They say it’s blind they say it waits, but every time it seals your fate

[mortemscintilla]

WHO: Korra and Hei

WHAT: Korra gets a front-row seat into Hei's dreams. Specifically his relationship with Amber.

[ Anger burning under the surface of his skin, clouding everything around him, Hei had stormed off after wrenching his photos away from Korra. He hadn't stopped to consider if the photos were loaded with a special brand of City-magic. Hadn't realized that after she'd touched them, memory-fragments had clung to her fingertips like ragweed pollen. Seeping into her pores, germinating day by day. ]

[ And of course he had no way of knowing what she'd dream of, several nights later. Or that the dreams wouldn't be hers. ]

[ Like most of his dreams, it's a vivid one. A forest unfurling like a dark green sea. Autofire and muzzle flash color the night. Tree stalks and bones shatter with hot plashes of fluid. The air is heavy with a shrill sound and scent that is somehow primal, hostile, terrified. It is like being enveloped in blood. ]

[ Everywhere, there are bodies. Acres upon acres of them, piled atop one another like split logs. Armless, legless, headless corpses, fields of little rag dolls pulled apart, liquid, stuffed with streaming redness, flowing out and away. Hei's, Pai's, and Carmine's handiwork. The result of a successful night-raid. From the corner of his eye, Hei glimpses a Contractor, one of Amber's squad, drifting through the blazing camp with the flayed corpse of a girl draped around his shoulders. The girl’s skinless body shimmers, blood-glazed tissue reflecting firelight the way moon rays reflect off a placid lake's surface. The Contractor is whistling, dreamy-eyed. ]

[ Hei isn't sure if that's his Obeisance -- or if the man is insane. He doesn't care. The war is like that: it gets inside you, under your skin and into your bloodstream, plants roots in your heart and mind and soul. You surrender to its cruelty as a matter of survival. ]

[ A starburst of light. Another memory -- one that makes his nerves jump. Pale skin and a curl of parted lips. Green hair tangled across a red uniform. He feels the humidity of the Brazilian forest, hears buzzing mosquitoes, sees gossamer netting. It's nothing compared to the global warming between Amber's thighs, the clamor in his head, his thoughts tissuey, friable, as he arches over her. Wait… hold on, Hei. Scrambling around in her pockets. Taking out a swiss army knife, extending the nail clippers. She giggles, Your fingernails are like knives. He gives her his hand and she trims his nails. Then files them down smooth. Her voice, singy-songy, Don't need a female circumcision. When she finishes the strange manicure, she eases his hand back between her legs. ]

[ Ohhhh. Her soft cry tastes like butterscotch against his hungry mouth. ]

[ Little details pinwheel through Hei's brain. The way her pulse flutters when he curls his fingers around her throat. How her hair feels like a wash of green seafoam as she bends her head, taking him with such gorgeous smoothness into the cool-hot vacuum of her mouth. The taste of her on his tongue, tart and rimey yet somewhow sweet, like biting into a dripping peach. How, each time, he has to fuck her with his eyes closed -- because the way she looks, lying beneath him, flushed and gasping, wisps of that pale hair sweat-plastered to her body, she is hypnotic, and he knows he can lose himself in gazing at her, lose the urgent rhythm of his cock in her slick wet sex. ]

[ Burying his face in the hollow of her neck, inhaling her cordite-and-mint scent, Hei drifts -- in the cradle of his dream-body, yet outside of himself, watching from a great distance of space and time. 

It was always a struggle, he remembers, to control himself with Amber. But she'd sense that; brace her hands on his shoulders and ease the shakes out of him, coaxing him with her voice and body and kisses to take it slow. He only had to listen to her and obey. He'd sometimes 

wonder what she was thinking in those moments. Part of her, maybe the deepest part, was always locked off -- even when they were that close. Maybe it was because she knew things about the future that he'd never be able to grasp. She had purposes -- for him, for Pai, for herself -- that Hei couldn't even imagine. ]

[ He remembers other things too -- less important, yet somehow more precious to him. The way Amber could be so hard to please, a kakuru puzzle in equal parts tantalizing and mystifying -- but when he got it right, it was like cracking the vault to something blissful: her skin filming like melted butter under his lips as if she were running a fever or a marathon, her wordless mewling cry as she came apart, a wavering song that melted into a scream. ]

[ Nights in the jungle, blackness so absolute it becomes a living entity, Hei remembers those stolen moments with her as a respite from everything. Being with Amber made the brutal truths of the war bearable. When she held him, he believed, however briefly, that there were no such things as hatred, or cruelty, or pain. And when she kissed him, he thought he'd never want to kiss anyone else again, ever. ]

[ Except he should've known -- even then (especially then) -- that Amber was mapping out the starchart of a different future for him.  Everything they'd shared -- at a depth and breadth both thrilling and terrifying. But it was never enough. Especially in the wake of war and politics, carnage and tragedy. Two people could never share the same psyche. ]

[ Afterwards, he remembers, Amber would always let out a jittery sigh -- satisfied, yet somehow wistful. That was nice. You're always such a quick study, Hei. A girl appreciates that. ]

[ A girl appreciates that. It was as if she was giving him advice for down the line, when he'd find himself years and miles away from her, in bed with someone else. Knowing Amber, she probably was. ]

Comments

[mortemscintilla]

[ He leaves the mage waiting in the upstairs lobby, before making his way to the room. A cursory knock, then he lets himself in. Korra is, predictably, asleep under the quilt. But it's not a calm slumber: he watches her tic and twitch, giving off heavy fumes of frustration even in repose. The dreams, evidently, haven't subsided. Something churns in Hei's stomach: disquiet, and a weird sensation that is sister to shame. He has no idea what she's seeing -- but it's terrible that she should be seeing anything at all. ]

[ Even as a spy, he thinks there is such a thing as Too Much Information. Especially if it just rubs salt on your wounds. ]

[ Reaching out, he touches her shoulder -- a light skim of fingertips. ]

Hey. Wake up.

[anatural]

[Korra comes awake with a gasp and a shudder, as though something has been ripped from her. Her skin feels clammy.]

You're back.

[Does that mean...?]

[mortemscintilla]

I found someone who can help.

[ His eyes stay on her, emotion absent in the set of his expression. But at the edges, there's something there, like a wisp of smoke eking out through the gap in the door. It's warm enough to suggest reassurance, but there's a certain tension to it that it's the only thing Hei bothers to verbalize. ]

She says it -- [ extracting the stray fragments of his memories from her psyche ] -- might hurt a little.

[anatural]

[Korra's not focused enough to catch the wisps of concern; the only thing she registers is the blankness in his expression as he says "It might hurt a little". She doesn't like the way that sounds.]

So where is she?

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei half-wants to take her hand, give it a squeeze. But it doesn't seem like either an appropriate gesture or moment. Instead he fetches the mage. She comes in briskly, like a nurse: a perfectly nondescript young woman, yet something about her holds the gaze. Maybe it is the eyes. They are perfectly ordinary: round, stubby-lashed, deep-set. But it is difficult to tell their color. They seem to be all colors at once, including ones eyes don't usually come in, like the fuchsia of sunset, and the green of the first sprigs of pine-trees. ]

[ To Korra, she extends a hand, bedecked in rings, ]

I understand you're suffering from Secondhand Dreams.

[ Is that what they call it? Hei thinks, but doesn't say anything. Instead he remains stationed by the door, part-sentinel, part-accomplice. Magic, unlike science, leaves him in a frustrated limbo where he can't do much to directly help the situation -- relieve some pressure, sure, but not to fix anything. ]

[anatural]

[Korra's addled enough that it takes her a moment to understand the handshake. When she shakes the other woman's hand, her grip is weak like a dead fish — she doesn't want to accidentally hurt the woman.]

Uh...is that what they're called?

[mortemscintilla]

[ The mage nods, her smile the pleasant neutrality of a professional's. The three piercings by the corner of her mouth seem to glow in the dark like tiny cigarette ends; Hei wonders, idly, if they are her power center. ]

Think of it as a smoke. Something you can inhale. Absorb into your body. Except once it's inside you, it becomes an open wound. Suppurating but never getting any better or worse. It's cloaked so it won't show up in physical examinations or images. But -- with your informed consent -- I can get it out.

[ Her attention shifts abruptly from Korra to Hei, and he finds himself caught in her scrutiny. That gaze of hers is somehow piercing; it makes him feel all laid open. On closer examination, he suddenly notes that she isn't twenty-something at all -- more like twice that -- and there is an eerieness to her girlish effervescence. ]

I can give you something too. For those dual auras of yours.

[ Dual auras? Hei's eyes narrow, first with confusion, then an angry burn of understanding. Tersely, ]

Stick to what I've paid you for.

[anatural]

I....still don't get it. [That explanation just made it even more confusing, honestly. And then she's talking about dual auras and no, seriously, Korra has no idea what's going on.]

But you can stop the dreams, right? [Let's stick to what's important, please!]

[mortemscintilla]

 Of course. But it will sting.

[ The mage offers a genial, soft-edged smile which promises to go slowly for her patient's benefit. She presses her hand to Korra's forehead, like a mother taking a child’s temperature. Then she turns and fixes her flickering scalpel eyes on Hei. ]

She'll be feverish afterward. But nothing worse than the symptoms of a mild flu.

[ When she glances back at Korra, the air around her seems to shimmer, the way the ocean's surface does when struck by sunlight, all dancing dappled colors. Her eyes go large and dark, and a huge wet pouting sucker abruptly surfaces where her mouth should be, of such a bilious paleness that just looking at it makes Hei's balls want to crawl up into his body. ]

[ Before he can move -- or protest -- the woman presses the huge pullulating lips to Korra's temple, It is like a kiss. But there is no avoiding the obscene wet smacking sound as they touch the skin, fastening close, leechlike. It goes on and on, as if the thing is sucking out the complete contents of Korra's pretty little head. ]

[anatural]

[No thanks, I’ll keep the sex nightmares. Korra screams and scrambles back on the bed, but she can't get away from the thing. She keeps screaming as something is ripped out of her, like hairs being ripped from her skin. Not just the memories, but her strength.

When it's done, she collapses back onto the bed, panting and trembling.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Korra's scream makes something in Hei's stomach clench, hot-red arrows of alarm whizzing beneath his skin and piercing the surface in a spring-loaded blur of motion. When the mage detaches herself from Korra, with a loud disgusting pop, he elbows past her. Gathering Korra up, framing her face in his palms, then clasping her shuddering shoulders, arms and hands, doing a head-to-toe sweep that feels more like an aborted embrace than an examination. Nothing seems damaged. The skin where the mage's puckered lips fastened on is stretched and white, but unbroken. As Hei watches, it smoothes and regains color before his eyes. ]

[ From the corner of his gaze, he can see the mage's body undulating, like some gruesome undersea animal getting ready to spew a million tiny offspring into the water. He gets the sense that she's not just absorbed the magic into herself: she is diffusing it, filtering it, feeding on it. As he blinks, she slithers into and out of a dozen manifestations, human and demon, big and small, before returning, seemingly without having moved, to the original one. ]

[ When she does, she smiles. Glances at Hei, her mouth its usual red-lipped shape, eyes restored to their strange aurora-borealis of colors, and nods, ]

It's done. [ Then, gentler, to Korra, ] You'll be fine by tomorrow.

[anatural]

[Korra's not sure how much she believes that. She feels like she's been gutted, like her insides have been ripped out with a rusty spoon. She buries her head against Hei's neck and struggles to breathe. She can't even remember why she went through this agonizing exercise.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Korra presses closer, her eyes all wild and swimmy like a mute suffering kitten's, and Hei gathers her in for a moment. Smooths a palm down her back, whip-tense and juddering, content for the moment just to cradle the big warm silky bundle of her, listen to the thub of her heart, soaking up her fevery heat. He hopes the procedure is a success. Hopes this trouble will pass away and be forgotten, or if not forgotten, be as unimportant in Korra's everlasting now as the trouble he's made for her himself. ]

[ When her shakes have subsided, he eases her back onto the sheets. Refocuses on the mage, who is watching them with a shade too much interest, eyes squinched with humor. Or is it satire? ]

[ Rising, Hei ushers her out. He's paid her half her fee in advance; the rest of the payment, he'll fulfill once Korra passes through the night without a shadow of those ... Secondhand Dreams. Returning to the room, he shuts the door behind him with amuted click. Hesitates, then settles at the edge of Korra's bed, not quite looking at her. ]

You need anything?

[anatural]

[You could hold me again. Like she would ever say that. He's going through his rapid cycles of hot and cold, holding her close and then acting like she's contagious. So she just shakes her head.]

I'm fine. Not sure I'll be able to get back to sleep tonight. [She slept long enough, if not quite well, before the mage that she's tired but not sleepy.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Whatever Hei's feeling over the course of events, he keeps buried and unreadable. Ideally, he should send Korra back Topside. But he needs to ensure the mage's spell worked. It's necessary to monitor Korra, at least for a single night. That she claims she's not sleepy doesn't particularly pique him; it's the adrenaline rush from the recent commotion, leaving her body pent-up, her brain fizzing over with ideas yet weighed down with a different sort of exhaustion. He knows what that's like, because he's felt it, too. ]

[ Except his mind shies from memories of how he'd remedied it once, with Amber. Life and warmth reasserting themselves. Reminders that they were still human, including all the flaws and frailties. In their line off work, that was easy to dismiss. ]

[ But Korra isn't Amber. And he can't keep using her this way. Building her up into a vast, soaring cathedral of the innocent, the feminine, the Pai-like. Yet also a blank canvas in that no man's land of anonymity, where he can cast her in whatever role gets him hard: daredevil, ingenue, pitiful victim of his cruel machinations; weak-willed, soft-hearted, half-witted fucktoy, love-starved dupe. She is more than a piece of meat to unhinge his jaw, sharpen his teeth, draw out his claws. ]

[ He keeps his gaze angled away. Murmurs, in the same tone he might've used for, Lattes are half-off at Starbucks, ]

I can give you some of my sleeping pills.

[anatural]

[Korra shakes her head. She's had enough of outside forces having their way with her body — even if it's something as benign as a sleeping pill. She carefully moves off the bed, on the other side from him.]

I think I'll just head home. [She can always run through her katas until she's ready to sleep. Or try meditating again. Meditating is good for making her sleepy...when it's not making her annoyed and frustrated.] Thanks for the help.

[mortemscintilla]

[ Thanks for the help. ]

[ Her gratitude is the last thing he deserves. It feeds something queasy inside him, a bad feeling that slowly coalesces into disgust. Then something else. Almost... regret. How odd. He's accustomed to expressions of gratitude, even declarations of undying love, from a mark. But beyond a certain satisfaction with successful progress, he'd rarely allowed himself to feel anything out of character until after the op was done. This is different -- yet not. It is his own ass he saved, not Korra's. His efforts were stirred by nothing but self-preservation, so that his most valuable, most vulnerable memories wouldn't be used against him further. A miser clutching at gold straws. ]

[ Selfish, self-serving, and yeah, fucking right, he is all those things. Exhausted, confused, brimming in self-loathing. ]

[ And hungry. ]

[ Watching Korra move off the bed, the urge to reach for her, to trace his fingers across her skin, is like the Reaper gloating: You'll never be better than that. Never be anything more than a born user, ready to chew up and spit out whoever is convenient to you. ]

[ Forcibly, he shakes it off. He refuses to think of it that way. (Even if it's the truth.) Korra is wired and tense; needy. He knows a trick or two, at least, to relieve her of that. The best way to apologize for the recent trouble. And the only apology he can bring himself to offer at all. ]

[ Quietly, his gaze flickering to hers, ]

You could stay. There's a few other ways to tire you out.

[anatural]

[Korra glances at him. After everything they've been through today, she's surprised he's offering. Normally he'd retreat into himself, throw up all his walls.]

Is that an invitation? [It may be a bit of a stall. She's not exactly feeling sexy, and his manner isn't the most inviting.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ It's a distraction. Because anything beyond that -- invitations, temptations -- would be a mistake. It's already a mistake, and one that makes Hei feel at once possessive and near despair. He should really stop seeing her. Because it's dangerous to grow fond of someone entirely unsuited to him, someone he risks damaging by being no less than what he is. Dangerous to rely on what can be taken away so quickly, if she leaves the City, making the nights that follow all the blanker. It is fucked up to know all that, but still want her, and fucked up to put her through more shit when it'd be safer -- kinder -- to stay distant. Remote. ]

[ Remoteness is the greater favor. Not just strategically, like the Contractor he still is -- but more merciful, like the human Pai had reminded him he'll always be. ]

[ Yet Hei finds his eyes drifting across Korra's face, taking an inventory of her tousled hair and wan smile. Her gaze is pure blue, open -- and Hei can feel a white flame of want, an impossible hope, lick up the inside of his ribcage, singe his throat, make him swallow. ]

[ He doesn't say anything. He just blinks, once, twice, and by the third, something in the set of his jaw has softened. It's not Yes, but the way he extends a hand, pale fingers starfishing, is eloquent enough. ]

[anatural]

[Normally Korra would take the hint and run with it. Seize the opportunity. She's not the type to wait passively. But after what happened earlier that night, she's feeling gunshy. Who knows what other bombs she might inadvertently set off? So she just leans into his touch, inviting more contact without initiating it.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ It was easier, Hei thinks, in the early days when they'd hook up. (Wasn't it?) Korra would be in a passion of need; it would fill Hei up like air filling emptied lungs. And other nights, it would be about need too: Korra's for the deep luxury of submission, of letting go; Hei's for a single shred of control, something to mold and shape and please, which would diminish his loss of agency in this City, all the violations he couldn't stomach. But now …... ]

[ Now it's something stranger. More muddled. A highly-charged energy simmers between them -- wary, wanting -- that sets his teeth on edge. Not out of anger, but from some emotion so fervent it is nameless, and rushes through him like light. ]

[ He tries not to examine it. Better to sink into sensation. Better to focus on this little morsel of sweetness leaning into his touch, skittish yet with such bright hungry eyes. His fingers tighten on her wrist. He tugs her onto his knee, not gently, but with a certain deliberate care even in his usual roughness. His kiss isn't gentle either. But there is something questing, wondering, in the way his mouth opens against hers, a wet soft slide of lips and tongue. ]

[anatural]

[She's still tense in his arms, even as she responds eagerly to his kiss. For all his flaws — and he's got plenty — Hei is definitely a great kisser. Her hands crawl up his chest, hesitant and eager and almost quivering with energy.

After a moment, she breaks away.]

Are you sure?

[mortemscintilla]

I should be asking you that.

[ He doesn't, though. It's clear enough that she wants this, despite the tension humming in the lines of her body. Remarkable, that she can still summon any desire for him -- that she can tolerate him at all -- though it is impossible that he share those kinder feelings for himself. Luckily he doesn't need to, to do what she needs right now. ]

[ His fingers tip her chin, mouth fastening on hers for slow, appreciative kisses, scraping her lower-lip with his teeth in a kind of restrained roughness. His hands are the same, coasting across the planes of her body, not fast but thorough, up under her blouse, down the waistband of her pants, soaking up the fevery heat that seems to spark trails of brightness across his palms. When he draws back, he's light-headed, a marblish glow of pink brightening his pale cheeks. ]

[ Nuzzling her throat, feeling the slow drag of her pulse under the hot skin, he murmurs, ]

Any requests?

[ After what she's dealt with, it's a wonder she doesn't shy from him, every inch of her psyche discolored like a deep bruise. He can't erase that. But he can at least alleviate it. ]

[anatural]

[The lips against her throat make her shiver. Smile, she wants to say. Smile like you did in my dreams. She's not stupid enough to say that. She's never going to get a smile like that out of him, especially not tonight. It's one of the many things that he keeps close to himself. Thinking about that, how something as simple as a smile is impossible, makes her sad. She doesn't want to be sad. She shakes her head and leans up to nibble on his neck..]

Just make sure you wear me out.

[mortemscintilla]

[ There's a lot of things he's not capable of anymore. Genuine smiles and laughter are the least of them. When the war ended and Pai was gone, it was like bits of him were emptied out. With his scar-pocked skin and his tombstone gaze, it was evident, beneath Li's camouflage of sweetness-and-fluff, that he was someone with gaps to his name, but the physical holes weren't the dangerous ones. It was the other pockmarks, the other wounds in him, that you had to look out for. ]

[ He doesn't want to dwell on that right now. There's a charge in Korra's kisses, as if unspoken words are tucked at the roof of her mouth like explosives, swallowed down before detonation. He wants to ask -- but what's the point? Better to focus on the sweet sting of her teeth against his neck. On the feel of her, so small and lush and pulsing, a simple body that is yet full of a fiery life that warms him each time, making a precarious sensation like contentment bloom in his chest. ]

[ For a moment, he nuzzles her hair, enjoying her soft mouthing bites across his throat. Inhaling the scent of her, incongruously sweet and crisp like greenery and falling leaves, his blood pressure nudging up a notch. Then, slowly, he reaches behind her and tugs her shirt from her trousers. Peels it off with a brisk efficiency -- but also an indulgence, kissing the newly revealed skin beneath: her ripe dark arms, the points of her shoulders, the hummingbird's sweep of collarbones, the hot, pink-mottled space between her breasts. ]