A/N: I promised more Tophzula, and it took me long enough. I'm still working on the multichap fic, and a oneshot that's saucier and more focused on them than this one, but this is what I finished first.
Roman Candles
Azula wakes to an attack on her sleeping body. She swiftly sits, lashing out blindly in the blind woman's house with a burst of bright blue fire. In response to the surge of cerulean bursting through the apartment, a young girl shrieks, stunned and another makes a fast shield from a metal lamp.
"Who just tried to crush me to death?" Azula demands groggily, rubbing her golden eyes and squinting at the two kids she never met.
The thing about secret affairs between cops and criminals is that they need to be secrets.
The thing about children is that they can't keep a secret for the life of them.
They both are pretty cute, Azula supposes. And they both have steely expressions that Azula's father would be rather impressed by.
"Why are you here? Are you here to rob us?" very severely demands a pint sized girl whom Azula could quite easily pick up and throw if she wanted to.
"Lin, there is no way someone would come to rob us and then just go to sleep on our couch. You're so stupid," the younger girl with the vibrant green eyes scoffs and tips her nose up proudly at her powers of deduction. Azula simply squints.
"You were the one asking me to save you," is the dry response of the older girl.
"I like your fire," the younger one says, ignoring her sister, and Azula can see her dark eyebrow cocked in intrigue. The princess's mouth feels incredibly dry, and her tongue is struggling to find the words that she is supposed to say to these two kids.
Toph's kids, she realizes abruptly, who could definitely expose all of this. There is a very good aforementioned reason why Azula has never met them before, and she has absolutely no inclination of changing that fact.
Children are not, and have never been, Azula's forte. And the list of reasons why Azula does not want to be found out in this relationship is longer than the list that her first psychiatrist made while psychoanalyzing her.
"Don't talk to strange people on our couch," the older one demands, still eyeing Azula with metal on her palm. Azula watches her cautiously, knowing she certainly packs a larger punch than her small body would imply.
Of course Toph's children would be powerful. If Azula could have them, she would expect the same from hers.
"What's your name?" the younger one asks, making her older sister grit her teeth in frustration.
"Uh..." Azula furrows her brow, her sunset lips parted in confusion. Magnificent, she has just forgotten her own name. "I am Princess Azula of the Fire Nation."
"That's pretty awesome. I heard you once tamed a team of attack dragons to take down an Earth Kingdom city," the younger one says with a slippery smirk. That one seems to have inherited her mother's insatiable taste for danger.
"That's absurd, Su," the older one corrects grimly, her scrutinizing gaze still not faltering. "Ba Sing Se definitely was not brought down by attack ─"
"I've seen your Wanted Posters," Su continues, quite enjoying this discovery. Her life is painfully boring at home, and this just spiced it up significantly. And it's two weeks until her birthday too!
"Why are you here?" demands the older one.
"Well, of course I used my Fire Nation witchcraft to appear out of thin air in order to ambush your mother when she comes home from work," purrs Azula, her eyes flitting between the two girls. Pause. "She gave me a key, and I also didn't leave after..." Sharp intake of breath. Children, Azula, children. But then she shrugs. "You two have two different fathers and a single mother; you know why I was here last night..."
Su does not seem to understand that, but the older one clearly does. Azula forces herself off of the sofa and considers escaping as quickly as possible to go home, but she then stops and looks over her shoulder at them. Pursing her lips for a moment, she sighs and crosses her arms.
Their bickering did remind her of two kids who used to be playful rivals and, without proper guidance, for a long while longed for each others' corpse. Azula was also intending to wait for the return of her somewhat girlfriend. Enemy with benefits? Yes, enemy with benefits.
"Do you two have someone watching you?" Azula inquires slowly, analyzing them for any sign of a lie. And then she almost laughs at the fact that they are going to have quite the difficult time lying to their mother in the future.
"No, and we don't need it," the elder sister insists, her jaw squared and her eyes severe. Azula purses her lips and tries to find the weak point that her tough facade is clearly hiding. "You should probably go. My mother doesn't like it when people overstay their welcome. And neither do I."
Pause. Azula picks at her fingernails, displaying utter disinterest. "You think you're quite tough, don't you? It's almost endearing."
Su snickers at that and decides she really likes this Azula person. Even if the princess is trying her best to express her lack of enthusiasm for their presence.
"Well, then I'm leaving now," Azula says sweetly, cracking open the door. "Have a day."
"Have a day?" Lin mutters as the intruder shuts the door and leaves. "Just a day."
Su shrugs and sulks off into the back rooms of their apartment.
[X]
Two weeks after Azula's brief and cold encounter with Toph's two children, she finds herself spending the night yet again. There is concern in Azula occasionally that this is turning into something more serious than detached warring-for-dominance sex. Toph, thankfully, does not mention that fact, and generally tries to avoid anything to do with emotions.
Azula appreciates those qualities that she certainly did not have in her past lays. And Toph quite enjoys Azula's well hidden desire to be dominated. It is still funny, after so long. Hilarious, maybe. The only downside of it is that Toph can't tell anyone about it.
"Uh," Toph groans as she gets dressed and prepares to leave for work. "I need... no, I don't need, I just want to ask you for a favor. It's not like I couldn't get someone more competent than the Crazy Princess…"
Said princess sits adjusts her head on the light green pillow, cocking an eyebrow and smirking. "Oh yes? And what makes you think I would have any desire to do it for you?"
"Because you're never going to do any better than me," Toph replies coldly with a smug expression.
"You clearly have that the other way around," Azula corrects with a mirthless and haughty chuckle. "But, perhaps I would be interested in this favor."
"Can you watch Su? The kid is hacking up her lungs and I don't trust her alone for a second." The Chief of Police crosses her arms and Azula is unsure if she is proud or disappointed by her daughter's edgy and insubordinate behavior.
"Mmm, I suppose. It's not like I have a triad to run..." Azula replies and Toph is not intimidated by the princess acting like a princess. Toph considers herself to be in control at this point, given her profession and her own personality.
Azula does not seem to know, and Toph cannot think of a reason to flaunt it.
"Good," Toph says carelessly before shrugging and walking away with the gait of a dragon-slayer.
Oh, Azula wishes she had not phrased that so sexily in her head.
[X]
Su sniffs in as her head rests on the coffee table. "Can you actually do anything?" the young girl moans at Azula. "You can't make tea or food or do a single thing that is at all helpful."
She then viciously sneezes and winces from the pain. Azula bites her lip and tries to maintain a safe distance from the infectious youth.
"Well, I apologize for not being raised as a servant for whiny little earthbender girls," Azula purrs and Su makes another warbled groaning sound. "Get your own tea if you need it that much."
Su just presses her face into the hardwood.
[X]
"They're so late," Su whines as she keeps poking her head out of the window. Azula is watching from afar, prepared to verbally lash her bedmate over leaving her with a needy and sick child. "They're not coming, are they...?"
Su frowns and Azula stares at her for a moment. "It isn't as if it effects you. I'm the one who is stuck here until your mother and sister return."
"It's my birthday," Su sighs sharply before sitting down on the windowsill. Azula bites her lip as her mind instantly springs to her fourteenth birthday, her father forgetting it, her absolute and unadulterated rage at him.
Azula swallows her sympathy, knowing that it is unwise for her to get involved with the Beifong Family. Strictly sexual, a strictly messed up relationship between a criminal and a cop, enemies in both a formal war and an informal gang war. No attachments. None.
"You're quick to sex and quicker to push people away," remarks the doctor and Azula fights the urge to attack. "You fear rejection even more than failure, don't you?"
"We can do a little celebration thing if you really need it," Azula says, forcing as much faux displeasure into her voice as possible. Su squints for a moment before nodding. "You must have candles."
"Nope." Su shrugs. "Let's go buy some."
Azula frowns at her for a moment. "Alright," she agrees cavalierly, shrugging.
She and a sniffling Suyin Beifong walk from the metallic apartments that still have flaws from the hasty construction of the city, and take a turn into the shady part of town.
"I'm not allowed to go here," Su says and Azula turns to her.
"Would you like to turn around?" Azula asks.
Su shakes her head quickly. "No, no. We can't tell my mom though."
"That is not a problem to me. It isn't as if I actually care what she thinks or knows," Azula says with a shrug. Su frowns in thought for a moment before running a few steps closer to catch up.
"You need to walk more slowly. I'm a kid!" Su says, grabbing Azula's hand.
Oh Agni, she is so sticky. That's definitely mucus.
"Perhaps you should walk more quickly," Azula says calmly, tugging on the little girl.
"Were you ever even a child?" Su sniffs in sharply. "I heard that you were actually a machine designed for war, like that drill that shot fire."
Azula looks at her for a moment. "Where exactly do you hear things about me?"
"Are you a machine or not?" Suyin demands without pause.
"Of course," Azula responds with another shrug.
"Cool." Su does not seem at all perturbed by that.
Azula hates how much she likes this child. It is certainly entertaining amongst her life of subordinates, human trafficking, drugs, laundering, contraband, ordering hits on the heads of rivals…
It is not a lifestyle that lends itself to children, nor does Azula have anyone or think she will have anyone that she wants children with. Her chosen path is just more carnage, because she has zero skills outside of managing others, violence and being amoral.
"I must admit I've never bought candles," Azula says as they turn into an extremely shady store decorated with cheap and chipping Fire Nation dragon décor.
"Why not?" Suyin sniffs in fiercely.
"I don't buy anything on my own, to be honest." Azula shrugs and starts looking around the shop. "Go play with those… beetle things while I find candles."
Su does look concerned as she imagines all of the things her older sister would say about this. And then she happily skips across the room to touch all of the weird merchandise.
She and Azula leave with a bag of candles just in time, and go back to the apartment before Chief Beifong is home. However, someone else is waiting for them both.
"Lin, you're not invited." Loud sniff in. "Azula and I are having a party for my birthday."
"How am I not invited? I live here," Lin says dryly, sounding exasperated. "Also, why is she here again? My mom said that you were here for an interrogation, seeing as you are a confirmed criminal."
"Well, that would explain the screaming," Azula says lightly and Lin frowns in disgust. The princess walks to the counter and pulls out the candles, batting Suyin's sticky hands away as she tries to get to the birthday cake. Azula sets it all up in a rather impressive way.
"Those candles aren't going to fit," Lin remarks as she ponders how wide and colorful they are. She has never seen that kind around. Or has she… she thinks she has, actually, but she can't recall where.
Suyin grabs her bracelet and bends it around the candles tightly. All six of them. Clamped together, they do fit on the cake better.
Azula is fantastic at this, the princess decides. Someone should give her an award.
Once her father dated a woman with a child. It did not last very long at all. Azula doubts he would have ever done this kind of thing for her, or anyone for that matter.
She does not think he ever even did it for her.
Or would Toph be their father? Azula has long nails, perfect hair, lipstick… wait, wait…
She is honestly thinking of Chief Toph Beifong, her sworn enemy who she happens to have a sex and occasional information about their respective organizations arrangement, as either a mother or father with her. Which is obscene. There are no feelings.
Azula and Toph do not even have feelings.
"Alright," Azula says at last, and she looks up to see that Lin is perched at the counter as well, trying to conceal her excitement. Suyin is vigorously wiping her nose on her sleeve.
She lights the candles and the room glows in a bright blue that impresses the little children. Oh, Azula, you are magnificent at parenting, she thinks to herself as Suyin tries to blow them out. Nothing happens.
"Blow harder," Azula says and Suyin coughs all over the cake. Oh, gross.
"She's sick. I'll do it," Lin says, sounding quite eager to prove that she has better lung strength than Su. It reminds Azula far too much of she and her brother before her family was destroyed.
Lin attempts and they still do not go out.
"Stand back," Azula says in sudden panic and both girls leap, not expecting that tone of voice.
Because it is at exactly that moment that the candles burst in the shape of stars, with a loud explosion, searing most things in sight. Azula breathes in sharply as she puts them out, before too much damage is done.
Su is coughing up her lung as Lin remembers where she saw the candles.
When mom told her to go play in the evidence locker.
Lin shouts, "Those were fireworks!"
"There was no damage. I had it completely under control," Azula says slowly, and as if to mock her, the wooden fixtures on the ceiling collapse, hitting the floor, charred and blackened. "There was mild damage, but neither of you are hurt."
They both look horrified as Azula kicks the charred wood out of the way and goes to check on them both. If anything is going to destroy her sex life forever, it is probably nearly killing two children with fireworks.
"Are you both─?" The door opens. What did Azula ever do to deserve this? Except for… a number of things. But still.
"Why does it smell like a house fire?" asks a loud and commanding voice from the entry hall.
"Birthday candles!" calls out Su.
"Well… they are both alive," Toph says dryly as she walks in and can feel the heat on her face and the smoke in her nostrils. "I have to say I'm impressed by that."
"Then why did you leave them with me?" Azula hisses, and Toph kind of likes how breathless she is about this ordeal.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I guess you didn't get the dossier about Operation: Because I Felt Like It, That's Why," Toph says coldly and Azula sighs.
She looks at Chief Beifong and is wildly glad that the woman opposite of her, whom is assessing the damage to her kitchen, cannot see facial expressions.
Azula has that weird, sickly feeling of her ribs being torn open and someone just messing around with her insides.
These better not be real feelings.
"So," Lin says, sitting up, "my birthday is in two months…"
Toph smirks. Oh, she knew it.
[X]
Sometimes Toph wonders who the blind one really is.
Well, yeah, she and Azula are both deplorably stubborn people, which is why they work so well. Toph was tired of boys who thought she was weak; Azula was tired of girls who were weak.
But there is a weird and loathsome squishy feeling in her as she, Azula and two children are attempting to do a less potentially deadly job at celebrating a birthday. Lin is excited, Suyin has not stopped talking about Azula for a good deal of time.
Toph just knows that Azula can't see it for the life of her.
And Toph isn't wimpy enough to tell her that they make a pretty good family sometimes.
That would be even more absurd than the fact that Chief Beifong is letting a war criminal and leader of a Triad set up illegal fireworks inside of her house.