[ The crunch-time between inanimate and exanimate -- as dictated by a heartbeat -- makes it worse. As if he's caught in a high-risk mission, the digits of the clock melting away, the time-bomb ticking steadily, nothing to stop the ferocious end-it-all explosion. ]
[ He can feel Korra's arm, barely a breath away from his thigh. His skin burns beneath the denim, warmth flooding up his muscles. But he doesn't react to her unvoiced offer. If he gives in to it, he'll go like melting, unable to articulate what's brewing inside his skull, to avert this Cuban missile crisis born from the combined emergency of premonition and fear. He wishes he could wrangle and subdue it. Squash it flat, the way he's done with innumerable enemies. He is pissed at his ambivalence, pissed at himself, pissed at this situation. ]
[ Nothing shows on his face. His eyes have taken on that inky blackness, as if he's hung up a vacancy sign in his skull and left no forwarding address. ]
[ A beat, then two. Finally: ]
You love your parents, right?
[ It's a rhetorical question. Of course she does. Most decent, well-raised children do. But when he speaks next, it's slow, the words clogged at the edges. What does he think he's up to? Something has gone awry inside his brain, where such decisions are made; a valve of self-control has failed, and he feels himself caught on a spillage of unfiltered honesty. ]
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Date: 2015-02-20 01:44 am (UTC)[ He can feel Korra's arm, barely a breath away from his thigh. His skin burns beneath the denim, warmth flooding up his muscles. But he doesn't react to her unvoiced offer. If he gives in to it, he'll go like melting, unable to articulate what's brewing inside his skull, to avert this Cuban missile crisis born from the combined emergency of premonition and fear. He wishes he could wrangle and subdue it. Squash it flat, the way he's done with innumerable enemies. He is pissed at his ambivalence, pissed at himself, pissed at this situation. ]
[ Nothing shows on his face. His eyes have taken on that inky blackness, as if he's hung up a vacancy sign in his skull and left no forwarding address. ]
[ A beat, then two. Finally: ]
You love your parents, right?
[ It's a rhetorical question. Of course she does. Most decent, well-raised children do. But when he speaks next, it's slow, the words clogged at the edges. What does he think he's up to? Something has gone awry inside his brain, where such decisions are made; a valve of self-control has failed, and he feels himself caught on a spillage of unfiltered honesty. ]
I killed mine.