Who cares what picture you see?

[mortemscintilla]

WHO: Korra and Hei
WHAT: Two crazy kids catch a movie. This thread is about a millimeter deep.

[ A new Mover. Faster Nuktuk! Kill! Kill! The title alone doesn't bear thinking of. Scorpions crawling around in his boxers sound more fun. Hei has no idea why he agreed to go. But Korra assured him it wasn't a four-hour epic, and that if he got too bored they could slip away. With reluctance, but aware of certain unpaid debts of boyfriendly attention, he agreed. ]

[ Since Yin's return, he knows he hasn't been spending as much time with her as he ought to. Too busy setting up living arrangements for his friend, trying without words to bridge the gap of three inexplicable years, to make sure she's safe and -- yes, happy. Because she's wasted eerily away since they've been apart, a dull-eyed washed-out husk of herself. Too Doll-like to fill him with anything but dread. ]

[ The past few weeks, he's compensated by paying her steady attention. Until she understands that he's not going anywhere, until she feels entitled to his time as a friend should. He encourages her to listen to radio broadcasts for events, so she'll be prepared with suggestions about what they might do. He gets her audio books in cassettes, a small, ornately-carved zither to play tunes on, practices his increasingly-spotty German on her, gently coaxes her out to eat all sorts of unthinkable things: arctic hen testicles, jelly of turtleduck, thousand year old eggs. He's not sure the outings make a lick of a difference. But last week, Yin was actually the one to initiate their always-brief, one-sentence conversations, rather than the other way around. Hei takes that as a good sign. ]

[ Tonight, the air carries a chill, and Korra is sunshine temperature, a little waft of summer walking at his side. Hei lets his hand curl around hers, tucking them both with a habitual air into his coat pocket. Also with a habitual air, he scans the street as they drift through the crowd, checking ambush positions, logging exits and hideaways, with the practiced nonchalance of an ex-Syndicate op. Everything looks fine. ]

[ By degrees, he allows his tension to thaw, until it is no more than a small shard lodged in his guts. The theater lies ahead, its marquee of lights boxing in the words Nuktuk like the moral of a Sunday sermon on a church sign. A knot of people wait outside; families jawing amiably, children squealing, teenagers boiling over with hormone-driven energy, giggling and jostling one another. Surrounded on all sides by normal, Hei feels wariness tugging his brows like needle with a thread. But Korra's scent is a sweet tickle in his nose, her fingers delicate, yet comfortingly strong in his, and her soft prattle laps richly at his ear, grounding his scattershot senses. ]

[ Squeezing her hand, he edges in closer. His voice is wary, interest hidden under a hard shell. ]

Is this the theater where they use real butter for the popcorn?

Comments

[anatural]

Oh please. I'm the moody one? You are the KING of moody. You should have a crown or something. [Yes, yes, the more she talks, the more she's not blowing him, but that's the point. If he's going to give her sass like that, she's going to punish him. She kisses and licks him as she talks back, but she doesn't take him in her mouth like he wants.]

Wu might have one you could borrow...

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei twitches as she laps at him with her tongue, a dizzy surge of pleasure that twangs with her non-stop twittering. She often teases him like this now that he's formally declared his love, snark and banter that from any other woman would make him glower. But there's a list of reasons why he doesn't glower - the spice-coating on those words does nothing to detract from her mouth, or the touch of her tongue that is like pure, dark, honeyed sex. Also the fact that when Korra sometimes talks it's like some kooky cartoon, like a talking cat marooned on an island and hallucinating food everywhere it looks, and all Hei hears is, chatter chirp prattle SEX etc etc SEX yakkity yak SEX. And? In the end she's really just teasing. ]

[ Instead, in a playful warning, he tugs at a tuft of her hair. ]

Mentioning Wu doesn't exactly get me hot. [ A beat, before he offers a small, bland smile. ] Might do it for Mako, though...

[anatural]

[Well Korra was going to wrap her mouth around him, except that comment has her choking. Mako would explode at the implication that he was interested in Wu... but there's no denying that Wu is the closest thing Mako had to a long term relationship. The two men have been all but joined at the hip for years, and Mako bitches about it but he doesn't try that hard to get away from him. Korra thinks Mako likes having someone to fuss over now that Bolin is grown up and independent.

She covers her mouth to stifle the giggles as a laughing, chattering couple approaches --- fortunately, they don't try the door.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ The closest thing to a long-term relationship? Please. They're practically married. But hey -- it's not like Hei has any room to judge Mako's (hilariously inconsistent and unbelievably awful) track record. Especially when you consider he's seldom had any relationships worthy of the term -- let alone any that lasted longer than week-old yogurt. And let's not get into the lies, trauma and carnage that each fling left behind. ]

[ Yeah. You know what? He's just going to stop thinking about it. ]

[ He hears the clash of voices outside the door. A passing fragment of discordant and unfamiliar yielding against the warm burble of Korra's giggles. Several expressions dart across his face, too quick to follow, before he settles on a faint, dry smile. Isn't this every man's wet-dream? Standing in a disinfectant-reeking bathroom with his prick out for a cackling woman? ]

[ Palming the curve of her cheek, he traces her lips with his thumb. ]

...Are you done?

[ Because his dick is getting cold, confused and lonely. ]

[anatural]

[Awww, his poor, sad, lonely dick. Korra nips his finger, but the point's well taken. She licks a long stripe up the bottom off his shaft, then finally wraps her lips around the head and sucks hard, an abrupt change from the earlier light, teasing touches. She's found he likes a little unpredictability, almost as much as he likes it hard and rough.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ The moment she draws him into the gorgeously hot vacuum of her mouth, Hei's abs ripple and his mouth drops open in a shivery gust of air. With his free hand he braces his arm against the mirror. The other cradles her jaw, fingers threading into the soft hair at the base of his skull, drawing her in with an apposite, opposite delicacy. He's never especially loud about his desire, but he lets off a series of low, almost inaudible rasping hums that let her know how quickly he is climbing, his hips jerking to try and coax his dick deeper into her mouth, the tendons on his wrists taut with a ticcing impatience. ]

[ His hair swings forward, fine strands stirred by short breath, but his gaze stays fixed on Korra -- the prettily disordered sight of her with heat-rouged and hollowed cheeks and those bright blue eyes, the fluorescent lights doing cruelty to her face, tinting her skin greenish yet somehow magnifying her in a catalytic storm of heat and texture and color. ]

[anatural]

[Despite his encouragement, Korra doesn't take him in deeper. She teases him with her tongue, dipping it into the weeping slit, running it along every vein and crease. Her revenge for all those years of sexual torture and practical orgasm denial. Besides, he's sexy when he's just a little frustrated. (She still doesn't try pushing his temper, not usually, but she likes getting under his skin.)

Eventually, though, she opens up her throat and takes him all the way in one fell swoop. She loves deep-throating, for much the same reason she loves anal sex: the tension and challenge of accommodating him... And how not many people can do it the way she can. She loves being good at things.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ And she is, at these particular things, so very good. ]

[ Hei's spine judders as Korra teases him with maddening languor and complacent cat-licks. It's an effort not to grab her head and shove the twitching heft of his dick down her throat. Instead, on a low-key groan, he slides his hand deeper into her silky-furry hair and encourages his own hip-motions to slow. ]

[ Korra's mouth, though, is on its own relentless speed setting. When she takes him in, all the way, all at once, it is pure bliss, greedy and complete, lighting a fuse from groin to brainstem with its sweet urgency of sensation; his ears and cheeks burn; his balls ache, the whole length of his cock throbs, seared by her teeth and tongue and throat. When he speaks, the words tumble out, barely audible between jittery inhales, somehow diffused and magnified by the tiled walls. ]

Good. Fuck -- that's so good

[ Positive reinforcement is said to be the most effective form of behavioral modification. He doesn't believe that crap -- Korra seems to get by with simple non-verbal cues, especially if her exhibitions of lingual artistry are anything to go by. But that doesn't mean he should be stingy with praise. ]

[anatural]

[Yes, please, praise on. Korra doesn't chase after flattery, but that doesn't mean it's unappreciated. And while Hei has gotten better about dishing out compliments, they still have the flavor off something precious and rare. She hums deep in her throat to add a little extra sensation, and brushes her fingers lightly against his balls. How soft can she make her touches, how much can she tease him until he blows?]

[mortemscintilla]

[ She slows down, and her hum undulates through Hei in a delightful top-to-toe vibration. Eyes slipping shut, he lets his head tilt back to the ceiling, a bob of pale throat and a restless cant of hips. He might as well be goddamn Stevie Wonder singing with sightless soundless bliss. Sweat beads his temples, making inky licks of hair adhere to his face, while his pulse beats rapidly in throat and scalp, driven by a thumping heart. ]

[ Panting, he strokes Korra's hair, its softly ticklish texture making his palms tingle, loving how her skull in his hands feels so satisfyingly heavy and warm. Loving too, the subtle but deliberate trust of both their positions -- she with her mouth wrapped so exquisitely tight around that vulnerable part of him, and she with his shock-inducing hands curled right against her nape, palm cupping her head, where it would be so easy to feed a sizzling volt to her cerebellum. ]

[ A thought that would have blazed at the forefront of his mind, years ago, a guarantee of control. But now it just makes him cradle her closer, the better to sink deep into her mouth, to let her know his tension-wracked body is hers to play with. ]

[anatural]

[Such a reversal from their early encounters, when it was her body being played like an instrument — a cherished toy that was still completely in his control. How they managed to get to this point from those volatile, damaging, complicated days is a mystery Korra doesn't bother contemplating; it's enough for her that they did. She doesn't regret any of that early pain, because she's learned from it.

And now she gets to be here, scarred but whole and stupidly happy. Blowing the man she loves in a public bathroom, which out of context sounds more seedy than romantic, but it's just how she likes it. She keeps working him slowly, teasingly, but building inexorably up to his climax.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ She doesn't regret it. But Hei does -- with a deep, low-down quiver of how squalid their history is. Because of how they'd begun, by accident, on drunken whim, and because his fixation with her began not with her but the ghost she'd reminded him of. Because there was no romance or even goodwill between them, not at first. Just a desire for her body -- possessing it, using it, abusing it, for his own bitter consolations and frustrations. ]

[ The more he remembers it, the more chilling, perplexing, disquieting it seems. ]

[ Yet he can't be sorry he met her. He's lucky he did -- in squalid circumstances or otherwise. ]

[ His eyes are still closed -- a rarity in itself -- but his hands feel full of vision; Korra's skull hard and faceted; ears pliant as flame against his palms and her hair rasping sleekly across his fingers. His hips are stirring with a restrained urgency against her mouth as if he is torn between keeping steady and trying to climb deep inside that wonderful heat of her throat. From his own taut throat, he can hear the low, lewd grunts almost like pain tripping out, and then -- escaping like a spill of loose beads as his climax nears -- several escalating little gasps, low-pitched and jittery. ]

[ When he comes, it's on a spasm of painful gratitude, a jetting heat, his mind spinning out into the darkness behind his closed eyes like a paper streamer in a storm. ]

[anatural]

[He's so deep when he comes she can't even taste it; he bypasses her tongue and shoots straight down her throat. She keeps sucking, massaging his balls until his tremors cease and he softens in her mouth.

Of course he's still balls-deep in her mouth when someone starts unlocking the door.]

Heads up if anybody's in there. I'm coming in. [And the door swings open.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ (Why is life so unfair? Why can't a man enjoy a blowjob in the bathroom in peace?) ]

[ The door bursts open, a rush of displaced noise and movement, and Hei's first thought is, What if it's a threat? His softening cock is like a wodge of useless meat in Korra's mouth, damp and transmitting a pulse of sated slowness. But the rest of him is anything but slow. The moment the door swings open and the intruder steps in -- a pot-bellied old man squinting at the scene first with bemusement, then incredulity, than scandal -- Hei jerks away from Korra. A series of thoughts shoot through his mind in preconscious shorthand, laser sharp and Klaxon loud, the entire message delivered and received in a millisecond: Knock him out before there's trouble. Sure, if it's a civilian, then Li's shy fumbling and apologetic logorrhea would be safer. But ... it's been years since he's had to slip in and out of Li's role with imperative frequency. ]

[ Stuffing himself back in his jeans, Hei twists clockwise in the same moment. The flat of his palm connects in an eyeblink with the man's scrunched-up forehead. A zzzt and his target crumples like a ton of bricks, Hei's foot snaking out and slamming the door shut before he's even hit the floor. ]

[ A beat, then two. He blinks slowly, the old soldier's instincts dissolving hand-in-hand with the adrenaline. His gaze skips to the closed door, then to the motionless man in a janitor's uniform, then to Korra -- before his expression twitches into something resembling chagrin. ]

...Shit...

[ Didn't mean to do that, goes without saying. ]

[anatural]

[For once, Hei, Korra is not at all bothered by Hei's zap first, ask questions later approach. She should be, she knows, but the idea of this getting out and becoming public is too horrifying to contemplate.]

Please tell me that was one of your memory zapping ones.

[Her knees feel a little shaky; she leans against the sink and tries to figure out whether to laugh hysterically or bolt.]

[mortemscintilla]

It was.

[ Gingerly, Hei steps around the man's limp body to the sink. Turns the tap on, splashing his face vigorously before combing all ten wet fingers through his mussed hair: he'd been stone-cold sober and on red alert during the electrocution, but he feels sloppy drunk now, endorphins and embarrassment feathering warmly across his face. On the bright side, at least Korra isn't caterwauling. He's not sure how many degrees of mood-whiplash his nerves can tolerate all at once. ]

[ Glancing at her, he reaches out to cup her jaw, a brief stroke of impulse, before clearing his throat and resettling his gaze on his victim. ]

We should get out of here.

[anatural]

Yeah. [She starts to reach down, thinking to prop the man up more comfortably, but he looks comfortable enough. And Korra wants to get out before anyone else catches them.

She walks out of the bathroom calmly, without any sign of guilt or embarrassment. She's gotten much better about keeping her head in situations like this. Not that she's usually in situations like this. But still. She doesn't stop to wait for Hei until they're outside.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei watches her slip out, before he focuses on arranging the unconscious man at a strategic angle, so it seems as though he'd slipped on wet tile and conked his head against the sink. Once he's satisfied, he straightens his own clothes, then drifts with perfect aplomb out of the bathroom, and the theater itself. The air is still and bracingly chilly, a throng of chattering moviegoers dotting the sidewalk. Some of them are discussing the Nuktuk film. Hei listens half-heartedly to people's conversations and steals a comment or two to pass along to Bolin when the boy asks him about the mover. ]

[ He stops abreast of Korra, who still looks a little wild-haired and red-cheeked, her mouth swollen from what they were doing barely a few moments prior. The fleeting, ordinary feelings of the evening, the deep ones, content and angst-knotted, all mix together and resolve to the same bright blue of Korra's eyes. ]

[ With a flickering hint of a smile, Hei murmurs, ]

I could go for some ice cream.

[ Sure, it's fifty degrees out, but he's overheated after the encounter in the bathroom. (Maybe he also wants to prolong the evening a tad. Tomorrow they'll return to their routines, and to juggling separate lives while trying and failing to squeeze in room for each other.) ]

[anatural]

All that popcorn and you want ICE CREAM? [She laughs and shakes her head. Of course he wants ice cream right now, and probably a five course meal. He's always hungry.] Never mind. I think there's a good place nearby.

[She reaches out to link her hands with his. She should feel bad about the poor slod in the bathroom, but hey, Chekov was always fine after the shocks. So she's going to let all the bad feelings fall away and focus on what's good: the post-orgasm glow, Hei's warmth beside her. Why not get ice cream?]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Of course he wants ice cream. The inside of his stomach would terrify Nietzsche's abyss. ]

[ He lets her slip her little hand into his, sticking both by habit into his coat pocket. Silently and without expression he admires the shape of her face, the shorn tufts of hair glinting in the streetlights, the heat pouring off her like a sine-wave that radiates in shimmers across his cool skin. Everything feels good, warm and contained and safe, this fleeting flare of connection between the two of them, within the larger circle of glittering cityscape that reminds him of the City, the place that made the dubious mess of Hei-and-Korra possible in the first place. ]

[ The ice-cream shop is not too far off. He guides Korra in to the cheerful chiming of the bells ribboned above the door. Takes a moment to peruse the chalk-scrawled menu board. Unfailingly predictable when it comes to breakfast, lunch and dinner, he never orders the same thing twice here. Tonight it is almond ice cream with chocolate sprinkles and chunks of snowskin mooncake. He pays for his and Korra's icy treats, and shovels his face into his cone the moment he has it. He likes this place for its Hong Kong-esque ritual of the ice cream assembly, how the wedge of ice cream is slapped onto the counter, the nuts folded in with a short spatula, the results smashed into a cone. ]

[ He munches his treat out in the sharp air, one hand still wrapped around Korra's, watching idly through the window as a tall hipster-kid with spiky light-pink hair argues for some concoction that demands a precise milk temperature of 170 degrees. ]

[ Dryly, ]

This place is becoming more like my world [ Tokyo, minus the vines ] by the day.

[anatural]

[Korra's choice is a little strange — wakame ice cream. This is the only place she's ever seen it offered. She licks it happily before Hei makes his comment.]

Considering everything I've heard about your world...I'm not sure how I feel about that.

[She gives him a dry look...then realizes she's got ice cream on her nose.]

[mortemscintilla]

I just meant --

[ It's a glittering, stratified city, the same way Tokyo was -- but ever since the new Spirit Portal had been ripped open, it has taken on that breath-held, unearthly glow that reminds him of when the Gate first materialized. The gleaming skyscrapers above, umbilicalled together by streaks of luminous colors, and the bustling traffic, garlands of dusty black power lines, and clamoring marketplaces below -- they're all a testament to how everything that's routine can be torn apart and reshaped, but it won't impede the grind of daily life. ]

[ He doesn't bother explaining that. Too detailed, too philosophical. Instead, with an air of wry good-humor, he reaches out and thumbs the smudge off her nose, before kissing it with cool lips. ]

Never mind.

[anatural]

[She stays close to him — edging into PDA territory, but she doesn't care.]

You can't just leave me hanging like that.

[She squeezes his hand.] What do you think of the city?

[mortemscintilla]

[ Unlike years ago, he doesn't jerk away in a display of moody reserve, or dish out that warning, alpha-dog stare that says Back off, let's not get too friendly. He's long since acknowledged his own critical disloyalty at that tetchiness, and come to accept it as an empty gesture of resistance against everything he feels for the girl. ]

[ So he stays where he is, not cuddling but comfortably close, his fingers folded with hers. He doesn't look at her. Instead his gaze cuts a slow, casual scan across their surroundings -- the swirling currents of pedestrians and glowing streetlamps, the flickering signs and streaks of rumbling satomobiles, At that moment, it looks to him very much like Tokyo -- like a city still clinging to the vestiges of its unmarked childhood, and inexorably losing its grip. ]

[ Eventually, ]

It's the longest I've stayed anywhere. But it still seems ... I don't know. Mysterious. Like it's inviting me to explore what it has to offer. It's new for me. Mostly because I was always so inhibited wherever I went. Always looking over my shoulder. There's less cause for that here.

[ His voice is mild, but its undertones could be either dubious or satisfied. The language of BK201 -- brother and sister -- is a complex structure. ]

[anatural]

[Korra finishes her ice cream while he talks, and crumbles the wrapper into her pocket.]

I'm glad. [She'll never know, but she can imagine what life is like, always looking over your shoulder. Nobody should have to live like that. The fact that he can let that go, even a little bit, is gratifying.

And she loves Republic City. As rough as it's gotten sometimes with reporters, and angry citizens, and President Raiko being a dick, it's her home. It's the place where she really came into her own as the Avatar. It's as much a part of her, if not more, as the South Pole. Which is why she'd been a little nervous that maybe the comparison with his homeworld was a bad one.]

Want to explore?