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?

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[mortemscintilla]

[ 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. ]

[anatural]

[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.]