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

[anatural]

[Hey, she's been way rougher with him before.]

Don't be a baby. [She twists his erection hard as she squirms, trying to unseat him. She could push his chest but that would mean letting go of him.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ She has -- but there's a certain gap between stasis and arousal, in being cathected with enough desire that pain translates into pleasure. (How would she like it if he bit her clit right off the bat -- no teasing, no foreplay?) ]

[ There's a grimace as she twists his erection, a cramp of oversensitivity that quickly blossoms into a sweet full-blooded ache. Settling himself more firmly across her, he keeps those often-flailing legs pinned beneath his. Braces himself on one arm, his torso a pale curve over her, and reaches for her breasts with the other. He finds a nipple, clamps it between his fingers, hard enough to make her produce either a yelp or a moan, to make that gorgeous body tense and push in its familiar way, all her soft-hard edges ramming up against him. He pinches too roughly, twists, then wedges his knee between Korra's legs. ]

[anatural]

Ow! [Point would have been taken, if she were taking notes. But this is more of a fight than sex, regardless of how turned on they both are, and she's less concerned with pleasing him and more interested in making him cry uncle. Even as she rocks her hips, grinding herself against his knee, she leans forward and clamps her teeth down on one of his nipples. His fault for shoving them in her face, honestly.]

[mortemscintilla]

Hnn.

[ The sting of her bite scalds him, exhilarates him. He can feel his erection thump with a surge of heat against his belly, the balls rising; he wants to rub against her, to find delicious relief in the warm soft plane of her belly, or maybe between the pillowy heat of her breasts, at the same time coaxing her mouth open to lick wet stripes across the head of his cock with her pretty tongue. Instead he jerks forcibly away. A length of curtain tie-backs, old and faded to a dull blue, are heaped on the coffee table. Snatching them up, he seizes her wrists and makes short work of knotting them tight. Not as effective as handcuffs, sure, but the puposefulness of sex toys can often make them less exciting. ]

[ He pins her bound arms heavily above her head with one palm. The other, meanwhile, glides down, cupping the warm little tuft of her sex. He squeezes hard, feeling the heat and moisture of her against his fingers, before he brings his palm down in a light slap, like a licking strap over her clit. ]

[anatural]

HEY! [Korra squawks and struggles against him as he binds her wrists — though obviously she can't mind that much, since it would be the simplest thing in the world for her to burn them off with her firebending. She'd clearly rather complain than do anything about it.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ He was expecting her to shred the ties, screaming rape and murder, fists windmilling. The fact that she doesn't is reassuring -- and telling. He decides that, if he gets another chance, he'll only ever use these little ties to keep her pinned, and that he will always have them handy with with him. He ignores her squawk, settling back with an anticipatory air. She's still, which gives him the chance to steal more than a roving eyeful of her. Sweet sturdy curves, kissable pout, mussed ponytail, ceramic hair pieces glinting against the dark fur of her hair, wishbone angles summing up her body. Dust of the outdoors, scents both clean and grubby. Her face is a kittenish pert, a puppyish round, with traces of seaside and sky in the blue eyes. Impossible. ]

[ With a half-smile, he pushes the hand on her mons lower, finding slickness and heat. He doesn't try to be playful or gentle. He twists his wrist, thumb trapping her clit under it, as he works too fingers into her folds. He doesn't prod at her usual sweetspot, though; he only circles it with his fingers before pressing with a rude precision against the spongy wet patch just above it, rubbing and coaxing as if he's fucking her, but with a sustained pressure, a specific friction, that his cock or his tongue wouldn't be able to achieve. ]

[ He's never played with all her hotspots -- too distracted by her other charms, or maybe just too selfish -- but right now he's keen to remedy that. ]

[anatural]

[She growls and knees him in the ribs. He looks way too satisfied with himself — she's still mad at him. He doesn't get to toy with her without consequence.]

[mortemscintilla]

Nuh-uh.

[ She knees him, but instead of swatting at her, he maneuvers so the angle is wrong, the force weak, her kneecap only thudding dully across his ribs. ]

[ His hand stays wedged between her thighs, wrist rocking as he massages the rough-soft slickness of her interior. He drapes his weight half on her, half off her, mouth sliding down her body, biting, gnawing with harsh interest, tonguing her in places that haven't been tongued yet -- the soft dent beneath her ear, the downy skin of her nape, the creases of breasts and undersides of nipples, the crooks of elbow, groin, knee, his dick skidding against whatever is handy as he moves. ]

[anatural]

[She's not going to whimper. She is not going to whimper. She is not going to give him the satisfaction.

He's got her legs pinned, and her hands are tied, but she can still move her arms. She brings her fists down, pinning his neck between her forearms.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ He will make her whimper. And scream. And beg, before this is over. Because there's nothing more gratifying -- more beautiful -- than Korra in her throes: the sinuous, shameless movements of her body, girlish face absorbed in pleasure while the fully grown, womanly, Jesus-fucking-beautiful length of her writhes like a Valkyrie caught in wire, like a prisoner who is the exact opposite of submissive. ]

[ Case in point, when she pins his neck with her bound arms. Hei feels the grip of her descend like a sinewy noose around him, but it doesn't matter. He's descended down her body, face pressed with an intent restrained sort of greed into the cleft of her thighs, the burst of dark curls tickling his cheeks. His fingers fuck her hard, with wet squelches, a hard relentless hammering on that one gooey spot, while he opens his mouth and then closes it around the slick nub of her clit – a long, drawn-out suction as if he's feeding on her, devouring her from below. ]

[anatural]

[She screams, and hates him a little for the victory. She's not going to let him sit comfortable with it, though. If he wants to keep playing her, she's going to make him work for it. She throws her weight forward, trying to knock him back onto the ground.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ She screams, and satisfaction diffuses in a race along his blurred nerves and then reconcentrates in sharp knots at his chest and even more heavily in his groin. When she tries to knock him back, he wrenches free to manhandle her with a rough, careless intimacy -- off the couch, onto the threadbare carpet. He sets her in a sprawl on her elbows, bound hands clasped, thighs splayed apart. The tassels of her hair are spread everywhere, her shoulders and back gorgeously dimpled, making her trapezius a broad shallow valley, her spine a river that pours into the lush delta of ass below. ]

[ Hei climbs astride and digs his thumbs into Korra's neck, almost a massage. But there is nothing soothing in his voice: just the scrape of hormones, heat and gravel. ]

You'll have to do better than that.

[anatural]

[Ouch okay rugburn on her nipples that hurts. She kicks her legs up, trying to hit him wherever she can.]

Don't make me use my bending on you.

[mortemscintilla]

Maybe I'd like it.

[ His throat feels like a honeycomb in which words buzz like wicked bees, and his lips feel bee-stung on the radius of pleasure. When she kicks out, he is flung back on the carpet, more a clumsy thud than a crash. Biting back a chuckle, he hauls her up with a brusque unwieldy care into the cradle of his body, her back against his chest, his arms overlaying hers, legs a reversed pretzel. Mouthing the damp crook of her shoulder, he bites hard, at the same time palming her sex, two fingers working between the slick pouting lips to cruelly pinch her clit. ]

[anatural]

[In a weird way, she's missed fighting like this. Even more than the adrenaline rush, it's the kind of fight where she wins even when she loses — pleasure is both prize and consolation. Some might be tempted to give up the fight, but for Korra, it lets her actually enjoy a fight for the first time in probably years. It's not fun to fight for your life, for your identity, or for the fate of the world. There is nothing enjoyable about confronting people who want to destroy you, even when you come out more or less the victor. But this is almost like being in the Arena again, except it's intimate and sexy and no, it's not actually doing anything to resolve the issues between her and Hei but it's reconnecting her with a little piece of herself she'd thought lost.

He pinches her clit and she stomps her foot on the ground, her scream overlaying the sound of a large clay flowerpot crashing into the room. Except it turns out that earthbending is really hard to do while having sex — it's remarkably hard to overcome the natural stubbornness of rock when distracted by someone's fingers. She can feel the water in the vines nearby, and goes for the more malleable element instead. As difficult as it is to move with him pinning her arms and legs, she still manages to bend the vines into the room.

And then they get their own ideas.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ For Hei, any violence and physicality on the job has been just that: a job. In the field, he's had only a perfectionist's drive to succeed, and a predator's ferocity to survive. The enjoyment has been minimal. This is different. This is almost like two big cats playing, a vitality that is both vicious and innocent. The workings of his mind flatten out; concerns disintegrate. There is an honesty in this mode of communication. A warmth, almost, in Korra's smoldering temper and flying kicks, as if he's caught a fierce slice of sunshine in his arms. ]

[ And oh, he thinks, as her scream reverberates through the room, she burns so sweet. ]

[ He's dimly distracted by the flowerpot hurtling inside, but the vines are too obvious to miss. They slither toward him like pythons, and Hei crooks an eyebrow, a blend of amusement and alertness in his eyes. Squeezing her clit between his fingers, short bright shocks of pressure, he lets his other hand roughly cup her breast, twisting and stretching the nipple. ]

[ Biting her ear so it reddens under his touch, he breathes, ]

Didn't think your tastes ran that direction.

[anatural]

[He may or may not notice how her body goes tense — he may or may not mistake it for arousal. But there's no mistaking the tone in her voice.]

They don't.

[Stupid. Stupid stupid stupid! What was she thinking, bending those vines? She's been fighting them for almost a month now — she knows she can't control them! She struggles in Hei's grasp, this time in earnest.]

Let me go! [Tangled up as they are, she can't firebend her way out of her bindings, much less try to burn the vines away.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Her tone penetrates to the interior chambers of his skull -- and with a blink, Hei understands that something is very, very wrong. The vines -- Korra isn't the one controlling them. His heart skips once, sharply, before dropping to a frenetic baseline. He realizes they're tangled up in each others limbs, sitting ducks. Not to mention stark naked. ]

[ Shit. ]

[ Hei grabs Korra's shoulder and hauls her to her feet with one powerful wrench, bringing home a heavy and stumbling armful of the girl as his head whips toward the undulant vines, narrow-eyed and wary. He doesn't bother scrabbling for a blade; one sharp yank tears the ties loose. He's sure it'll leave burning stripes across Korra's wrists. But freeing her hands is more important. The moment she's loose, he jerks away from her, a precursor of loss so powerful that a part of him would almost stop to regain that touch. Except he's too busy gathering the sharp metal poker propped by the wall. ]

[ In a tight growl, he says, ]

You couldn't bend a platter of salmon in here instead?

[anatural]

Trust you to think with your stomach. [Snarled back at him because she already feels shitty enough and hating herself isn't going to get rid of the vines. She bends fire in small, controlled bursts, doing her best not to damage his room. Mostly because falling through the floorboards butt naked would basically be a fate worse than death. Seriously. The last thing she needs is to be the failed Avatar streaking through Republic City.

She manages to drive the vines back out the window, but there's no relief there. Vines have climbed up the entire side of the building.]

You need to get everyone out of here. [She yanks on her pants and grabs the nearest intact shirt she can find — one of his, and it will only occur to her later how the press will have a field day with that — before jumping out the window. She already knows she can't keep the vines from destroying the building, but she can buy everyone time to get out safely.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Zigzagging out of range as Korra drives the vines back, Hei jumps into a pair of jeans, not bothering with the shirt, and straps the blades and wires to his belt. A thick vine shoots through the gap in the window beside him. Ducking reflexively, he slashes with his knife. The vine, neatly severed, writhes on the floor like a cleaved earthworm. Quickly, with a spike of dread and adrenaline, Hei realizes they're crawling into the nooks and crannies of the whole building. ]

[ He starts to say something to Korra. But she's already leaping out the window to parting words: ]

[ Get everyone out of here. ]

[ Another time, Hei wouldn't bother. It's every man for himself. Mercy and stupidity are too often the same. Except, even as Korra leaps clear from the window, he's whirled to run fast as he can -- out the door, down the stairs. His feet skim across the floorboards so quickly he can barely feel his sandals thud against them. Self-preservation and a strange concern fight against one another; the latter is winning at the moment. ]

[ Banging on the doors, shouting orders, rousing the inhabitants, hauling the slower ones down the steps, he manages to get the tenants out. The building creaks and sways around them, vines thrashing against the walls, leaving stark cobwebs in the glass. Families, with their hastily assembled bundles, propping the elderly and carrying children, hurry down the street. The ground seems to vibrate; people scream. Clear of the building, Hei glances back; the vines seem thicker now, a live tangling mass, and as he watches, a portion of the building tips over the edge and begins to crash down. From this distance it looks unreal -- a magnificent special effect. ]

[ A shame, he's seen this scale of destruction so often before. Some things never change. ]

[anatural]

[Korra is a whirlwind of fire and stone as she tries to keep the vines from blockading possible exits. But she can't keep it under control. The best she can do is switch from burning the vines to bending them, using them to support the building's crumpling infrastructure. Still a portion of the building falls over, and it takes the last of her strength to keep it from destroying the neighboring buildings. She stumbles and leans against a wall to catch her breath.]

Avatar Korra, why are the vines spreading?

Avatar Korra, why haven't you figured out a way to stop them?

Are these vines an attack from the Spirit World?

What were you doing here? Were you seeing somebody?

[Great. The vultures swarmed quickly.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Korra's efforts are admirable. But there's little chance of deflecting such large-scale damage. ]

[ By the time it's over, the air is ashy, jangling with sounds. A crush of firemen, police, ambulance attendants and reporters have already gathered.  The streets are full of milling people. Some are frantic, in tears, but most are dazedly calm and silent, all eyes trained on the destruction, where fingers of green vines move slowly away from the building, visible and invisible as the plumes of smoke shift. ]

[ Hei shoulders his way through the crowd, toward the popping flashbulbs. Korra is at the epicenter, her hair loose from its moorings and her eyes like two bruises. He can hear the volley of sharp questions, and his brow spasms in annoyance. Ordinarily, he'd be quick to fade into the chaos. Disappear from any crime scene, as he's been trained to. But he refuses to leave Korra at the mercy of those scavengers. ]

[ Ash and plaster crumbles from the ruined building. The crowd surges back and forth, herded by the police. It takes Hei less than a minute to knock an officer out, and divest him of his uniform and helmet. Then it's simply a matter of altering his body-language to an air of coldly efficient command. People give him wide berth as he shoves his way through, heading toward Korra. If Pai was here she'd warn him he is taking some long chances, lately. Putting himself in the middle of a disaster-zone, right in front of the media, taking risks so close he can feel them tickling at his neck. Letting his guard down with a girl he should've kept as an asset, walking the soft line by falling in love. Pai wouldn't have liked any of it. ]

[ But then Hei had seldom heeded her warnings when she was with him. If the odds stand long against you, you have to take long chances, and Hei has always had a knack for picking the right ones. ]

[ He elbows past the journalists and cameramen, warding them off with the sweeping assertion cops are known for. Pitching his voice to carry, he says, ]

The Avatar is not free to divulge information at this time.

[ Before the reporters can protest, he steers Korra away by the shoulder -- a polite, professional gesture that is coded as: Come with me. ]

[anatural]

[So good is Hei's disguise that Korra herself doesn't recognize him until he touches her shoulder — by which point he's already steering her away before she can reveal the lie. She's smart enough not to say anything until they are far away (and doesn't breathe until they're out of sight of the real cops.)]

Thanks.

[Uh, wow, when had her legs started shaking? Are the vines moving again or nope, that's just her muscles deciding they've had enough; she sits abruptly on the ground to avoid falling. It's been a long day in a month of long days. A part of her wants to cry; most of her just wants to go to sleep. None of her wants to move anymore.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ They drift through the crowd, and into a claustrophobic alley that smells of slowly percolating cat-shit and soiled linen. But it's mercifully empty. That's all that matters. The clamor of the disaster-scrum is already fading. Their exit was tailed by flashing cameras, but there are no reporters here. Next morning, though, he'll find a photograph of him and Korra as they leave the scene. Captured in close-up, in black-and-white, which amplifies the stark slashes of dirt on Korra's shirt and the dark of Hei's uniform. Korra's eyes shine like headlamps in the wide pits of her sockets; Hei's face is shaded by the visor of his helmet, only the hard line of his jaw and mouth visible. The framing echoes something you'd see on the courthouse steps: a lawyer shielding his client from the hungering shutterbugs. As if he is the protector and she the protected. ]

[ An absolute lie, of course. Korra's the reason no one in the building died. Hei was more than ready to flee and save his own skin. Which is why you should never trust photos to tell the entire story. ]

[ In his arms, Korra has begun to shake in a jittery way, but with a restraint that means she is striving to hold herself together, to minimize the display. If Hei didn't know better, he'd think she is descending into post-tramatic shakes or outright shock, but her exhaustion is palpable, a raw chemical signature that cannot be mistaken for anything else. ]

Hey. [ His hand catches her elbow. Carefully, he steers her to an old wooden crate in the corner. After a sweep of their surroundings, he kneels before her, taking both her cold little hands in his. ] You okay?

[anatural]

I'm so tired. [There's a slight tremor in her voice, like even her vocal chords are just barely mustering the energy to function.] I've been fighting those things for over a month and I can't stop them. I can't control them. Nobody knows where they're coming from or why. I don't know what to do.

[Their fight earlier certainly didn't help her energy levels, nor is her frustrated arousal doing her any favors. She's got all the physical exhaustion of sex without any of the warm happy afterglow. But those things are far, far from her thoughts. Republic City is being destroyed piece by piece every day; the pathetic state of her love life hardly matters compared to that.]