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 may not have asked it as a question, but it's a good one nonetheless. Not that Korra has any desire to consider her answer. She doesn't want to think too hard and realize just what a bad idea this is and stop.]

It's fine. [They're both adults. They both understand that this is just an interlude, a brief respite, that things can never be the way they used to be. They can handle this. (She's lying to herself and she knows it, already finds herself fantasizing about him coming back and sex going back to being a nightly occurrence.)

Right now, she wants to embrace this moment without worrying about anything else. If he's going to insist on worrying about things... well, she's just going to have to turn around and kiss him so he can't do anything with his stupid mouth.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ It's fine, she says. Except she sounds as baffled -- as giddily unsure -- as he feels. It makes it all better and worse, all at the same time. ]

[ Circling his arms tighter around her, he melts into her kiss with soft, mouthing sips. Almost a tactile sigh, passed from tongue to tongue. This isn't going to lead anywhere, he knows that. It won't erase his foolish cravings for a reconciliation -- cravings that have deepened into a restless itch so far inside that he can't hope to reach it; he refuses to believe that this ill-timed indulgence will ease it. At best, it's just a stopgap. At worst -- it will leave him with no completion afterwards, just a gnawing emptiness, a reminder of everything he'd foolishly destroyed. ]

[ He tries not to think about it. Eyes squeezed shut, he feeds on her mouth. His kisses grow messy, mistimed: he breathes in jittery drags of air, his whole body tensile, pulse fluttering. Buoyed by the water, Korra's hot body almost floats in his lap, mass without weight; easy to manipulate. His erection jerks urgently between them, thickening even more to an awful red fullness. He's so shamefully close, edged closer each moment by the wet skid of Korra's skin, her kisses and sweetly-blooming aroma. ]

[ He wishes he could say something. Maybe slow down, withdraw. Except he can only tighten his embrace, and whisper against her parted lips -- shaky but wry. ]

I think ... You've got me too nervous to do this right.

[anatural]

[She remembers when it seemed like he had iron control over his erection, when she really had to fight to bring him to the edge before he was ready. He's changed so much from those early years... it's almost dizzying to contemplate.]

It's fine. [Repeated, but with more of a smile this time. She shifts and twists to get into a better position, then wraps her hand around his erection, which even she can tell is painfully thick.] I can wait for you to re-load. [She didn't come here for a quickie — she's ready and wanting to go all night.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Swallowing his wild urge towards gratitude, Hei kisses her again -- a wet, half-drunken flutter. He can't explain how his patterns have changed -- or maybe submerged -- since he's gotten together with Korra. Sometimes, late at night, when he replays their past encounters, it sours his stomach: each memory speaks of hard-edged, utilitarian lust, the desperate kind that takes place in alleyways and murky peepshow theaters. Light tortures, small selfish cruelties -- anything to keep her on a frenzied string. Or maybe a psychological leash. ]

[ Falling in love -- being forced to give instead of take -- puts responsibility on him, makes him saner, clear-eyed, gentler, yet somehow more vulnerably jittery. He doesn't know, and isn't terribly interested in contemplating it. Swallowing, he gathers her close against him, creating tiny waves which lap at both their bodies. Her little hand is wrapped like a hot ribbon around his prick: it is as heated and tense as ever, yet his kisses soften, lose their thread of urgent demand. He tastes her mouth, draws a hand through her hair, wanting, more than pleasure and release, to experience her. ]

[ Carefully, he leans back, Korra cradled in his arms. The knobs of his knees rise above the waterline like whitened stadium domes; his erection is a pulsing bar between their wet bellies. One arm curls loosely around her torso, his right hand working in finger-crunching little spasms that suggest a vast impatience. But the left strokes languidly up her flank, across the breasts that sag down against her ribs. He cups one, thumb rubbing across the bruised-plum blush of the areola, and lifts it to his mouth. Suckling hard, scraping the nipple with his teeth, he stirs experimentally beneath her -- and inhales sharply through his nose as his erection glides across the wet-velvet heat of her stomach. ]

[anatural]

[Korra squirms and sighs, an ache building up between her legs. But she lets herself drift along at Hei's languid pace. She feels cherished.

She hadn't known what to call that feeling until her relationship with Asami. Asami, who communicates clearly with both her body and her words. Asami, who has always cherished her, even when they were just friends helping each other work off sexual frustration.

Korra tries to cherish Hei in turn, pressing kisses to the crown of his head. She doesn't jerk him off; it's more like she leisurely explores his erection with her hand. Getting reacquainted with its shape, the thick bulge of vein, the way it curves and pulses. She whimpers a little -- maybe at the scrape of his teeth, maybe at the memory of how good he feels inside her.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ She whimpers, and a shiver climbs up Hei's spine, the delight sunk so deep in his bones that his brain is saturated with it. Hungrily, he opens his mouth to gulp in more of her breast, loving its soft heat, the springy tickle of her nipple at the roof of his mouth. At the same time, his hips grow more restless. The indolent strokes of her hand seem to coax the first thick skeins of come from his cock. He can feel that familiar tension gathering in his balls. Feel that pulsing, focused surge that rises from root to tip. ]

[ Humming, he clasps his arms tighter around her. Both their bodies are silked with sweat, water sloshing at the edges of the tub. Her breasts are delicious handfuls, right against his face, and he rubs his bristly cheek against them, over and over. Kisses them, kisses her shoulders, her arms, her throat, as if smearing the scent of her into his skin. It's a slow gut-shock when he comes -- deep and juddery, a seaquake that crests in hot arcs to splash their bellies, only to be washed away by the water. ]

[ Moments later Hei is swaying, bent forward, breathing shallowly into the damp crook of Korra's shoulder. Hands stroke the back of her neck, her spine, and her heat is like a balm across his aching skin, far better than the hot water, soothing his riotous senses back into a baseline zero. Fuck... everything about her feels so good. ]

[ Blissed-out, miserable, Hei closes his eyes fully. In a quiet slur, ]

You keep getting lovelier.

[ A non-sequitur. But also words that can be both believed and that are absolutely truthful. ]

[anatural]

[With her free hand, Korra strokes the hair on the back of his head as he comes. She loves the way he looks when he falls apart — the subtle way he breaks, the way his expression goes soft. She nuzzles his hair and laughs softly when he says You keep getting lovelier.]

Flatterer.

[A twinge in her ribs distracts her from gently guiding his hand between her legs; instead, she reaches around to do some final healing. When she's done, she nibbles his ear.]

I could use a good scrub.

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei's eyes drift half-open, feeling her words -- or maybe the graze of her little teeth -- send a shivery ache through him: that twinge that is the rippling echo of pleasure. ]

[ Drowsily, ]

I thought we were in the tub to get dirty.

[ It takes a lot to force those words out in a semblance of playfulness and not as pure greed. He isn't even sure he succeeds. Release reverberates through him, leaving him woozy but still half-hard -- ready for more. It is embarrassing, if he lets himself think about his body's blunt transparency. So he tries like hell not to. If the subject were ever under discussion, he'd prefer not to attribute his own crazily, relentlessly responsive body -- or its lack of staying power -- to Korra's effect on him. It is just one of those things. ]

[ Tenderly, he clasps Korra against him with one heavy arm. Reaches for the shower wand with the other. Positioning the metal nozzle over them, he switches on the water, letting it douse his upturned face. His scalp stings as the stream penetrates his touseled hair, finding little scratches and scabs he hadn't realized were there. Stone-cold at first, the water warms up fast, enfolding him and Korra in a cozy cloud. ]

[ Scrubbing her up from head to toe, he experiences something like serenity in their uninterrupted contact. It's like a forbidden prize, this chance to wash her thick hair carefully, rinse it over and over. To delicately, deliberately lather her back, her shoulders, stroke her arms and belly and breasts and thighs, to stray between her legs and caress her in the guise of soaping. ]

[ When he is finished, and can't pretend anymore that she needs yet another rinse, he tips her face towards his and kisses her mouth. The air is milky with steam, and something in his chest is full of bliss and hope and that strange aching loss, like a tune he can't place, strummed out by the knowledge that this is temporary. ]

[ Eyes squeezed shut, he lets himself linger on the kiss. Just a moment longer. ]

[anatural]

I was here to heal my injuries. [And get metaphorically filthy, yes. But come on, Hei. Realize that her request for a scrub is a request for you to get her off.

What happened to the king of subtext? She is equal parts frustrated and amused as he seems to take her at her word and washes her. There's a delicious intimacy to the contact, which is why she doesn't bother correcting him; it's nice to be bathed and pampered, especially when you're feeling low. But it's not what she's after.

He kisses her like he's getting ready to leave but doesn't want to go, and she huffs with mild irritation before guiding his hand back between her legs. This is what she wanted.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ He'd like to think his reluctance is really about savoring the moment, with keeping a languorous pace to this impulsive encounter, refusing to rush something that contains in itself so much delicate volatility. But he knows it is much more about his bedrock selfishness. The slower he permits himself to be, the more he'll be able to hoard all the big and little details about her afterwards. The heat of her body is like a homecoming -- but he'll be homeless again the moment she's gotten what she wants, and walked out the door. ]

[ At the idea, a curl of misery flexes in his belly. ]

[ Shaking it off, he gives himself with a starved concentration to the kiss. She guides his hand between her legs: the message is blatant. But he doesn't get down to business in his usual point-and-shoot manner. His fingers ghost over her mons, stirring the curls, then slip lower, tip of his index finger finding the point of her clit, barely touching. There is a bone-deep shiver at stroking her this way, where she is hottest and softest; his hand itches to dip down, to sink into that familiar welling slickness of her entrance. ]

[ He doesn't. Instead, his fingertip traces slippery whorls across her clitoral shaft. Mouth nuzzling hers, barely-there smooches, before he gnaws her jaw, tongues down her throat. Her breasts keep captivating his attention. He nuzzle the hard dark nipples, from one to the next and back again, his right hand weighing them gently, mindless of the dull needles of discomfort stabbing through the bones. His physical therapist always suggests he exercise with stress balls. In Hei's opinion, this is ten times better. ]

[anatural]

[And whose fault is that, you selfish bastard? All you had to do was accept responsibility for fucking up. That's all you had to do, and this could have stayed yours.]

When did you get so timid? [She squirms impatiently and bites him wherever she reach. He's on the wrong side of languid and teasing, creating just smidge more frustration than pleasure.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Timid. Hei hides the curve of his smile against the ledge of her collarbone. He doesn't know why her petulance is both gratifying and endearing. Maybe because it shows how much she wants him. Without that assurance, each heartbeat carries with it a horrible weightless dread, where he's convinced, Maybe this is it it, she'll stop you and leave. There is almost a sadistic glee to it, not because he wants to be stopped but because it is expected. He doesn't deserve to touch her. ]

[ But it's clear she won't tolerate anything lukewarm or tentative. She rarely has. ]

[ Tracing the puckers of her nipples in wet lines, he bites down on the left. Tender -- then hard, while his fingers, below the waterline, separate the slick pink petals of her sex. His thumb teases tremors across her clitoris while the first two digits slide inside her, probing her sopping walls before crooking, inexorably, on that remembered hot-spot. Water sloshes at the lip of the tub; their mouths meet again, his teeth finding her lower lip this time. So much space to wade in -- yet it's almost claustrophobic. Moisture. Wet skid of skins. Hands and mouths everywhere, limbs interwoven. It is good, cramped, disorganized -- and the hunger boiling in Hei's own body startles him, like a strange propulsive rush below the skin, so he can't hold back anymore -- all the reasons for holding back evaporate. ]

[ He's got Korra. Right now. In this moment. The rest doesn't matter. ]

[anatural]

[FINALLY. Korra claws him appreciatively as he gnaws on her and his fingers work their magic.

A sad little girl who can only love people who hurt her.

Shut up! she snarls to that voice in her mind. She loves plenty of people who don't hurt her. And she doesn't love Hei just because he does. Or because he does amazing things to her body. It's more than that and she could list all the reasons if she could just think clearly, which is hard to do when he's touching her like this but she doesn't want him to stop (doesn't want to have her head clear and realize she still can't think of reasons she loves him).]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Why does she love him? Everytime he comes back to that, it is like touching a wound. ]

[ He'd like not to believe their relationship was just a horror-show. That the mistrust and violence was just one little facet of their story, and not the most important. Except she still struggles with that rationalization herself, it is plain to see. He has no trouble imagining even his secret self -- that stone-cold killer -- falling in love with this girl, this pure pillar of righteous deadly power. It is the other way around he still can't fathom. So he'd helped her out of a jam once or twice, been a crying shoulder, a constant fixture, living and fighting at her side. Former enemies can become comrades, he knows that. ]

[ But to choose as her lover a man with such a brutal history? Who killed for a living? Who'd begun by hunting and planning to kill her? To lavish on him such tenderness, to so reflexively surrender herself, even choose to have his child? ]

[ The more he experiences it, the more perplexing, perturbing, disturbing it is. She can rage at him for days, accuse him of trying to explain away her feelings. But a girl meant to be the embodiment of balance and brightness, her life dedicated to eradicating monsters of chaos -- for that girl to want to lie down with one every day, to give herself to him so utterly ... There is something sordid in it. You can soften it and clarify it all you like, but there it is. ]

[ It's not her fault. The conviction rises through him like a bloodrush. It is just everything she'd endured in the City. All the isolation and misery. All the terrible ways her identity was battered, denigrated, downtrodden -- downright erased. It can take a good girl -- the strongest girl -- and warps her into... ]

[ Into what? a sly voice prods. Not into someone like him. He understands -- with an unshakeable conviction -- that no matter how misshapen or altered Korra becomes, she'll always be a hundred times better than he ever can be. ]

[ Her sex seems to ripple and clutch at his fingers: he works into her with two, in and out, as deep as his knuckles. His teeth suck purple rosettes of bruises everywhere he can reach -- across her throat, the swell of her right breast, the underside of her left, the soft skin of her inner-arm, the gleaming point of her shoulder. Her body is slippery and wild: the air is a waft of steam and spicy Korra-smell, and for a moment Hei is happy, blissfully happy, shining through his misery. ]

[ In moments like these, his misgivings shiver into dust. Carry him away from reality, and into truth. ]

[anatural]

[People are complicated and love is strange. At the end of the day, that's the only explanation there is, and the only one Korra needs when a canny evil spirit hasn't gotten under her skin. It's not in her nature to question her feelings and their legitimacy. She feels what she feels.

But while she's gotten older and wiser, she does still care how people see her. She does still sometimes use other people's perceptions as a reality check on her own. Which is a good thing when the source can be trusted -- and a bad thing when it can't.

She claws at him, panting, gasping. They've splashed bath water so far that their discarded clothes have gotten wet, not that she notices or cares. All of her attention is split between her rapidly approaching climax and her eagerness to take this to the bedroom. Dildos can be great, but sometimes a girl just needs a real live cock.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei watches, unblinking -- transfixed -- as she climbs. Her whole body is a sleek undulation: he watches her stomach pucker, her breasts swaying, the muscles rippling under her skin. Also the water is almost a reassuring medium between them -- it gathers around their bodies like a physical pressure, as if urging him to embrace her, while also keeping their bodies discrete and a little unreal, just enough to make any intimacy possible. ]

[ An embrace with her in the empty air out there in the real world feels like it would be so much more difficult. ]

[ Working his trapped hand deeper between her clenched thighs, he works her swollen clit with his thumb. Meanwhile his kisses grow softer: he lingers to taste her mouth, to suck the plumpness of her lower-lip between his teeth, to taste the warmth of her jittery little breaths. He can feel that familiar want congealing through his muscles: his dick is at half-mast, sliding against Korra's restless body, throbbing and interested in every particle as it twitches, lengthens. ]

[ He almost doesn't want to make her come. Almost doesn't want to fuck her. He wants to delay that inevitable landslide from blissful hope to miserable reality, to keep them enveloped entirely in this moment: wrapped around each other in a silence disturbed only by their panting breaths and the splash of water. ]

[anatural]

Please... Tell me this place... Is soundproof. [Not that it matters now, because there's no stopping her scream as she tumbles over the edge. Fuck. She's left limp and trembling, melting against his body.]

Wow. [It comes out as a gasp, without her really thinking about it or intending to say anything. It's been awhile since she's come that hard. I've missed this. She presses kisses to every part of his body she can reach without expending a lot of effort; she doesn't have much strength to offer at the moment.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ He's missed this too. Missed the way her body seems to rise helplessly in his arms, her muscles strung out with the frenzy of her need, her scream a shrill pulsing missile that slices through his whole body to ignite straight in his groin. There's other details he's missed too. The way she puddles across him afterward, with the meekness of her satisfaction: a living sculpture of spent energy. The way she trusts him so completely -- this person who has spread so much disaster through her life -- without even an echo of fear, an iota of reserve. ]

[ At least on the surface. ]

[ Carefully, he sits up in the water, shivering as the cool air touches his wet skin. Draped across him, Korra is a moist heavy stole, her kisses warm blossoms of heat. In diplomatic stages, he withdraws his fingers from the twitching clutches of her sex. Nuzzles the musky juncture of her shoulder, kisses her throat, the point of her chin, before smoothing the wet tangles of her from her brow with his right hand. ]

[ His mind is hazy in the aftermath of witnessing her crest. Not hazy enough -- unfortunately -- to ignore practicalities. ]

We should get out of the tub. [ A beat, then, in gentle invitation, ] The bedroom's soundproofed too.

[anatural]

Mmm. [With a twist of her wrist, Korra uses her water bending to remove the stopper from the tub. She lets out a little groan of satisfied reluctance as she drags herself out. And as soon as Hei's standing, she wraps her arms around his neck.]

I might need you to carry me.

[mortemscintilla]

[ As if she needs to ask. ]

[ Holding her against him with one arm, he reaches for the towels with the other. There is an element of heartbreaking ritual in the way she lets him move her around, coax her arms up like an obedient child to be dried off, to have her hair toweled into a damp fluffy tumble. His erection, twitching sluggishly with its weight, swings between them, yet his attention is completely fragmented. Everything both fans out and funnels toward Korra: the moist heat of her clasped in his arms, the way her pulse thrums under his stroking fingertips, her bracing scent in the steamy air. ]

[ He almost doesn't want to go to bed. Cradling her for a moment with her head tucked in beneath his chin, he rocks her just slightly, a lulling motion as if to draw the last of the tension out of them both, as if by some charm. He wants to just close his eyes and hold her like this forever, with her cool smooth cheek nestled in the curve of his neck. ]

[ He can't say that, though. Half-steering, half-scooping her up, he leads her out of the bathroom, into the dark airy bedroom. The windows are steamed up as cold rain rattles outside: in the blue-gray gloom, Hei clings to Korra for a moment, a dizzy sway, almost as if dancing. In other circumstances, a CD or something sliding into music, he might have humorously let himself go, danced her in a slow circle to the beat -- except he's too conscious of his dick's rude ache between them. ]

[ He spills them back across the futon. His movements are clumsy, yet practiced with long-standing familiarity. Hovering over Korra, he takes in the sight of her. In the semi-dark, with her wet hair in disarray and her eyes dreamily half-furled, she looks misleadingly seventeen again. The heat of her body against his carries that same glad welcome as when you lurch out of bed on a cold 7 am and are met with the smell of brewing coffee with a sense of bliss. ]

[anatural]

[Korra enjoys feeling taken care of. Or perhaps it's more accurate to say coddled, because she has plenty of people who take care of her. Pema is always happy to watch Mai so Korra can get some sleep, and Asami never fails to bring dinner when Korra doesn't have the energy to cook. Korra appreciates those gestures and the love they demonstrate. Yet those are favors; they don't make her feel treasured in the same way that being dried, cuddled, and carried does. (If he really treasured her, he wouldn't have left her ... but she doesn't let herself think about that.)

She wiggles a little under his gaze, and she reaches up to tangle her fingers in his hair.] What are you thinking?

[mortemscintilla]

[ What are you thinking? It's what the lover in the books, in the movies, always asks. Gazing down at the dreamy blue horizon of her eyes, Hei tries to summon a convincing half-smile. A non-verbal Nothing. How to tell her, everything his memory conjures, just from the sight of her spread across his bed. He half-wishes he could go, be alone for a while to get his equilibrium back. But he can't stand the idea of being parted from Korra. Too hungry for the deliciousness of her -- even as he understands how stupid he's being. Not merely short-sighted and selfish -- but delusional. ]

[ Because having her near makes him wish everything was different. Makes his mind blur into a twilight world of fabrications, elaborate self-deceptions -- What-Ifs. Somedays. Maybes. He, who has always been someone who believed in facing facts, dealing with reality. Who could weave lies in glittering webs, but who hated being tricked or lied to or hoodwinked. Who believed in accepting the truth, no matter how ugly or devastating. ]

[ He isn't sure when that changed. ]

[ Turning his head, he nuzzles the palm of her hand. His words are salted with dryness, but lightly. ]

Trying not to think.

[ His body melds closer to hers, suspended only by the wedged thigh he has pinned her with. His cock hiccoughs with interest against her abdomen; he stirs his hips in a giving grind as he dips his head, lapping upwards to her neck to where her pulse leaps in that familiar thrum beneath the skin. ]

[ Scraping his teeth across supple veins and tendons, he lavishes himself on her throat, breathing in prompt inquiry, ]

Nice? Or nasty?

[ Although he's perfectly amenable to anything in between. ]

[anatural]

Mmm. [Korra doesn't want to think much either. She wraps her legs around him and pulls him close, breathing in deeply his smell. Forget drugs or alcohol — this is all she needs to turn her brain off. Higher order thinking? Who needs that? She exists entirely in her body, especially the places where it touches his.

Nice or nasty? Oh please.]

Everything. [She wants every part of him for as long as she can hold onto it.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Humming, Hei lets himself be dragged closer, her thighs a heavy ribbon around his torso. It's incredible, having her like this, sweet and melting beneath him. He would kill to get his dick inside her, if he didn't want so badly to prolong the moment. Mouth catching hers, he folds them closer instead, a hot clasp of muscle. The languid spill of her tugs a string through his body, and he can feel the deep thumping of his veins through his own leg, belly, dick, everywhere their skins meet. ]

[ Gnawing from her neck down to her breasts, leaving petal-like mouth marks across her skin, he aligns his erection until the head slips down, between the wet cleft of her sex. His hips stir, measured, unhurried, teasing her with the tip, popping the thick, mushroom cap just-barely in and out of her with short thrusts, the friction dragging slickly across her clit. ]

[ It feels so fucking good. His vision spangles dangerously, and he distracts himself by worrying the crinkles of her nipples with his teeth, with stretching her arms over her head to lap at the prickly hollows, to trace the swell of each breast with his tongue, feel the way it creases where it hangs on her ribs, to lick away the faint taste of soap to find the musk underneath. ]

[ So many wants and whims skirling through his head. It'd be almost embarrassing -- a child fixated on a shiny new toy, or an addict slavering over sweet perfect junk -- except he's too far-gone to care. Who knows if he'll get another chance, taking in this inventory of her charms? ]

[anatural]

[Korra gasps as he pops inside her, her hips instinctively jerking up to push him in deeper.]

Look who's getting ahead of himself. [Her eyes glow a little as she uses the Avatar state to help her flip him onto his back, the motion grinding his dick even harder against her clit in a happy accident. It takes all her willpower not to sink down and ride him right now.]

Now. What should I do to you? [She punctuates the question with biting kisses down his neck.]