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Toph sits at the edge of the bar and slowly downs whatever June puts in front of her. She doesn't balk at the peppermint and cactus juice, doesn't make a face at the weird moscato thing, or the one with the tea in it. This is the game they play; June lets her prop at the quiet end of the bar even though it's not a sitting-at-the-bar kind of establishment. Toph gives the bartender tips on where she might find her next gig for her preferred job as a private investigator. June mixes hideous cocktails in an attempt to find a kind of alcohol Toph will swallow her pride and push away. Toph gets free booze.
The music is loud and the floor is sticky, and a lot of the girls who come here are still little more than teenagers, a bit too young for either of them now—but it's the only establishment in Republic City that really caters to women of their persuasion. Most of the queer bars are bunched together at the other end of town, but frankly it's a sausage fest down that way. Toph had plenty of luck picking fights there in her youth, but the ladies were few and far between.
"I call this one the Shirshu Tongue," June says, placing a shot glass next to Toph's hand with a loud tap.
"Sounds promising," Toph grins. The moment the glass touches her lips the searing of chilli awakens her, and the contents of the glass go down like fire.
"Not bad," she tells June, licking the chilli residue from the glass' rim. "I think I actually felt that one. Make me another and I'll even tip you for it."
June laughs. "Right after I serve a few more young revellers," she says, and ducks off for a bit.
Toph gets her tongue down inside the glass to lick out the very last of the shot. June's been trying to name something the Shirshu Tongue for ages, and while she's hit some kind of gold with this drink Toph's not sure it's the right one for the title. She imagines the Shirshu Tongue as a cold blow to the head. This one...
"This one's the Arsonist," she tells June when she returns.
June shrugs. Toph feels it through the bare concrete floor and the chipped stone top of the bar.
"Light me up," she puts enough money down on the bar to cover the shot she's just finished and the next.
"Incoming," June murmurs. Toph pays attention to the footsteps heading towards their little corner, since apparently June's spotted someone of interest. "This one looks like your type."
"I'll take your word for it." Toph's type isn't something you can tell from a glance—not the way June's a sucker for a nice pair of green eyes or the right combination of clothes and makeup. June's very shallow, really. It's a wonder they get along.
She's been tending bar here since she was twenty-one; Toph knows because the first time she stumbled in here she was eighteen herself and had just been promoted to detective (turns out they let you skip grades when you invent a whole new subset of bending and help the Avatar stop dangerous firebending criminals as a runaway kid). She'd liked the husk of June's voice, liked the brazen shit she used it to say, and she'd climbed out of June's bed the following morning with bruises on her neck that nobody had the guts to tell her were visible until she'd been showing them off at work for three whole hours. They'd hooked up for a while, but those nights got fewer and further between. The sex was good, but the friendly company was effortless.
Now, they're pretty much friends—some version of friendship where they don't have to actually say the word, at least. Allies, maybe, since they have a working relationship too. The Chief of Police isn't really supposed to let dodgy PIs in on official investigations, but frankly some cases are just better handled by the commercial sector. (Rich parents wanting their kids tracked down despite them not qualifying as missing persons... those ones always make Toph feel like she's on the wrong side.)
"You're wasted as a cog in the machine," June tells her sometimes—and Toph does feel like she's tangled up in rules more often than not, more handcuffed than the people she puts cuffs on. But then June's gig has its own problems; it's awfully hard to live in this city without a steady paycheck, and it's hard to live well unless it's a sizeable one.
"You're wasted behind this bar," Toph always replies. "Although to be honest I wouldn't have it any other way, 'cause this way I get to get wasted for cheap."
"Is there another seat I can claim?" The woman June identified has arrived at their corner of the bar. Her voice is kind of snide to Toph's ears—but at the same time it's full of minute croaks and wobbles, held forcibly together like a broken bone in a cast. Strange. The woman leans against the bar next to where Toph sits. She's close. She smells of smoke, possibly in a cigarette way, but more likely in a firebender way. Could be both. Toph reaches out to lay her hand on the woman's arm. The skin burns under her like it's thrumming with a constant blush. Toph shivers.
Firebender. Nice. Toph likes hooking up with firebenders; not because she buys into any of the stereotypes—Firebenders are passionate, serious lovers. Waterbenders like to joke and experiment with new things in bed—but because that wonderful heat is the one thing all firebenders do indisputably have in common.
"Sure, June here'll be happy to find you a stool."
Toph hears June sigh, but she obliges, dragging another nearby stool around.
"Got a name?" Toph asks.
"Nang," the woman replies. Toph feels her pulse remain steady, but something in her voice makes her want to doubt.
"Good to meet you, Nang," she says anyway, because that's the name she's been given—and it isn't like it really matters anyway. They're not getting married. "I'm—"
"You're Toph Beifong," Nang fills in for her quickly.
"Ah. Well, I guess it makes sense you'd recognise me. I am kind of famous."
"Is being the Chief of Police everything you hoped it would be, Toph Beifong?"
Toph frowns. Do I know you from somewhere? she wants to ask, because there's something slightly too familiar about the way this woman addresses her, but it's more likely she's just a misguided journalist making nice to try and get a scoop. What scoop Toph doesn't know, since all she's done lately is sign off on the adventures her subordinates have had. It's wrong to say, but she misses the old days. The trail of fires Ozai and his little cult left across the city like breadcrumbs for Toph and her team to follow. She misses the action, the challenge, misses getting to fight people who don't drop to their knees the second she shows them her badge, or even just her face. It's wrong to say, but it's true.
"It has its moments," she answers. "I didn't know I was here for a career evaluation though."
"Why don't you choose a subject for small talk, then." The response isn't apologetic at all, and Toph finds she likes it. She likes it a lot. The problem with being the best, the boss, the problem with everyone recognising that you're above them, even if you are—suddenly there's nobody to spar with. No one left to prove anything to.
"What about a drink first?" Toph suggests. "My shout." She raises her voice and calls out to June, "hey, another Arsonist, my good bartender. And for the lady..."
"I'll have the same," says Nang.
"Well, Nang, you've got good taste," Toph observes.
"You can find out just how good I taste." The line is delivered in a tone that treads right along the line between sarcasm and seriousness. Totally deadpan. And, more unusually, altogether lacking in self-deprecation.
"If you're lucky I'll take you up on that," Toph answers with a laugh, and knocks back the spicy drink June places before her in one go. Her belly swirls with heat and anticipation.
*
Toph rolls over, blankets tangling around her arms and legs. She kicks at them and ends up half bared to the cool air, half bound up even worse than before. Beds. They just can't compete with sleeping on the ground, but it's hard to bring people back to her place and then suggest they spend the night on the floor. That could pass as romantic back when she was younger and having a roof and four walls of her own was impressive enough, but apparently part of being an adult is owning functional furniture, whether you actually want it or not. She even had the walls painted, because apparently the mould and various stains were off-putting to some of her guests.
Toph never thought she'd let this kind of thing happen to her, but here she is a dozen seemingly insignificant concessions later living a life she only half-recognises.
At least last night had been worth it. She buries her face in the mattress under her and dreams a collage of fresh memories. Teeth grazing skin and fingers pulling hair and the taste of smoke and salt and musk on her tongue. Little whimpering sounds and sharp cries that play over and over again and Toph groans, the throbbing between her legs pushing her the rest of the way out of sleep. Her head aches worse than it used to after a rough night at the Earth Rumble. To think she used to get away with heavy drinking and concussions sans-hangover.
The bed still smells of smoke. Quite strongly, actually. Toph sniffs and decides she might even have to air the sheets out. Or just open a window. Yeah, that sounds better. She'll do that once it stops raining; it's coming down quite heavily, loudly.
She doesn't know what time it is but her head's muggy and it definitely feels too early to be waking up. The smoke becomes unsettling, though, when she flips onto her back to try and get more comfortable. A deep breath and she finds herself coughing roughly, the dry irritation a chain reaction leading to more. She sits up, listens. Reaches out and finds the other side of the bed empty when she remembers it's supposed to be filled with hot firebender.
She shouldn't have slept through the woman leaving. She shouldn't have slept through—
Over the sound of her own coughing, Toph hears an almighty crash. It jolts her into proper wakefulness at last, and she clambers out of bed, presses a bare foot to the floor and scans her apartment. The crash came from the kitchen, where the wall housing the doorframe appears to have changed shape. Toph stands in her underwear and isn't the slightest bit cold despite it being winter. The rain, she realises, is obviously not rain at all.
What kind of firebender did I let into my house? she asks herself as she rushes to pull an overcoat on and gathers those essential possessions she doesn't leave at the station (which, luckily, are few). She works quickly, because fire isn't the element she's best at facing. It's hard to keep track of what exactly is burning around and above her, and it'll be even harder still if she's makes a wrong step and burns her feet. She doesn't want it to come to that.
Toph's seen enough fire scenes to know that sticking around isn't a great idea. On her way out she stops for a final check of the place. As expected, Nang's form is nowhere to be found. Toph knows what her apartment feels like, what each drawer weighs, and she starts when she notices what, in addition to the place being on fire, is different. The safe-cabinet that's supposed to be for 'filing' but is instead home to an accumulation of case souvenirs. The third drawer. The box of things she kept from those very first arsonist cases she worked on as a kid.
Everything, from the dog-eared photograph of Ozai she went around showing witnesses to the official documentation of the arsonist's crimes and arrest, is gone. Why someone would want all that old crap is beyond her. All Ozai's minions are still locked away with him. Even his daughter was—
Azula. Azula. Toph remembers the girl, just slightly older than she herself was during the original investigations. She remembers how totally crazy she'd been when they brought her in, how she'd cackled and sobbed and told them to lock her away with her father. With Ozai, as though they'd put a young girl in a maximum security men's prison. Too young to be tried as an adult, too obviously under her father's thumb to be considered responsible, she'd been sent off to a facility for a dozen years of non-stop psych evals. Toph remembers feeling just the slightest bit sorry for her; the clarity to see when and why you should leave your parents behind isn't something everyone is lucky enough to have, and the same goes for finding strength to do it, like mangling your own hand to escape cuffs.
She never thought she'd see Azula again. She doesn't know what exactly she hoped for for the girl—a quiet, medicated life playing by the rules and trying to forget everything that came before the padded rooms?
Toph makes her way down the fire escape.
She heads to the nearest phone booth to call it in, coughing and stumbling in a way she'll put down entirely to smoke inhalation if asked about it.
Her gut churns wildly and she's bracing herself for a re-emergence of the may drinks and friend snacks from last night when she realises she isn't going to hurl at all. Despite all the reasons she has for feeling bad, it's something altogether different that surges through her now. It's excitement. Like an electric current. Like jumping off something high and hanging in the air for a terrifying moment, heart thumping to high in her throat she could chew it with her back molars.
The dying embers of a fire put out years ago have flared back to life and all of a sudden Toph is caught up in the sequel she was never allowed to crave. She'll be damned it she oversees it from behind a desk.
She hears sirens as she's about to start dialling, so either the massive smoking inferno has clued the emergency services in or one of the neighbours has. Now that she bothers to pay attention to them, there are quite a number of people standing around on the street. It must be quite a sight, the building going up like this. Toph can feel the heat, has to shut her eyes against the blizzard of ash, can hear the almighty roaring and crackling and collapsing of beams, walls and everything else she owns.
She dials a different number instead.
"It's a quarter to five," June answers, "what the absolute fuck do you want, you gremlin?"
Toph laughs, coughs, makes some other noise that's a combination of the two. She says, "My house is burning down."
"I'll burn your house down for waking me up."
"You're not listening to me. I'm saying someone already beat you to it. Remember my one-night stand?"
"Oh my god," June says. "Oh my god, really." Toph hears laughter at the other end.
"Thanks for your sympathy."
"Alright, alright. This is just kind of a shock. I'm heading to you now; be there in fifteen."
Toph hangs up the phone and listens out for the rumble of June's bike. She doesn't even hear it over all the commotion until June's pulling up a few yards away, pulling off her helmet and walking over.
"You insured your shit, right?" she asks.
Toph nods.
"So you can get it all back. That's a relief."
Toph sighs. Coughs. Starts to think she might need to submit to one or two paramedics' wills to check her over after this.
"I don't know that it is," she says. "I do feel relief right now, but it's for the opposite reason. This... this is the perfect chance to leave that stuff behind."
"Well I don't have room for you at my place," June says, "so you're going to have to find somewhere else to live."
"Or I could just... work the case."
There's a pause. Toph interprets it as doubt, but there's one thing guaranteed to make June more amenable to any proposal, and Toph's not above playing that trump card. Not when she's as set on doing something as she is right now.
"The insurance'll pay me enough to hire a partner on this," she says. "Long case, high profile, you know anyone who'd want a gig like that?"
Toph can hear the smirk in June's voice. "You're really dropping your whole life to pursue a girl you fucked once."
"It's not like that, I'm going after a criminal."
"A criminal who seems to have made an impression on you in the sack. And I mean that literally. Put a damn scarf on."
"Fuck you."
"Been there done that."
"Maybe I just have mild burns on my neck!"
"That's a new kink for you."
"From my house burning down around me, you—" Toph reaches out to punch her in the shoulder. June anticipates the blow and begins to step aside, so Toph's fist only skates off the side of her arm.
"Well, whether you're chasing a hookup or an arrest or both, I was right about one thing," June says. "She's exactly your type."