things left unsaid

[electric_lady]

WHO: Asami & Hei
WHAT: Hei's return throws Asami's world into chaos.

[Days pass, and Mako's words still echo in her thoughts: Li’s alive. With every echo, Asami wishes that hearts were as simple as machines.

She's happy for Korra. Korra and Li — Hei, though Asami's the only one of their group to know that — have been together for almost as long as Asami's known them. And she likes Hei. She'd been suspicious of him once, when that dorky facade of his started slipping, but his devotion to Korra had been unquestionable. Asami appreciated that about him, even envied it a little. She's never inspired that kind of loyalty in anyone, not even her own father. So she's happy for her friend. Truly.

She's also heartbroken, a fact which is as surprising as Hei being alive. His return means the end of the sweet, secret relationship between her and Korra. Not a romantic one — they're friends who share intimacies. But Asami hadn't realized just how much she's come to depend on those intimacies until now.

She wishes Korra would call. They need to talk about what's going to happen between them, what's going on with Hei, whether she's going to tell him. She refuses to let this relationship end like the one with Mako; she needs clarity. At the same time, she understands why it would slip Korra's mind. Of course she's preoccupied with Hei's return. That kind of shock would knock the ground out from under anyone's feet.

When she ends up on Korra's front porch, it's not because she intended to be there. Asami had overseen the loading of some new products at the dock, and instead of going home, her footsteps took her to Korra's place. Korra and Hei's place.

Taking a deep breath, she knocks.]

Comments

[mortemscintilla]

[ He's more than familiar with their complicated history. He had, in the City, once devoted a serious amount of time to studying Korra's friends -- their interactions, their histories, their patterns of behavior. Ultimately, it was a worthless endeavor. The kids posed no threat to his identity, and were hormonally confused and perceptively challenged, to boot. Not worth the paranoia and time. Still, everything he's learnt, everything he's pieced together, makes him cognizant of Asami's slip-up. The way she mentions Korra, and her flashbang disaster with Mako, in the same breath. As if both share the category of former paramours. ]

[ It could be a coincidence. But he's doubtful. ]

[ Something in him feels strange. Empty as a spent casing and just as cold. But it's not rage or jealousy. It's regret. When he's with Korra, he keeps feeling it'll be all right, when she speaks to him, when she holds him, when they eat and fuck and sleep together. But then when he's alone again he knows it isn't, it can't be. It's like having the creeps all the time, like he can't breathe. He doesn't know what his life is now. ]

[ Especially when he is reminded of all the ways Korra's life has re-wired itself. Ways that no longer include him. ]

[ At Asami's question, he hesitates, his natural reticence warring with kneejerk dissimulation, an excuse to try a false revelation, a shared confidence, as part of a campaign to get her to open up, let slip more details about her relationship with Korra. Except he'd tried for it subtly a moment ago. Asami had blocked that approach. ]

[ Well, subtlety is only a tool. There are other tools available. ]

I'd never planned to take up with her. [ The seriousness of his tone makes it almost into an admission. ] There were a lot of ... discrepancies between us. Still are. In ideal circumstances, we'd never be interested in each other. But ... [ He lets off a slow breath, and takes a sip of his drink. ] We went through some very strange ... experiences together. It sparked a pretty strong connection where there should have been none.

[ His expression is hard to read. But something sits in his eyes, a flinty resistance, a mask of bitter ruefulness. (A ploy -- but it'd be interesting to test Asami's reaction.) ]

That's not a good basis for a relationship. Not in my opinion -- though she disagrees. And after spending three years apart, I wonder why she hasn't found someone more suitable. Or if she did, and she doesn't want to tell me.

[electric_lady]

[Not a good basis for a relationship... There's a small part of Asami that perks up at those words, finding reason to hope. If Hei's breaking up with Korra, then that's one less complication. But that's only a small, petty part. Mostly she imagines how Korra would feel, hearing those words. And it hurts.]

I think any time you can make a connection, it's worth celebrating. It's not a question of suitable or unsuitable. [She hates the "optics" of romance, judging relationships on qualities other than how happy they make you.] She loves you.

[The look she gives him isn't that of a rival lover, but someone deeply concerned for her friend's happiness. Do you love her too?]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei wonders: Is she that guileless? Could she truly be concerned for nothing but Korra's welfare? Could she have no agenda, no inclination to facilitate a breakup, to get the interloper out of the way? It seems impossible for a number of reasons. Foremost being how obvious it is -- absurdly, breathtakingly obvious -- that Asami is in love with Korra. It's an ultra-soft but solid love, the way Asami is soft and solid -- a featherbed underlaid in bedrock. ]

[ He'd like to pretend it's not there. But it is, reflected like a green semaphore in her eyes. ]

[ Part of him feels bereft, confused, angry, doubting all his recent choices. She loves you, Asami says. But love and suitability aren't the same. And Asami is suitable, in a way that Hei, with his past, his fuck-ups, his badly-wired brain, the faulty thermostat of his emotions, can't really touch. A year ago, he might have dismissed the thoughts before they manifested. Just insecure garbage meant for stupid girls brewing on the rag. But it's been longer than a year. For Korra, at least. He has trouble believing she's still in love with him -- and not just a pleasant memory of him. If the memories he left her are pleasant at all. ]

[ The gaze he fixes on Asami is flat, but somehow knowing. ]

It's easy for her to love. In ways it isn't for other people. I guess that's why she's easy to love too.

[electric_lady]

[Asami has the terrible feeling that she's being played. His gaze is knowing, while his words are oblique. She can tell he has some sort of agenda, but she can't tease out what it is.

So she takes a cue from Korra, and the disaster with Mako, and cuts straight to the heart of the problem.]

Do you still love her?

[mortemscintilla]

[ Maybe it's her directness, more than anything, that rouses Hei's short supply of sympathy. She's a good girl. A loyal friend, too. For Korra, anyway. Hei doesn't need more friends. He already has more than is pragmatic or tolerable, even if he can count them on three-fifths of a hand. That in itself is three-fifths too many. ]

[ There's a touch of vacancy in his expression, his eyes shuttered like guarded gates. But his tone matches her honesty -- or tries to. ]

I'd leave if I didn't.

[ He's never one to stick around for a lost cause. But love seems besides the point right now. He adores Korra still -- with any still -- but the intimacy seems misshapen, brittle, and he can't feel what he can't feel. Ever since he's gotten back from that stupid space-trek, he's been trying to shrug the sense of detachment, displacement off, but all that happens is he gets further and further from her. And when he looks around at all the changes, at the ways Korra's life has drifted on, something smolders inside him, gives him no peace. He's trying to go on in the usual way, hoping the emotion will catch up with the action. It's a neat theory -- but that's all it is. ]

[ Quieter, ]

I just seem ... superimposed on her life. Like I don't fit. [ If he ever did. A beat, in which he fights down the cold, gut-level chill of unfamiliar candor. In a different tone, ] Was she happy with you? I'm asking because I have no intention of ruining something promising.

[electric_lady]

What?! [She doesn't stammer or freak out, although there's no concealing her shock. Did Korra tell him, or did he figure it out? Either way, what does she say?]

We were never like that. Not together. There's nothing to ruin.

[mortemscintilla]

But you have feelings for her.

[ His tone flattens condemningly at that statement, his face threatening to harden and reveal his private dislike at this fact. But it doesn't last long. Setting the teacup down with a soft clink, he regards her quietly, the cold edges blurring into something else. He's not inclined to be kind or generous, and yet the open dismay of Asami's face works on him, softening him up. ]

[ Finally, simply, ]

If I hadn't showed up, things between you two might have gone differently.

[ Korra might have reciprocated those affections. (If she doesn't already.) ]

[electric_lady]

But you did. That's what matters.

[He's back, and if Korra didn't love him still, she would have told him already. She's intruding. She stands.] I should probably go.

[mortemscintilla]

[ The words plink between them like pebbles into a pond, spreading ripples of something strange and sad. Still, Hei doesn't stop her. She probably needs to be alone to process her thoughts. So does he -- before the door rattles open and heralds the return of his girlfriend once-removed, anyway. ]

[ So he rises smoothly, gathering up the cups to put aside. More out of innate watchfulness than courtesy, he opts to see her to the door. It's only there, as he curls a hand around the knob, does he glance at her. When he speaks his voice is strangely subdued and his face flat and absent, the way people sometimes look when they haven't slept well or have swallowed something bitter-tasting. ]

I'm sorry. That things turned out this way.

[ He's not sure if he means that. He isn't sorry in a hugs and puppies way. It is just an additional strain, that is all, that his unexpected plunge back into their world has swept up everything in waves of complications. It will make the transition from extraordinary and uncanny to How Things Are that much harder -- for all of them. ]

[anatural]

[Too late. Asami opens the door and there's Korra.]

Asami! What are you doing here?

[mortemscintilla]

Making a social call.

[ (Who elected you spokesperson, Hei?) But despite his mild dismay at Korra's arrival, he can't help the happy relief that swells in his chest, bright and buoyant. It is absurdly like her presence has just dragged him out of a dangerous undertow. (It's easy to pretend, when she's right before him, that nothing has changed. But that fervent illusion of rightness never lasts long.)]

[electric_lady]

I wanted to see you and say how happy I am for both of you. [Since Hei's already revealed he knows, Asami lets herself reach out and squeezes Korra's hand.] We should all go out and celebrate sometime.

[Korra stammers out some kind of response, nothing that requires Asami stay, so she makes her escape.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei watches Asami go, the aroma of her, clean and floral yet somehow melancholy, lingering in the air like a formless rebuke. While he sympathizes with her predicament, he won't lose sleep over it. But he'll do his best not to rub Asami's loss in her face, or get too punchy with Korra about the affair, either. (Part of him thinks: you've changed after all. Or maybe he's just grown more sentimental? Maybe this is what it feels like to grow old.) ]

[ Left alone with Korra, who radiates a live-wire sort of energy, he drifts clear of the door, allowing her to step inside. In a tone of gentle neutrality, ]

Hungry? Supper's all ready.

[anatural]

Yeah, thanks. [She slips her shoes off and leans over to kiss him -- a habit she's developed only recently, because it feels so surreal that he's back that she needs to keep reminding herself that he's here.

He's here. And Asami was here. Which means he probably knows. Korra hesitates, not sure how to broach the subject.]

Is there anything you want to ask me?

[mortemscintilla]

[ She leans in to kiss him, and Hei makes a clasp of his arms to keep her close. Part of him is unsure if it's surface affection, just a ploy to ensure she doesn't skitter away -- or if it's the quietly desperate need for a simple press of her warmth against his. He can't sense any real anxiety kicking up her pulse: her eyes, glinting up at his, are clear and bright, shaded only by a sense of caution. She's probably picked up the undercurrents vibrating in the wake of Asami's departure. She's pieced two and two together. Now she's trying to determine how he feels about it. ]

[ Hei wishes he could give her a simple answer. Any other man would be stewing with anger and resentment. But he doesn't feel entitled to any of those emotions. He was gone for three years. He has no right to interrogate or threaten or throw tantrums -- even as a bone-deep, feral part of him can envisage leaping after everyone she's been involved with, beating them to a pulp, snarling Mine, mine, mine. ]

[ He tells that part, viciously, to shut up. ]

[ The look he gives Korra is soft, but somehow assessing. As if taking both their emotional temperature. Then, with a little indrawn breath, he gathers her closer, letting his forehead rest gently against hers for a moment. Watches their hair tangle at the tips, warmth seeping and growing everywhere they touch, melting his concerns down to nothing but a cold hard little kernel. But it's bothersome, all the same. Like that stupid story of the princess and the pea. ]

[ Softly, ]

I want to know if you're okay with this. Having me back. Because you don't have to do this out of some obligation.

[ Worries he's voiced before, but which need to be alleviated. The sheen of his return may wear off in time. Korra may start feeling as if he's in the way, unnecessary, her feelings for him cooling from embers to effigies as days pass and clarity encroaches. ]

[anatural]

[She wraps her arms around him and holds tight. He's asked that question before, and each time it hurts more. She hates that he doubts, hates feeling like she'll never really be able to prove it to him.]

I am so happy that you're back. I thought I'd never see you again.

[She nuzzles his shoulder.] I missed you every day.

[mortemscintilla]

[ At her words, the small burst of happiness that comes over him is simple, almost childish. When they're like this, when she speaks with such aching sincerity, he no longer feels so entrapped under the layers of icy bitterness that he can't reach her. She is Korra and she loves him, and it should knock him dizzy in gratitude, to hell splitting hairs about whether or not that's a good idea. But each time, despite his contentment, he can't suppress the doubt tightening in him, even a stir of fear. It makes him cringe, because the undertones are so pathetic. A dumb little boy who needs to hold someone's hand to feel safe, because everyone he knows has been swept away. ]

[ Maybe that's all it's about. Not insecurity but weary, lonely need. Because he's tired of losing everyone he cares about -- friends, lovers and allies stripped away in terrible and undefined ways. The repetitions of loss haven't made him wiser. They've just made him ... less. Whittling away at the softer parts of him and paring him closer and closer down to bone. ]

[ He squeezes Korra, hiding from her even as he cradles her closer. His voice feels scratchy and raw, but it is steady. ]

...Asami's in love with you.

[ Not a non-sequitur. Not really. Just an oblique reminder. You have better options than some murderous, half-empty remnant of a bad past. ]

[anatural]

[The words are a shock, and she pulls back just far enough to get a good look at his face.]

Did she tell you that?

[mortemscintilla]

She didn't have to.

[ Sometimes Hei is deeply appreciative of the extra handspan of height he has over Korra. It challenges her to meet his gaze. He keeps it dipped now, uncertainty reshaping his face, and when he speaks, he seems to slip into the space between his words with a steady precision, the way his balance tips precariously yet gracefully when he walks a tightrope, the soft deftness with which he cracks open a safe or cracks apart a target's phalanges. ]

The question is: do you feel the same?

[anatural]

[Sometimes she really wants to smack him.]

If I did, I wouldn't be here.

[In another life, maybe. If Hei had never come back, maybe. But not here, not now, not while he's here. The idea isn't offensive because loving Asami is inconceivable, but because she doesn't want unfounded jealousy getting in the way of their friendship.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ (Sorry, Korra. In many ways, he's still just an obtuse dude.) ]

[ Her words don't erase his anxieties. But they do swamp him with an absurd nostalgia, almost like loneliness. Each time, he's reminded of how much he missed even this, the intimacy of her exasperation, the acoustics of the livingroom with its pale blond wood paneling, and the house itself, small and warm and human. Nothing like the outsize plastiglas and steel and chrome environs of the Enterprise, or the dimly-lit bunk he'd occupied with a stunning view of the stars, but with a perpetual current of coldness in the air that always leeched the warmth from him. When he'd been here, he was always the odd one out, the loose end and wild card. But with the disasters of the Water Tribe war, and the Red Lotus, and Kuvira's army, he'd been part of something in a way he never was in the Enterprise. Sure, they let him play the role of an extra pair of hands. But save for Chekov, none of them was fond of him, none of them really gave a shit. ]

[ Korra on the other hand... Her feelings on his arrival may still change. But right now, they are as immutable as sunset; she demonstrates it in her small unforgettable ways, reminding him, everytime he doubts it, that he has value, and is part of what she defends, her world. ]

[ In the circle of his arms, he feels the strong beating of her heart. Murmurs, his tone of quiet gratitude scalloped with an intrinsic skepticism. ]

I'm glad ... you're still here for me. Just know that if you change your mind, you're free to go. Just like you said, back in the City.

[ I will be the one to end things. He hasn't forgotten that clause of their arrangement. Other stipulations have shifted and reshaped and dissolved entirely. But that still holds true, because as possessive and cruel as Hei is, he can't keep someone he loves against their will. He couldn't with Pai, either. ]

[anatural]

[Korra looks at him like he's a particularly frustrating lunatic.] I know. [That clause wasn't about him holding her against her will... it was about him leaving her for bullshit reasons. She was, is, forever will be not okay with him making unilateral choices "for her own good".]

If you're done being an idiot, can we eat now?

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei blinks, before loosening his grip. ]

Yeah.

[ It is the definitive Hei punctuation to all her remarks, one that can range from assent to skepticism to derision. Yeah, I heard you. Yeah, I'm pretending to agree so I don't have to give you a real answer. Yeah, no comment. He's not exactly eased -- (when is he ever?) -- but it doesn't matter. While Korra is here, he has a foundation, laid minute by minute, to walk forward on. As if she holds a bowl of happiness in her hands, and is constantly feeding him spoonfuls that dissolve deliciously on his tongue and leave him hungry for more. ]

[ The spread is already on the table, aromatic and colorful as a Persian bazaar. Hei settles at what he remembers as his usual spot, at an angle from Korra, with an unimpeded view of all doorways and windows. He doesn't eat; just pours tea into a ceramic cup. For a year on the Enterprise he'd drunk out of either six-ounce plastic cups or thick-bottomed plastic mugs with a handle big enough to fit a single finger -- the kind of unbreakable dishware they used at summer camps. When those dishes broke, they left no sharp angles. (Kirk's method of ensuring that their accidental stowaway was never armed. He didn't realize Hei was adept at turning every part of his body into a weapon.) ]

[anatural]

Have I mentioned how great it is to have someone else cooking again? [Korra settles down at the table and starts digging into the feast. It takes her a moment to realize that something strange is going on.]

Aren't you going to eat?

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei glances up from his teacup, his usual, subtle frown fading into a mild impassivity. ]

I'm -- [ It's a good thing you're already sitting down, Korra. This might come as a shock. ] Not hungry.

[ Which is strange. Out in space, he was always jonesing for hot meals, cold drinks. It'd felt so good to fill the empty space inside of him. But it was like dumping dirt down a bottomless hole: you could throw shovelful after shovelful, yet it made not the slightest difference. Alone, even with his belly full, images would zip through his head, slideshow style: his favorite foods lovingly presented, glistening and overplumped and too perfect, ripped from the glossy pages of Bon Appétit -- a leering parody of food, freakishly hyperstylized, comically lewd. ]

[ Maybe it's just a quiet build-up of stress and shock that makes him feel this way. Spacey. ]