fuse_box | There must be other hobbies...

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universe: after the city

There must be other hobbies...

WHO: Korra and Hei
WHAT: Post-Book 4. Two crazy kids take a break.

[ A quickie vacation -- that's how Hei floated it to Korra. Don't ask him where the money came from. Don't ask him to justify it. Just say you’ll come. ]

[ They'd (half-jokingly, half-wistfully) planned a similar trip years ago, when still tangled in the mess with the Spirit Portals. It had never fallen through. War, its immediacy and aftermath, meant work, after all. The idea of a holiday was a distant fantasy in the overwhelming rumble of their busy lives. Lives full of conflicts and separations, trials and errors, from which frivolous indulgences were silently excluded. ]

[ Still, Hei had thought about it sometimes, in varying moods of sentimentality and cynicism. Time spent with Korra -- so close, so uninterrupted -- could've been either hellish or heavenly. He could imagine either a long dreamlike trip, driving with her tucked against his side, his arm around her, absorbing her pretty prattle in his ear. Or an interminable torment of sulky silences and shrieking fights, with flat tires, bad directions, shitty motels and worse meals to compound their misery. ]

[ In truth, it falls something in between. It's like they're two sugar-charged teenagers on a roadtrip, instead of adults who suffer from night-terrors and creeping stress triggers. Brimming with antsy energy, bickering over radio stations, greedily slurping noodles from the same bowl, but on the cusp of a perpetual uncertainty, as if they're not sure how long this grace-period will last. ]

[ They make it past the Hu Xin provinces before their rented Satomobile goes kaput. The vehicle, built for lowland city driving, struggles in the thinner air of the mountains, excess fuel backing up into the carburetor. No matter. They hitch a tow-ride until they find an auto-shop. Barely have to drop a penny, after the grizzled mechanic realizes it's The Avatar's satomobile. Fan belts, oil top-ups, lube-jobs -- shucks, they are on the house. ]

[ They come down to the Earth Kingdom in an evening train, stealing kisses between the snores of a grouchy old coot with whom they have to share the compartment. Share a hot bath and a slow, breathless fuck in an inn far from the best, but whose discomforts pale beside Hei's precarious contentment at being here with Korra. In the morning sunshine, they sail for the Mo Ce Sea, a crossing placid as a paddle round a pond -- until he's hit with a horrible sea-sickness. Slumped in their dim little cabin. it is hard to distinguish land from water. The floor seems to dip and roll beneath his feet. The slats of sunlight from the portholes make his head ache. Waiting to reach land, Hei curls up under the sheets of their bed, massaging his temples with both hands, gritting his teeth as he tries to master his heaving stomach -- while not-so-stoically ignoring the twinkle of amusement in Korra's eyes. ]

[ By the time they disembark at the Fire Nation's capital city, the nausea has receded, though his face rivals the color of the wan gray sky. It's almost dusk; he's logy and slow-headed from the long crossing. But the city, like every city, wakes him up. The lit-up buildings, in their towering brilliance, remind him of Bangkok, as does the stop-and-start traffic, the crowds on foot surging in and out of every dazzling golden entrance. Nothing like Republic City -- a place he's only just begun to pronounce with Home-flavored syllables -- but amazing in its own right. ]

[ As amazing as it was the first time he'd visited -- except now, Korra is at his side, bright-eyed and fizzling with energy like a can of soda all stirred-up. ]

[ Twining his fingers with hers, he squeezes lightly, ]

What should we do first?

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[The warning is well-heeded. Korra's not up to spitting or swallowing right now, so instead of working him up more, she pulls away and leans over to grab a condom from the bedside drawer. Ripping it open with her teeth, she decides to try something new — a trick Asami taught her, though the other girl refused to explain how she learned it. She puts it in her mouth and leans back down, using her lips to roll it down his shaft. She makes it all the way down, then makes sure the air is out on the way back up.

And then she turns away and spits.]

Ugh. That condom tastes gross!!! [Why didn't Asami ever warn her about that?!]

Ah -- !

[ Hei hears himself laugh, or at least make a sound not too far down the scale from laughter -- ragged and breathless. Where, he wonders, did she pick that trick up from? As she rolls the condom down his twitching shaft, a smooth bob of the head, down and up, a shudder spikes from his thighs to his taut belly, hips shutter-snapping before forcibly stilling. Because fuck, even through the condom, it feels so good, that perfect hot tightness of her mouth, the tickle of her dark hair spilling over his groin. ]

[ Then she's spitting like a huffy kitten that's tasted something disagreeable, and he can't hide the smile that curls across his mouth. He doesn't even notice he's doing it, or realize how it makes him look so childishly simple, an endearingly stoned, blissed-out boy. ]

They have ... flavored ones for that.

[ Already, he's wondering if they come in lychee flavor. Any incentive for her to try that again. ]

I can't imagine anything that could improve the taste. [Bleeeeeeeeugh. Though seeing that smile on his face... fuck, she'd try it. She'd try anything. She tries to act normal, doesn't want to drive the smile away by calling attention to it, but it's so unusual that she can't help but be mesmerized by it. She'd been about to straddle him again, line him up and take him in, but she's forgotten how to move.]

Hm. It's almost --

[ Like watered-down medicine, he'd been about to say. But something about Korra's expression, the gaze bright and unblinking, stops him short. All at once he's aware of that unfamiliar tension at the edges of his mouth, like his face is doing something unrecognizable. Something long-forgotten. He blinks, once, twice, and the easy warmth in his face drops a notch, gaze shuttered as if he is turning inward. ]

[ Except assuming that facade of invulnerable calm, all armor and hard edges, is impossible. Not with how he can feel a movement nearly cracking behind his ribs with how it blooms then contracts, a horrible convulsion. The openness of emotion -- the unexpectedness of it -- leaves him too vulnerable. ]

[ So Hei does what he's best at. Creates a smokescreen, his palms warm as they skate either side of Korra's neck to frame her face. His gaze is half-lidded when he leans in, but there's a dark-eyed bewilderment to the expression, like he's not sure whether to sink in closer, or to snatch away whatever droplets of honestly he's bled out in front of her and run. ]

[ In the end, though, his choice is clear enough. Swooping in to catch her mouth with his, he kisses her, slippery-hot and urgent, want coiling in his belly even as his nerves fizzle like the lit ends of firecrackers. ]

[She's disappointed when the smile goes away. Even as he cups her face and leans in, she's worried about his expression in a way she hasn't been in years — wondering if this time he'll pull back into himself like he used to. They've been through so much together; they've shared so much and become intimate in ways that aren't physical, but even his expressions of deep emotion are almost never spontaneous. His honesty is calculated.

Somehow she's surprised when he just kisses her. She meets his lips with equal fervor, working herself up until her body screams that it's time. Still kissing him, she reaches between her legs and positions him right at her entrance.]

[ It's never easy for Hei. He's rarely let himself have this, this raw honesty that's not a simulation or an outright lie. He'd long since abandoned the idea of an authentic connection with another human being; now that he has it, he realizes he's never anticipated how many delicate nerve-clusters it can contain, how it can stretch and reshape itself from moment to moment like a mobius strip, an ever-changing facet and form and texture. His imaginings -- wistful, cynical, lonely -- were too stagnant, too one-sided, to encompass this dizzying reality. ]

[ He can't quite convince himself he deserves it. Scratch that. He knows he doesn't deserve it. Having it means needing to determine just how far off the beam he's drifted. Feeling like he's psychologically dangling in mid-air like some cartoon coyote, ready at any moment to fall. And fall hard. ]

[ (Except he's already fallen, hasn't he?) ]

[ Breath unsnaps itself from his throat in a rough noise as Korra takes his erection in her fingers, guiding it toward the slick seam of her. The head of his cock disappears into her with a whispery-wet sound -- so deliciously obscene. Suddenly, his capacity for similes dissolves. Each new nerve ending that touches her, feels her giving way exquisitely as she sinks down on him, tells its own story. Gasping, he sits up, his arms coming around her to keep her close. His hips tremble, straining to shove full-length -- and then he does. ]

[ All caution abandoned: one fluid snap so he's rooted in her, their damp curls crushed together, his mouth exacting hard sucking kisses from her mouth, as if to draw all breath and sound out of her. ]

[That's the funny thing about love — it's never deserved, any more than you can deserve a snowstorm or a summer squall. It just is. When she really thinks about it, Korra is appalled at what she put up with in the City. She's learned better, from the way he treats her now. Sometimes she wants to go back in time and shake her younger self, but she had to make those mistakes to get to where she is now. And she is quite happy where she is. She's connected to herself in a way she's never been before; she's connected to the world in ways she never dreamed possible. And yes, fucking their way across the Fire Nation has been deeply satisfying.

She cries out as he thrusts inside, slamming his pelvis against hers in a way that makes sparks burst behind her eyes. She locks him in place with her arms and legs. She loves just this, the stretch and feeling of fullness, the way their chests are crushed together. In lieu of moving, she clenches her inner muscles around him, using them to massage his erection.]

[ It is nearly too much. Always precisely a hair short of too much. The sweet, tight liquidity of her. The scent of something spicy, almost coconutty, hiding where he nuzzles behind her ear, into her nape. The hot delicious squeeze of her -- arms and legs and where she's swallowed him into her: a wet needy congestion of two bodies seeking to occupy the same space. ]

[ He keeps her close, palms splayed on her shoulder blades. Inside her, his cock is locked in a recurring spasm, its vein beating like something live is trapped beneath the skin. But his rhythm is slow. A simple repetition of slick, subtle motions, small jerks, rolling grinds -- hips, cock, abdomen -- between deeper, harder movements, an exquisitely forced, almost painful effort caught between shared achievement and shared restraint. His hair is in his eyes, tangled with swathes of Korra's choppy strands, so he can't see, can only feel her -- a sparky-edged greed that strings tighter and tighter between each jittery breath, each gulping kiss. ]

[ A memory crackles at the edges of his mind. Of all the moments in the City when they'd fought, always at each others' throats. He'd been nearly as close to her then, just as intent, not for their pleasure but for her death. He'd never imagined then or any of the other times he'd battled her that they would ever come to this. ]

Do you remember ... ?

[ The words bubble out unbidden. He bites them off on a stifled gasp as he feels her flutter around him, burying his mouth against her neck, hoping she won't take it up. ]

[ Do you remember every fight we had? How different it was then? ]

[Korra would laugh, but she needs that air for breathing. Don't think the question's forgotten, though, because a few thrusts later she manages to say —]

I remember a lot of things. [She's well-fucked, not senile, you dork. She also has no idea where his mind has gone or the memories that have sprung up.]

[ He plans to keep it that way. Not just because he's kissing her, deep delving licks that he needs all his breath for -- but because when the little cogwheels start grinding, it excavates mental shrapnel from the sediment of memory -- jagged bits and pieces that glint with an ugly truth. Memories of past cruelty, deception, inequality. Things Hei doesn't want to dwell on, because he'd much rather enjoy this momentary braid of then and now, everything looping together like a big bow around the present, where he can be blissfully startled to realize how little he could have predicted any of this if he'd put his mind to it. ]

[ It isn't summer in South America, the bright humidity stirring the trees into greenybrown pulsations and the narrow outline of Amber's bra-strap beneath her blouse as he gathers her close, the smell of her body like fresh-picked spearmint. Nor is it winter in the City, Korra's kisses like licks of melting snowfall in the gray evening, her hot skin throwing off a wonderful heady aroma like fresh bread out of the oven. ]

[ Why should it have to be any of those times and places? It can be here, now -- and maybe that's all right. ]

[ Still kissing her, he gathers her in closer, his widespread palms stroking across the curve of her waist and up the slope of her belly, cupping the dangling weight of her pretty breasts, warm handfuls of flesh. When he breaks away to look at her face, her smirky amusement is a radiant spotlight; it gives him a strange, gripping feeling, as if he's suddenly been pushed onstage without time to dress and is expected to perform a part he hasn't memorized. The honest, clumsy, human part. ]

[ But maybe that's all right too. ]

[He thinks too much during sex. Not always, but there are times when Korra can definitely feel his mind detaching. She has no idea how she can tell; she couldn't identify the signs or point out the clues. He doesn't go into that inhuman place that he used to, yet he definitely goes somewhere. He looks at her face and she wonders what he's thinking. Bites his nose teasingly, stop thinking so much. She takes one of his hands and slides it between their bodies, a silent demand for attention.]

[ That's his problem, isn't it? That silent introspective streak that always does him in. But right now, there's an almost pinch-me quality to it. He'll never be able to convince himself that he deserves to be near this girl -- this woman. Never believe he's worth so much goodness -- not just the goodness of her minxy playfulness, those abundant delicious kisses, the pliant spill of her in his arms, without an overriding agenda, a wire tucked into someone's collar, and no sharp weapons in sight -- but the surreality of knowing she wants him there. Despite everything she's learnt about him. Despite everything she's suffered at his hands. ]

[ After spending so long believing that sort of affection is a sham, a fantasy for little boys to discard before they start shaving, having it frightens as much as it thrills him. ]

[ Then Korra bites his nose, and guides his hand down to the dampness between her thighs, and it cuts that straining knot of tension inside him. His lips twitch, a rueful not-quite-smile that might almost be Sorry. Got caught up. His hand slips lower, two fingers going into her, crooking against her sweet-spot, a slickly-crammed fit against the thick sliding heft of his cock, while his thumb rides against her clit. ]

[ He doesn't kiss her. Instead he stays close, eyes hazy and half-lidded, watching. Letting the gorgeous sight of her melt his brain, so all unnecessary worries dribble away. ]

[Oh wow. Korra cries out and shudders as he slides those two fingers inside her.]

Doesn't — that hurt? [Granted, it feels amazing for her, but his knuckles aren't crushed against her sensitive parts. Not all pain is sexually gratifying.]

[ Her cry sends a wild thrill through Hei, even as something like a soft indulgence flickers across his expression at her words. ]

I'm not the one ... stuffed like a capon.

[ He adds a prodding motion of his fingers to his stirring internal movements, a gentle insistent fucking, to show her it's not as uncomfortable as it seems. Lets the new angle wedge the web of his thumb tighter against her clit; the bulwark of his arms and chest cradling the delightful weight of her, silky-hot and sweat-slick, her lovely breasts squashed against his torso, his trembling thighs beneath her ass. Their breath mingles damply as he leans in, kissing her with an obscene care, as if trying to suck any doubt from her mouth with all the enjoyment of a gourmand, to leave nothing but an escalating greed behind. ]

[Korra clings to him and trembles. Her climax is so close, holding it back hurts, but she doesn't want to let go yet. It feels too good to let it end.

And yet it has to. There's only so long you can hold on. She breaks with a scream that gets lost in his mouth.]

[ Hei feels her crest, inside, outside, her body one long rolling wave, rising and falling with such a secret ferocity, but no more than a rippling sway on the surface, like the ebbs and flows of the tide. Then again, Korra is surface all over --- and it gleams oh-so-brightly. ]

[ He keeps rocking beneath her, a deft corckscrewing of the hips, drawing her climax out, feeling the tremoring throb of her all around him, her sex like a wet knot that pulls painfully tight between their bodies, drawing together in slick focus everything toward the hot frantic immediacy of friction. ]

[ Suddenly, he can't hold back any longer. He surges, tumbling her over, flat across the mattress, working her in a series of hard pummeling thrusts that make the mattress judder, his weight riding her, crushing her, until the tempo dissolves. Until he lets out an exhale that ends in a swooping, stuttered groan, and he's coming, hard spasms that seem to rock them both, his arms grappled tight around her, face buried in the damp hollow of her neck. ]

[It feels like it takes forever for Korra to catch her breath again. She keeps her arms and legs locked around him, so he can't pull out right away. He has to so he can take care of the condom, she knows, but they can afford to linger a little bit. Even though she's come, she likes the way he feels inside her.]

See? I told you we didn't need the soup.

...Soup... [ It's mumbled thickly, the dry curl of a question-mark in his tone. Then: ] Oh. That overpriced swill.

[ It is exhausting to think, and worse to move, so he stays draped across Korra, trying to make himself be nothing but a body for as long as he can. He inhales the humid scent at the crook of her pretty dark neck, where her pulse visibly tics and slows, and he exhales to the rhythm of his own sluggishly thudding heart. Covering her like this, feeling her body like a soft moist-skinned arabesque beneath him, he's always reminded of how compact she is compared to him. Reminded too, that it will never detract from the energy he can always feel singing beneath her skin, lit up as if by a million volts. ]

[ Eventually, saturated with sticky heat, he kisses her chin and peels himself off her. Flops bonelessly onto his back, moist hair sliding into his face, and draws off the condom with careful fingers, knotting the end before tossing it away. There's a dustbin in that general direction. At least he thinks so. Contemplating the alternative requires too much effort. ]

[She snorts. At the dinner table, he'd been trying to sell her on the soup, but now he's dismissing it as swill. She rolls over on her side to give him a dry look.]

What about all those things you were saying? About improving blood and... other things... [She traces a finger over the muscles of his stomach.]

[ He catches her itsy-bitsy-spidering finger, bringing it to his mouth to gnaw on it gently. ]

I think we're both as ... healthy as we can possibly get. Without embarrassing ourselves publicly.

[ The words are a slurred deadpan. His eyelids feel heavy, prickling with the gathering motes of sleep. He doesn't cuddle her, exactly, but he lets his head rolls against hers in the valleyed softness of the same pillow, their hair tangled into a damp nest, the warm points of their shoulders and knees touching, their fingers twined so Korra's knuckles feel like rough-delicate jewels wedged against his own. ]

[ His pulse is a drawn-out thrum, and with each thud comes a quiet blossom of recognition. A quiet Yes, oh yes, this feels right. ]

Mmmmmm. [Though sometimes she does miss the ability to embarrass themselves publicly. Or at least risk it. That time they fucked on a table at his café, during those first few weeks he lived in the Beach House, was probably the most intense orgasm she's had in her life. In the top 10, at the very least.]

I'm going to remember that next time you try to stuff weird food down my throat because it's "healthy". [She kisses his nose — silently bidding him to go to sleep. The nap she had before + the intense sex have her fairly awake, but she doesn't mind. She may shower in a bit and do her own exploring.]

[ 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. ]

Edited 2014-11-30 05:42 (UTC)

[Oh please, she's not some irresponsible punk. If she finds trouble, it's because trouble needs to be found.

Still, it's a long time before she leaves the warmth of their bed, and the rare opportunity to watch him sleep.]

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There must be other hobbies...

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