fuse_box | across time & space

Entry tags:

universe: after the city

across time & space

WHO: Hei & Korra
WHAT: Hei’s been missing for years.

[Are you sure you don’t want me to stay? As Korra watches Mako walk down the beach path, she kind of regrets telling him she was fine. The air feels a lot chillier without his companionable warmth. But he's no better at comfort sex than Bolin is; they're both too romantic. Of all her friends, Asami's the only one who really understands the occasional need for intimacy without its attendant baggage. Too bad Asami's out of town.

Korra smiles and shakes her head as she opens the front door. It doesn't matter. Nights like this are why she remodeled the house so Naga could come inside. The polar bear dog's warm, solid presence is like a campfire, a soft blanket, and hot tea all in one affectionate package.

Speaking of — Naga pokes her head out of the bedroom door and whines a question.]

I'm sorry, girl. She didn't make it. [Even with Korra to stabilize her wounds and the best vet in Republic City, Cat's injuries from the hit & run accident were too severe.

One by one, everything that connects her to Hei is vanishing. A few months after he was officially declared dead, Yin went missing. Her black cat died, and some guy with a poodlebird from Future Industries took all the computer equipment. She's had to renovate the house a few times, due to storms and other emergencies. And now Cat.

It makes Korra feel sad, but mostly it makes her feel old. The normal bumps and pains that occur over a lifetime have been crammed into less than a decade; she's still a few years shy of thirty, but she feels like she's her mother's age sometimes.

Naga nuzzles her shoulder comfortingly, and Korra takes the invitation to wrap her arms around her and bury her face in the polar bear dog's fur.]

I'm tired of losing people.

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[You’re not in the way, she wants to tell him, in a mixture of affection, longing, and anger, because it feels like he's punishing her for being surprised and uncertain. Maybe he's right, though. Maybe they both need space.

Mako certainly seems to think so.]

Uh...call me if you need me. [And then he scoots, though Korra has a sneaking suspicion he'll linger not far away, so he can follow Hei once he leaves. The cop in him.]

[ He doesn't mean to punish her. (If there's anyone who deserves that self-abasement, it's himself.) ]

[ He doesn't bat an eyelid when Mako exits -- although, like Korra, he's sure the other man won't go far. If he tries to tail Hei, though, he'll have his work cut out for him. Hei may not be a Contractor anymore. But he will always be a consummate chameleon, trained to blend into the crowds, to melt elsewhere in an eyeblink. He may not know the layout of Republic City as well as before -- but he is accustomed to flowing with the current, to remaining in a state of constant hyperawareness until what is strange and uncertain ceases to be so. ]

[ Too bad he can't maintain that operational mindset with Korra. ]

[ Left alone with her, Hei's focus lingers on the bright blue hook of her gaze. She still has, he thinks, that pretty charm when she chooses to turn it on: the liquid eyes, the querulous mouth, that softly-radiating glow of vulnerability, that makes him want to gather her in. ]

[ He doesn't. She is some lucky bastard's girl, that is for sure. But not his. ]

[ Quietly, ]

It's good to see you.

[ That, at least, is true. He regards her for a long moment, his face detached as if he's received a briefing on a mission, not a twitch or a shift to indicate his thoughts. But there's something almost rueful in the way he nods, then turns on his heel, exiting the inviting glow of the Beach House. ]

[A part of her really, seriously hates him when he walks away. Fucking selfish bastard. Leaving, no way for her to get in touch with him again until morning if she changes her mind, though of course he knows exactly where she is if he changes his. Stupid, selfish, no-good jerk. Korra closes the front door behind her and sinks to the floor, sobbing harder than she did that first night she spent alone in what had been Their Home.

She should be happy. So why does she feel three years of grief crushing her until she can't breathe?

Naga nuzzles her comfortingly, until Korra feels strong enough to pull herself to her feet and stumble into the shower, where she can hide her tears in the water. She doesn't bother getting dressed afterward, just collapses onto their futon which, somehow, still seems to smell like him. Where he could be right now if he hadn't decided to walk out that fucking door. Where he could have been for the past three years.]

[ He spends the rest of the night not-thinking of Korra -- to do so would entail a certain degree of self-indulgence, and that's not Hei. There's enough to do as it is. He focuses on combing through the city, altered on the surface but not irredeemably changed. Things, he learns, have moved around. Some hotspots for gathering intel -- taverns, restaurants, shops -- have shut down. Other establishments, once respectable, have dissolved into nests for lowlifes. His first safehouse has been broken into, years' worth of dirt and leaves accumulating inside. All the equipment's been looted; beercans and bottles are scattered everywhere, along with wrappers and used condoms and wrinkled skin-mags. A hobo's paradise. ]

[ The second safehouse is no better. Grown over with weeds and vines, almost past recognition. The remains of the cottage peer bleakly over the overspilling hedgerow, and he peers bleakly back. Time, it seems, has given them both a kicking. But the locks are secure, the doors and windows intact. When he forces his way in, the air reeks of rot and mildew. But his weapons and supplies are where he'd stashed them. Along with something he hadn't. ]

[ A coded message in a sealed bottle. It would read as gibberish to anyone in this world. But Hei discerns it in a moment. It's a contact number. From Mao, or Yin, or both? He isn't sure. Following it through doesn't reveal much. Just an office on the fifth floor of a commercial building; the name plate hanging from the red door says it's a branch of Future Industries. When he breaks in, the place is a wasteland of swathed furniture and sedimentary dust. Unoccupied for ages, by the looks of it. ]

[ Yin. Mao. ]

[ Where are they? ]

[ Slumped on a park bench outside, Hei's guts feel like stone. It's as if the cast-iron seat of the bench is the only thing stopping his body from emptying its heavy innards onto the ground beneath. Everything is so strange. Nothing of his is where it should be, and what's still here is no longer his. ]

[ It is the palest tip of morning when he finally goes to Air Temple Island. He's exhausted from the long day, the worse night. It shows on his face, but only at the edges; skin a shade too wan, dark circles extending halfway down his nose, and the general slow-moving stiffness of a zombie. ]

[ No Yin. No goddamn cat. Frayed pieces of a network. And to top it off, Korra -- the girl he's changed himself in such immense and insignificant ways for, but who might no longer be his. ]

[ Leaning by the railing, Hei waits to see if Korra will arrive. He doesn't want to head to the temple, to alert Tenzin and his family. He can't endure their queries and chatter and fuss. Not yet. Instead, eyes sliding half-shut, he listens to the rushing water of the sea, an imperceptible gurgle that knits with the rustle of the nearby whiplike willow branches. ]

[ Everything seems as if it's fallen apart. But right now, in this moment, he doesn't feel out of place, or lost in space -- and that's mysteriously comforting. ]

Edited 2014-12-04 03:41 (UTC)

[If it's any comfort (it's probably not), Korra doesn't get a wink of sleep either. She gives up on trying when she sees the first hint of dawn in the sky. She rolls out of bed, intending to get dressed and make breakfast and then figure out what she's going to do. But after pulling on her clothes, she heads straight out the door.

Hei's alive, and she wants to be with him.

Seeing him standing at the pier is a fresh reminder how terrifying this whole thing is. He holds a large portion of her heart — it went missing the day he "died", and came back when she saw his face. He could rip it away from her at any time, and it would never hurt less. She learned to live with its absence, but she doesn't know if she could stand getting it back, only to lose it again.]

....hi. [The word feels pathetically weak.]

[ By the time Korra arrives, Hei is almost too hungry to think of anything. Spotting a few vendors coming in by boat, he buys a salty cake stuffed with chopped greens and wrapped in a leaf of wax paper, and a bowl of jook. He's settled by the willow tree, once his favorite spot to meditate when he lived on the island, and to read Jinora's language and history books. His hands are clumsy with cold and hunger; he devours the cake in one bite, then scrapes the porridge bowl empty, his stomach giving pangs that are fed by stress and sleeplessness, but his instincts saying to keep eating, keep drinking. The thick pale liquid tastes herbal, smoky. When it hits the back of his throat it nearly makes his eyes water. ]

[ Blinking, he glances up, just in time to spot Korra. Her Hi has such a soft, wavering note. Yet hearing it, seeing her face, his head clears in a way that has nothing to do with the meal, the pain and anxiety and tension moving far off and then shutting down into a little dot that soon vanishes. ]

Hey.

[ It's Contractor-calm. But it's not devoid of emotion; his gaze is a soft, wistful lingering across her face and body. Months since he's seen her -- at least for him -- but she's always been a warm amorphous blur at the edges of his consciousness, a brilliant splotch of color when the monotonous grayness of the Enterprise leaked into his dreams. ]

[ But here, now, in the flesh, she looks more beautiful than he's ever seen her -- even with the mussed hair and the tired smudges under her eyes. It has nothing to do with the fact that all he'd seen otherwise were the women aboard the Enterprise, all of them efficient and sleek yet somehow entirely unerotic and unmystical, more like glossy parts of an expensive machine. Hers is a raw beauty, and any changes he can spot are minor: the features harder edged like a diamond, her hair still short and boyish, but everything imbued with the same sweet lustre. ]

[ Dipping his gaze, not shy so much as reticent, he gestures for her to sit. Next to him, if she wants. ]

[Korra's stomach gives a very un-erotic grumble as she sees the remnants of his breakfast, reminding her that she hasn't eat at all today.]

Are you still hungry, or did you learn to moderate your appetite in space?

[It's hard to believe he could be so wholly unchanged after three years... She's half-afraid that she's just talking to a memory of him, he looks so much the same.]

[ He's sure it must be strange, even in the lifetime of strangeness Korra's endured, for him to be back in her world like this, sharing their same-old, same-old rackety exchange, long after they've all seem to have written him off as dead. Hei's own history is intervowen with strangeness: unexpected separations, reunions, intrigue, deception, coincidence, all blended with a tinge of the unreal. You'd think a past so layered would shore him up. Lend him the fortifications necessary to deal with this latest crisis. ]

[ It doesn't. All he feels, under the calm surface, is a crushing fatigue. What does it all mean, his life, his losses, his leaps from one disaster to another, one dimension to the next, if it is just going to come down again to this rock-and-a-hard-place? If he can't hold on to those who are valuable to him, because they're either snatched away, or he is, by time or trouble or terrible circumstance? ]

[ Except Korra's still here. She came to see him, even though she had every right to stay away. It's been three years. She can't possibly feel the same way about him. Can't possibly have waited for him. At the most, he's a pitiful burden. Someone she feels responsible for, the way that tender little heart of hers would feel responsible for a wild animal accidentally abandoned at her doorstep. ]

[ The idea ploughs up his anxious mind over and over. He has no peace in his body, but he has practice at making his words, his expression, light, unthreatening. ]

It's enough to tide me over. [ For a few minutes, anyway. The soft gurgling of her stomach gets a look mixed with curiosity and care. Ghosts of a once shared home and bed. ] You didn't have breakfast?

[She smiles awkwardly.] It kind of slipped my mind.

[She thinks about suggesting a place nearby where they could grab a bite to eat, but reporters all know her favorite restaurants and food joints. And a reunion this personal... she doesn't want it to be in public.]

Do you want to come home and I can whip us something up?

[ Come home. He uncurls a faint smile, ironic and a little sad. Is it still his home? She acts as if it is -- even as Hei himself can't help but feel like all the locks in his life have been changed against him. Maybe this is the price to pay, for a year spent traveling in space, among the stars? His boyhood dream -- the glittering vista that he could gaze at for hours without intolerable pain, even as he negotiated his way back home. ]

[ Except now that he's here, he's bewildered and wary and a little frightened; sure that any hint of welcome is tempting him out onto a vast black lake of gelid ice. One that will bear his weight only until he is too far from the edge to keep from being sucked into the icy dark. Yin is missing. Mao is nowhere to be found. Korra disorients him, because after three years, his timeline of her is outdated, his angle of vision skewed. He has no real insight into her life anymore. ]

[ Yet he can't bear to be parted from her again. His voice is soft out of fondness, not hesitation. ]

You can cook now?

I had to. My personal chef went missing. [She tries to keep it light, even as she skirts around the edge of that giant trauma.] A girl can't eat out all the time.

[She considers reaching out for his hand, but it's the kind of gesture that feels awkward and unnatural if you put any kind of thought into it. Her hand moves as though to do it anyway... then falls back. She doesn't know anything about the time he's been gone or how he's changed. She's afraid, somehow, that she'll overstep.]

[ Despite the lightness of her words, something judders behind Hei's ribcage. He exhales, trying to force it down. What is this thing going on inside him that can so knock him off his pins, make him feel so dopey and sneezy and whatever the hell the other seven dwarves are. It's never been his way to mourn senselessly over what's lost. But this is different. This isn't lost time -- it is stolen. In its wake, the sorrow is deep and excruciating. One year for him, three for her, and what a waste they have been -- of each other, and of love, which is the most unpardonable waste there is. ]

[ Love and time, he's learning, are the only two things in all the world and all of life that can never be bought, but only spent. ]

[ He watches her hand drift up, then down, a small, perfect clutch of dark roseate fingers. He wants to reach out, to touch her. But strain and sadness make knots of his muscles, while his own hands make loose fists of themselves at his sides. ]

Let's see what you've learnt, then.

[ He rises slowly, feeling, in a brief flicker of memory, like he's a teenager again, walking next to UB001, wanting to absorb every iota of her attention, playing it Contractor-cool even as his stomach does an antic jig with distress. ]

[They head back in the direction of the house, close and yet keeping a respectable distance between them. Hei had managed to stay out of the spotlight enough that people weren't likely to recognize him as the Avatar's Dead Boyfriend, and she doesn't want to invite their scrutiny.]

How does spicy grilled fish and seasoned kelp sound? [Those are about the only ingredients she has on hand right now, oops. She'd meant to get groceries today, but she's pretty sure that's not going to happen now. She has this feeling like she's on borrowed time, and even if she fucks everything up, at the very least she doesn't want to waste it.]

I'll eat anything you make.

[ From Hei, it's not sentiment or flattery. Just a statement of fact. ]

[ He keeps pace with her, feet moving in unhurried complement, like they are two estranged twins reunited in the street, who haven't spoken in years but remember the intimacy of the womb. The city is filling with the first wave of early risers: vendors, shopkeepers, factory workers, students. Everyone seems wrapped up in the arms of their beloved -- or at any event, their current squeeze -- except for him and Korra. ]

[ Avoiding her eyes, Hei feels, again, the intense unfair awkwardness of the situation crashing in on him. The life he'd carved out for himself here is a shambles. He doesn't know where Yin and Mao are, or what he plans to do. All his career he's had back-up plans, contingencies, second-third-fourth-tenth options. But now he's cut off, adrift. Is this what being homeless feels like? Out in the world with no particular place to go? ]

[ As he gives way to this thought he passes a real homeless man crouching against a wall. A pang of annoyance creeps in, and he narrows his eyes. Of course he isn't fucking homeless. Nor is it the first time everything in his world has swung upside-down. It doesn't make it easier, but so what? He's always lacked the sense that self-pity requires -- the feeling of entitlement, the expectation that things should be better. ]

[ They could be worse. He might've been flung into his real homeworld. ]

[ His eyes drink in the sight of Korra. A glass half-full. His fingers itch to curl around her hand, quiet echoes of habit meeting affection. Instead he settles for drifting a few inches closer, letting the gap between them unfurl into a warm, private place, while the public, open world buzzes loudly around them. ]

[She feels his warmth against her arm, and wishes that home wasn't quite so far away. It feels like a lifetime passes before she's finally opening the front door.]

You're welcome to shower if you want. [Wincing. Of course he is, this is still his home.] Breakfast won't take long.

[ Hei follows her up the steps, his whole body-language -- skewed, like he's not sure what to do. They're relearning boundaries as they go, but he wonders if they'll be able to rebuild what they used to have before. If that's even possible. ]

[ The whole house seems like a single-woman's space. Nothing of his is there -- but that's unsurprising. He hadn't possessed much, and what he did had never been quite what he wanted anyway. Things are fresh -- nice furniture in good repair, clean paint on the walls, rugs on the floor. No cat toys scattered around -- maybe she'd given the puss away, or maybe it died, he isn't sure. No signs of upheaval, or late-night guests, or live-in lovers. Just the aroma -- rich, complex, layered -- of Korra and the life she's woven for herself in here. ]

[ Questions crackle at the tip of his tongue. So much to ask her: what she's been doing, whether she knows where Yin is, whether she's in a relationship with someone new, how her Avatar duties have been faring. He half-opens his mouth to speak -- then shuts it when she mentions a shower and breakfast. ]

Oh.

[ He could do with a wash: he's not exactly fragrant from a whole night awake, and he gives the impression of one tall walking bruise, a piece of greasy flotsam flung around and shredded by life. ]

[ Dipping his gaze, he murmurs, ]

You wouldn't happen to have a change of clothes for me?

[ An innocent question -- but also his way of gauging if some other guy lives here. ]

[He doesn't seem offended by her permission to use his own home, which is good. Korra forces herself to relax.]

Yeah, of course. Your clothes are in a box in the basement. [She's not a sentimental person, but like when her friends vanished in the City, she couldn't get rid of his clothes. It's not like he had a lot of stuff...it was easier to keep it in the basement than get rid of it.]

[ She could have gotten rid of it, if she'd wanted to. Hei isn't sure what to make of the fact that she hadn't. He doesn't let his surprise show. Just offers a nod, terse yet somehow stilted, and murmurs, ] I'll find them, [ before edging carefully past her, deeper into the house, feeling strangely like a prisoner who's been given permission to roam around unaccompanied. ]

[ This is my house. Was my house. Where I used to live with Korra. With a cat that I somehow managed not to starve, or break, or ... my house. The words mean nothing. In the basement, he finds the locked box of his clothes. The fabric inside gives off such a familiar smell, of staleness but also of himself, that he is disoriented. None of this feels real, but that's besides the point. It is real, as real as his life with Korra in this house once was, as real as his days floating in space with Chekov, undoubtedly were. ]

[ In the shower, he takes his time on purpose. There's lot to digest, so giving Korra a moment of quiet, staying out of her way, is no great effort. He focuses on the feeling of hot water on his skin, the smell of soap and shampoo, the icy breath after a good scrubbing with an extra toothbrush. The robes on the back of the bathroom door, the towels, the items on the shelves -- everything is Korra's. No shaving tackle or extra shampoo or unfamiliar products in sight. ]

[ Could she have spent all this time living alone? It seems impossible. ]

[ He comes back out in his new (old) clothes, oddly young-looking with his wet hair smoothed down around his skull. At the kitchen, coaxed by the breakfasty sounds and smells, he hovers uncertainly, blinking in the yellow stripes of sunlight that cut through the blinds. ]

[If she doesn't let herself think hard about it, it feels really good to have someone in the house again. Korra loves solitude, but living alone has been really lonely. The house feels warmer, more like a home. She even finds herself humming a little as she cooks... and then realizes she hasn't prepared enough. She hasn't cooked for two in awhile. She sets what she's prepared on the table as he gets out of the shower and starts up on the next batch.]

Breakfast is on the table. [Does her voice shake a little? It's hard to tell. The sight of him makes her heart pound.]

[ The look Hei gives Korra is not easily readable. He's still rocked by all the changes in this world, big and small. But none of them effect him like this one. Korra's got that whole barefoot, rumple-haired, housewifely vibe going on; the sun carving a bright slice across the line of her cheek, the tip of her nose, the spiky edges of her eyelashes, her clothes a teasing drape over smooth curves and muscles, and her hips jolt smoothly side to side with that lazy animal swiftness as she floats around the sunlit space. It still makes Hei's mouth go dry, makes him want to sink his teeth deep into her and not let go. She looks so fucking good even from the back -- Jesus, especially from the back -- and she's -- ]

[ Making stir fry. ]

[ It's almost funny. All the years that he'd encouraged her to learn, and it seems she'd bitten the bullet at last. He'd never know if mastering the recipes and utensils had come easily to her. She works mechanically and without undue concern, like all experienced cooks. He finds this oddly becoming. ]

[ Drawing out a chair, he slips into it warily. Scrubs the dangling out of his face as he surveys the food, picking up the lacquered chopsticks. Taking his first bite, Hei blinks. It's ... good. The fish is white and fluffy, the kelp crisp, everything rashed with those toasty brown patches. His stomach, in full approval, gurgles. ]

Someone's turned into a little domestic goddess.

[ It's a dry tone that slides somewhere between amused and incredulous. ]

[Why bother learning when he always did it faster and better? Also, let's be real, he wasn't the best teacher. Necessity is the best teacher of all.]

Well, I couldn't stop eating just because you were gone. [That sounded accusatory. She didn't mean to sound accusatory.]

I can't do a lot of dishes. But it's kind of relaxing sometimes.

[ No, teaching had never been his metier; he'd lacked the right patience for it. But watching Korra futz around the bright kitchen -- Korra who'd once regarded the utensils as just a collection of nameless things, who'd once moved through the house like a whirlwind, leaving stacks of unread books on the coffee table, and coats over the couch back, balled socks in the middle of the room, and lightly crusted tea mugs that could stagnate on the table for days -- he feels like he's sitting with a stranger. ]

[ In many ways, he is. She's clearly moved past that youthful clutter and upheaval that once defined her life: her energy is bright and fierce as ever, but it's no longer that hair-trigger of a lightning flash. It burns quiet and steady now, like a well-lit fire that will still be simmering in the morning. It makes Hei feel self-conscious. He knows damn well he might not be welcome, that he has come back to life at much too short a notice for her. ]

[ But there's no point in apologizing now. ]

[ He doesn't flinch at her words. But there is a tiny wrenching sensation in his chest. Keeping his dipped, he focuses on clearing his plate, quick but neat, like someone pressed for time but who nonetheless wants to savor every bite. ]

[ Quietly, between a lull, ]

I ... thought of you like that. When I was away. Relaxing, for a change.

[ Sometimes, watching the stars, he'd hoped that she wasn't grieving, that she was instead keeping her hopes up for his return. Other times he'd found himself wondering if she'd find comfort elsewhere -- maybe with her friends and family, or with someone new. Someone worthy of her, whom she could enjoy a happy life with. ]

["Relaxing" and "grieving" aren't mutually exclusive, but they're usually pretty well at odds. Korra shakes her head almost imperceptibly, and finishes cooking up her portion of breakfast. She settles down at the table, her pounding as her knee brushes against his. Has the table always been this small, or is he taller than she remembers?]

So...did they make you join Starfleet while you were up there? [Another way of asking Are you going to leave again?]

[ Not as completely at odds as she thinks. At least not in Hei's world. Always on the run, always caught up in battles, in a violent struggle for survival, has limited his scope for grieving. In many ways, it's impossible. In his career, there were no funerals for fallen comrades, no burials, no eulogies, no opportunities to sit by himself and reminisce. Just an emptiness that sprung up in the midst of his unstoppable momentum, a void so terrifying and hungry it swallowed him whole. ]

[ The only thing that saved him from being paralyzed by it, being killed, was his rage. A rage that became the superstructure of his entire life, so icy-hot and steely that the sane could barely begin to imagine it. And that rage was only the first step. Then something even harder came, something that could live with the grief, the fury, the limitations. ]

[ Grieving -- uninterrupted, profound -- is a relaxation. A luxury that not every warrior in the field can afford. ]

[ She settles in close, their knees kissing, and Hei can feel the indelible imprint of her warmth, even through the layers of clothes. He shifts, as if he's sliding off his chair, even though he isn't. ]

They wanted to jettison me, actually. [ He was regarded -- at least at first -- as a dangerous barnacle clinging to the ship. The crew were slow to warm up to him, and he to them; mostly he'd stayed out of the way, keeping company with Chekov when the boy was off-duty. ] Their Captain was convinced I was a spy.

A spy for who?

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