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]

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.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ I'm so tired, she says. And something -- deja vu -- skitters like a small fish through the bowl in Hei's memory. How many times has he felt that way? Tired beyond his bones, with a weight that irons all his emotions flat. He doesn't need to imagine their places reversed. He knows himself, and knows he has always taken these juddering shocks to his life grimly, silently, and been hell to live with afterward, a bastard, morose and sullen. In many ways broken. ]

[ But if he'd absorbed this disaster too, it would have been worth it. It would not have been Korra who'd have to handle the fallout. ]

[ Leaning close, he circles both arms tight around her. His cheek rubs along the side of her head, tenderly as a big cat marking its territory, and he squeezes her shoulders and then strokes her neck, her hair, goes so far as to cup her cheek. He doesn't say Everything will be fine because it's not his way to sugarcoat unless he has something to gain from it. ]

[ Instead he states, what to his mind, is the irrefutable truth, ]

You'll figure something out. It's just a question of when. [ A beat, then, gentler, ] I wasn't kidding when I said you were gifted, you know.

[anatural]

[It gets even harder not to cry, because this is exactly what she's needed all month, what she's wanted from him but couldn't find the right words to say. She clings to him, soaking up the comfort of soft touches and that level of confidence she can't imagine possessing.]

I'm sorry I couldn't figure it out before your home got destroyed.

[All those people with their homes gone, nowhere to live...where would they go? What would happen to them? Air Temple Island can't afford to take them all in, but at the rate the vines are spreading, nowhere in Republic City will make an adequate shelter.]

Did that kid get out all right?

[mortemscintilla]

[ That wasn't home, Hei wants to tell her – because he's never trusted that sort of sentimentality and permanence. Everywhere he stays is just a waystation, a temporary port in a storm, until he finds another place better suited to his needs. But there's no way to explain all that. So he settles for squeezing her hard, letting touch take the place of words. His head is so full of Korra's breathing that he's filtered out almost everything else; his ears are cupped to an otherwise muted world. It gives the scene a soft soundlessness, both dreamlike and subaqueous. ]

[ At her question, he nods, an oddly reassuring weight and dig of his chin on her scalp. ]

No one was hurt.

[ Badly, anyway. It's not his way to ponder the human detritus left behind in a catastrophe. Your own life is what matters. You do what you have to, and take what you must. Shit on conscience and consequence. (Except he can remember too, what it's like to have the props of your life snatched from under you. To leave a place carrying nothing but what's in your hands.) ]

[ He tries not to think about it. Now isn't the time. ]

[ Quietly, ]

Want to come with me to a safehouse? Or should I take you to Air Temple Island?

[anatural]

[She wants to say Safehouse so badly. It sounds perfect: quiet, restful, isolated. But — She shakes her head.]

I need to get back to Air Temple Island. Tenzin's gotta be going out of his mind. [He seems like he's constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop, trying to anticipate the next disaster. She can't blame him for it; everything has been an almost non-stop disaster. But there are times, like right now, where she misses the City. Yeah, the curses fucked with her head and made life difficult, but she'd also been free.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ He wants to ask, Are you sure? Exhaustion and sadness twirl from the surface of her skin like smoke, caught like a heavy scent in her hair and the weave of her clothes. He knows a trick or two for erasing that. Go too long without indulgence and the system gets bollixed up. All he needs is an hour with her, and he swears he'll wring the tension out of her so good she'll sleep for a week. ]

[ Except she's right. Now isn't the time. ]

[ So he nods, and kisses her. Full on the mouth -- a warm, soft slide of lips. Then her neck, the curve of her breasts, her flat little belly. Half memorizing her warmth, her sweet contours, against future privation. Half reassuring her that if she changes her mind -- today, tomorrow -- this bottomless attention, this bittersweet greed for her, will always be there. ]

[ Lifting his head, he nudges his nose lightly against hers. ]

I'll see you off to the ferry.

[anatural]

[She kisses him fiercely, and it's clear how much she's missed him. She doesn't want him to leave; she doesn't want to lose this before she's even had a chance to have it again.]

You could come back with me. You aren't banned from the island completely.

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei inhales slowly between the swells of their kiss. He's forgotten the thrill, the completion, of such simple closeness, from having gone too long without it. Intimacy, the in-your-face kind, makes him invested and possessive, which is why he avoids it so aggressively. He's known this about himself for years, but is now experiencing a fresh new recognition. Yet, if fear of intimacy is a merit badge of manhood, a sign of tactical acumen, he is flunking, because he wants to mouth Korra all over and share secrets and a bed with her. He doesn't want to send her off alone. He likes the solidity of another body pressing close. It feels safe, not a shield against danger but a tactile source of nourishment. ]

[ Except he's not gotten this far by listening to his dick -- or that gooey, senseless mess of wants behind his ribcage. So he mouths the corner of her jaw, softly, and says, ]

I need to look for a new place. The safehouse won't cut it.

[ A silence stretches, in which he'd ordinarily let her go. Let the matter drop. But through this gesture he enters the mirror of Maxley, or maybe his father, men who'd unknowingly taught him how to turn away from others, not meeting their eyes, head bent as if there were more important things to focus on, like war-games, real estate or the cost of fruit. There is nothing more important. ]

[ In a low voice -- halting, almost awkward -- he adds, ]

Once I've found a new flat... why don't you move in?

[ It's said in the same tone he'd use for, Why don't we order sushi? Isn't this sort of moment, when it comes, supposed to be... heartfelt? Not some diversion from a catastrophe they've so narrowly averted? But half Hei's life has been spent functioning in that state. He's learnt to snatch any opportunity for solace when he can. ]