Who do you work for baby?

[mortemscintilla]

WHO: Korra & Hei
WHAT: Wherein Hei has important news. As does Korra. 

 

[ In the days that follow, Hei's life seems locked in stasis -- he may as well be frozen in a cryo-chamber. In the gray dawn every morning, the brute vestige of habit wakes him up in time to go to the factory. Sprawled on the futon, he lies with his back to Korra. Eyes open to watch the sun spread across the bottom of the windowsill, immersed in that strange post-sleep clarity. Sometimes he takes a full five minutes to rise, lulled by Korra's breathing: long, slow inhales, smooth exhales. Just a sliver of space dividing their bodies -- but it might as well be a minefield. ]

[ In the late evenings, stiff and dull-eyed, as if he's been engaged in a low-wattage war someplace, he hits up the Triad hotspots, propped up on a stool with the opium-puffing, betel-chewing low-lives, listening to the scratchy music on the jukebox and inhaling the sour whiff of spilled sake as they talk shop. Almost every night he gets fresh info about the Red Lotus -- their agendas, their movements. It never quite makes the eleven o'clock local news, but from what he's gathered so far, this new threat plans to transform the world into a free-for-all disaster zone, with public figures and political leaders toppled down nightly. ]

[ To separate fact from fiction, he turns to the air-bender held captive in his safehouse. She is tight-lipped and defiant at first. But after he's spread and u-clamped her fingers to a table, and meticulously dismantled them one by one from cuticle to knuckle, she grows chattier. From her, he learns the names of the Red Lotus' leaders. Learns of their failed attempts to kidnap Korra once before, which ended in them being locked up. ]

[ Now they're out, and determined to pick up where they left off. ]

[ The details leave Hei quietly unnerved. He needs to warn Korra. It's true, things have been tense since she'd learnt about his affiliation with the Triads. At home, it is as if they are guests at the same small hotel, who have been introduced for politeness' sake at the table d'hote. Meals are spent in near-silence. Little or no physical warmth passes between them; lying back-to-back in the futon each night, there seems nothing to distinguish the bleak well of sleep from the bleak stretches of wakefulness. They don't talk about desire. It is there -- in him, if not in her -- but as if by silent consent, he acts on it separately, or else not at all. The air in the house seems laced with a dark spell; it burns dim and low between them like creeping resignation.]

[ Still, her safety is his first priority. As the smoky dusk encroaches, he cuts a brisk path through the noise and steam and clamor of the city. Hops on a ferry, and heads to Air Temple Island, where Korra is training with Tenzin. ]

Comments

[mortemscintilla]

[ Worthy of a Playboy centerfold. ]

[ Hei represses a smile as she fusses with her wolf-tails. Tries to ignore those sinuous wriggling movements of her body, even as they send something like a whiskey-waft of heat spiking through his bloodstream. Trapped in the canopy of her hair, Korra has such a nice shape to her head. Her hair-ties tumble forward like animal-ears and her nose is squinched up, the muscles in her face mobile, alive. She's so funny looking sometimes, and he'd tell her so, but what he really thinks is that she's cute, brimming with the same disarming, charming eagerness as a kitten with a ball of yarn. ]

[ Working the last scraps of his clothes down with hers, he fixes on her hair-ties. Plucks them free one by one, before burying his face in the tossed mess of her hair. With the other hand, he works his erection -- painfully twisted -- at a more comfortable angle between them; it stripes a wet line along her belly and seems to jump head-first into the nest of his hand, slippery-smooth and hot. ]

[alittlebent]

[As soon as the hair is out of her mouth, Korra's back to kissing him wherever she can reach. Invisible brands to claim him as hers, greedy & possessive. If he pulled back right now and told her to choose between him and the baby... she'd still choose the baby's life. But there'd be no hiding how the decision would cut up her insides and leave her heart a bloody pulp on the floor.

Luckily he doesn't, and she wraps her hand around the one holding his erection.]

Let me. [She doesn't try to displace his hand, just moves it with hers as she starts a slow, steady stroke.]

[mortemscintilla]

Fuck.

[ The words buzz against the top of Korra's skull. He lets her little hand guide his, one thumb flicking under the notched ache at the tip and feeling his cock bounce within their clasped palms. Fluid pearls out to coat the head glossily, and he inhales with a ragged catch, heat flaring across his body up into the roots of his hair. Muzzily, he glances down at their linked palms. And in that brief, vertiginous moment the idea comes to him that there are hands forming inside her, hands that are attached to arms, attached to a body with a head and legs and a sex and it is made up of part of him and part of her. Growing. Inside her. Conceived as if he hasn't been a dispenser of death all these years -- alive, and here right now, in this room. ]

[ Something of himself, that he's imagined deader than dead for decades, is quickening. ]

[ Something whirls through him, terrifying, thrilling, like the cracked-open cylinder of a silver pistol, spun by momentum while he stares, spellbound, at the perfect coins of light that glint through each empty chamber. ]

[ Eyes squeezed shut, he catches Korra's mouth with his again. Kisses her hard -- insatiable excessive kisses struggling up his chest to take wing on lips and teeth and tongue, as if something inside him is shattering open with a need to soothe, to be soothed, to remind her that for better or worse, they're stuck in this mess together. ]

[alittlebent]

[It's a sign of the difference in their ages — or maybe just the difference in their life experiences — that it doesn't feel that real to her yet. After Kya pointed it out, Korra did recognize the change in her chi that indicates she has a new life inside her. But she doesn't feel connected to the baby yet. Her determination to keep the child is cultural and a reaction to the violence she's tolerated from Hei; it's not because she feels a bond with the life inside her. How can she? Physically, she doesn't feel any different. It doesn't feel like there's something alive inside her, just an obligation. Once it's more concrete, once it's something she can actually feel, maybe then...

She whimpers softly as he kisses her, kisses which straddle the line between pain and pleasure, but even with that, the room is remarkably quiet. The sound of their breathing, the ruffle of sheets and the wet slide of skin on skin are all swallowed by the night. She can hear an acolyte next door reciting her mantras, yet it doesn't pierce the bubble that surrounds them.

Slowly, carefully, Korra shifts so that she can lie back, Hei on top of her, their joined hands holding his erection just outside her entrance. She rolls her hips in an unspoken invitation to come inside as he is.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ He won't say it feels real, exactly. Hell, he still doesn't know what to think, what to feel about this. It is such an impossibility that he's never -- in all the daydreaming he'd once done about leaving the Syndicate, starting a normal life -- both when they were unattainable and after he'd grasped a semblance of them, imagined any such thing. He's come to rely on Korra's presence: her, and Yin, and Mao; the three stabilizing elements of his small life, like inert chemicals that maintain a state of suspended hyper-activity. Adding someone new to that triple-variable equation feels risky. ]

[ Just one combustible element -- acid to base, match to kindling -- and boom. Everything blows sky-high. ]

[ Yet part of him fears too, that he might never be like this again, his emotions and needs so synched with another human being. That irrational creature in his chest reminds him that this is his one chance to imagine a child, his child, as something still in potential, something yet possible. A fact to celebrate before the inevitability of numberless nights spent in hindsight and consolation. ]

[ From the window, an elongated rectangle of moonlight moves slowly across the wooden floor. The room itself feels like the depth-charged interior of a conch-shell, of a cathedral; their breathing is a loud sawing-in-and-out, like whispered prayers or ocean resonance. It fills all the wide gaps and makes a quiet space inside him. ]

[ When Korra spills onto her back, legs fanning open, and guides him down to where she's ripest and hottest, Hei can feel the trapped length of his erection radiate a pulsing, focused heat, from root to tip. For a moment, in a fluttery panic, he thinks he should put a condom on. Just to be on the safe side. ]

[ But -- fuck. She feels so good. Fresh greedy energy percolates through him. His blood zitzes with the memory of the last time they'd done this. ]

[ Edging his hips lower, he scrapes against her folds, snagging friction turning to slippery after a few tentative strokes. His cock notches lengthwise between her slick lips and he rocks slowly. Nudging her clit with the heavy vein at the underside, once, twice, again, half teasing, half experimental, before he changes the angle, slipping down into her opening and pressing in. Her skin seems to open up with a silky sigh, and Hei exhales a low complexity of hums, feeling the pressure of his head pop in and stretch her open. ]

[alittlebent]

[On the plus side, it's not like she can get any more pregnant. Korra probably should be more worried about the risk of disease than she actually is, but it's such an abstract threat compared to everything else facing her that it hardly seems worrying about.

She's not as prepped for him as she usually is — they've skipped the foreplay before, and her arousal has gone from 0 to 60 before, but never at the same time. She hisses as he pushes inside, and it's almost like those first few times all over again, that peculiar mixture of pleasure and unfamiliar discomfort. Without the condom, it's like seeing someone out of uniform for the first time — you recognize them, yet they still seem like an entirely different person.

Korra breathes deeply before starting to move with him. She's walking a delicate line, trying to get as much pleasure as she can without hitting the spots that make her scream. She wants to keep the quiet, not do anything that might puncture the bubble they're in.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei absorbs her hiss as he sinks in, his skin stung with lust and regret and a bittersweet tenderness. Grasping her knee, giving the skin of her inner-thigh a soft deep pinch, he widens her legs, one ankle curling around his calf. Lets his mouth play with hers, before latching in a fierce kiss, wanting this to feel good to her, wanting everything for her. And fuck -- she is so tight; it's like she's squeezing him in two. Head swimming, the muscles in his shoulders and thighs ticcing, he withdraws the slightest bit, then pushes deeper. Repeats the process, a steady rocking pressure, edging himself determinedly around the gate like a burglar. Circling, nudging, sliding deep, deeper, then slickly sinking in one swallow, until he is pressed against her womb. ]

Oh.

[ He's forgotten how different she feels without the condom. Forgotten the way it makes his nerves chime -- a high-pitched chorale of being enveloped in living heat. ]

[ Gradually, he sets a deep, slow-motion fucking. Not just because of the need for muffled silence, but because he wants to take his time. Take her with him. Hips keeping a metronomic precision -- a withdrawal, a plunge, a grind -- while his hands roam with a trancelike fascination across her body. One hand ladders up her ribs to cup a breast, which feels rounder, the nipple pooched out. The other hand dips between their bodies, palm pressed to her curly mons as he thumbs fleeting circles at her clit. ]

[alittlebent]

[Don't worry, it feels good to her. She may not show it with her usual vocal enthusiasm, but it's evident in how hard she presses her lips against his, the way she tangles her fingers in his hair and pulls with every thrust.

This doesn’t have to end. They've come together despite worse problems. Nothing could be worse than how they'd started out, but they'd overcome that. She'd come to see and appreciate a person behind the psycho-paranoid violent mask, and he'd come to understand that she wasn't a threat to him. If they can bridge that gap, they can tackle anything.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ He wishes he could share that youthful optimism. Despite Korra's disenchanting experiences, it's easy for her to view things from a rosy lens. How can she not? She's grown up with a loving family. A solid network of support. People she can trust and rely on, who feed that bubbling wellspring of hope inside her. It's not the same for Hei. Not when the best parts of him have broken off in cold suspension, and what's left behind is a tar-bubble packed with razor blades and fishhooks and shattered lightbulbs that strain against the heaving walls of his psyche. ]

[ He knows they shouldn't have a baby. A dab of jizz shot at the right spot, at the right time, does not a miracle make. It could be a disaster. Another unwanted responsibility. A great drain on time and energy. Emotional as well as physical. Korra has a special purpose, a unique calling. She needs to understand that motherhood would place a crippling burden on -- ]

[ Oh please, a resentful voice pipes up inside him. All kinds of whacked-out people have kids, and somehow or other, those kids grow up. This could be a missed opportunity. This could be what you've wanted all along. ]

[ He tries not to think about it. Focuses instead on Korra's pretty gasps, on the desperate way her lips are crushed against his, on the wild tug of her little fingers in his hair. Focuses on learning what he fears he'll forget. The flavor and softness of her tongue. The taste of her lower-lip. The sweet curve defining her jaw. The placement of light, nearly invisible scars that zig-zag her skin like a broken necklace of grain-sized pearls. Where she is sensitive, where she likes to be licked, bitten, teased: that spot below the ear. Under the point of her chin. The crook of her neck. The damp hollow between her breasts, their sensitive undersides, the nipples dark and tense as he gulps them into his mouth. Rooting hungrily from one breast to the other, gauging it she can take the same roughness as before, or if he should slow down. While below, between their bellies grinding in a slick cadence, he keeps his free hand wedged, teasing at her clit, a soft wet flicking. ]

[alittlebent]

Slow... [She gasps the word out in a whine that rises up and fades with effort. She still likes it rough, but it's hard to keep quiet when he's mauling her like that. She gets her revenge by clenching her vaginal muscles as hard as she can and biting his shoulder (which has the added benefit of muffling the noises she can't suppress). ]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Bright fractals of color blossom behind Hei's eyelids as she bites him, her sex clenching around him in a slick hot vacuum. The sensations affect him like a collar wrapped around his throat, attached by tugging leather to his balls. A localized storm of tension above the neck, and a warm swelling throb of pleasure below. He can hear himself panting audibly and with self-consciousness tries to calm himself. ]

[ Except it's no good. She feels too good -- the wet clench of her sex a perfect, brutal sweetness. Dazed, half-blinded, he stirs his hips. Blanketing her, rocking her harder, more force than friction -- a deep tight swivel that mashes her clit against his pelvis. But his kisses are gentle, poured across her face and shoulders and breasts like sugar over water, a soft melting touch. Mouth nuzzling the underside of each heavy breast, laving the nipple in almost catlike sweeps. Tipping his head up to catch her mouth between each stifled gasp, each slippery sawing in-and-out, greed and tenderness dueling within. ]

[alittlebent]

[It's not going to be much longer at this rate. Her breaths get faster, more shallow, and her limbs tremble. But she wants him to come first. She wants to feel him break without being distracted by her own climax.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ She won't have to wait long. Not with the neon shapes wheeling and surging below the inky surface of his brain, gaining brightness and intensity until they fritz out all sanity, all generosity, all caution, locking the length of his spine, sending a ripcurl of deepening tremors up from his tailbone across the whole network of his torso. ]

[ He lets off a quiet, ragged noise, his body a taut arch over hers as he fucks her steadily now, relentlessly, her breasts wobbling freely beneath his chest, his fists curling tight around her, grabbing for a handhold; along her ass, her hips, clasping tight around a couple of ribs, before he catches her face in both hands. The soft kisses he's attached to her lips are blown off, petals by storm, as he tips her head back, mouth coaxing hers open and fucking her heavily with his tongue. ]

[ When he comes, it's a forceful expulsion, a trigger-shock of spasms cruel and nasty enough to make him feel the sharp astonishment of love taking shape somewhere in his chest. Hot pulses of salt spilling free from the ocean inside him, leaving him breathless, wrung-out, hanging in space for a while, tethered only by his own oxygen and the slow, stirring motions of his body against hers. ]

[anatural]

[If Hei's orgasm is an explosion, Korra's is a spill — that brief, bright shock when you hit the glass, then everything pours out. Her tension, her fears, her need. They aren't gone, but they are, for the moment outside of her. She wraps her arms around his neck and tugs him down so she can bury her face in the crook of his shoulder.

She can't pretend the rest of the world doesn't exist forever; footsteps outside their door quickly shatter the illusion.]

Korra, are you in there? [Tenzin's voice — the most unwelcome intrusion. The sensible thing would be to grab a blanket and at least do something to cover their nakedness, but Korra just hugs Hei harder.

Much to her surprise, it works. There's a long moment where it seems like Tenzin is going to open the door, but instead he just sighs.]

Sleep well.

[mortemscintilla]

[ Panting, nerves zinging from toes to scalp, Hei feels Korra crest, her skin leaping as if in hot shocks against his, her sex clamping down wetly, deliciously, on the sliding thorn inside her. Then she's melting beneath him, leaving his cock pulsing thickly, languidly inside the sore seam of her, the same way she seems to be thrumming everywhere around him. ]

[ For a moment, he's content to lie in that lush, crumpled heap of flesh. The world fades in watery ripples, then returns with the trick of forgetting, so that he's sure he's dozed briefly -- maybe for a minute or two -- without awareness. ]

[ Then he hears footsteps beyond Korra's door. Tenzin's voice follows, jarring as a brick thrown through a window. For a split-second, Hei's afraid the older man will slide the door open -- and get an eyeful of 'Li' lodged balls-deep between his precious Avatar's thighs. He can almost imagine Tenzin's face flaring so red he'll spontaneously combust. All that'll be left of him is a weird Tenzin-shaped burn on the floorboards. (We couldn't even say goodbye to him, 'Li' will sob to the others, inconsolable.) ]

[ Mercifully, the disaster is averted. Tenzin bids Korra goodnight, then leaves. ]

[ Once he's gone, Hei exhales, muscles loosening with relief. Rolls onto his back, carrying Korra with him, so she's sprawled like a warm sticky stole across his body, her hair tendriled in his face. Smoothing the mess back with both hands, he kisses her -- want subsumed by satisfaction. But beneath that, there's something rueful too. As if there are words, emotions, ideas, bubbling inside him that he can't let out. ]

[ Quietly, ]

This wasn't what I meant ... when I told you to rest.

[anatural]

[She's relieved when Tenzin doesn't enter, but she's even more relieved when Hei continues holding her. He's gotten better about not ruining the afterglow since they moved in together, but he's so hard to predict.]

Good thing you're not the boss of me. [There's nothing acrid in her tone. There's a little snark, but mostly dreamy vagueness. There's no way she could have slept before with all the tension and anxiety. It's much better this way.]

[mortemscintilla]

But I keep trying anyway.

[ His body, spilled bonelessly underneath hers, flexes in a catlike stretch. He glances up at her moist flushed face, cradled in his, studying her with an inexpressive half-lidded facade that might be hidden tenderness or regret or ... or what, Hei has no idea. His feelings on the pregnancy keep pinwheeling, from surprise to dismay, from anger to excitement. He has no idea what to settle on. ]

[ But he knows, for an irrefutable fact, that he can't just float along on the Sparkling Hormonal Sea into making the baby real. Korra's mind may be made up, but his isn't. If he can still appeal to an iota of logic inside her, he can convince her to terminate the pregnancy. Convince her not to throw her safety -- possibly her life -- away, as she seems so determined to. ]

[ What if you can't? ]

[ Again, he shrugs it off. The idea of keeping the baby makes him itchy and twitchy. Like he isn't sure whether he's gone out and left the iron on, only to the tenth power. Letting his eyes slip shut, he gathers Korra closer. Making a pillow for her with his body, his arms a warm heavy circle to keep her close. A dream-drowsy moment passes, then two. ]

[ Finally, in a half-whisper: ]

Are you serious? About ... having this baby?

[anatural]

[Sometimes Korra would really like to smack him. No, that major fight they had earlier was just a big joke. Tee hee hee.]

Of course I am. No matter what you say or how much you hate it. This is something I have to do. [For a million and one reasons too complicated to explain, or perhaps just prefers not to. Hei will always find holes to pick in her reasons, inconsistencies and counter-arguments. He is a master of mind games and Korra knows she can't take him in that arena. The most powerful tool she has is unwavering conviction.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ Hei's quiet frustration is palpable. With a firm deliberateness, he nudges her off him. But he doesn't draw away or get up. He stays close, the sloping valley of the pillow tumbling their heads together. Takes one of her hands in his and turns it over, rubbing the pulse point before allowing their fingers to curl loosely. ]

[ In gloom, his eyes are two dull glints, their orbits rigid with tension and something like fear. ]

No one is holding a gun to your head, Korra. Just think about it for a second. You're one of the most powerful people in the city. You have a safety net. You have everything the world can offer. That makes it easy to throw it away because you will always have it.

[ His voice is measured, but something simmers under the surface. His psyche feels a hundred miles deep from crust to heart; it is impossible to know how many layers of angst are trapped at his core. ]

There are women who have no choice but to have babies. For a hundred pathetic reasons. Maybe they're married to guys who give them no say in the matter. Maybe they can't afford birth-control. Maybe an extra pair of hands is the only smart investment. But these are women who are poor, and powerless, and desperate, and have nowhere else to go. You may have made your choice. But you can unmake it. I don't want --

[ A pause, long and tense, like the silence he so easily uses to retreat in is something he doesn't quite know how to navigate right now. In a different voice, almost inaudible, ]

I don't want anything happening to you. Especially because of some imaginary obligation.

[anatural]

[She doesn't let him keep hold of her hand. He keeps pushing, and Korra yanks her hand away and rolls over. She doesn't want to go through this again. She's sick of him pushing and prodding and trying to change her. Her decisions aren't final. He just pushes and pushes and pushes until he gets what he wants.

And the worst part is, he usually does. His concern almost makes her...not change her mind, but feel softer towards him. Then he blows it.]

It’s not imaginary! [Belittling her, trying to make her feel she's stupid, crazy, childish. She hates it when he does that.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ He's not trying to make her feel crazy, or stupid, or childish. But there's also an urgent need to stop her from hurtling down a hazardous path. He needs to make her understand, that she doesn't have to keep the baby just to oblige society, or the Water Tribe, or whatever cultural hang-ups that are making her feel put-upon. She doesn't owe anyone anything like that. And the Black Reaper hardly deserves to spawn a dynasty. ]

[ At her outburst, his gut knots with tension and renewed anger, less at Korra than at the situation they're stuck in, at the evil sons-of-bitches who are after her, who are unwittingly making the prospect of a baby worse, uglier, riskier. ]

[ Sighing, Hei shifts uncomfortably in the narrow bed, biting his tongue. Climbs to his feet, after a few crawling moments of silence, to gather up his discarded clothes. But he doesn't put them on. Just folds them up, with Korra's, and puts them on the dresser. At the ceramic washbasin, he daubs himself clean with a wet soapy cloth, then stands blinking blearily into the mirror for a few minutes, spending far longer than necessary trying to decide if he should head out right now to get his and Korra's toiletries from the beach house, or worry about it in the morning. ]

[ After two or three crawling minutes he walks away from the sink and resettles at the edge of the bed. Stoops forward, elbows on knees, and stares at a spot on the far edge of the floor where a tiny mite is crawling across the plaster. He listens to Korra, who is breathing heavily against her pillow, the air around her shimmering with hurt and anger. ]

[ Eventually, without looking at her, he murmurs, ]

I'm sorry. [ He can't remember another time when he's apologized so often and so easily. But at the same time, a voice inside him prods nastily, What does that mean, exactly? That you're sorry? He shakes it off. Takes a slow considering breath, then says, ] I know you think I hate this. But I don't. I can't tell you ... how happy, and thrilled a part of me feels. Ending it, it tears me up. It does. But it'll tear me up worse if you get hurt because of this.

[anatural]

[It's a beautiful speech. It's just the kind of thing to soften Korra up. Except... she's not listening. When he got out of bed, it was like a blow to her gut. She couldn't stand the pressure of the silence, each moment waiting to hear the door close behind him because that's what he does. Each minute that dragged on become more and more unbearable.

Tenzin's voice crept into her mind. You know, Korra, meditation isn’t just for special sessions. You can meditate at any time. Just concentrate on your breathing.

She breathes in as deeply as she can, holds it for a moment, then lets everything out. Repeats, and repeats again. Each breath consumes more of her attention, until there's nothing left for her worries, doubts, and fears — or for Hei's pretty speeches.]

[mortemscintilla]

Korra?

[ Tentatively, Hei peers at her. Under the tossed tangles of hair, her face seems caught up in the hypnotic allure of detachment, a kind of drifting zone. Her eyes are closed, she has that rare, serene, Buddha-like aspect that has secretly always fascinated him, as if she is channeling some ancient force, something cryptic and timeless. Or perhaps she is just asleep. ]

[ He doesn't know. He's not at all tired, despite his heavy limbs and pounding head. But he stretches out awkwardly on the bed next to Korra, anyway. Spoons against her in the mattress's warm declivity, while wondering if the frame will hold. Enfolding her, Hei hesitates a beat, then, on impulse, fans his hand across her stomach. ]

[ An idea -- cruel, seductive, sly -- flits through his mind. He could end this right now. One tiny zap, and the bundle of cells inside her would fry to extinction. Would come out in bloodied chunks, probably within a week. Problem solved. He could do it, so easily. ]

[ Except he never can. What a pity. ]

[ Instead, letting his forehead knock gently against Korra's, Hei watches her with half-lidded eyes -- wondering where she's drifted off to. Wondering too, if he'd follow, if he only knew how to. ]