You don't know how you got here

[mortemscintilla]

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. ]

Comments

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei lets his thumb rest where it is, gripped by her exquisite heat. Lets her work her hips, settling to the unfamiliar invasion. He doesn't prod or nudge; he lets it stay there, letting her feel gently full, while his pointer finger strokes the slippery cleft of her vulva, from clit to entrance. Her gorgeous eagerness makes him feel as if he's got something caught in his chest and groin, something prickly-hot and secret which the barest whisper of breath might dislodge. Hunger? Or is it something else -- a base gratitude? ]

[ He isn't sure. ]

[ By diplomatic stages, he withdraws his hand. His edged, detached manner hides what appears to be a genuine interest in making sure she enjoys this. (Why? Why should it matter if she does or doesn't? Why should anyone's needs matter but his own?) He doesn't know the answer to that, either. Rising, he pads into the narrow kitchenette of the villa -- chipped black and white tiles and an enormous metal ice box. There's a bottle of olive oil on the stained formica counter; he snags it before retrieving a second square of condoms from his discarded trousers. He doesn't have to worry about the oil degrading the sheath. His brand is non-latex; personally he's never liked that antiseptic scent in the generic variety. ]

[ He returns to Korra, a debauched spill of curves and sleek muscle across the bed. Just watching her stirs a distinct, blade-edged hunger that makes all his nerves heat up with a recognition of urgency. Dragging her closer by the hips, he softens his mouth, slides tongue and teeth luxuriously down her spine to the swell of her buttocks. Hands coasting up her thighs, he spreads her open, tongue a quick slippery dart across the bud of her ass, before he curls it between the plump folds of her sex, lapping her from front to back. With his other hand, he dips a finger into that tight origami crinkle of her anus, coaxing her open with a slow in-and-out subterfuge -- first one digit, then two, all the way to the knuckles. Meanwhile his tongue swivels all around her soft salt-seeping skin, over and over and over, alternating between her fluttering opening and the taut point of her clit, for as long as it will take to build that aching strain, that synchronicity between them. ]

[anatural]

[You could've had so much more of this, Hei, if you'd just taken her up on her original offer. Though the long days of frustration certainly did add to the intensity of her reactions. Yet it's not just the frustration. It's him. Her relationship with Hei has always been strange, such a mixed bag of emotions that she could never really say what she felt about him, whether she hated him or something else, but none of them lukewarm or apathetic. Being around him is intense. Fucking him is... almost indescribable. The thrill of the taboo, without actually doing anything taboo. The weird way he cares about her pleasure, and she still can't figure out whether it's Hei being strange or if it's part of some larger agenda. Either way, she's taking advantage of it for all its worth.

And she's not thinking too hard about any of it. When Hei crawls off her to go get another condom, she takes the opportunity to stretch, shaking off the last traces of post-orgasmic lassitude and making sure she doesn't get a backache from spending too long on her stomach. She's excited to be trying this new thing. (Poor Mako — he'd wanted to try it with her too, but he never managed to sell her on the appeal. Perhaps he was also hesitant to stick his precious wang up the dirt hole.)

She wants to make some clever, snarky comment as he settles back on top of her, his hands and tongue running over her like they're cats and he's grooming her. Nothing comes to mind. So instead, she sinks into herself, focuses her attention entirely on what she's feeling, and moans.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ The larger agenda is a given: they're both Contractors. Layers and duplicity are their purview. Spycraft is knowing where to put the But, the Only. Where to draw the boundary, while always wielding trust like it's a blade that can swing awry and cut you without warning. And maybe there is no trust here, but there's a zitzing hum of tension that ties them together. (Whether that's knowledge or hatred or something else altogether, who's to say?) ]

[ Maybe that's what makes it easier? Easier for Hei to feel considerate for a moment, to give himself the chance to touch her significantly, in a kind of blank-faced trance that lets him hide things from himself. If you erase each moment as it happens, you don't have to look back. He's always erasing himself, because he's the worst of himself, in deep, so erasure is a kindness to whoever he's with. Which is what lets him be something almost indulgent right now -- something entirely removed from what he usually is. ]

[ She moans, and the sound judders all through Hei, an ache from spine to groin like stretching a long atrophied muscle, nerves lighting up as heat prickles in. With luxuriant thoroughness, his tongue whorls around her clit, while the fingers in her ass fuck her with a maddening languor, working in deeper, stretching her wider, a clingy hot flutter around his fingers as if that part of her exists for no purpose but to embrace him. ]

[ Once he's satisfied by the signals of her body -- the drained-hot lassitude that is sister to arousal -- he withdraws his fingers. A moment later, Korra will feel cool liquid spilling into her. One palm starfished between her shoulderblades, he keeps her pinned. The other measures the gleaming curves of her ass before he smears the oil across that tight pucker, dabs it in with one finger, then two, then gradually three, the lubricant sliding in thick deep dollops into her. ]

[ The fingers of his free hand skim across her spine, the nape of her neck. The touch is almost dreamy. Nothing like the dark currents in his voice. ]

Get ready.

[anatural]

[She manages to muster up one sassy comment, somehow, who knows how —]

I thought that was your job.

[But no, she's ready. She is very much ready. She wants that fullness, that warmth, that rhythm that you can only really get from a phallus (made of flesh or otherwise). She wants every dark promise hinted at in his voice.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei ignores the snark, plastic crinkling as he fits himself with the condom. In the imperfect silence of the room, the noise is almost illicit. Light-headed, an electric thrill of anticipation humming through him, he arranges himself closer, his thighs pressing at the backs of Korra's legs and his cock sliding into the cleft of her behind. It's a weird warm non-contact because of the thick smear of lubricant, the sheath itself, and then the texture and heat of Korra's skin comes into focus instead. ]

[ Tracing the beads of her spine with open-mouthed bites, he shifts in closer, his body a stripe of warmth from her nape to her knees. The head of his cock circles the slippery crinkled bud of her anus, then pushes. A breathless squeeze, a stirring rhythm, while he feels the hot muscles of her body clamping down on his as if to devour him. Slowly, so slowly, he sinks in deeper. Withdraws a bit, then sinks in a fraction more, until with a slick pop, the flaring head is buried in her. ]

[ Fuck. Panting, Hei keeps himself deep and still while lightning crackles through his body. The curve of his free hand is clasped to her nape: he squeezes in a silent question. Good? Bad? ]

[anatural]

[Korra buries her head as best she can in the mattress and struggles to breathe. Stretch-wise, it's no more challenging than when he had three fingers inside her. But it's different. Fingers are clever. They have a kind of subtlety to them. Fingers explore — where dicks invade. Once he gets that rhythm going, it's going to be brutal.

She's panting for it. She rocks her hips up, encouraging him to go deeper, to start plundering. Make it rough.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ The way she stirs under him, it's as if she can't make herself wait: already lifting her tailbone and pushing back. Dizzy, Hei finally gets enough of a seat, the first few electric inches of his cock sinking in deeper, his hips straining forward helplessly. His breathing hacks out as if he's been hit: the sound of Korra's jittery inhale-exhales feeds a shiver from his hairline to his toes. Slowly, he rocks closer, and his cock glides deeper in a heated rush that makes his eyes drift half-shut with a quiet purl of satisfaction. The heat of her is tight and slippery-rough and unspeakably luscious. Gripping her by both her hips, he bears forward -- piercing her, sliding in, buried balls-deep. ]

[ Fuck. ]

[ For a moment, he breathes slowly. Gathers himself, flattening the tremors that almost had him. Keeping his brutal grip on her hips, he angles her ass lewdly high, until she's on her elbows and knees, his body curled tightly over and around hers. Two short sloppy strokes, almost experimental -- and then he gets a rhythm going, not cruel, but by no means tender. He enters with driving, powerful strokes, the full length of his cock filling that hot channel, each motion a percussive jolt of pleasure that makes his brain reel. ]

[anatural]

[Korra screams into the mattress. Fuck fuck fuck FUCK. She never knew she had nerve endings up there — like, fun nerve endings. It's like he's hitting all her good spots, but twice as intense. Is it because her anus is tighter? Because of the angle? She doesn't know. She wants to know. She wants — ]

Harder. Fuck me harder.

[mortemscintilla]

[ Her words are a spark-shock on Hei's nerves, bright and burning. He can't get enough of her lovely inviting moans, the muffled screams, the way she arches and churns her hips as if her entire body is offering itself to him, pushing back that plump and perfect bottom as if she can't get enough. ]

[ His eyes half-closing, he captures a damp fistful of her hair in his fist, tipping her head back so she can't hide her sounds even against the buffer of the mattress, her spine curled into an exquisite ligature as his other hand spans her hips in a crueler grasp. Slamming forward, a sharp stutter-snap of his hips, he yanks her to meet him, feeling like he's trying to batter his way inside a castle, and his mind flickers with red, brutal images of plunder and war that only make him harder. ]

[ Teeth gritted, Hei feels his breathing break, the sound like a rasping grunt but thinner, hungrier. He rides in hard, lunging into a ruthless cadence, forgetting his hesitation. Every shove of his hips carries a twist that screws him deeper: with the flat of his palm, he wallops the tender underside of her ass, both cheeks caught by the smacking blows in perfect rhythm to his fucking, jolting her to match his movements. ]

[anatural]

[Korra hisses with pain as he yanks her head back. It's hard to breathe with her neck curved like that -- not hard to breathe, exactly, but uncomfortable, and she snarls her displeasure. It's the wrong kind of pain for her arousal.

But the spanking -- THAT is perfect. Every slap sends a jolt straight through to her clit. Fuck why don't more people do this to her? Stick her in a Catholic school girl uniform and punish her for her sins, yes please. She's going to fall apart at any second, a climax even more intense than the previous ones, one that threatens to rip her to shreds.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ She doesn't need a fucking Catholic schoolgirl uniform. She's already brimming as if with the essence of that twisted religious penance, without availing herself of the actual mechanisms it offers its adherents. Breathing into the pleasurepain he drills mercilessly into her, as if waiting for it to teach her something new. Such a precious little wreck, a martyr really, wrapped in a bundle of cunt and suffering. ]

[ He feels her tense with her presaging climax, muscles throbbing under her skin, fluttering around his cock. The fingers tangled in her hair tug sharply, angling her chin up, his hot breath fanning her nape. His mind wings with filthy, vicious words, but he says nothing out loud. As his prick slides in and out of her, rapid tip to root plunges, his lips close on her neck instead. Blunt teeth gnawing tantalizingly against her salty goose-bumped flesh, right at the place just below her ear, that is somehow connected directly to her clit. It is all so brilliantly vile and he can feel himself getting sweat-slick all over, chest and thighs, his whole body rocking the lush heap of Korra's as if his impetus is to tear her apart. ]

[ Except, right at the moment when he feels her body-language change -- low stuttered gasps, the rocking of her hips at once jerky and fluid in that familiar pre-orgasmic cadence -- he slows. Slows almost to nothing -- deep, indolent strokes to leave her vibrating on the edge. His hard chest presses against the curve of her back, covering her, forcing her down. One hand sliding from her nape to grope her dangling breasts, cruelly stretching her nipples one at a time, letting them go, and stretching them again, while with his other hand, the spanks go on and on, her reddened buttocks taking each slap and reverberating deliciously with the force of them. ]

[anatural]

[She screams incoherent curses at him. If she could punch him, she would beat him black and blue. She shouts all kinds of threats, none of which she remembers even as the words come outf her mouth.

The bed creaks and splits as she struggles against the handcuffs. She will rip this bed to pieces if that's what it takes to get off.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ She's welcome to try. As it is, her desperation fills him with a thick, hot mix of arousal and amusement. There is something, he thinks, both ugly and graceful in peeling someone's layers back this way. In seeing the aching rawness within. That desperate wild need, bottomless and insatiable, as if she's been wrung to such a pitch of frantic greed that she can barely think. ]

[ He keeps her bent inelegantly on her elbows and knees, her face half buried in the mess of sheets and pillows, her thighs spread as he rides into her from behind. Keeps fucking her with an overheated languor, controlling her, holding her hips, dragging her up to meet his thrusts -- as if indifferent of how he's sending her into wilder and wilder struggles. Distantly, he knows he can't keep it up for long. He's already hyperventilating so badly that his fingertips prickle and his vision sparkles darkly. He's also very dimly aware that Korra's going to hurt like shit later, but her pain is a theoretical irrelevancy right now whereas his own pleasure is the only thing holding his muscles onto his bones. ]

[ It's a long moment before his hand drops from her breasts, delving between her thighs. His thumb rests on the hard crest of her clitoris, before massaging it roughly with his increasingly brutal strokes, her ass a quivering hot mouth around his cock, tightening around him so sweetly he feels his entire mind go clean. ]

[anatural]

[Korra sobs with relief as his touch lights the final spark. Her climax runs along the entire length of her body, from between her legs to the very tips of her fingers and toes. The tremors reduce her bones to rubble, leaving the rest of her to puddle on the bed where Hei's not holding her up.

She doesn't want him to pull out. Most of the time, post-orgasm she can't get the guy off of her fast enough — she's bisexual but homo-cuddler. But there are some times, usually after extremely intense orgasms, when she wants the guy to stay inside. It takes her back to the first guy she ever fucked, before she was dragged into the Syndicate, when she was younger and dumber and more trusting. After sex they'd fall asleep with his cock still buried inside her, and when she woke up, she'd use her kegel muscles to bring him to hardness again. Rationally speaking, it's a miracle she didn't get pregnant or an STD from that experience, and she sure as hell wouldn't try it with any of the guys she fucks these days. But it's something she enjoys remembering. It made her feel like the sex never ended; even when they'd come, they weren't done with each other.

Even though she's exhausted and boneless, Korra isn't done with him. He's a fucking orgasm machine... except unlike a machine, he has strange, irrational feelings. She's pretty sure that he's going to regret this encounter for inexplicable reasons, and instead of embracing their sexual compatibility as a reliable source of pleasure & stress relief, he's probably going to avoid her.

She wonders if she can get them in the jacuzzi first. Or maybe the pool. Somewhere they can clean up a little while getting dirty.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ It's a pity Hei can't appreciate the splendid sight of her, the way that sleek, lusciously full body jerks erratically with her climax, the way she rattles at her restraints and sobs and rolls her ass around his dick in a way that makes him light-headed. As it is, he's too far gone himself to react, ramming her with quick abbreviated jerks of his hips. His orgasm is softer, darker this time -- just three or four deep pulses -- yet somehow immense: every nerve seems to spasm and then fall sparking into nothingness. ]

[ Panting, he sags for a moment against Korra, letting her hang crucified and boneless on the ebbing hardness inside her. Gradually the world expands around him again, comes back to brightness and sound. Fuck. His eyes flutter closed. Both hands slipping, skidding down the slippery expanse of her hot body to fall nerveless across the mattress -- before the rest of him follows. He shifts off her slowly, disconnecting with a wet pop. Sprawls onto his back, chest heaving under a sheen of sweat, pulse visibly ticcing in his throat. The condom is smeary with biological debris, and the reek of sex hangs heavily in the air. He'd be mildly disgusted if he had the energy. ]

[ Instead, with careful precision, he tugs off and knots up the condom, before chucking it in the wastebin. Looms over Korra on all fours, but it's only to undo the restraints, dragging her arms slowly down. He doesn't kiss or caress her. Doesn't speak. He's never had the patience for small-talk and sweet-nothings afterward. It's easy to grow wary of softness after a lifetime around killers: only a suicidal idiot would bare his throat to strangers, in bed or in-field, to be rewarded with their opportunistic savaging. By now his habit of reticence is second-nature, a newer layer over the default aloofness. ]

[ That makes it easier. With his mind lapsing to its usual security setting, he's reminded of what a monumental error this was. He doesn't believe for the smallest fraction of a second that Korra is setting him up for blackmail. However mad the girl is, there is not a particle of premeditated meanness or ruthless calculation in her entire body. No -- more real a worry to Hei is that her brazen, importunate behavior -- and his encouragement of it -- is the warning sign of some greater mutual strangeness. ]

[ When he speaks, it's in a voice shorn flat of emphasis, ]

If you're going to nap, do it now.

[ They have to hit the road in a few hours. Find a hotel closer to their rendezvous point, and meet their cobbler. ]

[anatural]

[Blackmail? What the hell would she blackmail him with? They're two consenting adults with responsibilities only to the Syndicate, and the Syndicate doesn't care if they get nasty.

Hei may be a crazy paranoid lunatic, but he's radiating "game over" and Korra has no reason (or energy) to push the issue. She's gotten what she needed out of him.

She moves carefully once he undoes her bindings, making sure blood is flowing where it needs to flow unobstructed. Her ass is going to hurt like a motherfucker -- oh well.]

I get dibs on the shower. [He got to tie her up and plow her ass, after all. The least he can do is let her clean up first.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ The Syndicate monitors everything its operatives do. Its clearance teams are very thorough when it comes to controlling their assets -- especially if those assets include wayward Contractors whose bodies function as both tools and weaponry. The organization was aware of Hei's relationship -- and eventual fallout -- with Amber. It was aware of Huang's unfortunate affiliation with Shihoko. It was aware of Yin's past, of Mao's, of Chiaki's, of Mai's. There is no one they don't keep tabs on -- and whom they haven't maneuvered like disposable pawns across the board. In the organization's symphony of treachery, a mere double-cross has the simplicity of Jingle Bells -- which is why the smallest iota of caution can serve to define your place on their ladder. One wrong move, and you descend that ladder with dizzying speed. ]

[ So why did you fuck her? Hei thinks bitterly. Amber could already have her in her crosshairs. Do you want the Syndicate to do the same? ]

[ The edges of his clarity blur, then set in harder than ever. Maybe that's why he'd done it? A blatant Fuck You to the Syndicate, and to the woman whose gaze he can practically feel, sometimes, buzzing at the base of his spine. A reminder that he's free to make his own mistakes -- however catastrophic -- as long as they're uniquely his. ]

[ Forcibly, he shakes the thought off. Sits up, loose-limbed on the edge of the wrecked bed, hands curled around his kneecaps. He frowns, but the wattage does not equate to a glower. ]

[ Tonelessly, ]

Whatever you like.

[ As in: I don't care either way. As in: I got what I needed. Now it's time to focus on what matters. ]

[anatural]

[Korra hops out of bed with way more energy than one would expect from a woman so thoroughly fucked. Let Hei worry about what ifs and maybes and improbabilities -- she's going to shower and enjoy it.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ With a twinge of bemusement, Hei watches her scamper off, entirely too bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Bushy tail. Pretty dirty phrase when you stop to think about it, and he does briefly, desperate to divert himself from the way his brain keeps throwing itself against the walls of his skull. Drowsiness threatens to crowd in: he shakes it off forcibly. As sated and wrung-out as he feels, physically, the sensations are nothing. Just the shell of a daydream. In a few hours it will collapse, and he will move on. ]

[ As it is, they're not safe here. Not safe anywhere, honestly -- and Hei needs to be somewhere that can allow the steady dark calm of his thoughts to come unplugged. He has preparations to make, plans to review, things to think through. Except there's no thinking with Korra here -- even the after-echoes of her energy make his nerves jangle the wrong way. Every decision he makes seems to be contaminated by the mind-altering substance that is her presence. ]

[ He's going to dressed and exit the room. ]

[ He's going to dispel this dangerous cloud of languor. ]

[ He's going to leave. ]

[ Any minute now. ]