fuse_box | Sharp sense of insecurity

[ Maybe she's lucky -- or unlucky -- that he's in, when she knocks. ]

[ It's been less than eight hours since Hei has arrived, knuckles raw and striped bloody. His lip is faintly split, but that will heal in the next couple of hours. He's bruised too -- a faint mottling of yellows and mauves -- but that's coming off light. By all rights, it's been a successful night. It had taken a measure of patience, cunning, and arm-twisting, to flush out the triad hitmen who had wrecked his right hand. When he'd found each one, he'd spent only a few moments with them, testing the conventional wisdom that you can't fit a square peg in a round hole, the peg in this case being their blades, the hole being their mouths. ]

[ It turns out the conventional wisdom is off by a little. In fact, the whole thing depends on how hard you jam the peg. ]

[ By nightfall, he's left a number of places -- dark little taverns and fetid alleys miles and worlds away from his high-rise flat -- in a state of blood-splattered disrepair. Heading home, surfing a tide of raw adrenaline, he isn't satisfied. Revenge is as un-tactical as it gets -- and tonight was nothing but a sanguinary indulgence to appease that seething monster in his nature. It's just a reminder that he can't modulate that aspect of himself. Impossible to keep the killer in check -- when he's always looking for a way back in. Tonight he finds a personal one. Tomorrow, by virtue of Hei's trade, he'll have professional opportunities on top of it. ]

[ What's wrong with you? The scathing voice sounds so much like Pai's. You always say you wanted out of your old life. So why do you find excuses to drag yourself back in? When are you going to be happy, when you get everyone you love killed? ]

[ Hei grits his teeth. His right hand is swaddled in bindings; not broken or swollen from the fight, but if he so much as grazes it on a solid surface, a serrated edge of discomfort rips all the way to his elbow. ]

[ Tonight was more than a personal vendetta, he thinks. It was necessary to get rid of loose ends. ]

[ This time, the voice jeers. Next time, it'll be a Delta Force. One part of you has to make a decision. I'm tired of you refusing to make it. ]

[ Numb, he showers, dresses in his faded gray t-shirt and shorts for bed. Wan cloud-filtered moonlight streams through the west-facing bay window to fall across the futon's striped sheets. The effect is more ominous than inviting. Blearily, Hei tips his moist forehead against the cool glass to survey the dull vista. Rain falls in endless gray sheets over the star-shaped metropolis. Unconnected images pinwheel through his mind: bloodstains and glazed eyes of strangers, brilliant blue veins of electricity, Mai gleefully smearing red fingerpaint across the walls, Korra's face blurring into Pai's before a lightning-flash of color swallows her. ]

[ Rubbing his eyes with a thumb and forefinger, Hei already knows he's not going to sleep tonight. He's not ready for whatever lurks on the other edge of his consciousness. ]

[She forces herself not to hesitate when she gets off the elevator and heads straight to his door. Knocks hard and winces as pain runs down her arms. She'd forgotten that she'd gotten a good physical whooping on top of the emotional one. Owwww. I hope he has a drink.]

[ Blinking, Hei opens the door only after he checks the security videofeed. There is a disquieting but sweetly painful shock at seeing her at his apartment. Especially at this hour. When he opens the door, though, the shock eclipses every other feeling. She looks worn and roughly used, her eyes dull in the entryway llight -- and nearly as hard to read as his. He still remembers her from her last visit, when she'd dropped Mai off -- determinedly buoyant, quick to flash a smile. Right now her entire bearing conveys reticence. ]

[ Stepping back, Hei regards her speechlessly for a moment. Then, with a skid of anxiety somewhere inside his chest, he asks: ]

What's wrong? Is it Mai?

[Her heart relaxes a little when he immediately asks about Mai. Not that him caring about their daughter actually negates anything the spirit said, but she's starved for any kind of reassurance she doesn't have to ask for.]

She's fine. Asami's watching her. [She takes a breath to steady herself.] This is just... Avatar business. I had to take down a spirit causing trouble. [After a moment, more plaintively than she would have liked...] Can I come in?

[ Avatar business. That begs the question -- begs and answers it in the same breath, actually. Exhaling slowly, Hei eases his shoulders into something less tense, on-edge. Steps back, and gestures for her to come inside, trying to connect the dots out of the swirl of details in Korra's appearance; the smudges of weariness under her eyes, the furtive blockiness of her usual smooth movements, the subtly imploring murmur of her little voice. ]

[ She's just been in a fight. A big one. No need to ask who won: she stands at his doorstep, the evident victor. Except it's been years since he's seen that flicker in her eyes, uncertain as a candle-flame. ]

[ Shutting the door behind her, he asks, more habit than any need to fill in the silence, ]

You want tea? With extra kick?

[ The Fireside recipe he used to brew for her: a dash of spiced rum, frothing black tea, and a single floating wedge of lemon. ]

Yes, please. [She feels an intense relief when he closes the door, like she's finally hidden away from staring, judgmental eyes. Once inside, though, she stops. She's only been here a few times, mostly to drop off and pick up her daughter; she doesn't feel comfortable walking around like it's hers.]

Is your hand all right?

Sit down.

[ It's as gentle an evasion as he can make it; he doesn't like talking about his hand. For now, it's swathed in bindings as if a cutman is preparing him for a boxing match. Underneath the stuff wrappings, the fingers are like stubborn stubs, ungainly and disobedient. They always ache during rainy nights, the dull throb singing up his entire arm. They're doing it tonight, too. ]

[ Fixing the tea, he tamps down his burning curiosity, which is just concern in disguise. She seems so uneasy, a quiet insecurity simmering to the surface. He wants to ask what happened. But it's an effort to remember that any efforts to pry into her life are a presumption. She doesn't owe him her inner confidences -- not anymore. ]

[ The kettle boils and shrieks; he pours into the ceramic pot Asami picked out for him, fetches the matching cups, then sets doughy rounds of mooncakes on a plate. He has no idea anymore what time it is, and feels beyond the need for sleep, stirred up inside by fading adrenaline and these recent unnatural events, out of time. ]

[ Setting everything before Korra, he says, with a dab of humor, ]

No drugs in anything. This time.

[He tells her to sit, but she can't. She's still too tense to get comfortable. She half-heartedly goes to the window instead, managing not to pace but still vibrating with uncomfortable energy. His deflection wasn't unnoticed. It doesn't surprise Korra, but it adds fuel to that voice inside her, berating her for wasting so many years of her life on him (berating her for loving him still). How can you love someone who won't talk to you?

The joke gets him a weak smile -- in her current state, she can't figure out whether it's actually funny or if she's too messed up to realize how wrong it is. It doesn't help that her first thought in response was Too bad. It'd be nice to have some help relaxing.]

Thanks. [She takes a cup and hisses a little, finding it hotter than she expected.] I'm sorry for barging in so late.

It's fine. I was up working.

[ He looks away from her troubled little face toward his own teacup, knowing she won't pursue the matter any further. What else can he tell her? That he barely sleeps anymore? That at night, the most venomous parts of his mind wake up and slither about beneath the floorboards of his sleeping brain. Bad dreams always gnawing away his rest. Sometimes in his nightmares he is trapped in the red jungles of South America -- but at other times he is in the City, or in Tokyo, and for all the wrong reasons. Each morning, as the sun cuts swathes of pale light across the room and his eyes flutter open, he grows steadily more uncertain of where he is. Of whether he is really awake. ]

[ Then his alarm goes off and he scrambles to sit up, cramming himself against the headboard. Republic City. Of all places, Republic City. Every time he wakes here, he feels the shock of supposed safety like a sudden slip and fall. There is no need for aliases and relentless vigilance here -- a fact that leaves him shaky and disoriented, his chest shuddering at the transient zenith of a strange, all-encompassing feeling. Terror, or something close to it. ]

[ A city he's become so comfortable with -- yet since he's left Korra, it's suddenly become alien to him, a pretty oasis built for someone else, inhabited by strangers, his own presence that of a ghost. The place makes no sense for him without Korra's life justaposed with his, and the loneliness and alienation is almost a sickness. ]

[ So: better to tell her he wasn't sleeping because he was working late. It is true, even if just one truth among many. ]

[ Quietly, he examines her over the rim of his teacup. She is perfectly still, the shifting colored lights from the rainfall playing across her face. Her mouth tight, eyes weary, the energy around her beginning to fritz and boil into quiet incoherence. Too much frustrated energy, too much feeling. He knows what that's like. Except it's ten times more horrible because it's Korra who is dealing with it. ]

[ He wants to ask her what happened. But maybe she doesn't want that kind of exposure. Not with a man who is practically a stranger to her now. ]

[ Instead, softly, ]

Try the mooncakes. They're made of lotus seed paste and vanilla ice cream.

[ Something to cool her burnt tongue? ]

I'm not hungry. [The thought of food right now makes her feel nauseous; tea is about the only thing she can handle. She uses her waterbending to cool it down some and then downs the cup in two gulps.

You're here. Now what? Pulled here by some kind of compulsion, Korra realizes that she doesn't even know what exactly she wants from him, beyond a vague desire to be comforted. She has no idea what to do next.]

What are you working on this late? [Small talk. Stalling.]

[ Her ploy is pitiful, but he doesn't show it. His face is starched into deliberate neutrality; he regards her steadily over the steaming rim of his cup. Ordinarily he'd prefer to dispense with the small-talk, and ask her straight-out what's bothering her. Except she looks so tired -- beyond tired; dissembled at the seams. He feels the old pang of obligation -- protector and care -- so he doesn't prod. There is already too much piled between them: problems to solve, arguments that fester, pending compromises -- so the silence is like a tenuous grace period. Well-earned stasis. ]

[ This is their usual pattern. The irony doesn't escape him that it was the same with Amber. ]

[ Quietly, ]

I'm making arrangements to send special teams [ the equivalent of highly-trained mercs ] to handle rebel factions in the Earth Kingdom.

[ Since Wu abdicated the throne -- a well-meaning but colossally stupid decision, in his opinion -- the earth empire has dissolved into chaos. With no centralized authority and the decline of a century-old monarchy virtually in an eyeblink, the place resembles the brittle feuding domains of Sengoku Jidai in Japan. The rich states grow richer, while the poor ones crumble into dissolution, and are eventually swallowed up in hostile conglomerations. ]

[ Worst case scenario: they'll fall prey to anarchists and other radicalized movements. Best case (which is closer to worst-of-the-worst case): they'll end up electing another tyrant like Kuvira. ]

[To be fair, it's only gone downhill in the last few — a little after Korra got pregnant, in fact. She scowls. If things are really that bad in the Earth Republic, then she should be the one going to deal with it, not mercenaries. But she's had this fight not only with Hei, but with Asami, Mako, even Tenzin. Only Bolin was nominally on her side, but even he didn't try to summon her. "Opal, Jinora and I've got this," he wrote to her.]

If it's that bad, I should go.

[ Pouring tea into Korra's empty cup, Hei shakes his head. They've had this argument before. Korra's come a long way from that brash, fresh-faced, idealist she'd once been. She's been grappling with the delicacies of realpolitik, with the dirty compromises that go with governance and leadership, and the weight has left marks. But her bedrock optimism keeps her from sometimes comprehending that democracy isn't always necessary for freedom -- or that freedom isn't always synonymous with prosperity. ]

[ He can't tell her that, though. No matter how much time passes and how estranged they become, Korra will always feel like family to him because, like family, she never deviates from the same headstrong script. At the same time, Hei wonders if she knows how much the rest of the world draws from her strength -- her passion to fulfill her duty at any cost. ]

[ Including (perhaps most ironically and crucially) himself. ]

[ Tactfully, ]

Things are pretty crazy there. But not beyond salvaging. [ He nudges the plate of mooncakes her way. Sure, she claimed not to be hungry, but she's so jittery, at least something sweet on the palate will ease her mood. ] Remember: the United Republic is banking on the collapse of the Earth Kingdom. The president will offer the small neighboring provinces statehood. Ally itself with the larger ones. Build a larger stronghold across the region -- for their own benefit -- in the name of collective democracy.

[ It's not particularly noble. But it's not terrible either. It will end the strife and civil unrest in the Earth Kingdom -- at a price. ]

[She can't help making a face.]

I don't need a lecture on what the United Republic is planning. [She's got her own issues with the United Republic president and their plans, and she has no energy to deal with that right now. She accepts the refilled tea cup, but inches back into the couch, away from his insistent nudging of the mooncakes. While it would be good to have something to soak up the liquor added to her tea, something sweet is the last thing she wants right now. As is further discussion on this particular topic, but she can't think of something safer to switch to.

So she just sips silently, sullenly, at her tea.]

[ Suppressed irritation pours off Korra, and its heat lights a strange, answering glow inside Hei. He's missed that fire. Misses the fireside. ]

[ He doesn't talk. Simply sips his tea. Through the curl of steam, his gaze wanders across Korra from boots to hips, from the fidgeting hands curled around her cup to the blouse fitted tantalizingly tight across her pretty breasts and strong shoulders, until he catches himself at it, makes himself look away. Her whole manner yields a strange nostalgia: the seventeen-year-old Korra, bristling with pent-up energy and ornery insecurity. That cool night in the City, during the zombie curse, when she'd dropped by. Craving relief, craving distraction, craving any outlet that was on offer. ]

[ It's obvious she's here tonight for something similar. Hei wants to comfort her, but he can't remember how. There is too much bitterness, too much clogged-up discomfort, in the fact that this is not the first time she's come to him for reassurance, validation. Who is he to console her fears, to talk about right and wrong? He is a killer -- then, now -- and he's failed her too entirely to be any use to her. ]

[ Gaze dipped, he murmurs, dryly, ]

If you won't have dessert, can I interest you in leftover roasted duck?

[What is he, a little old grandmother that won't be happy until someone eats an entire cupboard?]

Seriously, I'm not hungry. If I ate something, I'd probably just throw it back up. [She puts her hand on her belly to emphasize the point, and flinches as her bruised muscles complain.

A lot.

Owwwwwwww.]

[ Old habit dies never. He's so accustomed to feeding her an entire cupboard -- especially after she's worked up an appetite while training, or returned scuffed-up and glowingly triumphant from a rough-and-tumble. Watching her protest, that same nostalgia gusts through Hei, as if they are still on friendly terms -- a loving but sometimes-volatile couple -- and this is just a blip in that friendship. It makes his throat tighten and he becomes aware of how tired he is. Years and years of tired. He isn't old enough to be this tired. ]

[ Her flinch doesn't go unnoticed. Frowning, he sets his cup aside. His voice treads the middle ground between curt and kind. ]

That's one hell of a stomach bug.

[ It's not mockery, though it's shaped like it. More than anything, he wants to touch her. But he's come a long way with regards to mastering his self-control -- or is self-indulgence the better word? ]

Internal bruising, actually. [Korra winces as another spasm of pain rocks through her midriff.] I got beat up pretty good.

[More than she'd thought, actually, though the liquor in her tea is dulling some of the growing pain. Without thinking, she lifts her shirt to get a look at how bad the bruising is.]

[ Hei's gaze drifts down to the exposed patch of skin, searching for contusions while trying to stay blind to the magnetizing fascination of her. Despite the mottling of discolorations, she still has that warmish glow of sunshine and health. The sight of her -- all rumpled and grunged-out, her eyes heavy with the residue of sleep, fading adrenaline, and alcoholic lassitude -- makes his groin, and his head, heavy. ]

[ Reaching out, he touches her hand -- barely a skim of fingertips. Reserve and concern merge in his expression, give it a shuttered tension. ]

You should see a healer. [ A kick of impulse descends into intimacy, and he's folding his hand over hers, squeezing the small strong fingers in his. ] I can call one. If you want.

[Her breath catches when he touches her, and it feels like something has finally fallen into place.]

Waterbender, remember? I just need some water. [Later she'll blame the alcohol for what she says next.] Maybe a bath?

[She forces herself not to put any innuendo in the question, but it is very clearly an invitation.]

[ Hei blinks, something like shock blooming dully in his chest, even as a quiet epiphany falls together for him. It is just that blatant, a slow-motion lightning strike fusing a dozen loose fragments together into something he can see and understand from all sides. She's here because she wants him. His company, his comfort -- or whatever else she can lay her stubborn claim on. ]

[ It fills him with a wistful gratitude -- but also a regret. Because she shouldn't want these table-scraps of his attention. Because he doesn't deserve these sweet dollops of hers. He'd wanted much more for her. He doesn't know what, but at least something better than this. More than years of tentative trust spun together, then torn apart by his own carelessness, more than tiresome days and lonely nights, with no-one at her side to watch as Mai grows up, more than heartache piled upon heartache, disappointments and traumas accrued because she'd dared to show kindness to a murderer -- and definitely more than himself. ]

[ Yet because he has wanted more for her, Hei finds himself unable to refuse her. His hand stays linked through hers; he feels like a man clutching at friable rope or else he'll be sucked out into an airlock. ]

[ He is only a man because he loves her. If he forgets that, he forgets himself. He forgets everything. ]

[ Thumbing the soft thrum of her wrist, he lifts her hand to his mouth. Kisses the palm -- a gentle scold, not a seduction. ]

You're no good at holding your liquor than you ever were.

[ Just reminding her of the legitimacy of her own choice. ]

[Well, there is Asami, who at this point is almost as much a mother to Mai as Korra is, and who inhabits a nebulous place between friend and wife. Korra would have no reason to feel lonely if she didn't still love Hei. But while the other woman has been invaluable in helping pick up Hei's slack, she can't take his place in her heart. How much easier life would be if it really was impossible to be in love with two people. Instead of filling in the barren rooms, she just builds new ones, ones that are uniquely her own but still leave a part of Korra empty.

She shivers as he kisses her palm.] I'm not drunk. [A little tipsy? Maybe. Impulsive? Definitely. She tugs on his hand until he's close enough to kiss, and she sighs, overwhelmed with the same satisfaction as when you finally get to eat a food you've been craving for weeks.

I've missed this.]

[ It's taken him a long time to understand the peculiar arrangement between Korra and Asami. Impossible to see the other woman as a threat. Not when she's done so much for both him and Korra -- individually, and as a couple. The sight of her -- at parties, at meetings, on the street -- has become almost as precious to him as Yin's. Even before she bailed him out of his own spiraling shitstorm of a life, he'd grown fond of her. Yet mixed in with his gratitude is bitterness, because Asami shouldn't have to play surrogate-parent for Mai, pseudo-therapist and crying-shoulder and pillar-of-support for Korra, always in her orbit like a soft, moon-pretty satellite. ]

[ That is Hei's job. His privilege. Or was, before he'd completely and utterly fucked it up. ]

[ Korra tugs him close, and the imprint of her kiss blossoms in a heat-wave -- from his mouth all through the rest of him. Hei's breath is a painful barb in his throat; he wants to jerk away, except everything feels surreal, the world separated by a dreamy film and barely coming into contact with his skin. There is only Korra: the proportions of her mouth, so small and soft and familiar. Her scent, like dust and a hard fight and something he can never name, a sweetly mineral whiff like a forest after rainfall. ]

[ The kiss breaks, renews, once, again: each touch is so natural, so necessary, he wonders how he could ever have thought this was something to resist. ]

[Everything is wonderful and everything hurts. Korra pulls him as close as she can, ignoring the complaints of her ill-used muscles. A hot bath, with the chance to soak her muscles and use some waterbending on her injuries, would be greatly appreciated right now, but she doesn't want to interrupt the kissing and risk him leaving her alone in his bathroom. Baths can happen at any time. The chance to touch him, kiss him like this, happens much more rarely these days.]

[ Hei knows it's too late in the night for them to be doing this. They're both sore, bruised, enervated to the stage where no decision could possibly be a wise one. It doesn't matter. Korra is so close to him, all buttery invitation, and he can feel the endorphins kick in, so the exciting prospects the night holds are swept along on the rush. Baths. Sex. Korra. His pulse is a freight train hurtling at full speed, and somewhere at the end of those tracks is the heart of his life. ]

[ Or at least the life he used to have. ]

[ Eyes squeezed shut, Hei tries not to think of it. His swathed hand awkwardly skates up her spine, cradling the back of her head with a strained restraint. The kiss grows sloppy, delving, his tongue tracing the roof of her mouth. She tastes delicious to him: rum and tea and spice. The quintessence of Korra. At the windows, rainfall drums in glittering arcs, and at the wall, the clock makes a sly tick tock. Hei can't make himself focus on any of it; his thoughts dovetail into a colorful spaced-out blur. He is content to do nothing but touch Korra. ]

[ It's a long time -- he isn't sure exactly how long -- before he breaks the kiss. Baffled, happy, terrified, he stays close, mouth inches from hers, as if warming himself with her breath. Part of him wants to cry out against this lull -- to build friction, momentum, heat. But the rest of him seems to be listening to the atmosphere, to be feeling into Korra in the silence. ]

[ Quietly, ]

...Still want that bath?

[ It's implicit that he'll join her. ]

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