Sharp sense of insecurity

[anatural]

[This is a really bad idea. Korra knows this, repeats it over and over to herself as she takes the elevator up to Hei's apartment.

Just a sad little girl willing to spread her legs for anyone who'd pay attention to her. A sad little girl who can only love people who hurt her.

She thought she had worked these issues out years ago. She's no longer ashamed of her sexual history or her turbulent relationship with Hei. She's comfortable with who she is. And yet ... The spirit's words clawed their way under her skin, turning her blood into slime. Making her feel tainted and deformed. She destroyed the spirit, but the wound remains.

She can't bear to go home to Mai and Asami like this. She's in no condition to really accept the comfort that Asami has to offer, without secretly wondering if the other woman was just blinded by affection. Most importantly, she doesn't want this taint to reach her little girl.

This is a bad idea. But she presses on because she suspects it's the irrational, self-loathing part of her talking and not her real self. Yet a sick feeling in her gut leaves her uncertain whether this is something she really needs ... or a terrible mistake.]

Comments

[anatural]

[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.

[mortemscintilla]

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? ]

[anatural]

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.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ 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. ]

[anatural]

[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.

[mortemscintilla]

[ 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. ]

[anatural]

[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.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ 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?

[anatural]

[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.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ 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? ]

[anatural]

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.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ 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.

[anatural]

[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.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ 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. ]

[anatural]

[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.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ 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. ]

[anatural]

[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.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ 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. ]

[anatural]

[She almost doesn't let him break the kiss — if he had tried to pull any farther away, she would have yanked his mouth back to hers. This is what she needs ... not the physical thrill of sex, not the comfort of knowing she is loved, but the reminder that she and Hei had something special between them. A love communicated best through sex, yes, but not limited to that or interchangeable with anyone else. Every touch carries echoes of happy memories which help soothe the wounds the spirit left.

Though the bath certainly would help with the literal wounds. She looks in his eyes to make sure that implicit promise is there before saying] Yes.

[mortemscintilla]

[ She says Yes, but Hei doesn't drag himself away. Not yet. He doesn't want to cut short this glad nuzzling -- the soft fit of her top lip against his bottom lip, the delicate scrape of teeth as he coaxes her mouth open to dip his tongue inside, or his fingers creeping into her heavy hair to cradle her head, feeling the heat and solidity of her skull with a giddy glow of satisfaction. She trusts him, is glad to give, glad to take. Such an extraordinary girl -- or it woman now? -- far far beyond what he can possibly deserve. ]

[ Everything about her fills him with tenderness -- and a bruised, awful hollowness. Makes him want, want, want -- everything he is not meant to want. ]

[ He kisses her again, as if he's afraid of forgetting what she tastes like. Detaches, with a sharp inhale, before staggering to his feet. He stays handfasted to her the entire time, coaxing her to rise with him. The bathroom is just a few paces off. He takes measured steps, his fingers knotted damply to Korra's. One foot then the other. A distance which lasts for miles. And it aches to know that Korra can probably feel that anxious ricochet of his pulse. How his breaths are a slow jitter, splintering the silence. Normally, he takes care to display no symptoms of excitement or distress. But -- ]

[ But. ]

[ The bathroom is a shining white oasis, the tiles cool beneath his bare feet. One mirrored wall, and a deep cedar-paneled tub sunk into the floor. While the bath fills, he takes liberties, passing his arms carefully around Korra's waist. Her hair stirs where he burrows his nose into it, to press kisses against her ear, down her neck; he knows she can feel his erection prodding her belly through his shorts. ]

[anatural]

[But she likes that anxious ricochet — likes seeing the effect she can have on him beyond making him hard. Penises are kind of impersonal without those other little signs of excitement.

Not that she isn't extremely fond of his penis. It's a welcome press against her belly, but intertwined as they are, it's a little difficult to reach with her hand, so she settles for rubbing her entire body against him. She'll have her chance to really touch it soon.

While he presses kisses all along her neck, Korra settles for biting down on his shoulder. He always used to like when she did that... she hopes that hasn't changed.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Nothing has changed. Not the way he hauls in a breath, forcing himself into steadiness as she rubs kittenishly against him -- while the press of her groin against his is answered by a growing bulge. Not the way his pulse leaps beneath the skin where she bites down, and he hopes it will leave marks -- pretty crescent-pink divots, the imprint of her teeth visible in his flesh. It's only his right hand that is robbed of its usual fluidity, the bandages making everything clumsy, grasping. ]

[ Teeth gritted, he tries not to think about it. Korra's arms are around his neck, delicious soft-hard swathes, her warm pooched mouth lingering against his, inviting kisses. His left hand skims along the hemline of her blouse, careful not to nudge an injury or bruise. Tugging it up, one-handed, he mouths the heat-damp crook of her neck, and thinks both: I've missed you and I shouldn't be doing this -- but can't say either of those things. ]

[ The kiss breaks only when he wads up her blouse past her head. Her hair fans out, crackling against the collar of the fabric as he lifts it away; flyaway strands cling to his features when he presses in again. Just the touch of his forehead against her shoulder, handsfree so he can impatiently remove his shirt, pulling it free of his shorts and over his head. The clothes are consigned to a wrinkled heap on the vanity. It's laughable to imagine he'd once obsessively folded and hung everything in the middle of preliminaries. The petty concerns of a young man who couldn't appreciate the time on his hands. ]

[anatural]

[He tosses his clothes aside, and Korra turns her attention to her own. A little bit of blood has soaked through her bra — she's not exactly sure how she managed to cut herself without also cutting her shirt, but the bleeding has already stopped so she's not going to worry about it. Before he can try to get her bra off (and therefore get frustrated with his ruined hand), she strips it off and lets it fall to the ground.

Then she takes his bandaged hand and wraps her mouth around the exposed index finger. She really wants to kneel down and blow him, but she's feeling too stiff to kneel on the hard tile. Besides, she hasn't given a blowjob in...yikes, almost two years. She doesn't want to start off with something she's rusty at. (Mostly, though, she just wants to get in the water with him.)]

[mortemscintilla]

[ If he could read her mind, he'd tell her how little he cares about finesse. He's stopped being so tedious and small-minded that he can only think of one way to be with her. That he'd stick to a plan of step A to B to Y, and drag her along with it no matter what because it is the only thing he wants from her. Right now ... all he wants is Korra. Once roused, engaged by her, his critical faculty is nothing but wet paper, decimated. Korra in his apartment, in his arms, stripping for him, is the culmination of every bitter fantasy he's forbidden himself to indulge, every uncontrollable dream he's woken from to find himself gushing on the sheets. ]

[ He inhales sharply as she sucks his finger between her soft lips. There is something obscenely exquisite about the heat and moisture of her mouth. Something that always pushes his senses into images of her hair spilling darkly over his groin, her mouth engulfing his cock, the clever flicks of her hot little tongue. At the same time he's desperate to reacquaint himself with every inch of her; to taste that delectable little hardbody, the springy nipples and the sodden pussy, the sleek thighs and curling toes and the arms roped with muscle, right to the tips of those strong-jointed little hands. ]

[ He disentangles himself from her with more difficulty than he should have. Turning the cold and hot taps on, he lets the bath fill. The water's ambient slosh fills the silence, overlapped by his own ragged breaths, allowing Korra to hear all his nervousness. Lip bit, he pushes off his shorts. His shaft springs free, slanting up from his stomach. He's so overstimmied; the sheer heft and heat of his erection sparks constricted discomfort -- and self-consciousness. ]

[ It's easier to focus on Korra. Gently, he nudges her until she's settled on the edge of the tub. Kneels, with a barely-there wince, so he can tug off her boots, then her socks, before dragging her pants down her thighs with her underwear. The scent of her wafts to him from her parted legs -- a sharp, sweetish musk. His breath rattles awfully in his throat: it's too much, the smell of Korra and her skin and the radiating heat of her. It both disturbs and soothes something very necessary inside of him. ]

...Korra...

[ He feels something -- despair? desperation? -- creeping into his voice. His head throbs, his bruises ache, and his erection rolls painfully near the skin of his abs. He thinks there should be a rule against doing this so late at night -- (doing this with her) -- and he wants the absoluteness of such a stupid rule. Then he gathers her in, their skins sticking, heat-damp, familiar -- and this is all he wants. ]

[anatural]

[The room quickly grows humid, so even when Hei pulls away, there's no cold shock to knock Korra from her chosen course. She lets Hei finish stripping her, finding something soothing in the familiar pushiness.

And then they're naked and he's holding her and if they were on his bed, she'd skip the foreplay and take him inside right now. The hard ledge of the tub is less conducive to impulsive humping. It digs into her ass uncomfortably enough that not even his touch can distract her from it. She puts a hand back to test the water.]

Let's get inside.