poly_chromatic | ♦♦ 33RD CONTRACT

Entry tags:

darker than black - hei

♦♦ 33RD CONTRACT - ANONYMOUS TEXT/ACTION

...Back again.

I could do without the psychic jetlag. No worse for the wear, despite it.

[ Anonymous Text ]
Sing A Song of Sixpence The Child's Rhyme A Lie 1 & 20 Blackbirds Baked As They Die

[ Do not be alarmed. It's a code, not threats of animal abuse. Simply Hei's way of testing the Network-waters. ]

[ Private to Yin ]

~~Are you all right ...?~~

Status?

[ Private to Pai ]

I'm at the safehouse.

[ Options For Run-Ins ]

Cafe: He's assumed 'Li's persona -- timid and dopey-faced. A walking chameleon. But right now, blending with the scenery isn't his priority. The opposite. He's utilizing the freedom afforded by the City to stick out. To play chicken with himself -- after months of paranoid caution. You'll see him seated at the corner, with an unobstructed view of the cafe's interior. Elbow-deep in several platters of fried food, gorging like it's his last meal on earth.

It's his sixth. But fugitive life does wonders for an already freakish appetite.

Dojo: Avoiding the facility’s tangle of Life Cycles and Cybex machines, he's focused on a series of punches, blocks, and kicks to the air that, to the uninitiated, might look like a martial dance routine. It's a kata, but nothing formal or stylized. He has no interest in revealing the full scope of his abilities. Even so, his moves are good -- smooth, practiced, and powerful. They would be impressive in any grizzled combat veteran, but this guy seems at least half that age.

His visit to the dojo isn't an indulgence, or a way to burn off energy. It's a way of reassuring himself that his enemies-- his real enemies -- really are all back home. Or it could be a way of saying come out, come out, wherever you are.

The Underground: In his absence, things have moved around. Locations have changed; reigns of power have switched hands. But it's nothing too drastic. Masked, alone, he propels himself into his first patrol of the year. He feels almost like a kid, a high school student, gone away during summers -- not to visit family and friends but off to anonymously toil in some big city. Now he's back from big travels -- big character-altering, mind-boggling travels. And somehow, the cliche is true: everything in the City seems slightly tepid after having experienced all that disasters and miracles back home.

Of course, it's never a good idea to imagine there is anything tepid about the City. Not so long as it brews with such indefinable magic. Things that pour out of it, or gravitate to it, large or small, are never harmless. In that department, even Hell's Gate has nothing to boast of in comparison.

Anywhere Else: Invent your own setting! You know the drill! c:

[ OOC: Officially off hiatus, and Hei is back in the City, after a brief canon update! Post is anonymous and unhackable as always! Tags will be sporadic so your patience is appreciated<3 ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Typical Hei. Even when Korra bothers checking the network -- and she did take a peak at it today -- his obsessive need to be all obscure and shit means she has no idea he's back. The poem just strikes her as something from yet another one of the City's creeps.

So she spends the day in perfect ignorance. She's been keeping busy the past few days with sick animals and working on her bending training. Ever since that day with Chekov, she's been trying to figure out what other unconventional places she can find & manipulate air. It hasn't exactly been a success, but it hasn't been a failure either. She knows she's got the right idea, but even when you're using the air inside the rock to move the rock, you can't treat it like a rock, and that's her problem. It's grueling training, and it leaves her exhausted. Particularly today. Today she's too tired to wrangle Pai out of bed to make sure she does her chores before dinner; she's too tired for even dinner. The sun sets and she stumbles into her bedroom and under the covers. Her last thought is that it's a little lonely without Mocha and Hamlet (who've been quarantined in another part of the house to keep them from infecting the cats) asleep beside her.

Then she's out like a light.]

[ Flecks of dust glitter in the dim light floating from the window. Hei sneaks in without sound -- he's always been good at that. ]

[ Stepping into Korra's room is like walking out of the choking smog that is his blocky re-orientation (not just to the City, but to a non-fugitive life), and into temporary shelter. He tries to hold his mind very still. But his heart is beating so hard he wonders how it's not echoing through the room. He's aware of Korra, recumbent and warm, curled up in bed. The bready aroma of her sleep fills the air. Watching her, Hei flexes his empty hands. They feel parched. His joints still ache, every muscle half-knotted. The injuries he'd sustained from his last fight, before getting sucked into the City, are only half-healed; the skin itches and crawls and stings. ]

[ But somehow it matches the quality of his thoughts. ]

[ In truth, the stuttered healing process is probably good for him. It reinforces something he'd only just been coming to grips with: eluding the Syndicate has slowly run him ragged. Time ago, in Heaven's War, he'd have ripped through a whole battalion of Contractors before they could've damaged him in return. But now, although his skills, his tactics, are better than those of his younger self, he understands that his quickness, and his resiliency, are not infinite. It's a matter of simple attrition. ]

[ He tries to tell himself he can evade the Syndicate for as long as need be. By one means or another, he's managed to outlast all his enemies so far. And if he can't ... Well. Better to die fighting than expire old and crippled. But that's bullshit. Almost dying, each and every day, is a powerful reminder that he wants to live. He can't articulate why, exactly. But it isn't just the sight of fried food or the sound of Pai's voice or the feel of Yin's hands. ]

[ Korra is tangled up in the fabric of those ideas, strangely enough. But watching her, Hei wonders if it's right to intrude. Maybe, during his absence, she'd decided she was better off without him. Maybe she'd moved on. He doesn't want to interfere with any of that. Most of all, if any of his enemies ever come to the City, he doesn't want an association with him to be the thing that gets her hurt, or worse than hurt. ]

[ Yet, even as he tells himself this, he's stepping closer to her bed. ]

[There's not a single sound -- not a breath, not a creak, not a scrape -- that gives his presence away. It's something indefinable, a change in the energy in the room. She finds herself turning towards it unconsciously, making a soft sound that could be surprise.]

[ She turns toward him. Hei freezes, wondering if she's awake. ]

[ No. Her breathing stays deep and undisturbed. Part of him can't help but frown at her obliviousness. There are a hundred creatures in the City who are as stealthy as him. Better. She can't defend herself effectively if she's a living bullseye. The other part of him, absurdly, is grateful she doesn't spring awake. Slowly, he peels the blankets half-away from her, with the delicacy he puts into preparing incendiary devices. Trying not to disturb her; trying to figure out what he wants. His breath is short in his lungs. The night air feels chill. ]

[ His intention, at the outset, was to wake her. Thank her, with terse politeness, for watching over Pai. Explain that he'd be taking her back to the apartment. Mentally jot Korra's name in his ledger, bright-red and bold; another debt to pay off. Simple. Neat. Concise. Except now ... Korra is too close. Listening to her quiet breathing, a thrill creeps through him. ]

[ Wake up. He wants to say it. Instead his fingers twitch, before his right palm moves to fit against the warmth of her cheek. The pad of his thumb ghosts along the rise of bone there, skimming the feathery underside of her eyelashes. ]

[ Simple contact. Not loaded, but almost rueful. ]

[Her eyes open at the contact.

She's gotten better in the month he's been gone. The depression that had sunk its claws into her, that had always kept her tied to sleep before, has lost its grip. Still, even without the depression, she's not a soldier like Hei or a wild animal like Naga; she doesn't have the training to wake instantly from sleep. She stares at him wide-eyed and completely uncomprehending; it takes a long moment for her mind to even register his name.]

Hei?

[ She opens her eyes. And Hei tells himself he's imagining it; that slight tremor of his hands. ]

[ He withdraws his touch matter-of-factly, as if she's a weapon or a tool he's finished with. His posture doesn't change. His expression is the same. He says, ]

Didn't mean to wake you.

[ And he sounds like himself, but there is something hollow in his voice, noticeable not as he speaks, but in the little silence between. As if he is doing an impression. An imitation of normalcy. It unnerves him. He's been trying all these months to hold tight to his calm, his reason. But now he feels stiff, out-of-place in Korra's room, head angled, arms folded, trying to project benignity, sanity. ]

[ Trying so hard he wonders if she can feel it. ]

What are you doing here?

[Her voice is sluggish, her tone completely normal because her mind hasn't caught up to how weird this whole thing is yet. He had vanished after they'd fucked up -- literally -- leaving her alone to deal with fears and worries that nothing in her life had prepared her to handle. And now he's in her bedroom, as though this were perfectly normal behavior. Which actually it kind of is, for him.]

[ Hei hasn't forgotten that literal Fuck-up. But it isn't in the forefront of his memory. In one room of his mind, it hovers like a toxic smog, walled in behind emergency glass. He clicks through scenarios of what might've happened after his absence, what Korra might've done, with a mathematical efficiency, his face expressionless. In another compartment, separated from the countless other honeycomb cells of his brain by something like mental chainlink, so that all its workings are both quite clear and quite separate, he wonders why he can't just ask her what happened. ]

[ Maybe because it's too dizzying, this sudden same-old same-old rackety exchange, as if he hasn't been back home for almost half a year, slitting throats and cracking skulls left and right. ]

[ Instead, tonelessly, ] I wanted to see how you were. [ The words sound mechanical, even to him. In his imagination, he's in the midst of an orgy of indulging himself. With Korra. With this tenuous freedom. Hot baths and liquor and tea and food and kisses, ravenous sex, extravagant head, all at the same time like some multi-armed double-faced mutant -- even as he stands sulking like a caught-out criminal. ]

[For once, the tonelessness doesn't bother her. It makes everything seem less like a dream (like the dreams she has where Hei turns into Amon). It's just Hei being Hei.

You can blame sleepiness for how that makes her smile.]

I missed you. [Simple. Matter of fact. Something she would never admit to if she were fully awake. Her hand, still heavy with sleep, shifts a little towards him as though it wants to reach out.]

[ I missed you. Somehow, Hei's thought processes can't get beyond those words. His mind stutters disbelievingly. Korra's room and its contents, his awareness of his body, of hers, seem to be unspooling, spidering, like a dollop of ink suffused into water. He wonders if he's happy. He doesn't feel it. He can feel the space for it, opened up in his chest. He can clearly state all the reasons he has to be happy. But he feels too wracked, too blank. Like the victim of a natural disaster, the earth itself shuddering under his feet. Except it's not. It's in him. The shock of the past months is in his bones. Blanched and terrible in its gaping emptiness. ]

[ He can't tell Korra that. He longs to examine her properly, to say, I missed you too. Or I would if I could. But a sharp spasm of uncertainty holds him back. It's hard to meet her gaze. He focuses instead on her hand, wrapping it in both of his. Wonderfully warm; solid. He brings it up to his face, his thumb lightly tracing the pulsepoint of her wrist. The skin tics beneath his touch. He forces himself to wait, two beats, four, before he presses her fingers to his lips. ]

[ It's a strange, old-fashioned gesture. But it's familiar. Both a reminder and a test. ]

[So weird. She tugs her hand, not to get it away from him, but to encourage him to come down and join her. There are so many questions she could be asking, should be asking, so many things that need to be talked about and she knows it. She just doesn't care right now. With Naga cold and the dogs sick, her bed's been cold & lonely. It'd be nice to have something warm in it again, whether it's for sleep or sex.]

[ He resists for a moment -- chalky, underslept, bleary. The way she's drawing him in ... the way it makes his bizarre, badly-wired brain trip up ... it reminds him of that last time. The stupid mistakes. The questions left unanswered. They haven't talked about that. They haven't talked about anything. They should talk. His head isn't in the stablest place. He still feels his memories of home, pressing in on him. Not exactly a presence, but something shadowy and enormous and rust-stained. Something just-out-of-reach that intrudes on the edges of all his present satisfaction. ]

[ This isn't something to rush into. ]

[ But Korra is too close. And the time back home is too much of a blinding shock to the brain. It makes his breath come sharp too quickly, makes him wonder why this is his response. The usual refrain: What's wrong with me? He's had his share of obsessions. He's learned how to talk himself out of them. He knows too well the difference between lust and emotion, and he's never been one of those people whose sex-drive runs his life. Why does this -- this thing? -- always feel so irresistible? Where has all his control gone? Eight months of violence and tragedy, piling up in his mind. It should reshape his psyche. It should dull his fixation for Korra. ]

[ Instead the breath rushes through his lungs. God, she is close. Her body radiates heat. Hei screws his eyes closed, tells himself he's a fucking idiot, and touches Korra's arm. Her skin is incredibly warm, almost burning. His palm tingles to squeeze, to possess, to explore. ]

[ In the next breath, he's snatching her in tight. Covering her mouth in a kiss like a violent freefall. ]

MMPH!! [Okay, even for someone who breaks down a door before knocking, TOO FAST! She's had over a month to get used to not having him around and her body's still heavy with dreaming -- her hormones need a little more time to kick in. She grips his shirt and tries to push him back without pushing him away.]

Slow down!

[You want rough sex? Take her to a muay thai match and get her blood pumping. But if you're going to sneak into her room and wake her up in the middle of the night, you're going to have to be a bit more gentle.]

[ Slow. Gentle. Even on a good day, he's averse to that. Hei uses sex -- the rougher the better -- to anesthetize himself. Nothing more, nothing less. Once the buzz fades, so does his interest. This really is too much on top of eight months in impossible circumstances and narrow escapes from death: having to juggle the fragile complexities of human emotions. Part of him wants to shove her flat. Head-down, no eye contact, no kissing. Easy access. But he keeps himself in check. Can't do that with a girl. With Korra. Bad move. She has to be coaxed. He has to be careful. He tries to remember what the next step in the well rehearsed manual is. ]

[ When she doesn't shove him off, he dips his head. Kisses her again, hungry, but less aggressive. He takes his time, a waxing and waning of pressure. Lingering kisses, biting teeth and teasing tongue; enough to get a taste. He circles her close with one arm, half sprawled on her. She's wearing something simple. As usual. Nothing like the pretty frippery Hei buys her. But it fits her just right, and promises such sweet things. Except now, the layers are just in his way. Slowly, he moves right right hand from the bedsheets -- to her stomach -- to the swell of her left breast, muffled under her blouse. Cups it beneath, rolling his palm, dragging the fabric against a nipple. Even muted through the layers of material, the warmth of her seems to burst through him, making him push his teeth together. ]

[ Fuck. Eight months, and Korra's body feels like unfamiliar terrain. The soldier in him -- (or maybe the part of him that's Hei) -- wants to reclaim every square inch. ]

[Honestly, still moving a little fast for her, but that's the difference between one month and eight months of blue balls. That and he didn't spend a few weeks afraid he was pregnant.]

I'm serious. [Serious enough to take his hand off her breast, though she only moves it as far as her hip. Maybe, if it didn't feel like there was something off about his energy, she'd be getting into it more quickly. But she can feel the slight disconnect and it makes her cautious.]

You have condoms this time, right? [Look, she can even say the word now like it's a normal thing and not some obscure piece of new fangled technology. She's grown so much.]

[ He almost resists when she drags his hand off. Instead he draws a few steadying breaths. Lets them diffuse through his body. All his instincts scream that it is time to Take take take. He's been living so long on instinct, ignoring it causes pain. He had to struggle, to sit still, to be a normal man again. ]

[ He can sense Korra's wariness, how she's controlling it, and he tries to pull himself together. With effort, he leans away. In the semi-darkness, Korra is shockingly beautiful. It isn't that he'd forgotten. Just that seeing is different from remembering. When she asks, You have condoms this time, right? his hands drop from her body and lower uneasily into the sheets. He gives her a sidelong look -- measuring, almost suspicious. But behind it there is pure uncertainty in his elevated heart rate, his seething breaths. ]

Yeah. [ A beat, tongue snaking out to wet his bottom lip. It's a moment before his right hand reaches to curl around hers, eyes searching her out for some spike of No that'll let him know they need to take this slower, or that they should make this happen some other night. ] Is something wrong?

[ Stupid question. Everything about this scenario is Wrong. ]

[She lets out a little relieved breath and smiles.] No. Just wanted to make sure. [That brief flirtation with motherhood had made her realize just how much she doesn't want the job. She leans up to give him a reassuring kiss, and moves his right hand to her thigh and his left hand to her hip. Try getting to know some new places, Hei.]

[ There's something she's not telling him. Hei doesn't have to switch on all his mental instruments -- perceptive guages and navigation needles -- to determine that. The air practically vibrates between them with it. He wants to ask her what happened. (Part of him, in a gut-deep, shivering premonition, already knows.) But then she's kissing him, guiding his hands across her body, and his breath stutters against her lips. Coasting his right hand up her thigh, he rubs circles against her hipbone with his left. It's probably Korra's hips he likes the most, or maybe her waist or stomach or shoulders, or whatever it is he can put his palms on, whatever it is under her clothes that he wouldn't be able to touch outdoors. ]

[ Okay, maybe he likes best whatever it is he feels when he dips his right hand between her thighs, feeling the a band of elastic at her panties sliding back over his fingers, his knuckles, then over his wrist; that band that keeps his hand neatly captive. ]

[ Balancing himself with one palm, Hei strokes between her thighs with the other. The fingers between her legs are almost passive. Just resting there, wrist bent, stroking the humid curls and the cleft softness beneath them. His nerves are buzzing, whining at the slowness, demanding something faster, more fulsome. He ignores it, feeding on Korra's mouth, then tracing his lips from her jaw down to the dark column of her throat. ]

[It's not like anything actually happened. A few weeks of silent nervousness and then the strangely reassuring sight of her own blood, signifying that her body remains hers. Worth mentioning later but certainly not worth interrupting the now for.

Particularly now that he's reminding her what he can do with his hands. With a choked breath, she arches into his hand. She fumbles a little with the buttons on his shirt, trying to get him a little less dressed. A part of her wants to bite him and go Cheater. No fair catching her with her pants off. He could at least even the playing field a little.]

[ What can he say? Contractors are notorious cheaters. ]

[ She arches into his hand, fingers plucking at his shirt, and Hei almost smiles. His heart is beating faster now, the throb of it against Korra's body somehow keeping time to hers. He tests her with the tip of one finger, then two, getting them slippery, then pushing them inside, only halfway, while his thumb rests on her clit. It's a moment before he remembers the right rhythm, the right pressure, the kind that gets her stirring under his hand. His head dips to seek her throat again, pressing warm, wet, sucking kisses down the vulnerable stretch of skin, while he uses his trigger finger, giving her a slow clit massage; finger-fucking her until his hand is slick with her. ]

[ Only then does he draw back, clutching at his shirt, yanking it up and off. It's not measured and unhurried like usual. There's no meticulous folding, no obsessive neatness. He can't connect with her skin fast enough. Breath fluttering, shallow, he shifts on top of her, heavy and close, but that feels all right, comforting. He wants to slip his arms around her, but they're both tangled in all those bedsheets. He almost wants to get out his knife. Slice everything off her. Not now. Soon. In the meantime, it's enough that he's able to kiss her face, and her mouth, her neck. Her skin feels hot and powdery; his lips leave cool trails of moisture across it, as his erection hardens against her belly. ]

[ Korra. The word makes him close his eyes hard while the whir of his brain threatens to shake his whole frame. ]

[Shirt off. Good ~~first~~ ~~third~~ ~~who would bother counting?~~ step. She moves onto his pants, stripping off his belt and chucking it aside. It clatters almost painfully on the hard wood floor. She can feel new scars against her arms, and she'd like to take her time exploring his skin, but she can feel his impatience, like a dog trembling to be given permission to hunt, and she knows if she's not careful, he'll have her fully naked and be fucking her with his pants on, which is one of her top 3 sex peeves and not something that'll change just by whining about it. You want something done? Do it yourself.]

[ Hei ignores that sharp, nauseated jolt when his belt clatters against the floorboards. The noise pings off certain nerve-points in his memory -- the bark of gunfire, the metallic tink of fallen grenade pins -- and makes him feel like he's hurtling in the dark with blank white adrenaline racing in his veins. ]

[ With effort, he shuts it off. Gets her message and strips off his pants, leaving them draped half-inside-out across the bedsheets. Extra precautions are unnecessary. But he wants the weapons in his pocket closeby. Even in the gloaming, he's visibly leaner. His ribs are prominent, and there is a convexity under his abs, even though the muscles themselves are so hard they resemble a turtle's belly. There are a lattice of deep cuts, pink and healing, on his arms and back that were never there before. It doesn't matter. He's not a model aiming at picture-perfection. The scars aren't important. Nor is the whippishness. He still has all of his muscle tone. ]

[ In the field, knocking opponents down, he moves as if his strength is indisputable. ]

[ Arched over Korra, Hei touches her tentatively through her clothes. Tank top tapering down towards the waistband of her panties; scant wedges of cotton. How Korra wears clothes is sometimes sexier than nakedness. And how she undresses is sexier than what she wears. Hei could watch that interplay -- sheaves of fabric against smooth skin, shadowy dips and ripples of bunched up cloth begging to be smoothed out -- all day. Except he doesn't have all day. At the base of his skull, along his spine, he can feel the curled up energy, the power, the tension. After eight months of being the perfect spy, something in him aches for wild, senseless freedom. ]

[ On instinct, his hand goes for the folding knife, tucked in his pocket. A snick, a glint of metal, and the blade is out. ]

[The changes in his body... "worry" isn't quite the right word, but they concern her. Bodies tell stories, and the story his tells isn't good. His muscles are too hard, there are too many new scars.

There's also a knife.]

What are you doing?! [She shoves him off and scrambles back. Does she think he's going to hurt her? She has no idea. She'd known Hei before he left, but the man in her bed might as well be a stranger.]

[ She shoves him off. And there's fear, buzzing in the atmosphere and etched into the canvas of her expression. Everything about Hei diffuses before her question hits the air. His grip slackens on the knife, his shoulders straightening as he leans away from her space. He can read people with ease, but he and Korra have never operated within any clear divides. Speech and touch -- his especially -- so easily go awry. He'd thought -- it isn't exactly clear what he'd thought. Why he'd decided to go for the blade. A game? A paranoid precaution? He isn't sure. Inside, the Reaper is clamoring, and it had seemed like a good idea to tip her off, and how better than with a little edgeplay, to his present mood. ]

[ A good idea to the Reaper, anyway. Who, after months in ascendancy, is revving at full-speed. Unwilling to surrender the reigns, to go dormant. ]

[ He can't tell Korra that. He's tense, face lined with exhaustion, all muscle and sharp edges. But his expression is soft -- half apologetic, half hurt -- even if it's a sort of mask. ]

Nothing. I -- [ He inhales deeply. Sets the knife aside and holds up his open hands. ] Didn't mean to spook you.

[ Except that's all his presence is doing. Maybe coming here was a bad idea. ]

action; the Beach House

action; the Beach House 1/2 such two parters. much tldr. aghast.

action; the Beach House

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and the nsfw begins

just a handful of tags and already nsfw i can't

i feel like i should be embarrassed

never be embarrassed i am your partner in crime 8')

but what if i like being embarrassed?

/embarasses moar? >///3

/is the most embarrassed!

>3 just as planned

ablublublu

<333

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