just accept this is a soap opera

[electric_lady]

WHO: Asami and Hei
WHAT: They’ve been on a journey for two months looking for Yin. Now Asami & Hei are killing time while they wait for Korra to return.

[It's just about dusk when Asami arrives at the rendezvous point — a little house at the edge of a tiny Fire Nation village that she's renting for this segment of their journey. They'd taken to renting houses instead of hotel rooms to give them more flexibility and security, so they could separate but always maintain a solid home base. It was inexplicably important to Hei that their journey remain strictly hush-hush.

It was more understandably important to Korra and Asami that nobody found out about their threesomes. The gossip rags would eat that information up and they would none of them get a moment's peace, not to mention the embarrassment of facing their friends. Asami knows how self-conscious Korra is about her sexual history, considering both her parents and her past life never dated anyone else, and even Tenzin had only dated Chief Bei Fong before marrying Pema. Asami tries to tell her that in her thousands of lifetimes, surely one of her past incarnations has been happily promiscuous, but without the ability to communicate with them, they'll never know.

Asami lets herself into the house; she's the first one to make it back. Hopefully Hei or Korra will come soon with better news, with some sign of Yin. None of the people she met knew anything. She sighs, sets her shoes aside, and makes a beeline for the sake.

(They'd been drinking sake that first night, when they were still renting hotel rooms. Korra normally refrained from alcohol, but that night she took two shots. As they were folding up the map, getting ready to separate for the night, Korra leaned over and kissed her. Asami was too tipsy to resist, even though Hei was right there. They kept kissing each other, and their clothes came off, and somehow Hei was naked too and pounding Korra while Korra brought Asami off with her fingers. At some point Hei slipped inside Asami too, and Asami remembers thinking dimly Oh no because it's one thing to be in love with Korra; wanting to share her boyfriend is something else entirely.

They woke up sober, embarrassed, and had sex a few more times before dragging themselves out of bed. Then she and Korra had more sex in the shower so that, by the time they got to breakfast, Asami could hardly walk and couldn't count the number of times she'd come. At breakfast, they all decided to not try and put a label on what happened — or a stop. "We all like sex," Korra said. "Let's just...let it happen." And it did, just about every night they were together. This past week, when they all separated to cover more ground, is the longest she's gone without sex since they started this journey three months ago. She doesn't understand how she used to go months without it.)]

Comments

[mortemscintilla]

[ He intuits quickly what she's referring to. Easy, when Yin dominates his thoughts so entirely. Asami is pleasant -- but also pleasantly forgettable. Out of sight, out of mind. ]

Someone matches Yin's description. At the village not too far out. I've sent scouts; once they've confirmed it's her, they'll be back with news.

[ His tone is calm, almost didactic. He doesn't meet her eyes; instead they stay fixed on his hands, mindful of their steadiness as he lifts the kettle, pours out tea through the strainer and into the cups in curls of aromatic steam. Inside, the irritation still sparks. He wishes he could ignore it. He doesn't understand how he's found it in him to forgive Amber's enormous transgressions, but detests such trivial ones in her. Maybe because Amber is so far-off; a ghostly thrum of memory, bitter truth mixing with cloying nostalgia. ]

[ Whereas Korra is right here. A golden blaze, like sunshine; which is just fire, far away. If he starts loving all her little negligences, her sweetly oblivious cruelties, the way he loves every other particle of her ... it will be too much. Burn his sanity up. ]

[anatural]

That's great! How long do you think it'll take? [Korra's ready to go right now — despite how tired she is from her own journey. The waiting game is still her least favorite. She wants to go, to do. Find Yin. End the journey. (She may, possibly, be ready to go back to life as normal and Hei as hers alone.)]

[mortemscintilla]

[ He unbends enough to smile faintly at her sugar-high brightness. He's as anxious to go and to do as she is. More so. But his mind always functions tactically. He doesn't know why Yin and Mao fled, or why they've been so difficult to track down, unless they've been staying in flux. But in case there's an underlying skein of risk, he's willing to focus more on the approach than on the destination. That gearing up calms him down. He isn't sure he can take another dead end, his hopes spiking dizzily before the brutal plunge, so he tries to focus on determining if it really is Yin, and not on what he'll do if it isn't, because he'd prefer not to consider it. ]

[ Edging closer, he hesitates, before sliding his arms around Korra. Lets them both stand there in loose, latched intimacy, heads held close, his body saying hello to hers without words. ]

I'll hear from the scouts before midnight. If it's good news, we'll head out at dawn.

[anatural]

[She wraps her arms around his waist and rests her head against his shoulder. She knows how much he doesn't want to get his hopes up, so she hopes for him.

She doesn't say as much. There's nothing they can do about Yin until they hear from the scouts anyway, so she tilts her head up and kisses his neck.]

So did Asami wear you out?

[mortemscintilla]

[ No, he doesn't want to get his hopes up. Yin's absence still sneaks up on him like a whipping desert wind: his skull feels full of sand, his face hot and eyes dry in their sockets. He's not sure if he'll get over the regret of leaving her behind, failing to keep her safe -- and now, failing to successfully retrieve her. That sense of futility leaves him scraped raw inside. ]

[ He tries to ignore it. Korra is full of wicked electricity and static cling, soft lips at his throat, hips climbing up his, her whole body like a blanket you can't peel off, and it's easy for everything beyond their cozy orbit to blur into the unnecessary. ]

[ Mouth crimping in a sharp little smile, he murmurs, ]

I'm not the one walking funny.

[anatural]

Asami's not walking at all. [And luckily for Korra, Asami's fallen asleep, so there's no one to be bothered by the fact she's completely forgotten the promised tea. She hikes herself up onto the counter and hooks her legs around his, pulling him closer.]

You really did a number on her. [Tracing her hands along his stomach.] How was it for you?

[mortemscintilla]

[ It's hard to think when you've got an armful of sweetly pervy goodness snugged against you. Not that Hei is resisting. He lets her lure him closer, her legs a strong braid around his, her hands little reconnaissant spiders. By degrees, the strung-out tension in his muscles melts alongside worries and what-ifs about Yin, and he lets his body relax into Korra's, lets his arms wrap around that tight convex of waist like a loose bow. ]

[ At her question, he pauses, wondering if she's fishing for comparisons. He hopes not, because he'd never be able to offer any. Everyone's ways of fucking are so different. Asami's are like jazz with slow-burning candles; Korra's is a raunchy club mix all the way, electronic music bouncing off the walls, anchored by a thumping base line. ]

[ Leaning in, he mouths her neck right on the pulse-point, then drags his teeth across it, like a surgeon marking the spot for his incision. Loving the familiarity of her scent and taste: safe and delicious and true, the answer to a jagged pang of homesickness. ]

[ Quietly, ]

Different.

[ He has no idea what Asami's sexual history is. But pinned beneath him, a sweaty, red-flushed mess, with no cloak of genteel refinement to hide behind, she'd struck him as remarkably innocent, her eyes devoid of fear or cunning, like some tender animal in the woods right before it is slain. An innocence very different from Korra's -- the kind born from holding herself apart, rather being kept locked away. It had intrigued him -- but it didn't horrify and fascinate him as Korra's had done, as it still sometimes does. That naive vulnerability that stirs him to protect her, an urgent fevery drive, and that chimera of moral purity that makes her so compassionate and yet so thoughtless, and which he silently deplores. ]

[ A beat, before he blinks, the contemplative honesty shuttered away, a sly smirk teasing the edges of his mouth. ]

I forgot what it was like to be with someone who does as she's told.

[anatural]

[No, not fishing for comparisons... but maybe a little nosy, despite herself. This is the first time she's known explicitly that Hei has fucked someone else. She always thought she wouldn't want to know the details... she ddoesn't want to know the details, but at the same time, she does, for the same reason your tongue pokes at a sore in your mouth.]

I do what I'm told when it's not stupid! [She knees him in the side.] You're just ridiculously bossy.

[mortemscintilla]

Bossy is subjective.

[ He winds his arms around her, gathering her closer with an affable but reproving expression. He hasn't had a chance to wash up; he's sure his fingers, his face and mouth, smell heavily of Asami's juices. But he knows Korra isn't fastidious -- so he has no qualms about kissing her. Feeding on her mouth like candy, little biting morsels, until the taste of her friend dissolves within her own unique sweetness. ]

[ When he pulls back, it's still near enough to nuzzle her cheek: a wet peck, a lazy rubbing of noses, and then one swiping rasp of stubble across her tender throat, leaving a mild burn in his wake. A simple intimacy he'd never offer Asami. No five-act extempore performances, all raunch and dazzle -- but the sweet simplicity of skin on skin. ]

[ Against her ear, he murmurs, ]

If you want dirty details, ask Asami. [ Dryly, ] Seems like you've already shared most of ours.

[anatural]

[His tone is dry, but it's hard not to take it as a scold.] I wasn't spilling secrets! Well, okay, I kind of was, but — [I thought you were dead!] talking about it all helped me deal with things while you were gone. [Her grip around him tightens, like she's afraid that saying this will make him want to leave again. Asami's taste lingers in her mouth — not just from Hei, but the time before Hei came back, when it was just her and Asami. Not really together, not quite in love, but intimately linked. Hei's return didn't break that bond. Everything that's happened these past few months has been Korra's attempts to keep everything together, preserve her connection with Asami and rebuild her connection with Hei. She doesn't want to lose either of them; no matter which one breaks, it won't be clean, it won't be pretty, and she doesn't know if the resulting wounds would ever heal.]

I don't want the details. I just...want to know how you are. How we are.

[mortemscintilla]

[ It's a moment to drag himself from the murk of his thoughts and remember how he'd vanished, the yawning gap of time in between, and how without even trying he's now reduced a ten-thousand year-old godling in soft, sweetly-shaped human skin to those tones of pleading uncertainty. All at once he's ashamed of his petty grievances. Love is a kind of forgiveness, he knows: hate the sin but love the sinner. A mentality he's always despised -- but Korra has forgiven him of so much. Whereas his own love for her always seems imperfect -- fray-edged and not-enough. He always stays a half-step removed, obsessed with clarity and control. ]

[ Maybe that's why they keep getting wrenched away from each other -- because unlike with Amber and Pai, he always holds something back. ]

[ He gathers her a little closer, needing to feel her warmth, her pulse. Less a suggestive clasp than a reassurance, letting her feel his solidity, his quiet there-ness. With his palm he cradles her head, cupping behind her ear. ]

[ A beat, then, ]

We're fine.

[ He gazes at her from under his lashes with a melting fondness, and his mouth is a tiny smile. It's a look that says There are bumps, but whatever they are, they're not a problem. He's not particularly thrilled with the threesomes -- though he does enjoy them for the physicality and release. But this isn't about him. It's all about roots. Korra wants them; he is afraid of them. But really, it takes more than one person to make roots. ]

I'm not ... used to sharing you. But I don't want to spoil whatever's between you and Asami. When this is over, I'd like to go back to how things were. But if you want to keep her close -- [ In kissing distance, rather than at arm's reach. ] I'll try not to get in the way.

[anatural]

[She can't say she's happy with that response. Happy would be him enjoying this arrangement and letting it continue. But it's a fair compromise; even her inner toddler can see that. In some ways, it's like the compromise she made when they became a pair as opposed to two people who occasionally fucked. Maybe it's that similarity that bothers her, because she never did like that arrangement. It left wounds on her heart, even though she signed onto it, and those wounds took years to heal. She doesn't want that to happen to Hei too. She just wants to have everything without anybody getting hurt.

Part of growing up is accepting that you won't always get what you want. She cups his face in her hands and pulls him in for a long, deep kiss.]

I love you. [She wants to burn that into his muscle, carve it into his bones so no matter what happens, he never has to doubt or wonder.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Compromise is a bitter-tasting word. But it's one Hei is unsettlingly familiar with -- as long as it gets him what he wants. As a Contractor, there has never been any sacrifice he's been unwilling to make, or any principle he's been unwilling to discard, to achieve his goals. Here, at least, the goals are bloodless, sweatless. He wants to keep Korra close. Keep her happy. And though he can be a passive-aggressive son of a bitch when he wants to, he won't begrudge her this special closeness to Asami. ]

[ Restrictions feed frustrations. It's too easy to feel trapped, miserable in your monogamy. Hei understands that. It was why, when they'd discussed their early arrangement, he'd kept that clause open-ended. Because he understood a time would come when Korra's shyness would fade. When she'd want to spread her sexual wings, to explore. But more than that, because he understood they were ill-matched, and that there were aspects of her life, her psyche, that he'd never be able to soothe or understand. ]

[ It's happened. And if it disorients Hei -- then it's his own fault for his three-year absence. ]

[ He takes her kiss -- and her words -- as what she means them to be. A certainty, in a world of changeable promises and fickle temptations. No unsaid But, the eternal qualifier. There always is one; he's been shaped on this home truth. Everytime there isn't -- everytime she says those words -- something inside him lurches with a seasick incredulity. ]

I know.

[ Quiet voice, his gaze soft as a kiss, and the kiss itself is a fluttery benediction, a braid of Thank you and I love you too woven together without words. The bottomless sadness, he forces below his surface. It'll do no good to admit, But I can never keep what I love. ]