woah scorpiaux is alive? dat's cool right? ok. firstly, i do apologize for the long wait & i wanted to update as an apology present.

for the crazies who got violent with their requests to update, i have a few words of advice. while i am flattered you are so invested in the story, you need to chill. or get a girlfriend or something. only a small percentage of readers (submitted anonymously - figures) were like. legit angry. i mean, dang, i broke my arm. & i have a very active life outside of the internet. my life doesn't revolve around pleasing you. it doesn't even revolve around pleasing my guy. so relax? scorpiaux will take care of you in due time. have patience.

for those of you who were so gentle & kind with your requests & inquires, i thank you from the bottom of my heart & dedicate this update to you. it is quite short, but proof that i'm around, and i think it sets up the rest of the fiction nicely. get ready for katara's bad girl side to float up involuntarily. review me or not, the choice is yours, but please be respectful.. we may not all be adults here, as i can't speak for everyone, but common decency is free & if you're rude, all you're doing is giving me a laugh with my morning coffee. & you're only making the awesome reviewers look even awesome-er.

scorpiaux

She wasn't sure whether to get his attention or not, and for once, Mai didn't know herself if she was looking forward to speaking to him. Usually, Zuko would make her feel sick, stir the butterflies in her stomach until all she could do was utter a muted, "Huh? Uh. Hi." But not today. Today she realized she felt nothing upon his entrance but cool, cool apathy, and the relief one feels after suddenly getting over a bad flu.

"Hi," he said on his own. Mai looked up at him, one brow higher than the other, and didn't stop her customary tapping on the desk. He looked at her nails, smoky polish emphasizing her white hands, and he clamped the back of his neck with his palm.

"Hi," she said mechanically. "Do you need access to the bending rooms upstairs? They don't open until noon." She made to reach for the keys around her waist.

"No." He hesitated. "No, I don't need a bending room."

She stopped and returned her hands to the desk, sighing audibly. It was incredible what she felt towards him – not just disregard, but budding contempt. She did not attribute this to being fickle. Quite the contrary. Mai knew what fickle was, saw it in Ty Lee. The acrobat was nothing but fickle. She picked up boys just as easily as she left them, to remember nothing but their first name and the color of their eyes. And even those she mixed up on a regular basis, shrugging and laughing that bubbly laugh, as smooth as pebbles rubbing together.

Mai's contempt was fueled with years of attention, all lost – she realized now – on someone she never knew to begin with. She didn't hate him, she hated herself for thinking he was anything more than what he looked like. Just a regular guy. A little better looking than average, but not spectacularly. Certainly he was a gentleman on occasion. And he had a gentler heart than his sister, that was certain. Also, he was one of the best benders on the Pro-Bending team for Four Nations – but he wasn't the absolute best. Outside of these small truths, Zuko was otherwise unremarkable. He was a boy who enjoyed bending to express his innate aggressiveness, his anger towards his father for favoring his maniacal younger sister and his own incompetence that was reflected in his 'last of the pile' acceptance to Boiling Rock Grad.

She was disgusted that she had loved him enough to give him qualities he may have never had. Because he was in love with someone else, or at least, was sleeping with some other girl, someone who had inspired a strange feeling in Mai (did she want to call it jealousy or plain inadequacy?), a feeling that had driven Mai to her father's tonic cabinet for a drink.

She realized he wasn't speaking and she rolled her eyes. "Look, if there's nothing I can help you with, then you'll need to move on because – "

"Okay, okay. Listen." He took a deep breath. From his back pocket, he removed the small ceramic turtle duck Mai had given him for his birthday last night. The gesture surprised her, she realized, not because he had brought it back, but because he had been sober enough, after all, to open it without breaking it. She looked at the duck, then back at him, her brow not descending to join the other.

"That's for you. It's not mine."

"I know, but you gave it to me, didn't you?"

"Yeah," she said, her monotone peaked towards the end of the word and she turned away from him, afraid of what this small incline in tone foreshadowed. "Happy birthday," she said the floor.

Zuko took a step closer to the desk. "Well, thank you," he said. "This is a… really nice gift."

"It's whatever."

"No seriously. I mean, Azula got me a Y. L. Chang's Original from downtown. A really nice suit, you know. Only, on the tag, she was like 'Don't fuck up the interview.' I mean, no matter how nice the gift is, that just seems like a really irrelevant thing to say." He noticed he was rambling, remembered he never did, and stopped abruptly, embarrassed he had invited Mai to his inner monologue. At least now she wasn't looking confused and annoyed. She was smiling, thought Zuko. Well, almost.

"Congrats on the interview. You should be thrilled. But I have a job to do today and you can't just hang out here."

"We can hang out somewhere else," he offered instantly. He was eager and made no motion to hide it. Mai watched as he carefully dropped the small duck back into his back pocket, his hand clasped around its small, porcelain body until it was safely embedded in the fabric.

"You don't have something better to do?" she inquired skeptically.

"What do you mean? I want to hang out with you."

"Why? Because of some stupid duck?"

"No. I mean, yes, but not like how you're making it sound."

"I'm just stating facts, Zuko." She stood up without meaning to, and in this new position behind the low, wooden desk, she looked as powerful as ever. Her security uniform, adorned with zippers for various compartments, a nightstick, and her borrowed belt hanging loosely around her slight hips, gave her the impression of authority. She could hide in this uniform, become a figure of strength and controlled violence. With this feeling fresh in her heart, she looked him straight in the eyes, focused enough so that she could see herself in that tiny pool of black surfaced on orange. "I'm not saying that I made it especially obvious that I ever had a thing for you – it's dead now, don't worry – but you can't just walk in here and expect me to believe for a hot second that I'm not choice number two. I don't want to hang out with you. Not now, not in a million years, not ever."

She looked at the box furtively, examining the boxes around it before letting her eyes graze over its pink lettering. "Pregnancy Test" was misleading, she thought, because it connoted an exam meant for passing, for excelling, and she was the top of class and dwelled on this thought momentarily before a boy brushed past her and reached for a pack of "THE BOULDER" extra-large condoms. Katara blushed, wondering how she hadn't lost that ability over the years, and turned her face when he grinned at her and winked a single green eye.

"Didn't know supermodels shopped at the Cabbage Stand," he said. "You got a name?"

Katara hissed between gritted teeth, "If you don't back off, you won't need to worry about shopping for those anymore." She opened her tea tumbler, the soft brown water rushing up out of the mouth of it, coating her fingers. She willed the water to a thin whip and struck at the boy's heels. He screamed – high pitched, as she expected – and ran off behind the shelves.

She turned her attention to the box again, letting the tea drop to her feet.