... I won't be the reason you lose everything Who: Mai, Azula, Ty Lee, Jubilee What: In this here log is a phonecall which contains ALL the feels. When: Saturday Night Where: Azula's Condo, also a Hotel in London Ratings/Warnings: PG-13 to be safe Status: Complete!
Azula came home from visiting Dick, and pulled her phone from the charger. She paused, and then walked into Mai's room, "He's not my boyfriend. We had sex once, I took his virginity. Father told me I should find someone respectable."
The dagger in Mai's hand raced through the air and hit a target on the wall. She loaded up another one between her fingers, then looked over at Azula while she casually threw the other one - without looking - at the wall as well.
"I'm not the one you need to make excuses to."
"I just wanted you to know. I'll be telling her tonight, before it hits the tabloids," Azula replied, folding her arms in agitation. She hadn't even gone to the Black Thorn since she'd put her hand through the table. She looked down at her hand at that memory, and the faint traces of scars.
"Think about the reasons you have for not doing that for a second," Mai sighed, and picked up a few more knives. She threw them, three at once, then the last two.
It was entirely possible that over in London and busy training for the Olympics, Ty Lee would never see a tabloid anyway. How much did Azula want to mess the girl up before she tried to win a gold medal?
Azula frowned. She had to weigh that against how badly it would mess Ty Lee up if someone asked her about it, or she found out without knowing the context, "Do you think she even knows what a beard is?"
She watched Mai throw the knives, "I've opened my own personal account. I've been filtering my allowances out to it. Just in case."
She'd be cut off faster than Mai if Ozai found out about her dalliances. She wasn't anywhere near ready to give up her lifestyle if she could help it. It was a rather subtle admission that Ty Lee might be worth the trouble.
"I don't think she does," Mai got up off the bed and started pulling the knives out of her wall, one by one, careful not to pull out any chunks of plaster while she did so. She looked at Azula, and added, "And she won't understand why you need one."
She started cleaning the points of her knives with her sleeves, while shaking her head, "You need a bigger plan than that, but it's a start."
It reminded her of her own plan, and its lack of bigness. She wondered how much this place costed to maintain, "Is this place paid up?"
"Yes." Azula looked around it, eyes softening, "I could sell it, get something smaller, cheaper to maintain."
She actually loved this place, as far as she could. She didn't respond to Mai's initial comments. She needed to save any arguments or explainations for Ty Lee.
"Do you know how much it costs to maintain it?"
Mai put aside her personal feelings about the situation between Ty Lee and Azula, since it was obvious that Azula didn't want to talk about it anymore. Honestly, that was probably for the best.
The other problem seemed slightly more immediate, too, "I have a plan that involves getting a job."
"The power bill is several hundred. Insurance, water and other utilities. A half-dozen fees for the privilage of living here." Azula shrugged. She'd looked at it, and it probably came to over a thousand a month. Mai wouldn't be able to afford it on her own, but between her, Azula's work and Ty Lee's sponserships, it probably wouldn't even be a problem.
Unless, of course, Ty Lee failed miserably at the Olympics and she lost any sponsorships she had. It was a very real concern for the young gymnast, and Mai knew it.
She started holstering her knives, while thinking through a plan. Because Azula had a plan, but Mai wasn't sure it was a good one, and Ty Lee couldn't be trusted to handle her own personal life, let alone the rest of it.
"You should make being with Ty Lee into a a benefit instead of a liability. Your father is a businessman. Money is his language."
Azula stared at her, waiting for elaboration. She was a little too emotionally vested in this. Too close. She folded her arms.
"If being a lesbian makes him money or opens up a new market for him, he'll let you." Mai gave her a look as she spelled it out, like she couldn't believe Azula had never thought of this.
"How could that possibly help?"
"Then you could stop pretending you have a boyfriend, gain daddy's approval, and stop worrying about being cut off."
"It isn't like Ty Lee isn't the daughter of a rich, socially acceptable family, servants of the Fire Nation all. And she's going to get a lot of good publicity soon."
"She hasn't spoken to her parents in years," Azula pointed out. She was still trying to figure out how being an out bisexual would help either her father's company or the Fire Nation.
Because lesbians liked it when other lesbians in power were open about being lesbians. And they especially preferred doing business with a crime lord whose father accepted that his daughter was one. Mai didn't understand business as much as she understood diplomacy and politics, but she figured a great deal of the two worlds intertwined.
Azula was weighing whether it outweighed the downsides - and there were downsides, as much as it pissed her off.
Mai shrugged, "You're the master planner. Think about it. You also havn't had a boyfriend until now. Think about how long that took. And how you behave in the boardroom. There are people who aren't going to be surprised, Azula."
Azula's eyes narrowed dangerously, and she stared at Mai through slits. She thought about it. She didn't like thinking about it. She wondered if people had been talking, "If that's why my father told me to get a boyfriend, he may not react well."
Or maybe it was a test. God damn it. She folded her arms and twitched.
Completely unafraid of Azula's glaring, Mai crossed her arms over her chest and stood her ground, "You're not going to find out by wasting your time with a man you have no regard for."
"I have some regard, just none of it romantic," Azula retorted.
"You know what I mean."
"Ty Lee isn't me, Azula. She left our world years ago. She didn't grow up in it like we did."
Azula checked the time, "I need to call her." She didn't know what she was going to say anymore. She supposed some of that would depend on Ty Lee. There was a knot in her stomach she was unaccustomed to.
Mai nodded, "Good luck."
Azula nodded, and then walked out, and into her own room. She speed-dialed Ty Lee's number after locking the door.
Ring Ring!
Ty Lee was in her hotel room, doing some stretches on the bed. On the bed next to her, Jubilee was doing the same. They were watching a movie together in some attempt to forget about how the last few days had gone, which wasn't really working. Especially when Ty Lee looked at the phone and noticed who was calling.
"Who is it?" Jubilee was bent forward so far her spine was parallel to her legs, and she twisted her head to peer at her friend. She'd taken her aside earlier that day and given her a pep talk, which had helped with Ty Lee's floor routine, a tleast for the time being.
It'd been horrible, and even worse, there'd been a point where she literally could feel herself hold her breath, when she flipped backwards off one bar towards the higher one, and hadn't felt it there to meet her. Her other hand had, thankfully, grabbed it before she fell, but it'd wrenched her shoulder a bit. It still ached.
"It's Azula," She admitted, with a bit of a frown, "I don't know if I want to answer it."
"If you don't want to answer it don't. Send it to voicemail." Jubilee shrugged a shoulder, still flattened like a pancake, "But maybe you should. What if it's important? If she's a bitch hangup!"
She straightened, then got out of bed and stretched backwards, "Your call."
"... I wish it wasn't," Ty Lee mumbled, while grabbing her phone and doing a backflip-tumble off the bed. She took her key and headed outside the hotel room, taking a walk down the hallway while picking the phone up, "Hello."
Azula was silent for a moment. It stretched on as she stared out the window. It almost seemed like she wasn't there, until she finally spoke, "Hi."
Which hadn't been what she was thinking about, or how she wanted to start, but there it was. She kept her voice even, though the first two words were just a tiny bit wavery.
"How's practice? I spoke to your sponsor this morning, they'll be there for the interview. I'm..."
She swallowed, unable to spit out the word. Sorry. Her pride refused.
"Oh..." Ty Lee frowned. Her voice seemed a little bit, well, hollow. She perked up a bit at the mention of her sponsor being present, though, "Thank you for that. Practice..."
Would it hurt to lie? It's not like they were video recording that stuff, "Practice is fine."
"Good..." Azula started to pace, back and forth, wearing a goat path in her carpet as she did so. She wished she could just transmit her thoughts to Ty Lee. Or touch her. Touching her would be nice. Flames burned in her eyes.
"About last night."
"You were... tired..." Excusing Azula's behaviour came so quickly to Ty Lee that it came out of her mouth before she could even think of the real words she wanted to say.
She cut herself off at that point, and shut her mouth. It wasn't excusable. Jubilee would tell her to stand up for herself. She should stand up for herself. She let out a long sigh, "Azula... It's late here. I should get to bed."
That wasn't standing up for herself, but it was a step in the right direction?
"I was not." Azula snapped. She calmed herself, taking several deep breaths, "I was not tired. I wanted to..." She mumbled after that. Then again louder. It sounded like apologize. She chewed over the words, spitting them out, feeling like vomitting. "No one who has ever told me those words has meant them. I was..."
The woman exhaled sharply, "You made me...I couldn't, can't..." Say it back, "I don't want to be like my mother. Saying things only to talk behind...My father wants me to get a man. Maybe he suspects. I don't know. I found one."
Azula paced faster, "I feel nothing for him. Maybe friendship. He knows about you, he wanted to help. Mai thinks I should tell the truth. I'm not accustomed to that."
She was speaking faster, the words spilling out, "You'd be an asset. You're not an asset you're my friend. I have.." Emotions. Feelings. "Even if that's true I could be cut off. Especially if he hates me for it. I could become Zuko. I'm already..planning, if that happens."
"For you for you I'd give up this lifestyle for you!" It was like a valve had gotten stuck open, and the things inside Azula were gushing out. Azula collapsed in a heap on the floor. Vulnurable. In a way that Ty Lee and only Ty Lee was ever allowed to witness, "I hate you I hate the way you make me feel. Like the thought of your absense leaves this gaping hole, this cold void. I lov-"
She cut herself off with what sounded like a sob.
Ty Lee had been about to actually hang up on Azula after mentioning that she needed to get to bed, but Azula's voice had rushed through the phone with such intensity that she'd actually moved her ear away from it and had started starting at it, instead.
The words could still be heard clearly, though she was only catching certain of them. The things like, 'get a man' followed by 'I found one', and 'I could be cut off' and 'I hate you'.
She wasn't even sure how to respond. The entire thing was very conflicting. She'd just resolved herself to the idea that Azula was possibly dangerous and then this happens. She felt horrible.
"... oh..." was what she finaly managed to say, when she got her phone back to her ear.
"Oh...?" That was all that Ty Lee had to say? Azula stared at her phone, breath coming in short ragged gasps. Even that word had come out shakily. How much had her lover even registered? Azula wiped at her face, her voice wavering, and plowed on, hoping Ty Lee understood, "I tell father the truth and I lose everything. Or maybe it strengthens me but I don't care if it does or not."
Why couldn't she say the words that would really matter?!
That part of it registered loud and clear, only it had an effect opposite to the one that Azula was hoping for. Ty Lee understood the pain of getting cut off from one's parents. She wouldn't wish that on anyone in the world. If that's what was going to happen, then it wasn't going to happen, because she just wouldn't let it.
It took two to be in a relationship, and she could do something about it, "I think you should see your... man that you found... more regularly. And I'm sure your father ... really needs you at home, teleconferencing is probably a bad idea, you should stay home. You can always read the news to find out how I did."
Her voice trembled the entire time, but she kept on going, "It's my fault. I shouldn't have pushed you into this. I'm happy you found a man for yourself, maybe you'll even love him someday. But I... have early practice, and I really need to go."
It wasn't what Azula had wanted, no. She was an adult, she didn't need her daddy's dime to get anywhere. And what if Mai was right? What if it only made things better for them? Her throat clenched, "I don't ..want him the way I..."
Was she being banished from the Olympics? Azula almost came out as her sponsor, right then and there. But she didn't. She wanted Ty Lee to find out in person. Preferably after the Olympics but the press had proven difficult. And hell, she might as well come out come out at the same time.
"Remember to...to work on your uneven bars. You always have trouble with catching the bar on your third rotation. Don't try so...complicated."
But she'd never once attended one of Ty Lee's practices. How could she know that? Video, of course.
She'd watched every one.
That was, in fact, the exact spot in her routine that had lead to her missing the bar and nearly dislocating her shoulder in the process of correcting, early that day. How did she know that? Ty Lee found herself staring at her phone again, in tears.
"... It's a 16.5 if I do it all correctly, I just have to ... how do you know that..." oh gods, "You aren't HERE are you!?"
"No, I'm home right now." Azula rubbed at her arm. Her voice wasn't quavering quite so badly. She sounded almost like a coach, "Don't hurt yourself. Your floor and the beam are your strengths, that's where you dazzle me-them. You just need to do well enough on the bars to give the team a buffer. Your friend is the strength there."
Azula couldn't quite keep her voice even, "Do you really not want me to come?"
"... I know it's why they selected me over some of the others, but..." Ty Lee trailed off, and ran her free hand through her hair, "I hurt my shoulder a bit, but it's okay. I can't simplify it now, I just have to ... finish it. I have to stop missing. Even if Jubilee is the one they're watching."
As to the rest of it, she sighed, "It's complicated, Azula. You distract me."
Distraction was a mutually occuring phenomena. Azula crossed her arms over her chest and glared out her window. She muttered something, but the phone's mic was sensitive enough to detect it.
"I believe in you."
Swallowing a lump, Azula said, louder, "That's why I never watch you practice live."
"I didn't think you were watching at all..." the other girl's voice was so tiny on the phone that the mic almost didn't pick it up.
Azula sighed. It wasn't a frustrated sigh or an angry one, but a resigned sigh, "It was easier. Before you jumped over the wall. To pretend."
"... I won't be the reason you lose everything," Ty Lee said, softly, "I won't be the thing you hate because you lost everything."
"You ARE everything!"
There was silence on the end of the line for a while, then finally Ty Lee answered, "I ... you ...you don't... I have to go."
Azula's voice sounded strained, "You meant it. I know you did." I love you I love you I love you. They weren't meaningless or empty or hollow, they couldn't be. Azula didn't want to be proven right, but she still couldn't say them herself, "I don't want to be empty."
"Then maybe you should have thought about that before you accused ME of being empty!" The words came out of Ty Lee's mouth before she could stop them or think about what she was saying, and she just kept right on talking. It was like a trainwreck that she couldn't control suddenly.
"But you don't CARE how I feel. You just say these things and think I'm going to keep taking it or that it's going to roll off my shoulders while your own self is covered. You didn't care how I'd feel about you getting a man to play couples with, you just went and got one, then TOLD me about it. You didn't ask me how I felt, you just TOLD me. You never ask me how I feel, but I sit there and I let you say things and I let you ... How could for one SECOND think that I didn't love you!? WHO stays with a person who treats them like that unless they DO!?"
Several heads ducked out of hotel rooms at that point, and Ty Lee gave them all a very apologetic look, before turning back to her phone with a lowered voice, "This is my time. This is my time that you told me to take, for me, to do the thing I always dreamed of doing. And instead of being happy that I love you enough to admit it, you hurt me, and throw me off. I don't ... I don't want to talk to you anymore, I need to win the only Olympics I'll ever get to be in."
This hadn't at all gone how Azula had planned it. Not that she'd really sat down and planned this conversation, unlike so many others she'd had. As Ty Lee's words slammed into her, she found herself rendered speechless. She tried a few times to interject, but only could make a series of small sounds in the back of her throat. She felt positively small.
I..My father...I wasn't trying to accuse..I didn't mean to hurt
"It made me happy. I.." She took a breath. She could do this. It was important she do this. Each word was like chewing on glass. Her mouth felt like it was bleeding but she didn't have much time.
"I love you."
Tears welled up in Ty Lee's eyes. She couldn't believe that after everything she said, that was Azula's response. Of course, NOW Azula could say it to her. NOW, after being yelled at like, after she'd all but threatened to break up with her... were they even a thing if she was dating a man now?
She could barely speak through the tears, "Now you're happy. Now you can say you love me. ...I don't want you to say it again, not until you say it without me having to make you."
With that, she hung up the phone, and curled up in a ball.
Azula dropped her phone. It didn't make sense. Didn't she understand the effort that had taken? Ty Lee hadn't made her do anything, she'd had to find the courage means to summon it up inside herself. She had...she had.
Completely fucked up.
She realized belatedly that she was crying, and angrily wiped at her face as if that would somehow stop the tears.
The bed ignited behind her, and blue flame rapidly spread around the room until it circled her in an inferno. Instead of exploding out the window, or burning through the condo, it snuffed out. There was no scream of rage. There was no point, she'd just be raging at herself.
This was her own fault.
Azula's voice was almost inaudible, "You were supposed to take the pain away."