There must be other hobbies...

[mortemscintilla]

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?

Comments

[mortemscintilla]

[ It's always a thrill, watching her climb higher, her ribs laddering under the shivery rounds of her breasts as she draws in ragged gasps, hips pressing skittishly and needily to his mouth, until her noises become choked and breathless in a long, hard crest. Hei groans against her convulsing folds, as if he too, feels it. His whole body is a tense cramp of aborted need, his cock jutting out red-hot and dribbling. ]

[ When she tugs, he climbs across her. His eyes, his every lineament, has picked up that familiar blade-sharp impatience. But his fingers are gentle when he smoothes back her damp tangle of hair, his kisses languid and sloppy as he presses the tart taste of her back to her mouth. Loving the judder of her pulse beneath the lovely squashed weight of her breasts against his chest; every shift and quiver of lean, ripely curved muscle, his own whippish angles clinging to them like an unlikely second-skin. ]

[ He sucks her lower-lip between his worrying teeth, before letting it slide free with a wet pop. Nuzzles her neck to tease, ]

What's the difference between fair trade ... and free trade?

[ His cock prods against the curve of her hip, a messy red-tipped punctuation, as if slavering to be steeped in her mouth. ]

[anatural]

[How is she supposed to catch her breath when he keeps stealing it with kisses? He breaks the kiss and she gasps for air, a shiver running through her. With another breath, she musters up the strength to roll over and take her turn.

Then he asks about trade. Huh?]

What does that have to do with anything?

[Congrats, Hei. She'd have her mouth on your cock right now if you hadn't decided to get clever with her.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ God, Korra, even knock-knock jokes would be too much for you, wouldn't they? ]

[ Hei just gives her A Look. Dry deadpan expression, slightly lowered head -- the bored cat look -- the better with which to contemplate her silliness askance, as if assessing her for a flick to the temple or a friction-y noogie, none of which he tries much these days. But it still raises a whiff of jerkass sensibility. Much like the smell of your old favorite clothes unearthed from a drawer -- but nowhere near as homey. ]

[ In the end, approximating a huffing sound that's the equavalent of Never mind, he slinks closer, so they're within kissing distance, limbs damply entwined. Lets his lips meander across her little face, his cock hiccoughing with a needy interest against her warm belly. ]

[anatural]

[Well EXCUSE HER for not getting your weird sense of humor after you've blown her brains out. You're the one who wanted to rid her brain of all coherent thought. You got what you wanted. She contemplates pushing for an explanation, but as his cock throbs against her stomach, decides she doesn't care.

Instead, she flips them over and straddles him so his erection is pressed between the folds of her labia.]

Anyway. Now it's my turn.

[mortemscintilla]

[ Before, Hei would've resisted. Now he spills obligingly onto his back, an easy bonelessness in his extremities even as tension simmers at the crux of his body, where his erection is a drunken twitching against his belly and the splayed slickness of Korra's sex. In the gold lamplight, her eye and the slice of one cheek glow, the rest of her body limned into a pale jumble of angles and curves: the winglike sweep of collarbones, the overspilling breasts like pale moons in their own right, the dark nipples sweetly eclipsing, the tiny pucker of navel and the melting sweeps of thighs and hips. Glowing, charged with energy, she is enchanting.]

[ Tucking one hand behind his head, Hei lets the other dip its way between her sticky thighs, one finger pressing that good spot that makes her wriggle. His gaze is a soft hot flickering, up and down the length of her. ]

Do your worst.

[ Or in this case your best? ]

[anatural]

[Ooooooh. She rolls her hips encouragingly, but no. She's not going to get distracted. She grabs his wrist and forcefully pins it to the bed.]

Don't move.

[She slides with agonizing slowness down his body, until she's just a breath away from the top of his cock. She wraps her hand around it and kisses it. The smell is kind of strong — they probably should've bathed before going at it like this — but he didn't say anything about her stink, so she decides to keep her mouth shut. Metaphorically. In actually, she wraps her mouth around the head and begins a slow, torturous tease.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Pushy. His expression shutters with quiet amusement -- but otherwise he obeys, spidering out the fingers of his free hand across the cool sheets. (No, he won't say anything about her stink -- because he's has always had a little bit of a thing for Korra's body in a lather. He likes when she spends until the bedsheets are sodden with the heavy hormonal fug of her aroma. Likes when he can tell she's worn one of his shirts, or used his towel, body-scented with her skin and salt. Likes whenever she comes back from her workouts, all glowy and sweaty and bright-eyed, and he can feign indifference like a pro -- while what he really wants is to follow her around with his tongue lolling out and a boner the size of Mt. Fiji.) ]

[ (Blame those fucking pheromones. Or his own sick predilections.) ]

[ Then her mouth envelops the slick cap of his dick -- wet heat on wet heat -- and Hei draws in a hitched breath as the sensation shuts down extraneous thought, a trembling strain threading from his groin to the rest of his arched body. Against his will, the fingers of his free hand tighten in the sheets, fisting them into wrinkled whirlpools as if to channel the instinct to grab her by the hair. ]

[anatural]

[Awww, Hei, you're so romantic. Korra's nose is not so sentimental, but its complaints are easy to ignore as she feels him tense. She swirls her tongue around the tip before lightly scraping the bottom with her teeth. Her eyes are glued to his face, devouring the slightest change in his expression the same way her mouth devours him. Sinking, sucking, licking, teasing his balls with her fingers.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ At the scrape of her teeth, Hei's gasp comes out strangled; his eyes are half-shuttered, the stubby fan of lashes casting sulky shadows on his cheeks, and a vein at his left temple throbs, seeming to match the ache between his legs. ]

[ With effort, his clenched fingers ease their grip on the sheets. He reaches out as if to grab a handful of Korra's hair, but merely touches the promontory of her cheek with a tracing finger. It's not romantic, and nor is he, not really. But he can afford this. Softness, an open caring in a way that he isn't with other people, because there is every reason not to be. He's used to inverting himself inside-out like a sea-monster, everything tender hidden behind a nest of spikes and venom, and that's fine. That's the only defense he's often had, in order to keep himself intact. ]

[ But he doesn't need to do that here. There's truth, and then there's reality, and this is the easiest way to distill all his feelings about her down into a single touch -- unloaded and honest. ]

[anatural]

[Outright gasping — Korra feels positively spoiled. She usually has to work so hard to get him to make any noise. She wonders what's the secret. They've been fucking pretty relentlessly on this tour of the Fire Nation, so it can't be sexual frustration. Sexual exhaustion, maybe? If she just gets him tired enough, maybe she can get him to make some real noise.

She pulls back, letting his dick pop out of her mouth, and turns her attention to his balls, tracing her tongue along every crevice (and trying to get a stray pubic hair off of her tongue by licking his shaft.)]

[mortemscintilla]

[ It's true -- he's never particularly vocal about anything: pain or pleasure. Mostly it's habit. He fucks the way he fights, aces up his sleeves and weaknesses hidden out of sight, resisting surrender every step of the way. At the most, he'll descend into a perpetual erotic breathlessness as his control dissolves, playing out a symphony of small, grudging gasps until orgasm approaches. ]

[ But with Korra, there's no reason for defense or dissembling. Letting go isn't always easy for Hei. Muscle-memory is a hard thing to unlearn; his capacity for relaxation has an in-built transience and a limited scope. But it feels good, in the meantime. She lets his cock pop free, a slicked heft of live flesh, thrumming and hot-cold in the air, and he lets out his breath shudderingly, then grunts as she engulfs his balls in her hot mouth, a noise like the pain of frozen muscles thawing. His fingers curl into the soft hair at her nape, gripping there in a quiet emphasis, both forceful and gratified. ]

[anatural]

[She hums with smug satisfaction and nuzzles his shaft. Her hands rub the sensitive flesh at the top of his legs, where they meet his pelvis. Her every move is calculated to torture him, to bring him as close to the edge as possible without letting him tip over. She'll never be as good at it as he is, of course, but over their many years of hooking up, she's learned a trick or two to make him suffer for his pleasure.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Her every move, Hei thinks, is such a marked contrast from the first time she'd gone down on him. He still remembers how she'd been then: not very adept, or sure of herself. So tentative -- not at all like the same girl who is playing him like an thrumming instrument now. Her kittenish enthusiasm -- her knowledge of his body -- is raw and specific, and oh, flattering as fuck. She makes him feel at once like a cat-toy and a god. ]

[ A low noise locks in Hei's chest. The jut of his cock aches, a bone-hard plea, the tip glistening with pre-come. When she nuzzles him, fingers skittering across the ticklish crease of his groin, he hisses and then caresses her, one hand cupping the side of her neck, the other dropping down to stroke her hair, a gentle warning of how close he's getting. ]

[anatural]

[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?!]

[mortemscintilla]

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. ]

[anatural]

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.]

[mortemscintilla]

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. ]

[anatural]

[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.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ 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. ]

[anatural]

[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.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ 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? ]

[anatural]

[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.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ 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. ]

[anatural]

[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.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ 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. ]