[ He won't deny he misses those days sometimes, too. At the beginning, when life with Korra in this new world still felt precarious and surreal, he used to reassure himself that he would always have his past, the predator it had shaped him into, to fall back on, like a trade. If things changed, if she tired of him or he of her, he could always return to his transient Contractor ways, an opportunistic grifter, a killer for hire. Forever in flux, warped inside-out but wiser and sharper too. ]
[ Now, as the years have piled together, he often wonders if he's gotten soft, used to a soft bed and clean sheets, to sleep-sticky kisses in the pale glow of morning and the endless dreamy lulls to count a sleeping Korra's eyelashes, to fragrant teas and pots brimming with stew in the afternoons, and hot soaks and soft girl-hands soaping his back at night. The sort of thing any man might feel, missing his wild years as he hauls all the bags and trails around the mall with his wife. Except that even in those most mundane moments, he has never been dissatisfied, bored, ungrateful for what he's been given. The opposite, in fact. ]
[ Mostly, he's trying to accept that his life has passed into a new phase. Less dark and cold and sharp -- but no less dangerous. He's learnt to take what he knows about combat and espionage -- the mentality, the preparation, the focus -- and apply it in life generally. Because he can't pretend there is some clear dividing line between the Contractor and the civilian, the jungle and the city, war and peace. There isn't. Not before, and certainly not now. ]
[ Especially not when he must keep someone precious to him safe. ]
[ He doesn't know how to say that. Just blinks slowly, his eyelids heavily furled, as Korra kisses his nose. He can tell she's not sleepy; usually this is a warning-signal for him to shake off the post-coital drowse, to shadow her in case she sneaks out and gets into trouble. But he can already feel himself floating off, tethered to nothing but his own cottony exhaustion, and the warm anchors of her fingers laced with his. ]
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Date: 2014-11-30 05:40 am (UTC)[ Now, as the years have piled together, he often wonders if he's gotten soft, used to a soft bed and clean sheets, to sleep-sticky kisses in the pale glow of morning and the endless dreamy lulls to count a sleeping Korra's eyelashes, to fragrant teas and pots brimming with stew in the afternoons, and hot soaks and soft girl-hands soaping his back at night. The sort of thing any man might feel, missing his wild years as he hauls all the bags and trails around the mall with his wife. Except that even in those most mundane moments, he has never been dissatisfied, bored, ungrateful for what he's been given. The opposite, in fact. ]
[ Mostly, he's trying to accept that his life has passed into a new phase. Less dark and cold and sharp -- but no less dangerous. He's learnt to take what he knows about combat and espionage -- the mentality, the preparation, the focus -- and apply it in life generally. Because he can't pretend there is some clear dividing line between the Contractor and the civilian, the jungle and the city, war and peace. There isn't. Not before, and certainly not now. ]
[ Especially not when he must keep someone precious to him safe. ]
[ He doesn't know how to say that. Just blinks slowly, his eyelids heavily furled, as Korra kisses his nose. He can tell she's not sleepy; usually this is a warning-signal for him to shake off the post-coital drowse, to shadow her in case she sneaks out and gets into trouble. But he can already feel himself floating off, tethered to nothing but his own cottony exhaustion, and the warm anchors of her fingers laced with his. ]