Insanity

Insanity
By Gunwild

***

It wasn’t any one thing that ruined Toph and Katara’s relationship. Neither of them had been entirely willing to work at it in the first place. Living in close quarters in the Western Air Temple ruined any chance they had of staying friendly or even civil. They stopped speaking to each other one day, and it didn’t take long after that for them to annoy each other indirectly again.

The incident that most specifically caused things to happen on ‘that night,’ as both later came to call it, was Toph practicing earthbending, noisily, well before dawn. There was an argument about how daylight didn’t mean much to her, and how only Katara was complaining, and then the two spent the entire rest of the day fighting.

It was quite the spectacle, but everyone avoided them. At one point Aang tried to talk them out of their shouting match, but Sokka and The Duke pulled him away, suggesting that if they stored up their resentment it would just build and result in worse things down the line. Of course, they were thinking logically. But there was nothing logical about the war of wills going on between the two girls.

In fact, as it got dark and their throats got too tired to yell anymore, with both electing to stalk off and stew, Katara went into a strange state of mind. She began to think to herself that showing Toph how powerless and childish she really was could be important to the safety of the group. She convinced herself that anything done with the intent of putting their resident earthbending master in her place would be a labor for the greater good. Once she got that far, it was easy to make herself believe anything.

We must not judge Katara too harshly. On the one hand, yes, she conned herself into believing that her selfish desires were pure and just, which was a crime against others and herself. But on the other, she was more damaged by her life than she was often given credit for. The warfare, betrayal and abandonment had left her overprotective of herself and her closest friends, among whom she had a hard time counting Toph. She was, to put it in terms familiar, shell shocked crazy.

Besides, she was a kid, and kids do stupid things.

Tonight it was walking, lantern in hand, up a curling staircase worn smooth by the feet of ascetics, hand nervously clutching a fur-stuffed pillow. Sokka’s was the room above Toph’s. Only he didn’t know why that was. Everyone else had it figured out. Everyone else knew it from the thousand casual touches and leans in, from the way she made her conversation with him. She was crazy about Sokka. Toph wanted his caring and acceptance far more than anyone else’s in the group, maybe more than anyone‘s in the world.

So now, to get the upper hand on the inconsiderate child, Katara planned to prove that she could take away anything Toph had or wanted, and do do with ease. She’d have knocked, but that didn’t play into the plan. Besides, there was barely a door to speak of - just the extra tent flap, slung over the stone frame. She tried to disturb it as little as possible. There, sleeping on his side with no sheets, was her brother. Katara let the lamp down as gently as she could manage on the floor near the door, careful to angle it so that not too much light was cast on the bed itself. Then she gripped her pillow with one shaking fist, stalked over to the bed and leaned in close, so that she only had to whisper. “Hey, Sokka?”

He did not wake up gracefully. “Uhnnnnhgh.” He opened one eye, made out nothing in the semidarkness and through the fog of sleep, and closed it again. “Wha?”

“Can I sleep with you? It’s kind of scary in the lower temple.” That seemed like it would make her out as enough of a damsel to catch his interest.

Sokka, who clearly just wanted to be back asleep, nodded. “Ukkay.” It seemed that her tactics of putting back on some of her more revealing Fire Nation clothes, dropping them low on her chest and brushing her hair meticulously weren’t going to help much. Katara sighed and slipped in next to him, pulling them both under the covers.

If he was awake when she put her arms around him, he didn’t give any signs of surprise. He might just have thought of it as the act of a frightened little sister, or barely given it any thought at all. It had to confront him when she took hold of his left hand, which he had not bothered to remove the wrapping from that day, and began stroking his forearm down each muscle and back up. But he might have still imagined that it was something innocent.

He couldn't have done the same when she put her mouth and nose against the back of his neck and nuzzled him. Yes, it was something she might have done in a friendly fashion as a younger girl. But at their present ages and in the present circumstances it had the edge of something different, which he was telling himself he didn’t want a part of. “Not too close, ‘kay?” he muttered. She didn’t say anything, but stopped what she was doing and let him rest. For a time.

But she had another idea. Once she was sure he was asleep, breathing low and slow, and still close to her, she reached lower on his body.

Men didn’t have the same sort of nipples as women, but Katara knew that when she was trying to get herself excited, that was where she always started, so it was worth a try. And it was fun. They hardened up when she circled her fingertips around them, much like her own. Was that because they were related? No, that was stupid, it must be a far more general thing. Still, it was something exciting to think that she was touching her brother this way. She hadn’t counted on that. And it was putting the tickle in her belly she normally associated with thoughts of more dashing figures like Jet.

He didn’t seem to stir, although his body might have become a little more tense against hers. It was somewhat pleasurable to have the warm back and legs of a boy up against herself, especially in this dark and drafty place far from home. She wondered if her story about being lonely and spooked wasn’t so different from the truth, for just a second. But that was too much thinking to do while she worked, finding the waist of his pants with her fingers.

He didn’t have underwear on. Instantly her attention was on how a thin piece of fabric was keeping her from being pushed into his naked butt. During the day, or when she was sane, it might have had a different effect on her mind, but for now it made her face feel hot and her stomach try to digest itself. She didn’t have to convince herself to reach inside his clothing. She actually wanted to do it. That, too, was not in the plan.

So Katara went on, put her hand where it didn’t belong and felt around with interest. The first thing she noticed was how supple the skin was. She had kind of expected it to be rough or tight, or at least like the rest of her brother’s body, which she was basically familiar with. It was different, though. Kind of like the skin of her own most sensitive parts, which she felt becoming warmer all the time. Sokka was warm, too. It was very soft on the surface down there, but his muscles were firm, and there was something else that was firming up.

She bit on her lower lip when first coming in contact with it. There wasn’t going back from this. She had her hand on, then around her brother, and she was enjoying it and it meant she was doing something wrong and not fighting it. Sure, the legends were full of spirits and heroes who wedded their siblings. No, it wasn’t unheard of in remote places, even in these times. That didn’t mean it was any less frightening to a sensible young woman.

Katara, of course, found breaking the taboo exhilarating and had to clench her thighs together to keep from grinding her hips into her brother. The shame was part of the fun. Of course it would be a shock for someone to see her now. That was the point. Right at this moment the ever-so-alert Toph would be lying awake, listening or feeling or *whatever* she did to the room on top of hers, trying to connect herself to the boy she wanted more than anything, and hurting as she realized the nature of the noises. She’d know that for all her brash, headstrong ways, she would never match Katara’s boldness. That she was just a girl who didn’t have any real power, because Katara was in charge and always had been.

Maybe she would cry.

For some reason, Katara didn’t like the image of Toph crying in her mind, and threw it away immediately, hurrying to continue exciting Sokka with her hand. By this time he had filled it, he was almost as big as her grip could get around, and the heat from him seemed to be infecting her on contact.

She had to get her free hand to work on herself, there was no avoiding it. Katara had been this aroused before, a few times, but it had always taken hours of work and just the right mood. This kind of dangerous behavior was much more potent than just tickling herself with a moist rag. As she got the first finger in herself, pushing in from as high an angle as possible, there was no way to stop from knowing that this was something she’d been hungry to do for a long time, that she was a deviant and guilty of incestuous lusts and depraved longings that should doom her to suffer the torments of karmic judgment for eons to come. But for whatever reason, it only made her happier. She found it exceedingly easy to get more fingers inside herself after that.

Katara was entirely out of her right mind from that point on, because she forgot how to examine herself. It might even be fair to say that she was not Katara. Although that didn’t stop her from trying not to wake poor Sokka as she put him on his back, wracking herself with pleasure using her fingers all the while.

Even though she’d had some kind of master plan before now, one that had mostly involved causing enough circumstantial evidence to make Toph hurt, this had stopped being about revenge. The girl had become drunk on sex and the idea of herself as a pervert. She savored taking Sokka’s pants off slowly just to keep him asleep, watching with delight as he stood up at attention, thinking about how she had done that, how it was her achievement, and what she would still do.

Her clothes fell from around her shoulders onto the bedspread. She almost wanted him to wake up and look. She, Katara, had gone to such great pains to be beautiful tonight, and he’d never get to see the woman his baby sister had turned herself into for his benefit. And he should be happy that he would get to be her first. Any man should be *ecstatic,* she thought with an arch of her back, giving herself an extra-deep piercing with her fingers as she did, should be *pleased* to have the attentions of someone like her.

*That body, that good body.* She reached out and touched him on the belly, which was firm rather than soft. Of course he was good-looking and in fine shape - not up to her level, naturally, but built like a man, not a boy. As if Aang knew what that kind of attraction should feel like. He was just scrawny. She would have broken him. No, he wasn’t good enough. Even Sokka wasn’t good enough. But he would have to do.

And he did have that one especially interesting piece. It was so stiff that it didn’t bend downward like before, but went straight up like it was begging for her favors. It was completely awake, even if Sokka wasn’t. So she got on her belly in the big bed and decided to reward it with a kiss, then another. It couldn’t make itself wet, like she did. The poor thing needed help, and it shook violently, as though frightened, with every delicate touch of her tongue.

Three fingers had never felt so insubstantial to Katara, who was even pulling them apart to get more sensation. She tried and failed to be happy with having all of her brother in her mouth, which she liked even though it poked the back of her throat and she had to suppress gagging hard. Every glancing touch she gave her own hot wetness was just a taunt. There was only one thing she wanted at this point, and she had come so far. It might wake him up. It might ruin everything. But again, the madness she had pulled herself into gave no quarter.

*I‘m going to fuck my brother,* she thought to herself. It was the wickedest thing she’d ever imagined, and she was going to do it, too. Not sure of the best position for it, she spread her legs as widely as possible and positioned herself over his stiff member, then lowered slowly. Too slowly. She wanted to be filled up by all of it. *And my brother is going to fuck me.*

She wished it would hurt less, but there was no arguing with results. She did not feel empty anymore, rather, she felt almost too full. Her head swam. How could anything like that fit up there? But it did, inch by inch, and she didn’t stop, because the heat made her mouth hang open and her eyes close, it was so good. She didn’t mind making a fool and a monster of herself. It was just that enjoyable.

Katara honestly tried to be slow, but incensed as she was by the tense face of the boy underneath her, by the cool air on her hot skin in the dark, by the fluids that stank and the wonderful, guilty pain of having her brother in her, she failed miserably. It was just a lowering and rising on her knees at first, but it became a rocking motion, then thrusting, until finally she was bouncing and, she couldn’t stop herself, *moaning* like she was wounded, even though she was doing it all to herself.

Luck was there for Katara in this. She was young, and so was he, so neither lasted long. At about the point where she learned that wiggling herself from side to side pushed her innards around against themselves, Sokka’s hands gripped onto the sheets and pulled. She had no idea what it meant before it happened, but she understood it *as* it happened. And she adored the warm glow of the seed inside her, imagining she could feel it all the way up to her belly. So she came too, layering it on top of Sokka’s orgasm, and making noises she couldn’t identify and not giving a damn who heard.

He was moving under her. The disorientation must have been immense. Hers was. She rolled off of him, feeling sick from the exhilaration and something else. Some slower-coming, more dreadful feeling. *I won‘t get pregnant,* she thought, her first rational idea in a long time. *But… that’s not what matters.*

She didn’t run. It was more of a walk. She didn’t say anything, and neither did he, if he really understood what had happened. She thought for a few seconds that maybe he’d never remember, or think it was a dream, or imagine that it wasn’t her. But the muttered noise from behind her just as she made it out of the room let her know that she wouldn’t be blessed with his ignorance. “Oh, no…”

She hid. It wasn’t hard, at this late hour. The temple was complex and quiet, and it was easy and welcome to slide into one of the deep shadows to hug her knees and feel ashamed. Her eyes stung badly. She was blind, and it was for the best, because she didn’t want to see herself covered with evidence of her crime.

That was how Katara fell from her own good graces, and learned humility, and how to hate herself. The only thing left was learning if, and how, she could be redeemed. She wouldn’t find the answers sheltered in a corner, but it was so hard to imagine moving, acting like a human being right now, that she had no idea what to do.

She wanted to clean herself, that was for certain. Her body was still hot and sticky, still smelled musky, and that warmth she’d coveted so recently was still inside of her. She hated it. She had to be cleansed. Without thinking of how she looked or where she was going Katara went for the nearest source of water, the fountain on this level, and she could at least bend the water to scrub herself clean so she could *look* like something other than an abomination.

But even for her regained sanity, this was another awful decision. In the fountain, doing the same thing she had hoped to, was Sokka, and he barely glanced at her, continuing to wash himself and look angry.

She didn’t blame him, so she bent herself some of the water from the pool and wet her body, trying to stay out of sight. But of course it couldn’t be that simple. She couldn’t be allowed to deal with this at her own pace. That would be too forgiving of fate.

The ground shoved her in the side, hard. A stone wall had just run into her and she was winded. Her back hit the side of the fountain and she stumbled from her feet, trying to focus in the moonlight, though she was already sure what she would see.

“You rotten bitch. How you could even do that...”

It wasn’t a question. Katara swallowed on a dry throat.

“… I won’t forgive you for it, not ever…”

Toph hit her again, facing no resistance. This time she pushed up on the stones of the temple floor, upending Katara and dumping her into the fountain, where she fell into the water, scraped her knee and slipped onto her elbow, bruising it.

“C’mon. Fight back. I want you to.”

She wouldn’t be doing that. She caught a glimpse of Sokka staring, looking conflicted, though she felt sure his desire for revenge would win out and he would cheer Toph on as she beating went along. There was a jolt as the central part of the fountain cracked from its place, and a great deal more water came out, filling the whole thing to the brim. The giant spherical rock was more than big enough to crush Katara. “Fight back!” Toph screamed again, with a crack in her weakened voice.

“Put it down, Toph.” Sokka didn’t use a commanding voice. He just spoke the words, and placed a hand on the massive stone, pushing it away gently. Somehow, he got her to comply. “She doesn’t deserve it.”

“Yes I do,” she croaked, tugging at the ruined sash around her waist, belly-deep in water and wondering if they would let her drown herself. She looked at Sokka, had no idea what to say, and turned to Toph. She seemed so fragile in her plain sleeping clothes with her messy hair, but she was hard inside. Her pale eyes didn’t hold any pity for Katara. “Toph, I admit everything, I was trying to make you jealous…”

“You think I care about that?!” she demanded, but didn’t wait for an answer. “You think I care about me? Of course you don’t understand what this is about. This is about Sokka, you whore, you raped him, you took without asking and you hurt him when he *trusted* you, and he *loved* you and he still does, and I can’t believe any of it!”

Katara shut her eyes. “I know.”

And to her disgust, she felt her brother’s wet hands placed on her shoulders, and herself pulled into a gentle hug.

“No,” she tried protesting with the tiny amount of voice left in her. “You can’t. You have to hate me or…”

“Or what?” he asked, petting her back. “Or you’ll stop being my sister? You can‘t. You can‘t, ever.”

This brought a fresh wave of sobbing out in Katara, and she tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let her go. Eventually she collapsed into being hugged by him, and she was reminded of how she had cried to their father and judged him unfairly, while he’d done nothing but stand there and accept her feelings. Her idea of wisdom and doing the right thing seemed pathetic by comparison.

Toph was still crying, now audibly, like her rage had abandoned her and wasn’t giving her strength anymore.

“She didn’t hurt me, Toph,” he assured her. “Not really. She hurt herself a lot more.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“I’m glad you care, but I’m not the one who needs to be looked out for. She is. She’s taken everything on her shoulders for a long time. It made her do something bad, but I think we’ll get over it.” He walked Katara to the edge of the fountain, rested her up against it. “I’m going to clean her and put her in bed so she can get herself back together.”

Toph just watched as he began wiping her off with her own sash. Without asking, she hopped onto the edge of the fountain and sat, stoically bunching up a loose piece of her clothing and beginning to dry Katara’s hair, while Katara pointedly avoided looking at the other girl.

Sokka‘s fingers were shaking. “Don’t hate each other. If you’re going to hate anyone, it should be me.”

They both turned at him. Toph did it with a raised fist. “Don’t you even try to blame yourself for her-”

“It‘s that... I let her do it.” He didn’t give them room to reply. “I was dreaming… that it was happening. Or I thought I was dreaming. And instead of stopping it, I let it happen, and that means some of it is my fault. I’m… I’m pretty awful, too. ”

Toph looked like she was about to shout, but shut her gaping mouth and looked revolted. Not with them, though. “I heard, and I thought I knew. But I didn’t do anything, either, because I was to busy feeling sorry for myself.”

Katara rested her head on the slick stones. “And I was the cause of it all.”

Sokka laughed his least happy laugh. “Yeah… so I guess we’re all pretty awful.”

Toph, who Katara had least expected to accept this way of thinking, became more gentle in her drying and sighed. “Yeah. But at least we’re awful together.”

Sokka nodded. Toph actually laughed, and Katara stared at her in surprise. "You know... you did make me jealous."

And Sokka looked much less than angry now, too. "And you did... well... I mean, I didn't..."

Toph elbowed him lightly. "Spit it out, you still need to learn public speaking."

"Well," Sokka said, face redder than any of Katara's silks. "It wasn't the worst thing that ever happened to me."

Toph let out a dismissive noise. "I could do it better."

Katara didn’t know where her words came from, or how, given the loathing she felt for herself, she could make light of this. “No way.”

“Don’t challenge me, sugar queen!” Toph gave a light pinch to Katara’s hair. “I’ll win.”

“I’d like to see that,” Sokka muttered.

Toph crossed her arms. “Well, I’m sure we can work something out.”

With her brother washing her naked body ever more intensely and Toph rubbing her scalp dry with the kind of care one would only show an intimate friend, Katara came to realize something. “You two aren’t kidding, are you?”

“Well, hey,” Sokka said, still looking befuddled and unsure of himself. “I could do worse than two lovely bending masters. Actually, I can’t think of anything better.” He laughed loudly and unsteadily at his own pronouncement.

Toph nodded, chuckling too. And at this point Katara knew they were really just as insane as she was, and that it was what should make them such fine friends. So even she, wet and hurt and broken, laughed as well. Hard.

***

(This was, naturally, by request - it’s not exactly my kind of story. But it made some people happy, and I got some sweet art out of the deal, which I‘ll be pleased to post at gunwild.blogspot.com in the near future. If I must dedicate it to someone other than those who made it worth doing directly, I’ll shout out to Spleefmistress, who has one of the better drawings on this, uh, subject in her gallery at hentaifoundry.com. I might, at some point, have to follow this up with the being ‘awful together’ that was indicated. As always, apologies to Messrs. DiMartino and Konietzko [Gunwild@mail2world.com].)