[ Hei doesn't bat an eyelid when she hijacks his drink for a sip. Instead he half-turns away from her, his lip curling as he raises the glass to his lips. He can hear her laugh ribboning sleekly through the air, audible over the burble of music, before she melts into the dancefloor. He likes her laugh, he realizes. It's not like Amber's, or Pai's. It's a warm golden jumble of incongruities: deep, but also sweet, almost innocent in its delighted timbre, the entire combination like a smooth drizzling of honey across the brain. ]
[ Blinking, Hei shakes his head clear. God, he's probably getting buzzed on his drink. ]
[ He watches her dance, the energy born from a helical inner frizz of cell within her allowed expression. He envies how she can be so caught up in the beat -- but he understands the need to move, to keep the blood flowing, the pulse thumping. Never as good as fucking or fighting but it is in the ballpark. And as he'd predicted, the boys come to her -- ants swarming a dollop of sugar. ]
[ Who she picks isn't his business, so Hei glances away, returns to scanning the room as he sips his drink. No one pings his radar, and before long he's trying out a home-brewed cerveza, and then is spirited into a flirting conversation with one of the local barflies, who laughs at his deliberately stilted English and twinkles at him. Not a bad package: older than him by a handful of years, tumbling blonde hair, a nose ring that she manages to make look elegant; or at least sophisticated. And she gives him a look -- the look -- that is almost a laser-sharp perusal. This is the type of woman he should be having stupid flings with. Not girls like Korra, soft-skinned, bright-burning disasters who live as supernovas do -- struggling to achieve escape velocity straight out of this world, spitting stray sparks in their wake that burn glowing holes into your skin. ]
[ His Lady of the Moment coaxes him out back to a dark corner of the deserted beer-garden. No doubt she assumes he's in a relationship with Korra -- the resulting associated paranoia of which would explain the countersurveillance moves he doesn't bother to hide as he scans the area. By the telltale signs, she's married herself, and he doubts she'd find the idea of a little inconstancy shocking. ]
[ They get to kissing, and she coos and ripples approvingly as he gets his hand up under her skirt. Wine-buzzed, aroused, but still alert, Hei deliberates whether he should fuck her. Conventional wisdom decrees he snap up whatever is on offer, never knowing when the opportunity might come around again: she's not a Contractor, or a human honeytrap, and in his estimation that makes her as safe as houses. ]
[ But the whole thing would be the sexual equivalent of a lube job. Pure maintenance. ]
[ A sly part of him whispers, You have a better option. She's out on the dancefloor. Hei dismisses it in the same heartbeat. He's not in the particular mood to have sex with some random chick. But he's run down his capital of patience with Korra, and she with him -- they both need to drink beer and unwind and talk to people who aren't each other. ]
[ The days of being practically glued together, at each others' throats, have been hellish. ]
no subject
[ Blinking, Hei shakes his head clear. God, he's probably getting buzzed on his drink. ]
[ He watches her dance, the energy born from a helical inner frizz of cell within her allowed expression. He envies how she can be so caught up in the beat -- but he understands the need to move, to keep the blood flowing, the pulse thumping. Never as good as fucking or fighting but it is in the ballpark. And as he'd predicted, the boys come to her -- ants swarming a dollop of sugar. ]
[ Who she picks isn't his business, so Hei glances away, returns to scanning the room as he sips his drink. No one pings his radar, and before long he's trying out a home-brewed cerveza, and then is spirited into a flirting conversation with one of the local barflies, who laughs at his deliberately stilted English and twinkles at him. Not a bad package: older than him by a handful of years, tumbling blonde hair, a nose ring that she manages to make look elegant; or at least sophisticated. And she gives him a look -- the look -- that is almost a laser-sharp perusal. This is the type of woman he should be having stupid flings with. Not girls like Korra, soft-skinned, bright-burning disasters who live as supernovas do -- struggling to achieve escape velocity straight out of this world, spitting stray sparks in their wake that burn glowing holes into your skin. ]
[ His Lady of the Moment coaxes him out back to a dark corner of the deserted beer-garden. No doubt she assumes he's in a relationship with Korra -- the resulting associated paranoia of which would explain the countersurveillance moves he doesn't bother to hide as he scans the area. By the telltale signs, she's married herself, and he doubts she'd find the idea of a little inconstancy shocking. ]
[ They get to kissing, and she coos and ripples approvingly as he gets his hand up under her skirt. Wine-buzzed, aroused, but still alert, Hei deliberates whether he should fuck her. Conventional wisdom decrees he snap up whatever is on offer, never knowing when the opportunity might come around again: she's not a Contractor, or a human honeytrap, and in his estimation that makes her as safe as houses. ]
[ But the whole thing would be the sexual equivalent of a lube job. Pure maintenance. ]
[ A sly part of him whispers, You have a better option. She's out on the dancefloor. Hei dismisses it in the same heartbeat. He's not in the particular mood to have sex with some random chick. But he's run down his capital of patience with Korra, and she with him -- they both need to drink beer and unwind and talk to people who aren't each other. ]
[ The days of being practically glued together, at each others' throats, have been hellish. ]