[ Ifs. Buts. Maybes. They've never done Hei any favors. To him, they're a moron's mantra, talismanic sounds stripped of their animating magic. He functions on self-realization, not self-pity. He can't shrug his shoulders over what he did during the curse. He's bitter, but he's not that sort of brooding type. He'll have his moments of madness over it in the future, and has had his bad hours of flashbacks and nightmares since then. What he did to Yin, to Korra, to Chekov, even if he failed to do the worst -- that will always stay with him, and he means never to let himself off the hook for it. But the curse is over. He's made his mistakes. He can't forget them, but he refuses to let them paralyze him. That's as good as admitting defeat. ]
[ Naga's growl rumbles like a seismic quiver through the air. He ignores it, keeping his eyes on Korra. Simply: ]
Not this time, no. But that doesn't mean you'll be unprepared next time.
[ Because there's always a next time. Especially in the City. And because it's necessary in his line of work. Future visualization. Contingency plans. Holding your chin high and staring into the belly of the beast when all you have is riding on one inch of give in the rope at your wrist -- before you go plunging to hit rock-bottom. ]
[It's a good thing he's not closer, because she would probably punch him. She's trying to make sure she won't be unprepared. She's training, and meditating, and working her ass off, and this isn't helping. He's just poking at things that hurt. He's a distraction she doesn't want and doesn't need.]
[ She was training, meditating, and working her ass off before, too. Determination -- amped up, supercharged -- is never the only solution. To win, it's necessary to switch tactics. Attrition isn't as effective as strategy. It certainly isn't as successful as change. Because change creates movement. And movement creates new opportunities. If Korra wants to access her Avatar state ... she has to try something wholly different. ]
[ Hei doesn't say that. It's not his purview to offer her advice, much less lecture her. She needs to learn things at her own pace -- just as he does. She already seems right on the edge of losing it. He's not certain whether she's going to lash out or break down or scream. It doesn't matter; Hei knows it's the same feeling inside. Like lava setting fire to your insides. Like those people they discover three days later in a chair, totally incinerated with pair of perfectly unblemished feet. ]
[ Then she says What's your point, and the words work on him like an incantation, like a key in the lock. He was tense and aloof a moment before. But now everything softens: his resistance, his spine, his clenched hands. He stares at her with a quiet, solid focus. His voice is the same, but with an undertone that's almost like pleading, ]
Nothing. I know it's easy to blame yourself. Like if you'd been better or stronger, none of this would've happened. I also know self-hate is easier than clarity. But you're fooling yourself, or trying to. You're recovering from a bad situation. You're upset about what's happened to Naga. I understand that. [ He doesn't say Because I've lived it. But he doesn't look away from her either. ] Just remember this is situational. It doesn't define what you are. Don't let it.
[She needs this to define who she is, though. She needs the edges, the structure it provides. Otherwise who is she? A person who likes to fight? That describes about half the City's population. Take everything she knows about herself and she still could be just about anyone. It still doesn't tell her what to do with her life. Being a failure gives her a purpose -- to stop being a failure.
She doesn't actually realize any of this; that's a level of self-awareness she doesn't possess. All she knows is that his words make her cling tighter to her pain, as though she's afraid he'll take it away from her, like a doll that's gotten dirty. She hugs Naga's neck and breathes deeply, but the warm scent she's used to is cold & muted. Despite her best efforts, a few tears trickle down her face and into the polar bear dog's fur.]
[ Here's the thing about Korra: She isn't a failure. She's just mired in screw-ups. ]
[ Hei isn't one to pull punches. He doesn't make a show of hiding his impatience, because why should he? He never brings it up, that If you're measured against someone who stopped a fucking war, you're always second-best. Even if you aren't, but he thinks it almost everytime he sees her. Korra's made screw ups of the grandest proportions, but she's also a survivor. And Hei respects that enough to curb his sharpness -- because he's been there. Self-hatred is its own trap; a driving-force, but also an excuse to lacerate yourself with your own mistakes, to magnify them in your memory, which is a failure in its own right. Granted, it's a strong motivator. Hei knows enough people who've been driven to the top by self-hatred. He was one of them. But a fuel that volatile is also tied to self-destruction. It impels you to take stupid risks, to make bad choices. It leaves you a miserable wreck because you're always running from yourself. And no matter where you go, there you are. ]
[ Screwing up is different. It means you made a mess, but you're fixing it. It's not what defines you. Your choices do. ]
[ He doesn't say that. Korra's face is obscured, but the air around her is thick with dammed-up tears. He doesn't move, but after a couple of beats, he says quietly, ]
I'll leave you alone.
[ The sentence is weighted in expectation of the But I'd rather be kissing you, which never comes, though he takes the breath before it. The absence of the remark leaves his words sounding unfinished; his feet feel planted to the ground. ]
[It comes out without thinking, and she regrets it, kind of. She wants to be alone, doesn't she? (The answer is no. She's been almost entirely alone ever since Naga died. She's blown off work, blown off Chekov, blown off everything. And whether she wants to admit it or not, it's having its toll.)
[ The Please feels as if something small and hard has hit him in the small of the back, a pebble sharply flung. He shivers to his finger's ends, and represses it in the same breath. ]
[ For all his games -- the roughness and the mind-frags and the hot things on skin -- Hei is never all that comfortable with real closeness. Not that he's a coward -- he keeps the vigil. He doesn't harrumph and walk off like a lot of men, doesn't pretend like it isn't happening. But he keeps his distance, because this sort of pain is something he knows about intimately, and has never liked. Part of him can't help but think -- It's so fucked up. Korra, asking a killer for comfort. The same one who'd slaughtered her pet. Eerie, how you get so used to having somebody in your life, so comfortable with what little they have to offer, that no matter how lacking, or how jacked up it is, you don't know how to let it go. ]
[ It doesn't matter. He's selfish, and he'll snatch anything warm -- no matter how damaged or storm-tossed -- to consume for himself. Exhausted, confused, steeped in a peculiar self-loathing of his own. But selfish, first and foremost. ]
[ She looks so small and fragile, against Naga's massive whiteness. He approaches her sideways, leery of the animal's reaction. Hesitates, for just a moment, before closing the gap between them, wrapping his arms tight around her. The sky is dark, moonless, and Hei buries his face in Korra's thick, sweet-smelling hair, swaying a bit as if they're together on a dancefloor at the Crazy Mongoose, the night's crowd disintegrating to nothing around them. He doesn't talk. He just absorbs the tenuous tenderness in himself, and hopes it won't break too soon. ]
[Naga tenses, and her growls rise in volume, but Korra presses harder against her and murmurs soothing nonsense...or perhaps it's more accurate to say, pleading nonsense. She understands why Naga doesn't like Hei, why she'd be upset, but she doesn't want him to go. Please let me have this.
And because Naga loves her, and because she doesn't sense any impending violence in Hei's manner, the polar bear dog goes quiet.
Korra shivers when he wraps his arms around her. He's holding her too tightly to wipe the tears off of her face, but she manages to turn herself so that she can bury her head against his chest and wrap her arms around him. (Naga carefully butts her head against Korra's back, encouraging the humans to go somewhere else.)]
[ Hei ignores Naga's growls as they rumble through the air, like an idling engine. His eyes slip shut, and he breathes in that familiar Korra-smell, mingled with his own anxious sweat and the staleness of insomnia, clinging to his hair and skin. She doesn't have to hide her face; he knows she's crying. Can practically feel her sub-rosa sobbing, like a ghostly rime swirling in the air. It makes him squeeze her tighter. Because it's so wonderful to be in her arms, he can scarcely believe it. The idea of any contact, making his skin go hot, making his throat close like this. ]
[ When Naga nudges Korra, he gets the message. Steers her away, to the backdoor of the Beach House. He doesn't go inside. Just settles at the front step, nestling Korra against him. He stays like that for a while, just holding her. Dips his head, and kisses her brow, then her salt-damp cheek. Then her brow again. She smells so good, like the bright, tangled aroma of greenery blooming wild in the heat. A voice in his head cautions, Don't, but it's in Mandarin instead of Portuguese or English, which confuses him. As if, for a moment, the layers of facade have stripped away to reveal the outline of his basic self. It feels as freeing as it is disorienting. He kisses her webbed eyelids, then presses his mouth full and soft to hers. ]
[ Not a demand for anything more. Just to reacquaint himself with her heat and flavor, and perhaps to soothe that high-pitched clamoring under his own skin. ]
[She feels stupid, on his lap like she's a little kid. He kisses her face all over and she wants to push it into something familiar, hot and distracting and mindless. But she can't. She's too sad and too tired. Long days of hard physical work and short nights of poor sleep are taking their toll. She kisses him back when he reaches her lips, but it's not an invitation -- just a grateful acceptance of comfort.]
[ There's a tremor, bubbling just under Hei's skin, when she kisses back. It takes him a moment to recognize what it is. Gratitude. He didn't come here for comfort. As terrible as he is at offering it, he's a thousand times worse at accepting it. The kiss is hot, soft, damp, possessing a lovely feverishness, but that isn't really the point. The touch isn't sensual; it's just that. A touch, graphic in its sheer, snatching physicality. He's not sure if he's trying to reach Korra or just trying to reach anything. He doesn't know how she can respond to someone like him. But he's too busy leaning in, angling his chin as his lips skim hers. Touch, flutter, retreat. Repeat. It was the way he'd kissed her the first time, in that creaky shed with its flickering lightulb. But this time it's not voltage-hot. Just tender, a little unsure maybe, but welcoming the excuse to close the lid on his unnerving array of thoughts. ]
[ He keeps the kiss going for a long time. Breaks it, at last, to tuck her head in the crook of his neck. He's done this with her so seldom. Has always resented any intimacy, has kept a lid on all softness. Refused the few questions she dared put to him over the course of their head-on collision affair. And who knows if this interlude is an apology, or a genuine act of warmth. But Hei's voice is calm and quiet, his thumb rubbing small circles into the indent above Korra's hipbone. ]
I'll stay until you go to sleep.
[ It's many things. An offer, a request, an assurance, and perhaps a promise. ]
[ He feels the vibrations of her voice, full of a tipsy sadness, muffled in his jacket shoulder. Can feel her breath through the fabric when she exhales. He passes his arms more securely around her, rocking her very slowly from side to side. It's what he'd do, sometimes, for Pai. Like during the night when she was too wired for rest, her bloodstream crackling with post-battle adrenaline. Or when there'd be bombs erupting nearby, rattling the ground and gnawing at even Hei's superheated concentration. He winces at a flash of recollection -- the sound of the shelling he'd experienced in South America, the blasts and rumbles that drove him to tuck Pai deeper into the crook of his arm as they lay in a pallet, a few miles from the action. ('Pretend it's a thunderstorm,' he'd always tell her. 'It can't hurt you.' '... Unless it hits you, Carmine would mutter, slouched dull-eyed in her corner. 'Then you won't feel anything,' Amber would say, arch and singsongy, peering past the tent flap into the explosions coloring the dark night.)
[ (A lie, of course. Nothing died painlessly. Even a limb that's long gone keeps hurting.) ]
[ He wonders if that's how Korra feels, in the wake of Naga's death and resurrection. He wants to ask, but what's the point? What's done is done. Cradling her against him, her hair tickling his cheek, he lets a hum of energy buzz from his skin instead, heating his clothes, suffusing Korra's cooler skin. Right now, he has to concentrate on fixing this mess. ]
[She doesn't know how long they sit there, lost in feeling. Maybe even lost in thought, but she couldn't tell you what she was thinking about. Everything's in a fog.
But she does fall asleep, with a dull sense of sadness. It's easier to fall asleep against him than against Naga now; she's always preferred the warmth of a living body to even the softest and thickest blankets. But Naga's not warm anymore, and Korra remembers how lonely it was to always be cold.]
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no subject
[ Naga's growl rumbles like a seismic quiver through the air. He ignores it, keeping his eyes on Korra. Simply: ]
Not this time, no. But that doesn't mean you'll be unprepared next time.
[ Because there's always a next time. Especially in the City. And because it's necessary in his line of work. Future visualization. Contingency plans. Holding your chin high and staring into the belly of the beast when all you have is riding on one inch of give in the rope at your wrist -- before you go plunging to hit rock-bottom. ]
no subject
What's your point?
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[ Hei doesn't say that. It's not his purview to offer her advice, much less lecture her. She needs to learn things at her own pace -- just as he does. She already seems right on the edge of losing it. He's not certain whether she's going to lash out or break down or scream. It doesn't matter; Hei knows it's the same feeling inside. Like lava setting fire to your insides. Like those people they discover three days later in a chair, totally incinerated with pair of perfectly unblemished feet. ]
[ Then she says What's your point, and the words work on him like an incantation, like a key in the lock. He was tense and aloof a moment before. But now everything softens: his resistance, his spine, his clenched hands. He stares at her with a quiet, solid focus. His voice is the same, but with an undertone that's almost like pleading, ]
Nothing. I know it's easy to blame yourself. Like if you'd been better or stronger, none of this would've happened. I also know self-hate is easier than clarity. But you're fooling yourself, or trying to. You're recovering from a bad situation. You're upset about what's happened to Naga. I understand that. [ He doesn't say Because I've lived it. But he doesn't look away from her either. ] Just remember this is situational. It doesn't define what you are. Don't let it.
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She doesn't actually realize any of this; that's a level of self-awareness she doesn't possess. All she knows is that his words make her cling tighter to her pain, as though she's afraid he'll take it away from her, like a doll that's gotten dirty. She hugs Naga's neck and breathes deeply, but the warm scent she's used to is cold & muted. Despite her best efforts, a few tears trickle down her face and into the polar bear dog's fur.]
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[ Hei isn't one to pull punches. He doesn't make a show of hiding his impatience, because why should he? He never brings it up, that If you're measured against someone who stopped a fucking war, you're always second-best. Even if you aren't, but he thinks it almost everytime he sees her. Korra's made screw ups of the grandest proportions, but she's also a survivor. And Hei respects that enough to curb his sharpness -- because he's been there. Self-hatred is its own trap; a driving-force, but also an excuse to lacerate yourself with your own mistakes, to magnify them in your memory, which is a failure in its own right. Granted, it's a strong motivator. Hei knows enough people who've been driven to the top by self-hatred. He was one of them. But a fuel that volatile is also tied to self-destruction. It impels you to take stupid risks, to make bad choices. It leaves you a miserable wreck because you're always running from yourself. And no matter where you go, there you are. ]
[ Screwing up is different. It means you made a mess, but you're fixing it. It's not what defines you. Your choices do. ]
[ He doesn't say that. Korra's face is obscured, but the air around her is thick with dammed-up tears. He doesn't move, but after a couple of beats, he says quietly, ]
I'll leave you alone.
[ The sentence is weighted in expectation of the But I'd rather be kissing you, which never comes, though he takes the breath before it. The absence of the remark leaves his words sounding unfinished; his feet feel planted to the ground. ]
no subject
[It comes out without thinking, and she regrets it, kind of. She wants to be alone, doesn't she? (The answer is no. She's been almost entirely alone ever since Naga died. She's blown off work, blown off Chekov, blown off everything. And whether she wants to admit it or not, it's having its toll.)
She's still not looking up.]
Please?
no subject
[ For all his games -- the roughness and the mind-frags and the hot things on skin -- Hei is never all that comfortable with real closeness. Not that he's a coward -- he keeps the vigil. He doesn't harrumph and walk off like a lot of men, doesn't pretend like it isn't happening. But he keeps his distance, because this sort of pain is something he knows about intimately, and has never liked. Part of him can't help but think -- It's so fucked up. Korra, asking a killer for comfort. The same one who'd slaughtered her pet. Eerie, how you get so used to having somebody in your life, so comfortable with what little they have to offer, that no matter how lacking, or how jacked up it is, you don't know how to let it go. ]
[ It doesn't matter. He's selfish, and he'll snatch anything warm -- no matter how damaged or storm-tossed -- to consume for himself. Exhausted, confused, steeped in a peculiar self-loathing of his own. But selfish, first and foremost. ]
[ She looks so small and fragile, against Naga's massive whiteness. He approaches her sideways, leery of the animal's reaction. Hesitates, for just a moment, before closing the gap between them, wrapping his arms tight around her. The sky is dark, moonless, and Hei buries his face in Korra's thick, sweet-smelling hair, swaying a bit as if they're together on a dancefloor at the Crazy Mongoose, the night's crowd disintegrating to nothing around them. He doesn't talk. He just absorbs the tenuous tenderness in himself, and hopes it won't break too soon. ]
no subject
And because Naga loves her, and because she doesn't sense any impending violence in Hei's manner, the polar bear dog goes quiet.
Korra shivers when he wraps his arms around her. He's holding her too tightly to wipe the tears off of her face, but she manages to turn herself so that she can bury her head against his chest and wrap her arms around him. (Naga carefully butts her head against Korra's back, encouraging the humans to go somewhere else.)]
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[ When Naga nudges Korra, he gets the message. Steers her away, to the backdoor of the Beach House. He doesn't go inside. Just settles at the front step, nestling Korra against him. He stays like that for a while, just holding her. Dips his head, and kisses her brow, then her salt-damp cheek. Then her brow again. She smells so good, like the bright, tangled aroma of greenery blooming wild in the heat. A voice in his head cautions, Don't, but it's in Mandarin instead of Portuguese or English, which confuses him. As if, for a moment, the layers of facade have stripped away to reveal the outline of his basic self. It feels as freeing as it is disorienting. He kisses her webbed eyelids, then presses his mouth full and soft to hers. ]
[ Not a demand for anything more. Just to reacquaint himself with her heat and flavor, and perhaps to soothe that high-pitched clamoring under his own skin. ]
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[ He keeps the kiss going for a long time. Breaks it, at last, to tuck her head in the crook of his neck. He's done this with her so seldom. Has always resented any intimacy, has kept a lid on all softness. Refused the few questions she dared put to him over the course of their head-on collision affair. And who knows if this interlude is an apology, or a genuine act of warmth. But Hei's voice is calm and quiet, his thumb rubbing small circles into the indent above Korra's hipbone. ]
I'll stay until you go to sleep.
[ It's many things. An offer, a request, an assurance, and perhaps a promise. ]
no subject
Thank you.
[Her voice is small & tired, but she's not sure she'll actually be able to sleep.]
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[ (A lie, of course. Nothing died painlessly. Even a limb that's long gone keeps hurting.) ]
[ He wonders if that's how Korra feels, in the wake of Naga's death and resurrection. He wants to ask, but what's the point? What's done is done. Cradling her against him, her hair tickling his cheek, he lets a hum of energy buzz from his skin instead, heating his clothes, suffusing Korra's cooler skin. Right now, he has to concentrate on fixing this mess. ]
[ By any means necessary. ]
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But she does fall asleep, with a dull sense of sadness. It's easier to fall asleep against him than against Naga now; she's always preferred the warmth of a living body to even the softest and thickest blankets. But Naga's not warm anymore, and Korra remembers how lonely it was to always be cold.]
I have to help her.
[It's her last thought before falling asleep.]