across time & space

[anatural]

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.

Comments

[anatural]

[She hasn't changed that much... not in the ways that really matter. Think of it as an upgrade on your favorite software. There are a few new little things to learn, but the core structure it all the same.

And she's about to tell him he's cheating on the test, sliding his leg between her thighs where she can grind against it, except he's working her breasts so thoroughly that she doesn't dare distract him. Doesn't have the breath to, even if she did. She makes her pleasure known through little whimpers and sighs — quieter than she would have been a few years ago, but with the promise of a crescendo — and pulls hard on his hair.

Fuck... he might actually get her to come this way... She just needs a little something more, or maybe just different, to push her over the edge.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei can hear the rising desperation coloring Korra's tones, even if they are soft and airy as soap bubbles floating up to burst in his ears. Can feel himself rising on the heat, on the ripening scents of lust, her barreling pulse and the wild sway of her hips. The way her fingers yank at his hair is a delicious ache; his own low, raw sighs catch in his throat. ]

[ Teething her nipples, he bounces and massages the flesh of her breasts, feeling them pulse hotly against his palms. She's as delightfully sensitive as ever, and he can feel her climbing, her whole body clinging to him in persuasion, welcome, pleading. ]

[ On a rare impulse, feeling daring, he lets her nipples slip free from his mouth with a lewd pop. Lets the stubble sanding his cheek scrape across them, rough and deliberate, before he gulps them back into his mouth. He strokes them with his teeth until they grow painfully hard -- right before he lets a charge play out, barely a frisson of sparkage, the swirl of his tongue carrying the carefully choreographed swish of an electric eel, nothing else but slick heat and biting half-moons of teeth and kneading fingers and crackling sensation and hard suction. ]

[anatural]

[OH. Ooooooooooh. Korra shudders as her climax hits her — small yet mind-blowing because he did that with just her nipples. She's always been sensitive, but how is that even possible?]

Wow. Congratulations.

[She feels energized, enough to flip him over so she's straddling his chest.]

So...what would you like as reward?

[mortemscintilla]

[ When she comes, it's a small, almost shy ripple, the sight unfurling a hazy astonishment down Hei's spine. His smile is off-kilter, replete with a fond I didn't think you could do that satisfaction. He lets her tumble him over, an easy acquiescence of loose limbs, even as his dick and balls are a tense, twitching heap at his groin. ]

[ Slowly, he circles his arms around her, tracing his palms down the gradated pebbles of her spine, over her lovely buttocks, pinching them into welts of faint color -- just as he tips his head up to catch her mouth, to muffle any protests she might make into a languid, sloppy kiss. ]

[ When he draws back, it's on a rushed inhale, her lower-lip caught in his teeth, then sliding free with a slick pop. ]

Your mouth, for starters.

[ After that, well. His whole body, after a year of forcibly submerging desire, feels the tugging undercurrents of freedom, want unfolding upon want, a wild fevery dream that grips him with white-hot teeth and doesn't let go. He intends to take every liberty she allows. ]

[anatural]

[So predictable. Even after three years, she knew that's what he was going to say.]

Close your eyes. [She bends a little water out of the pitcher she keeps by the bed and makes two small balls of ice which she pops into her mouth. Then she uses a little firebending to make her hands extra warm, and takes him in hand. Lubing up with precum and sweat, she gets him used to the burning warmth of her hand before wrapping her cold mouth around the head of his cock.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei isn't easy to read -- but in truth he isn't a very difficult book when it comes to sex, not when you know what to look for. He is a patterned lover. Predictable in his aggression, sharp-edged in his kinks, slow in his arousal. And right now he is just about ready to explode. ]

[ There's a moment's hesitation, before he obliges, eyes slipping shut. Fever-heat clouds his mind, but there is a spiky lick of curiosity as he wonders what she has planned. Then her palm wraps around his shaft, hot as dissolving flame, just as the icy wet of her mouth engulfs him. ]

Fuck.

[ The gasp is like a catch scraping across his chest, as if down in the depths of him an anchor tugs violently at its nest of steel, threatening to break loose. Wildly, his hands scrabble to bury themselves in her hair, palms cradling the back of her skull. His hips jerk in a short, uncontrollable spasm before he forces himself to still: the only movement seems to center at his groin, where his cock is a jut of burning heat, twitching pressure, at the mercy of her attentions. ]

[ God. She's really learned a thing or five. If he has her other affairs to thank for it, well ... He won't thank them, but he won't kick over it either. ]

[anatural]

[She honestly can't remember where she picked this little trick up from. She knew that Hei likes temperate play, as did several of her other partners. It just kind of evolved from there.

Her one hand keeps hold of him as she sucks; the other runs a burning finger from beneath his balls to the pucker of his ass (not threatening to push it, just teasing the surface with warmth. She uses her tongue to roll the little balls of ice around his head, careful to not let the cold linger too long.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei's fingers play with Korra's hair, still damp from her shower, until it sticks up in all directions. His whole body is an aborted tremor, prickling with cold, sweating with heat, the warring sensations making a bubbling stew of his brain and a knotted net of his muscles. He can't decide what's better -- the icy-cold shock of her mouth as she laves all around the sensitive head. Or the hands on his balls that are like the heated towels they wrap around your head in a spa. ]

[ When her finger dips lower, a hot but gentle prodding, he jerks as if singed. Swallows, and forces himself to relax. Not the kind of play he goes for -- but this is Korra. He'll never tell her, but sometimes, the way she takes him into her mouth, a drunken-warm engulfment, makes him feel less like she's devouring him whole and more as if she's keeping him safe. ]

[ But safe doesn't mean peaceful. He's aware of his agitation increasing, along with the sound of his labored breathing. His palms are wedded in a hot clasp to her skull, her hair spilling ticklishly over his fingers. His hips tremble with the urge to buck, to fuck her mouth in a rapid, jamming rhythm. Instead he lets off a low noise, almost like a helpless chant of Yes that parallels a fear that she might stop -- or that he might call things to a halt by blowing his load too soon. ]

[anatural]

[Right — she forgot he has a thing about his ass. She draws her finger away from there and settles for just fondling his balls. She can feel how close he is, and how he wants to put it off as long as he can. Don’t, she wants to tell him. Just let go. We can do this as many times as we want. Caught up in lust and the thrill of having him back, she doesn't ever plan on leaving bed, or letting him go. They've got three years of sex to catch up on.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei can feel the shrill throb rising, from his temples to his groin. His cock doesn't seem to ooze pre-cum so much as let it off in uncorked judders; the heavy, underlying vein tics with the same cadence as his pulse. He wants so badly to hold off. To enjoy -- through action -- the benefits of fucking this ripe, gorgeous girl, who feels like a miracle made flesh after a year of little or no contact. Every gift she bestows on him is a favor and a surprise. ]

[ He lets off a faint growl, tensing with the effort of holding back. But his body is too unruly, too starved. When she fondles his balls, he seizes up on a jittery hitched gasp, before feeling the climax explode -- inside, outside, shaking him all over, his arms stretching over his head and his hips riding fast as he spurts into her mouth with a sudden unexpected gush. ]

[ In the wet-tissuey bonelessness that follows, shame descends, weaving uneasily with satiation, like dark honeycombed with lightness. ]

...Damn...

[anatural]

[As quickly as it comes, Korra's not taken by surprise — nor does she cough the way she used to. She melts the ice so she doesn't choke on them and then opens her throat wide, swallowing every last drop. Protein, one of the guys she'd hooked up with told her while trying to get her to do more blowjobs. Good for your health.

She licks him dry and then crawls up his body to kiss him, burrowing herself against his side and tangling their legs together.

That must've been building up for awhile...

[mortemscintilla]

Don't remind me.

[ It's said in a drunken tone that matches the slowing skitter of his heartbeat, the way the light in the room pulses, blurring and sharpening. He wants to applaud at the way she swallows like a champ, not a drop wasted. But he can barely bring himself to move. Skin flushed all over, sweat-moistened, chest rising and falling as he tries to fight the soft encroaching blackness of sleep. Still reeling from the crunching timelines, the different dimensions, a sleepless night of recon and burgeoning tension, he's gripped by a cataleptic exhaustion. ]

[ Forcibly, he shakes it off. He's already left Korra once to neglect and sadness. He doesn't plan to do it again -- even if it's for a few hours of rest. Especially when the orgasm has taken the edge off his hunger, but done nothing to deplete the want that is even now brimming fizzily over, leaving him half-hard and drowsily antsy. ]

[ She settles against him, and he lingers on the kiss, tasting his own pungent spendings, bitter with amines and stress. Breaks to bury his face in the crook of her neck, breathing in her deep saltysweet aroma of sweat and spunk. The reunion is providing him even more than he'd missed, or hoped for. But in the back of his mind, the worries remain, sharp glints clicking and snapping, like scissors cutting away at his blissed-out contentment. Yin is missing, and Mao. The network he'd pieced together here is gone. He and Korra have been robbed of three years that he can only now contemplate with bitterness, speculation, sadness, hindsight. ]

[ They've both been cheated of something, he thinks. Better roads. Happier possibilities. But what's the point of considering it now? It's enough that she's here, inviting him back into her life. Not like two puzzle pieces clicking together, exactly. But as if the fibers of his skin, his psyche, are still loosely threaded with hers. ]

[ Gathering her close, he kisses her forehead, both old habit and gratitude. Wryly, ]

If I get this fourteen or fifteen times a week, I'll be cured though.

[anatural]

[Korra's let regret go. For now, at least, which is easy to do when he's so close and her body feels so good. The actual process of letting things go is one she's been working on for years, first with the trauma of Zaheer, and then with every subsequent hurt. It really is so much easier when you have something good to replace the pain with.

That little comment of his gets a smile.]

I might be able to arrange that. But not if you fall asleep on me. [Poke poke poke.]

[mortemscintilla]

'M awake...

[ More or less. The warmth of her skin, the soft rhythmic thumping of her heart, helps dispel his torpor, but also keeps away the worries that are threatening to jostle forward.]

[ Blinking heavily, he shifts to press her breasts softly together, covering them in cool kisses. Unwinds himself a little, to trace his palms down the length of her body. Feeling the strong suppleness of her arms, the bones of her wrists, exploring the more calloused palms. Runs his fingertips along the lines of her ribs, prodding the hollow of her belly and the juts of her hips, poking a finger into her navel -- tender, but somehow investigative, gathering clues he can't bring himself to ask her. ]

[ There's a beat, then, quietly, ]

For three years ... you're none the worse.

[ Maybe the years haven't been kind, sure -- but they haven't been ugly, either. ]

[anatural]

[Oof don't poke in her outie! Korra laughs a little as she bats his hand away from her bellybutton.]

It's been pretty quiet. I've been focusing on my spiritual responsibilities.

[She traces her own hands over his skin, looking for changes.] What about you?

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei doesn't meet her eyes. Instead he lets her hands roam, perfectly still except for a fine, fluttering tremor that might be ticklishness or nerves. He doesn't want her to focus on the myriad clues on his body. But he doesn't know what to tell her, either. ]

[ How it feels so strange not to be in a place where the surfaces aren't artificial. Formica. Vinyl. Plastic. Fluorescent. How everything here feels so real, so strangely gritty and textured. Iron, wood, leather, wool. He can't tell her how it's so wonderful to sprawl in bed with her, bathed in the bars of honey-colored sunlight that fall through the blinds. Inside the Enterprise, the light, despite its luminosity, had never felt the same as real sunlight: it was as if the architecture of the ship, or the compounds used to build it -- the chrome and steel and plastiglass -- leeched some part of the brightness away. Not just the heat -- but its vitamins or the really nourishing part of it. When it had touched his skin, it had felt as cold as the light from a bare bulb in a broom closet. ]

[ He wants to sprawl here in bed, bathed in this airy sunlight, for as long as he can. Drinking it in, the same way a plant does. ]

[ And nestled against him, Korra is like a ripe tasty fruit, warmed by that same wonderful sun. ]

[ Finally, in a tone of deceptive jocularity: ]

Months and months on a ship? Not much to do but read and work out and sleep.

[anatural]

Sounds relaxing. [She knows he doesn't want to talk about it. But you know what? He knows what to do to distract her. She's simple.]

[mortemscintilla]

There are better ways to relax.

[ Simple -- and stunning, with her face bright in a dark mess of hair, that beguiling flush racing up her chest and neck, blotchy and rosy and heavenly. Languidly, Hei drags his hands down her thighs, rubbing along the edges of her kneecaps, feeling out the joins of bones beneath the skin. Parts them by degrees, to press moist openmouthed kisses to her tender inner-thighs, nuzzling at them, deliberately avoiding the dark thatch of curls between her legs. ]

[ Her scent, a thick lather of excitement that perfumes the air, always, even now, makes him think of ... god, what is it? It makes him think back to the days he'd come home as a boy, happy and dirt-smudged from the woods, with pine sap smeared on his hands, and his mother would punt him into the shower, telling him not to come out until his hair squeaked. A quantum leap of memory that makes sense, if only in his own head. ]

[ Kissing her silly little outie, he murmurs, ] Turn over, [ before gently nudging her to sprawl on her belly. Reveling in the slopes and swells of her body, its sweet idiosyncrasies. He drops kisses across the caramely expanse of her back. Mouthing the scattering of faint scars here and there, gnawing her at the soft spot between her shoulderblades; her spine is prominent as a dorsal ridge as he traces it with his tongue, down to the curve of her backside, his breath fanning hot across her skin. He bites her there, playful, taking a plump chunk of flesh between his teeth -- just as he slides a hand between her body and the mattress, palming her sex, teasing the moisture oozing between the pouty lips. ]

[anatural]

[Korra humphs, but lets him roll her over. Seems like he's forgotten that she's never liked being on her stomach. It squishes her breasts, which are already sensitive from the working over he'd given them earlier. He works his way down her back, which feels nice, and bites her butt, which just feels silly, and then she's done.]

Okay, my boobs hurt.

[She rolls back over, trying to swing her leg over his head so he doesn't have to move.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei would wryly offer to kiss them better. But he's too busy dodging her swinging thigh. He lets her spill onto her back again, an indulgent little smile at the corners of his mouth. Gathers up her legs, tugging her gently near the edge of the bed, rucking up the mass of the sheets in the process, and moves them open. Idly, he noses her mons, teasing the damp curls with his breath. God, he is such a cuntstruck idiot for her, even now. Or is it especially now? His head swims in intoxicated darkwaters. Needing to be immersed, he presses his open mouth against her, stabbing his tongue into her sodden folds, rubbing at her clit with his thumb. ]

[ Drawing back, he glances up at her with a light spark in his eyes, their defensive hardness easing, along with the usually tense planes of his face. ]

Have I told you how good you taste? [ An idle murmur, as he works his mouth against her pouting sex again, letting his teeth form a mild bite, then sucking on the hard point of her clit, whiskers scraping softly across her damp inner thighs. ] It makes me so hungry...

[anatural]

You're always hungry. [She has to struggle a little to get the words out, though, because fuck. Whatever he did to her breasts has nothing on this. Pleasure, energy, builds up between her legs and spreads throughout her body. She tries to release it by clawing the sheets, wriggling her toes, but of course it just keeps building.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei would tell her he's actually extremely particular about where he puts his mouth -- at least where bodies are concerned. Instead he brushes the fingers of his free hand over Korra's knuckles, before lacing the digits with hers, a moist, aching cramp of a grip that somehow matches the dull throb behind his ribcage, where want and gratitude is pricking him like thorns of fire under his flesh. Just being close to her, watching her squirm, sends him spinning almost to the edge of his need -- a disconnect between the body and the brain that is so strange, because it's usually the opposite. During sex, there is some flukey mechanism in his mind that never stops running on its track, even during intense arousal. It is a lifesaver on the field, foolproof playacting for a cover -- but it's fucking inconvenient outside of it. To say the least. ]

[ Between her thighs, his mouth sucks and licks with a fervor which is almost selfishly vicarious. One fingernail tracing a line from the pucker of her ass up to the entrance of her sex, smearing the welling slickness, playing with the delicate fringe of her inner-lips, before he pushes his finger into her. Hot, so hot -- a tight rippling clutch that reminds him how good it is to fuck her. Just thinking about it, he can feel his own groan as much as hear it -- terrible, desperate. His thumb brushes her clit as his finger buries itself inside her, tongue whorling sloppy circles around the twitching nub -- and it's so easy to melt into this, the give and take, the lewd, long slurps and the rhythm of Korra's hips that tells him what to do. ]

[ Three years of change, and he feels like he's stumbling in and out of her rhythms, finding old, remembered spots, cataloging dizzying new changes. ]

[anatural]

[It's magical. It's wonderful. It's mind-blowing. It's one of the biggest selling points of long-term relationships, because even after three years he knows her body so well. Her orgasm comes as fast and hard as a summer storm... and with it, a little something extra.

Korra will apologize for the unexpected gush of menstrual fluid when she can actually use her body again.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ She comes in a gorgeous, rolling spasm, and Hei can feel the fluttering tremors across his tongue, under his grappling hands. He's so caught up in the thrilling sight of her that he doesn't notice the tang of blood until it fills his mouth. Blinking, he jerks back, dragging a hand across his mouth, the fingertips sheened in a slick thread of blood. The sight makes his gorge rise -- but it's more because he's afraid he's torn her with his teeth. His cock, which had filled with a sluggish interest as she'd tossed and turned, wilts at the idea. ]

Shit. [ It's a voice suddenly bereft of ease and finesse. ] Are you okay?

[anatural]

I am so much more than okay... [Still, hearing the concern in his voice, she pushes herself onto her elbows and looks at him. Him, with blood on his fingers and smeared across his mouth.]

Are you okay?!?! [What could have happened to him down there? She's not hiding anything sharp between her legs... Is he coughing up blood? Bleeding from his nose? A warm squirt from her vagina answers both their questions. She covers her mouth to stifle an embarrassed choke of laughter.]

I didn't know it was going to start today...