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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[ 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?

[ Hei tips a shoulder in a shrug, before sloshing cream into his teacup. He takes a slow sip, his face lit with a softer light than a moment ago. (It's amazing; she's learnt how to brew a proper cup of tea, too.) ]

Starfleet has enemies. Then there's factions within the organization. Lots of inter-politics and rivalries.

[ He wasn't particularly surprised. Trade and private property still existed within the Federation, despite its post-capitalistic facade -- which in turn led to the usual privateers and criminal networks. The world was technocratic in many ways, a socialist utopia in others -- but with the demerits of both. For Hei, in particular, it embodied the exact coercions and corruptions that were so prevalent in the Syndicate. ]

You can't even say there's two main sides, because it isn't that simple. There's more sides than a diamond, and they all want to surpass each other. Spies and undercover ops? Not a surprise.

And of course they wouldn't believe Chekov. [MASSIVE. EYEROLL. But at the same time, she can't be too annoyed, because it means Hei came back here.]

So... you're back for good now?

[ Hei isn't sure what to make of the question. Maybe she expects he'd only dropped in for a visit. That he's comfortably situated with Stafleet now, an unexpected guest dropped into her world --but soon to be gone, because the frames of reference between them have shrunk so completely in three years, because she can't imagine their lives juxtaposed anymore. ]

[ Except her gaze is so blindingly bright. So hopeful. It is the first time since his arrival that it imparts a frission of homecoming, makes Hei feel like she's really welcoming him. Like she wants him to stay. ]

[ He could be wrong. If he is, it'll hurt but -- that's how life goes. ]

[ He wants to reach out for her. But she looks so fucking beautiful, here in the sunlight pouring into the room like melting butter, so close and redolent of thousands of those salty, sweet, soupy scents that twine his attention into a hard ball of want, that he can't trust himself. ]

[ So he swallows, his fingers deceptively light as they curl around his cup. Murmurs, without quite looking at her, ]

Starfleet ... was never where I wanted to be.

[ It was here, with you. The stars in space were never a temptation to stay away. Never the centerpiece of his desires. During his travels, they were just a palliative. A glittering compensation. Maybe as a boy, he'd have given anything to be where Chekov is. But he hasn't been that boy in years. ]

[It's really not fair what he can do to her heart. Korra takes a deep breath and reaches out to squeeze his arm.]

I'm really glad you're back. [She still doesn't know how to bridge that three year gap between them, but baby steps.]

[ He wishes that time would drip into stillness. Wishes everything that's pincering him in different directions would narrow down to one thing. Just this.The warm weight of her hand on his arm, as if nothing exists between them or around them, but those thrumming cells leaping off his skin beneath her palm. ]

[ Because if he focuses on anything else, it is difficult to imagine how, after three years, they'll relate. What they'll say to each other. Whereas most of their relationship the actions and emotions have pounded themselves out, sometimes spectacularly, sometimes messily, the intimacy and sex piling up as fast or faster than life can offload them, like planes at a terminal lined up for take-off. This is challenging, to have been separated for such an enormous chunk of time, the distance wringing such emotional exhaustion out of them both that he is at a loss how to move them forward. ]

[ Especially because he is mindful of not wanting to succumb to the old bad habits of fast sex and stunted talks, the easy immediate choices of physicality with no subtext. ]

[ Maybe a reconciliation will happen in clumsy little steps. Or maybe in terrible lurches. He doesn't know -- but he's careful not to push or presume. He just wants to be honest, for them to have a conversation the way normal people do instead of him always carefully constructing the most suitable sentence for the moment. ]

[ He waits a beat, then two, before his hand closes on hers, lifting it to press her warm little fingers to his lips. ]

[ In a half-whisper, ]

All the while I was trying to get back, sometimes it made it easier. Thinking you were waiting. Other times I'd catch myself thinking that you couldn't be expecting me, and it didn't matter if I floated off to nowhere. [ His lips twitch, a dry self-deprecation. ] Lucky for you I'm not the float-off-to-nowhere type.

[She kicks his ankle.] Of course it would. [Even if he's not the float off to nowhere type, she doesn't like the idea of him even thinking about it.]

So, if I ask you to tell me what space is like, would you try to give a real answer? [He's always been terrible at telling travel stories.]

[ That kick, her childlike curiosity, suffuses him with such a sense of bittersweet excitement. He doesn't want to shift an iota, lest it dissipate or be withdrawn. But she's asking him about space, a little girl expecting to hear a marvelous story, and he has no idea what to tell her. His travels resist the translation into speech; mostly they're tactile. ]

[ He's been places where the thin little tissue of his psyche, of a human consciousness, had no meaning. Would be smashed like an egg yolk, spilling goo and insanity everywhere. The universe was such a weird place -- like a dark wasteland that had been abandoned forever, but there were still lights glittering inside, and so much gorgeous overspilling garbage, discarded fragments of impossible dreams, cogs and gaskets from the innards of infinity. On board the enterprise, constantly surrounded by other people, beset by responsibilities, driven by their mission, he would always crave solitude. But gazing at the soundless belly of space, all that freedom and possibility everywhere, hadn't afforded him a sense of peace. Perversely, he'd wished he was tethered to something solid -- real gravity, real ground, a promise that he was where he should be -- not floating in the ether, his center misaligned. ]

[ He's always stayed on the move, always been a creature of swift momentum and deep restless energy. But space travel isn't for him. Skating along on something that touches him, but that he can't touch. It's no better than Nietzsche's goddamned abyss. ]

[ Finally, in a gentle deflection, ]

You want to give it a shot? You'd look good in a spacesuit.

I'll pass, thanks. [A tinge of annoyance in her voice. She knows a deflection when she sees it.] I just want you to tell me about it. You've been gone for three years. I want to fill the gap.

[ Hei lets off a slow exhale, wondering how much of this distance between them is hers, how much is his. She'd thought he was dead, mourned him, lived for months and months devoid of anticipation or hope that he'd return. And now he's come back, unlooked-for, and of course she wants to know about his life, so she doesn't feel so confused and uninformed and out of her depth. ]

[ But he senses the fear in his own reticence. He doesn't want, he realizes, to talk about the Enterprise. Wants that time to be as unrecalled and blurry as his days in kindergarten. It hadn't been unpleasant, with Chekov there. But he'd felt, as days passed, like his sanity was bleeding out of him. He hadn't liked the tepid surfaces, the imperfect stillness, the mechanical rumblings, the way the bridge would sing dissonantly around him. Everything seemed the wrong color, warped and glowing, and the odors of the place were sanitized and hellish. He'd felt that way a few times, in hospitals; he'd forgotten just how bad it could get, the cabin-fever that was like an internalized madness. The crew gave him cards for meals, fresh from the food synthesizer, four or fives times a day -- but nothing tastedreal. His stomach snatched at nourishment and always keened for more. Even when gorging on ice creams and bowls brimming with noodles, plump slabs of steak and dripping dumplings, he'd felt like something was missing. Had fantasized in weaker moments about thick breads piled with cheese and beef and fried onions. A stir-fry with everything. ]

[ He rubs her palm slowly with his thumb, before placing it down. The effort is palpable, to be firm but not cruel. ]

It ... didn't suit me as much as being here does. That's all I'll say.

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