The good that I want, I do not do
Aug. 12th, 2014 06:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mortemscintilla posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
fuse_boxWHO: Korra, Bolin & Hei
WHAT: Wherein Bolin gets into a pickle, and Korra learns the exact nature of Hei's 'work.'
[ Walking on his way to work -- his real work, not his factory-shift -- Hei buys a warm steamed-bun from a street vendor, enjoying the salty grease and hot dough. The sky is darkening, a filigree of dirty purple on the horizon. The lilac-gray cloudbanks remind him of a recurring dream in which skulls rain down from the sky like hailstones, millions of gleaming skulls covering him in a clattering drift of smooth bone and teeth. What's most puzzling is that the dream never disturbs him, as he imagines it would most people. At nights, sometimes, he closes his eyes wondering, with a sort of wistful curiosity, if it will come to him as he sleeps. ]
[ Crossing a warren of sooty alleyways, he feels the weight from the blades strapped under his clothes: an old Spyderco Clipit nestled in his front right pocket and his favored La Griffe with its two-inch spear point blade around his neck inside the shirt. The cold pommel nuzzles at him like an old lover. It's nothing to be proud of. Any fool can carry a knife. But it's a bigger fool who goes unarmed to jobs like his. ]
[ Funny, how he'd come to Republic City hoping for honest work. But when the purse runs empty, dishonest work has to do. That said, he can't say he's ever seen a place with a less honest look about it than this one. A deserted building. Heavy door and dirty bare windows. A dead juniper bonsai rests at the entrance. The sign reads: Moon-Queen. It's one of the newest Republic City phenomenon: the opposite of a tanning salon. Some young wife-to-be suffering from acne spots or sunburn? No problem. Fifteen minutes on a special bed, bombarded with whorls of therapeutic water-bending, and she's a dead-ringer for the Corpse Bride. The store is a front: drugs, guns, and stolen merchandise are hustled out the back. Half the beds aren't even plugged in. The others are actually tanning chambers. ]
[ One of Hei's contacts sits behind the reception desk. A posterboy for a bleaching salon: fat and fortyish, pale and hairless as a skinned lychee. He's a middle-tier triad guy, a pavement-pounder. He tracks high-ranking gangbangers, cons, cobblers, thieves and anyone too dangerous who winds up on the gang's blacklist -- an unhealthy list to be on. When Hei steps in, he nods, jerking his chin toward the back door. While Hei heads down the hallway, the man slouches to the door and, to the utter dismay of all albinism-worshipping females in the area, turns the sign from OPEN to CLOSED. ]
[ The parlor room walls, ceiling, and floor are draped in transparent plastic. One tanning bed rests at the corner, white with the dimensions of a coffin. Beside it, shackled to a chair and gagged tight, is Hei's target for the night. A rich kid: male, early twenties, working on some patchy facial hair that blooms in dark thatches at his chin and cheek. Hei's seen him in the line-up at clubs, wolf-whistling at girls from his fancy satomobile and slumming it up in seedy brothels. Not him exactly, but he looks like a thousand other guys in this city -- a type. ]
[ Not that it matters. All he is, to Hei, is a conduit for information on Bolin's whereabouts. And it's Hei's job to extract it -- a task which he's already proven, among all the triads whom he freelances for, to be chillingly proficient at. Not a very glamorous job, sure. But at least the pay is good. ]
[ Slowly, he slips out of his coat. Rich Boy watches him, his eyes a cloudy brown. His face is a mask of defiance but around the edges, like a corona of light silhouetting a solar eclipse, he sees fear. Good. Hopefully the extraction won't drag on tediously. He's hoping to leave early. Retrieve Bolin, get some groceries, head home, maybe surprise Korra with her favorite lychee-flavored mooncake when she gets back. A dully-domestic train of thought. But hey. The Black Reaper doesn't have to be a monster during his off-hours, too. ]
WHAT: Wherein Bolin gets into a pickle, and Korra learns the exact nature of Hei's 'work.'
[ Walking on his way to work -- his real work, not his factory-shift -- Hei buys a warm steamed-bun from a street vendor, enjoying the salty grease and hot dough. The sky is darkening, a filigree of dirty purple on the horizon. The lilac-gray cloudbanks remind him of a recurring dream in which skulls rain down from the sky like hailstones, millions of gleaming skulls covering him in a clattering drift of smooth bone and teeth. What's most puzzling is that the dream never disturbs him, as he imagines it would most people. At nights, sometimes, he closes his eyes wondering, with a sort of wistful curiosity, if it will come to him as he sleeps. ]
[ Crossing a warren of sooty alleyways, he feels the weight from the blades strapped under his clothes: an old Spyderco Clipit nestled in his front right pocket and his favored La Griffe with its two-inch spear point blade around his neck inside the shirt. The cold pommel nuzzles at him like an old lover. It's nothing to be proud of. Any fool can carry a knife. But it's a bigger fool who goes unarmed to jobs like his. ]
[ Funny, how he'd come to Republic City hoping for honest work. But when the purse runs empty, dishonest work has to do. That said, he can't say he's ever seen a place with a less honest look about it than this one. A deserted building. Heavy door and dirty bare windows. A dead juniper bonsai rests at the entrance. The sign reads: Moon-Queen. It's one of the newest Republic City phenomenon: the opposite of a tanning salon. Some young wife-to-be suffering from acne spots or sunburn? No problem. Fifteen minutes on a special bed, bombarded with whorls of therapeutic water-bending, and she's a dead-ringer for the Corpse Bride. The store is a front: drugs, guns, and stolen merchandise are hustled out the back. Half the beds aren't even plugged in. The others are actually tanning chambers. ]
[ One of Hei's contacts sits behind the reception desk. A posterboy for a bleaching salon: fat and fortyish, pale and hairless as a skinned lychee. He's a middle-tier triad guy, a pavement-pounder. He tracks high-ranking gangbangers, cons, cobblers, thieves and anyone too dangerous who winds up on the gang's blacklist -- an unhealthy list to be on. When Hei steps in, he nods, jerking his chin toward the back door. While Hei heads down the hallway, the man slouches to the door and, to the utter dismay of all albinism-worshipping females in the area, turns the sign from OPEN to CLOSED. ]
[ The parlor room walls, ceiling, and floor are draped in transparent plastic. One tanning bed rests at the corner, white with the dimensions of a coffin. Beside it, shackled to a chair and gagged tight, is Hei's target for the night. A rich kid: male, early twenties, working on some patchy facial hair that blooms in dark thatches at his chin and cheek. Hei's seen him in the line-up at clubs, wolf-whistling at girls from his fancy satomobile and slumming it up in seedy brothels. Not him exactly, but he looks like a thousand other guys in this city -- a type. ]
[ Not that it matters. All he is, to Hei, is a conduit for information on Bolin's whereabouts. And it's Hei's job to extract it -- a task which he's already proven, among all the triads whom he freelances for, to be chillingly proficient at. Not a very glamorous job, sure. But at least the pay is good. ]
[ Slowly, he slips out of his coat. Rich Boy watches him, his eyes a cloudy brown. His face is a mask of defiance but around the edges, like a corona of light silhouetting a solar eclipse, he sees fear. Good. Hopefully the extraction won't drag on tediously. He's hoping to leave early. Retrieve Bolin, get some groceries, head home, maybe surprise Korra with her favorite lychee-flavored mooncake when she gets back. A dully-domestic train of thought. But hey. The Black Reaper doesn't have to be a monster during his off-hours, too. ]
no subject
Date: 2014-08-13 12:20 am (UTC)WHERE'S BOLIN?!
[Let's rewind.
That morning, Hei had gone off to work, and Korra had gone to meet Jinora at one of the sights where the vines were at their worst. Jinora had volunteered to try and help Korra communicate better with the spirits and maybe figure out what was causing the vines to go out of control. But mid-morning, Mako had come running up, saying Bolin hadn't come home last night or shown up to the Fire Ferrets training session and nobody knew where he was. They'd split up to look for him, with Jinora using her ability to project her spirit to extend their search. The little girl's the one who heard some Triads talking about Bolin and gave Korra this location.
The door busting down part? Well, Korra doesn't handle worry particularly well, especially on little sleep. Her current mood, she's ready to level this entire place to the ground if that's what it takes to find her friend.]
BLEEP BLOOP GORE WARNING
Date: 2014-08-13 12:43 am (UTC)[ Fuck. This must be one of those days they talk about. The ones when the unseen forces which govern the universe array in perversity, when books rip, toasters fume, and your most comfortable pair of jeans feel as if they belong to someone else, someone ten pounds lighter or of a different gender. Every enormous and gnat-sized nuisance that life can devise will inevitably attach itself to you. And here, as a bonus, swoops in the biggest nuisance of all. ]
[ One pissed-off Avatar. ]
[ It's so unexpected that Hei's usual composure fails him. The surface of his face is like watching a stone dropped in a lake, shock rippling out. ]
Korra...
[ It's intoned as both How did you get here? and You shouldn't be here. Because, for one thing, the chair with Rich Boy shackled to it is empty. The tanning bed is on, and a terrible odor fills the air: a sickly-sweet mingling of cooked meat, blood, hair. Blood seeps between the seams of the tanning bed, thin runners that look a little like warm tar. The lid is half-open, and inside, his body a juddering curl, the kid is in rough shape. His body is stoplight-red, except for the odd patch charred black. And he is -- steaming. It rises off him in savory plumes, as from the surface of a hot bath. ]
[ Hearing Korra's voice, or maybe Hei's, he opens his eyes in agony. The ultraviolet light has blinded him: his eyes are completely bloodshot, the eyes of an albino. He thrashes mindlessly, flesh loose, more of a sheath than a part of him. A thin keening noise drags out of his throat -- but it isn't mindless burbling. It's the exact info Hei's been plumbing for the past half-hour, sputtered in choking groans. ]
[ Hei would find it ironic -- if he weren't so jarred by Korra's intrusion. ]
ewwwwww
Date: 2014-08-13 01:24 am (UTC)What are you doing here? Jinora hadn't mentioned seeing him here. Does he have something to do with Bolin's disappearance? Did he find out about what happened between them and decide to knock off the "competition"? No, that's ridiculous. He'd said he was okay with it... he knew it didn't change anything. He wouldn't hurt one of her best friends. (Except she already knows, doesn't she, that there's very little he isn't capable of. One can argue the probability, but never his capability.)
Something moves in the corner, capturing her attention — a grotesque mass of flesh that doesn't seem alive, much less human, until it speaks.
No... She dives across the room, bending the water out of a special flask that Master Katara had sent her for her birthday, still a few days hence. She already knows that she doesn't have enough to help this man, but that doesn't stop her from trying.]
Evil guro hound nomnom
Date: 2014-08-13 03:26 am (UTC)[ Maybe it's the shock, or maybe it's something almost like concern, that makes a blade of Hei's voice. He's never wanted Korra tangled in this filthy aspect of his life. Of what he is. But it's also no surprise, if he is honest with himself for once. There is only one kind of work that he is really good at. Certainly only one kind that anyone will pay him close to five thousand yuan a session for. He'd come here to be a better man. But it is just like he's always known. Once your hands are bloody, it isn't so easy to get 'em clean. ]
[ He only wishes, for the umpteenth time, he'd kept those bloody hands away from Korra. ]
[ She bends water out of her flask, but he's already blocked her way. It's too late for Rich Boy. All he can manage is to burble the truth -- which was the point all along. Eyes narrowed, Hei kneels beside the kid. His face, what remains of it, is bloated and pocked with suppurating boils leaking pus -- a common effect of intense heat-exposure. Hei asks the same question he'd asked at the start of the 'interview', when there was still a chance the kid might've walked away breathing. ]
One more time. Where is the boy?
Ungh ... ungh...
Tell me. I'll make the whole world go away.
Sto... storage ...buh-behind... ra-ally buld...ing...
[ Bingo. He only hopes Bolin's still alive when they get there. He doubts Korra needs to look at two different corpses on the same day. ]
the evilest
Date: 2014-08-13 06:30 pm (UTC)Except she can't breathe. Air is leaving her lungs, but no matter how hard she breathes, none comes back in. She whirls around to find a group standing in the busted doorway. The woman at the front is bending the air out of her lungs.
An airbender? HOW?
Her vision is going black around the edges; she doesn't have time to wonder. She bends the earth beneath the woman's feet and gasps as the disruption allows her to breathe again. She doesn't give the woman time to regain her footing, though her own balance is also precarious as Korra dodges strikes and blows from the woman's companions.]
HEI! [Could really use some help here!]
>3
Date: 2014-08-13 07:28 pm (UTC)[ Korra is swaying, her face darkening as she struggles for air. Watching, Hei -- trapped a moment under a layer of ice -- feels something snap inside him. It is like feeling something skitter just beyond your reach, something precious. In a flash, he rolls to his feet -- but not before splaying a palm across the desperate skinless thing that was once the arrogant Rich Kid. There's a zzt and a faint tang of ozone. The body spasms -- then slumps back into its own soupy red matter. ]
[ A mercy-kill. But also a precaution. If the rival group gets their hands on the boy, Hei doesn't want them knowing he's spilled details on Bolin's location. ]
[ In the next beat, he's leapt into the fray. In a split-second he evaluates the threat. One air-bending female -- whippish, gaunt-faced, her stance skewed as if she's only just settling into her ability. Two pale enormous men with short-cropped hair, flanking her with a slow sumo-esque swagger. Likely firebenders. One weaselly man at the corner, eyes cored too deeply in his face -- a waterbender judging by the flask at his belt. ]
[ It takes him seconds to reach the air-bender. A wire whips spring-loaded from his sleeve. Snagging her arm, he lets rip a sizzling current. Not enough to kill her. Just enough to make her shriek and spasm before crumpling to the floor. (Air-benders are near-extinct. He wants to know exactly how she acquired the ability). Sumo-boy #2 is next. He uses a nearby crate to propel himself forward. Delivers a scythe-like kick that catches him on the vulnerable nerves of the neck; his head slams off the wall. Two teeth thin and smooth as shaved ice push between his lips as he slumps down. ]
[ Two down. Two to go. Unless Korra has already taken them down. ]
no subject
Date: 2014-08-13 07:52 pm (UTC)Korra drops to her knees and feels for the woman's pulse, relieved to find it strong and steady. She's not one of the Air Acolytes — Korra may not know them all by name, but she knows all their faces. Her head is covered in a downy fuzz, like she hasn't shaved in a few days. At the top of her skull, almost hidden, is some kind of tattoo.]
A lotus? [Why is it red? More importantly, how is this woman an airbender? Where did she come from? Are there more people like her?]
no subject
Date: 2014-08-13 08:11 pm (UTC)[ But when Hei glimpses the red lotus tattoo -- he feels a strange fear resonate at a distant level, like a cathedral bell ringing many blocks away. He thinks of all the rumors he's been hearing lately. Whispers of a powerful group after Korra. Stirrings of revolution and chaos. News of airbenders appearing in regions where they've either been extinct for centuries -- or have never existed to begin with. ]
[ All these scraps of knowledge had settled into the sedimentary depths of his mind, to be gradually blanketed with other layers of news and thought, to lie there more or less undisturbed, sealed away. Now the sight of that lotus on the airbender is stirring that layer of thought, bringing a sift of understanding to the surface that carries the swampish, unpleasant reek of decomposition. Uprising. Chessgames. Deceptions. Buildings and walls toppling. Burnt flesh. Death. ]
[ Forcibly, he shakes the surging premonition off. He doesn't answer Korra. Just kneels before the dazed woman. Her face holds a simple geometry in profile, flat and sunken. Southeast Asiatic. The face of anyone on the street, anywhere. He regards her a beat -- then splays a palm across her chest. The volt that dances off his fingertips is like a jumpstart to the nerve-centers. Waking her, but disabling the large muscle groups so she can't airbend. She jerks, eyes snapping open, mucous running from her nostrils in webby strands. The shock leaves her trembling like a Parkinson's victim. ]
[ Leaning close, Hei speaks in her ear. Almost like a lover -- except his voice is cold and soft. ]
Who are you working for?
no subject
Date: 2014-08-13 09:22 pm (UTC)In the butt. She may be in no mood for defiance, but the smell of burnt flesh deters her from doing anything too violent.]
Where’s Bolin? [She'll worry about the bigger questions later. Right now her friend is in trouble.]
no subject
Date: 2014-08-13 09:46 pm (UTC)[ While she stomps and shrieks -- (from avenging valkyrie to tantrum-prone teenager in 0.6 seconds) -- he carefully daubs his face with a handkerchief. His thought tick over, gaze fixed on the woman's tight, stoic face. He doubts she'll crack easy. But with time, she will. Because they all do. She's probably been scrapping since childhood, punched and kicked, sliced a few times. Maybe her father used her as a punching bag and she's thinking I know pain, tasted it, not afraid to taste it again. But she doesn't know pain. None of them do; not really. Hei teaches them. ]
[ But not with Korra in the room. ]
[ Rising, he regards the woman a moment more: all calculation and under-the-surface anger. Then, to Korra: ]
The kid already told me where he is. The storage area behind the rally building. [ There's a beat, as he glances around the room. Battered walls. Sprawled bodies -- some motionless, others twitching. The flayed red thing on the tanning bed. For a moment he wonders what might happen if he were to take this new, stripped-down target -- this air-bending female -- and place her in another tanning bed. Would she crack easier than the Rich Kid did? Would she give birth to yet another, smaller, more agonized, less human version of herself? How many layers would she possess? He thinks of a Russian doll, one inside another, smaller and smaller, until you reach the true center. And he's tempted, on a remote level, but a nagging sense of caution prevents him from peeling this woman down to her very core. ]
[ Now isn't the time or the place. He'll need to drag her somewhere completely sealed. Question her in detail. In the meanwhile: ]
I'll come with you.
[ After a quick detour to drop this air-bender off at one of his makeshift torture-cells in the city. ]
no subject
Date: 2014-08-13 10:18 pm (UTC)How did you know Bolin was missing?
no subject
Date: 2014-08-13 10:38 pm (UTC)[ Maybe it's time to revise that policy. ]
[ Composing himself carefully, he tries to find words for his turbulent thoughts. ]
I'm in the information business. For the triads. [ Information extraction, to put a fine point to it. Because knowledge is one currency that never goes out of style. ] I heard rumors that a gang down south had jumped some mover-star. Bolin had told me he'd be in that neighborhood. It wasn't hard to put two and two together.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-13 11:37 pm (UTC)What was he doing there? [Was that what Hei and Bolin had been talking about? Did Hei get Bolin caught up in gang business, after everything he and Mako had done to get out?]
no subject
Date: 2014-08-13 11:51 pm (UTC)[ His expression remains blank as a test-pattern. But at his sides, his hands clench an unclench -- a subtle sign of escalating tension. ]
[ In a measured tone, he says, ]
He was convinced Amon was still alive. He wanted to hunt for leads. I knew for a fact he was on a wild goosechase. So I didn't try to stop him. [ A beat, before he rolls his shoulders in the equivalent of a shrug. ] Except he got caught in a turf-war between two gangs. That's how I heard the news.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-14 12:01 am (UTC)Why didn’t you?! [Letting Bolin go on a wild goose chase into Triad territory... dorky, innocent, sweet Bolin. She could scream. She could punch him. He should have known better! Bolin should have known better! As if things aren't crazy enough without the people she loves getting themselves into shitty situations.]
Forget it. [She whirls around. She needs to get to the rally building and save Bolin.]
no subject
Date: 2014-08-14 12:13 am (UTC)[ (Of course, if everyone did what's best for them, Hei's occupation would become redundant. It is his dismal experience that people rarely act in their own best interests.) ]
[ Case in point: This. ]
[ Scooping up the half-dazed air-bender, Hei slings her over his shoulder. No sense leaving her here, where someone might be sent to retrieve her. At a fast clip, he takes off after Korra. She's just been attacked by a mysterious group of benders. He isn't comfortable with the idea of her wandering around alone. ]
[ Drawing abreast of her, he says, ]
Why not let me handle it?
[ She should be getting in touch with Beifong. Telling her about the hitmen who attacked her. Not wasting her time -- and risking her life -- on a scavenger hunt for one idiotic boy. ]
no subject
Date: 2014-08-14 12:33 am (UTC)Like you took care of that kid inside? [Her voice is biting.] I don't like the way you handle things. Come on, Naga.
[The polar bear dog takes off.]
no subject
Date: 2014-08-14 01:06 am (UTC)[ Exasperated, Hei watches Naga bound off. The hot lash of her voice, her zinging blue glare, stays branded in his mind's eye. Reading his ruthlessness and the moral bankruptcy it represents: judging him as a human and finding him wanting. And she is in the right. That is the bitch of it. Even after years of associating with him, her moral certainty seems more certain than ever, while his ... Well, he'd had it once. He'd also had the warm net of a family to protect him, a canopy of real stars to light his way, a sister to love him. Life stole and lost the things you'd thought safely pocketed. Or else death did. ]
[ It's that, more than anything, that feeds a gallop of adrenaline into Hei's system. Doesn't matter if she doesn't approve of his methods. They get results. And if she wants Bolin back alive, that's all that matters. ]
[ With that in mind, he's ready to drop the airbender off at a safe-point -- drugged and bound -- and tail Korra until he's sure she and her stupid friend are safe home. ]
TIMESKIP
Date: 2014-08-14 01:40 am (UTC)It was one thing to know about his past. It was one thing to know what he was capable of. But people can change. People can move beyond their pasts; people can resist the terrible things they're capable of. Hei is actively choosing to do evil. Nobody is forcing him. He's not a pawn of some larger, cruel organization. All the options in the world, and he's chosen to throw his lot in with the gangs, to torture and kill other people for money.
How is she supposed to live with that? She's the Avatar, and that is the exact opposite of everything she stands for.
She doesn't know the answer, but she can't hide forever. After breakfast the next morning, she reluctantly mounts Naga and heads for the house.]
no subject
Date: 2014-08-14 02:24 am (UTC)[ Except that's easier said than done. ]
[ After the war between the Water Tribes ... after the deaths, the chaos, the machinations, he'd realized something. How was he going to get out of the life while Korra was such an important figure in this world? How -- while her very position demanded that he stay vigilant for threats to her life. When every negative opinion or threat to the Avatar was constantly, insidiously cuing and inciting his latent killer-instincts? And why should he even want to, when her devotion to her role made it clear she was as much Avatar as she was Korra -- which meant that nothing in their lives could be simple. ]
[ Hei doesn't know. He's not sure if he's rationalizing or justifying. All he knows is that he loves Korra. That he wants to keep her safe. To do that, he has to peel back his layers of docility. Bare the sharp edges. No one is giving prizes for good behavior. Not here, not in his world, not anywhere. You want to protect something, you have to take risks, and the survivors are the ones who don't balk at getting their hands bloody. Maybe it would be nice if life was another way. ]
[ But it is how it is. ]
[ That night, he isn't surprised when Korra doesn't return. Refusing to let sadness (loneliness) catch up with him and kick him flat, he flees the empty house and seeks out a dim, bottled, greasy-wooded bar. He dives into the mix of alcohol and bitterness, a slowly-blossoming train wreck. Getting into a brawl with three fire-benders isn't part of the plan. But once he gets started, the monster in him won't stop until the place is a shambles and every threat quashed. ]
[ He staggers home at dawn, a thin lip of sunlight at the gray horizon. Sits huddled in a pool of shadow on the top step of the porch, cradling his pounding head. Korra's words, spoken hours ago, still crawl on him and will not be shaken off. Acts that had been performed at the bar with a cruel, determined zest now carry him back half a lifetime, making him feel like that vicious seventeen-year-old soldier with no emotions and no limits. ]
[ He's come to this but he has no idea how. Alcohol doesn't explain everything. ]
no subject
Date: 2014-08-14 03:04 am (UTC)He probably brought it on himself, she reminds herself. She remembers the sickening smell of that dying kid. (That kid who knew where Bolin was. She would've found him anyway, with Jinora's help. And yet...)
She slides silently off Naga, and nudges the dog to leave them. The ever-protective Naga doesn't go far, but it's enough space.]
Why are you working for the Triads? [So many questions she could ask him, but that's as good a place to start as any. That's the only one she can't even begin to imagine an answer for.]
no subject
Date: 2014-08-14 03:20 am (UTC)[ Outlined in the intensifying light, Korra is both an eyesore and a sight for sore eyes. Behind her, the sun strikes slats of pink and orange off the sea; his eyes sting as he fixes them on her. ]
[ Maybe if he weren't such a hardass -- maybe if she was Pai -- he'd get up. Cross the distance between them, sweep her up in a whirling hug, kiss her sweet little face all over until he's absorbed every iota of tension out of her. Instead, he stays where he is. A touch so intimate wouldn't be welcome right now. Besides, his mouth tastes awful, his cheeks are grayed with stubble, and he has that dissolute air of a man who's spent the night in a viper's nest. The scent of sweat, sake and tobacco lingers heavily in the weave of his clothes. ]
[ At her question, he licks his lips. Eyes her for a moment, blank but somehow darkly wistful too. Then: ]
Because they have eyes and ears everywhere. Better than the police. Better than anything on the President's payroll. If I want information -- or news on anyone's whereabouts -- they're the most reliable source.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-14 03:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-14 03:53 am (UTC)[ His smooth face shows no remorse. He's learnt long ago not to see his targets as people, but as resources. Who they are has no more emotional weight than the wrapper his fishburgers come in. He will use the tactics that he feels are the surest and quickest way to get what he wants from them. He will take every advantage, relying on speed, surprise, brutality, and weapons to cow them from responding in any way and to make any response they are able to access ineffective. ]
[ Because it's not personal. It's just part of the job. Korra needs to understand that -- and to realize she can't live a squeaky clean life, with her friends and family safe and sound, without someone else getting their hands dirty. ]
no subject
Date: 2014-08-14 04:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-14 04:12 am (UTC)She'd have had to scour the whole city. Point by point. That kid already knew where Bolin was. I just needed to extract those details. As fast as possible.
no subject
Date: 2014-08-14 04:40 am (UTC)[Korra doesn't deny his methods are effective. But are the results worth the cost — that's the question, the gulf between them. Hei sticks with the methods he knows, inhumane as they may be, and acts as though they are the only option, and to think otherwise is to be hopelessly naive. Korra believes a better way can be found, if you commit yourself to it. Why dive into the mud when, if you look around, you can find a bridge?
If it was impulse, she'd understand. If it was a knee-jerk reaction, ingrained habit, she'd understand. She still defaults to violence herself. Yet this isn't a bad habit he's having trouble breaking. This is a conscious choice he's made, and that he's lied to her about.
And maybe that's the part that really hurts — how he's kept her in the dark. He's lied to her, and even if it's far from the first time, it doesn't hurt any less.]
no subject
Date: 2014-08-14 05:23 am (UTC)[ He doesn't know how to explain that to her. He can only think, in an abstract way, of men returned from war who have trouble sleeping without their boots on and a rifle close at hand, and how he can understand their difficulty. It's hard for the most primal, powerful regions of the mind to abandon habits that were once crucial to your survival, even when the higher mind recognizes those habits are no longer warranted. What can the habits hurt? the barbed aspects of his nature always argue. ]
[ And, sadly, things like a chance for peace and hope of redemption aren't responses it finds much persuasive. ]
[ Now, he watches Korra's face, wishing he could dispel its shadows. Feeling something in his chest surge, that stupid brim of heartache, reasonless and blinding. ]
[ Quietly, he says, ]
I know you're upset. And angry. And I wish I could say I'll make different choices. But -- [ He pauses, looking past her, at the slow spreading light in the sky. ] Once you've started on a course like mine, there's no right place to stop that means a thing.
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Date: 2014-08-14 08:36 pm (UTC)How hard is it to just not work with criminals? It's not like they're hiding what they are. What is so complicated about it?
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Date: 2014-08-14 09:06 pm (UTC)[ The most he can manage is to protect those close to him. To do everything in his power to ensure their lives aren't wasted -- or flung into the murk -- the way his own was. ]
[ At her question, he makes a small, exasperated sound, thumping the heel of his hand against the sandy floorboards. But the brief burst of irritation fades as fast as it blooms. When he speaks, his voice is both tired and gentle. ]
Have you ever seen a bunch of dead bodies after a war, Korra? Good men. Criminals. All stacked up after a battle?
[ It's not as much of a non-sequitur as it seems. There's something he needs to explain to her. Something she -- in her all-encompassing innocence, her penchant for thinking only in contrasts of black and white -- is blind to. ]
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Date: 2014-08-14 09:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-14 10:08 pm (UTC)[ Unblinking, he looks at her lovely, stubborn face, set into lines that suggest the crystalline inviolability of raw diamond. ]
Did you notice the corpses of the 'good guys' glowed? That they smelled like roses? [ Of course not. Everywhere you go, death has the same putrid stench. ] The good men and the bad -- they all looked about the same, right? They always have to me.
[ He pauses, his gaze that blank cipher he's worn so often with enemies and allies alike. Neutral. Calm. Proving his worth as a soldier and a Contractor and a spy. ]
I've seen good people, who did the right thing every day of their lives. Who built things to be proud of so bastards like me could destroy them in a blink. And they made sure to say thank you kindly each time I kicked the guts out of them. Do you think when they died, and they were put in the ground, they turned into fairydust? [ Again: of course not. ] They turn to shit like the rest of us. And they leave behind nothing but things not done. Unsaid. Unfinished. Family and friends never protected. Hopes rotted down to nothing.
[ His gaze dulls then, as he tries to dial down the vitriol. But he can feel it leaking out, crackling at his edges. ]
I'd like to be a good man. I'd like nothing to do with criminals and killers. But if something happens to you -- to the friends I've brought here -- a defenseless do-gooder's chatter won't keep them safe.
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Date: 2014-08-14 11:16 pm (UTC)And she doesn't know how to respond to that. She doesn't have an intellectual reaction that she can properly articulate. His logic is both sound and fundamentally flawed, but she feels helpless to retort.]
I can't — [Can't what? She doesn't even know. She takes a deep, shuddering breath and passes to head into the house. She just wants to go to sleep. Last night hadn't been good for sleeping.
Even so, she stops at the front door. Doesn't turn around.]
I'm glad Bolin's safe. [Thank you is unspoken — she's not sure yet whether she's grateful for his help. But Bolin is safe and Hei did have a part in that.]
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Date: 2014-08-15 12:03 am (UTC)[ But even worse than the tenacity of his psyche is the stubbornness of his circumstances. It'd be great to wander around like a tinker with his cart, peddling goodness to anyone who'll take it. But it's hard to do a selling job when it can't even keep your loved ones safe. You can talk about being a good man, choosing the righteous path, hoping to convince yourself you're doing the right thing walking away from the bloodshed of the past. Breaking the circle. But it won't keep his friends safe, and that's a fact. The circle keeps turning, whatever you try. And slipping back into the Reaper's skin ... it might not answer any questions. It sure won't make the world a prettier place or the sun shine brighter. But it's better than the alternative. It's a damn stretch better. ]
[ He doesn't move when she starts for the door. It's only when she speaks does he lift his head. Her wording is ambiguous -- either grateful or uncertain or both. But he understands what it means. Her way of giving in. An inch's worth. It's more than he deserves. ]
[ Hei swallows, and counts to himself in the silence. Feels the tug of the invisible lead gathering momentum between them, energy zinging. Then -- yes. In another moment he is loping to his feet. Coming up close behind her, his hands skimming across her shoulders, his mouth questing through her hair to touch the nape of her neck. ]
[ Perhaps a You're welcome -- or I'm sorry -- or I'm glad you didn't leave. Perhaps all three. ]
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Date: 2014-08-15 12:36 am (UTC)Don't. [Not while his touch makes her see that kid from before, the smell of charred flesh fill her nostrils. Her stomach churns and she wants to vomit.
In fact, she's just going to head to the bathroom right now.]
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Date: 2014-08-15 12:50 am (UTC)[ The idea comes with a sorrow that is shockingly physical. Fuck -- he doesn't want that. He wants Korra: to touch her, to kiss her, to comfort her if he can, to fight with her if he has to. He understands his own twisted wellspring of love at this moment as he's never known it when they are merely happy. ]
[ Then she rushes to the bathroom -- and his mini-satori is replaced by concern. ]
Hey...
[ It's Are you okay? in one syllable. ]
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Date: 2014-08-15 01:13 am (UTC)I'm fine.
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Date: 2014-08-15 01:34 am (UTC)[ He tries not to think about it. Instead, he says, in a tone of weary defeat, ]
I'll leave some ginger-lemon soda in the kitchen. [ A beat, in which he feels all the leaden exhaustion in his body arrowing up to his skull, which feels the general weight and proportions of a dumbell, at least. Rubbing the bridge of his nose, he takes a step back. ]
I'll be in bed.
[ Their bed, he means. It isn't a motivational promise, so much as it's a test of how much distance she's going to place between them. ]
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Date: 2014-08-15 01:54 am (UTC)His footsteps fade away; time passes. She doesn't notice it going by. Confusion and heartache have shut down higher order thinking, leaving her stewing in emotion. Eventually the smell is unpleasant enough to make her get up.
In the bedroom, she's assaulted with the acrid reek of smoke and the sickly tang of too much alcohol. She turns quickly and heads in the opposite direction, out the front door where the air is almost clear. She abruptly, intensely misses home: the pure air, the bracing cold. A landscape of deceptively harsh edges. Starkly black & white and yet full of color. Of course, that home is destroyed now, yet another casualty of the civil war. The South Pole rebuilt itself, but it's not the home of her childhood.
Naga meets her immediately outside, and Korra buries her face in the dog's fur.]
I'm fine.
[She is. Curling up outside, nestled against Naga's warmth, is comforting and familiar. The steady heartbeat of her loyal friend is the best lullaby a girl could ask for.]
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Date: 2014-08-15 02:20 am (UTC)[ Even so, as he hears the front door click open and shut, there's a flare of something in his chest -- bewildered, angry, unhappy. The white ceiling undulates as he shifts restlessly beneath it, too spacey to feel the mattress under his back, fighting the hollow, watery sensation that makes him feel deliquesced in his head and guts. You drank too much. That's all this is. ]
[ Except that's a lie. There is no loneliness, he is quickly learning, like the loneliness of an empty bed, far from all you love, even if you're not that far at all. ]
[ Jerking himself out of the reverie, he lurches to his feet. Cautiously, he parts the slats of the blinds at the window and peers out into the sandy yard. There is Naga, fur glowing an unpleasant white in the bright dawn light, stretched out in a fluffy curl around the half-hidden shape of Korra's head -- a whorl of white cotton-candy around a dark dollop of chocolate. ]
[ Somewhat mollified, he steps away. She's holding herself apart right now, but he's hoping that sometime -- soon, not-so-soon -- they'll be able to fix that. Eventually. She has time, plenty of it, and so, he concedes, does he. But time can be both hot and cold, rich and thin, and somehow, nothing can convince him that his time with Korra isn't the same as his time with Pai's, with Amber's, with everyone who slipped away from him. ]