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Toph didn't go into the pizza party. Partly because she doesn't know what a pizza is, partly because the linoleum on the kitchen floor makes everything annoyingly out of focus, but mostly because she wanted to be on her own. It seems she wants to do that a lot these days.

She surveyed the bunker: fixed some structural damage, reinforced it, expanded a little. But then she ends up crouched on the edge, toes curling against the rock, head bowed.

She could be accused of staring into space, except she doesn't really stare anywhere.

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Gabriel has been in the younger Gabriel's room, working on the Sylar watch.

It was a good distraction from... things.

He's a naturally nervous person, and he's quite a bit more nervous than usual lately. Which is why the tall, shy twenty-year-old is approaching the bunker with his head down, moving as though he unconsciously expects to be accosted by someone hostile at any moment.

When he looks up and sees Toph, he blinks, and is startled out of most of his self-consciousness.

Toph doesn't move in response, though she does notice it. To show this, she says out loud,

"Why are you so nervous?"

He jumps, and it's back again.

"Um."

See Gabe flounder. Flounder, Gabe, flounder.

"...hello? I'm Gabriel."

Introducing himself in a blatant attempt to change the subject is possibly the most transparent ploy ever, but it's better than telling her that he just adopted a serial killer into his family.

Definitely better than telling the person who considers a sister one of the victims of said serial killer.

"Yeah? I'm Toph."

Doesn't really answer the question, does it? She waits.

"--Nice to meet you?"

Yes, nervous is certainly the word. Flounder. Flounder.

"Yeah, I know," Toph says indifferently. It's not nice to meet her. It's awesome to meet her.

Ah. An ego. Gabriel knows those.

Small, nervous smile. (He's too far away to see her eyes, and is looking in the wrong direction in any case.)

Pause.

"So," Toph continues, "why are you so nervous?"

"Oh. Um."

Pause. Swallow.

...he could lie, but lying is wrong and bad, and he really wants to distance himself from wrong and bad at the moment.

Also he considers himself to be terrible at it.

"...Family trouble," says Gabriel at last.

It's true so far as it goes.

"And, um. A lot of people don't like me."

Well, at least he's telling the truth.

"Why not?"

The people of the Earth kingdom are direct, sturdy and unmoving, and Toph is the greatest of the lot.

"...because I look like somebody else, and they don't like him."

Huh.

"Well, I don't know what you look like."

Gabriel goes zuh.

Then he actually, well, looks at her.

"--Oh."

Awkward situation: getting awkwarder.

Shuffleshuffle.

Pause again.

"Yeah, well done."

Mouth open. Mouth shut.

Mouth open.

Mouth shut.

...he's pretty much trying to disappear through sheer force of will now.

His embarrassment: let him show you it.

Toph turns her head away and waves a hand towards him, dismissively.

"Whatever."

Gabriel feels very dismissed.

Which is why he's scurrying away, blushing like a tomato. Not that she can see that, but it's possible they're feeling the heat in Antarctica.

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