A/N: Some Quick Facts About This Fic:
Chapters: 4
Pairing(s): Azula x Ty Lee, Mai x Ozai, Zuko x Katara
Rated: T for mild language and mature humor.
Notes: This is a ficlet set in the Spring Fever / Midwinter Madness universe. It is for Autumn Tyzula Week 2016.
BONFIRE TOFFEE
"Mrs. Voorhees was a terrific serial killer, and there's always room for Candyman's daughter. She's sweet, she's deadly, she's bad for your teeth."
-Scream 2-
October 28th
Trouble and Wild
"Why would you take a baby trick-or-treating?" Ozai Shinohai demands.
He and his wife stand in their mansion, surrounded by Halloween decorations that would make their everyday home qualify as an extreme haunted house. Mai looks as she always does, save for the headband with the mini witch's hat. They both wait for Azula and Ty Lee while discussing their plans.
Mai turns away from the golden-eyed six-month-old by the name of Valerie and replies, "So that I can get a ton of candy and eat it all, obviously. Don't you have two other kids?"
Ozai cocks an eyebrow. That is new. "I never took them trick-or-treating as babies." Pause. "I never took them trick-or-treating in the first place. Why would I ever want to do that?"
"I don't know. Maybe Zuko would hate you less if you did." Mai begins to smirk before realizing that Zuko will be here this afternoon.
Ozai laughs. "I hated him long before he had the chance to hate me, and meeting my grandchild is not worth having to deal with him for a week. It's probably going to be a terrible grandchild. Not like Bunny. Bunny is the perfect grandchild, and will not easily be shown up by whatsername."
Mai cannot help but say, "Her name's Kya. Katara is horrible but at least she's better at naming kids than Ty Lee."
Right on cue, Azula enters the room declaring, "Speaking of, I'm thinking about being an Eskimo just to piss her off. I will be literally the most racist sexy Eskimo ever."
She and Ty Lee had been upstairs rummaging through over twenty years of Halloween costumes. Their sickeningly sweet conversations and Ty Lee's ceaseless compliments of Azula's outfits and body have been awkwardly audible to Mai and Ozai for an hour now.
"Is that an Eskimo costume? Because you look like a vampire." Mai sits down with Valerie on her lap. Azula scowls.
She holds up one finger, her sharp fingernail glinting like a knife. "One, I am an Evil Witch Queen."
Mai thinks she may have lost control of her mouth because she comments, "But, Azula, on Halloween you're supposed to wear a costume."
Azula holds up a second finger and ignores her stepmother. "Shut up. Two, I said I was thinking about it."
Mai shrugs and turns to her other best friend. "And Ty Lee is the 1950's."
Azula rolls her eyes and prevents Ty Lee from speaking for herself by replying, "Ty Lee is Jackie Kennedy. I made that costume myself."
Mai watches Ty Lee spin and Azula watch her hungrily. It could not be grosser. "As usual, Ty Lee, you're aiming high with First Lady."
Ty Lee blithely cheers, "I would love to be first lady!"
Mai and her stepdaughter exchange an old, familiar glance. "She said excitedly, my insult going right over her head…"
Azula predictably says to her father, "I want to be president. Will you fund my campaign of being president?"
And Ozai predictably replies to his daughter, "Sure. Why not?"
"Why are you laughing?" Azula shouts at Mai.
"Because I'd rather vote for President Ghost-of-Hitler than you. Or maybe Ghost-of-Stalin. Ghost-of-Nixon? Ghost-of-Prince-Joffrey?" Mai adjusts Valerie in her arms.
Azula stands straighter, appearing even more regal. "I would be the best president ever, and everyone would vote for me because I'm sexy and would tell them what they wanted to hear. I did enough reports on Joseph McCarthy to know how to scare the population into loving me."
"Did I say you wouldn't win?" says Mai. "No. You'd win. I just wouldn't vote for you."
"Well, you are my best friend and best man and best mother, so that is heartbreaking. And you would be my vice president but now that you've made your lack of loyalty clear, I would rather run with Zuko. At least I expect him to stab me in the back."
"True friends stab you in the front," remarks Mai. "Oscar Wilde said that."
Ty Lee innocently inquires, "Who's Oscar Wilde?"
Azula just shoots Ty Lee a glare and says to her stepmother, "True friends don't stab you."
Ty Lee purses her lips, thinking briefly, and interrupts Azula and Mai again by attempting, "He made the Twilight Zone, didn't he?"
Azula snaps, "No, that was Gene Roddenberry."
Mai corrects, "That was Rod Serling."
Azula shoots Mai a quick glare. "I know. That's what I said."
[X]
Irately, from the passenger seat of their car, Katara replies to Zuko, "We're visiting your dad, not going into a lion's den."
"And Azula and Ty Lee and Mai, which makes it worse than a lion's den. They hate you and they hate me and they'll be really mean to us."
"Why do they hate you?" Katara asks. She despises them, yes, but she cannot quite comprehend how out of hand this family is.
Zuko rattles off, "Mai hates me because I broke off our engagement, Ty Lee hates whoever Azula hates, and Azula hates me for a list of reasons that, if written down, would be ten times as long as War and Peace. Most of which being our mother's love and me stealing her girlfriend after she was committed."
Katara cannot suppress her laughter. "Everything you just said was insane."
"I know. I know, but we're really just asking for trouble by this visit. It's going to be horrible."
"It's not asking for trouble. Are they terrible people? Yes. Are we staying in a hotel? Yes. See? It will be a trouble-free vacation."
Kya begins to wail.
It will be a mostly trouble-free vacation.
[X]
"Where's Bunny?" asks Ozai, studying his daughter.
The debate of Rod Serling's merits has ended and Ozai Shinohai has realized the absence of his best grandchild.
Azula answers, "Playing Grand Theft Auto in one of the living rooms."
"She's eight," comments Mai, unsure if she is judging them or not.
Azula snidely asks, "And your point is? Child soldiers kill actual people at eight, Mai."
"When she's a wild child, out of control and terrible, we'll all blame you," Mai says, although she must admit the logic is semi-sound. It is not like she will give Valerie many restrictions in the future.
The doorbell rings. A chill comes over Azula.
"Here comes trouble," she whispers to Ty Lee.
Ty Lee kisses her cheek, squeezing her hand to try to comfort her.
Once Mai answers it, Azula hears the bickering of a small family. Zuko, Katara and a three-year-old that Zuko has kept sheltered from Ozai at all costs, until Katara convinced him that introducing Kya to her grandfather was the right thing to do.
"Well, Zuko," says Ozai, considering extending his hand but changing his mind when he remembers that he will just be disappointed by the handshake. "It's high time you meet your sister."
Katara smiles at Valerie. Valerie smiles back.
Mai silently watches.
"It's also high time you meet your grandchild," says Zuko, nudging the tiny little girl forward.
The mixture of her parents' features makes her look far warmer than either Zuko or Katara. Kya has tan skin and untamed dark hair with the sharp Shinohai features and bright golden eyes as large as her mother's.
Kya blinks and hides behind her mother's leg. Ty Lee smiles at her, while the other three Shinohais stare and wonder what to say. This could not be a more awkward situation.
"You can meet your sister," says Ozai, breaking the silence and gesturing at the baby. "She's flawless, isn't she?"
"Deja vu," grumbles Zuko with a short glare directed at Azula, and, if they hear him, they ignore him.
Ty Lee kneels and greets her niece.
[X]
Katara screams from the kitchen. Zuko sits, staring at the television with his father, stepmother slash ex-fiancee, sister, sister-in-law, and three children. None of them say a word, and Katara tried to flee the discomfort by finding a drink.
"What's wrong?" Zuko shouts, standing up and going to find her.
"Whose bloody shirt is this?" she exclaims, her cobalt eyes wide.
He finds her and wraps one arm around his girlfriend. She would reject the gesture from most people, but Zuko has earned the right to try to comfort her. Mai walks in and leans against the doorway.
"It's part of my Halloween costume. The blouse really is perfect so don't touch it. I have to watch the drying fake blood to make sure it stays in the right place. Paws off," Mai snaps.
"I'm—who are you being?" Katara asks, her eyelashes fluttering.
"Mia Wallace, obviously. The bra was hard enough to find. I had to have it made by a bra artisan, which is somehow a thing. So, I'm not ruining the time I spent on that bra by having the blood stains in the wrong place," explains Mai, her arms crossed.
"For the party?" Katara inquires. "Are we going to that, Zuko? I don't know if it's… my thing."
"It's not that wild," Zuko says.
Mai scoffs. "It wasn't arranged by me when it wasn't that wild. Parties are boring, but not this one. I went all out and my drug dealer bought two new cars."
Katara shrugs, Zuko agape, neither wanting to complain.
[X]
"Ty Lee, you look amazing," Azula remarks breathily, but her wife pays her no mind.
She is fixated on the cat. It is a calico with dark black and bright white fur, and Ty Lee keep staring without petting it or holding it.
"Your cats paws are huge," Ty Lee says, wide-eyed with wonder. "Look how big its paws are!"
Azula shrugs. "It's to help her better survive in the wild. Now kick out the cat like you kicked out the Bunny and let's try to have a vacation."
"In your childhood bedroom?" Ty Lee asks, glancing around.
"We did when we were teenagers." Azula sits down on her bed. "It is not different."
"Well…" Ty Lee watches the cat run away. She stands and shuts the door. "You have a really good point, like you always do."
She leans forward and kisses Azula.
They cannot resist each other for long.
Until the cat scratches on the door nonstop with its humongous paws and they both end up lying on the bed, half-dressed and completely unsatisfied.
Azula thinks that perhaps Vallencourt should be an outdoor cat from now on.