A/N: Some Quick Facts About This Fic:
Chapters: 12
Pairing: Azula x Ty Lee
Rated: T for mild sexual content, moderate coarse language, mild blood and gore, violent references and mature humor.
Notes: This is just a short-ish story. It was rewritten to comply with post Smoke and Shadow canon and to clean it up. It also was on hiatus for several months but now is back in business.
Synchronicity
"Do you think the universe fights for souls to be together?
Some things are too strange and strong to be coincidences."
- Emery Allen -
Chapter One
So, the founder of the Agni Kai Triad walks into a bar, and promptly knocks over a table.
Today, the sun has yet to reach its apex in the Dragon Flat Boroughs of Republic City, and the bar is, as expected, deserted. But despite the solitude, the small shriek escaping her lips as her bleeding wound hits the heavy wood is as quiet as she can keep it.
And then, suddenly, a relatively stunned waitress throws open a dusty closed door and clomps into the room.
The agonized intruder wipes her lip with the back of her hand and stares wordlessly ahead of her at the only witness of her intrusion. And the intruder cannot believe her unfortunate luck. First she gets slashed open by an ice blade, and now she has to deal with some airheaded waitress who will probably immediately tell the police.
"It's not even midday, what is anyone doing in this pathetic dive?" demands the dying woman, her tone still fierce despite her rattling breath. "Not that anyone would even be here during business hours... I mean just looking through the window I felt bad for the poor soul who wasted their life buying it..."
"That pour soul would be me," replies the shadowy figure and the dying woman swallows blood.
"I assumed you were a waitress from..." and she changes her mind halfway through her sentence.
"... and I wouldn't miss that voice anywhere... despite your questionable fashion decisions," remarks the bar owner as she steps away from the dark door frame that rendered her to appear as only a silhouette. "You were much better dressed when you had a staff to do it for you. And your hair, I just..."
Azula only shrieks in rage in response, no longer feeling the need for pleasantries. "Yes, completely ignore the fact that I'm only dying on this filthy table, Ty Lee! I'm sorry that I'm not pretty enough while bleeding out!"
It then takes longer than it should for Ty Lee to notice the blood soaking Azula's clothes that she is futilely trying to keep in with one palm pressed against her ribcage. She looks even more sallow than she usually did, and while she wears a fearless expression, her golden eyes show her complete and utter panic.
She is bleeding to death.
It has been nearly twelve years since the comet. It has been ten years since Ty Lee last saw Azula, bound, careless, chapped lips parted with her face against the floor and her bangs draped carelessly over her eyes. It has been eight years since she resurfaced. It has been five years since Azula broke her house arrest and left in the middle of the night without saying goodbye.
Azula liked disappearing. But she always reappeared somehow, some way, at some point in time.
And, as usual, Azula shows up in the last place Ty Lee would ever expect her.
"Uh, okay," is Ty Lee's weak response as she stares at her dying ex-girlfriend and realizes something must be done other than staring at her with a slack jaw. Of course Azula would choose to force herself into Ty Lee's life again by stumbling, dying into her bar. "Stay there. Not that you're going to run away..."
She nervously laughs at her own feeble joke as Azula keeps her pale lips clamped, and Ty Lee quickly scurries behind the glossy bar counter to find a clean bottle of alcohol. Right, right... stopping bleeding seems to be the most important thing at this point. Ty Lee licks her dry lips and rummages around for the box with cloth bandages and a few bottles of herbs. There are more injuries in a dive bar than one would expect (or perhaps just as many as one would expect).
Azula coughs and touches the blood with a surge of panic that she thinks only makes her bleed out faster. The rush of wet heat over her hand is testament to that. She claws at the table that might be her deathbed as she impatiently waits for Ty Lee to stop her aggravatingly loud rummaging. It is giving her an even worse headache, and laughs in the face of the fact that this is a time sensitive manner.
Time sensitive because there is only so much blood in Azula's body. Time sensitive because Azula has no idea if she has been followed by Ayako or any of her cronies. Time sensitive because Azula is fairly certain that there is not a single person alive on this planet who isn't casually looking for her to turn her in to the Red Monsoons, or the police, or ─ worst of all ─ Fire Lord Zuko.
Finally, Ty Lee stops twiddling her Agni forsaken thumbs and returns with a (thankfully) clean box of concoctions, bandages and the clear glass bottle of white liquor in her trembling left hand. Azula then suddenly has the realization that she is placing her life into the hands of a girl who used to call elbows 'arm-knees'.
Ty Lee nervously licks her lips again and says, "I'm not a doctor─"
"Not with your brains," Azula interjects with a haughty roll of her eyes that makes Ty Lee's eyebrow twitch.
"Shut up if you want any painkiller," she snarls and Azula swallows her displeasure with another good ounce of her own blood. "What do I get myself into if I save you?"
"Every single fucking spirit, you moron, I am drowning in my own blood!" Azula snarls and Ty Lee inhales sharply.
"Just stay calm, okay," Ty Lee says quietly as she removes the cork from the bottle.
"Stay calm?" Azula bursts into a fit of mirthless laughter and Ty Lee grits her teeth.
"Take off your shirt, will you?" Ty Lee grumbles as she lays out the bandages neatly.
Azula hesitates briefly and Ty Lee wonders why, given that it isn't as if they haven't slept together. She finally strips off the soaking, bloody shirt and lets it fall, with a sickening squelch, to the floor of Ty Lee's bar. That would probably not impress the health inspector or Chief Bei Fong.
"Alright," Azula says and Ty Lee is distressed to see that her bra is also blood soaked.
Weakly, Ty Lee flicks her damp towel on the blood, trying to clean it off enough to get a good look. This is much, much worse than she imagined it to be. Perhaps Azula at last has a right to be bitchy.
"It's just a... scratch," Ty Lee squeaks.
"I'm not blind, and I'm not completely numb yet. Don't lie to me. Just stop the bleeding," Azula snarls, now chalk white.
"Right, right," Ty Lee stammers as she pours the alcohol on the already bloody cloth and presses it to Azula's skin with her eyes squeezed shut.
"You missed it. You keep your eyes open. I'll close mine," Azula snaps and Ty Lee opens her eyes. She did miss the laceration by a long shot for something so large.
"Okay, okay, my eyes are open this time," Ty Lee insists eagerly before finally cleaning the wound as Azula hisses through her teeth and winces. "Press down," Ty Lee says as she wraps the bandages, not even thinking about the contact of her skin or how she can feel Azula's breath on her neck. Her mouth smells only of the raw, metallic stench of blood.
"Well, that took far too long. You call yourself a─"
Ty Lee does not find out exactly what she falsely considers herself because Azula hits the floor as Ty Lee narrowly misses catching her. Ty Lee grimaces before checking for a pulse, breathing a sigh of relief once she realizes that it is muted, but Azula is alive and (mostly) well but probably (definitely) very angry, and carrying her through the bar to her apartment upstairs.
It is only after the madness of Azula bursting in, after years of not seeing her, after Ty Lee decided to completely start over.
"Oh, just go back to the palace one more time for a play date, Ty Lee, you don't have to see her again if you don't want to, I promise," Ty Lee mutters sarcastically in an impression of her mother she wishes someone were around to see (it's quite good).
An excellent Azula impression a little louder: "Oh, I just want to stay for the show Ty Lee... I'm not going to rope you into a horrible adventure... or set anything on fire..."
Suki's sweet tone that sugar coats the worst of things:"Oh, come to the Fire Nation, Ty Lee. Zuko's trying to find his mother. It'll probably be closure for you."
Zuko feebly attempting to be encouraging. Oh, she has the rasp down so well: "I'm sorry she left you and all but Republic City is really great. You should try it. I mean, if you're looking for a completely new life, it's a completely new place."
"How could this get any─?"
And there is a loud pounding on the door of her apartment.
"I'm not finished yet! I was saying, how could this get any worse? There, now you can ─" The pounding on the door just becomes increasingly louder. "Spirits, I'm coming!" Ty Lee screams as she tugs on her braid and slips down the narrow, dented stairs to the small door. She swings it open and finds herself face to face with a stranger.
It's a young woman, muscular, very pretty and with a gentle smile on her lips. Ty Lee breathes a short sigh of relief as she realizes it isn't the police (yet). She can only assume Azula's scuffle was with the law, because, honestly, who else would she be fighting?
"Hi," the woman says and Ty Lee realizes she may have temporarily lost the power of speech. Today is just far too absurd for her quiet, calm, peaceful life in Republic City. "I'm Ayako Moto and I'm looking for my daughter."
Ty Lee chews on her lip for a moment, wanting wholeheartedly to believe the woman who does look like a young mother. But Azula showing up bleeding to death coinciding so neatly with a runaway child is just... too suspicious.
"What does she look like?" Ty Lee inquires, examining the woman at her door closely. She has dark hair, light skin and bright, bright blue eyes. Clearly Water Tribe with a little Earth Kingdom or Fire Nation Colonial mixed in. Ty Lee learned that there were a surprising amount of waterbenders and Water Tribe men and women already in the Earth Kingdom when she began moving around and wound up in Republic City.
And a significant portion of them wound up quite heavily involved in the ever increasingly violent saga of the Triads of Republic City. The Triads are not welcome in this neighborhood. Ty Lee fits in just fine in the Dragon Flats Boroughs, given her nonbender status, lack of any financial backing save for a Fire Nation name that means nothing in the United Republic. But benders, the rich, the people who oppress these citizens.
They are not welcome here.
"Me. Uh, well, green eyes, though, like her father," Ayako says smoothly and Ty Lee would believe her if it were not for the slight flicker of her pupils when she added on the bit about green eyes. Ty Lee quickly scours her body for any signs of a lie, and that is when she sees the dried blood on Ayako's light blue clothes, and Ty Lee hides a gulp.
"Right. Well, I haven't seen her," Ty Lee states quickly before slamming the door in Ayako's stunned face. But the intruders hand juts out and blocks the door before she forces her foot through and steps inside.
Ty Lee takes her down just as Ayako summons her first tendril of water. Her sapphire eyes light up in utter horror, and Ty Lee has to admit she does enjoy the brief rush of an assailant's stunned expression.
"What did...?" Ayako stammers, her eyes as wide as saucers.
"Nothing irreversible," Ty Lee replies brightly and Ayako takes in a rattling, ragged breath through her parted coral pink lips. "Don't make me do something irreversible."
Ty Lee winds up gathering all of her belts and fashioning a very crude set of restraints from them, and sets a bar chair at the foot of the stairs, out of earshot of Azula and Ty Lee, and out of earshot of any of her cronies who might be waiting.
Wonderful, is all Ty Lee can think as she finishes tying up and gagging her unwelcome guest. Yet another thing Azula has made me an accomplice to...
She examines the immobile and frightened Ayako for any markings or weapons, and finds a tattoo on her wrist symbolizing the Red Monsoon Triad. So, Ty Lee's gang theory was more or less correct.
But why Azula has run afoul of one of the two most dangerous gangs in Republic City is not something Ty Lee is very keen on knowing the answer to.
[X]
Azula dreams of a memory while she is unconscious from blood loss, and, this time, it is a good one.
The lamp is glowing light orange in the bedroom in Ba Sing Se. Azula is pacing, and has been pacing for almost an hour as Ty Lee slowly and methodically brushes her long chestnut hair, enjoying the gentle tugging on her scalp and the smooth way the comb parts the multitude of glossy strands mussed by her braid. They are both garbed in green and half dressed.
Azula suddenly stops pacing and Ty Lee is snapped out of her reverie. The princess looks at her friend and then walks to her, sitting at her side.
"Princess," Ty Lee says, realizing Azula is not going to voice what her head is screaming at her, "it's going to go great. You are a genius, a completely evil genius and I love it and ─"
Azula's lips press against hers, their teeth knocking together at the first contact. Ty Lee enjoys the swift rush of heat and she kisses Azula back, even more fiercely. Their lips part for a moment as Ty Lee rests her forehead against Azula's for a moment.
It is almost tender, almost sweet, almost like real couples and not whatever they are. Azula is not sure if she should enjoy it or not, but she does admit it is keeping her mind off of the doubts swimming inside of her, screaming from all sides about how she will fail.
Azula kisses her again, and they fumble with each other until the moon is at its apex.
Azula is roused from her blissful and nearly comatose slumber by a heavy splash of cold water hitting her face. Her first thought is the Red Monsoon Triad and she tries to sit up in panic but finds her body weak and nonresponsive.
"Azula, wake up," demands a voice the moment her eyes flutter open and blink away the frigid water on her skin. She feels faint and her jaw is numb... as is the rest of her currently. "Who are you running from? Who am I now running from? A Red Monsoon Triad member just tried to break into my house to get to you. Some Ayako Moto."
"Is she alive?" Azula demands, trying to sit up but finding her body utterly unwilling. She does manage to seize the corner of the cotton blanket and rub the water off of her dripping face.
"Why are the Red Monsoon Triads trying to kill you?" Ty Lee hisses violently.
"Well, the Triple Threat Triads are also trying to kill me, but admittedly the Red Monsoons are doing a better job... the Terra Triad is a joke..."
Ty Lee clenches a fist. "Azula, tell me right now if you're a gang member. Right now."
The princess makes a groaning sound that Ty Lee has never heard before. "... not exactly."
"What do you mean not exactly?" Ty Lee's eyebrow twitches in frustration.
Azula licks her lips and then rakes her teeth across them. "I mean, I'm not a gang member... I might have, hm, encouraged and controlled the development of a budding group of organized criminals."
It takes Ty Lee a moment to figure out her slippery and intentionally misleading words. But then she glares. "You founded a triad. I don't... is war criminal and fugitive not enough for you? What triad did you start?"
"That doesn't even merit a response, Ty Lee," Azula replies and Ty Lee is baffled at how she can remain so haughty when she has just placed the person who saved her life into this situation.
"Okay, there are three things we are going to do," Ty Lee says quietly and Azula looks at her as if she is the villain in this scenario. "We are going to somehow deal with the gang member in my stairwell. We are going to clean up any and all traces of your existence here. And then you are going to leave and I am going to have several glasses of wine and go to sleep."
"It's not even dusk yet," Azula snarls and Ty Lee just rolls her eyes with her mouth open. "You can't have several glasses of wine and go to─"
"I can do whatever I want! As soon as you help me prevent myself from a watery grave in Yue Bay, seeing as you got me into this."
"That's absurd," Azula says lightly and Ty Lee does not even bother arguing. "That's absurd! I didn't even know this was your bar. I mean, I thought you were a person with some standards and elephant-rats turn their noses up at this place."
"If you insult my business again, I will chi block you and throw you into the alleyway," Ty Lee says with a forced grin and Azula is briefly silent.
"I don't understand why you couldn't afford somewhere nicer. Your parents are some of the richest people in the Fire Nation," Azula remarks, trying to justify her contempt.
"My parents disowned me after you threw me into prison. You would remember that if you cared remotely about anyone but yourself," Ty Lee says as she grabs Azula's numb arm and forces her to sit up. "I've had to deal with life on my own and I am completely capable. Also: Zuko at least left Mai a note! And I find it pretty hard to imagine you've been coasting so easily as a fugitive. How'd you even get out of the Fire Nation with half the army looking for you?"
"It's not a story you need to know," Azula says sharply and Ty Lee could swear she detects some pain in Azula's voice. "I'll help you deal with Ayako, and then we can happily part ways."
Azula stands up and instantly falls onto her face, shrieking from her legs giving out beneath her. Ty Lee snorts and laughs as Azula tries to push herself back up. The princess sucks in her cheeks as Ty Lee at last grabs her arm and helps her to her feet, cautiously letting the blood flow restart and Azula to steady herself.
If Azula were not pale from nearly bleeding out, she would probably be blushing flag red.
"She's downstairs. Come on," Ty Lee says, wanting to get this over with as fast as humanly possible.
Azula follows her through the apartment, which Azula examines with disdain and distaste as she passes the tacky decor and crumbling disarray. Well, what can she expect from a woman who lived in a circus and on a ramshackle peasant island? Honestly, Azula has stayed far more disgusting places in her travels since everything horrid that happened to her.
When the two women reach the stairwell, Azula squints at Ayako for a moment, quite enjoying the absolute horror in her sapphire eyes. Ty Lee has not lost her touch, Azula supposes, even after all of these years.
"Hello," Azula purrs and Ty Lee can see the wickedness in her. It is both hot and infuriating, and Ty Lee is unsure what to make of it. "You certainly took a chunk out of me with that ice blade."
Ayako just looks at her in silence. Well, Azula supposes that she is gagged. And, so, very kindly, Azula removes it with a loud rip, and she is promptly spat on. Her instantly reaction is to light her hand on fire, but she stops just short of it colliding with her enemy's face.
Azula studies her for a moment, the way she flinches beneath the blazing blue flames but her expression remains stolid. It is almost admirable.
"Tonight's the full moon. Good luck getting home," is all Ayako says and Azula just smirks. "And good luck staying safe here."
"Do any of your cronies know about this place?" Azula inquires, breathing it directly into Ayako's ear. Ty Lee is rather unnerved by the scene; it is something she has not seen since her days working for the Fire Nation in the One Hundred Year War.
"Not yet," Ayako replies and Azula is amused that she was honest. She probably should have lied.
"Well, I suppose all I really have to do to protect myself from the full moon is make sure your friends have no idea where I am," Azula whispers, her hot breath on Ayako's neck. She smells strongly of blood and the perfume of the girl beside her.
Ty Lee opens her mouth to protest, her eyes flashing as Azula strides behind Ayako and touches two fingers together.
"Azula, don't─!" but there is a blinding flash and crackle, static permeating the air, and now Ty Lee has a corpse in her stairwell. The bartender rubs her temples and squeezes her eyes shut. "Wow. I... I am at a loss for words. You just executed someone in my bar. Wow."
"It isn't as if she was innocent. Every Red Monsoon commits a murder to earn their tattoo," Azula says, lifting up Ayako's limp wrist and gesturing to it.
Ty Lee just furrows her brow, groans and looks at Azula. "Well, I suppose now we're going to have to hide a body together. What great bonding! And all before noon..."
"You have gotten really bitchy over the years," Azula remarks and she instantly regrets it from Ty Lee's vicious glare.
"Help. Me. Hide. This. Body," Ty Lee says hoarsely, pressing on the bridge of her nose. She cannot believe this is happening to her, and is wondering if it is all some kind of horrific and vivid nightmare. "And then please, kindly leave my life permanently."
Azula shrugs and starts to undo the leather straps.
[X]
Azula and Ty Lee make it back to the apartment after hiding a body together, which Ty Lee honestly thinks might be the most absurd thing that has happened to her in very, very long time. She supposes it is a sign of true friendship, even if she never thought she would see Azula again.
"Are you intending to open tonight?" Azula inquires, although she doubts there will be very many disappointed patrons.
"No. I really don't want to do that after today," Ty Lee replies as she wonders how she managed to get herself into this situation.
"So, are you going to drink your several glasses of wine and go to sleep now?" Azula inquires sharply, crossing her arms.
Ty Lee nods. "Yes. But I'm not going to kick you out yet."
"Oh, your generosity is always impressive," Azula purrs sarcastically and Ty Lee sighs huffily.
"Don't make me regret it," she snaps and Azula rolls her eyes.
"I have my own place to live, you know?" Azula remarks as she runs her finger beneath a painting and the pad of her forefinger gathers a layer of grime. "A place that is less likely to kill me of infection."
Ty Lee grimaces for a minute. "I don't think you should go back right now."
Azula cocks an eyebrow. "You were pretty eager to get rid of me earlier."
"It's what Ayako said," Ty Lee admits as she rummages around for a bottle of wine. "I'm not sending you across town back to wherever you've been living on a full moon when there's an entire gang of ruthless waterbenders after you."
"How considerate, but I can manage just fine," Azula purrs and Ty Lee rolls her eyes.
"If I hadn't been here this morning, you would've bled to death in the bar," Ty Lee reminds Azula and the princess's smug smirk instantly fades. "Clearly, you've gotten in over your head."
"I would've saved myself."
"How?"
"Well, I'm not sure but I would have. I've survived just fine on my own," Azula says coldly and Ty Lee at last finds the bottle of dark reddish purple wine and sets it on the table with a clunk.
"What are the chances that, of all the places in this city, you'd run into me?" Ty Lee asks as she uncorks the bottle with her thumb and starts looking for glasses.
"I have no idea," Azula admits with a shrug. "You're not going to tell anyone else we know, are you?"
Ty Lee finds a glass and starts pouring. "I don't know yet. You've let everybody who loved you think that you were dead for years. I think they deserve to know."
"That is absurd. I'm sure they've swept me under the rug as fast as possible. ZuZu doesn't like to be outsmarted… as easy as that is," Azula says confidently before holding out her hand for the glass of wine. Ty Lee simply looks at her, touches it to her own lips and downs half of it in one gulp.
"You lost a lot of blood. This is mine." Ty Lee seizes the bottle and goes to sit down on the sofa as Azula watches her from the other side of the room. "How did you even end up here?"
"A lot of weird coincidences, of course."
Ty Lee rubs her lips together and finishes the rest of her drink. "Same here. How have you been doing?"
"Quite well for myself. I did found a Triad and made an actual life for myself instead of being forced to live out the existence of my brother's indoor cat," Azula says before feeling dizzy again and sitting down. Ty Lee waits for Azula to discuss her chain of events, but she does not seem to want to. And Ty Lee won't push her.
"I'm kind of not sure if you're real right now," Ty Lee murmurs as she fills her shimmering glass for the second time. "It feels so weird. You do look better than I last saw you."
"That's not difficult," Azula admits uncomfortably. She could go into the details about the fact that half of the time she is still that much of a mess, and sometimes she just completely breaks down and collapses into herself. But right now she is on top of the world, and Ty Lee will never have to know, just like the people who work for her.
If the Agni Kai Triad were to find out about her weakness, they would stop taking her seriously altogether. And Azula has a very easy time hiding her broken thoughts.
"Have a drink," Ty Lee offers with a sigh.
"I thought I had lost too much blood." Azula studies Ty Lee with her judgmental golden eyes and Ty Lee pushes a glass into Azula's hand.
"Have a drink."
Azula does not protest.
[X]
Ty Lee dreams of what she wishes were a memory in her fitful and sweaty sleep.
Ty Lee can feel the sand on her skin as she presses her damp, half naked body against Azula's. Her head rests on her shoulder, Azula's protruding clavicle pressing against Ty Lee's soft cheek. Their lips meet and their legs interlock, and Ty Lee can feel the strong heat between her thighs.
It is complete and utter bliss.
And Ty Lee wakes in the dead of the night with her heart pounding and the heat still present.
No, no, no, no, no, no...
She is not letting Azula's claws sink into her again.
No, no, no...
[X]
In the morning, Azula and Ty Lee are both immensely relieved to have not slept with each other by mistake. That makes Azula think that perhaps today is off to a decent start, and she will not run into much trouble when she goes home. So long as Ty Lee does not blab to Zuko about this, which, given her track record with secrets, she probably will.
"Take me with you," Ty Lee says as Azula tries to creep out of the apartment before her old friend wakes.
"Hmmm... no. I do not want you to know where I live," Azula says sweetly and Ty Lee crosses her arms. "Don't pout; it's been truly lovely seeing you again. Thank you kindly for saving my life, and I will just be going now. Perhaps I'm just a dream."
Ty Lee closes her eyes and sighs. "You should probably get medical attention for that wound."
"You're not my mother. Nice seeing you again." And Azula is gone before Ty Lee can find the proper words to say. And perhaps that is a blessing.
Ty Lee immediately gets to work, contemplating her losses from having closed the bar down last night in order to deal with the Red Monsoon Triad. She knows it was probably an incredibly poor decision, but Ty Lee is not notorious for her good life choices.
She tries to push Azula out of her mind.
You just had a sex dream about her, that doesn't mean you still have feelings for her...
And then there is a pounding on the bar door. Fantastic. Ty Lee groans and walks to the door before opening it and revealing a very familiar woman.
"Hi," Ty Lee says brightly, but the Chief of Police's expression remains as stony as her element.
Ty Lee hosts a brief mental fantasy of ripping Azula into little shreds, and invites Toph inside.