Toph and Zuko, in spite of coming from different countries with different social customs and different positions in society, find themselves encountering the exact same problem.
They don’t know how to react when people touch them. Specifically, Katara, Sokka, and Aang.
Almost nobody touches them unless it’s in a fight, and it takes a while to adjust.
Zuko hadn’t expected Toph to be the one he gravitated towards, to be the one he connected to, but he doesn’t know why.
They’re so alike, after all.
The problem, Toph figures out early on, is that remote water tribes and monks don’t have class structures.
Or, well she’s sure they do, because every society does, but not like they do in the earth kingdom. Toph isn’t nobility, exactly, but she is a Bei Fong, which means her family is richer and more influential most of their numerous kings.
When you have money and power, who needs a crown?
It meant she had few peers, and as a little blind girl she had even less. There was no games of tag or rough housing with her, because she was delicate, because she was breakable. Her parents’ affection was sparse, treating her like the glass doll they’d made her into, and she hated it.
The only time she touched or was touched was in the rumble, when she was fighting. Even her servants were so skilled that their fingers didn’t even skim her bare shoulders as they dressed her.
The first time Sokka puts an arm around her, she buries him up to his neck. She doesn’t apologize, but she does undo it in the next moment. She’s only comfortable showing her affection like she’s fighting, punching them in the arms or putting them into a headlock. Sokka and Aang take it better than Katara does, but Toph doesn’t know what to do with her soft, sisterly touches, so she just avoids them.
When Zuko joins them, she notices the same anxiety with him, and imagines it’s the same problems she had, only a thousand times worse. He’s the crown prince. He has no equal.
The only people that would have been allowed to touch him casually would be his mother, who left him, his father, who burned half his face off, his sister, who’s trying to kill him, and Uncle. Uncle has to be careful not to overstep or give the impression he doesn’t respect his nephew’s authority because even if Uncle is older and more powerful, he’s not higher ranked, and that matters. Anyone else could be given a death sentence for laying their hand on the crown prince. Not that Toph thinks Zuko would have ever done that, even at his most bratty, but it doesn’t change that he could have.
Which means the only time he would have had touch was when he’s fighting or training.
He doesn’t know what to do the rest of them and their too friendly touches. He bears it better than Toph, standing their uncomfortably but not leaning away or snapping at them.
“It’s like they never even learned to spell propriety before,” she says to Zuko, after Sokka spends a whole ride on Appa pressed up against his side.
He lots out a sharp, relieved breath. “Fuck, I know, right? This is going to kill me.”
She laughs, and he joins her a moment later.
She hadn’t enjoyed her sheltered, upper class upbringing. But it was still nice to have someone around who could relate to it.
