blending in, smoothing out

[anatural]

WHO: Hei & Korra
WHAT: Korra gives Hei a haircut.

[Korra frowns as she takes a section of hair between two fingers and tries, with great care, to trim the edges with a pair of scissors she borrowed from the woman at the front desk. The result is, as she feared, not good. The scissors just aren't sharp enough to make a clean cut.

She could just live with it. It's been this way for a few months now and didn't bother her before. That was the problem with being depressed, though — nothing much bothers you, because you simply don't care about anything. It's only now that Korra's starting to realize just how far she had sunk, and she knows she hasn't climbed out of the hole yet. In fact, she's pretty sure she's just riding high on endorphins at the moment, courtesy of an entire day's worth of fucking.

She doesn't want to just live with it. It's a small challenge, making it less obvious that she just chopped off her hair with a hunting knife, but that's why she doesn't want to admit defeat to it.

So what are you going to do about it? Katara voices her thoughts.

With one last squint of disapproval at her hair, Korra pokes her head out the bathroom door.]

You didn't bring a sharpening stone, did you?

Comments

[mortemscintilla]

[ They've been traveling most of last week. They've already called Korra's family from a secure location; he's made the proper arrangements for an extended period in transit. It hadn't required much time. The people in his network had already been debriefed or warned, one way or another, when he'd left the South Pole. Essentialities aren't a problem, either: much of them were kept in Hei's carry-on bag that serves as the equivalent of the bug-out kits used in the military. ]

[ Since then they've been traversing through the Earth provinces for several nights now, no fixed destination beyond a vague impetus on Korra's part to reach the bordering swamps. They've stayed in the same sort of cheap motels as the ones they've been using all along -- alike in their air of anonymity and impermanence, and the aura, so keen to Hei's senses, of human life on the knife's edge. ]

[ But he hasn't had much occasion to dwell on those details during the days past, because he's spent most of the time fucking Korra. ]

[ It's strange. Months and months of physical dehydration, emotional drought, and gratitude pours like water through him each time he looks at her. It refuses to evaporate; instead it merges with that well of greed that keeps rising and spilling. They've spent most of their free time in the creaky beds of their hotel rooms, listening to the hum of streetlife below, fucking, chatting, dozing and waking to do it again and again. They've gone at it so hard that he's amazed Korra can get up and walk, or that if she can, she isn't aware with every wobbling step of her swollen sex, of the bruises where he's gripped her, the places where he's sucked her flesh into bright patterns of welts beneath her clothes. ]

[ Between the ravenous couplings, though, he's been monitoring her closely. She hasn't lapsed into any more panic attacks. Not experienced any psychotic breaks, or their wild-eyed equivalents. She's been calm and wakeful and even perky; making little cracks at his hairdo, interested in the passing scenery. Yet there is a vibe, sporadic, that she's not all there. Sometimes he catches her scanning crowds with an anxious eye. She will be talking to him, smiling, then suddenly break off and drop her gaze. ]

[ Sprawled in the rumpled oasis of sheets, redolent with her aroma, Hei thinks about the possibility of mercury poisoning and certain neurological disorders, what it would mean. His stomach tightens and his heart rate speeds up, fueled by anxiety. ]

[ He relaxes only when Korra peers around the bathroom door, her face bright in its dark bramble of short hair. ]

I did. [ A beat, before he sits up, legs tenting the sheets. ] What are you up to?

[anatural]

[Oh, Korra's quite aware of how swollen and bruised she is, and the only reason she can walk is a lot of practice ignoring pain. At least this is a deep, satisfying ache.

She holds up the scissors.] I want to trim my hair. [On impulse, she adds] I could clean yours up too. Give you a proper wolftail.

[mortemscintilla]

[ The scissors shine dully in Korra's hand. Hei stares at them for a second, his fingers twisted in his long hair, a vague uncertainty trickling in. He'd been dismayed but understanding of the changes in her appearance. Short hair or long hair, it's still Korra after all. Maybe her old hair felt like deadweight; maybe chopping it off was symbolic, a way to slice herself free of the darker times. So this upswing of interest in grooming herself ... is good, right? A renewed burst of neatness after days of haphazard indifference? ]

[ He hopes so. But then she mentions trimming his hair, and his uncertainty takes on a different shape. ]

[ It's been ages since he's seen a barber. Even when his hair was shorter, he'd handled the trimming himself. (Small wonder why it looks like a black hedgehog has melted to death on his skull.) He's always felt uncomfortable in a barber shop, no matter how clean or safe -- the reek of chemicals, the barber crowding in too close, the fabric noosed around his throat, the leather-and-chrome chairs, the paraphernalia of blades and clippers, the eerie whiteness of the tiled walls and floor. Once, at a shop in Beijing, just before the Syndicate had reassigned him to Tokyo, the barber had brought a razor too close to his eye, and Hei had allowed that hair-trigger thrum under his ski to overcome him, slashing the man's throat right there, spraying the walls and mirror with red. ]

[ So surreally bright when fresh, but he never hung about to see the rusty-orange it turned after. ]

[ He stares at her a moment, a little blank. Then, as if he's flipped a switch, suddenly he's slipping out of bed, avoiding her eyes and reaching for the contents in his bag. ]

I have sharper scissors. Use those.

[ It's clear, though, that he's rebuffing her good-natured offer. ]

[anatural]

You could've told me that before I dealt with that lady up front. [Grumbled, conveniently forgetting that Hei had no way of knowing her intentions in going out to get the scissors. She goes over to get the pair from him, noticing but not quite registering the blankness in his expression. There'd been a time when she paid extremely close attention to his every shift in mood, so she could try to head off any dangerous tempers at the pass. But she lost that habit a long time ago.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ To his credit, it's not as if he's in the grip of a flashback, or experiencing the skin-crawling chill that signals the onset of one. Just a barest hint of discomfort, something in his chest clenching with an instinct he can't name, but which always surges up in times of impending danger. ]

[ Shrugging it off, he hands Korra the scissors. Swings his legs over the edge of the bed, before slipping into the crumpled tangle of his pants -- less out of some misplaced modesty than the instinct to be at least half-clothed if disaster strikes. It's not going to: the logical part of his brain understands that. But the reptillian aspect is harder to convince. ]

[ Forcibly, he tries to dispel the feeling. Reaches out to comb his fingers through Korra's hair, ruffling it for no rhyme of reason before planting a kiss on her nape. ]

I'll give you a hand, if you want.

[ At least for symmetrically trimming the hair at the back. ]

[anatural]

[Korra makes a half-hearted sound of protest as he ruffles her hair, and has to adjust the towel around her.] It's a simple trim. Pretty sure I can handle it.

[She makes a little face at him and heads back to the bathroom to make quick work of those jagged ends.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Suit yourself, Korra. Maybe you have eyes at the back of your head he doesn't know about. ]

[ He lets her pad away, his gaze a soft, interested wandering across the sway of her hips under the towel. He's replete enough that desire doesn't register as a priority -- for the moment. But he's aware it will return soon, a slow creeping tide of itching palms and sluicing heat. He lets her have a moment to herself in the bathroom, listening to the faint whispery crunch of steel on hair, before he drifts to the door, easing it open to regard the results. ]

You look like a pageboy.

[anatural]

[Nope, no eyes in the back of her head — just good peripheral vision. She's not going for perfect, after all, and she's still in that place where doing something herself is more important than the end result. In this case, the end result works out quite nicely; Korra is quite pleased with herself as she looks in the mirror.

To Hei's comment, she just says] I like it. [And she really does. She's had pretty much the same hairstyle since she was 4 years old, for as long as she's known that she's the Avatar. This drastic a change after twenty years almost makes her feel like a different person, but unlike losing her bending, unlike losing access to her past lives, unlike losing her mobility, this change is her choice.]

And you look like a drowned sky bison. Look at this mess. [She reaches out to run her fingers through his hair (which could use a washing, among other things).]

[mortemscintilla]

[ The satisfaction in Korra's voice stirs him up with both a precarious happiness and dismay, as if he is struggling to reconcile himself to the sight of her with that sharply-angled mop of hair, the more shadowed eyes, the rough barehanded-brawler's knuckles. A variation in kind of the chickies who get oiled up and paid for prize bitchfights, butch little bruisers wrecking each other for a slavering audience. Perfect handjob for the male ego. It's not something he'd ever thought of when he used to look at Korra. She was a tough cookie, but soft and kittenish, too -- and he'd been appreciative of her on both counts. ]

[ Except his opinion is moot. It's Korra's body, her choice. It's obvious she wants to slough off the old parts of herself, a bright-blue butterfly crawling out of its chrysalis. She doesn't need to please anyone but herself -- least of all a person whose memories about her are old, outmoded, in need of updates, and whose idea of her proper appearance is irrelevant, with any proposal of change an upset. ]

[ She's not that stupid-sweet teenager in the shed anymore, he reminds himself, with equal parts resignation and a strange pride. ]

[ Reflexively, he bats her hand off when she touches a greasy hank of his hair. (It's true, it could do with a wash -- but in the storm of travel, arrangements and sex, he hadn't exactly been paying attention.) ]

I'll deal with it later.

[ Or maybe shave the whole fucking thing off. It's the smartest option, considering half these hotel beds are infested with ticks and fleas. ]

[anatural]

[She hasn't been that girl in the shed for many, many years now, and Hei had no small part in that. But he didn't change her nearly as much as her own world did.

Still, the look she's giving him now is much the same as the many, many looks she gave him when she was 18. Hei, why are you so weird?]

Or we can deal with it now. We've got scissors and a shower right now. Why wait?

[mortemscintilla]

I --

[ He hesitates, scrubbing a palm through his hair, feeling that particular waxy moistness in the strands that signals they need a good shampooing. He can feel the bright-blue burn of her gaze, waiting for him to answer. But the words drain out of him. Not because he can't get through to her, because she'd be devoid of context or comprehension about details like triggers or a dislike of blades wielded at his person in small spaces. It's the opposite. He can tell her, and she'll understand. It's surreal. The distinctions he'd once made between them don't matter anymore, and it's as dismaying as it is real. ]

[ He lifts a hand, scratching at the faint rasp of stubble there. His eyes glint her way, then slide off with a quiet discomfort. Finally: ]

I had ... a bad experience ... with an armed man in a small space. Back when I was young. [ All right, more like a child. Barely thirteen. As he speaks he can almost feel it -- the cold bite of the blade puncturing skin and muscle at his back; the grate as it rasped across bone. But she doesn't need to know that. ] It's got nothing to do with you.

[anatural]

[She understands all too well, and sets the scissors down on the edge of the sink. She doesn't plan on dropping the subject, but she wants to be as non-threatening as possible.]

So what — did you just cut it yourself?

[mortemscintilla]

[ There's a tinge of relief when she sets the scissors down -- although rationally, he's aware that no one is attacking him. Quietly, he regards Korra from his half-shuttered eyes, the expression on his face that mild, neutral one that signals: Why are we still discussing this? ]

[ Even so, it's Korra. He can allow himself the luxury of indulgence, blanketed though it is with a wry levity. ]

Haven't you wondered why it's so stylish?

[ That's a Yes. ]

[anatural]

Believe it or not, I don't actually think that much about your hair. [As for why they're discussing it... Korra's not sure. It's not important, in the grand scheme of things. She doesn't much care what his hair looks like. But she doesn't want to just drop it either. A part of her perhaps wants to start facing their inner darknesses (and it's easier to start with the ones that aren't hers).]

[mortemscintilla]

[ So that's what he is now? Her voodoo doll? Sex toy? (Sexual vodoo toy?) ]

[ In all honesty, Hei would prefer they drop the topic entirely. He watches her quietly instead, wondering if she ever guesses how much forbearance he exercises at her offhand prying, her catlike curiosities. If she were a target, he'd have smacked her nose bloody; if she were a stranger, he'd have reamed her out and left her quaking in her fur boots; but, she being Korra, he puts up with it. Sometimes he can't even recall why. ]

[ He hesitates, eyelids lowering a notch. Reaches after a moment to play with the frayed edge of her towel, as if he's contemplating tugging it loose, distracting her in favor of more pleasant physical conversations. But even through the thorny tangle of reticence, he feels something curl, soft-pink and fragile as a flower in his chest, a vague sort of feeling on the fringes of his awareness. (It's trust, maybe. He does trust her.) ]

[ Eventually, ]

You want to cut it anyway.

[ A statement, not a question. ]

[anatural]

[Hardly. It's more like "We both have problems we should deal with... let's start with yours!" At this point in their relationship, she doesn't see it as prying. He isn't the hot, dangerous stranger she fucks from time to time; he's the person she loves. Of course she wants to know him better.

She inches closer as he plays with her towel, determined and yet still open to distractions.]

I don't want to [upset you] make you uncomfortable. But...yeah...

[mortemscintilla]

[ She edges closer, and Hei forces himself to relax, though it takes more self-control than expected for him to bite down on his first, reflexive response, which would be cold, dismissive and very likely more revealing than he can afford. He can't react too strongly to such moments, he knows, though he tends instinctively to read them as threatening. It's Korra, after all. She's always touchingly accepting of the dips and drops of his psyche, taking them in stride, but cursed, too. Everything that comes to her seems doomed or flawed, in some way, or too dark at its center. He can't help but think she deserves better. ]

[ The taut angles of his face soften slightly, and there is a tiny, rueful twitch to the edges of his lips -- but it's not because he's happy. Fenced in by the narrow crumbling walls of the bathroom and Korra's warm body, he feels himself moving on some kind of conveyor belt, carrying him -- where? He doesn't know. His fingers tighten in the fabric of her towel, almost like he's afraid -- then just as abruptly slacken. ]

[ Whatever that's trying to seep into him -- caution or carelessness -- he dispels. Finally, with effort, ]

Go ahead then.

[ It's just a fucking haircut. Surely he can make allowances for that much? ]

[anatural]

[She smiles and gives him a quick kiss, gratitude and reassurance at once. She takes the scissors and the last towel.]

Let's go out to the other room. [While far from airy, it's less cramped than the bathroom, which works out in both their favors. Less triggering for him, being in a larger space, and she won't have to squeeze between the toilet & the shower to reach his hair.

She sets the towel out on the floor and gestures for him to sit there while she perches on the edge of the bed.]

So how would you like it — proper wolftail, or back to your old style?

[mortemscintilla]

[ The kiss is over before he can melt into it -- leaving him lightheaded, off-balance. Then Korra is sidling out of the bathroom, scissors and towel in hand, laying out arrangements. Almost like a convict in her custody, Hei trails after her. He can feel himself humming quietly on alert, as if her movements and motives are difficult to predict. It's ridiculous, of course. The scene does not replicate his bad memories -- the attack had taken place in a trench, the slosh of muddy, shitty water under his boots, the solid barrier of earth latticed in weeds and wriggling earthworms, the stench of things rotting, festering, filling his nose and lungs. ]

[ Here there is none of that. There is plenty of light; at least, in comparison to what he's used to. Dust drifts in glittery shafts of watery sunlight from the dirty window, which is divided in small rough planes, looking down an empty lot which is full of bare trees, denuded as if in winter. The sight of the unmade bed, the rumpled gray sheets redolent of sex and Korra ... It doesn't relax him, exactly. But it reminds him that, whatever his concerns, this isn't a place of Badness. ]

[ He settles crosslegged on the towel -- wary, but with a contained grace. A stray cat welcomed in out of the cold. It'd be too easy to fixate on the scissors. Instead he keeps his gaze fastened on Korra, the blueness of her eyes like a beautiful patch of clear sky at the top of a very dark well. ]

[ In a tone that's almost offhand: ]

Let's see what the fuss over wolftails is about.

[anatural]

Good choice.

[Settled behind him, Korra starts combing out his hair with a little comb she found on the nightstand, gently working out the knots. It feels nice, working with long hair after so long, and yet she's also grateful that she doesn't have to deal with it every day anymore. It had been a lot of work for a little vanity — her childhood desire to dress up like a Water Tribe warrior, which over the years simply became a habit.]

The wolftail isn't really a symbol of manhood. It's actually a warrior's wolftail. It helps a warrior keep his helmet secure during battle. Of course, pretty much all Water Tribe warriors are men. I horrified my parents when I was a kid and demanded a proper wolftail. [She smiles, remembering not the event itself, but the way her father liked to re-enact his horror when he told the story.] Girls usually have their hair dangling down the sides of their face, either in loops like Master Katara or just bound like Eska. But I insisted, so Mom came up with a compromise. And that is why I wore my hair the way I did.

[She finishes combing his hair and sets the comb aside, feeling suddenly awkward.] Sorry, that wasn't really much of a story. [She's not sure why she bothered to share it, except talking seemed better than silence.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ The trench was twelve feet deep, Hei remembers. All around it were dead trees, many of them split in half by lightning or snapped and gnarled under their own weight. Their bark was stripped and their trunks swiss-cheesed by termites. In the trench itself, it had struck him that the swampy ground was no more than a thin crust covering a vast pool of decay: a mulch of rotted vegetation and the carcasses of whatever idiotic creatures might willingly inhabit such a place. He remembers that each time he'd taken a step, putting weight on his forward foot, his toe had sunk down like it would on a field soaked with a week's worth of rain; dingy water filled the depression. Up would rise a horrid gassy stink. ]

[ Abruptly, he can smell it in his nose. It's like he's back in there, sprawled and bleeding in a patch of dead sedge bristling with insects. Throat too swollen and parched to make a sound, he tries to wrest his sore wrists free of the damp sucking muck -- ]

[ --And his arms come easily up to grasp the knobs of his knees, a deceptively light, bracing movement. The comb is a whispery movement through his hair, soothing, rhythmic. It matches Korra's voice, the up and down cadence of it, like a drizzle of warm syrup poured across his senses. When she stops, the silence that rolls in is unwelcome. ]

[ Tipping his head back, he regards her upside-down. His eyes, always edging toward cool detachment, betray right now a bemused, almost boyish intrigue. ]

I don't mind your stories.

[ He's always close-mouthed when it comes to his past. But it's easy -- blissful -- to loll back and listen to Korra tell about her own childhood. Every detail smacks of the most incredible exotica to Hei: loving parents, privilege and opportunity, training disguised as playtime, affectionate if stern mentors, romps in the glittering snow with a Polar Bear cub ... Yet the underlying impression he gets from Korra's stories is: I had almost everything, except the freedom to choose. ]

[ Ironic. For Hei, it's more a sense of: I had nothing to choose at all. ]

[anatural]

[She smiles and kisses his nose.]

The best part is I don't have to do a lot of cutting. [A tacit warning that she's going to pick up the scissors soon.] Just trim the edges a bit. [There's some more cutting that needs to be done for a truly traditional wolftail, but Korra doesn't actually know how to do that, so she's not going to try. She doesn't want to push him too hard, anyway.

Picking up the scissors, she takes a section of his hair and begins snipping carefully.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ She picks up the scissors, and there's a sharp, sickening jolt of adrenaline -- a hurdle, to be overcome or else it will vanquish you -- that forces Hei first into movement, then into an almost military stillness. His fingers tighten on his kneecaps, and he forces himself to exhale. Just a stupid haircut. Don't be a baby. He is determined to be as nonchalant about this as possible. It'll just be a few minutes of the quiet snip-snip of blades, the cool brush of metal, then it will be over. Maybe the new look will make him seem less forbidding, even. ]

[ Yet he can't stop tracking the glint of metal from the corner of his eye. He wants to turn his head, but he can't risk ruining the hairstyling, or worse, getting his skin scraped by the blades. ]

[ Finally, unable to endure the tension distilling itself inside him, pure and sharp, he says, ]

Tell me ... another story.

[ It makes him feel like a silly little boy, embarrassed to be seeking distraction, but unable to repress the urge. ]

[anatural]

[Korra stops and blinks. When directly asked, her mind goes completely blank.]

What...kind of story do you want to hear?

[mortemscintilla]

Anything.

[ It's not the content that matters to him. It's that warm butterscotch thrum of her voice, the way it cuts through the cold fog of his memory. After a beat, he reaches behind him, across the gulf of inches, touching the dark oval of her knee, feeling how smooth and cool and then warm it is as he fits his palm to it. He expects to feel something coursing through the touch, some evidence of her power and energy, but it is just a woman’s knee. A pretty blue-eyed woman with tumbled dark hair, who is, surprisingly, unafraid of him.]

[ Squeezing gently, he offers her a smile -- ironic, crooked, even self-denigrating, ]

Tell me why ... you decided to go all the way, that time in the shed? What made you decide I was fit to be anywhere near you?

[ He's puzzled over it, in rare moments. What strange chemical signature had hovered in the air -- a mix of desperation, hormones, boredom -- that had as good as signed a warrant, handing over all reason and sanity? (Temporarily? Permanently?) ]