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]

Let's see how long that lasts.

[ Especially after they're done putting the mattress through its paces. ]

[ Absently, he scratches an itch on his jaw. His fingers still smell like her, damp and musked; he rubs his late-evening bristles with Korra-scented interest. Presses his face into the humid crook of her shoulder, his breath warm-tickling her skin. The sweat between their bodies is cooling in the chilly air; he can feel a damp prickle down his spine. In a moment of pheromone-soaked amusement, he notices he's still in his undershirt, a moist butterfly stained across the back, and that she still has her hair-pieces on, the wolf-tails loosening in a soft dark landslide. ]

[ With a crooked smile, he wrenches his shirt off, tossing it among the disordered heap of clothes nearby. Carefully disentangles her hair-pieces, setting them on the nightstand, and rubs his jaw against a handful of her hair, the texture wool-silky and warm against his skin and eyelids. ]

[ Drowsily, he murmurs, ]

New rule indoors. No shoes -- or ponytails.

[anatural]

[He takes off his undershirt and Korra curls up closer to him, letting him nuzzle her hair while her fingers idly trace the scars on his chest. Are there new ones? It's been so long since she's practiced her healing abilities, she can't be sure — and it's not like she memorized the patterns, that would be weird — but she thinks there are some new-ish ones. From the fight with Unalaq? From something else?

It occurs to her that she doesn't know what he does with his days. Yeah, he has a factory job, but that still leaves plenty of hours free considering how little he sleeps or relaxes. Plus, he has a safehouse... whether an old habit that dies hard or something that's actually a necessity, it has to be paid for. Factory work doesn't pay that well; she knows that from Mako. So how...?

Do you really want to worry about that? Not really. There may come at time when her duty as the Avatar requires that she meddle in Hei's business, but until then, she's content to let it be. Focus on the positive. Embrace the things that are going right.]

You don't like my ponytails?

[mortemscintilla]

[ She traces his scars -- a crosshatched pattern of shrapnel and razor wounds from recent scraps, overlaying the old arrow-shaped divots gouged in his back, and the starburst pattern behind his shoulderblade -- and he can feel her thoughts dipping to shady corners. It's true, factory work pays for less than one-sixteenth of his expenses. Once, at Air Temple Island, Tenzin had fixed Li with a suspicious squint and asked, Where exactly do you get your money from? Li had smiled beatifically and said, Not from Korra. He's always got yuan in his pockets, and sake in his flask, and food in the fridge. But while it's not torn from the bloody hands of elderly fruit-vendors trying to get their kids through college, he'll never deny his primary profession remains murder. ]

[ The only difference is that the people he tangles with now are like him. So you'd better strike first before you're gutted. ]

[ He doesn't look at Korra because if he does, she's likely to fix those bright, pretty and yet somehow cat-like eyes on him and ask about the new scars, which he is so not up to tolerating tonight, because they'd both agreed with good cheer that this is officially Relax-O-Night, not the night for Difficult Conversations that will likely result in screaming fights. ]

[ Fortunately, Korra is way ahead of him. She pouts about her ponytails -- and Hei exhales a silent laugh, as much relief as amusement. Nuzzling her shoulder, he peppers her neck with kisses, some of which are artfully calculated, some heartfelt, but how many of each, he has no way of knowing. ]

I like them fine. But I like your hair down more.

[ It makes her look older; more womanly. (More to the point, it diminishes that resemblance to Pai, which itself grows less and less pronounced as time passes.) ]

[anatural]

Mmm. [She trails her hand away from his scars so she can wrap her arm around his waist.] I like you better with your shirt off. Can we have a rule about you not wearing your shirt inside?

[mortemscintilla]

I could ask you the same question.

[ His mouth is smile-shaped against the warm expanse of her skin. He turns his head, covering her breasts with languid and sleepy kisses. Readjusts his body, so they conspire together on a shared pillow. They fit together well; like crescents in the sheets, instead of curled around each other like he and Amber sometimes used to, one set of speech marks. ]

[ (It's nice, that memory. But Hei's not interested in holding on to what no longer sustains him; he's more focused on surviving, on making space for new things in his life.) ]

[anatural]

I already have to take off my shoes and my ponytails. [She's whining playfully. She wouldn't mind going shirtless in the house either. Right now nudism sounds very appealing.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Appealing -- but ultimately not very advantageous. Even in her clothes, Korra has a body that could cause an accident. An accident or premature ejaculation. Either way, a mess that'd need cleaning up. Strip off even that protective layer and Hei doubts he'd get any work done -- indoors or outdoors. Somewhere in a tiny cell of his brain, soaked in irony and hormones, a voice narrates: Sorry, boss. Can't come to the factory tonight. I'm testing out my new futon with the Avatar, please don't send help until she's fucked every last ounce of come from my body and I've cored the heart from that tight little apple of her ass, thanks, oh, and by the way Fed-Ex a strait-jacket up when you have a chance, better make that two... ]

[ Shaking it off muzzily, he murmurs, ]

Take your pants off too, and I'll toss in a prize.

[ Food. Or certain sexual favors. Or letting her handle the lighter chores. ]

[anatural]

[Work is highly overrated. Besides, Hei still owes her from those 10 months he was gone.]

What kind of prize? [She settles her head on his chest and closes her eyes. Just for a little bit. ]

[mortemscintilla]

[ He'll make it up to her. Or try to -- the way he's trying, in stops and starts, to make up for all the other ways he's disappointed her, deprived her, damaged her. It may never be enough. It may never fix what has been broken. But debts and exchanges, owing and being owed ... That's pretty standard for Hei's existence. Pai, Amber, Yin, Korra: he owes something to all of them, to these strong, strangely stunning women. ]

[ It might be officially over between him and love. But he's saving whatever remains of the emotion for them, because whatever they gave him, he can never give back. ]

[ She settles against his chest, and Hei strokes her spine with a soft, rhythmic feathering, listening to her silence as attentively as he listens to her words. She's sailing out to the rippled surface of sleep. He can feel it. ]

[ With a twitch of a smile, he tips a kiss to her forehead. ]

I'll let you decide.

[anatural]

Mmmm. [She'd say more, but she's already drifted off into sleep.]