fuse_box | 'Cause I'm a hazard to myself

WHO: Korra and Hei
WHAT: A series of mildly unfortunate events.

[ Another family visit, Hei thinks acidly, faking a gentle smile and general pleasantries as Tonraq and Senna feign to depart. Their fourth drop-in this month. Ostensibly because they were 'in the neighborhood' -- and not, in fact, because they're here to pressure 'Li' to stop cohabiting with their darling daughter, and man up and put a ring on her finger. Or, in this case, a necklace around her pretty neck. ]

[ Too bad it means a noose around his. ]

[ While Korra prattles with her parents at the doorway, he clears the remnants of dinner (roasted duck stuffed with mushrooms and chilis and pickled carrots) from the table. Calm, cheerful -- but inwardly steeped in the foulness of his mood. Asami has dropped by too: he can hear her giggling at something Tonraq says, hers and Korra's murmurs braiding together in a lilting weave. The whole house is filled with girlish sweetness and family-friendly light, and it is making him unbearably disgusted. ]

[ Stewing, he rinses the dishes with sudsy fingers, watching the briskness of his own hands. They seem so unnatural cradling crockery. They always do. But lately everything else feels like a big pile of unnatural too: the factory-work too tedious, the Beach House's walls too close, the number of guests that drop by every evening too smothering, Asami buzzing around as if she lives here, Tonraq always blustering at Hei's elbow, brimful with manly advice and carefully-worded questions on Hei's future plans, while Senna pokes at every nook and cranny of the kitchen like some creepily Korra-shaped domestic!cop. ]

[ And here is the question: why doesn't he put his foot down? Tell Korra to stop letting Asami over so often? Demand that the 'in-laws' limit their pestering? It's his house too, and who would dare to argue it? It would be reclaiming his life along with it, because it is -- it is like a symbol of something. Of everything. No third wheels, no nosy parents. Why hasn't he? ]

[ Because Tonraq and Senna are nice and unfussy and down-to-earth. Because you don't mind having them around -- in limited doses. Because the same goes for Asami. She's a damn sight better than having Mako or Bolin or those obnoxious Air-Babies over. Also because they're Korra's family, and after all the ways she's accepted you, it's high time you return the favor. ]

[ A twinge of guilt flares. Hei deals with it the only way he knows how. He turns the radio on to the Jazz station, and cranks it up just high enough to cut into conversation. He can feel the others eyeballing him, and looks up winningly, wrist-deep in dishwater. ]

Have a safe trip back.

[ More farewells, more yadda yadda, and then Tonraq, Senna, and finally Asami are out the door, Korra closing it behind them. Hei snaps off the radio at once. Wiping his wet hands on a dishtowel, he mutters, to preempt Korra's prospective scolding, ]

Nice people. But after four hours, I prefer them off the premises.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

anatural

[Asami is the last to leave, with a small, sympathetic smile and an unspoken promise that Korra can come stay with her if things go badly tonight. And things could definitely go badly tonight.

She's pregnant. She noticed the change in her chi this morning, when she was going through her meditations; a life force taking root inside her. It startled her so much, she pretty much fled the house — going straight to Asami. She should have told Hei first; as the father, he deserves to know, but Korra needed — needs — support, and she can't be sure she'll get that from him. It'd been hard enough to get it from him the first time.

The fact that her parents are here isn't helping. They keep asking her why they haven't gotten married yet; now that she's pregnant again, she doesn't really have an answer.]

Yeah. We all could tell. [Nerves make her a bit more snappy than she ought to be. She has to keep a cool head for this discussion, because he's going to lose his shit. She takes a deep breath. She needs to sit him down for a serious discussion. But where would she start? So she grabs a rag to wipe down the table. ]

What do you think about getting married?

From:

mortemscintilla

As little as possible.

[ Terse and tetchy. Maybe it's Korra's tone more than the question itself that touches off a flare of anger in him, working nerves left frayed by the evening's entertainment. He can see her mirrored image in the window, a colorful haze backlit by the deepening purple sky. Her whole body rings with a low-key tension; it makes a wavering wire of her voice. He's come to recognize those jittery cadences over the years; more often than not they mean she wants to have a Serious Talk. ]

[ The vein in Hei's temple throbs, heralding a headache. He doesn't want a Serious Talk tonight. Not with an opener like Marriage. He loves the girl to messy pieces, but he's not in the mood to discuss commitments and contracts, the expectations of permanence. His whole life he has counted on, relied upon the cold, hard truth that nothing lasts: it's the source of both his clarity and his undaunted drive. He is satisfied with their current arrangement, with the ever-mutable structure and temperature of their relationship. ]

[ But he's walking on a tightrope in her world -- unsteady, endless. They both know it. Beyond a few safe-houses, ready cash-in-hand, and a useful network of low-lives, he has nothing to offer Korra. No real niche in the straight-world as an Average Joe. Marriage is a dead-weight he doesn't need. Not unless he wants that wire to snap, to unsettle what little balance he's achieved and send him tumbling down. ]

From:

anatural

That's not a real answer. [He can be so fucking irritating. Korra finishes wiping down the table and tosses the rag into the sink before turning to face him.]

What do you think about us getting married?

[It's not a romantic proposal. She's never fantasized about romantic proposals, or really pictured herself as married. She would've been perfectly content to stay like this for the rest of their lives. But parents get married. Sure, Toph never got married, but Toph exists outside the rules. And honestly? It doesn't strike her as that big a deal. They've been together for a decade. They're practically married as it is.]

From:

mortemscintilla

[ If they're practically married, then why do they need to introduce an ominous piece of paper? Especially when it's going to act as both a double-edged sword hanging over their heads, and a ball-and-chain shackling them to each other? Marriage is just another translation of control, and contracts are the embodiment of that control, a cold business-deal couched in false sentiments and false-bottomed forevers. ]

[ At her words, he ignores a trickle of anger. Worse than anger: something like a premonition. Like she's trying to back him into a corner. He ignores the lure as paranoia. Talks of permanence always fuel his claustrophobia. He can't help it. For years, he's known that love is the softest trap imaginable. So soft you don't even feel how badly you are snared -- how can it be a trap when you know its every sweet curve and hot pulse? ]

[ He's already welcomed an enormous risk by falling in love. By letting himself be so intimately fused to another person. But he refuses to make a dungeon out of it. ]

[ One by one, he dries the dishes, stacking them in their proper shelves. His movements are deceptively relaxed, but there is a bunched strain in the muscles of his nape, riding like a coiled serpent up the length of his spine. ]

[ Tonelessly, ]

I think neither of us needs something so outdated and pointless.

From:

anatural

[What's so ominous about one little piece of paper?]

Outdated and pointless?

[She stares at him, hurt despite herself. Her head may know it's nothing personal, but her heart can't help kind of taking it personally.]

What is that supposed to mean?

From:

mortemscintilla

[ The fact that it's never just a little piece of paper. It's a contract to uphold an institution governed by laws and regulations. Who needs that? ]

[ The whole conversation pricks at Hei, angers him on some level he can't communicate, that after how many years she's known him, how familiar she is with his system of understanding, she'd still bring up marriage as if he's the type to accept it with open arms and a choir of tinkling bells. But he makes himself let that go. It's easy to forget the discrepancies in their backgrounds. Korra was raised as a prodigy, a shining star, the most pedestalized of Good Girls. She is a good girl, truth be told -- diametrically opposed to the deceitful and self-serving lifestyle Hei has practiced for years. To her, marriage is a joyful inevitability, a sparkly lure at the end of a bright tunnel of romance, courtship, and good sex. It's what normal, decent people do. ]

[ Too bad Hei isn't normal or decent. He's a Contractor. In many ways still a consummate professional -- and they are never transported by sentiment. Love is your own poison of choice, but he's learnt never to be carried away because of it, longing for commitment, or hoping to move the 'relationship' to the next level. For him, it's expedience -- pure and simple. ]

[ Shutting the cabinet with a forcefully quiet click, he faces her. His face is closed up, flatly inexpressive. But it's a dismissal more than a rebuke. ]

I mean it's a relic of bygone days. It tries to define your relationship. There are no benefits to it. None that make sense, anyway.

From:

anatural

My parents are married. Tenzin & Pema are married. Varrick and Zhu Li are married. Even Bolin & Opal are married. I wouldn't exactly call it "a relic of bygone days."

[She crosses her arms across her chest, despite the instinct to wrap them around her belly. She's wishing that she hadn't brought up the marriage topic. She's just made bringing up the real issue that much harder. But she's also riled up enough that she can't let the topic drop. For someone who claims to be as coldly rational as he does, he can be so freaking irrational.]

From:

mortemscintilla

[ As far as he's concerned, she's the one being irrational. That argumentum ad populum shit hardly makes marriage a commendable decision. If her friends and family want to tie the knot, that's their funeral. There are plenty of others who never do -- and are perfectly sane and happy. Why does she want to get married anyway? She's never expressed a desire for it before. Least of all with someone like him. A piss-poor boyfriend, who will by all rights be the worst type of husband. He can almost imagine his vows to her at the altar: I solemnly swear I will let you down. ]

[ The idea makes his stomach curdle. When he regards her, it's with a baffled irritation, deliberately tamped down. ]

It is. [ Words that should be flat rise instead from a deep, tight place in his chest. ] It's also insecure as hell -- because people seek social acceptance by marrying. The security of a label. Like their relationship isn't good enough until society gives its stamp of approval. After which it's magically a respectable union with substance. [ His lip curls, weariness, disdain. ] That's not how it works.

[ Because you commit deeds, not words. How can she not understand that? He's committed to her -- one-hundred percent hers, firing all the cylinders -- without the irrelevancy of rings and vows. Isn't it enough? ]

From:

anatural

What would you know about it? [Korra glowers at him.] You avoid spending time with them. You won't spend time with anyone who's actually happy. If you're not here, talking to nobody, or at the factory talking to nobody, you're out with the most miserable, angry, messed up dredges of society. You talk like you know everything about everything, but you refuse to leave your little corner of misery.

[It drives her nuts --- had always driven her nuts --- how he isolates himself in cynicism and unhappiness. When given the opportunity to see a different side of life, too be with people who aren't completely miserable, he rejects it with an almost full-body horror. The most frustrating part is she understands where he's coming from. She's done the same thing herself, in the City, right after returning home, after being poisoned. She understands the jaded impulse. But art the end of the day, that dark cynicism just eats you alive. She doesn't want that for him.]

From:

mortemscintilla

[ In a blink, the irritation extinguishes, blotted out by the red-hot flare of rage. He might be trapped in his reality-tunnel as surely as she is trapped in hers. But there's a reason he's never comfortable around her circle. He has nothing in common with them. He's grown up in a world where ruthlessness and rage secure your survival in a lopsided society -- unlike compliance, which leads to slavery, starvation and death. Goodness does not pay a living wage. There is always a disconnect between him and the normal world -- and there always will be. They don't speak the same language, or inhabit the same culture. ]

[ And is it such a loss? Most normal people are indistinguishable in their all-encompassing ignorance: a river of well-fed selfishness, a contagion of insecure conceit. What's more, they thrive at the expense of those "miserable, angry, messed up dredges of society." The shadow world Hei dwells in exists solely so that human beings can live their true nature, express their darkest drives, without endangering the stability of everyday life -- the illusion of wholesome society -- which is the very bedrock of every culture. ]

[ When he speaks, the words are cold with anger and a deeper layer of contempt. ]

My little corner of misery is the reason those happy people stay happy. [ Gutters exist to maintain the beauty of palaces, isn't that the saying? It's not a gross generalization when he's seen it and lived it, knowing the privilege of the Normal Half was just a flipside of the misery of child-soldiers, hustlers, thieves and conmen. People like him. ] So excuse me if I don't join them in their perfect bubble.

From:

anatural

Oh please. You give yourself too much credit. [She can't keep sitting. She pushes herself to her feet, almost vibrating with anger.] You just want to believe your misery lets other people stay happy so you have an excuse to stay miserable. So you can indulge in your twisted superiority complex.

From:

mortemscintilla

[ Hei stays where he is, unblinking, his pose one of locked-in rigidity. There is rage beneath the smooth surface of his face -- real rage -- and more. Belief. Because it would make it easier to accept that his weltanschauung is fabricated to nurse the festering sores of his bitterness. That permeating his every thought, souring every remark, tainting every conviction, is prejudice and resentment, and something worse: blind hatred for anything happy and flourishing. ]

[ Except it's not that simple. He's lived in a state of privation almost all his life -- coasting by his wits, on the edge of the blade, under relentless attack. It's more than just a matter of resenting the Better Half because they could never know what it's like to crouch inside a muddy trench with sores on your filthy bare feet, shivering under a blanket that's too thin for the winter, or to have skin bloody with flea-bites and chiggers, or rocks tied with ropes to your stomach to stave off those wrenching hunger-pangs. ]

[ It's worse than that. He's disconnected from the happy people, the privileged, because they speak entirely different vocabularies. All their problems are social and psychological. An asshole boss. A dismal commute. A stale sandwich. A depressing job. But suppose you are programmed in a totally different way. Suppose your very existence is constantly under fire, and there is no way out -- no way out but to blackmail and fuck and kill. That is how Hei has lived. As a walking target, a whipping-toy, one of the million scapegoats who exist to keep those on top plump and smiling and well-dressed. ]

[ He was simply lucky enough -- unrelenting enough -- to break free. ]

'Excuse'. [ The words are quiet, but hold an edge of finely honed disgust. How can someone be so willfully obtuse? ] There were no 'excuses' where I was, Korra. You were either alive and miserable -- or you were dead. No in-between. Maybe my problem is rationalizing the world according to how I lived it. But yours is denial. If you think you and your friends live those squeaky-clean lives without someone else paying the price for it, I wonder if you've learnt anything about being the Avatar at all.

From:

anatural

[Of course he thinks that SHE'S being "willfully obtuse". Of course he calls her life "squeaky clean" when it hasn't been, not since she was seventeen. She didn't grow up a child soldier, but she's been in the thick of a bloody, brutal war. She has made decisions she can never tell her parents about for the sake of the greater good. And she has seen the terrible things he's done and said nothing. Her hands are not clean. She knows more than perhaps he realizes of how the suffering of some supports the comfort of others. She and the people she cares about --- the people he refuses to get involved with, to know at all --- are working every day to change that. Not just herself and Asami, admittedly children of privilege, but Mako and Bolin, who grew up knowing suffering and privation, who have had to get their hands dirty to survive.

A few years ago, she would've tried to slap him for talking to her like that. Even now her anger is itching to manifest in violence, physicality being the way she prefers to express feeling. But she holds herself back. A fight with him would be brutal... She's confident that she could beat him, but the cost isn't worth contemplating. She has a life to protect.]

You can think whatever you want. [She forces herself to breathe, deep steady gulps until the urge to keep fighting is under control. She can't tell him about the pregnancy, not tonight. Not until they've both calmed down.] I'm going to spend the night somewhere else.

'Cause I'm a hazard to myself

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