A line from Tom Haverford in Parks and Rec sparked my idea for this story, so I can't take credit for the first line of this fic. This entire story is also based on the prompts from the Tyzula Advent Calendar 2015. I'm planning on doing a little over half of them for this story, since I didn't prewrite it like my Tyzula Week entry.
Sweet Sugar Cakes
"You can't say your favorite kind of cake is birthday cake. That's like saying your favorite kind of cereal is breakfast cereal," Mai says slowly as she gazes at Ty Lee over her shoulder.
Ty Lee, the girl whose favorite kind of cake is birthday cake, is in the back of Mai's car, which Azula is driving, because Azula cannot handle anyone driving but her. Girl has control issues. Promises she'll work it out with her therapist. Lies. Promises she'll stop lying. Lies about that too.
It is the middle of the night, and they are trying to find a 24-hour convenience store in the middle of the countryside. So far they have found snow, rocks, trees and more snow, rocks and trees. Mai is not enthused, but this is significantly better than being with Azula's extended family back at the vineyard.
"I love breakfast cereal," Ty Lee replies and Mai has no idea if she is being serious or not. "I don't love driving around in circles when there's no cell service to even look it up. Like, Azula one time had to pick me up from this party that went so wrong and I wanted McDonalds and so I whipped out my phone and was like, let's find a McDonalds. And we did."
Mai is silent. Azula veers to the side of the road; she refuses to let anyone else drive, but that doesn't mean she's a good driver.
"I thought that story was actually going to be interesting. I was wrong." Mai sighs.
"Animal!" Ty Lee screams. "Animal, animal!"
And that's how everybody almost dies in a car crash. Possibly better than spending another soul-killing day at that horrific vineyard. Once Mai's whiplash subsides, she just keeps her head between her knees.
"That better have been a fucking bear," Mai murmurs.
"It was a deer. It still could've killed us," Azula says, finally reaching a road that is paved instead of made of crushed dirt. "That's a huge problem in Pennsylvania."
"We're in Oregon."
"Which is really not that far from Pennsylvania," Ty Lee insists, smiling at the rearview mirror.
"See, she cares about me," Azula snaps and Mai doesn't move. "I have no idea why we even need to go buy a cake. It's ridiculous. There is no purpose to this."
"It's because Ty Lee volunteered and you're creepy and possessive. She could've done this on her own," Mai says.
"Well, you're not my real mom."
"No, she's back at the vineyard not driving down the setting of a B-horror movie in order to go get a Christmas Cake because no one wanted to bake one," Mai says quietly and she closes her eyes. Unfortunately, she forgot her headphones and so there is nothing she can do about her ears.
She manages to tune out on Ty Lee's fourth boring story, but she can't ignore…
"You're perfect."
"I know. But you're perfect enough to get me to marry you, and that's a level of perfection that ‒"
"Please shut up before I grab that steering wheel and kill us all," Mai declares, sitting up. She sighs and before Azula can say anything, they are basked in the warm glow of a 7/11. "Thank God."
Mai gets out of the beautiful sportscar which could have been the third Azula destroyed and got replaced this year if it were not for this sketchy-ass 7/11 that has every single gasp pump adorned with a crude cardboard chunk with out of order scrawled on it in permanent marker. She stomps through the snow and walks inside.
Ty Lee and Azula manage to follow her without dying or killing someone else, respectively. She watches them as the three of them disperse.
Mai locates snack cakes. She does not locate real cake. She grabs the snack cakes because she didn't sign up for this bullshit when she married the rich older man who happened to be the father of her best friend.
"Oh, I have an interesting story, Mai," Ty Lee says as she picks through the candy section.
"I really doubt that…" Mai sighs as she grabs every single bag of the weird knock-offs labeled: Sweet Sugar Cakes on the damned rack, and gazes at the presumably stoned cashier.
"Do you even know how I met Azula?"
"Were you working at a strip club?" Mai asks and Azula gives her a look that could kill.
"No." Ty Lee laughs and Mai tries to survive long enough to get back into the deathtrap that is her own car. "We were like friends, right, at college sort of. Okay, I was friends with her friend and I started paying Azula to write essays for my public speaking class and she didn't really need money so I did like a variety of non-sexual favors. Anyway, I invited her to a party this one time and it went terribly."
"I didn't know or need to know any of that."
"Well, she's so charming you wouldn't notice but she needed a crash course in romance to get the girl she desperately wanted. So I tried to teach her how to flirt. We practiced together and it went kind of poorly. I think she asked the girl to marry her…"
"No I didn't," Azula insists icily. Mai cocks an eyebrow.
"I thought you did." Ty Lee shrugs. "Anyway, my boyfriend cheated on me with that girl and then Azula and I got together forever!" Ty Lee wraps her arms tightly around Azula and nuzzles her neck. "Also that's how we got our cute pet name for her which was ‒"
"Sweetheart. Of course. A nice, traditional, classy nickname that is adequate for a powerful woman such as myself," Azula interjects, pressing her hand over Ty Lee's mouth.
Ty Lee giggles through the hand clamped over her mouth.
Mai does not know how to respond to that.
She just walks to the cashier and orders Ty Lee to unwrap the cakes as busywork while Azula attempts to drive over black ice.
