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]

[ 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.

[anatural]

[Yup. She squeaks, and then bites his shoulder punishingly.]

It's not like I'm scared.

[mortemscintilla]

[ The bite doesn't hurt. But it goes a long way in stirring him out of his sapped-out drowse. His cock throbs softly between them, not erect, but hiccuping with interest as blood begins to pool in his groin. Smiling absently, he runs a hand up and down one side of Korra's body with aimless self-gratification, not touching her breasts or stroking between her thighs, just tracing arm, belly, hip, calf, as if biding his time during the interval. ]

Of course not. Bridge between the human and the spirit world, blah blah.

[ A role he still doesn't quite comprehend the depth of, but under whose weight he's watched Korra struggle, day after day, with a resilience that even he, who hands admiration out so sparingly, has to respect. ]

[anatural]

Don't blah blah it! [She bumps him with her knee.] Jerk.

[But she nuzzles his neck, enjoying the way the soft, aimless touches. They never really get enough of this — and that's as much her fault as his — the intimate, not entirely sexual contact. It's nice.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ There's a kind of slow, easy familiarity here that Hei doesn't know what to do with. When he shifts on his side, curls a little more into Korra -- it's hard to tell, even for him, whether his body does these things because they're what he wants to do, or it's because what he knows people do in situations like this. He tries not to overthink it. Korra's scent has a sweetsharp, mineral tang that hazily fills his nose and lungs, and her head is tucked with charming neatness into the pocket under his chin. ]

[ Lying with her this way, he can pretend -- (and that's a dangerous thing, to want to pretend instead of having to) -- that they're a normal couple, in a normal, just-moved-in apartment, instead of a Contract Killer On Standby and a Divinity In Teenaged Skin. ]

[ Softly, (dryly), ]

I hope you're not falling to sleep.

[ Because he's halfway certain he's skating the edges of it. ]

[anatural]

Not nearly. [She grins against his neck and slides a hand down to wrap around his semi-erect penis.] Why? Are you ready to bow out?

[mortemscintilla]

M'up.

[ Or will be up, shortly. In a manner of speaking. As it is, he can hear his own shallow breathing as he attempts to regulate his body's escalating arousal, his cock bobbing in time with his pulse, slowly rising to fill her warm little palm. ]

[ In a lazy articulation of limbs, a slow roll like a corkscrew, he tumbles her onto her back. The dying sun at the window leaves spider-legged shadows under his eyelashes. Propping himself above her, he nuzzles her breasts, teeth and tongue working in sloppy, savory indulgence. He loves how his body feels draped across the warmth of hers, weight nestled between her thighs, his groin resting in that sweet groove. Every part of him in the zone of mellow, humming with the transmission of affection through the touch of their skins. He's like a tuning fork: struck minutes ago, still vibrating with gently diminishing returns. ]

[anatural]

Mmmm. [She arches against him, all but purring with pleasure. She runs her fingers through his hair -- sometimes stroking, sometimes tugging, the texture of his hair always a thrill.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ She stirs under him, arching to accept the wet tugs of his mouth on her breasts, and her hands push up into his hair with an almost feline kneading. Hei feels the touch skitter all the way down his spine; his cock is a glistening roll of flesh between their bellies, almost fully erect. Wedging one thigh between hers, he rubs at the fur there, downy like the hair on a kitten's tail. She is purring so sweetly -- such deep, satisfied noises from such a small thing. Her body is a power plant, kicking off a dynamo of heat. ]

[ Sprawled across her, Hei's hum is quiet, warm. Despite how this feels -- like they have all the time in the world, like being in love means you're not afraid to lose it -- there's a certain finiteness to it all. So he feeds harder on her breasts, more hungrily, a hot vacuum of teeth and slick pressure while his free hand slips between them, palming her sex, strumming her clit in a soft side-to-side flurry, trying to replace old bitterness and anxiety with just this. ]

[ It doesn't have to get more complicated than that, does it? ]

[anatural]

[You are the only person in the world who sees her as small. Seriously.

Normally Korra jealously guards... not her control, really, but her ability to be an active participant and not a passive recipient of pleasure. A part of her feels like she has to constantly remind him he's in bed with a person, not a sex doll — a feeling which only got worse after the curse with Carla. Yet she doesn't feel that way now. They've already worked the edge off of her stress and energy, and now she's ready to let go. Let someone else take the lead, make the decisions. There's a safety in not being in control (as long as you know you can take it back at any time).]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Okay. So objectively she's built like an amazon with a child's face. ]

[ But in this context, with her body laying itself out for him, undefended and accepting, he's always chillingly aware that he could hurt her -- through underhanded coercion, through violent force -- so very easily. How many times has he seen her like this, splayed on sheets and pillows -- concrete, carpet, leather, grass -- and felt that sharp twinge of something so possessive. Protective. At the same time, though, having her spilled on her back, beneath him, has never sparked ideas of her passivity; she doesn't realize her own dizzying power, albeit double-edged, when she's taking him deep, squeezing and flexing around him until his face twists up and his muscles twitch, the tendons going hard and tight as a condom packed with walnuts. ]

[ Speaking of... ]

[ Reluctantly, he lifts his head from her breasts. Light red marks under his fingers where his teeth have been less gentle but could do more. Could have, can still. Blindly, he reaches for the adjacent dresser. Kneels to kiss the firm drum of her belly, the small pucker of the navel, before he tears the condom open, rolling it on with clumsy fingers. When he sinks down, though, it's languid. Not inside yet, just a heavy fold of his skin and arms around her, cradling her as his face hovers inches above hers. ]

[ He pecks the soft curve of her cheek. Dips lower to skim his lips with hers, a melting kiss that belies his dry words. ]

Here's hoping no vines interrupt this time.

[anatural]

[She shudders, not wholly from pleasure.] Don't. [She doesn't want to think about the vines right now, half-afraid that it will summon them. She wants this time, this space, to be completely free of them. She grips his hair and pulls him in for a deeper kiss to make absolutely sure he doesn't bring them up again.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ She kisses him, and it's trite to shiver, but nonetheless a cold-hot flash of need shunts down Hei's body from scalp to toe. His arms and legs are shaking like he's just finished a hundred push-ups, but it isn't fatigue. He feels energized, strung, like a coiled spring, a firecracker with the fuse long lit. Stirring his hips, he lets the tip of his cock nudge her slit. Sinking in, fraction by fraction. Sighing as she parts around him, silky wet. Always such a gorgeously snug fit, her sex is somehow tighter, wetter going if she's already come first. The rippling pressure -- and its inevitable swallow -- is delicious. ]

[ Finally, he's rooted in her, his pelvis mashed against her clit. The taut angles of his face shatter and reform; he slips his arms under her shoulders so her lovely breasts are squashed against his chest, cradling her head in his hands and kissing her. The dark thread of tenderness vibrating through him is present almost every time they fuck, whether in a single flash, or a baseline wax-and-wane throughout the night. Gratitude, and need, and reassurance. ]

[ It's all of these. But right now it's something else. Something almost like surrender. ]