[ What Hei feels isn't nervousness. But he's aware of his body humming with a zitzing energy like before a fight, a thrum just below the surface of his skin. They've rarely done this, he and Korra. Never let events unfold at such a sweet and decorous pace. Every encounter has been fed by a propulsive physical hunger that's always escalated quickly, giving way to messy kisses, incoherent words, torn clothes, bruises and rattling furniture ]
[ This ... is more like Civilian Dating 101. It is so far away from anything he's ever remotely done, yet the anticipation, the refusal to jump headlong into disaster, is so very near to what he simply, burstingly, feels. ]
[ While she showers, he doesn't wait in the bedroom. He prowls through the house as if on a reconnaissance run, gauging changes in the layout, any structural or tactical weakpoints, any hint that the house is less than the foolproof vault it was when he'd first layered it with security systems, special proofing for the windows, state of the art locks, meticulously-placed alarms. In his absence, Korra hasn't kept up the maintenance. But that's no surprise. She's never been as paranoid as he is. ]
[ If anything, the lax security is a sign. Even if she's seen plenty of danger these three years, it hasn't followed her home. ]
[ When Korra comes back out, he isn't in bed. He's sitting next to the worktable where he'd usually tinkered on new weapons -- cross-legged on a chair in the way that only a bendy, limber man can achieve, facing the door, reading a dusty volume of Airbender koans. The blinds are drawn, and the room takes on an underwater grayness, carved here and there by glittery impossibly thin threads of sunlight. ]
[ In the moment Korra drifts in, Hei looks up from the parchment-fine page to capture a perfect, heightened vision of her in which the familiar and unfamiliar mixes: hair a short fluffy tumble, the cut of her face sleeker, but with those same burning-blue eyes. It may eventually be possible for him to look at Korra and see her only as she is in the present moment. But right now he sees all the Korras. The whole history of her, playing out in the semi-darkness, around the woman breathing softly in front of him. ]
[ There's a blink, his gaze unfocused, almost rueful. Then, with a surge of something like collapsed restraint he reaches out for her hand, desperate to keep hold of her this time. ]
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[ This ... is more like Civilian Dating 101. It is so far away from anything he's ever remotely done, yet the anticipation, the refusal to jump headlong into disaster, is so very near to what he simply, burstingly, feels. ]
[ While she showers, he doesn't wait in the bedroom. He prowls through the house as if on a reconnaissance run, gauging changes in the layout, any structural or tactical weakpoints, any hint that the house is less than the foolproof vault it was when he'd first layered it with security systems, special proofing for the windows, state of the art locks, meticulously-placed alarms. In his absence, Korra hasn't kept up the maintenance. But that's no surprise. She's never been as paranoid as he is. ]
[ If anything, the lax security is a sign. Even if she's seen plenty of danger these three years, it hasn't followed her home. ]
[ When Korra comes back out, he isn't in bed. He's sitting next to the worktable where he'd usually tinkered on new weapons -- cross-legged on a chair in the way that only a bendy, limber man can achieve, facing the door, reading a dusty volume of Airbender koans. The blinds are drawn, and the room takes on an underwater grayness, carved here and there by glittery impossibly thin threads of sunlight. ]
[ In the moment Korra drifts in, Hei looks up from the parchment-fine page to capture a perfect, heightened vision of her in which the familiar and unfamiliar mixes: hair a short fluffy tumble, the cut of her face sleeker, but with those same burning-blue eyes. It may eventually be possible for him to look at Korra and see her only as she is in the present moment. But right now he sees all the Korras. The whole history of her, playing out in the semi-darkness, around the woman breathing softly in front of him. ]
[ There's a blink, his gaze unfocused, almost rueful. Then, with a surge of something like collapsed restraint he reaches out for her hand, desperate to keep hold of her this time. ]