Do you always knock over furniture when you're happy? [The snark is probably ill-advised, but she can't help it.
Talk about being blindslided! He was happy?
Korra doesn't know what about that surprises her. That this was the first time he had ever been happy? Or that he had been happy at all? What about that night had been so different from all the other times they've had sex?]
[ Hei's learnt to live with racing currents of hatred and need and want snarling beneath his skin and never touching his surface. Learnt to deaden himself to the world, but never to turn his back or his face on it. This situation ... is completely beyond his frame of reference. Because he and Amber never discussed their situation. Never spoke about the repercussions of attraction and attachment. They were in a war, two creatures of expediency. They learnt to snatch whatever distractions they could. Let what was too ponderous, too intense, float between them in an unacknowledged limbo. Not one blessed word about their profounder thoughts passed between them, if indeed they had any. Just practicalities. Orders. Banter. ]
[ At the time that felt perfect. But Hei regretted it now. All along he'd thought he understood Amber, which was why her plans against the Syndicate had swept the floor from under him. What he has with Korra isn't a repetition of that. But it runs every risk of becoming one -- if he can't express himself. ]
[ He opens his mouth to try. But a cold flare of anger spikes, and what comes out is, ]
Shut. Up.
[ Something about the phrase -- maybe something about how Hei uses it when he's run out of patience and is speechless and stupid with anger ... it should tell Korra plenty about his state of mind. He narrows his eyes at her. Not threateningly, but so she knows he's serious. Pushes himself into the silence, and continues, his voice hard, calm enough to beat back any internal warnings to withdraw. ] I'm not in the mood for jokes. Happiness isn't something I can have, back home. It makes you stupid. It gets you killed. You learn to subsist on nothing. To try to feel nothing, and you should believe it because I'm telling you. Because I've lived it. Every day since I was a child.
[ He swallows. It hurts to speak. ] Feeling happy again ... or at least remembering what happy was ... It shut my brain down. It made me feel helpless, and that ... terrified me.
[ He sounds almost pleading, like maybe she'll know what that means. ]
[She doesn't flinch, but she does bite her lip, a visual promise of silence. And she listens.]
I believe you. [How could she not? He's lied to her about almost everything, but he's never lied about his feelings. Hidden them, ignored them, but never lied about them.
She listens, she believes, but she doesn't understand. She's never been in that position -- never had to be afraid that she would lose something she so desperately wants.
What about those times you got back your bending? She doesn't know where the thought comes from, but it forces her to reconsider. She remembers how she felt after those weekends when she's gotten her bending back, the inevitable anger and grief that comes with once again losing that which defines her. She destroyed more than a few pieces of furniture herself each time.
Maybe she actually does understand.]
So what now? [At this point, she knows better than to say I'm sorry. It's not her fault, and it would help nothing anyway. Her sympathy doesn't matter. What matters is how they're going to move on from this.]
[ She asks What now? And Hei's mouth goes dry, his stomach dropping and clenching. Cold prickles on his skin. ]
[ He prepares to say something, then visibly scraps it, shaking his head. What, after all, can he say? Say I let these feelings develop. Say I let myself get involved -- actually involved -- with you. Just floating the idea so specifically fills him so full of want and fear, he's buzzing with an instinct to attack. Where has this come from? Two years ago he was cool and dry and desireless as ... as a husk. An ass-kicking husk. It worked so well for him. He'd made a career, a reputation, out of it. ]
[ Everything in Hei's life has been about trying to prove something, even if he'll never acknowledge that. This isn't an exception to the rule, but this time it comes with fine print. It's not about proving something to himself, that he can be smarter and deadlier and sharper than everybody else in the battlefield. Hei might not know what love is, exactly, but he knows what the hell it feels like to feel something genuine rather than pretend you don't. ]
[ It's something he hasn't felt in a while. Because, he hasn't felt. Period. ]
[ He seems to clench and unclench his jaw for a moment, as if gnawing on the words inside his mouth. Blinks silently, and exhales something that doesn't even pretend to be a huff of laughter. Quietly, barely a murmur: ]
Nothing. That's all there is. [ All Korra has to do and read between the lines, and she'll have the power to -- not destroy him -- but kill some revived part of him. All over again. ] You can send me away. Or you can sleep on it. Or you can tell me you don't want to see me again. But you should know ... I feel -- satisfied -- closer to happy -- with --
[ But he stops himself. Drops his gaze, and tilts his head slightly, nodding to Korra as if to substitute that for being unable to say (what had he been going to say? ) you (you?). ]
[She doesn't quite cut him off, but it's clear she isn't waiting for him to finish. She already knows he won't be able to. She can't believe he's said this much. She reaches out to tug him down with her, so that she's lying face to face with his arm wrapped around her waist.]
[ Come here? Hei's gaze flickers, as if confused. When she draws him in, he almost tenses at it. It's fucked up, how for a moment he's genuinely fucking terrified, and then Korra's hands slide around him, and she draws him into that lovely warm declivity her body's made in the mattress. He thinks about shoving her off, but doesn't. Just her proximity makes it harder for him to resist. He has no control. The arm around Korra's waist speaks of it, no matter how affectionate, how protective it might be. ]
[ But now that he's lying down, he feels heavy, his brain slow, but excited too, by being here, by acting as if this is just the normal thing they do. He lets the seconds tick by. Drops his head to Korra's, then, and sighs a long sigh, breathing in the smell of her hair, because something about that particular warm crisp scent speaks of a short but bright existence made out of beginnings and beginnings and beginnings until the final end, which is far away. ]
[ Ir feels -- not like freedom and not quite like flying. (He knows better than to think a single person will ever be able to fill that gap, except Pai.) But fuck if it isn't close, if every part of him wants to pull Korra tighter in and have a repeat performance of that ruined evening, again and again, with the fiercest kind of longing. ]
[ Instead, angling his head, he kisses her the way he's never done yet, soft and lingering. Not the way he used to kiss Amber. Just the way he kisses Korra. He tries to put into it all the warmth he'd once longed for for himself. That he can no longer find anywhere, since the sky fell around him and Pai. ]
[She kisses him back -- warm and soothing and contented. She tangles her legs in his and her fingers in his hair. It's tempting, so tempting, to push this forward.
Then Mocha, who had leapt off of the bed as soon as she started lying down, whines piteously, and Korra breaks the kiss with a little laugh.]
Mocha, be quiet.
[With another little whine, the dog jumps up onto the foot of the bed and curls up stubbornly. She contemplates kicking him off, but a glance out the window reminds her that she really should get some sleep. She has an early shift at the Welcome Center.
So instead, she presses another kiss to his lips.]
[ Hei does his best to ignore the stupid dog. Lets Korra curl against him instead, his body a warm bolster to fit herself against. He exhales, his breath tickling through her hair. Dips his head, melting into her kiss, and whispers against her parted lips, ]
All right.
[ The raspy words vibrate with a quiet trepidation, which he tries to force down. He lays a hand on her body, under her breasts; not a silent demand for anything more. Just for the contact. Listening to the steady cadence of her heartbeat, a strange thrill pulses through him, a peculiar closeness seeming to crackle darkly in the air between them, palpable even though he can't see Korra's face. He knows he ought to be wrapped around Pai, right now, sleeping the sleep of a well-fed, well-fought soldier. But for the past week, sleep has advanced and receded many times and finally pulled him down into a tense, trapped alertness. His dreams are grisly, phantasmagoric -- his mind containing fantastic netherworlds of bloodshed and sadism. They seep out in disturbing ways. Some night he awakens to find his hands curled loosely around Pai's neck, like she's an enemy. Other times, his eyes flutter open to find himself wrapped too-tightly around her, as if trying to protect her from a mortar blast. ]
[ He knows, with the secrecy of a premonition, that his nightmares are worsening. He's not sure why. But he doesn't tell Pai about it. Better to give her one less Hei-issue to puzzle out. ]
[ He won't sleep here, either. He knows that. Too risky. But it's enough to have Korra closeby. To scooch nearer, entwining their legs, and to parse out the tiny chemical changes fizzing around her, as she drops away in his arms. ]
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no subject
Talk about being blindslided! He was happy?
Korra doesn't know what about that surprises her. That this was the first time he had ever been happy? Or that he had been happy at all? What about that night had been so different from all the other times they've had sex?]
no subject
[ Hei's learnt to live with racing currents of hatred and need and want snarling beneath his skin and never touching his surface. Learnt to deaden himself to the world, but never to turn his back or his face on it. This situation ... is completely beyond his frame of reference. Because he and Amber never discussed their situation. Never spoke about the repercussions of attraction and attachment. They were in a war, two creatures of expediency. They learnt to snatch whatever distractions they could. Let what was too ponderous, too intense, float between them in an unacknowledged limbo. Not one blessed word about their profounder thoughts passed between them, if indeed they had any. Just practicalities. Orders. Banter. ]
[ At the time that felt perfect. But Hei regretted it now. All along he'd thought he understood Amber, which was why her plans against the Syndicate had swept the floor from under him. What he has with Korra isn't a repetition of that. But it runs every risk of becoming one -- if he can't express himself. ]
[ He opens his mouth to try. But a cold flare of anger spikes, and what comes out is, ]
Shut. Up.
[ Something about the phrase -- maybe something about how Hei uses it when he's run out of patience and is speechless and stupid with anger ... it should tell Korra plenty about his state of mind. He narrows his eyes at her. Not threateningly, but so she knows he's serious. Pushes himself into the silence, and continues, his voice hard, calm enough to beat back any internal warnings to withdraw. ] I'm not in the mood for jokes. Happiness isn't something I can have, back home. It makes you stupid. It gets you killed. You learn to subsist on nothing. To try to feel nothing, and you should believe it because I'm telling you. Because I've lived it. Every day since I was a child.
[ He swallows. It hurts to speak. ] Feeling happy again ... or at least remembering what happy was ... It shut my brain down. It made me feel helpless, and that ... terrified me.
[ He sounds almost pleading, like maybe she'll know what that means. ]
no subject
I believe you. [How could she not? He's lied to her about almost everything, but he's never lied about his feelings. Hidden them, ignored them, but never lied about them.
She listens, she believes, but she doesn't understand. She's never been in that position -- never had to be afraid that she would lose something she so desperately wants.
What about those times you got back your bending? She doesn't know where the thought comes from, but it forces her to reconsider. She remembers how she felt after those weekends when she's gotten her bending back, the inevitable anger and grief that comes with once again losing that which defines her. She destroyed more than a few pieces of furniture herself each time.
Maybe she actually does understand.]
So what now? [At this point, she knows better than to say I'm sorry. It's not her fault, and it would help nothing anyway. Her sympathy doesn't matter. What matters is how they're going to move on from this.]
no subject
[ He prepares to say something, then visibly scraps it, shaking his head. What, after all, can he say? Say I let these feelings develop. Say I let myself get involved -- actually involved -- with you. Just floating the idea so specifically fills him so full of want and fear, he's buzzing with an instinct to attack. Where has this come from? Two years ago he was cool and dry and desireless as ... as a husk. An ass-kicking husk. It worked so well for him. He'd made a career, a reputation, out of it. ]
[ Everything in Hei's life has been about trying to prove something, even if he'll never acknowledge that. This isn't an exception to the rule, but this time it comes with fine print. It's not about proving something to himself, that he can be smarter and deadlier and sharper than everybody else in the battlefield. Hei might not know what love is, exactly, but he knows what the hell it feels like to feel something genuine rather than pretend you don't. ]
[ It's something he hasn't felt in a while. Because, he hasn't felt. Period. ]
[ He seems to clench and unclench his jaw for a moment, as if gnawing on the words inside his mouth. Blinks silently, and exhales something that doesn't even pretend to be a huff of laughter. Quietly, barely a murmur: ]
Nothing. That's all there is. [ All Korra has to do and read between the lines, and she'll have the power to -- not destroy him -- but kill some revived part of him. All over again. ] You can send me away. Or you can sleep on it. Or you can tell me you don't want to see me again. But you should know ... I feel -- satisfied -- closer to happy -- with --
[ But he stops himself. Drops his gaze, and tilts his head slightly, nodding to Korra as if to substitute that for being unable to say (what had he been going to say? ) you (you?). ]
no subject
[She doesn't quite cut him off, but it's clear she isn't waiting for him to finish. She already knows he won't be able to. She can't believe he's said this much. She reaches out to tug him down with her, so that she's lying face to face with his arm wrapped around her waist.]
no subject
[ But now that he's lying down, he feels heavy, his brain slow, but excited too, by being here, by acting as if this is just the normal thing they do. He lets the seconds tick by. Drops his head to Korra's, then, and sighs a long sigh, breathing in the smell of her hair, because something about that particular warm crisp scent speaks of a short but bright existence made out of beginnings and beginnings and beginnings until the final end, which is far away. ]
[ Ir feels -- not like freedom and not quite like flying. (He knows better than to think a single person will ever be able to fill that gap, except Pai.) But fuck if it isn't close, if every part of him wants to pull Korra tighter in and have a repeat performance of that ruined evening, again and again, with the fiercest kind of longing. ]
[ Instead, angling his head, he kisses her the way he's never done yet, soft and lingering. Not the way he used to kiss Amber. Just the way he kisses Korra. He tries to put into it all the warmth he'd once longed for for himself. That he can no longer find anywhere, since the sky fell around him and Pai. ]
no subject
Then Mocha, who had leapt off of the bed as soon as she started lying down, whines piteously, and Korra breaks the kiss with a little laugh.]
Mocha, be quiet.
[With another little whine, the dog jumps up onto the foot of the bed and curls up stubbornly. She contemplates kicking him off, but a glance out the window reminds her that she really should get some sleep. She has an early shift at the Welcome Center.
So instead, she presses another kiss to his lips.]
Stay?
no subject
All right.
[ The raspy words vibrate with a quiet trepidation, which he tries to force down. He lays a hand on her body, under her breasts; not a silent demand for anything more. Just for the contact. Listening to the steady cadence of her heartbeat, a strange thrill pulses through him, a peculiar closeness seeming to crackle darkly in the air between them, palpable even though he can't see Korra's face. He knows he ought to be wrapped around Pai, right now, sleeping the sleep of a well-fed, well-fought soldier. But for the past week, sleep has advanced and receded many times and finally pulled him down into a tense, trapped alertness. His dreams are grisly, phantasmagoric -- his mind containing fantastic netherworlds of bloodshed and sadism. They seep out in disturbing ways. Some night he awakens to find his hands curled loosely around Pai's neck, like she's an enemy. Other times, his eyes flutter open to find himself wrapped too-tightly around her, as if trying to protect her from a mortar blast. ]
[ He knows, with the secrecy of a premonition, that his nightmares are worsening. He's not sure why. But he doesn't tell Pai about it. Better to give her one less Hei-issue to puzzle out. ]
[ He won't sleep here, either. He knows that. Too risky. But it's enough to have Korra closeby. To scooch nearer, entwining their legs, and to parse out the tiny chemical changes fizzing around her, as she drops away in his arms. ]