[ Sex with her wouldn't be a decency. Certainly not in Hei's estimation. Time and distance might've made his disquiet for dragging Korra into the Syndicate's cesspool go into abeyance, but it's still there. He didn't make Korra what she is now, exactly, but he'd been the catalyst. He's already fucked her -- in the foulest way possible. Never mind that they're both tools of their trade: expensive yet expendable weapons who hold no sway, no voice, no futures. Never mind that he was following orders, because that's what a smart lackey did: it was you versus them. Never mind that Hei is -- if not another NC-108 -- then an equally damaged and tainted casualty of the trade. ]
[ It's irrelevant. If not for him, she wouldn't be here. The knowledge, the ambivalence, still twines in Hei's gut with more equivocal and disturbing feelings. Self-hatred. Regret. Rage. Just to name a few. ]
[ Her empty bottle bounces harmlessly off the couch. He doesn't acknowledge her violent display -- or even her presence. With the lights off, all the colors turn to shades of grey, and it seems as if his thoughts are caught and pinned in a similar twilight. Sleep drags him slowly past the surface of hard-wired alertness: his dreams are a blur -- nights in Heaven's War, full of star-silvered steel and blood the color of tar. ]
[ Vaguely, he registers cool fingers on his arm. A familiar scent: apples and cordite. He opens his heavy-lidded eyes. There is curl of green hair at the edges of his vision. Something is inscribed into his wrist: ink or blood. A pair of cool lips touch the point of his cheekbone: he gazes blearily up into golden eyes, at that familiar mona-lisa smile. ]
[ This isn't a dream, he thinks numbly. This is happening. ]
[ He tries to struggle, to shout, but his whole body is deadweight. A dopplering white light sears his vision. Jerking awake -- free from that eerie not-dream -- Hei glances around. The place is undisturbed: Korra is curled at the corner, empty bottles scattered around her like fallen soldiers. ]
[ But the apples-and-cordite scent lingers in the air. Along with the address imprinted on Hei's arm. The handwriting, in a red liquidy-seeming ink, is all curlicues and strange shapes and no punctuation. But he knows at once whose it is. ]
...Amber.
[ The word is buoyed up his throat by a strangling anger: zero to sixty in a nannosecond. She was here. She'd used her ability to bring time to a standstill. She'd left a message on his arm: date and place at a venue that practically screams This is a trap. ]
no subject
[ It's irrelevant. If not for him, she wouldn't be here. The knowledge, the ambivalence, still twines in Hei's gut with more equivocal and disturbing feelings. Self-hatred. Regret. Rage. Just to name a few. ]
[ Her empty bottle bounces harmlessly off the couch. He doesn't acknowledge her violent display -- or even her presence. With the lights off, all the colors turn to shades of grey, and it seems as if his thoughts are caught and pinned in a similar twilight. Sleep drags him slowly past the surface of hard-wired alertness: his dreams are a blur -- nights in Heaven's War, full of star-silvered steel and blood the color of tar. ]
[ Vaguely, he registers cool fingers on his arm. A familiar scent: apples and cordite. He opens his heavy-lidded eyes. There is curl of green hair at the edges of his vision. Something is inscribed into his wrist: ink or blood. A pair of cool lips touch the point of his cheekbone: he gazes blearily up into golden eyes, at that familiar mona-lisa smile. ]
[ This isn't a dream, he thinks numbly. This is happening. ]
[ He tries to struggle, to shout, but his whole body is deadweight. A dopplering white light sears his vision. Jerking awake -- free from that eerie not-dream -- Hei glances around. The place is undisturbed: Korra is curled at the corner, empty bottles scattered around her like fallen soldiers. ]
[ But the apples-and-cordite scent lingers in the air. Along with the address imprinted on Hei's arm. The handwriting, in a red liquidy-seeming ink, is all curlicues and strange shapes and no punctuation. But he knows at once whose it is. ]
...Amber.
[ The word is buoyed up his throat by a strangling anger: zero to sixty in a nannosecond. She was here. She'd used her ability to bring time to a standstill. She'd left a message on his arm: date and place at a venue that practically screams This is a trap. ]
[ Except they both know he'll be there. ]