When you have to go there...

[mortemscintilla]

WHO: Korra & Hei
WHAT: Korra moves in to Hei's place.

[ He's found an old loft not too far from the beach, strangely customized by a few generations of previous tenants. Tucked away among the sand dunes and flapping palms, it takes a while to find the strange cedar building, low and spread out like a child's blocks jumbled into the hillside, windows flashing like jewels. There's a set of wooden steps up the side of the building, turning from flight to flight like a fire escape, and a boarded genkan walkway along the bricked side that brings any visitors (or intruders) to an open area of the roof, enclosed by low walls. Deck furniture, crates, a few legacy plants that survive on rain. A good place to sit out at night and watch the stars -- or to spring a well-placed trap on trespassers. ]

[ Inside it's bigger than expected, but it's sectioned off by shoji, and the sections are cozy. (Well, cozy is what came to Hei's mind the first time he saw it, dry and ironic because any other meaning was too complicated to explain.) A dark-laqured kitchen area with an antique keyaki-wood hibachi; a livingroom made airy and pale by the paper blinds of joined squares of crumpled washi; a narrow bedroom with sea-blue walls and a moon-window with dark bamboo lattices, but bare of anything except a wide futon and a nightstand. Everything runs together except where retaining walls and counters and furniture and a few stone columns mark one part of the loft from another. ]

[ Further down, there is a lot of empty floorspace that once might have been a tatami room. Had the loft been occupied by a family, this would have been the location of the kotatsu, its heavy quilted skirt draping to the floor and an electric brazier radiating cheerfully, their legs tucked comfortably under the quilted skirt as they gossiped about the neighbors and griped about the household bills. Now, it serves as a training room. A floor of polished but pitted boards covered by dull gray mats. A weight bench. A punching bag. A pommel horse. A trapeze rig with a bright tangle of aerial silks. The only truly bizarre item in the mini-dojo is a wooden wing-chun training dummy, about the dimensions of a large man, which Hei has placed in the corner. It keeps his reflexes sharp and the striking surfaces of his hands callused and hard, and allows him to practice some of the deadlier strikes and blocks he'd neglect to some degree while training in a real dojo. ]

[ It would make an interesting conversation piece, if anyone ever visits the apartment. But mostly, Hei's hoping Korra won't find it too unnerving. ]

[ He's already sent her a passcode to disarm the security system at the door. (It only works once, so if it falls into the wrong hands, it's useless.) He's also taken tomorrow off work. Half to help her move any extra stuff in. And half because, well ...  he's planning to say hello to her until they can't say hello anymore. ]

Comments

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei lets off the breath he doesn't realize he's been holding, a half-smile that lights two dull blue coins in his eyes. Loosening his grip, he spills obligingly onto his back, all fluid muscle and floppy hair, his erection a slick-tipped arch of flesh. He's got that look, the one that says he really has no inhibitions, four syllables unnatural to his body, yet there's something open -- raw -- in his gaze that's at odds with the practiced precision of his posture. ]

[ He reaches out, a handful of Korra's soft hair and the warm solid curve of her skull against his palm. But he doesn't force or shove. He leans in, a moist nuzzle of lips against hers, before he draws away, letting his hand rest at her nape like a reassurance more than an imperative. ]

[ Letting her take this at her own pace. ]

[anatural]

[She kisses her way down his chest, loving the way it feels to have him under her. She's always felt powerful giving blowjobs. He's not in control right now. He could try to take control from her if he wanted, but as long as her teeth are that close to his most sensitive place, she has the final say. (Distantly she wonders if that's why he eats her out more than she blows him — because he'd rather be in control of her pleasure than make himself vulnerable.)

In a fit of goofy playfulness, she nuzzles his erection like a kitten. It's strange how the same skin feels different against her cheek than her hands. She presses a few quick kisses to the shaft before turning her full attention to his so often-neglected balls.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Control is admittedly part of the reason. To his core, Hei navigates through the world in terms of power and subterfuge. Being in possession of someone else's body, being able to elicit the exact response he wants, the perfect twitches and cries, isn't the real thrill for him. The unraveling is, because he's all about dismantling whatever's in front of him. In the reverse, getting a blowjob from Amber had always felt risky, not just because of the semi-public places that she'd often chosen to deliver them in, but because she worried at his cock like a she-wolf with a bone, owning it so completely that it seemed possible that she might never give it back. It still spreads a cold-hot prickle up his skin, thinking about her. The way she would take him deep in her mouth. How pleased she was of her ability to swallow him whole. She knew the symbolism wasn't lost on either of them. ]

[ Korra isn't like that. No sleek, calculated grace here. She gives blow jobs like she's only just discovered they exist. She seems to delight in the games as much as the outcome. He sees it in the way she plays with him, seeing whether he prefers it like this or like that, how it feels when she flicks the tip of her tongue just so. ]

[ She's one of the few girls he's met who can laugh and fellate at the same time. It's ... nice. It makes him feel, not safe, exactly, but as if he can relax a fraction of his guard. ]

[ A gasp pushes out of his throat as she nuzzles the damp arch of his cock. Her cheek feels like a sun-warmed peach against him, all smooth and velvety. It's an effort not to saw his erection back and forth against her, any part he can touch, unable to distinguish the moment when pleasure becomes pain. Instead, he swallows, palming the soft furry tumble of her hair. Swallows a low hum as her mouth prints kisses down his shaft, the muscles in his thighs ticcing when she mouths at his balls. ]

[anatural]

[Oh, is that a challenge? She can totally deep throat you too, Hei! Just watch her she will definitely deep throat you better than that girl from the picture.

Good thing she has no idea the kind of thoughts in his mind. She's perfectly happy sucking on his balls, running her tongue along every crevice and crease.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Definitely a good thing. In the keyed-up state he's in, there's only so much teasing he can take. ]

[ His balls tighten as she laves her wet tongue across them; tension arcs in hot wires across his cock, from root to tip. Clenching his hands in the spill of her hair, Hei tries to get a grip on his unspooling restraint. But it slips through the safety bars of his mind and threads -- serpentine, sneaky -- into the shadowy pockets where heat licks and bubbles into a full-throttle explosion. ]

[ Rocking his hips, he tries to bring her mouth into contact with his shaft again, wanting the pretty curl of her tongue under the notched ache at his head. One hand jerks to cover hers, holding her in a tensely-fingered grip, kissing her hand, licking its palm and biting it hungrily, before urging it down across his body to wrap around his twitching erection -- a tight grip like around an axe or a sword. ]

[anatural]

[Oh ho ho no you don't. Korra pulls away, her breath teasingly hot against his shaft.]

Should I leave you and your hand alone?

[mortemscintilla]

[ She draws back -- and Hei jerks against her urgently, wordlessly, fingers a rough fist in her hair -- before reeling the impulse in. In moments like these, he's always suffused with a peculiar sensation, a mix of chagrin and dismay. Everytime his self-control around Korra whittles too thin, it raises a fear in him of his own capacity for selfishness and violence. Those were acts he and Amber could pursue without blinking: they were soldiers, and she could welcome his force; Hei himself wouldn't think twice about daring to test her limits -- or his own. With Korra, though each time he wants to give into the temptation, it is even more risky, more improper. It's a hollowed-out reminder that for all their similarities, she's not carved from the same bedrock as he is. ]

[ So he gentles his grip, and his gaze, and breathes, ]

I like yours better.

[anatural]

[Her heart stops. Just for a moment, wondering what he's going to do. And then he gentles and she can breathe again. She likes it rough, likes fighting with him, but she still needs to feel safe. Stop needs to mean stop.]

And I thought you wanted my mouth.

[She nuzzles his shaft with her nose — did she just get precum on her forehead? eww but whatever she can wash it off later — as she strokes him with her hand.]

[mortemscintilla]

I do. But --

[ He gasps. A gallop of pulse kick-starts visibly in his bobbing throat. He might as well be a lamppost, the kittenish way Korra is nuzzling him, and it is both the most endearing and the most arousing thing he's seen in so long he has no comparison. After decades of artful concealment, he's learning that there's nothing quite as thrilling, quite as gratifying, as being with a partner who is unabashed in their affections. ]

[ He feels his face flush to a burn as she strokes him, his head dipping back and his hips stirring; it is instinctive and fluidly unselfconscious, the movement of a wolf getting its fur ruffled. ]

[ In a rasp, he adds, ]

You're not exactly ... sharing.

[anatural]

What's that supposed to mean? [She mouths the sides of his cock — not taking him inside but teasing him with the wet heat.]

[mortemscintilla]

...Korra...

[ What should come out as a quiet warning takes on the undertones of a jittery plea. His eyes drop half-shut, watching her glaze his bobbing dick with saliva. Not engulfing him into that wonderful hot mouth but keeping balanced at the edge, partways between gratification and frustration. ]

[ Cradling the back of her head, he tries to edge her closer; the way the pad of his thumb rubs softly along her cheek is almost an unspoken coaxing. ]

[anatural]

Bossy. [But fine, okay, because she loves you though no one could explain why, she wraps her lips around the tip of his erection and sucks him like a lollipop.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ In her grip, his erection throbs and burns. The plum-shaped crown is slippery wet against her lips; a faint pulse throbs underneath his skin as she sucks. Hei is aware of his throat moving, closed tight against low repeated gasps.  He can hardly endure the sweetness of it, the maddening increase of tension, even as the lockdown on his hips breaks, his pelvis rolling free, his entire spine loosening bolt by bolt. ]

[ With effort, he keeps the motions in check, subtle instead of aggressive, not wanting to shove too deep into her mouth and choke her. ]

[anatural]

[Choking her would be a very bad idea, yes. She might bite you in retaliation. And if he just sits back, she promises to do all the work. Inch by inch she takes him in deeper, until she can feel him hit the back of her throat. It's fun to play with him with kisses and licks and little scrapes of teeth, but she knows he especially likes being deep inside her — and she's still pretty impressed with herself that she can do it.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Every time she deep-throats him, Hei has the blissed-out sensation of a man in the presence of extraordinary natural talent. Two years of practice has honed that talent to near-perfection: while Korra may not yet be the Michelangelo of the blow job, any more than he is the pliant, grateful clay upon which she practices her art -- she is still, to put it succinctly, real fucking good. ]

[ His breaths come in shallow scoops of air. Below, he thrums hard and deep along a corded fault-line of pleasure that is nearly pain. He doesn't have to think. He finds relief in arching his neck back, pushing his head into the pillow. One hand still clings to Korra's hair with careful, balanced force to counter the sharp pull at his hips; his other hand corkscrews the sheets. ]

[anatural]

[Maybe try telling her that someday. Sure, she assumes she's doing a good job based on his ragged breathing and the tension in his body, it's always nice to be outright told you're good at something. Once she's got him all the way in, safe and secure and not obstructing her breathing, Korra runs her hands at the crease where his thighs meet his pelvis, dragging her nails for extra bits of sensation. (Go ahead and come in her mouth if you want. She's actually ready for it this time.)]

[mortemscintilla]

[ It's like an act of understated warfare, the way she covers him with her mouth and traps him in the vacuum of her heat. Every jerk, every shallow breath, every tense shuddering he offers in reply is proof of sabotage.  It’s a very quiet, very underhanded sort of revolution. By the time she's started dragging her nails along that sensitive crease at his groin, he can feel his slick body crumbling, breaking apart into pulse and sweat and scars and then resolving all of a piece into something whole, a slung articulation of living flesh whose rushing blood-song he barely recognizes. ]

[ In controlled jerks, he slides in and out of Korra's mouth, pleasure flashing through him, fine sharp threads drawing taut under his skin, and then he is simply spilling, flushed from scalp to heels, which dig into the mattress as he growls and flings himself headlong into the bursting crest. ]

[anatural]

[Okay so maybe she's not entirely prepared - she chokes and starts coughing a little as he spills into her throat - but she hangs on gamely until the last of his spasms have passed. She gently pulls him out and presses a kiss to his pelvis, in a manner that seems to say "Good job. Well done." Coughs a little more because oops wrong pipe, but she's grinning at him, exorbitantly satisfied with herself.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei falls back gasping when he finishes, half-hard, but, for the moment, wiped-out. Odd scraps of words and images are snagging in his brain, whose every branch courses with the sudden bolt of energy it has received, electrically defined down to its last synaptic twig. Noodles, he thinks, in an almost aphasic daze. Knives. Sake. Steak. The words are disarticulated, meaningless. He tends to deride those who can't shake off the come-down, who think one good orgasm is an excuse to turn gooey-brained and helpless. ]

[ But he is in a state of bliss where emotions float free of their unsavory significance, to drift mote-like through his thoughts, dangerous and placid. ]

[ Dragging Korra close, he tips a kiss to her mouth. Grateful, sloppy, tasting his own salty spendings slicking her tongue. Nestles her in the cradle of his body, ruffling through her hair, shaping his hand to the blurred planes of her head, an examination that feels so good he loses himself in it for several minutes. Loving the feel of that furry-silky weight rubbing across his palm, sliding through his fingers. Loving too, the heat she kicks off and the soft saw of her breathing. ]

[anatural]

[She smiles as he kisses her, warm and aglow with satisfaction and this rare demonstration of affection. It's a little like that time they were both high in the City. She nuzzles his hands, kisses his neck, and curls up as close to him as she can. His flagging erection is sandwiched between their bellies, almost cradled, and warm like a promise.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ It's always hard for him, to demonstrate natural affection with someone. (Perhaps a better descriptor is: someone's who's not Pai.) Granted, most marks were hard-pressed to tell whether his reactions were honest or a pleasantly flawless physical fake. But that's the novelty of being with Korra. There's no need to dissemble. No need to make sure his expression is appreciative or benevolent or tender enough. It doesn't matter. Only that he is cradling her, that she is kissing him, and it feels good. That sense of utter freedom -- almost a disconnection -- is both bittersweet and erotic in itself. ]

[ Nuzzling Korra's ear, he lets his heavy-lidded gaze skim her dreamy expression. It can't last, this delicate bubble of serenity, but he's determined to cradle it carefully between both cupped palms before it pops. ]

[ After a beat, he murmurs, almost sleepily, ]

I'm glad ... you decided to move in.

[ Especially given all the responsibilities she has to juggle here; the onslaught of disapproval she'll face from Tenzin, and eventually, inevitably, from her parents. Not to mention all the ugly wounds between them, barely scabbed-over, much less faded. ]

[anatural]

[Will face? She's already facing. You don't think she snuck out here, do you?]

Me too. [She kisses him again, just because she can.] This place is perfect. [No having to worry about keeping quiet so she's not caught having sex. Close enough to Air Temple Island to keep training. Close to water. It even has room for Naga. And she's with him.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ She might have, for all he knows. She's not exactly a rule-abiding goody two-shoes. (God knows, Hei was just as bad at her age, if not worse.) ]

[ He melts into her kiss with a low-rumbling hum. Something about sprawling with Korra in the rumpled futon, pale slats of purple light pouring from the moon-window, evokes home; the temporary assemblage of Pai-marked homes in the City -- the Beach House, his safehouses in the Underground, his old Imugi-dwelling flat Topside. Yet somehow, being here now, Hei feels that his place with Korra is more precarious than it seems, that this act of moving in officially could be the knife's blunt, subtle edge separating past and future. Would it be possible, in this world, to just return as expected to the illusion of security between them, to resume his so-called life, dragging through his workdays at the factories, his dealings with the triads, yet coming home at night to the sense of Korra's watchful eyes, the feeling that Korra might expect more ambition from him, and to the submerged fear that nothing binds them together except the past. ]

[ He tries not to think about it. But he envies her that strong sense of purpose she has in this world. His own position in it, unstable, directionless, has yet to be rectified. ]

[ Shaking it off, he says, remarkably straightfaced, ]

Perfect, barring the fact that it's haunted.

[ He's teasing you, Korra. (Maybe). ]

[anatural]

[You're an idiot, Hei. Korra's too busy with her job as the Avatar to worry about whether you want enough out of life. As long as he's around 7 times out of 10 and seems content, she's happy. There aren't a lot of things she can really trust him about, but she can trust him to take care of himself.

She pulls back to give him a deeply suspicious look.]

Don't even joke about that. [Those ghosts were ccreepy! Not to mention the fact you vanished completely afterwards...]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Her sulk nearly teases a smile out of him. But then his mind makes one of those associative quantum leaps, from their frantic encounter in that haunted building, to what had come afterward. That curse is an oddity even to his memory, even by the City's standards -- or maybe it just carries a lingering strangeness because it had taken possession of his mind and body in their entirety. Or, to be more specific, allowed the darker impulses residing inside him to float to the surface like scum in boiling water. Not once, but twice. In the first instance, making him an instrument to harvest souls, the embodiment of a Reaper's scythe. The other time, transforming him into the ugliest mix of a predator and a parasite, so he attacked anyone he ascribed any value to. ]

[ Both times, he had felt, in the days after the destruction, that he'd brushed up against the border of something larger than the curse itself -- something more private, an inner-valve of his psyche. It had been a vague, blurred shape, or perhaps feeling, an area of deeper darkness within the usual dark, like a void or fog that blocked out the stars of the sky. ]

[ Brushing it off, he squeezes Korra -- probably hard enough to make her squeak. Mouthing her ear, he breathes, ]

Relax. There's enough things here that go bump in the night.