[ Hey. You chose this moldy spring-roll of manliness. So really, there's no accounting for taste. ]
[ He ignores a moment of surrealism as she swings their hands in a big kiddish arc. Part of him feels almost like they're a pair of college kids on a backpacking trip, and can't decide if he likes it. Decides, a few moments later, that he must, because it's impossible to object to Korra's girlish perkiness. Especially after the shitstorm she's endured these past few years, and the black cloud hovering in near-perpetuity over her head. Already, he's seeing the change in her. She's lightening, and at the same time seems solid in a way he can't remember her being since she'd gotten back her bending. And serene in a way he's never seen. ]
[ At least ... never around him. ]
[ At her question, he nearly slides his teeth over his lower lip, but stops in time. He remembers, dimly, that Amber had once remarked on that little gesture of his, one that meant, I'm going to fib. Perverse idiot that he is, he dislikes lying to those he loves. But he's still a Contractor, and a damn better liar than that. ]
Just a week.
[ More like three. That time, he'd agreed to 'freelance' for one of the major gangs here, in exchange for cash and information. Had stayed for a few days in a hostel they'd paid for: a huge, crumbling but old-world-glamoured house in a narrow lane near the port, run by an ancient woman who looked like a wrinkled white frog in colorful silk robes and embroidered slippers. It was there, in one of the overdecorated rooms filled almost completely by a traditional kang-style bed, the red wallpaper peeling into sinister patterns, that he'd read the news about the Avatar's disappearance. ]
[ He'd killed so many gangbangers in that single week, out of his fear and frustration for Korra, that it made the paper. ]
[ He can't tell Korra any of that. Instead, he squeezes her hand -- a silent bid to drop the subject. ]
no subject
[ He ignores a moment of surrealism as she swings their hands in a big kiddish arc. Part of him feels almost like they're a pair of college kids on a backpacking trip, and can't decide if he likes it. Decides, a few moments later, that he must, because it's impossible to object to Korra's girlish perkiness. Especially after the shitstorm she's endured these past few years, and the black cloud hovering in near-perpetuity over her head. Already, he's seeing the change in her. She's lightening, and at the same time seems solid in a way he can't remember her being since she'd gotten back her bending. And serene in a way he's never seen. ]
[ At least ... never around him. ]
[ At her question, he nearly slides his teeth over his lower lip, but stops in time. He remembers, dimly, that Amber had once remarked on that little gesture of his, one that meant, I'm going to fib. Perverse idiot that he is, he dislikes lying to those he loves. But he's still a Contractor, and a damn better liar than that. ]
Just a week.
[ More like three. That time, he'd agreed to 'freelance' for one of the major gangs here, in exchange for cash and information. Had stayed for a few days in a hostel they'd paid for: a huge, crumbling but old-world-glamoured house in a narrow lane near the port, run by an ancient woman who looked like a wrinkled white frog in colorful silk robes and embroidered slippers. It was there, in one of the overdecorated rooms filled almost completely by a traditional kang-style bed, the red wallpaper peeling into sinister patterns, that he'd read the news about the Avatar's disappearance. ]
[ He'd killed so many gangbangers in that single week, out of his fear and frustration for Korra, that it made the paper. ]
[ He can't tell Korra any of that. Instead, he squeezes her hand -- a silent bid to drop the subject. ]