Aww man this was so difficult to keep in character. Mai and Azula are difficult enough to write anyway without adding alcohol into the equation gah
Anyway I hope I did an acceptable job?
The pen clicked incessantly under Mai's thumb. It had become clear several hours ago that her attempt to work off her sour mood with overdue college assignments wasn't working, but for a lack of nothing better to do, Mai persevered.
"You're still up?"
She hadn't heard Azula come in. "Yeah."
The door shut softly behind her roommate and Azula strode over, her outfit clearly indicating that she'd just come back from some kind of party. A few strands of loose brown hair brushed Mai's shoulder as Azula bent down to examine her work with a critical eye. She pointed a manicured nail towards an offending section and stated bluntly, "This part's wrong."
Mai couldn't find it in herself to be annoyed. She was too tired. One in the morning was not an appropriate time to be doing assignments.
"What's gotten into you, Mai? You're not usually this sloppy."
The pen stopped clicking as Mai cast it irritably across the desk. "I know," she sighed. "I couldn't get it done last week so I thought I'd do it now."
"You're avoiding the question." Azula straightened and let out a short sigh of her own as she inspected her nails. "Oh well. I'll play along."
For a brief moment, relief washed through Mai – but then Azula was dragging up her desk chair beside Mai's, and as she sat down she fixed her with a calculating expression. She asked, as if reciting lines for a play, "Why couldn't you do it last week?"
Mai was reluctant to answer. This was a topic she did not want to talk about – especially right now, when tired, hungry and irritable – but of course, that made Azula want to discuss it even more. "I was spending lots of time with Zuko."
"So why are you able to do it now?"
A gruff sigh escaped Mai's lips. "Because I'm not spending time with Zuko anymore."
"And why is that?" Azula's face was a mask of innocence, but Mai knew better than to assume she was truly in the dark about recent events involving her loathed brother.
"Because he dumped me."
Her roommate didn't bother to disguise her unsurprised expression. "Yes, I heard," Azula replied blandly, as if she wasn't talking about her best friend's romantic disaster, but the drizzle pelting the windows outside. "It must have hurt." The sympathetic words contrasted strongly with the sneer she wore.
Mai shot her a withered glare. She wasn't in the mood for Azula's games. "Yeah. It did. Can I go back to moping over my assignments please?"
Azula's laugh was short and sharp. "I have a better solution for heartbreak."
To be fair to Azula, the golden liquid currently sitting in front of the tall woman looked far more appealing than the pile of essays littering her desk.
That didn't mean this was a good idea.
Azula raised her scotch . "To the end of your first and only relationship." She didn't wait for Mai to do the same before she downed it in one gulp. Mai watched as she gracefully placed the small, empty glass back down onto the counter and exhaled deeply.
Mai sighed. Azula was difficult enough to handle when sober; the prospect of dealing with Azula when drunk was the only thought Mai had needed to avoid the very situation she now found herself in.
That is, sitting with Azula, at the bar, in the early hours of the morning.
Mai turned her gaze to her own glass, brought the drink to her lips and murmured over the rim, "To the end of my first and only relationship." She downed the burning liquid.
"I don't know what you saw in my brother anyway," Azula said conversationally as she ordered them more alcohol. "Remind me, what was his reason for breaking up with you?"
"He said he needed to 'find his destiny' and 'follow his true path'," Mai quoted with a bitter chuckle. She accepted the proffered drink without hesitation.
A short pause drew Mai's attention to the genuine look of disbelief on Azula's face. Apparently, not even Azula had anticipated such a ridiculous break-up text (he hadn't even had the gall to dump Mai in person). She recovered quickly with a smirk. "A pathetic reason for a pathetic man, I suppose. It suits him," she sneered, her upper lip curling in distaste. "That's what you become when you make friends with those disgusting hippies from public school."
Mai had actually been introduced to some of the aforementioned 'disgusting hippies' and found them very friendly, not minding at all that she was best friend to Azula, the bane of their existence. And Zuko's 'contemptible' uncle was, in fact, very kind – not that she would mention any of this to Azula. Mai highly valued her solid status in Azula's good books.
She took another gulp of liquid amber. "It's fine," she muttered through a mellow burn on her tongue. "He can do what he wants. I don't care."
Maybe it was the alcohol, but Azula's responding smile seemed almost warm.
Two hours later, Mai was completely certain it was the alcohol. It appeared that a drunk Azula was a talkative Azula – as she hadn't stopped speaking for… well, for a very long time.
Mai had lost count of how many drinks they'd consumed, but she knew it must be a lot, because she'd run out of money and was now using Azula's credit card. Not that Azula seemed to mind. Or notice. She was too busy informing Mai of the exact details of the time she'd attempted to undercut her father's head advisor in order to improve her chances of becoming CEO.
" – and the strike was terrible, of course, but I thought it was aiding me – if the workers refused to work, my father wouldn't have a business to run and so would obviously be forced to fire Zhao in order to get the business working again and save our family and company's honour – but in actual fact –" Azula pointed a sloppy finger somewhere in Mai's direction – "it only fuelled Father's rage, and he fired all the strikers. They consisted of half his workforce, and yet he fired them – and then not only demoted Zhao, but also me! He can't treat me like that! He can't just treat me like – like Zuko!"
Mai was too caught up in nodding her agreement to realise Azula had stopped speaking. "Yeah," she mumbled belatedly. "That must suck."
Azula gazed at her for a moment with a strange, indecipherable expression – though if Mai were to describe it, she would probably use the words distant and disorientated. "You weren't listening," Azula slurred, sounding quite impressively annoyed. A sudden movement caught her elbow on the edge of the counter with a harsh thump, but Azula miraculously didn't seem to notice.
"No," Mai agreed vaguely. "I wasn't." She sighed against her drink, sending ripples dancing across the liquid's surface. "Was thinking about Zuko."
"Oh," Azula replied, a clear stopper to the topic. She ordered more of whatever harsh spirit they were drinking by this point.
For quite a while Mai thought she would end the conversation there – but to her surprise, Azula continued talking (or more accurately, blathering) after a few minutes of silence as if she'd never stopped, and apparently she'd really latched onto this subject because she spoke with noticeably more enthusiasm than even the story of her shoplifting escapade with Ty Lee.
"See, Mai," Azula began in an authoritative tone dampened by the heavy slur of alcohol, "this is why men like my brother are useless. They – they're pigs with no sensitivity and no manners, no sense of what a woman really wants, no finesse –" she abruptly cut herself off with a glass to her lips. It tinkled against her teeth. The glass was half-dropped to the counter, where it barely contained the sloshing liquid inside. Azula fixed Mai with an intense, fiery amber gaze more suited to her passionate brother than the infamous Ice Queen.
Mai held eye contact, transfixed.
"They're no good for you, for us, Mai – leave them. You don't need them. You don't need men."
"No men, huh?" Mai mused aloud, sparing a fleeting thought for what a world without the Y chromosome would be like. She found herself… oddly not very disappointed. In fact… "Seems nice."
"Exactly," Azula agreed firmly, waving a hand to emphasise the point. "This is why you should go for women like I do," she pressed. "Then you won't have to deal with any more… childish, brainless break-ups or misunderstandings or –" Again, the heiress cut herself off mid-sentence. She nodded sagely at Mai before resuming her ramble, which only entered Mai's consciousness as a pleasant background hum. Azula's voice was strangely soothing when not being used to threaten you.
Mai blinked thoughtfully at this new option. The idea of a woman was alluring. She hadn't ever considered it before due to her long-term crush on a certain unmentionable jerk, but… "Yeah," she concurred firmly, not minding that she'd just interrupted another of Azula's drunken speeches. "You're right. That sounds good."
"Good, then we can go girl-hunting together later," Azula decided on the spur of the moment and seemed quite pleased with herself for whatever reason – though to be honest, the reason for Azula's self-satisfaction was not of much interest to Mai at that moment. The tall woman had more exciting things on her mind.
Mai set down her glass and stated boldly, "We don't need to."
Azula halted, her drink halfway to her crimson lips. Shining amber eyed her warily. "Why not?"
"You're here. I want you."
Azula blinked. She blinked again, and inhaled, and gave Mai a very overt look-over – and something in her alighted as she moved forward, closing the space between them.
The first thing Mai noticed was that Azula tasted of expensive whiskey and fiery impatience. The second was that lipstick was strange to kiss.
The third was that Azula was a very good kisser.
Azula pushed forward a little harder and slid a hand up to Mai's neck and the other down to her waist, growing more confident by the moment. Mai's breaths stuttered through her open mouth. The kiss was rough and sloppy and drunken; Mai's hip dug painfully into the edge of the bar as Azula pushed her against it. She could feel her own pale fingers pressing deeply into the smooth, warm space between the shorter woman's shoulder blades, left bare by her spaghetti straps, and the combination of Azula's hitched breath and intoxicating perfume left Mai reeling. A slender hand ran across her thigh and a deep, breathy moan reverberated through them both – who had produced it didn't matter because Mai' s heart was furiously trying to hammer itself out of her chest and the hand on Azula's hip was shaking and when she dared to open her eyes, Azula was gazing at her – right at her – with such an intensity that Mai would have let her do anything she wanted, right there in the bar, as long as she kept looking at Mai like that.
"Okay, ladies, I think you've had enough."
Both jumped, frantically startled, at the gruff voice of the bartender.
"It's four in the morning and I'm closing. Get out. And get a room for Christ's sake."
Mai was sure that if she wasn't already embarrassingly red-faced, she would have flushed even darker. "Sorry," she muttered breathlessly. She pushed against Azula's stomach in a half-hearted attempt to make her stand up as logic won out over primal instinct. Now that Mai was distracted from the kiss, being pinned against the edge of the bar was really beginning to hurt.
Azula reluctantly relinquished her hold, though she didn't break eye contact even as they both stood (quite unsteadily) and Mai called for a taxi.
The night air was an icy contrast to the intense warmth of the bar and it cooled Mai's heated cheeks. She was forced to lean against the wall to retain balance as they waited in the chill darkness for their vehicle.
Azula joined her at the wall – though she was leaning more on Mai than on the cool bricks. She tilted her jaw up a little as if asking for another kiss, and Mai moved to accommodate her wish; but instead, she whispered against Mai's lips, "I order you to date me."
Mai blinked and breathed out a huff of laughter, not retreating from their charged position. "Oh yeah?" she whispered in kind.
"Yes. Because that was amazing and I haven't had a girlfriend in four years and I'm sexually frustrated and you're hot and I like you and I'm glad Zuko doesn't have you anymore."
The warm smile Mai had seen earlier that evening returned in full, and her chest swelled. "Okay."