "That's true."
She seems almost surprised that you agreed.
"But you've all known each other for two days." You continue with a small smile. "I've still got a lot of catching up to do."
For the first time that morning, Kuse doesn't immediately have a response.
Katara hides another smile as she reaches for her makeup brush. "I have a feeling you'll catch up just fine."
"So do I." Syzu laughs.
Waika nods in agreement.
Kuse simply hums, turning back toward the mirror as she resumes getting ready.
The conversation moves on, but the atmosphere has shifted ever so slightly.
It isn't hostile. Not yet, at least.
But everyone in the room can tell that while the rest of the girls have welcomed you into the villa, Kuse hasn't quite decided where she wants to place you.
᯽
"So, you and the bombshell, huh?" Sokka can't help but nudge Toph excitedly as he helps her make breakfast. "You gonna pull her?"
Toph clicks her tongue, though the smile tugging at her lips betrays her. "Yeah. I'm open to getting to know her."
"'Getting to know her?'" Zuko chimes in as he finishes plating Waika's breakfast. "Did you even get the chance to talk to her last night?"
With Sokka's help, Toph slides the eggs from the pan onto the ceramic plate she'd set beside the stove.
"Ran into her in the kitchen while we were getting water."
Aang and the boys exchange knowing smiles.
"And?" Sokka presses.
Toph reaches for the fruit on the cutting board, her knife making quick work of it. "We talked for a bit."
"And?"
"...It was nice."
Sokka waits expectantly.
Toph lets out an exaggerated sigh. "She's easy to talk to, alright?"
A grin immediately spreads across Sokka's face. "There it is."
"Happy?"
"Very."
Aang smiles as he picks up Katara's breakfast, balancing the plate carefully in his hands. "I'm glad."
Toph pauses for just a second before continuing to arrange the fruit. "Yeah..." The corner of her mouth lifts. "Me too."
Aang can't help but smile a little wider. "It's nice seeing you excited about someone."
"Don't get used to it, Twinkletoes."
He laughs quietly before heading toward the stairs with Zuko following close behind, each carrying breakfast for their partners.
The kitchen settles into a comfortable silence.
"...Hey."
A deeper voice catches Toph's attention, making her turn her head toward the sound.
Jet stands a few feet to her right, a neatly plated breakfast in his hands. "I was thinking about bringing this up to Kuse."
Toph doesn't so much as hesitate. "Go ahead." She reaches for the plate in front of her. "This one's not for her anyway."
To her left, Sokka's eyes widen almost comically. His gaze flicks from the breakfast he'd helped Toph make to the earthbender beside him, silently putting the pieces together.
Jet studies her for a brief moment before giving a small nod. "Alright."
He turns toward the staircase.
Toph falls into step just ahead of him, balancing her own plate with practiced ease.
"Who knows," she says over her shoulder, a crooked smirk tugging at her lips. "Maybe she'll actually eat yours."
Sokka bites the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing as Jet watches Toph disappear up the stairs before following after her.
᯽
In the glam room, you're carefully fixing your hair, your attention focused on the vanity mirror in front of you as you scrutinize every strand that had dared fall out of place. The room is comfortably alive around you. Hair dryers hum in the background, makeup brushes sweep softly against skin, and the faint scent of perfume mingles with the salty breeze drifting in through the open windows.
The door opens. Aang and Zuko step inside, each carrying a breakfast plate balanced carefully in their hands.
"Morning." Aang smiles, setting Katara's breakfast down in front of her before pressing a quick kiss to her forehead.
"Morning." Zuko echoes, placing Waika's plate beside her makeup bag.
You spare the pair a polite glance before returning your attention to the mirror, gently smoothing a stray lock of hair back into place.
You hoped Jet would bring you breakfast.
The thought has barely crossed your mind before another pair of footsteps enters the room.
"Morning." Toph's voice cuts easily through the chatter.
"Morning!" Katara answers first.
The other girls echo the greeting as Toph rounds the vanity, breakfast plate balanced carefully in her hands.
Kuse quietly slides a few makeup products aside, clearing space on the counter in front of her without a second thought. The small smile on her face is subtle, but hopeful all the same as she watches Toph approach.
She waits.
Toph walks past her.
Past Waika.
Past Syzu.
Past Katara.
Until she stops beside you.
You blink, your hand freezing halfway to your comb as you slowly lift your eyes to meet hers.
Toph only answers your surprise with an easy smirk. "Made this for you."
For a moment, all you can do is stare.
Then your expression softens into a smile. "...Thank you."
You carefully accept the plate from her hands, the warmth from the ceramic lingering against your fingertips. It's only then that you become aware of the room around you again.
Every pair of eyes is on you.
Of course, Toph doesn't seem to notice. Or maybe she simply doesn't care.
She wraps an arm around your shoulders in a brief hug before stepping back. "See you later."
"Yeah." You smile up at her. "See you."
She gives a small nod before turning on her heel and leaving as casually as she'd walked in.
The door clicks shut behind her.
Silence follows almost immediately. It's not uncomfortable just...unexpected.
No one seems quite sure what to say.
Before anyone gets the chance, another knock of footsteps approaches.
Jet appears in the doorway with Sokka trailing behind him. Unlike Toph, he walks straight toward Kuse.
"I figured I'd return the favor." He offers her the breakfast plate with an easy smile.
Compared to Toph's, the presentation is noticeably cleaner. The eggs are evenly cooked, the toast carries the perfect golden color, and the fruit has been arranged with almost unnecessary precision.
Kuse's expression softens as she accepts it. "Thank you."
"Yeah." Jet smiles back. "No problem."
The two boys leave as quickly as they'd arrived.
Once again, the room falls quiet.
The silence settles over the glam room like a blanket no one is quite willing to pull away. One by one, every girl lowers her gaze to the breakfast in front of her, forks lifting almost absentmindedly as though eating were easier than acknowledging what had just happened.
You look down at your own plate.
The eggs are just a touch overdone, their edges browned more than intended. The toast could've spent another minute over the heat, still pale along one side where it hadn't crisped evenly.
The fruit, however, had been prepared with surprising care.
Bright strawberries, neatly sliced kiwi, and chilled watermelon glisten beneath the morning light pouring through the windows, each piece fresh enough to make the sweetness almost visible. Beside it sits a thick berry smoothie, its vibrant pink color standing out against the neutral breakfast plate.
It's imperfect, entirely homemade. Entirely Toph.
Without thinking, a smile tugs at the corners of your lips. You pick up your fork and cut into the eggs.
The girls watch with quiet curiosity. Syzu even pauses halfway through spreading jam across her toast.
Only Kuse keeps her eyes lowered.
You bring the bite to your mouth.
The eggs are warm, lightly seasoned, and just buttery enough to melt against your tongue despite being slightly overcooked. You swallow before taking another bite.
"Is it good?" Syzu asks, a skeptical look on her pale face.
You laugh softly, unable to hide the fondness creeping into your voice. "Yeah."
Your eyes fall back to the plate. "I don't think she's much of a cook..." A small smile spreads across your face. "...but she really tried."
Katara can't help smiling to herself. "That sounds exactly like Toph."
Waika lets out a small laugh, and even Syzu's shoulders relax as the tension hanging over the room eases ever so slightly.
Then—
A harsh screech slices through the air.
Metal grinds against ceramic with an awful, high-pitched whine that makes every girl instinctively wince.
Your head snaps toward the sound.
Kuse's fork is pressed tightly against the edge of her plate, a grape speared at the end of it.
She looks down almost immediately, as though only just realizing how much pressure she'd been applying. "...Sorry."
The apology is quiet. She eases her grip, the sound disappearing as quickly as it came.
"No worries." Waika says gently.
No one mentions it again, but conversation never truly returns after that.
Instead, the girls finish their breakfasts beneath the warm glow of the fluorescent lights in the glam room before they join their couples in the heart of the villa.
᯽
Walking back into the villa beside Katara, you can't help but feel the last of your resolve beginning to falter.
The confidence that had carried you through your entrance the night before had been easy to fake beneath the villa lights…
You hadn't expected Toph to make her interest in you so obvious. The breakfast, the hug.
The way she'd crossed an entire room full of people without a second thought just to hand you a plate she'd made herself.
It had been flattering, but it had also painted a target on your back.
"I feel like I'm already stepping on toes." You bite your lip as you and Katara grab yoga mats from the exercise station tucked against the edge of the garden.
Although the two of you had never been particularly close before the villa—your interactions mostly limited to crossing paths at waterbending competitions and the occasional conversation afterward—you already found yourself relaxing around her. There was something grounding about Katara. Familiar.
"You're a bombshell." Katara laughs softly as she unrolls her lavender mat across the freshly cut grass. "That's kind of your job."
"I know." You lay your own mat beside hers before settling cross-legged onto it. "I just wasn't expecting Toph to be so…forward."
Warm sunlight spills over the exercise lawn, wrapping around your shoulders as a salty breeze drifts in from the ocean beyond the villa. Somewhere nearby, the pool ripples with laughter while the distant crash of waves reminds you that, somehow, this was all real.
Katara lowers herself into pigeon pose with practiced ease. "But you like it."
Your lips curl despite yourself. "I like when someone makes their interest obvious."
Katara hums knowingly. "I figured."
You lean forward onto your forearms also in a pigeon pose, the pleasant stretch blooming through your hips after nearly two days of travel and excitement. "I haven't exactly had much time to take care of my body lately."
"I can tell." Katara teases. "You're stiffer than I remember."
You let out a dramatic groan. A laugh escapes Katara before she leans back into her own stretch.
"So…" she says. "Is there anyone else you're interested in?"
You pause, the question lingering for longer than you'd expected.
"I'm not opposed to talking to anyone." You answer honestly. "I came here to explore connections, not put all my eggs in one basket after a day."
"Good." Katara nods approvingly. "Nobody's closed off yet."
You glance at her sideways, a playful smile tugging at your lips. "Really?"
She raises an eyebrow at you.
"The way Kuse was looking at me this morning would've convinced me otherwise."
Katara winces.
"And don't think I didn't notice you practically glued to Aang before breakfast."
Color immediately rises to Katara's cheeks.
"No—we're not closed off." She rushes to explain. "We just…have a really good connection. I haven't really wanted to pull anyone else yet."
You grin wider. "Oh…" You sink deeper into the stretch, the tension melting deliciously from your muscles. "You've got it bad."
Katara lets out an embarrassed laugh before lightly smacking your shoulder. "Keep your voice down!"
You laugh right along with her.
"I'm serious! If Aang hears you—"
"He'll what?"
She opens her mouth, then closes it.
"…Exactly." Your laughter only grows louder.
Across the villa, Toph sits waist-deep in the pool beside Zuko, one arm resting lazily across the edge as sunlight dances over the water surrounding them. Small ripples lap against the black swim trunks she'd traded her usual light green pair for, the bandages wrapping her chest already beginning to dry beneath the morning sun.
"Waika said Jet pulled her for a chat earlier." Zuko remarks, leaning back against the pool steps. "Think she's interested?"
Toph doesn't answer, she's far too focused on how your laughter carries effortlessly across the courtyard.
"…Toph?"
"Hm?"
"I asked if you think Waika was interested."
Toph blinks. "Oh." She waves a dismissive hand. "I wouldn't worry about that. If she wants to get to know Jet better, she should."
Zuko studies her for a moment. "Yeah, I agree. I think we've all been closed off too early."
"…Yeah." Her answer comes absentmindedly.
The firebender tilts his head. "I was actually thinking about pulling Syzu for a chat. But, I'm worried Sokka will read too much into it."
Toph finally shifts her attention back toward him. "Snoozles'll be fine."
"You think?"
"He likes her." Toph admits. "But he's not gonna lose his mind over one conversation."
Zuko nods thoughtfully. "What about—"
Toph suddenly plants both hands against the pool floor and pushes herself to her feet. Water streams from her legs as she reaches for the towel resting nearby, quickly drying herself off.
"…Where're you going?"
"Gonna pull someone."
"Now?" The firebender places one hand in the water, making small waves splash against the concrete edges of the pool.
"Before somebody else does."
A small, amused smile finds Zuko's lips. "…Good luck."
Toph smirks. "Don't need it."
᯽
Still on your yoga mats, you and Katara continue to talk mindlessly.
"I missed this." You sigh happily as you switch legs, settling into pigeon pose on the opposite side. "Morning stretches are criminally underrated."
"You're telling me." Katara winces as she folds forward. "I used to be way more flexible."
"That's because we were teenagers." You comment, closing your eyes as the warm sun kisses your skin.
"Don't remind me."
"Hey."
Toph's voice cuts cleanly through the conversation.
You freeze. Slowly lifting your head, you find her standing just a few feet away.
An easy smirk rests comfortably across her lips, sunlight catching against some loose strands of dark hair that frame her face. Her pale, clouded eyes rest effortlessly in your direction with such unnerving precision that, for a fleeting second, it almost feels as though she's looking directly into yours.
"…Hi."
You quickly sit upright, only now realizing the rather compromising position you'd been stretching in.
Toph's smirk grows ever so slightly. "Sorry to interrupt." She slides her hands into the pockets of her swim trunks. "Mind if I steal you for a chat?"
Your answer comes almost immediately. "Of course." You begin reaching for your yoga mat, but Katara gently stops you.
"I've got it."
You glance toward her. "Are you sure?"
She smiles knowingly. "Go."
You can't help smiling back. "Thank you."
Toph waits patiently until you start to get up to offer you a hand. You mumble a quick thank you before you move to stand beside her, before she begins to walk.
Your hand rests in hers for a beat longer than necessary before you force yourself to pull away.
"So…" you ask as your now painfully free hands swing gently next to you. "Where are we going?"
"Soul Ties."
The secluded terrace sits above the rest of the villa, tucked away just enough that the conversations below dissolve into little more than distant laughter and the rhythmic crashing of waves. The oversized cushions have already absorbed the late morning warmth, pleasantly heated beneath you as the two of you settle opposite one another.
For a moment, neither of you speaks. The silence isn't awkward, it's much similar to last night's kitchen encounter, simply…comfortable.
However, Toph breaks it first.
"So." She leans back against one of the cushions. "How's your first morning been?"
You smile. "Better than I expected."
"Yeah?"
"I was honestly kind of nervous waking up today." You glance out toward the ocean stretching endlessly beyond the villa.
"I had no idea how the girls were going to feel about me coming in."
"And..." Toph trails off, the rasp in her voice catching at the last sylable of her sentence.
"They've been really sweet."
Toph hums. "We could hear you guys laughing from the kitchen."
You let out an amused breath. "Really?"
"Mhm."
"That was probably Katara and me catching up."
"You guys know each other?" Toph asks, mild surprise written across her sharp features.
You nod. "We used to compete against each other in some tournaments."
Toph's eyebrows lift. "So you're a waterbender."
"I am."
She smiles. Not only did you bend, but if you were strong enough to go head to head against Katara, who she had learned to be one of the best benders of the element, you had to be extremely talented.
"My parents signed me up for every waterbending competition they could find growing up."
"Did you like it?"
"I actually hated it at first." You absentmindedly trace patterns into the cushion beneath your fingertips. "Eventually I started looking forward to them. Not because I wanted to win…" Your smile grows. "…but because every competition introduced me to another way water could be used. Every bender approached it differently."
Toph can tell by your heartbeat and the way your sentences come out faster and faster that this topic meant a lot to you. She couldn't help but feel a small wave of fondness crash into her heart.
"I've spent years learning healing, combat, defensive forms…" You find yourself reminiscing. "Honestly, I think I've lost count."
A second passes before you speak again.
"I don't really compete anymore. These days I'd rather use my bending to help people."
"What do you do?"
"I work as a healer."
Toph's lips press together in slight shock. "Really?"
You nod. "At a pediatric hospital."
A low whistle slips past her lips. "So you're a professional."
"I guess."
"No." A grin spreads across her face. "You definitely are."
You laugh. "What about you?"
Toph leans back, folding one arm behind her head. "I'm the Chief of Police in Republic City."
Your eyebrows shoot up. "…You're kidding."
"Nope."
"I was expecting…" You pretend to think. "…Professional underground fighter."
Toph barks out a hearty laugh. "I've done that too."
Your jaw drops. "No way! How do you go from illegal underground fighting to Chief of Police?"
"You'd be surprised the places natural talent can land you." The earthbender pauses for half a second. "Actually, you'd probably understand."
"I guess so." You sink farther into the cushions, turning onto your side so you're facing her more fully. "I feel like I've been doing all the talking."
"You have."
You let out an exaggerated sigh. "And you just let me."
Toph stretches one arm above her head before letting it fall back against the cushion. "I wasn't exactly suffering."
You narrow your eyes at her. "You could've interrupted me."
"Yeah, I could've."
"But you didn't."
"No."
"...Why?"
She thinks about it for a second. "You seemed...excited."
Your expression softens. "That's actually kind of sweet."
"Don't tell anybody."
"Okay, I'll keep your secret." A surprisingly refreshing cool breeze drifts past you both, calming the beads of sweat that threatened to form against your skin. "But enough about me."
"Hm?"
"I wanna know about you."
Toph seems to be in her element at your proposal. "What do you wanna know?"
You look her over for a moment. Truthfully, there were a hundred things you wanted to ask, but you settled on the first one that came to mind.
"Did you always know you wanted to be Chief of Police?"
"No."
The answer comes so quickly you almost laugh. "...That was easy."
"'Cause it's true."
"So what did you wanna be?"
Toph shifts until one knee is bent, resting her forearm across it. "I never really thought about it."
"You didn't?"
She shakes her head. "I just...kind of did whatever sounded interesting."
"You make that sound very simple."
"It was."
"You didn't have a dream job?"
"No." Again the answer came almost like second nature.
"No?"
"I wanted to earthbend."
"...That's it?"
"Mhm."
You blink at her. "You've never been curious about what else was out there?"
"I was, I figured it'd still be there."
"I don't know." You trace absentminded circles into the fabric beneath your fingertips. "I've always had everything planned out."
Toph angles her body a little more toward you. "Yeah?"
"My parents were big on five-year plans."
She makes a face. "Eugh."
"I know." A soft, wistful breath slips past your lips. Toph's life seemed so freeing. No one telling her what to do, how to do it, or what she was supposed to become. She simply followed her own hedonistic wants, wherever they happened to lead.
"So..." She pauses. "Did it work?"
You think about it. "...Sometimes."
"And the rest?"
"I ended up here. But this was the first time I did something for myself."
The corner of Toph's mouth twitches. "I'd say things turned out alright."
A warmth overtakes your stomach and limbs. "I think so too."
The thought briefly crosses your mind that you'd been sitting with Toph for quite a while now, chatting away. You hadn't even noticed the time passing, despite every other moment in the villa feeling like little more than filler between challenges and whatever drama came with them. This felt…different. Comfortable.
"So how do you go from..." You gesture vaguely. "...Doing whatever sounds interesting..to running an entire police force?"
"I never had some big plan." She says simply. "I did what made sense at the time. Then one day I looked up and realized I was running the police."
You sit with her answer for a moment, turning it over in your head.
"I think that's what surprises me most about you."
Toph angles her face toward you. "What is?"
"You say things that sound like they'd take most people years to figure out..." You take a second to think through your words carefully. "...Like they're the most obvious thing in the world."
She gives a small shrug. "They usually are."
You shake your head, unconvinced. "I don't think they are."
A comfortable silence settles between the two of you, neither of you seeming in any rush to break it. Your gaze wanders absentmindedly, landing on Toph's bare feet where they rested against the wooden floor.
"...Actually."
"Hm?"
"There is something I've been wondering since yesterday."
Toph shifts slightly, stretching one leg out in front of her. "Shoot."
You glance back up at her. "How come you never wear shoes?"
Toph glances down toward her feet before looking back in your direction. "...Seismic sense."
You tilt your head. "I've heard people mention it before, but..." You hesitate. "I don't actually know how it works."
A quiet hum leaves the earthbender. "Most people don't."
She shifts forward, letting one bare foot rest flat against the wooden floor as if to demonstrate. "The ground's always moving."
Your eyebrows knit together. "It is?"
"Mhm." She presses the ball of her foot down gently. "You just don't notice it."
You find yourself watching the movement of her foot.
"Every step somebody takes sends vibrations through the ground. Same with talking too loudly, dropping something, even breathing if you're close enough."
Your eyes widen. "You can feel breathing?"
"If you're standing next to me or close enough."
"...That's incredible."
Toph shrugs as though you had commented on the weather. "It's just my normal."
"Wow," you murmur, unable to look away. For a moment, neither of you speaks.
You're trying to picture it.
Trying to imagine experiencing the world without ever opening your eyes.
"So you don't know if I'm smiling?"
"I know when your cheeks move."
"And eye contact?"
"I know when you're looking at me."
You glance away instinctively. "...That's convenient."
"For me."
You look back at her. "So you've known every time I've looked at you?"
Toph doesn't answer immediately. Instead, she maintains a steady smirk. "...Mhm."
You try to hold yourself back from squirming, now knowing her seismic sense would instantly pick it up. "That's a little embarrassing."
"Why?"
"Because..." You hesitate. "I didn't realize I was being so obvious."
"You weren't."
Your brows knit together. "I wasn't?"
"No." Toph leans back against the cushions, looking entirely too pleased with herself. "I just pay attention."
You can't help studying her for another moment. "I think that's cheating."
"You think everything's cheating."
"I have never—"
"You accused me of cheating because I can tell when you move."
"I accused you of having an unfair advantage."
"Same thing."
You shake your head, the entire conversation a bit too complicated to wrap your head around. "I still don't understand how you can tell where I'm looking."
Toph turns a little more toward you. "You wanna know?"
You nod.
She lifts a hand. "Come here."
Your heart skips. "...What?"
"I said come here."
You hesitate for only a second before scooting a little closer.
"Closer."
You do it again.
"Little more."
By now your shoulders are only inches apart.
You swallow.
"...Is this close enough?"
Without warning, Toph reaches toward you.
Much like the night before, the backs of her fingers ghost across your skin, the touch so impossibly light that it barely feels real. It lasts only a moment before she draws her hand back, yet goosebumps bloom across your arm almost instantly.
The corner of Toph's mouth curves upward. "There it is."
You blink, still staring at the spot she'd touched. "...What was that for?"
"You got goosebumps."
Your eyes snap back to her.
"...You did that on purpose?"
"Mhm."
"Why?"
"I wanted to see if I was right."
"...About what?"
"That you like it when I touch you."
Your mouth falls open.
"I—"
Toph waits.
You quickly abandon whatever excuse you were about to make. "...You're unbelievable."
"I've been called worse."
You shake your head, trying to ignore the warmth steadily creeping into your face. "You can't just go around proving your theories on people."
"I can if they don't stop me."
Your lips part.
Nothing comes out.
Toph tilts her head ever so slightly. "See?"
"What?"
"You still haven't moved."
Only then do you realize how close the two of you had become.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
most days like this, he would come flop into your arms, mumbling about his day and eventually falling asleep on your chest. it didn't matter what you was doing before, he would be simply too tired to care.
that's how he is most times.
the rare, other few times, he wanted nothing more than to come home and bury himself to the hilt inside of you.
today is one of those days.
he's got you in a mean arch, face smushed into the pillows and ass arched to accommodate each brutal thrust he has to offer. he's groaning behind you, hand anchored onto your hips to pull you back into each languid stroke.
"you feel so fucking good.." he muttered harshly, like he was almost angry over how warm you were, how you're absolutely soaking his plummeting cock.
he's been thinking about this all day, your pretty moans instead of annoying voices nagging him. pussy clenching his aching cock instead of his own teeth clenching from annoyance.
you're trembling beneath him, clawing at the sheets under your fingertips as his thrusts grew deeper, raising your hips himself to fuck you to the hilt. he wasn't easing up anytime soon either, cock pistioning into your sweet spot, twitching obscenely inside of you every time you clamped down onto him.
you squirmed in his hold, pleasure almost overwhelming as you tried to arch away from his rough thrusts. he pressed onto your back, effectively pinning you to the bed as he leaned over you, fucking into you deeper. “don’t run from it.” he groaned, his eyes glued to where his cock was disappearing into you.
a whine tore from your throat, eyes rolling back behind shut eyelids as his tip kissed places you didn’t know existed inside you. your walls fluttered, arousal soaking him and your thighs as squelches filled the room.
“needed this so bad—fuck.” he admitted through aroused breaths as he leaned down, groaning between each kiss he planted onto your damp neck, tasting the salt of your sweat on his tongue as he bit down onto your skin.
this angle was devastating, allowing you to feel every inch of his dick as he fucked all his frustrations out onto you. he licked over the bite, tongue soothing the sting as both hands went back to your hips, pulling you back into his thrusts.
the headboard tapped against the wall insistently, creaking under the force of his thrusts as his cock twitched violently inside your spasming walls. “that’s it..just take it.” he moaned, coming out a bit more desperate than he would like.
whenever megumi got like this, he doesn’t last as long as he usually does, being so caught up in frustration that he sometimes cums before you by accident.
the sight of you trembling underneath him, moans caught in the pillows, has him teetering on the edge of an orgasm. he threw his head back, letting out incoherent praises on how good you are, how much of a stress relief your pussy is as his fingers sought your neglected clit.
“i need you to cum baby, please. i need to feel you cum for me.” he begged, thrusts losing rhythm as his orgasm built up dangerously high. you whined loudly into the fabric, trembling as he rubbed harsh circles on your sensitive clit.
your orgasm hit like a bomb, body locking up with a drawn out whine as your walls clenched and spasmed around megumi’s pistioning cock, your cum soaked his pelvis and sheets below as you came.
the feeling of you finally cumming on his cock had him tipping over with you, muttering curses as his body shuttered, ropes of warm cum filled you to the brim with a broken moan.
he let go of your sore hips, lowering them down onto the bed gently compared to the rough, thorough fuck he just gave you. his eyes grew gentle, pulling out with a squelch before gently turning you over, pressing a soft kiss to your lips.
“sorry if i was too rough.” he apologized quietly, offering another soft kiss as he looked down at your fucked out expression. you shook your head, arms wrapping around him as he lowered himself on top of you. “i liked it.”
he let out a low groan, cock threatening to twitch back to life “don’t say that..” you’re in for a long night.
Toph crashes on top of you, it’s been a while since she’s been this exhausted, back to back days filled with training, missions, helping others and barely squeezing in her usual banter, leaving you neglected.
She feels so bad but the physically couldn’t get herself off to take care of you how she thought she should. Looking in your direction with a small pout on her lips, You stroke her hair and comfort her. “It’s okay my love, lay on the bed for me.” She tilts her head confused but complies and switches positions.
You straddle her slender waist, her hands sliding up stomachs as she closes her eyes to focus all her attention on your body. She sighs, feeling your thighs, squeezing tight like her body itself craved you instinctively.
“You missed me baby?” Kissing her temple then her cheek while she nods quickly, “so much, you have no idea.” She muttered, whining her hips as if your body weight was nothing.
Moving your knees on either side of her, your chest now in her face while you slid down your panties, afterwards pulling off Tophs pants. Her breath hitched as she leaned up, your left leg under hers and your right leg sprawled out above her hips, aligning your pussy with hers.
She feels the heat of you against her and she covers her mouth quickly. “I don’t think so pretty. I’ve waiting too long for this, I need to hear you.” She wasn’t used to your assertive side. She doesn’t like being told what to do, she never did, but when you boss her around she feels obligated to listen.
Leaning up with her palms flat on the bed, she pushes her ass forward, grinding your sweet pussy against hers. “O-oh fuck princess.” She managed to whimper before a string of moans and swears left her mouth. You move angles to hit her clit even better with yours and you start to join her in screaming. Looking up from her gorgeous body to her stunning face.
Tears prick her cloudy eyes with her face flushed, her breath hitching as she gets closer to her 3rd orgasm
“Please, p-please, n-no more..” she begs, her body shaking alongside the ground around you two once again, definitely expecting complaints from neighbors. “C’mon baby you can take it, world’s strongest earthbender can handle a little pressure on her clit can’t she? Good girl, keep going”
She groans at your mock praise and continues to fuck into you, grinding feverishly into your pussy as you add in another finger for a total of three.
Licking the tears off her face while she wraps her strong arms around your neck pulling you closer with your lips next to her face. Licking the shell of her ear as she finally arches her back even harder and lets her orgasm wash over her.
“You did so good pretty girl.” She’s now curled in your lap, resting her head lazily on your shoulder while she catches her breath.
What do you think of a Toph x Pregnant Reader story where both already have families with Lin and Suyin? But when Reader's baby is born, it turns out years later to be a lava bender, and Toph is incredibly excited, even if she doesn't show it.
Let's say the reader is a fire bender. Toph and the reader were always playfully arguing about which bender the baby would be: Fire or Earth. Imagine their surprise when they both get a mix of both!
Could you please capture Toph and the reader's reactions, as well as Lin and Suyin cheering them on completely?
By the way, I love your writing and I think you're one of the few people who write Toph for the character she is and don't make her completely unchangeable
A Path Of Ger Own
Pairing: Toph Beifong x Wife Reader
WC: 5k+
Synopsis: You have to break the news to your daughter's that you're pregnant and it doesn't go very well. Basically the request.
Content/Warnings: Fluff.
Sitting down and breaking the news to your very grown, very adult children that you were pregnant was not the easiest task. Lin was twenty-two, climbing the ranks at the police department in hopes of one day taking over for Toph. Su was seventeen, though she acted like she was the same age as Lin with the way she bossed you and Toph around the house.
You had just finished dinner, and now you were all sprawled across the living room. Some horror movie Suyin had insisted on was playing as she curled against her mama, who was already beginning to drift off to sleep beside her. Toph didn't see the point of grand reveals. After raising two kids, she'd simply told you to get it over with and just tell them.
But you were stressed, hormonal, and you had no idea how they were going to take the news.
You had talked yourself out of it several times that night. Even now, sitting on the opposite couch and watching your family piled together, it still didn't feel like the right time. But you were going to start showing soon, and they deserved to know.
Taking a quiet breath, you reached for the remote and paused the movie. Su was the first to react. Her head whipped toward you so fast it was almost comical, as though you'd just committed a crime she might never forgive.
“Mom!” She groaned dramatically, throwing her hands into the air. “It was just getting to the good part.”
Toph let out a sleepy grunt from the other end of the couch, one arm still draped around Su's shoulders. “Kid, if you wanted the good part, you picked the wrong movie. It sounds terrible.”
“How would you know?” Su countered, turning in her mother's hold. “You've literally been asleep for the last twenty minutes. I didn't even get to explain the plot to you yet.”
“I wasn't sleeping.” Toph lies easily. “I was resting my eyes.”
“You snored.” Su deadpans.
Toph titled her head, never one to accept defeat. “I was listening.”
Lin, seated in the armchair with a book balanced in her lap, lowered it just enough to glance between the three of you. “Can we settle the debate later? Mom paused it for a reason.”
The room quieted and three pairs of eyes settled on you. Your throat suddenly felt dry now that you were the center of attention. You opened your mouth once then closed it again.
Toph tilted her head in your direction, sensing the hesitation immediately. Even half asleep, she knew you better than anyone. “Baby?”
Your fingers tightened around the remote until your knuckles ached from clenching them so hard.
“There... um..” You swallowed. “There's actually something your mama and I wanted to tell you.”
Suyin straightened like she was bracing herself for something awful. Lin closed her book completely, setting it aside without taking her eyes off you. Neither of them spoke, and somehow the silence that settled over the room felt heavier than the horror movie ever had.
When you didn't answer fast enough, the guesses started.
“Are you sick?” Su asked, her voice wavering more with every passing second. “Because... you haven't really been eating, and the other day I heard you throwing up in the bathroom.”
Lin's head snapped toward her sister, her expression hardening. “Mom's been sick, and you didn't think to tell me?”
“I didn't know it was a big deal!” Su added defensively. “She told me she was fine, so I believed her.”
“You should've told me anyway.” Lin shot back angrily. “I have a right to know.”
“And make you panic over nothing?” Su argued, and she had a point out of the two of them Lin was more likely to freak out.
“It clearly wasn't nothing.” Lin pointed out with huff.
Their bickering washed over you, neither of them noticing the guilty look spreading across your face. They weren't angry with each other, you knew thaf more than anything. You could see both of their sides and that was the problem.
Toph sighed from beside Su, rubbing at her face before sitting up properly. “Hey.” Her voice wasn't loud, but it carried enough authority to stop both daughters mid-argument. “Knock it off.”
The room fell quiet again.
Lin's shoulders were rigid, every muscle in her body tense as she looked back at you. Su had gone pale, her foot bouncing anxiously against the floor.
“Mom,” Lin said more softly this time. “Are you okay?”
Your heart squeezed.
You hadn't expected this. You'd spent the entire day worrying they would think you were too old to have another baby, that they'd be embarrassed, annoyed, maybe even offended that their parents were starting all over again.
Instead, they'd skipped right past every possibility and landed on the one that terrified them most. Losing you to something awful.
You fiddled with your pant leg in an attempt to distract yourself from the anxiety rising in your belly. You coukd feel Toph's energy from the other side of the room, silently telling you to spit it out already before the girls really start to think somethings wrong.
“No,” You answered, your voice barely above a whisper. “I'm not sick.”
Neither of them relaxed after hearing your words. Su leaned forward on the couch. “Then what's going on?”
You let out a nervous laugh, though it came out shakier than you intended.
“I've been throwing up because…” You glanced at Toph, who simply shrugged as if to say See? Told you this would've been easier if you'd just said it. “I'm pregnant.”
The room got eerily silent as you waited for your daughter's honest reactions.
Lin was the first to speak, her brows slowly pulled together as if she'd heard the words perfectly but her brain had decided to reject them anyway. “What?”
“I'm pregnant,” You repeated, unable to stop the small, nervous smile tugging at your lips.
Your children stared at you as if you had suddent grown two heads and Toph folded her arms across her chest, looking far too pleased with herself.
“Took you long enough,” She muttered. “I've been waiting all day for you to spit it out and tell them already.”
Neither daughter acknowledged Toph's comment. They were too stunned to formulate words and you understood this was alot for then and gave them the necessary time they needed to work through it.
“You're serious?” Su whispered.
You nodded. “I went to the healer a few days ago. We wanted to be certain before telling you.”
“But-” Su opened her mouth and closed it again, pointing between you and Toph in disbelief. “You're-you're having a baby?”
Toph snorted from beside her. “Pretty sure that's what pregnant means, honey.”
Lin finally found her voice. “How?”
Toph turned toward the sound with the flattest expression imaginable. “When two women love each other very much-..”
“Oh, spirits, I know how babies are made,” Lin groaned, dragging a hand down her face. “That's not what I meant.”
A grin spread across Toph's face, she'd never tire of teasing her children. “Then ask a better question.”
For the first time since you'd paused the movie, a laugh escaped you. The tension eased, if only for a moment.
“What did you mean, sweetheart?” You asked gently.
Lin rubbed the back of her neck, suddenly looking far less composed than she had a minute ago.
“It's just,” Her eyes darted toward Su, silently pleading for help, but for perhaps the first time in her life, her younger sister had absolutely nothing to say. “You guys aren't exactly getting any younger.”
“Ouch.” You replied dramatically, placing a hand over your heart.
The joke landed, earning a snort from Toph and the ghost of a smile from Su, but beneath your playful tone you had to swallow the lump rising in your throat. You knew Lin hadn't meant to hurt your feelings. She never would. Still, hearing your daughter's first reaction boiled down to your age stung more than you cared to admit.
Lin noticed the shift almost as soon as it happened. “Mom,” She started quietly. “I didn't mean it like that.”
Your eyes stung with tears that you refused to let fall. “I know.”
“No, I don't think you do.” She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees as she searched for the right words. For someone who spent every day giving orders and handling impossible situations at work, this conversation had left her fumbling.
“It's not because I think you're too old to have another baby,” Lin said carefully. “It's because you're my mom.”
The room stayed silent, letting her continue.
“I grew up watching you take care of everyone else.” Her gaze flickered toward Toph before settling back on you. “You barely slept when Su was little. You worked yourself into the ground making sure we had everything we needed. You always put us first.”
She paused, drawing in a slow breath. “And now you've finally gotten to a point where things are easier.”
You listened without interrupting, your heart thundering in your chest as her words warshed over you.
“I'm twenty-two,” Lin continued. “Su's almost an adult. You don't have diapers anymore. No midnight feedings. No toddlers climbing all over the furniture. You and Mom were finally getting your lives back.”
Her voice softened.
“So when you said you were pregnant.” She shook her head with a quiet laugh. “My first thought wasn't 'that's weird.' It was..” She looked down at the floor for a second before meeting your eyes again. “Are they really starting over?”
Your eyes burned, Before you could answer, Su finally found her voice. “I kind of thought the same thing.”
Everyone looked toward her, She hugged one of the throw pillows against her chest, suddenly seeming much younger than seventeen.
“I wasn't thinking about your age.” She grimaced. “Well, maybe a little.”
“Thanks,” You deadpanned.
Suyin winced, “Sorry.”
A tiny smile tugged at your lips, encouraging her to continue.
“I just,” She sighed. “I guess I always imagined it'd just be us. Me, Lin, you, and Mama.” Her fingers tightened around the pillow. “Everything's gonna change now.”
There it was, not judgment or embarrassment. It was fear of the unknown, that the family she'd always known was about to become something unfamiliar.
You crossed the room before either of them could say another word. Kneeling in front of the couch, you reached out and took one of Su's hands before extending the other toward Lin.
“This baby isn't replacing either of you.” You tell them firmly, your voice conveying just how serious you were.
“You don't stop being our children because another one is coming.” Your thumb brushed over Su's knuckles. “There isn't a limit to how much your mama and I can love.”
Toph gave a quiet hum of agreement from the couch behind you. “If anything,” She added, “you're both getting promoted.”
Su blinked. “Promoted?’
“Yeah.” A grin spread across Toph's face. “Congratulations. You're a pair of big sisters.”
Lin let out a breath that sounded suspiciously close to a laugh. “I've been a big sister for seventeen years.”
“Now you're gonna be even bigger.” Toph says simply.
“Mama.” Lin started, shaking her head.
“What?” Toph shrugged innocently. “I thought it sounded inspirational.”
Su groaned, burying her face in the pillow. “That was so bad.”
“It was,” Lin agreed.
Toph looked thoroughly pleased with herself anyway. You shook your head, smiling despite the tears gathering in your eyes.
“They're both still in shock,” Toph said, tilting her head toward you. “Give 'em a minute. They haven't figured out they're happy yet.”
Neither Lin nor Su denied it and for now fhat was okay.
‧˚₊•┈┈┈┈୨୧┈┈┈┈•‧₊˚⊹
It was a quiet night at home. You sat at the kitchen table with what Toph had affectionately started calling your latest culinary crime—a steaming bowl of extra spicy ramen loaded with shredded chicken, a plate of green grapes on the side, and a cup of hot jasmine tea. Six months into the pregnancy, your cravings had only become stranger. Some days you wanted pickles dipped in honey. Other days it was smoked fish with sweet pastries. Tonight, for reasons neither of you could begin to understand, your stomach had decided scorching noodles, juicy grapes, and tea belonged together.
Toph sat across from you with her own much less offensive dinner, her nose wrinkling every time another wave of chili-laced steam drifted across the table.
“I don't know how you're eating that,” She muttered, leaning back in her chair. “My eyes are watering just sitting here.”
“It isn't that spicy.” You shrugged, holding the chopsticks up to her lips. “You want a taste?”
Toph scooted her chair further away from you creating more distance. “Hell no!”
You lifted another tangled bite of noodles with your chopsticks, blowing on them before taking a contented mouthful. “You're just dramatic.”
“Says the woman eating lava.” You only smiled around another bite, reaching for a grape afterward as though the combination made perfect sense.
Toph tilted her head in your direction, a grin slowly pulling at the corner of her mouth. “That's disgusting by the way.”
“Good thing it's not for you then.” You laughed, rubbing your hand absentmindedly over the curve of your stomach. The baby gave a small kick beneath your palm, earning another thoughtful tilt of Toph's head.
“I think this one's finally breaking the earthbender streak,” You said, smiling to yourself. “We're finally getting another firebender in this family.”
“Absolutely not.” Toph didn't even hesitate. She rested one elbow on the table, her bare foot lightly touching the floor beneath her chair. Though she couldn't see your belly, her seismic sense had become almost second nature throughout your pregnancy. Every tiny stretch, every roll, every energetic kick echoed through the vibrations she felt. “She feels like an earthbender.”
You raised an eyebrow. “Feels like an earthbender?”
Toph nodded, “Mhm.”
“And what exactly does an earthbender fetus feel like?” You asked honestly.
Toph pointed toward your stomach with complete confidence. “Stubborn.”
You laughed. “They're all stubborn.”
“Not like this one.” Toph folded her arms. “This kid plants herself in one spot for half the day, then decides she's gonna elbow every organ you've got because she doesn't feel like moving around them.”
“She's making room.” You defended playfully.
Toph didn't miss a beat. “She's declaring territory.”
You snorted, amusement shining in your eyes. “I think she's a firebender.”
Toph paused mid bite. “Oh?”
“Think about what she's done to me.” You gestured toward your dinner even though you knew she couldn't see you do it. “I've spent six months inhaling anything spicy enough to make normal people cry.”
“You've always liked spicy food.” Toph pointed out, not yet believing your argument.
“Not enough to put chili oil on noodles that already came with chili oil.” You tell her, swirling more noodles around your chopsticks.
Her shoulder dropped a fraction. “Fair point.”
You looked positively smug.
“And she runs hot.” You tugged lightly at the collar of your shirt. “Everyone else is cold while I'm opening windows in the middle of winter.”
Toph waved you off. “Pregnancy does that.”
“I also burned breakfast yesterday.” You responded, grasping at straws now as toph completely dissected each argument.
Toph laughed, the sound warm enough to fill the kitchen. “Now you're just saying stuff.”
You leaned back in your chair, rubbing your stomach again as another kick landed against your ribs.
“There,” You declared triumphantly. “Did you feel that? That was a firebender kick.”
Toph's expression didn't change. “Nope.”
“It was.” You insisted.
“Earthbender.”
You narrowed your eyes at her, you could do this all day. “Fire.”
She turned her head in your direction, her sightless eyas meeting you head on. “Earth.”
“She kicked because she agreed with me.”
Toph barked out a laugh. “She kicked because she heard you talking nonsense.”
“Oh, so now she understands conversations?” You huffed, a pout forming on your lips.
“I've been talking to her for months.” Toph's voice had dropped into something quieter, more intimate.
You still wouldn't let up even when the tone she was using made your heart skip a beat. “So have I.”
“Yeah,” Toph said with a grin. “And every time I tell her she's gonna be an earthbender, she settles down.”
You gasped. “That's because she's waiting for me to defend her.”
Toph pushed her chair back before walking around the table, stopping beside you. One hand rested gently over yours on your stomach, her smile softening despite the playful argument.
The baby shifted beneath both your palms, slowing down just enough for the ache in your lower back to ease.
“There,” Toph said, her voice nice and smug as her point was proven once again. “See? She's already calmed down just by my presence.”
You rolled your eyes. “I felt a little spark.”
“You imagined it.” Toph says, rubbing soothing circles across your belly.
Your eyes fluttered shut as you leaned back in your chair, enjoying the feel of her hand soothing both you and your child. “You refuse to admit I'm right.”
“Because you aren't and that's okay baby we all make mistakes.”
You leaned your forehead against her shoulder with a quiet laugh. “I can't wait until this baby's born.”
“Me neither.” Toph whispered, her voice full of affection.
“So I can prove you wrong.” You added, ruining the tender moment.
Toph smirked, brushing a kiss against the top of your head.
“Or,” She said, “You'll spend the next twenty years raising the most stubborn little earthbender this family's ever seen.”
“And if she's a firebender?” You asked, glancing up at her.
Toph's grin only widened. “Then I'll know she got her attitude from you.”
‧˚₊•┈┈┈┈୨୧┈┈┈┈•‧₊˚⊹
You were stretched out on one of the lounge chairs beneath the warm afternoon sun, content to let the breeze drift lazily through the gardens of Zaofu. It had been far too long since the entire family had gathered in one place without politics, police work, or world-ending disasters pulling everyone in different directions.
Suyin had insisted everyone visit for the week, and somehow she had even convinced Lin to step away from her responsibilities with the precinct and watching over the new Avatar.
The peace, however, didn't extend to the training courtyard.
Your youngest daughter, Rin, fourteen years old and stubborn enough to rival both of her mothers, was training alongside her older sisters while Toph paced the edge of the arena. Retirement had never suited her. She still carried herself with the same confidence that had once commanded an entire police force.
Time had left its mark in subtle, beautiful ways. Fine lines framed her mouth whenever she smiled, delicate crow's feet gathered at the corners of her pale green eyes, and her dark hair was now streaked generously with silver that hung in a long braid that rested against the middle of her back. Age hadn't diminished her in the slightest. If anything, it had made her more striking. There was a quiet strength to her now, earned through decades of protecting her family and helping shape an entire city.
“Again,” Toph called, planting her feet firmly into the ground. “Quit thinking so hard.”
“I am trying!” Rin growled, her legs faltering in the stance Toph had her in.
“I know you're trying. So stop and just do as I say.” Toph barked, her arms folded behind her back as she scrutinized her daughter's posture through the soles of her feet.
Rin groaned loud enough for everyone to hear. “That doesn't even make sense!”
“It does if you stop overthinking every little movement.” Toph snapped back just as fiercely. Out of all of her children, Toph and Rin collided the most. She had your fiery spirit down to a tea.
A loud clang echoed across the courtyard as another sheet of metal refused to respond.
From beside you came an exaggerated sigh. Suyin flopped into the empty lounge chair, wiping sweat from the back of her neck before reaching for the pitcher of iced tea sitting between you.
“Rin looks about five seconds away from crying because she still can't metalbend,” Su admitted quietly, all traces of her usual teasing gone. “I hate seeing her like this.”
You looked toward the training grounds. Rin stood rigidly in place, shoulders tight, jaw clenched so firmly you could see the muscles twitching from where you sat. Every failed attempt seemed to chip away at her confidence a little more.
“She's a late bloomer,” You said gently, though the reassurance felt painfully familiar.
The words carried a weight of guilt you couldn't hide. You knew exactly what it was like growing up surrounded by impossible expectations. Lin had become one of the greatest metalbenders in history. Su had mastered styles most people spent decades learning. Every lesson Rin attended came with comparisons she never asked for.
She wasn't trying to become better than her sisters. She was simply desperate not to fall behind them.
“I remember feeling like that,” Su confessed, watching Rin from across the courtyard. “Not with metalbending... but with Mom.”
You glanced toward her, your eyes softening.
“I spent years thinking I'd never be enough for her.” She added, the impossible standards that came with being a beifong will always be a burden your children will carry despite raising them not to care what others think.
You reached out for her hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “You were.”
“I know that now.” Su smiled faintly, a distant look in her eyes. “Rin doesn't.”
Another metallic groan rang through the courtyard. Toph crouched beside Rin, saying something too quiet for either of you to hear.
Rin nodded and you watched as she took a breath. Your daughter planted her feet into the earth perfectly only for the metal panel not to move at all, not even a twitch.
Just when Toph was about to comment something that would definitely make things worse the teenager finally snapped.
“I'M TRYING!” Rin shouted, tears stinging her eyes as she slammed both fists toward the earth.
The courtyard trembled under her rage, At first it looked like an ordinary earthbending strike. Then the stone beneath Rin's feet cracked apart and orange light burst through the fractures.
“Mom?" Su whispered.
The cracks widened and split open like spider webs. Heat rolled across the courtyard in suffocating waves as glowing molten rock forced its way through the training floor, turning solid stone into rivers of brilliant orange.
For one impossible moment nobody moved. Lin stared wide eyed and Su's jaw dropped. Even you found yourself frozen in complete disbelief before your maternal instinct kicked in and you were on your feet and across the yard before you could blink.
“She's a Lava bender.” Lin breathed, fascinated.
The realization struck everyone at once. Rin hadn't failed to metalbend, She had just discovered an entirely different talent.
Unfortunately for all of you, She had no idea how to stop it and it terrified her.
“Mama!” Rin cried, stumbling backward as another stream of molten stone spread across the arena. “I-I can't control it!”
Panic flooded her face and your heart hammered in your chest. You couldn't reach them, not with the lava pooling. You were a fire bender yourself, but it seemed the more terrified she became the more it spread amd you couldn't cool it all.
Every frightened breath only made the lava surge farther, swallowing chunks of the training grounds. “I can't stop!”
“Rin.” Toph's voice cut cleanly through the chaos. The single word carried decades of authority. “You're okay, just focus on me.”
Rin's frantic breathing faltered, she listened to her mama, tears streaming down her cheeks freely now. “I'm scared..”
“I know.” Toph sighed, her voice low, still keeping the same calm.
Rin's eyes left her mother as the heat intensified around them. “It's spreading!”
“Lava does that.” She said plainly.
"I don't know what I'm doing!"
Toph stepped closer without a trace of hesitation, stopping only a few feet from the glowing river separating them.
“You don't,” She agreed calmly, another pulse of lava rippled outward. “But you know what?”
Rin shook her head desperately.
“Neither did I.” Toph rested one bare foot against the stone as she continued to calm Rin down.
“When I invented metalbending, you think I knew what I was doing?” Toph asked, a crooked smile tugging at her lips. “I made it up as I went.”
Rin let out a shaky laugh despite herself.
“You don't need to be your sisters.” Toph tells her gently, “Just be you Rin, that is all I have ever wanted.”
Lin stepped forward. “She's right.”
Su joined her, cupping her hands around her mouth. “You hear us, Rin? You're doing something none of us can!”
“You've already done the impossible,” Lin called out to her sister. “Now breathe.”
“You've got this!” Su added. “We're not going anywhere!”
Rin swallowed hard, the fear was still there, but so was her family.
Toph nodded once, feeling the tension leave her daughter's shoulders. “Feel the stone beneath the heat.”
Rin closed her eyes, her heart was hammering in her chest and she listened to the earth and focused on the things around her she could control, which was her breathing.
“The lava isn't your enemy,” Toph said steadily. “It's still earth. Slower. Heavier. Listen to it.”
Rin sucked in another breath, zeroing in to the sound of her mother's voice.
“The same way I taught you to feel every stone under your feet.”
The molten rock quivered ans the ground groaned beneath her feet as she followed her mother's careful instructions.
“Good.” Toph hummed, “Now guide it.”
The glowing current hesitated at first under her unsteady hands. Then, inch by inch, the lava began to retreat. The brilliant orange dulled as it cooled, hardening back into black volcanic stone that spread across the ruined courtyard in jagged patterns.
Nobody spoke until the final ribbon of molten earth solidified. Rin opened her twaeful eyes, her shoulders shaking as terror still flowed through her. “I did it?”
Toph's grin was impossible to hide. “No.” She walked across the newly formed stone and pulled her youngest daughter into a fierce hug. “You did something even better.”
Rin buried her face against her mother's shoulder, sobbing into her chest as her body shook with each wretched cry.
“You found your own path and I'm so proud of you.” Toph tells her affectionately.
Behind them, Su whooped loud enough for the entire city to hear while Lin, usually so composed, actually laughed before wrapping both of them in a crushing embrace.
You remained where you were for only a moment longer, your own eyes misting over as you watched your family gathered together in the center of the courtyard.
Rin had spent years believing she was falling behind her sisters. None of you had realized she had simply been walking toward a destiny that belonged to her alone.
‧˚₊•┈┈┈┈୨୧┈┈┈┈•‧₊˚⊹
Later that night, after the laughter from dinner had faded and the rest of the family had retired to their own rooms, you and Toph finally escaped to the quiet of your bedroom.
Moonlight spilled through the open balcony doors, painting silver streaks across the polished floor while the distant sounds of Zaofu settled into a peaceful hush. The air carried the scent of fresh rain and flowering vines from the gardens below.
Toph stepped out of the adjoining bathroom, a towel draped loosely around her shoulders. Damp strands of silver-streaked hair clung to the back of her neck as droplets traced lazy paths down her shoulders before disappearing beneath the collar of her sleep shirt.
Decades had softened some of the sharper edges of her face, leaving gentle lines thst were reminders of every laugh she'd shared, and battle she had survived against all odds. She was older now, but no less formidable and it was moments like this where you really got to appreciate her.
She paused in the doorway, feeling your gaze piercing through her from where she stood. “I can feel you giving me that look.”
You glanced up from your spot on the edge of the bed, trying and failing to suppress the grin spreading across your face. “What look?”
“The one that says you're about to become insufferable,” Toph said.
“I have no idea what you're talking about.”
“You do.” She crossed the room, stopping directly in front of you. “I can practically hear the smugness radiating off you.”
You tapped your chin, “I was just thinking.”
“Dangerous pastime.”
You laughed, leaning forward. “I was thinking,” You began, dropping your voice to a sweet, mocking tone, “that I was technically right.”
Toph folded her arms, her head tilting slightly. “About what exactly?”
You tipped your chin up, amusement warming your voice. “Rin's a firebender.”
Toph let out an exaggerated scoff, rolling her eyes. “No.”
You blinked innocently. “Pretty sure lava glows and burns things, last I checked.” You spread your hands wide, leaning into her space. “So..”
Toph reached out with practiced accuracy, flicking your forehead hard enough to snap your head back. “So, she's not a firebender.”
“Violence isn't an argument,” You grumbled, rubbing the sore spot while shooting your wife a glare she couldn't see.
“It is when you're wrong,” She shot back instantly, a smirk tugging at the corner of her lips.
You snorted, shifting your weight on the mattress. “You've spent fourteen years insisting she'd end up just like you.”
“And she did.”
“Did she?” At your quiet question, Toph's posture shifted. The playful defiance softened, and her shoulders dropped. The fierce confidence that usually defined her gave way to a quiet, vulnerable stillness.
“She's an earthbender,” Toph said softly, her voice carrying a warmth reserved only for her family. “She just found a road neither of us expected.”
She stepped closer and sank onto the edge of the bed beside you, the mattress dipping under her weight. Her shoulder brushed yours, a steady, grounding presence.
“Lava isn't fire, and it isn't ordinary earth, either.” She stated, as if convincing herself as much as you.
“I know,” You replied gently, dropping the teasing act entirely.
Toph shifted further up the bed and leaned back against the metal headboard, staring blankly ahead with those unseeing pale eyes, though you knew she was processing every vibration in the room. “She's in a category of her own.”
The pride in her voice was impossible to miss. It was a tone she rarely used, reserved only for monumental moments and this certainly counted as one.
You shifted closer, resting your head lightly against her shoulder. “I've never heard you sound so impressed. And you've trained hundreds of earthbenders, baby.”
“Mhm,” She murmured, her hand finding yours on the blanket and squeezing it briefly.
“But today..”
“Today,” Toph finished for you, her voice dropping to a low, reverent whisper, “I experienced my daughter discovering something that can't be taught.”
Silence settled comfortably between you, the ambient sounds of Zaofu humming faintly outside the window.
“I thought she was going to panic herself into passing out.” You admitted with a quiet laugh, you could still feel some of the residual adrenaline in your chest as your daughters terrified face flashed in your mind.
“The only thing going through my mind was that if she didn't stop she was going to melt half the city,” Toph commented dryly, her grip on your hand tightening.
You lifted your head from her shoulder, looking at her profile in surprise. “You looked awfully calm out there.”
“I wasn't.” Toph shook her head, her jaw tightening as she stared blankly at the wall. “I was terrified.”
The confession was so unexpected that it left you momentarily speechless. Toph rarely admitted to being scared of anything.
“I couldn't let her hear that,” She continued, her voice dropping to a rare, gritty vulnerability. “If I'd panicked, she would've panicked harder.”
“Well, you fooled me,” You sighed. “You knew exactly what to say to ground her.”
“But I didn't through.” She muttered, a self-deprecating smirk flashing across her face before vanishing. “I guessed and surprisingly it worked.”
You smiled, leaning your temple against hers. “It was a very good guess, Toph.”
She squeezed your hand again, a soft sigh escaping her lips as she wrapped her arms securely around you. “I've learned a few things after raising three daughters. They don't need me to have every answer. They just need to believe I do.”
A soft knock interrupted the quiet of the room. Three hesitant, uneven taps vibrated through the wood.
Rin looked almost guilty for disturbing you, one hand was gripping the edge of the door while the other nervously twisted the sleeve of her nightshirt.
“Am I bothering you?” The uncertainty in her voice caught both of you off guard. Your youngest was many things- stubborn, determined, loud when she wanted to be, but hesitant was rarely one of them.
“Never.” You said warmly, softening your expression to let her know she was always welcome.
Toph patted the empty space on the mattress beside her. “Get in here, kid.”
Rin slipped into the room, letting the door click shut before padding softly across the floor. She climbed onto the bed with far less of her usual confident swagger, moving hesitantly before settling right between the two of you without a word. For a long moment, she simply stared down at her palms, turning them over as if expecting to see the glowing lava materialize out of thin air.
“I-.” She swallowed hard, her voice trembling. “I keep thinking about today.”
Toph stayed quiet, dropping her hand to the mattress to feel the subtle vibrations of Rin’s uneven breathing, giving her the space she needed to speak.
“What if I lose control again?” Rin asked softly, her shoulders hunching inward. “What if next time I hurt someone?”
You wrapped a reassuring arm around her shoulders, drawing her small frame close against your side. “You didn't hurt anyone today, sweetie.”
“But I could have,” Her bottom lip wobbled, the raw fear finally breaking through. You both knew she couldn't hurt a fly. But Rin was only fourteen and you understood how scary this must be for her especially given how she discovered it on accident.
Toph shifted, reaching over to rest a heavy, steady hand on her daughter's knee. “That's exactly why we train. Lavabending's no different from anything else. It's new, and it's scary. And until this morning, you didn't even know you could do it.”
Rin looked up, searching Toph's blind, pale eyes for any sign of deceit. “So... you don't think I'm dangerous?”
Toph gave a quiet, affectionate huff, a proud smirk breaking across her face. “Kid,” She said, reaching over to rough up Rin's hair until it stood on end. “I think you're a Beifong.”
For the first time since she'd poked her head through the door, a genuine laugh broke through Rin's anxiety. The nervous tension finally melted from her shoulders as she leaned heavily into both of you, letting herself just be a kid instead of carrying the weight of being extraordinary.
AN: Yall be having auch great ideas . Tysm anon for sending this in.
hiiii just wanna say your ateez works have been my comfort reads for a while and I wanted to request a fluffy omegaverse for ot8, something like omega reader nesting in weird areas of their dorm because certain spots smell like the boys: like the kitchen is drenched in wooyoungs smell for example
hello nonie!!! that's such a nice thing to hear, i'm glad you enjoy the stories I write :)
thank u for the request. I love this idea and I hope you liked what I wrote!
wc: 1.7k
genre: poly ateez, ateez x fem!reader, omegaverse, alpha!ateez, omega!reader, a/b/o dynamics, a lot of scent talk, nesting, mentions of upcoming heat, sappy affection, pet names, ateez are suitably dramatic
masterlist // requests: open
--------------------------------------------
The first time, Hongjoong nearly kicked you. It's early morning and he hadn't got to his bed yet, music and beats still running through his head. he'd transferred from the studio at KQ to the one he had at home, and was prepared to settle in for what would end up being 48 hours without sleep.
his mission to get a coffee - the only thing sustaining him right now - was cut short by the way his house slippers caught on your blanket.
Hongjoong squinted down at it, the soft strands of the fluff tickling the sides of his bare feet. he recognised it instantly. of course he did. it was one of your favourites, the throw always curled around your body when you got too cold. it took a second in his chaotic and half asleep haze to identify the lump wasn't just a blanket but you as well.
strands of your hair stuck out the top of the blanket cocoon you had made, head resting back against the bottom of the kitchen counter. despite the strangeness of the situation, Hongjoong couldn't help the immediate noting of how pretty his omega was when she slept. Soft, relaxed, bottom lip pushed out into a pout that he wanted to kiss away.
he found himself smiling fondly as he crouched down, hands moving to brush loose strands of hair from your cheeks. He whispered your name and tapped your cheek.
you sniffed, shifted and angled your head into his hand, seeking the touch of your alpha even in your slumber. Hongjoong's heart did a leap - if it were possible to fall in love with you all over again, he might have just done it.
he tried again, voice a little louder, touch a little firmer, until your eyelids began to flutter.
"...joongie?" you asked, voice heavy with sleep and confusion.
"hello baby girl," he murmured.
you looked at him through heavy eyes and tried to blink away the tiredness. "I didn't think you'd be back tonight..."
fuck, you sounded so surprised when you said it. not accusing, not upset, just pleased. his alpha whined a little, unhappy that he'd left his omega alone for so long. "thought the change of scenery would help," he admitted and ran his scent mark over your cheek, "what are you doing on the floor baby?"
you untangled your arms to hold his hand there, fingers warm and claiming as you dipped your head to nuzzle at his pulse point. you yawned. "smells like woo here," you admitted, shy but honest.
Hongjoong immediately wanted to lower himself and beg for forgiveness. it was comeback season and it was busy. songs that were supposed to be finished had been sent back with a list of changes. more and more photoshoots and filming schedules were put into their calendars. they'd signed on to do a showcase and that meant extra practice. the days seem to stretch on and on with no end in sight.
they'd apologised, warned you in advance. You'd smiled and promised you understood - "just look after yourself, okay?"
and then in the middle of all that, was you seeking the scent of your pack because you missed them so terribly. god, what a shitty fucking alpha he was.
"woo's bed smells like him too," Hongjoong reminded, "and softer."
you shook your head. "its not the same without him there," you confessed, "none of your rooms are."
his alpha whimpered. Hongjoong might have let it slip out.
"come to bed with me," he said as he urged you to your feet. you followed obediently, let him gather you close and tug your blanket around your shoulders.
"don't you have work?" you asked.
he did but there was no way it was going to get done tonight. not with your words in his head, your scent fresh around him and that hopeful light in your eye. "I was just getting water before I sleep," he lied, "so come with me."
you didn't argue with him, let him lead you across the house - half empty with their pack mates on other sides of the country for work - and into his room. the covers were still messy from the last time he'd slept there and you slid into them as if they were your own.
they were, he supposed, just like he was.
You slept with your face pressed against his scent gland, against the mating mark you'd put there. Hongjoong held you tight, anything to make up for lost time.
-
hongjoong: everyone better get their asses home as quick as possible
hongjoong: our girl needs us
-
jongho had never wanted to get home faster in his life. the message from hongjoong sat in the group chat - the one specifically reserved for work, not pack related things - and any follow up message went unanswered. the flight from jeju to Seoul was only an hour and yet it felt like a lifetime, his alpha pacing and tugging at his control.
he barely held back asking his manager to break the speed limit.
you had been theirs for nearly three years and yet he still felt like it was all so fresh when he thought of you. it was like he was still fumbling, trying to find his place with you and desperately afraid of fucking it up.
jongho looked at the group chat again. estimated arrival times and demands for answers still sat without response. he'd be the first one to arrive, the others on later flights because of their schedules.
of course, his mind jumped to the worst - to hurt and pain and death - and he felt sick. but that couldn't be, right? they were all busy but something like that - Hongjoong would have called. his manager wouldn't be humming songs playing on the radio under his breath. the world wouldn't continue turning.
so he tried to breathe through the initial panic, told himself that he was going to curse the pack alpha out for making him nauseous with worry, and assure himself that you were all in one piece.
he barely said goodbye to his manager, stumbling out of the car with his overnight bag slung over his shoulder, and took the steps up two at a time.
and there you were, on the corner of the sofa. your legs were tucked underneath you, a familiar blanket over your feet and clothes that were definitely Mingi's judging by the size on your body. your messy from sleep and your eyebrows were narrowed in concentration as you read something on your phone.
jongho's chest hurt as it always did at the sight of you.
your face lit up as soon as you saw him. "jjong!"
he dropped to his knees in front of you. his hands slid around, desperately seeking for signs of pain or injury, while his eyes jumped over your face. perfect, unblemished and mildly amused by his wandering limbs. he sniffed but couldn't detect any pain - only your sweet honey mixed with the tinges of delight that he was back in front of you.
your own fingers slid up the plains of his chest, hooking in the chain that hung from his neck. "I thought you weren't going to be back until tonight?"
"hongjoong-hyung said you needed us," jongho said softly, "so I came."
he watched the happy surprise dance across your face before it melted into embarrassment. "I didn't," you murmured, shook your head and ducked it low to hide the flush rising on your cheeks. "it could have waited."
jongho let his fingers smooth the creased the fabric at your waist. "nothing waits with you," he said, patient, honest, "what do you need?"
you ducked your head, the top bumping against the centre of his chest. his alpha rumbled at the contact and he dropped his head to press a kiss to the back of your head instinctively.
"I missed you," you whispered, "nothing smells like you anymore and I'm nesting so I was looking your scent and - did you know that the gym still smells like you and sannie?"
understanding hit him then. the tension he still held in his shoulders let him on the next exhale.
"where's hongjoong?" jongho asked patiently.
you smiled shyly. "getting supplies before pre-heat hits properly," you said.
jongho hummed in understanding. "do you need help making your nest?" he asked, "somewhere not on the gym floor."
the tips of your ears went pink. "help me?"
he kissed the curve of your lips. "yeah gorgeous, whatever you need."
your eyes dancing over his shoulders and jongho didn't even need you to ask. he was already shrugging his coat off his shoulders and tugging the jumper off his body. the way you hugged it close, eyes dilating and the way the tension left your shoulders was answer enough.
"Wait," you hesitated, "you said us? Does that mean the others too?"
you looked so adorably excited.
"will be with you in an hour," he promised.
you scrambled onto your feet. "okay, nest. I gotta get it ready. Ready for you."
it was all omega talk, a blabber about a safe place for your alphas to enter. the usual signs that you were about to start your heat. You never spoke that like that normally, never referred to any of them as your alphas in. normal conversation. still, it made jongho's alpha whine in delight and he watched, fond, utterly in love.
their managers would have a field day about the change of schedules, he was sure, and professionally, jongho knew it would cause more trouble later on. right now though, he didn't care. not with his omega reaching for him, his scent mixing with yours and your fingers interlocked with his.
he pressed a kiss to the back of your hand and nudged his nose along the insight of your wrist. "tell me what you need me to do baby," he murmured, "I got you."
-
jongho: no one is hurt or dying, beautiful is nesting
san: he couldn't have said that???
wooyoung: he made sangie cry
yeosang: you cried too!
seonghwa: why didn't he answer?
jongho: Hongjoong let his phone battery die
mingi: it is acceptable to cuss out our pack alpha?
yunho: he's gonna pay for my medical bills from this HEART ATTACK HE GAVE ME
hongjoong: I was half asleep!
hongjoong: it wasn't supposed to be so dramatic
yeosang: have you forgotten who your pack mates are?
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
thinking about ... san who uses you as a pillow .ᐟ
you barely make it halfway onto the bed before SAN collapses on top of you like a wwe wrestler. “san—” you gasp, trying to fight for air as his weight sinks into you, arms already wrapping snugly around your waist.
“i missed you.” his voice is muffled against your chest, his broad shoulders nearly swallowing your frame whole as he burrows deeper like a sleepy little kitten. “couldn’t sleep right last night, because my shoulders hurt again.”
you sigh upon hearing this, threading your fingers through his dark hair, it’s not the first time he is telling you this, but you are the only person that makes it comfortable enough to endure the pain. “i told you to try sleeping on your back, or stomach.”
“i can’t,” he groans, nuzzling against your collarbone. “my shoulders are too wide, and i just keep rolling over… i almost fell from the bed.”
he’s ridiculous, like literally utterly ridiculous, but at the same you can’t really blame him for not getting a decent sleep. “so what, i’m your pillow now?”
“the best pillow,” he murmurs, pulling you closer somehow. “so soft and warm, smells like strawberry chocolate cake, and you scratch my scalp just right—ah, there, like that…” he practically purrs under your touch, muscles relaxing beneath your fingertips as you gently massage his head. his biceps flex slightly as he shifts, dragging your leg over his hip like a possessive little monster. clingy, much?
you raise a brow, not because you are not used to this, simply because it comes out of nowhere, and very abruptly. “sannie, you’re being needy today.”
“i’m always needy,” he says without shame, cuddling into your warmth, smiling against your exposed skin. “especially with you.”
rolling your eyes, pretending to be annoyed, however, your hand doesn’t stop moving through his hair, and your fingers trail down his bare arm, tracing the lines of his muscle with just enough pressure to make him twitch.
“also, i’d like to file a complaint.”
“hmm?”
“you’re making it really hard to focus on your face when your arms are out here lookin’ illegal.”
he lifts his head, a grin that reaches his eyes, even making his dimples come out of hiding. “oh? baby, do you mean these?” he flexes, just slightly, watching your eyes follow the movement.
you swat him, not hard enough, but just enough to make him stop teasing you. “san, stop that! you’re too pretty and you know it.” he laughs, before ducking back down to kiss the side of your neck: gentle, lingering, stupidly in love. “i love you, you know?”
you pause, fingers threading through his hair again. “yeah, i know, and i love you too.”
but it still hits you like it’s the first time every time. when san says those three words, you forget about everything, when you look at him, he is the only one you think about. he may be a lovesick idiot, but you are crazy in love. “and i love your stupidly wide shoulders,” you murmur into his hair. “even if they’re the reason i wake up squished half the time.”
at that moment, you felt him relax, and yes, he was asleep. san always falls asleep quickly when you are here next to him, can’t blame him, you do smell like strawberry chocolate fresh cream cake, oddly specific but that’s just san for you.
(•˕ •マ.ᐟ || He thought the concert was the summit of his existence, the moment nothing would ever surpass. But while he was bowing to applause, his wife was bleeding out in a hospital room forty-five minutes away, choosing their daughter's life over her own, and waiting for a husband who never came.
It vibrated through the stadium speakers, through the floorboards of the stage, through San's own chest as he held the mic to his lips with both hands, his eyes squeezed shut, his entire body bent forward like a man in prayer. The high note, that high note, the one he'd spent months terrified of, the one that had haunted his rehearsals and stolen his sleep, poured out of him with a purity that felt almost holy. It rose and rose and rose, impossibly high, impossibly steady, until it wasn't just sound anymore. It was light. It was heat. It was the sum total of every sacrifice he had ever made, distilled into a single, transcendent vibration.
Then the band cut out.
The silence that followed lasted exactly one heartbeat. One perfect, suspended heartbeat where San opened his eyes and saw sixty thousand faces staring back at him in stunned, reverent silence.
And then the world exploded.
The roar hit him like a physical force. It was deafening, a wall of sound so immense and so consuming that he actually stumbled back a step, laughing in shock. Confetti cannons fired from the edges of the stage, spraying gold and silver into the air until it looked like the sky itself was shattering. The lights went wild, sweeping across the stadium in great arcs of blue and white, illuminating a sea of light sticks that pulsed in perfect synchronization.
San stood at the edge of the stage, chest heaving, arms spread wide as if he could embrace every single soul in that stadium. Sweat dripped from his hair into his eyes, but he didn't wipe it away. His body ached. His throat burned. His legs were trembling from three hours of relentless performance. And he had never, never in his entire life felt this alive.
This is it, he thought, the grin spreading across his face so wide his cheeks hurt, so wide he probably looked unhinged, so wide he didn't care. This is the peak. Right here. Right now. Nothing has ever felt this good. Nothing ever will.
He laughed out loud. The sound was swallowed by the crowd's roar, lost in the avalanche of noise, but he felt it in his chest, a giddy, euphoric, almost hysterical burst of pure joy. All those years of training. All those early mornings in the practice room, dancing until his feet bled. All those nights he'd laid awake in a cramped dorm room, staring at the ceiling, wondering if he was good enough, if he'd ever make it, if it was all worth it. All those moments of doubt, of fear, of wanting to give up and go home and disappear into a normal life where no one knew his name.
This moment was the answer to every single one of those questions.
The music swelled again, the closing instrumental, the final build that would carry him to the end of the show. San jogged across the stage, his movements lighter than air despite his exhaustion. He was running on adrenaline now, pure and clean and intoxicating. He pointed to different sections of the crowd, making eye contact with fans who screamed and waved and cried. He blew kisses. He pressed his hand to his heart. He mouthed the words thank you, thank you, thank you until his lips felt numb.
At the center of the extended stage, he stopped. He stood there for a long moment, just breathing, just looking, just trying to memorize every detail. The way the light sticks looked like a galaxy of stars. The way the confetti drifted down like snow in slow motion. The way the screams rose and fell like waves on an ocean. He wanted to freeze this moment, to press it between the pages of his memory like a flower, to keep it forever untouched and perfect.
Well, he amended, a softer thought surfacing through the euphoria, maybe not nothing will ever feel this good. That's not fair. That's not right.
He touched his wedding ring.
It was a subconscious habit, something he did without thinking, his thumb twisting the simple platinum band around his ring finger, feeling the cool metal against his flushed skin. He'd worn it for two years now, and it still felt new sometimes. Still surprised him with its weight, its presence, its quiet reminder that he was more than just an idol on a stage. He was a husband. Soon, he would be a father.
Seeing her walk down the aisle, he thought, the grin on his face softening into something smaller, something private. That was different. Quieter. But just as perfect in its own way. And the baby. Holding our daughter for the first time. That'll be... that'll be its own kind of miracle. A different mountain. A different summit. But I'll get there too. I'll climb that one next.
He believed it. He genuinely, naively, with all the confidence of a man who had never known true loss, believed that life had a hierarchy of joy. That the beautiful moments were stacked like stepping stones, each one leading to the next, each one waiting patiently for him to arrive. He didn't know yet that the summit he was standing on was made of glass. He didn't know that in exactly seventeen minutes, his phone would buzz with the weight of four hundred missed calls. He didn't know that while he was laughing and waving and basking in the glow of his greatest triumph, his wife was lying on an operating table forty-five minutes away, bleeding out, alone, making a choice that should have been his to make.
He didn't know any of it.
And so he was happy. Genuinely, completely, blissfully happy. The last happy moment of his life.
The ending ment was his favorite part of any concert.
The lights dimmed slightly, signaling the transition. The backing track faded to a soft, ambient hum. The members, his brothers, his family for the past decade, stepped back, giving him space. They knew this was his moment. They'd watched him pour his soul into this show, and now they stood in a loose semicircle behind him, proud and protective, letting him have the spotlight one last time.
San lifted the mic to his lips. The crowd quieted, but only slightly. He could still hear individual screams cutting through the murmur, fans calling his name from different sections of the stadium.
He didn't mind. He loved their voices. He loved their energy. He loved that they were still so full of emotion after three hours of singing and crying and losing themselves in the music.
"I don't..." he started, then stopped, laughing at himself. The crowd screamed louder, as if trying to give him their words, their love, their everything. "I don't have the words."
He did, though. He always had the words. He was the one who stayed up late writing in his journal, the one who poured his feelings into lyrics and poems and rambling letters that he'd never send. But right now, standing here, looking out at the galaxy of light sticks and tear-streaked faces, the words felt too small. They felt like trying to catch the ocean in a cup.
"Every single one of you." He gestured broadly, sweeping his arm across the entire stadium. "Every face I can see and every heart I can feel. You made this. You made me. This moment is ours. Not mine. Ours."
His voice cracked on the last word. He wasn't ashamed of it. He let the tears well up in his eyes, let them spill over his lashes, let them trace clean tracks through the sweat and makeup on his cheeks. He had never been afraid to cry in front of his fans. It was one of the things they loved about him, his openness, his vulnerability, the way he wore his heart on his sleeve like a badge of honor.
"I've dreamed about this night for so long," he continued, his voice growing steadier, more earnest. "Since I was a kid. Since I first saw a stage like this on television and thought, I want to be there. I want to stand there and feel what that feels like. And now I'm here. And it's... it's more than I ever imagined. It's bigger. It's brighter. It's more."
He paused, his hand drifting unconsciously to his wedding ring again. The camera caught the movement and projected it onto the massive screens flanking the stage. The crowd screamed. They loved the ring. They loved what it represented, the softness beneath the fierce performer, the private love story behind the public persona.
"This," San said, his voice dropping into something quieter, something intimate, "is for my universe."
The screams hit a fever pitch, but San kept going, his eyes fixed on a point just above the cameras, as if he could see through the lens and across the city to wherever you were watching.
"You know who you are. You're probably at home right now, watching this on your phone with your feet up because your ankles are swollen and you keep texting me to stop jumping around because it makes you nervous." The crowd laughed, a warm, knowing ripple. "But you also told me to go out there and give it everything. You told me to shine. So this... this is me shining. This is me giving it everything. For you. For our little one. For the family we're building together."
He pressed his hand to his heart. The ring glinted under the stage lights.
"I'll be home soon," he said. "Wait for me."
The crowd erupted. The members behind him stepped forward, wrapping their arms around his shoulders, pulling him into a group hug that was part celebration and part comfort. San laughed, the tears still streaming down his face, and let himself be held.
He didn't know that the livestream you were supposed to be watching was playing to an empty hospital room. He didn't know that your phone was sitting on a table in the operating wing, its screen cracked where it had fallen, still connected to the broadcast, his voice echoing unheard through the sterile hallways. He didn't know that your mother was clutching your phone in both hands, sobbing, trying to get through to his manager, to anyone, to someone who could reach him before it was too late.
He didn't know any of it.
He just bowed, deep and long, letting the roar of the crowd wash over him one final time before he turned and walked off stage.
It was always chaos after a show like this, but tonight it felt different. Bigger. More electric. Staff members were running in every direction, their faces flushed with adrenaline and exhaustion. Stylists descended on him the moment he stepped through the curtain, unclipping his mic pack, dabbing at his forehead with towels, handing him a bottle of water that he grabbed gratefully. The members were scattered around the backstage area, some collapsed on couches, others still bouncing with residual energy.
San was floating.
That was the only way to describe it. He felt like he was walking six inches off the ground, his body buzzing with a joy so pure it was almost unbearable. He accepted the water, took a long drink, then threw his head back and laughed.
"Did you hear them?" he said to no one in particular, to everyone, to the universe. "Did you feel that? I can't believe we pulled off that high note. My throat is absolutely wrecked. I need honey tea. No, I need a whole gallon of honey tea. Someone get me honey tea. Does anyone have honey tea?"
A staff member laughed and promised to find some. San grinned and clapped him on the shoulder, then turned to the nearest manager.
"Did someone record the ending? I need to watch it back. I think I blacked out for a second. I think I ascended to another plane of existence. I think I saw the face of God and it looked like a sea of light sticks."
The manager laughed, typing something into his tablet. "We've got multiple angles. I'll have the editors send you the rough cut by tomorrow."
"Tomorrow's too late. I need it tonight. I need to show-" He stopped, his grin widening. "I need to show my wife. She's going to kill me for making her worry about the high note, but she's also going to be proud. She's going to be so proud."
He was rambling. He knew he was rambling. But he couldn't stop. The words were spilling out of him like water from a broken dam, all the joy and relief and exhilaration that had been building for months finally finding release.
A junior staffer approached him, holding out his personal phone. She looked young, an intern, maybe, or someone new to the team. She was holding the phone carefully, almost reverently, like it was something precious.
San glanced at it and waved her off with a grin.
"Give me five minutes," he said. "Let me breathe first."
The staffer hesitated. Something flickered in her eyes, uncertainty, maybe, or unease, but it was gone before San could register it. She nodded and stepped back, still holding the phone.
San didn't notice the way her hands were trembling slightly. He didn't notice the way she exchanged a quick, nervous glance with the manager. He was too happy. Too high on adrenaline. Too completely, blissfully unaware.
He turned away and headed toward his private dressing room, already unbuttoning the stifling stage jacket as he walked. The fabric was heavy with sweat, clinging to his skin. He couldn't wait to shower. He couldn't wait to change into something comfortable. He couldn't wait to call you and hear your voice and let you tease him about how dramatic he'd been on stage, how many times he'd cried, how he'd almost tripped during the second song and tried to play it off like a dance move.
It was small but comfortable, furnished with a couch, a vanity, a rack of spare outfits, and a mini-fridge stocked with water and snacks. The walls were soundproofed, which meant the chaos of the backstage area was reduced to a muffled hum. The lights were dimmer here, softer. It smelled like lavender from the diffuser someone had set up earlier.
San closed the door behind him and let out a long, shaky breath. The adrenaline was starting to fade now, leaving behind a pleasant, heavy exhaustion. His muscles ached. His throat burned. His feet were killing him. But he was happy. He was so, so happy.
He collapsed onto the couch, letting his body sink into the cushions. The stage jacket, a glittering, custom-made piece that had cost more than his first car, was half-unbuttoned, hanging open over his sweat-soaked undershirt. He didn't bother taking it off. He just lay there, staring at the ceiling, a lazy grin still tugging at the corners of his mouth.
I did it, he thought. I actually did it.
He thought about the high note. He thought about the roar of the crowd. He thought about the confetti falling like snow. He thought about the way the light sticks had looked, a galaxy of stars, an ocean of light. He thought about the ending ment, the words he'd spoken directly to you through the camera, the promise he'd made.
I'll be home soon. Wait for me.
A flicker of something soft and warm passed through his chest. He let his eyes close, just for a moment, and imagined you watching the livestream at home. You'd be curled up on the couch, probably, with your favorite blanket and a cup of the herbal tea the doctor said was safe during pregnancy. Your ankles would be propped up on pillows because they'd been swelling lately, and you'd be rubbing your belly absentmindedly, the way you always did when you were focused on something.
She probably fell asleep halfway through, he thought, and the fondness in his chest swelled until it almost hurt. Pregnancy exhaustion and all that. I'll tease her about it tomorrow. I'll kiss her forehead and tell her she missed the best part. She'll roll her eyes and say she saw the important bits, and I'll demand to know which bits those were, and she'll list all the parts where I almost tripped or messed up a lyric.
And then I'll kiss her again.
He smiled, his eyes still closed, and let himself float in the fantasy for a moment. The domesticity of it. The ordinariness. The way the greatest night of his professional life could end with something as simple as coming home to you.
This is what happiness feels like, he thought. Not just the stage. Not just the crowd. But the quiet moments too. The moments no one else gets to see. I have both. I have everything.
He was so wrong. He was so catastrophically, heartbreakingly wrong, and he didn't know it yet.
The junior staffer was still standing outside his door, holding his phone. She was staring at the screen, her face pale, her eyes wide with horror. The notifications were still coming in, a relentless, screaming flood of calls and texts that had been piling up for over an hour. She had tried to give him the phone. He had waved her off. Give me five minutes, he'd said, grinning like a man who had everything.
She didn't know what to do. She was just an intern. She wasn't supposed to be the one delivering news like this. But the phone wouldn't stop buzzing, and the messages on the preview screen were getting worse, and she could hear San's muffled laughter through the dressing room door, and she didn't know how to tell him that his wife was dying.
So she stood there, frozen, clutching the phone like a grenade with the pin already pulled.
And San, blissfully, mercifully unaware, reached lazily for his own phone, the backup he kept in his bag, the one he used for music and notes and mindless scrolling when he couldn't sleep.
He pulled it out, still grinning, still floating, and swiped it open.
For a long moment, too long, an eternity compressed into the space between two heartbeats, San simply stared at the screen. His brain refused to process what it was seeing. The grin stayed frozen on his face, but it had become something else now, something hollow and confused, the smile of a man who hadn't yet realized he was in free fall.
473 missed calls.
That couldn't be right. That was a glitch. A phone error. Maybe his number had been leaked and fans were spamming him, or maybe there was something wrong with the network, or maybe,
He looked at the caller ID list.
"Mom-In-Law ❤️" , the heart emoji you'd added to her contact years ago, because you said she deserved it, because she was the sweetest woman you'd ever met and you wanted everyone to know it.
87 missed calls.
His stomach dropped. A physical sensation. A cold, sickening lurch that made his fingers go numb around the phone.
His own mother. 41 missed calls.
Your sister. 56 missed calls.
Numbers he didn't recognize. Dozens of them. Some with local area codes. Some with the hospital prefix he'd memorized during your first prenatal visit.
The text notifications were worse.
They crowded the preview screen in truncated fragments, each one a shard of a nightmare he hadn't known he was living. He couldn't read them all at once. His eyes could only catch pieces, jagged and horrifying, bleeding into each other.
Pick up pick up pick up
Baby in distress
Where are you San please
Emergency C-section NOW
They need you here
Please god please answer
She's asking for you
Losing her
San where are you
She waited
They're asking her to choose
She said you're not here
She said you're not here to decide
Where are you
Where are you
Where are you
The towel, when had he grabbed a towel?, fell from his face. He didn't remember putting it there. He didn't remember anything. The world had lost all sound. The triumphant cheers still echoing from the stadium, the muffled chatter of staff outside his door, the hum of the air conditioning, all of it vanished, replaced by a high-pitched ringing that filled his skull like a scream.
His hand started to shake.
He tried to unlock the phone. His fingers slipped on the passcode, once, twice, three times. A simple act made impossible by pure, unadulterated terror. He couldn't breathe. His chest had turned to concrete. The glittering jacket he was still wearing, the one that had felt like armor on stage, was now suffocating him, a costume of a person who didn't exist anymore.
He finally managed to open the phone. His hands were trembling so badly he could barely hold it steady. He pressed your mother's contact and lifted it to his ear.
She picked up on the first ring.
She wasn't crying.
That was the first thing he noticed. She wasn't crying. Her voice was a raw, hollowed-out shell, the voice of someone who had been screaming into a void for over an hour and had nothing left to give. It was worse than crying. It was so much worse.
"San."
Just his name. That was all she said. And in that single syllable, he heard everything.
"Eomma." His voice, the voice that had commanded a stadium full of thousands, was barely a whisper. It cracked on the second syllable, splintering into something small and terrified. "What... what happened? What's going on? Is she okay? Is the baby-"
"She waited for you."
Your mother's voice cracked, but didn't break. It was beyond breaking.
"As long as she could. The labor started early. There were complications, the placenta, something about the placenta, I don't-" She stopped. Swallowed. He could hear her breathing, ragged and uneven. "They had to do an emergency C-section. She was bleeding too much. They... they asked her what to do if it came down to it. If they could only save..."
She didn't finish the sentence. She didn't have to.
San's vision went white at the edges. The phone was slipping in his sweaty grip, but he couldn't tighten his fingers. He couldn't move.
"She told them you weren't there to decide."
The words landed like a physical blow. He felt them in his chest, in his stomach, in the back of his throat where a scream was building that wouldn't come out.
"What does that mean?" His voice was rising now, hysteria clawing at the edges. "What does that mean, what do you mean she told them that, what happened? What happened to her?"
"The baby is in the NICU."
The baby is in the NICU.
Not they're fine. Not she's resting. Not everyone is okay, just get here when you can.
The baby is in the NICU.
"And-" He couldn't say it. He couldn't form the words. His lips moved around your name, a name he'd whispered a thousand times, a name he'd laughed into pillows and sung into microphones and prayed into the darkness of early mornings. But the sound wouldn't come. It was stuck in his throat, trapped behind the concrete that had filled his chest.
There was a long, terrible silence on the other end of the line. A silence that told him everything he needed to know. A silence that confirmed the worst thing he had never imagined.
"I'm so sorry, San."
The phone slipped from his hand.
He didn't drop it. It just... fell. His fingers had stopped working. It clattered onto the floor, face-up, the screen still glowing. Your mother's voice was still speaking from the speaker, distant and tinny, words that he couldn't hear anymore over the roaring in his ears.
He sat there on the couch in his dressing room. Still in his stage clothes. Still covered in the sweat of his greatest triumph. Still smelling of confetti and adrenaline and joy. The glittering jacket hung open over his undershirt. His hair was damp and disheveled. His makeup was smeared from the tears he'd cried on stage, happy tears, grateful tears, tears of pure, overwhelming joy.
Those tears were still wet on his cheeks.
He could see himself in the vanity mirror across the room. A man in a beautiful jacket, sitting on a couch, staring at a phone on the floor. A man who had been a god ten minutes ago. A man who had stood on the summit of his entire existence and thought, Nothing has ever felt this good. Nothing ever will.
He had been right about one thing.
Nothing would ever feel that good again.
The high-pitched ringing in his ears grew louder, drowning out everything else. The muffled chatter outside the door. The distant thump of music from the after-party he was supposed to attend. The tinny, faraway sound of your mother's voice still calling his name through the phone on the floor.
San. San, are you there? San, please say something. San,
He didn't answer.
He couldn't.
He just sat there, frozen, a boy in a glittering jacket, drowning in a silence louder than any ovation.
It was the junior staffer, the intern who had tried to give him his phone earlier. She was still holding it, his personal phone, the one with 473 missed calls. Her face was pale. Her eyes were red. She had been crying.
"San-ssi?" Her voice was small. Trembling. "I'm so sorry. I tried to, earlier, I tried to give you, I didn't know-"
She stopped. She didn't know what to say. There was nothing to say.
San didn't look at her. He didn't move. He just stared at the phone on the floor, at the screen that was still lit up with your mother's contact photo, a picture of her smiling, holding a plate of the homemade dumplings she'd made for his birthday last year.
"She's gone," he said.
It wasn't a question. It wasn't even really a statement. It was just... words. Sounds. His voice was flat, empty, completely devoid of the emotion that had poured out of him on stage just minutes ago.
The staffer didn't answer. She didn't have to.
San bent down, slowly, mechanically, like a man moving through water, and picked up the phone from the floor. Your mother's voice was still coming through the speaker, but it had dissolved into sobs now. He pressed the phone to his ear.
"Eomma," he said. "I'm coming. I'm coming right now. Just, tell her I'm coming. Tell her to wait for me. Tell her-"
Tell her I'm coming. Tell her to wait.
But she had already waited. She had waited as long as she could, alone in a sterile room full of strangers, bleeding out on an operating table, making a choice that should have been his. She had waited, and he hadn't come, and now there was nothing left to wait for.
"San." Your mother's voice, thick with grief and exhaustion. "San, she's already-"
"I know." His voice broke. Finally, completely, shattered into a thousand pieces. "I know. I know. I just, I need to see her. I need to see her. Please."
He was already standing. Already moving toward the door. The staffer stepped aside, pressing herself against the wall to let him pass. He walked out into the backstage chaos, the same chaos he had laughed and floated through just fifteen minutes ago, and this time, no one tried to stop him.
They saw his face.
They saw the phone pressed to his ear, the tears streaming down his cheeks, the glittering jacket still hanging open over his sweat-soaked shirt. They saw the man who had been a god on stage just minutes ago, and they saw what he had become.
No one said a word.
The car was waiting outside. Someone must have called it. Someone must have known. San didn't remember getting in. He didn't remember the doors closing or the engine starting or the city lights blurring past the window. He just remembers the phone call. Your mother's voice, still on the line, still saying his name, still trying to reach him through the impossible distance between joy and devastation.
"It's a girl," she said, her voice cracking. "The baby, it's a girl. She's so small, San. She's so small. But she's alive. She's fighting. They said she's a fighter."
A daughter.
He had a daughter.
You had given him a daughter.
And you had died alone, without him, because he had been on a stage, bowing to applause, thinking about how nothing had ever felt this good.
He pressed his forehead against the cold window of the car and closed his eyes.
Wait for me, he had said on stage, just minutes ago, a lifetime ago. I'll be home soon. Wait for me.
But you couldn't wait. You had tried, god, you had tried, but the choice had been yours to make alone, and now the waiting was over.
And all that was left was the silence. The empty seat beside him. The city lights blurring past in streaks of gold and white. The distant, echoing roar of a crowd that was still cheering, somewhere far behind him, for a man who didn't exist anymore.
The hospital rose out of the darkness like a monument to everything he had already lost.
San didn't remember the drive. The city had blurred past the car window in streaks of neon and shadow, headlights and streetlamps bleeding into each other like watercolors left out in the rain. He had pressed his forehead against the cold glass and closed his eyes and tried to breathe, but every inhale felt like swallowing shards of glass. The phone was still clutched in his hand, your mother's voice long gone, replaced by silence and the distant, tinny echo of his own heartbeat.
Now the car was stopped. The engine was still running. The driver was saying something, We're here, sir, this is the entrance, do you need help, should I park, but the words didn't reach him. They were sounds without meaning, floating in the dead space between one moment and the next.
San opened the car door and stepped out into the night.
The air hit him first. Cold and sharp, smelling of antiseptic and exhaust fumes and the faint, sweet rot of garbage from the alley behind the emergency bay. It was nothing like the air on stage, the heat of the lights, the smoke from the pyrotechnics, the sweat and perfume and electricity of sixty thousand bodies pressed together in adoration. That air had been alive. This air was sterile. Hollow. The air of a place where people came to die.
He was still wearing the stage jacket.
He realized it distantly, the way you realize you've left the stove on or forgotten your keys. The glittering, custom-made jacket that had cost more than his first car, the one that had felt like armor under the spotlight, was still hanging open over his sweat-soaked undershirt. The sequins caught the fluorescent glare of the hospital entrance, winking obscenely, a mockery of celebration. He should take it off. He should have taken it off in the car. He should have changed into something normal, something human, something that didn't scream. I was just on stage while my wife was dying.
But he couldn't stop to take it off. He couldn't stop at all. If he stopped, even for a second, he would have to think about what was waiting for him inside. And if he thought about it, he would shatter. And if he shattered, he would never be able to put himself back together.
The automatic doors slid open with a pneumatic hiss, and the full fluorescent assault of the emergency room hit him like a slap. White walls. White floors. White lights that buzzed faintly at the edge of hearing, a sound like insects trapped inside the ceiling. The waiting area was half-full, a woman clutching a crying toddler, an elderly man with a bloodstained bandage wrapped around his hand, a teenager slumped in a plastic chair with her hood pulled up over her face. They all looked up when he walked in.
He saw the moment recognition flickered across their faces. The double-takes. The widening eyes. The whispered murmurs. Is that, no, it can't be, wait, is that Choi San? What is he doing here? Why is he dressed like that? Is that stage makeup? Is he crying?
He didn't care. He didn't care about any of it. Let them stare. Let them whisper. Let them pull out their phones and take pictures and post them online with captions like OMG Choi San just walked into the ER looking WRECKED, what happened?? None of it mattered. None of it would ever matter again.
He walked straight to the front desk. The nurse behind the counter looked up, her professional smile freezing on her face as she registered his appearance, the glittering jacket, the smeared makeup, the wild, desperate look in his eyes.
"Sir, can I help-"
"My wife." His voice came out as a croak, raw and shredded from three hours of singing. "She was brought in. Emergency C-section. Her name is-" He said your name. Your full name. The name he had whispered on your wedding day, the name he had written in the margins of his lyrics, the name he had shouted to the stadium just an hour ago when he told the world that you were his universe.
The nurse's expression flickered. Something passed through her eyes, recognition, pity, dread, and she turned to her computer, her fingers flying across the keyboard.
"Are you family?"
"I'm her husband."
A pause. The keyboard stopped clicking. The nurse looked up at him again, and this time her professional mask slipped. Just for a second. Just enough for him to see the sorrow underneath.
"Sir, I need you to wait here for just a moment. I'm going to call someone to come speak with you."
"No." The word came out harder than he intended, edged with something dangerously close to fury. "No, I'm not waiting. I've been waiting. I've been-" He stopped. Swallowed. His hands were shaking again, gripping the edge of the counter so hard his knuckles had gone white. "Please. Please just tell me where she is. Please."
The nurse hesitated. She looked at him, really looked at him, at the tears cutting tracks through his stage makeup, at the trembling hands, at the glittering jacket that suddenly seemed obscene in the harsh hospital light, and something in her face softened.
"Third floor," she said quietly. "Maternity ward. Room 314. But sir-" She reached out as if to touch his arm, then thought better of it. "There's a family waiting room. Your mother-in-law is there. She's been waiting for you."
San didn't thank her. He didn't say anything at all. He just turned and walked toward the elevators, his footsteps echoing on the linoleum, the glittering jacket catching the light with every step.
The doors closed, sealing him into a small metal box with mirrored walls and a Muzak version of a song he vaguely recognized but couldn't name. The music was soft and cheerful, utterly indifferent to the fact that his entire world had collapsed. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirrored wall and almost didn't recognize the reflection.
His hair was disheveled, plastered to his forehead with dried sweat. His stage makeup, the smoky eyeliner, the subtle contouring, the lip tint that was supposed to look natural under the lights, was smeared and streaked, turning his face into a grotesque mask. The glittering jacket hung open over a shirt that was soaked through with sweat, clinging to his chest and stomach. He looked like a man who had been to a party and stumbled into a nightmare.
He looked like a man who had been celebrating while his wife was dying.
The elevator dinged. The doors slid open. San stepped out into the third-floor hallway and immediately saw your mother.
She was sitting in a plastic chair outside a waiting room, her posture rigid, her hands clasped in her lap like a child waiting for punishment. She looked older than he remembered. Older than she had looked two days ago, when she'd come over for dinner and helped you fold baby clothes and teased San about his inability to assemble the crib. Her face was pale and drawn, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen. She was still wearing the same clothes from earlier, a simple blouse and slacks, now wrinkled and stained with something dark that San's brain refused to identify.
She looked up when she heard his footsteps.
"San."
Her voice was barely a whisper. She stood up, her movements slow and unsteady, like a woman who had aged ten years in a single night. She reached for him, her hands trembling, and San, San, who had been holding himself together by the thinnest of threads since the moment he'd seen those 473 missed calls, felt something inside him crack.
"Where is she?" he asked. His voice was still flat. Still empty. He couldn't let the emotion in yet. If he let it in, he would drown. "Where is she? I need to see her."
Your mother's face crumpled. She pressed a hand to her mouth, her shoulders shaking with a sob she was trying desperately to suppress.
"They're... they're still..." She couldn't finish. She took a shaky breath and tried again. "The baby is in the NICU. She's... she's so small, San. But she's alive. She's fighting. They said she's a fighter."
The baby. His daughter. The child you had carried for eight months, the child you had talked to in the quiet hours of the night when you thought he was sleeping, the child you had promised to love and protect and raise together. She was alive. She was fighting.
But you,
"And my wife?" San's voice cracked on the word, splintering into something raw and desperate. "Where is my wife?"
Your mother looked at him. Just looked at him. And in her eyes, he saw the answer.
"No," he said. The word came out before he could stop it, a reflex, a denial, a prayer. "No. No, she's, she was fine, she was fine when I talked to her, she told me to go, she told me she'd be okay-"
"They did everything they could." Your mother's voice broke completely, dissolving into tears. "There was so much blood. The placenta, it detached, they said. They couldn't stop the bleeding. They had to... they had to get the baby out, and by the time they..."
She couldn't finish. She didn't have to.
San felt his legs give out. He didn't fall, not quite, but he stumbled, his shoulder hitting the wall, his hand reaching out to brace himself against the cold, sterile surface. The hallway tilted. The fluorescent lights flickered. The Muzak from the elevator was still playing somewhere in the distance, soft and cheerful and utterly indifferent.
"She asked for you." Your mother's voice came from very far away, muffled and distorted, like she was speaking through water. "Before they took her in. She was scared, San. She was so scared. But she kept saying... she kept saying you needed to finish the show. She said this was your dream. She said she'd be fine. She said she'd wait for you."
Wait for me.
That was what he'd said on stage. I'll be home soon. Wait for me.
And she had waited. She had waited as long as she could, alone and terrified, bleeding out on an operating table while strangers shouted and monitors screamed and a choice was made that should have been his. She had waited, and he hadn't come, and now,
"Where is she?" His voice was a rasp, barely recognizable. "Where is she now? I need to see her. Please. Please, I need to see her."
Your mother wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She nodded, a jerky, unsteady motion, and pointed down the hallway.
"Room 314. They... they cleaned her up. They said you could see her whenever you were ready."
Ready. As if there was any way to be ready for this. As if there was any amount of preparation that could make it bearable to walk into a room and see the person you loved most in the world lying still and silent and gone.
But San didn't say that. He just pushed himself off the wall and started walking.
It was an unremarkable door, the same pale beige as every other door in the hallway, with a small placard that read 314 in plain black lettering. There was nothing about it that suggested tragedy. Nothing that hinted at the devastation waiting on the other side. It was just a door. An ordinary door. The kind of door you might walk through a hundred times without ever thinking twice.
San stood in front of it and couldn't move.
His hand was on the handle. He didn't remember putting it there. His fingers were wrapped around the cold metal, but he couldn't make them turn. Couldn't make them push. Couldn't make himself cross the threshold from the world where you might still be alive to the world where you definitely weren't.
Because as long as he stayed on this side of the door, there was still a chance. A tiny, irrational, impossible chance that this was all a mistake. A misunderstanding. A nightmare that he would wake up from any second now, gasping and disoriented, reaching for you in the dark. You would stir beside him, warm and sleepy and alive, and you would murmur what's wrong and he would say nothing, just a bad dream and you would curl into his chest and fall back asleep and everything would be okay.
But the door was real. The handle was cold. The fluorescent lights were buzzing overhead. And when he pushed the door open, there would be no waking up.
Not the absence of sound, the hospital was full of sounds, the distant beeping of monitors, the muffled footsteps of nurses in the hallway, the soft whoosh of the ventilation system. But this room was silent in a way that had nothing to do with noise. It was the silence of absence. The silence of a space that had been emptied of something irreplaceable.
The second thing he noticed was the light.
The overhead fluorescents were off, replaced by a small lamp on the bedside table that cast the room in soft, golden shadows. The blinds were drawn, blocking out the city lights and the distant glow of the stadium where, somewhere, the after-party was still going on without him. The room was dim and quiet and almost peaceful, like a chapel. Like a tomb.
The third thing he noticed was you.
You were lying on the hospital bed, your body covered by a clean white sheet pulled up to your chest. Your arms were arranged at your sides, your hands folded neatly on top of the blanket. Someone had washed the blood away. Someone had brushed your hair and arranged it on the pillow. Someone had closed your eyes.
You looked like you were sleeping.
That was the cruelest part. You didn't look dead. You didn't look like a body, a corpse, a shell emptied of its soul. You looked like yourself, the same face he had kissed a thousand times, the same hands he had held in the dark, the same lips that had smiled at him through a video call just hours ago and told him to shine. You looked like you might open your eyes at any moment and smile at him and ask how the concert went.
But you wouldn't. You wouldn't open your eyes. You wouldn't smile at him. You wouldn't ask him anything, ever again.
San didn't remember crossing the room.
One moment he was standing in the doorway, frozen, his hand still on the handle. The next moment he was beside the bed, his knees hitting the cold linoleum floor with a thud that he felt in his bones. He reached for your hand, your hand, your beautiful hand, the hand that had held his on your wedding day, the hand that had rested on your growing belly for months, the hand that had waved at him from the video call and blown him a kiss and signed off with an I love you that he hadn't known would be the last.
It was cold.
Your hand was cold.
San had held your hand a thousand times. He knew the warmth of it, the way your fingers would curl around his, the way you would trace patterns on his palm when you were nervous or thoughtful or just wanted to touch him. He knew the calluses on your fingertips from years of writing, the small scar on your thumb from a kitchen accident, the way your knuckles would crack when you stretched your fingers in the morning.
He knew your hand better than he knew his own.
And now it was cold. A cold that had nothing to do with the hospital air conditioning, nothing to do with the chill of the room. It was the cold of absence. The cold of a body that had stopped being a body and become something else. Something empty. Something gone.
"No," he whispered.
He pressed your hand to his cheek, cradling it against his skin as if he could warm it with his own warmth, as if he could pour enough of himself into you to bring you back.
"No, no, no. Please. Please. I'm here. I'm here now. I came as fast as I could. I'm sorry I'm late. I'm sorry. Please wake up. Please. Just... just open your eyes. Please open your eyes. I need you to open your eyes. Please."
He was begging. He was on his knees on a hospital floor, still in his stage clothes, still covered in the sweat of his greatest triumph, and he was begging your lifeless body to wake up. He was pressing kisses to your cold knuckles, your cold palm, your cold wrist where there was no pulse and never would be again. He was sobbing, ugly, gasping, animal sounds that tore themselves out of his chest without permission, sounds he didn't recognize as his own.
"I should have been here. I should have been here. You told me to go and I went and I should have, I should have stayed. I should have told them to cancel the show. I should have been on the first flight home the moment you said you weren't feeling well. I should have, I should have been here. You needed me and I was on a stage. I was singing. I was bowing. I was so happy, I was so-"
His voice broke. Shattered completely into silence. He pressed his forehead to your cold hand, his tears soaking into the white sheet, and he couldn't speak anymore. There were no words for this. There was no language for the magnitude of what he had lost.
He stayed like that for a long time. Minutes. Hours. An eternity compressed into the space between his heartbeat and your silence. He held your hand. He pressed kisses to your cold fingers. He whispered your name over and over and over like a prayer, like an incantation, like if he said it enough times you might hear him and come back.
But you didn't come back. You couldn't. You were gone, and he was here, and the distance between the living and the dead was one he would spend the rest of his life trying to bridge.
At some point, he didn't know when, he started talking.
Not to anyone in particular. Not even to you, really. Just... talking. The words poured out of him in a broken, halting stream, fragments of memory and grief and guilt all tangled together.
"I'm sorry I didn't come sooner. I didn't know. I didn't know, I swear I didn't know. They didn't tell me. My phone was off. I was on stage and my phone was off and I didn't, if I had known, I would have, I would have been here. I would have been here. You know that, right? You know I would have been here?"
He paused, as if waiting for an answer. The silence that followed was its own response.
"The high note," he said, and a hysterical laugh bubbled up in his throat, choking and wrong. "I hit the high note. The one I was so scared of. The one I've been practicing for months. I hit it. I hit it perfectly. The crowd went insane. They were screaming so loud I couldn't hear myself think. And I thought, I thought this is it, this is the best moment of my life, nothing will ever compete."
His voice cracked. The laugh turned into a sob.
"Nothing will ever compete. That's what I thought. I thought I was at the peak. I thought I had everything. And the whole time, you were, you were here, you were alone, you were-"
He couldn't finish. He pressed his forehead harder against your hand, his shoulders shaking with the force of his sobs.
"They asked you to choose." His voice was barely a whisper now, muffled against the sheet. "They asked you to choose, and I wasn't here. You had to make that choice alone. You had to decide alone. And I was, I was taking a bow. I was waving at the crowd. I was thinking about how happy I was."
He lifted his head. His eyes were red and swollen, his face streaked with tears and smeared makeup. He looked at your face, your peaceful, sleeping, impossibly still face, and he felt something inside him splinter.
"It should have been me," he said. "If someone had to... it should have been me. Not you. You were going to be such a good mother. You were already a good mother. You talked to her every night. You sang to her. You read her stories even though she couldn't understand them yet. You loved her so much. You loved her so much and now you'll never get to hold her and it's my fault. It's my fault."
He was shaking. His whole body was trembling, his hands still clutching yours like a lifeline, like the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth.
"She's beautiful," he said, his voice breaking on the word. "Mom, your mom told me. She's beautiful and she's small and she's fighting. She's a fighter. Just like you. You would be so proud of her. I'm going to... I'm going to take care of her. I'm going to raise her. I'm going to tell her every day how much you loved her. I'm going to show her pictures and videos. I'm going to make sure she knows who you were. I promise. I promise."
He pressed a kiss to your knuckles. Then your palm. Then the inside of your wrist, where your pulse should have been.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so sorry. I love you. I love you so much. I'll never stop loving you. Never. Not ever. You're my universe. You were always my universe. Not the stage. Not the crowd. Not the lights. You. Only you. And I didn't... I didn't tell you enough. I didn't show you enough. I spent so much time chasing that stupid dream, and the whole time, the only dream that mattered was you."
He fell silent. The room fell silent. The whole world fell silent.
And in the silence, San knelt beside your bed, holding your cold hand, and let the weight of everything he had lost settle over him like a shroud.
Time had stopped meaning anything. The clock on the wall ticked on, indifferent, but San couldn't hear it. The only thing that existed was your face, your hand, the unbearable stillness of your chest. He memorized every detail, the curve of your eyebrows, the sweep of your lashes against your cheeks, the small scar on your chin from a childhood fall. He memorized them because he was terrified of forgetting. Terrified that one day he would close his eyes and not be able to picture you exactly as you were in this moment.
He was still there when the door opened.
He didn't turn around. He didn't acknowledge the soft footsteps, the quiet click of the door closing, the gentle throat-clearing of someone who didn't want to intrude but had no choice.
"San-ssi?"
A nurse. Her voice was soft, kind, the voice of someone who had done this many times before and knew there was no right way to say what she needed to say.
"I'm so sorry to interrupt. But the baby... your daughter... the NICU team is asking if you'd like to see her. She's stable. She's doing well, all things considered. And we thought... we thought you might want to meet her."
His daughter.
The baby you had carried for eight months. The baby you had talked to and sung to and loved with every fiber of your being. The baby whose life had been bought with yours.
He should want to see her. He did want to see her. But the thought of leaving this room, of letting go of your hand, of walking away from you, of accepting that you were really gone, felt like a betrayal.
"I can't," he whispered. "I can't leave her."
The nurse was quiet for a moment. Then she stepped closer, her shoes making soft sounds on the linoleum.
"She'll still be here when you come back," she said gently. "We'll take care of her. I promise. But your daughter... she's been waiting to meet you too."
She's been waiting.
The words hit him like a punch to the chest. You had waited for him. You had waited as long as you could, and he hadn't come, and now you were gone. But your daughter, your daughter was still waiting. Your daughter was still alive. Your daughter was still fighting.
And she deserved to meet her father.
San looked at your face one more time. He memorized the peace in your expression, the way your lips curved just slightly at the corners, as if you had fallen asleep in the middle of a happy dream. He pressed one last kiss to your cold forehead, letting his lips linger there for a long, trembling moment.
"I'll be back," he whispered. "I promise. I'll be back. Wait for me."
Wait for me.
The same words he'd said on stage, a lifetime ago. The same words you couldn't keep. But he would keep them. He would come back. He would sit beside you until they made him leave, and then he would come back again, and again, and again, until the day he could finally join you wherever you had gone.
He let go of your hand.
It was the hardest thing he had ever done. Harder than any choreography. Harder than any high note. Harder than any of the sacrifices he had made to become the man standing on that stage tonight. Letting go of your hand felt like letting go of gravity. Like he might float away into the void without you to anchor him.
But he did it. He let go. He stood up on legs that barely felt like his own. He turned away from your bed and walked toward the door, where the nurse was waiting with sad eyes and a gentle, pitying smile.
"Take me to her," he said, his voice raw and empty. "Take me to my daughter."
San followed the nurse through a maze of hallways and elevators, his footsteps mechanical, his mind somewhere far away. The glittering stage jacket was gone now, someone had found him a plain hoodie, a pair of sweatpants, something that didn't scream I was just on stage while my world ended. He didn't remember changing. He didn't remember who had given him the clothes. He didn't remember anything except the cold of your hand and the silence of your chest and the way your lips had curved just slightly at the corners, like you were dreaming.
The nurse walked a few steps ahead of him, her shoes squeaking softly on the linoleum. She didn't try to make conversation. She didn't offer platitudes or condolences or empty reassurances. She just walked, steady and calm, leading him toward the one thing that might still tether him to the world.
The NICU doors were heavy. Reinforced. They swung open with a low pneumatic hiss, and suddenly the air changed. It was warmer here, more humid. It smelled different too, less like antiseptic and more like something soft and clean. Baby powder. Sterile blankets. The faint, sweet scent of new life.
"Your daughter is in Bay 7," the nurse said quietly. "You'll need to scrub in before you can hold her. I'll show you where."
The scrubbing-in process was methodical. Familiar, almost, in the way that routines could be comforting even in the midst of devastation. Warm water. Soap up to the elbows. A disposable gown over the hoodie. Gloves. A mask. The nurse talked him through it with the practiced patience of someone who had done this a hundred times, and San let her voice wash over him without really hearing it. He was somewhere else. He was still in room 314. He was still holding your hand.
But then the nurse led him through another set of doors, and he stepped into the NICU proper, and everything else fell away.
The room was dim. Not dark, but dim, soft lighting designed to mimic the womb, to ease tiny bodies into a world they weren't ready for. The walls were lined with incubators, each one a small plastic box filled with wires and tubes and monitors that beeped in quiet, constant rhythms. Parents sat in rocking chairs beside some of them, their faces exhausted and hopeful and terrified all at once. Nurses moved between the bays with quiet efficiency, checking vitals, adjusting tubes, murmuring softly to babies too small to understand.
And there, in Bay 7, was his daughter.
San stopped walking.
His feet simply stopped moving, rooted to the floor like the linoleum had risen up and swallowed him whole. He couldn't move. He couldn't breathe. He could only stare at the incubator, at the tiny creature inside it, at the life that you had given him at the cost of your own.
She was so small.
That was the first thought that broke through the static in his mind. She was so impossibly, terrifyingly small. Her body was barely longer than his hand, her limbs thin and fragile, her skin so translucent he could see the faint blue tracery of veins beneath it. She was swaddled in a tiny blanket, a knitted cap pulled over her head, and her eyes were closed, fused shut, the nurse had explained, the way premature babies' eyes often were.
But her chest was rising and falling. Her tiny fingers were curled into fists. Her mouth, a rosebud, a perfect miniature bow, was pursed slightly, as if she was dreaming of something important.
She was alive.
After everything, after the hemorrhage and the emergency surgery and the frantic fight to save them both, she was alive. She was fighting. She was here.
"Would you like to sit down?" The nurse's voice came from somewhere far away. "You can hold her, if you're ready. Skin-to-skin contact is very beneficial for preemies. It helps regulate their heartbeat and temperature. And it helps with bonding."
Bonding. The word felt foreign. Alien. He was supposed to bond with this tiny creature, this beautiful, fragile miracle, while you lay cold and still three floors below. He was supposed to hold her and love her and be her father, when the only thing he wanted to do was crawl into the bed beside you and never get up.
But she was your daughter. She was the last piece of you left in the world. And you had chosen her. You had made the impossible choice, alone in that operating room, and you had chosen her.
He owed it to you to hold her.
He owed it to her to try.
"I'm ready," he said. His voice was a stranger's voice. Hollow. Distant. But steady.
The nurse helped him settle into a rocking chair beside the incubator. She showed him how to position his arms, how to support the baby's head, how to keep the wires and tubes from tangling. Then she reached into the incubator, carefully, so carefully, and lifted his daughter out.
She placed the baby in his arms.
For a moment, San forgot how to breathe.
She weighed nothing. Less than nothing. She was lighter than a microphone, lighter than the rings he wore on his fingers, lighter than air. If he closed his eyes, he might forget she was there at all. But he didn't close his eyes. He couldn't. He was staring at her face, at the tiny nose, the delicate lashes, the rosebud mouth that was now opening and closing in a silent, instinctive rooting reflex.
She was looking for you.
The realization hit him like a freight train. She was looking for her mother. She was looking for the voice that had sung to her every night, the heartbeat that had lulled her to sleep, the warmth that had surrounded her for eight months. She was looking for you, and you weren't here. You would never be here. She would grow up without ever knowing the sound of your laugh or the touch of your hand or the fierce, boundless love you had felt for her from the very first moment you knew she existed.
And it was his fault.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. He didn't know if he was talking to the baby or to you or to the universe itself. "I'm so sorry."
The baby stirred at the sound of his voice. Her tiny fist uncurled, her fingers stretching out, reaching for something she couldn't name. San watched, barely breathing, as her hand bumped against his chest and then stilled, resting there, right over his heart.
She was so small that her entire hand covered less than a fraction of his chest. But the weight of it, the weight of her existence, her survival, her impossible, fragile life, pressed down on him with a gravity that threatened to crush him.
He thought about the concert. He thought about the roar of the crowd, the confetti falling like snow, the high note that had felt like touching heaven. He thought about how he had stood on that stage and believed, with every fiber of his being, that nothing would ever feel as good as that moment.
He had been wrong.
He had been so catastrophically, humiliatingly wrong.
Because this, this tiny hand on his chest, this fragile heartbeat fluttering against his own, this life that had been bought with the blood of the woman he loved, this was bigger than any stage. Louder than any crowd. More important than any dream he had ever chased.
And he had almost missed it. He had almost been somewhere else, somewhere far away, bowing to applause while his daughter took her first breaths without him.
A sob tore out of his chest. Then another. Then another, until he was crying openly, his tears falling onto the baby's blanket, his shoulders shaking with the force of a grief too immense to contain. The nurse, discreet and practiced, stepped back to give him space. The monitors beeped their quiet rhythms. The other parents, lost in their own private joys and sorrows, didn't look up.
And San held his daughter, your daughter, and wept.
Time had stopped meaning anything hours ago. It might have been minutes. It might have been hours. The world outside the NICU, the after-party, the headlines, the fans who were just starting to piece together that something had gone terribly wrong, didn't exist. The only thing that existed was the baby in his arms and the cold, still body three floors below and the impossible distance between them.
At some point, the nurse came back. She checked the baby's vitals, adjusted a wire, smiled at him with gentle, professional sympathy.
"She's doing very well," she said softly. "Her oxygen levels are stable. Her heartbeat is strong. She's a fighter."
A fighter. That was what your mother had said. That was what everyone kept saying. She was a fighter, just like her mother. Just like you.
"What's her name?" the nurse asked.
San looked down at the baby. At her tiny nose, her rosebud mouth, her fingers still curled against his chest.
You had picked the name together. Months ago, curled up on the couch with a baby name book balanced between you, laughing at the ridiculous suggestions and arguing over the serious ones. You had settled on it one night, lying in bed, your hand resting on your swollen belly.
If it's a girl, you had said, I want her to have your mother's name. And mine. Together. So she'll always know where she came from.
San had kissed your forehead and told you it was perfect. And it was. It was perfect.
He told the nurse the name. Your name, woven together with his mother's, a legacy of love and loss and everything in between. The nurse smiled and wrote it down on a small card, which she tucked into a slot on the incubator.
"That's a beautiful name," she said. "Welcome to the world, little one."
Your mother came to the NICU at some point. Her eyes were still red, her face still pale, but there was something different in her expression now. Something that looked almost like hope. She sat beside San in a second rocking chair, and together they watched the baby sleep.
"She has your nose," your mother said quietly. "But her mouth... her mouth is all her mother."
San looked at the baby's rosebud lips, pursed in sleep, and felt something crack open in his chest. She was right. The baby had your mouth. The same curve, the same softness, the same way of pursing her lips when she was dreaming.
He would see your face in hers every day for the rest of his life.
"She waited for you," your mother said after a long silence. Her voice was barely above a whisper. "At the end. She was in so much pain, but she kept asking for you. She kept saying your name. She wanted you to know... she wanted you to know that she wasn't angry. She wasn't scared. She just wanted you to be happy."
San closed his eyes. The tears were coming again, burning behind his lids.
"She said to tell you," your mother continued, her voice breaking, "that she loved you. That she would always love you. And that she was so proud of you. So proud of the man you'd become. So proud of the father you were going to be."
He couldn't speak. He could only nod, his throat too tight for words, his hands trembling around the tiny bundle in his arms.
Your mother reached over and placed her hand on his. Her skin was warm. Alive. A reminder that not everything had been taken from him.
"She would want you to hold onto this," she said. "This little girl. This miracle. She would want you to hold on and never let go."
San looked down at his daughter. At her tiny chest rising and falling. At her fingers curled against his heart. At the mouth that was so perfectly, painfully yours.
"I won't," he whispered. "I promise. I won't let go."
You would have wanted it that way, San told himself. You had never liked being the center of attention, ironic, given that you'd married an idol. You preferred quiet dinners to fancy galas, intimate conversations to grand gestures, the soft and private moments that no one else got to see. So he kept the funeral small. Just family. Just the people who loved you most.
The baby couldn't come. She was still in the NICU, still fighting, still growing stronger every day. But San brought a photo of her, a small Polaroid the nurse had taken during one of his skin-to-skin sessions. He tucked it into the pocket of his black suit, right over his heart, and he carried it with him to the cemetery.
The service was a blur of white flowers and soft music and words that people spoke into a microphone that couldn't capture the weight of what had been lost. Your mother gave a eulogy. Your sister read a poem. San didn't speak. He couldn't. Every time he opened his mouth, all that came out was silence.
But he wrote something.
The night before the funeral, sitting alone in the hospital room beside your empty bed, he had taken out a pen and a piece of paper and written you a letter. He folded it carefully, sealed it in an envelope, and tucked it into the pocket of the dress they had chosen for you to wear. A dress you'd picked out months ago for an awards show he was supposed to attend. A dress you'd never gotten to wear.
The letter said everything he hadn't been able to say. Everything he would spend the rest of his life wishing he'd said sooner.
You were the best thing that ever happened to me. Better than any stage. Louder than any crowd. You were my dream. The only one that ever mattered. And I'm sorry I didn't tell you enough. I'm sorry I spent so much time chasing everything else. I'm sorry you had to make that choice alone.
But I promise you, I promise, I will spend the rest of my life honoring it. I will raise our daughter to know who you were. I will tell her every single day how much you loved her. I will show her pictures and videos and the letters you wrote her when she was still in your belly. I will never let her forget.
And I will never forgive myself. But I'll try. For you. For her. I'll try.
Wait for me.
He watched them lower your casket into the ground. He watched the white peonies, your favorite, the ones he'd given you on your first date, fall from the hands of mourners onto the polished wood. He watched the earth claim you, inch by inch, until you were gone. Until all that was left was a headstone with your name on it and a hole in his heart that nothing would ever fill.
And when it was over, when the mourners had drifted away and the cemetery was quiet, San knelt beside your grave and pressed his palm to the freshly turned earth.
"I'll be back," he whispered. "I promise. I'll come back. Wait for me."
The awards ceremony was the same one he'd performed at the night you died.
San hadn't been on a stage since then. He'd thought about quitting. He'd thought about it a thousand times. Every time he looked at a microphone, he saw your face on that video call, telling him to go. Every time he heard applause, he heard the echo of the moment he'd realized you were gone. The stage had been his dream, his purpose, his reason for being, and it had become a monument to his greatest failure.
But he hadn't quit.
He'd written instead. In the dark hours of the morning, when the baby was sleeping and the house was too quiet and the guilt was eating him alive, he'd sat at the piano in the study and let his fingers find the notes. The songs that emerged were raw and broken and beautiful. Songs about love and loss and the impossible weight of an empty chair at the dinner table. Songs about a little girl who smiled like her mother. Songs about you.
The company had suggested he perform one at the ceremony. A tribute, they called it. A way to honor your memory. A way to show the world that he was still here, still standing, still fighting.
He'd almost said no.
But then he'd thought about his daughter, your daughter, who was now a year old, who had your eyes and your smile and your fierce, stubborn spirit. She was healthy now, thank god. She'd spent two months in the NICU before they let her come home, and those two months had been the hardest of San's life. Harder than training. Harder than debut. Harder than the night he'd knelt beside your bed and held your cold hand and begged you to come back.
But he'd survived them. And she'd survived them. And now she was a year old, toddling around the house on unsteady legs, babbling words that weren't quite words yet, laughing at the cat and the curtains and the way her father made funny faces to make her smile.
She was the reason he got up in the morning. She was the reason he kept going. She was the reason he hadn't given up.
Backstage at the awards ceremony, San stood alone in a dressing room that looked almost exactly like the one from a year ago. The same couch. The same vanity. The same mirror on the wall. For a disorienting moment, he felt like he'd stepped back in time. Like any second now, he would pull out his phone and see those 473 missed calls and everything would happen all over again.
But it didn't. The phone was silent. The dressing room was quiet. And San was not the same man who had stood here a year ago.
He was thinner now. There were lines around his eyes that hadn't been there before, silver strands in his hair that he was too young for. He smiled less. Laughed less. The easy, carefree joy that had once defined him had been replaced by something quieter. Something heavier. Something that looked almost like wisdom.
But he was still here. Still standing. Still breathing.
And in exactly ten minutes, he was going to walk onto a stage and sing a song he'd written for you.
His phone buzzed. He pulled it out of his pocket and saw a text from your mother. A picture. His daughter, your daughter, was sitting on your mother's lap, wearing tiny pajamas covered in stars, her dark hair sticking up in every direction. She was grinning at the camera, her rosebud mouth stretched wide, her eyes sparkling with the fierce, stubborn joy she had inherited from you.
Underneath the photo, your mother had written: She's watching. She knows it's her daddy. She's pointing at the screen and saying 'Papa.' Make her proud.
San stared at the photo for a long time. His thumb traced the curve of his daughter's cheek, the same curve he had memorized on your face a thousand times. Then he tucked the phone back into his pocket, took a deep breath, and walked toward the stage.
They hit him the moment he stepped through the curtain, a wall of white and gold that made his eyes water. But he didn't look away. He walked to the center of the stage, the same stage, the same spot where he had stood a year ago and believed he was standing on the summit of his life.
The crowd was silent. Respectful. Waiting. He could see their faces in the first few rows, fans with tears already streaming down their cheeks, light sticks held high, a sea of stars that stretched into the darkness.
He lifted the microphone.
"Last year," he said, his voice rough and raw in the silence, "I stood on this stage and I said that this was the greatest moment of my life."
A pause. A breath. The silence was so complete he could hear his own heartbeat.
"I was wrong."
He let the words hang in the air. He let them settle into the hearts of everyone listening.
"The greatest moment of my life wasn't on this stage. It was in a hospital room, holding my daughter for the first time. It was in the quiet of the morning, watching her smile. It was in every second I got to spend with the woman who gave her to me. The woman who gave me everything."
His voice cracked. He didn't try to hide it.
"She's not here tonight. But she's watching. I believe that. I have to believe that. So this... this is for her."
He sat down at the piano that had been placed at the center of the stage. His fingers found the keys, muscle memory taking over, and the first notes of the song filled the auditorium. Soft. Simple. Aching.
And then he sang.
He sang about love. About loss. About the impossible weight of a choice made alone. He sang about a little girl who smiled like her mother and laughed like the sun and reminded him every day that life was worth living even when it hurt. He sang about promises and guilt and the long, slow road toward forgiveness that he was still walking.
He sang for you.
When the final note faded, the silence that followed was absolute. A held breath. A suspended heartbeat.
And then, slowly, the applause began.
It built like a wave, rising and rising, thousands of people on their feet, tears streaming down faces, hands pressed to hearts. It was the loudest ovation he had ever received. Louder than the concert. Louder than the peak he'd thought he'd reached that night. Louder than anything he had ever known.
But San didn't hear it.
He was looking up, past the blinding lights, past the ceiling of the venue, past the stars that were hidden by the city's glow. He was looking for you. And in the silence between the applause, in the echo of the final note, in the ache of his own breaking heart, he thought he felt you there.
A warmth. A whisper. A promise.
I'm proud of you.
Wait for me.
San closed his eyes. And for the first time in a year, he smiled, not the wide, brilliant smile of the man he used to be, but something smaller. Softer. Something that looked almost like peace.
He pressed his hand to his heart, where his wedding ring still hung on a chain around his neck, right beside a tiny Polaroid of a baby with rosebud lips.
"Always," he whispered. "I'll wait for you. Always."
germansingergirl
snowghoul
pixelskylines
discoholicmusic
ellievsbear
annaxmalina
