mortemscintilla: ψ  Say it once, say it twice! (Reaper - Glance)
Hei (Li Shenshung) ([personal profile] mortemscintilla) wrote in [community profile] fuse_box2015-03-14 08:06 pm

You don't know how you got here

WHO: Korra and Hei.
WHAT: Two Contractors after a messy hit.

[ The assignment is complete. After a fashion. ]

[ The target's stretch limousine explodes, a time-bomb hurtling at eighty miles per hour. Hei verifies the detonation in the side-view mirror of their getaway van. The brilliant flames glow across the express lane, a bonfire on a humid July night, the deadly cacophony fifty yards behind him on the I-95. The ferocity from the detonation rolls through the atmosphere, juddering both sides of the interstate and adjacent roads like in a San Francisco earthquake. Brake lights flare in a screeching chorus. Behind Hei, beyond the blazing limousine, four lanes of interstate crowded with cars, trucks, and motorcycles careen to an ear-splitting halt, too late for speed demons to swerve and avoid flying debris. ]

[ Their van keeps going. The target is dead. The botched mission completed in less than forty-eight hours. The teflon-coated politician inside the limo had coasted through a dream-life of caviar and champagne, bodyguards at his side, girls in his lap, boys paid to shoot and kill and girls trained to smile and please. A man who didn't hesitate to have his enemies dragged to the desert and fed to the buzzards. ]

[ A prominent Syndicate faction had become one of his problems. And so the politician became one of theirs. ]

[ All BK201 knows is what he'd been briefed on, during the overseas assignment. And that, in itself, isn't much. The less the killing-machines knew, the better. What mattered was that they rectified the situation as they'd been ordered to. ]

[ The remote trigger that sparked blast is still in Hei's gloved hand. With a zzzt and a curl of smoke, he shorts it out. Tosses it out the window, while their van lurches from right lane to left lane to right lane, threading traffic like a bulky needle, becoming a fast-moving blur vanishing down I-95. Hei exhales, absorbing the metal's chill; the van is a freezer. Across him is the only other survivor of the hit: NC-108. Korra. Both their faces are crusted in dried blood, clothes grimy, hair in tufts. But everything else is intact -- unlike the rest of their teammates. The politician managed to weed them out before they'd fully infiltrated his base. Two were murdered in their hotel room by a hitman dressed as a waiter. The other three were machine-gunned on the street last night during dinner in a café by hostiles in police uniforms. The Syndicate is still recovering their mangled bodies. ]

[ Hei and Korra were advised to abort the operation and contact their respective handlers. Neither had bothered. Hei, because his inner-completionist refused to leave the job undone. Korra, because -- let's face it -- she has a streak, miles wide, that compels her to throw herself into the maelstrom of disaster, daredevilry the cover for an easy exit. During their firefight with the politician's hitmen, Hei had to drag her away a few times from almost certain disembowelment or death -- narrow saves that made Korra grin like she was high, the fevery glow off her skin like an irradiated firefly. ]

[ Hei can't say it bodes well. Not for her -- or her long-term career. ]

[ It doesn't matter. They've both succeeded at this mission. Five dead teammates equal five less cuts on the final payment. There's a tidy sum waiting for the two of them. A quarter of a million dollars, each. Hei's cellphone has already vibrated with the message: FUNDS TRANSFERRED. ]

[ It's a living, he thinks, gazing out the window with a sedate veneer but a tensile edge to his jaw. Forty-eight hours, five eliminated associates, and he's earned $250,000. And all it took was a few scrapes and bruises, a tricky full-immersion identity, and a block of old-fashioned C-4. ]

[ The Syndicate's safehouse is in an old motel, one of twelve pink stucco cottages strung out around a gravel parking lot. The cabin reeks of must, and like everything that night, humidly salty. Switching on the rattling air-conditioner, Hei conducts his careful sweep for bugs across the room. Satisfied, he shrugs off his coat -- stiff with caked blood -- before glancing impassively toward Korra, ]


Take the first shower.

[ He's not being a gentleman. But the widest window for enemy retaliation -- and the Syndicate's own post-mission clean-ups -- occurs in the twelve hours after the successful hit. If they're ambushed, Hei doesn't plan to be naked, dripping wet and unarmed. ]
anatural: Korra is sarcastic (this is also sarcasm)

[personal profile] anatural 2015-03-16 02:45 am (UTC)(link)
[What she wants is to work off her excess energy. She wants intensity and pleasure and the oblivion that comes with a really good orgasm. If she likes it best with people who don't care, it's because they don't try to psychoanalyze her or trawl for feelings which aren't there.]

Wow. Somebody's got self-esteem issues. [Well-deserved ones, admittedly. The jibe about her own decisions bounces right off of her; she has no interest in living Hei's definition of a "good life." Constantly breaking and re-shaping himself to satisfy their superiors, sacrificing pleasure for the sake of extending his pathetic existence as a slave. It'd make sense if he had some hope of being free in the future, but there is nothing rational about choosing to extend a life of endless misery.]

But whatever. Point taken. I'll go... do those push-ups. [She heads up to the bedroom.]
anatural: Korra is ready to kick ass (kick ass)

[personal profile] anatural 2015-03-16 11:28 pm (UTC)(link)
[What's wasteful about it? Korra is enjoying her days to the best of her ability, and if it kills her young, that's fine because there's nobody who loves her. Nobody who would miss her except for the people who used her. The people she had loved and the people she would have lived for have forgotten her entirely.

She has no one to live for but herself. So she'll take enjoyment instead of safety.

And in her defense, she goes to the bedroom with the best of intentions. She does 300 pushups before throwing herself onto the bed. Another hundred crunches after deciding against masturbation. She doesn't want to jill off. She wants the kind of sex that leaves bruises.

So Fuck it. Hei can hole up here all safe and cozy and bored. Korra lets down her hair and takes out the contacts that she'd been using to disguise her bright-blue eyes. With a stealth that would surprise Hei, she slips out the window and heads out to the closest bar.]
anatural: Pencil test of Korra dancing (Dancing: Finishing move)

[personal profile] anatural 2015-03-17 01:31 am (UTC)(link)
[Here's the thing, Hei — Korra's done this before. This is hardly the first time she's left the safehouse before the allotted time. Would the Syndicate prefer that she stay put like a good little girl? Of course. But her value as an asset outweighs the inconvenience of her disobedience.

They've even got a whole little system worked out. An operative or two keeps an eye on the trashiest bars in the town near the safehouse. They make sure she isn't double-dealing, usually by taking her to bed themselves. Korra knows this, and she keeps an eye out for them. Might as well bang the Syndicate-approved pieces of ass.

Right now, though, she's dancing. Four shots to the wind and letting the energy flow through her.]
anatural: Korra grins smugly (Smug: Coy look)

[personal profile] anatural 2015-03-17 02:33 am (UTC)(link)
[Korra grins. Caught. But she just grabs his hand and twirls herself around.]

Worried, Dad?

[She gives zero fucks. Z e r o.]
anatural: Korra is sarcastic (this is also sarcasm)

[personal profile] anatural 2015-03-17 03:10 am (UTC)(link)
Who died and made you my handler? [She asks, rolling her eyes and her hips. Standing still in the middle of a dance floor is a great way to draw attention, at least of the people around you. But as long as you keep dancing, nobody cares what you say. So she keeps up with the beat. It's over. You go your way; I'll go mine. Everybody goes happy. Or what passes for it when you're a jackass withn stick up your butt.
anatural: Korra tacklehugs Mako (Shippy: Joyful tackle hug)

[personal profile] anatural 2015-03-18 12:10 am (UTC)(link)
[She snickers — but the snicker dies out as she notices some men moving. They're good; they don't do anything until after Hei has left the building, so he won't notice he's being followed. Revenge for tonight's shenanigans, or related to something else the Black Reaper has done?

Korra's not sure. And she doesn't care. But still... If they're after Hei, they could also be after her, and they could have backup.

She grabs someone's drink, chugs it down to cover her actions, and feigns stumbling out the door. She calls out Hei's codename, giving him the alert both that she's coming and to not be surprised when she grabs onto him and kisses him like a girl just drunk enough to do something stupid.

Under her breath, without removing her lips from his, she gives him the enemy rundown — five men, all packing.]
anatural: Korra flirts with Bolin (Shippy: Let's get outta here)

[personal profile] anatural 2015-03-18 01:28 am (UTC)(link)
[Korra giggles like he just made a little lovers joke. She's gotten better at these little lies and subterfuges; what the Syndicate failed to teach her she picked up from her one-night stands.]

Not if I move first.

[Not far off there's a fire hydrant... She twirls around, trying to make it seem like she's doing a silly drunken dance -- when she's actually bending the water out in a controlled explosion. She sends a sheet of ice down the road, aiming to catch their feet and freeze them in place.]
anatural: Korra looks cheerful (i am happy and cheerful)

[personal profile] anatural 2015-03-18 02:07 am (UTC)(link)
[If he wanted her to get the fuck out of her system, he should've let her take them all. Just one schmuck isn't even a challenge. Korra bends the earth from under his feet and flips him around until he's crushed under a giant boulder.

In just a few minutes, the street is covered with corpses. Not the kind of mess you want to leave lying around.]


I may be flashy, but you are really messy.

[Luckily, it's a dirt road. She bends a giant hole in the ground -- at least fifty feet deep -- and dumps the bodies and the bloody dirt inside. Then she bends the earth shut again, and it's like nothing ever happened. The perfect cover up.

She's panting slightly as she finishes, winded but far from worn out. She gives him a dry look.


Just think. All of this could've been avoided if you'd fucked me when you had the chance.
anatural: Korra looking up with her hair down (Happy: Hair down dreaming)

[personal profile] anatural 2015-03-18 02:41 am (UTC)(link)
[She snorts. Fine, whatever.]

So we split up. Makes us less of a target.

[It's a question disguised as a statement. Korra's got a rough sense of strategy -- enough that solo missions aren't suicide -- but between the two of them, Hei's the master. Deferring to his judgement in this only makes sense.]
anatural: Korra looking up with her hair down (Happy: Hair down dreaming)

[personal profile] anatural 2015-03-18 03:21 am (UTC)(link)
[Hunted, horny, and trapped with Mr. Ice Balls -- this is shaping up to be a great evening. But Korra doesn't bother getting upset about it.]

I know a place. Maybe twenty minutes away. Got cash for cab fare? [Her biker shorts are lacking in pockets. Fortunately, she doesn't need a key to get into the place she's thinking of -- an empty house in an affluent neighborhood. The houses were far enough apart that you couldn't tell if someone was breaking in unless you were looking really hard, but close enough that too much noise would get the cops swarming quickly. Not the typical Syndicate safehouse, and the kind of place where you'd hesitate to make a move unless you didn't care about attention. From what she can tell, the guys after them do. They won't want the noise and nuisance of frightened suburbanites.]
anatural: Korra looking up with her hair down (Happy: Hair down dreaming)

[personal profile] anatural 2015-03-18 04:02 am (UTC)(link)
Let's go then.

[At the main road, she flags down a cab for them. Gives the cabbie the address of an apartment complex a few blocks away from their actual destination so the neighbors won't notice. As they drive, she cozies up to Hei, pretending to be sleepy to avoid making conversation with the driver, and so the driver doesn't wonder why his passengers aren't talking to each other. Considering how turned on she still is, the entire drive is torture.]
anatural: Korra tacklehugs Mako (Shippy: Joyful tackle hug)

[personal profile] anatural 2015-03-19 12:57 am (UTC)(link)
[Ouch. That huts, man. That cuts real deep. Korra smiles like she's besotted and grabs his hand.]

Don't drop the act until we're inside. Suburbanites could be watching.

[But mostly she just wants to irritate him, and as much physical contact as she can get. She leads him down a few blocks, just a couple taking an evening stroll, until they reach a neighborhood of cozy little colonials. Korra strolls to the back door of the one with a bright red porch. There's an outside door to the basement, which is kept unlocked. A neighborhood this rich doesn't worry about squatters.

Once they're inside, she presses him against the wall and kisses him. It can definitely hurt to try — but she doesn't mind hurting.]
anatural: Korra frowns (Annoyed: Sulky frown)

[personal profile] anatural 2015-03-19 01:48 am (UTC)(link)
Well yeah. I'm not going to put on a free show. [Korra can't say she's surprised that he pushes her away, but it's still frustrating. It's not like she has many alternatives here. (Nor is she accustomed to being rebuffed. Most people have been happy to be one of her bad decisions.)]

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