that's not how you do it

[anatural]

WHO: Korra & Hei
WHAT: Hei’s made himself scarce and Korra is sick of it.

[It has not been a good month for Korra. The people of Republic City haven't taken well to their new spirit neighbors, and most of the spirits seem to agree. By and large they just won't talk to her. The president has been calling Tenzin almost every day with new complaints and, for the past two weeks, these ridiculous vines have been overrunning sections of the city and nothing she does can get rid of them. It's been one Avatar failure after another.

Her boyfriend killing her uncle has basically been the highlight of the whole thing. But of course, after more or less telling her he loves her, he vanished. The little twerp who lives in his building always took great delight in telling her that Hei wasn't around, so she knew nothing had happened to him. He's just doing that avoidant bullshit he likes to do, and Korra is completely done with it. You don't leave for ten months, come back for maybe two and a half weeks of regular contact, and then disappear for another month. No.

So today, when the brat once again tells her that Hei's out, she smiles and says she'll wait for him in his room. Never mind that she doesn't have a key — she just kicks down the door and uses her Avatar powers to deflect his ridiculously paranoid security system. And then she throws herself on his bed to wait and stew.]

Comments

[mortemscintilla]

[ It's been a strange month for Hei. But not without its successes. He's re-integrated himself into the murky circles of Republic City's underworld. He's made acquaintances -- if a collection of assets you wouldn't trust further than you piss can be called that -- who will serve as informants and tails. He's waded readily into a tarpit of strange and sinister entourages, of all races, sizes and shapes, until he's come to know most of them by name and by sight. Killers. Assassins. Torturers. Cons. Persons of his profession, if street musicians can be said to share the same profession as virtuosi. ]

[ Time was, he'd have never bothered with them. Certainly not when first coming to Republic City, when he was ready to put his blades aside, to watch things live and grow instead of slicing them down. When he was determined to stay vigilant, yes, to keep a knife handy, of course -- but to start a fresh page. But much as he'd like to be a good man, to pay his debts day by day until his past is buried under them, that won't keep him alive. ]

[ More importantly, it won't keep Korra alive. The bloodshed among the two Water Tribes, Unalaq's machinations, the devastating aftermath, the chaos in Republic City ... that's confirmed it. ]

[ So much for goodness, and doing the right thing. ]

[ He's been shadowing Korra on and off for the month. There is scuttlebutt of something brewing among the White Lotus, of the Fire Lord traveling on urgent business beyond his realm. Something that threatens the Avatar's safety. Hei isn't sure what is. But it's better to stay alert. ]

[ That evening, nobody bothers 'Li' as he leaves the train and navigates his way to his apartment. Seeing the vine-shattered streets is an eerie shock, almost unwelcome for how it blows the early days after Heaven's Gate to the forefront of his mind. With it comes memories of Pai, because her absence is always palpable, the dull physical ache in his chest still painful and unnamable as ever. The whole city has been hit hard and still bears the scars; yet for some reason, he expects it to be cleaner than this by now, less brutalized. In the middle of the maze of ripped-apart buildings his own flat itself rises up with its sharp head solemn as a tombstone. ]

[ Climbing up the dank staircase, Hei takes one look at his door -- and knows he has company. More to the point, he knows who it is. A strange heat pours through him, either dread or expectation, and his pulse skips before he steps past the battered entrance and into the dry coolness of his room. ]

Most guests wait in the parlor, you know.

[anatural]

[He's greeted with a large ball of muddy rainwater heading straight for his face. Korra's been waiting for him for quite awhile now, and it's given her a lot of time to stew.]

Most guests aren't girlfriends you haven't seen in a month. I hope.

[mortemscintilla]

[ The water ball hurtles at him, and Hei reaches for a dagger in his coat, the motion almost casual. His understanding that she isn't flinging a weapon at him comes in another split second, stopping his muscles from flexing under a presumption of danger. He sidesteps quickly, the projectile splattering the wall behind him. Ordinarily, he'd be amused. There's something about Korra's gesture that strikes him as the petulant tantrum of a little girl more than an attack from an outraged Avatar. ]

[ But one glance at her face tells him this is no time for jokes. ]

If there were, you'd be the first to know.

[ Mildly, he steps in, shutting the sagging door behind him. Best to keep private matters private. His landlady is curious enough about his associations with the Avatar as it is. ]

[anatural]

Are you sure about that? [She rolls to her feet, tension radiating from every muscle in her body.] I haven't seen even your shadow in the past month. You're always conveniently gone when I stop by. If anything happened to you, I'm pretty sure I'd be the last to know.

[mortemscintilla]

[ She rolls to her feet, and it's like a tide of heat swelling against Hei's skin, like a molten sea barricaded only by a thin, porous wall of fired clay -- a wash of lava -- that is eating away at his thinning patience, dissolving it. He can feel its blistering heat against his temples now in fact, and with a sharp inhalation, he dispels it, trying to keep his voice as calm as possible. ]

[ He knows he shouldn't let her attitude can get under his skin, but it does, making him bewildered and angry. He's still a long way from feeling comfortable with checking in with someone else, or with having his whereabouts questioned. ]

Nothing happened to me. [ He spreads his arms, a dry but unspoken As you can see, then lets them drop.  An awkward moment hangs, in which he knows Korra will expect more -- explanations, apologies -- but all he can manage is, ] I've been pretty busy.

[anatural]

[It drives Korra crazy. It's not like she's trying to be Mako and Asami, practically attached at the hip, always kissing and cuddling in public. She's not being that demanding. Wanting to talk to her boyfriend, to spend time with him, more than once a month is perfectly reasonable. She's not asking that much. He's as good as said he loves her. How can he love her enough to kill for her but not enough to spend time with her?]

With what? Hunting down more threats to the Avatar?

[mortemscintilla]

[ If he were in her shoes, Hei would acknowledge her right to be enraged. He wishes he could explain, that his distance has nothing to do with her. Rather, it's the relationship he has with human closeness, which is like the fur on a cat's back: prickly and irrepressible when disturbed, but smoothing instantly and automatically when it's not, because it is genetically programmed to be unruffled. That's part of his training, because intimacy is something he's never been able to afford. ]

[ (Maybe it's always like this because Hei's forgotten how to be anything else; anything that's built softer and warmer than the weapon he is. His courtship is always conducted at a distance, balanced on edge, as if the ground is swooping to meet his lover's crashing body.) ]

[ He can't tell her that, though. Or acknowledge the validity of her question. ]

[ Instead, quietly, ]

There's nothing wrong with wanting you to be safe.

[anatural]

How is avoiding me for an entire month supposed to keep me safe? [She hates it when he acts like this — how he can say the most stupid, bullshit things and have them sound reasonable. How easy it is for him to make it seem like she's being irrational and crazy.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei feels like smacking her, but also like reaching out to gather her close.  Always, with her most casual breath, Korra forces him to his limits. But in this dispute, he has to sincerely weigh her point while arguing his own. His gaze narrows, sliding indecisively between cold anger and the gentlest of entreaties, both of which seem equally valid in that moment. ]

I wasn't avoiding you. [ Not consciously, anyway. ] But if there are rumors of someone dangerous after you, I need to confirm them.

[ And it's smarter to operate on the sidelines, than in the crux of things. At her side. (Let Korra have her spotlight. He works best in the shadows.) ]

[anatural]

[I don’t need you to go hunting rumors. I need you. Comfort. Perspective. Distraction. A reminder that she's not just Avatar Korra; she's Korra. A safe space to let go of her responsibilities and let her spirit rest. These are all things she needs more than protection, and it hurts how he doesn't see that. It feels like she's beating her head trying to get water from a stone.]

Hunting rumors. That must take a lot of time. Of course you couldn't be around. You probably had to chase them down every skirt in every dive in the city.

[mortemscintilla]

[ Every skirt in every dive in the city? ]

[ Hei blinks, once, before a sour voice at the back of his mind mutters: Not this again. It's true, by definition, he has all the sincerity of an adder. It's true that he's self-serving, faithless, because a Contractor knows that everything changes. Allegiances shift, partnerships crumble. Only time and death stay the same. But at the end of the day, he's not a real Contractor, is he? How can he be, when what he feels for Korra is so esoteric and bright it burns through his bones. It's not the love that other people feel, but maybe it's close. Loyalty and a degree of trust. Warmth. Softness. (He doesn't loves anyone like he loves Pai, sure -- because, in the end, he hadn't had any reason not to love her. She was all he had. Still, was it enough in the end?) ]

[ He shakes it off. Wishes she could understand, that his loyalty, once given, is unbreakable. But she's not going to believe that, is she? When it comes to giving him the benefit of the doubt -- even one goddamn iota of it -- she can be mingy as a loanshark. ]

[ When he speaks it's low and flat; his hard gaze doesn't dip. ]

Shocking as this may be, I don't need sex every twenty-four hours to stay functional.

[ A small, mean sarcasm lurks behind the words; as often as she accuses him of sleeping around, he's not the one who had an ill-advised fling the moment no better alternatives were available. ]

[anatural]

[It would help if he'd tell her that. The one thing he's told her clearly is that she can't expect fidelity from him. That he didn't sleep with anyone during the 10 months he was gone, that it didn't occur to him to, isn't necessarily because he cares about her — it could just as easily be he didn't see anyone worth the price of the condom. He's said — obliquely — that he loves her, but he's never told her what that means, beyond the fact he'll kill to protect her.

The barb hits exactly where he wants it to; tears well up like blood in her eyes, but she blinks them back.]

It sure seemed that way back in the City. You could barely keep it in your pants when we lived together.

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei's eyes narrow, brow pinching in reproof. It occurs to him, that he could tell her he'd used sex with her as a time-sink, a way to let off pressure, because the novelty of paid encounters and zipless fucks had worn off for him. Because what she'd given him for free was better than what most men paid good money for. He could tell her -- and it would be true. Or he could tell her that being with her was the first time he'd hooked up with a real live human being who'd made him feel that shaky and anxious, his heart aching with the transient peak of real, deep feeling. He could explain that it was so unnerving to his equilibrium that for days afterward he'd felt minimally functional, forced to plow through his bleak routine with a painfully sharpened awareness of how he'd hollowed out his own soul. He could tell her all that ... and it would be true, too. ]

[ But he can't -- and when her eyes go wet and glossy, he feels his entire body stiffen, a movement of muscle under skin that once would have presaged attack. Now it's just an echo of repressed chagrin. ]

[ When he speaks, his voice is effortfully soft but sharp-edged, too. ]

What makes you think I'm like that with everyone? [ His eyes are dark; not murder-dark but almost as eerie. ] You think if I was, I'd have picked you, out of a hundred smarter options?

[ Harsh, but the subtext is palpable: I'm with you because I want you. Nothing else. ]

[anatural]

[Palpable, maybe, but Korra's in no state to draw comfort from subtext. She can't sustain herself on hints and implications.

Besides which, there's another implication to his words that rings even more clear: she's the bad choice.]

How should I know? I don't see you with other people. I hardly even see you! [And I need you. She can't say that, can hardly admit it to herself. She can't stand the idea of needing someone who so very clearly could live just fine without her.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Not the bad choice. But not the suitable one either. Because when you look at it logically, he and Korra are fundamentally different creatures. Not the DNA helixes, desires, plumbing, hysteria levels. All that is window-dressing. It's at the crux that they're different, in their very similarities. Every graceful turn of her body can make him turn with her, like teeth in one cog turning another. They always mesh smoothly, but Hei isn't so smitten as to recognize that every contact inevitably rolls them in opposite directions. ]

[ Yet, through time and attrition, with proof after proof between them, Korra has become someone to treasure. He might not trust her with his complete self -- mind and heart -- but he trusts no one but Pai with that. And if heart and mind have their doubts, his instincts don't. When he acts without thinking, it is to give her his trust. ]

[ When her face crumples, something inside him crumples with it. He nearly reaches out for her, but stops himself. ]

I'm sorry... if I make you feel that way. [ The words come out strangely flattened of emotion, as if offered by an alien translator. With effort, he tries harder. ] I know it's hard to feel like we're partners ... if I keep you at an arm's length.

[ But his years of scraping out an existence as a boy have taught him that closeness -- especially the kind he feels for Korra -- lies parallel with compromised. They've taught him that power and control are the only things that can bring you safety and comfort, even if they require their own sacrifices. (But if you can't make a small exception for the very person you want to protect, what use is any of it?) ]

In my world, I couldn't afford to get too close to anyone. All I could care about were the dealings of those I worked for. Because they took care of me. Because I was useful to them. But I had to fight for it, to work myself to death for every leg-up I could get. I had to give up a lot, do a lot of things I don't care to remember. But I wasn't going to stop until I'd reached what I wanted.

[ He hesitates, as if he's swallowed a stone that's lodged in his throat. His lips twitch then, but it barely qualifies as a smile. ]

There was no happiness in that type of thing. Nothing magical or personal. Except, now, there is.

[ And she's an idiot if she can't grasp that it's her. ]

[anatural]

[Once upon a time, that speech would have worked on her. Has, in fact, worked on her. He'd give her a little flash of his painful past and she'd melt, all wrongs forgiven, willing to compromise herself to accomodate him.

It's a trick that's lost its effectiveness.]

I'm glad you're happy beating people up in my name. Good for you. But that doesn't help me. [She needs him here, with her, more than one week out of every ten months. She needs him with her for more than just the catastrophic world-ending emergencies. Why is that so hard?]

[mortemscintilla]

[ It wasn't his intention to trick her. Not deliberately, anyway. Just an attempt at loaning her a slice of his psyche. Letting her see things as he does. Except that's impossible. Intellectually, she might be able to comprehend the surface of his past, the preliminary outline if not the entire superstructure. But dig any deeper, and she'll lose all sense of recognition, because his experiences are completely beyond her frame of reference. She's suffered and struggled plenty. But that's not the same as being flayed within an inch of your life by violence and bloodshed, pared down and reassembled into something hard and sharp as cut diamonds. ]

[ (In light of that, is it any wonder they keep butting heads like this? What fool stuffs a wildcat and a viper into a gunny sack, tosses the sack in a raging river, and harbors hope of a pleasant outcome?) ]

[ At her words, he blinks, his face losing some of its rigidity. He hesitates a beat, then lifts an arm to brush his knuckles across her hair in not quite a caress, tugging her ponytail then cupping her cheek.  ]

Beating people up for you doesn't make me happy, Korra. You do. You're the one indulgence I've allowed myself in years. The one person whose happiness can make me happy as well. If I'm trying to erase any dangers to you, it's because I want you to be safe. I know I'll be better for it.

[ He wishes he could say a hundred things, promises to be by her side, to have and to hold. But any promise he makes will be a difficult one. Instead he slips his free hand to her waist, hipbone, slides it around up to her back, under the layers to the soft-fabric blouse warmed by skin. Face siding to face, he brushes his lips over unruly crescents of hair that break rank from the girlish ponytails. ]

[ Softly, ]

I will spend more time with you. I'll give you anything else you need. But I'm not going to watch and do nothing if -- [ He hesitates. ] If anyone tries to hurt you, or plans to, I won't sit by.

[anatural]

[That speech is enough to make her melt, as his speeches always do. And then he ruins it.]

Are you even listening to me? [She pulls away from him, her eyes burning blue.] That was the fight we had last month. That has nothing to do with this!

[This isn't about what he does or who he hurts to keep her safe. This about being lonely. Were you lonely when I was gone? he'd asked her, back in the Spirit World, and she had been, but not nearly as much as now, when he's in the same city but never around. Nothing is as lonely as knowing the person you love doesn't want to see you as much as you want to see him. He says she makes him happy, but he promises to spend more time with her like a father pacifying a lonely child. She doesn't want him around out of obligation. She wants him to want to be with her.]

If you don't want to see me, just say so.

[mortemscintilla]

[ Once again, she's completely misconstrued his meaning. Or maybe he's misconstrued hers. The distinction doesn't seem to matter at this point. ]

[ He blinks at Korra, whose gaze far outstrips the glaciation of any previous ice age. Except a blue-eyed woman shouldn't be able to radiate that degree of paradoxical heat. He wonders if she knows precisely the effect of her gaze, which in its deliberateness is all the more demoralizing. ]

Of course I want to see you.

[ It has nothing to do with obligation. How can it be, when this is the kind of love that is asymptotic to anything that sane or benign? This is an emotion that drags itself, gut-shot and with two broken legs towards death.  It has no restraint, or shame, or sense of logic. There is nothing pretty about it. It turns those of who feel it into irrational, hormonally-poisoned abominations. It only has one limitation and that is of reciprocation. Sometimes, not even that. ]

[ Hei swallows. He wants, sharply, to exit the room, to evade the charged current in the air; it is his first impulse. Not doing so takes an act of will. ]

Look. I know I'm going about this wrong. It's been years since I've --

[ Since I've had a chance to be with someone I cared about. Every day. Repeatedly. It brims him with a sharp anxiety, stronger some times than others, a dread that something will rip her from him, or that he will drive her off himself, by getting it wrong in some undefined way. It's why he swings so wildly between pulling away and staying close, running hot and cold in almost the same breath. ]

[ At length, he manages, ]

Tell me what to do. How can I fix this, so you stop feeling this way?

[anatural]

[She can't believe she has to explain this to him. A part of her doesn't want to explain because she shouldn't have to. This kind of thing should be abundantly self-evident.]

If you want to see me, see me. Don't do it to make me feel better. [She wants to feel wanted, not catered to. Desired, not indulged.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ She is wanted and desired -- and perhaps that's what makes her words so terrible. With a chill, Hei realizes one of them is missing something. More than likely, it's him. Under the surface of his exasperation, guilt gnaws at him. He wishes, for a moment, he could crawl into her brain. See things as she does, so he won't end up disparaging these things that Korra takes so seriously, things that are bound up with her hurt. ]

[ Instead he takes a deep breath and fights for calm. ]

I ...

[ I will. I promise. He wants to say it out loud, with confidence, in a reasonable tone, and follow it, soften it, by a temperate explanation that will make her see and agree with his point of view. Instead a dry whisper of I'm sorry, is all that results. He repeats it as if it is a foreign phrase he is trying to memorize without really comprehending. ]

I'm sorry. I know ... I'm making a mess of this. I just ... I don't want to lose you.

[ Like I've lost almost everyone else important to me. ]

[anatural]

[How would you even know if you never see me? Korra really, truly can't reconcile what Hei says with what he's been doing.

Growling softly, she yanks him in for a kiss. She's still angry and hurt and that's evident in the almost numbing press of her lips, but she's also desperate for something that makes sense. Neither of them have ever been particularly good with words; maybe with this their real feelings will get across.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ When she yanks him in, he's expecting a punch. For one absurd, tipsy moment, he flashes back to that time in the City, when they'd been forced to spew pick-up lines at each other, and she'd fisted his collar with this exact pitch of rage and violence. Except he can smell it on Korra even before her mouth catches his -- the chemical signature of want. It makes him wonder -- where does desire originate in the first place? What comes first, chemistry shaping desire, or desire shaping chemistry? ]

[ Then her kiss dissolves all thought, all restraint. A hot dark gravity that draws him in -- like her body itself. ]

[ Hei inhales sharply, and then hums, an umber vibration against her mouth. The reflexive slide of his arms around her is no great shock. He lets his eyes close for a moment, belting her waist tight with an arm, stroking a hand up along her ribs, coming to rest over that fluttery pulse behind one soft breast. Strange, how he's fully armed, fully dressed, yet he feels naked, his erection already becoming obvious through his trousers. He'd never meant to be this open, this predictable, this vulnerable, but here he is all flushed with want already, the physical longing slipping by all his censors. ]

[anatural]

[If only it could dissolve everything the same way for her. I don’t need sex every 24 hours to stay functional. His words from before still stab at her in the same rhythm as the pulse of his erection. She's tempted to punish him for that — or at least prove him wrong — by pulling away and leaving. (Would he chase her if she did? Or would he just go get it taken care of somewhere else?) But those kinds of mind games just aren't in her nature — nor is self-denial just to prove that kind of point.

She pushes him against the wall and pulls herself up so she can hook her legs around his waist. (Not the most comfortable position, but a subconscious throwback to the early days of their relationship, when the sex was rough & weird.)]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei wishes he could tell her. The breadth of this hunger -- this need that has spread, creeping, to infiltrate almost every last aspect of his life – it's not for every-fucking-body in the fucking city. Barely a handful of other women have ever stirred such interest; Amber was the only one who had roused this kind of senseless, low-level simmering. With Korra, even that takes a darker edge: this is almost pure rut; the need to drive his cock as hard as he can, as deep as he can, into this girl who is capable of matching him with such fierce welcome. ]

[ His breath hitches as she shoves him back. He doesn't falter, though. A coordinated if careless effort results in him scooping her weight in widespread palms: chest to chest, her legs a tight braid around him, heels nudging his spine. For a tall girl, he thinks dimly, Korra is remarkably limber. ]

[ Rocking against her, he tips his head to meet her mouth. His kisses are both lewd and tender, out of sync with the hard bite of his fingers in the flesh of her backside, the rough movements of his hips as if his body is struggling to align them. ]