poly_chromatic

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legend of korra: korra

三十

[She's woken up by an incessantly cheery tune. It takes her awhile to place it as her network device -- and another while to figure why, because it's not the two beeps of a message or the tune Hei recorded to let her know her battery's dying.

It's a little calendar notification. One year in the City! She stares at it uncomprehending (always a little slow in the mornings).

One year.

Shaking her head, she takes a minute to figure out how to make the stupid notification away and then shoves that thought -- One year -- out of her head. She's just going to go about her day as normal. Ayup.]

[ video/action - late morning - option 1 ]
[Korra is out on the beach. You can only really see her face, but the sound of the waves is unmistakable.]

Hey Chekov, get over here. Bring swimtrunks. [It's time you learned how to swim, Spaceboy.]

[ action - late afternoon - option 2 ]
[Another day, another session of physical therapy. The hospital's practically a second (third?) home to her at this point. She walks through the front door, waves at the receptionist, and then makes her way towards the PT's office.]

[ action - evening - closed to Hei ]
[She's run out of ways to distract herself, but it's still too early to sleep. So even though she's tired -- and she's always tired, reason #754 why she hates that lunatic who shot her, because just being alive never used to be this exhausting -- she heads over to Hei's apartment to say hello and maybe be distracted.

Knock knock.]

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[Korra's trying so hard not to repeat her past mistakes. She had been immediately, blatantly, nauseatingly jealous of Asami, and it had led her to do things that she now looks back on with regret. (She doesn't realize how she's overcorrecting, that it would be better for her to speak what she feels instead of trying to convince herself she feels something else.)]

What's her name?

[ Hei nearly says Pai. But he cuts himself off. Pai was what she went by on the battlefield. What he grew used to calling her. Their callsigns were color-coded: Red. Green. White. Black. An additional buffer, layered on top of their messier codes. But here, in the City, he's more determined than ever for Pai to know only one name. To only ever be one person: who she chooses to be, not who she's ordered to be. It may not mean much to her. But it does to Hei. ]

Xing, [ he says, and the wistful affection is evident in his tone. ]

[ (He notices the strangeness in Korra's behavior. Simple jealousy -- owing largely to a lack of clarification that Pai is his sister, not his lover -- doesn't occur to him yet. Sometimes it's still easy for him to forget, how uncertain and young and fragile Korra is.) ]

[Ouch. That -- ow. She's never heard him sound so openly affectionate before, and it hurts more than it has any right to.]

Xing. That's a pretty name. [She doesn't hate this girl she's never met. Nope. Not at all. That would be stupid, and wrong and more importantly, ridiculous.

She looks at the piles of clothes -- all bright, colorful, frilly, feminine -- and adds that to the ever-growing list of things she'll never be. A real Avatar. A leader. A pretty girl. She and her stupid cane would look ridiculous in pretty clothes like these.]

I should go. You and Xing probably have a lot of catching up to do. [She's not imagining what kind of catching up that is.] I don't wanna get in the way.

[ Hei has drifted to the kitchen. Her words are nearly incomprehensible to him over the spitting of the fry-up -- golden braids of ma hua, a sweet dish Pai is partial to. Switching off the heat, he catches the last few words: ...Probably have a lot of catching up to do. For a moment the sentence whirls around in his head, unmoored to anything obvious. Then -- Oh. His preoccupied mind presents him with snapshots of the last few minutes: the pretty clothes, Korra's brittle smile, the superficial cheer in her voice, her careful questions about Pai. These fall into place in his system of understanding, connecting the numbers and dots into a clear picture. ]

[ She's insecure. Jealous. She doesn't realize -- Exhaling, Hei shakes his head. I am such an idiot. ]

Korra.

[ He doesn't say Stop. But there's no need to. Three steps, and he's leaning at the kitchen entrance, blocking the path between the livingroom and the door. ]

[Really it's just bad timing. Last week Mako lectured her about not doing anything to try and escape, and he's right. She's been here an entire year and she hasn't done anything except die, get her ass kicked multiple times, and damage her shoulder & leg. There had been some weak, pathetic comfort in at least being desirable, but even that's not true anymore.

She's so sick of herself.]

What?

[You could at least let her leave with something resembling dignity.]

[ The self-loathing radiates off Korra like a miasma. ]

[ Hei remains poised at the kitchen. But his mild look has faded into something more querulous. Part of him -- the cold, self-serving part -- says: Just let her go. He wants his space today. He has obligations elsewhere -- to Pai -- and a powerful twitchy need to avoid everything Korra is making him feel. He can't do that unless she's gone. After Pai vanished, it was like his spine was pulled out of him. Without her, he was only ever able to crawl. Looking at Korra, he's reminded of how whacked-out he was, searching for a semblance of backbone. How close he'd pulled her in -- in all the wrong ways -- when he had no right to. ]

[ Here is an unexpected flipside: taking an inventory of the nostalgia that already seems like it belonged to someone else. Hei feels like one of those people who, in the warm glow of summer, forget what it's like to walk down a frigid winter street, wrapped-up and shivering. The tangibility of his old loneliness eludes him. All because Pai has dropped back into his life, as smoothly as time reversing itself. ]

[ So? Is Korra a doll you put on the shelf because you're too busy to play with her. ]

[ Hei grits his teeth. Back home, on his last meeting with Maxley, the man had sneered: Look at you. Still pushed around by women. Well -- fuck that. It's true. The women in Hei's life have left the most livid scars. But also the best-loved. He's nurtured and framed each one, counting it among the collection of his treasured sores. A life-lesson, a Thank-You note, stamped on his psyche. He doesn't count Korra among them -- not yet. But every encounter pushes her closer there, like blood racing to a gash. ]

You do realize [ flat and terse ] Xing is my little sister.

[Korra stares at him.]

You have a sister?

[ Hei ducks his head, as if it's hard to meet her eye. Instead he examines his palms. There's a smudge of flour on his wrist, and a spattering of dark oil stains on the cuff of his shirtsleeve. He isn't sure why it's so hard to discuss Pai with her. But when has he ever discussed Pai with anyone? Back in Tokyo, the idea very had felt slightly obscene, and impossible. He still wasn't sure if she was alive or dead. Didn't understand, why her messier code had been transferred to him, like her ability. He'd been so intense about her then, intense and also intensely private. And in the City, his complete lack of reference to her, not so much as an idle remark dropped ... he's kept her close. Hidden away close in his heart. (That is how he loves.) ]

[ At length, ]

I do. [ Reluctantly, ] Even back home ... I haven't seen her in five years.

[Sister. Sister. He has a sister. How does someone like him -- someone so completely detached from people, who seems to exist as this lone bubble -- have a sister?]

Why not?

[The question pops out of her mouth before she thinks about it. It dimly occurs to her that she shouldn't ask, that he's never very good about answering questions, but she's too stunned by the revelation to even be nervous.]

[ (Ask his parents. They made that decision -- not him :|) ]

[ Hei tenses, as if he's being threatened, and doesn't quite know what's threatening him. (It's difficult -- so difficult -- to talk about Pai. Especially with Korra. Maybe his sister's return is nothing but his pathetic fantasy. He'll head out later to find her, and there'll be nothing. He'll return to his flat, and it'll be the same as ever, sparse and gloomy, the air smelling not of store-bought clothes but the fried rice he'd accidentally burned a couple of nights ago. Because that's how it goes. Anything he loves -- he probably doesn't love anything or anyone but Pai -- always leaves.) ]

She was ... taken away. [ He's surprised at himself for volunteering even this detail -- evasive as it is. He knows Korra is only asking out of curiosity. But the question turns his spine rigid as a cat's arched back, as if with some strong sense of impropriety. It feels wrong -- as if Korra expects a toting up of his and Pai's suffering, or is taking a grotesque interest in the wretchedness they'd both endured. Or as if she's jealous and requires some annoying proof that this is, in fact, his sibling. Isn't it selfish, to make him relive the whole ordeal of Heaven's War by recounting it? Isn't it obvious enough from Hei's past behaviour that he's experienced something bizarre and prolonged, back home? ]

[ She doesn't know what that something is. You have to volunteer at least a little information. He's disgustingly aware that this sounds like a rationalization. It's bothersome. ]

[ Ordinarily, he gets along well without it. Or with a cold Shut up. ]

Edited (typos don't start til I walk in ) 2013-07-20 00:48 (UTC)

I'm sorry.

[The hesitance in his voice cuts through the fog of her shock, and she's aware of how pained he is and how he's not lashing out like he has in the past.

There's a little bit of hesitance in her as well as she reaches a hand out to brush his arm...then changes her mind and tries to hug him. (Comfort for him? Or just comfort for herself?)]

[ She tries to touch him. And Hei's face opens up, wary, resistant, doubtful. ]

[ This wasn't a pleasant conversation -- or even a semblance of it. Now she's being the kind of sweet and touchy-feely that either pisses him off, or that he doesn't know how to deal with. (Part of him thinks, with a sharp kind of ache in his chest: If you're always going to be like that, she's always going to walk on eggshells around you.) Which would be convenient. No different from his usual flings. Most of the women he's used to 'keeping' are well-indoctrinated in the Syndicate's world -- flatbackers and thieves if not other Contractors. They don't have expectations, don't spin fantasies of intimacy or run off with their mouths. They can take a shock to their life with the same broken-in silence as a slap to the face. ]

[ Yet Hei's arms move reflexively around Korra. The hug is detached. But only for a moment. In the next breath, he hitches her in tighter, his nose in her hair. He can still see her expression, in his mind's eye -- tentative and big-eyed, as if pleading with him, with the whole world, for some scrap of reassurance. This girl he should be treating only as an asset -- but can't. ]

[ Murmured quietly, into the top of her head, ]

Nothing to be sorry about.

Edited 2013-07-20 01:47 (UTC)

[She buries her face in the crook of his shoulder, relieved that he didn't push her away.]

Yes, there is. [It's not the tragic tale of Tarrlok and Noatok, but the pain he feels is clear enough. How can she not be sorry something terrible like that happened to him? (She wonders if this Xing is one of the girls in those pictures. It would explain a lot.)]

I'm glad she's here.

[ So am I. He doesn't say that. His mouth is dry, his tongue feels stuck to his palate. But it isn't hesitation or anxiety. His hand slides down the curve of her spine to bring her closer. To feel the beads of vertebrae along her back, the warm skin and flexing muscle under the fabric of her shirt, and trace that curiously delicate neck of hers. Pai's arrival has put any thoughts of sex out of his mind. But now, feeling Korra pressed against him, his body spikes to a temperature that's almost -- fizzy. His skin feels hot, and seems to jump, and pressed against Korra, the beat of his own heart seems very very fast. ]

[ It's not a reaction he's experienced -- not since he was a seventeen-year-old in Heaven's War. Everything he's done since then has been almost at half-speed: detached and muted. ]

[She can feel his heartbeat, the press of his interest against her, and she feels an answering tug deep in her belly. It's reassuring. At least there's one thing she isn't failing at.

Pulling back just a little, she leans up to kiss him. They've always communicated best this way, speaking most clearly through touch.]

[ Even as she leans in, part of Hei is reading Korra, the language of her scent and pulse and heat. Noticing and assessing -- on watch for hesitation. At the same time, the chemicals in his bloodstream -- adrenaline? relief? happiness? -- make it impossible to stay objective. They fizzle in his veins like soda, feeding the dull thud of his pulse in his ears. Dipping his head, he meets her mouth with his. Kisses her in a way he hasn't so far, sweet and lingering, the way he used to kiss Amber. But there's a controlled heat to it too, a sharpness -- like a lick of white-hot barbed wire. Slowly, he coaxes her lower-lip between his teeth. As he does, his right hand travels from her torso to enclose her neck. The thumb edges under her jaw. Not hard but there. ]

[ It's not a threatening gesture. But it is possessive. The Hei in Heaven's War did things in forceful stages, not calculated subtleties. Hard, harder, hardest. With Pai's arrival -- with the resurgence of those memories and that mindset -- he feels the inner-valves slamming open, a degenerative, electric-crackling something pushing its way out. Just below his solar plexus, it stops and crouches under his skin. ]

[ Perfectly silent, perfectly still. Ready to spring. ]

[Her breath catches, a quiet hum in the back of her throat. The press of his thumb under her jaw is a little unsettling (threatening or not, there's no escaping the reality of her vulnerability), but she ignores that feeling in favor of the sweetness in his kiss and the warmth of his arms. She digs her fingers into his sides and hooks her ankle around his, tugging his thigh between hers.]

[ Hei edges in closer, easing his thumb until it's poised above her carotid artery, pressing just enough so Korra can feel the throb against it. It's almost a seismograph, the cadence of her pulse feeding him that separate-similar pitch of desire or fear. But her hum, the way she digs her fingers into his skin and wedges his thigh between hers -- it all affects his restraint like a crack spiderwebbing across emergency glass. In the moment just before everything spikes -- heat and hunger and blood-rush -- Hei waltzes her almost delicately backwards, before pressing her flat against the nearest available surface -- the wall, in this case. ]

[ His mouth opens against hers, and there's nothing careful and controlled about the kiss now. It's wet and hungry and biting, as if he wants to open her up and devour whatever's inside. One arm circles around her body, palm against the small of her back. In a jerky motion he tugs her top free from her jeans, slipping his hand underneath to ride his fingertips along the course of her spine. Thigh fitted at the juncture of her legs, moving from a lazy back-and-forth rub to a hard pressure, as if he's suddenly madly impatient, as if in the last few seconds he's moved from absorption into the heights of greed. ]

[The door clicks open and Pai walks in, carrying a few bags of clothes. She can hear that her brother isn't alone even before she opens the door, but he had given her a curfew. (But really? She's just a little sister.)

She feigns surprise when she sees him and the girl pressed against the wall, lips locked and bodies grinding together.]

Oh. Hello.

[She doesn't look at or acknowledge Korra. She just looks at Hei, silently asking Should I leave? No embarrassment. She's walked in on worse in the battlefields of South America. (If not for Hei, she likely would have suffered worse herself.)]

[ The door clicks open and Hei hears Pai's pretend-innocent voice. ]

[ The rush of deja vu is so strong he's nearly transplanted back to South America. He can almost catch that irritable noise Amber used to make, a sort of long low Hnnngh followed by a huff that sent strands of green hair dancing around her face. Pai? Privacy. To his credit, Hei doesn't tense or jerk. Not-quite-detached from Korra, he turns slowly, as if the two were engaged in some slow and stately dance -- a gavotte, maybe. He doesn't scowl, but his pupils are blown and his breathing is just a smidge uneven. ]

Xing. [ Half-scolding, but not embarrassed. (The war has left the siblings with nothing that resembles propriety or personal space.) Still, his own voice sounds hollow, half-breathless in his ears. Like he's been running. Or like he's a sulky caught-out teen. He doesn't answer her unspoken question. Not yet. Even at the worst, most personal moments, Pai tends to shove everything else to the back-burner. ]

[ Instead, tugging Korra's shirt down in an absent motion, he focuses on his sister, ] You're back early.

[Excuse her while she shoves herself into the oven and turns it on SCREAM THIS IS -- SHE CAN'T EVEN --

Korra buries her head against Hei's shoulder, but not before snatching a peek at this sister. She is the girl from the picture. Pieces click together, bit by bit.]

You told me not to be late. [Pai examines the girl with frank curiosity. She doesn't look anything like Amber, or any of the camp followers that he had spent time with during the war.

Another glance at her brother asks Who is she? (Little sister isn't possessive, no. But she likes to be informed.)]

[ It's like being caught in one corner of a trigon, a strange tension bouncing from point to point. ]

[ For a moment, Hei stays where he is, absorbing the bright curiosity in Pai's gaze and the flushed mortification on Korra's face. The dangerous happiness of Pai's arrival still has him caked up inside. The echo of Korra's kisses still shimmers through him. Taking a breath, he shakes his head clear. Squeezes Korra around the middle -- reassurance, maybe -- before letting go. Giving both the girls wide berth, he sidles carefully toward the kitchen counter. (Not to do anything in particular. Mostly just to hide that railroad spike shoved in his pants.) Leaning an elbow on the counter, he angles his body toward Pai. Another breath, then he summons almost a genuine smile and reaches a hand out. ]

I did.

[ But I expected you to stay out later. Enjoy my not-hovering. He doesn't say that. But his dry look implies it. At her questioning look, there's a peripheral gesture toward Korra. He introduces them reluctantly, and suddenly feels so much like his old self, the soldier in the war, gathering allies or enemies, it's uncanny. Not exactly deja vu, but he feels an echo, as he says ] Xing, Korra, [ of his other voice -- UB-001, HV-117. ]

Nice to meet you.

[She isn't looking at Korra. Hardly even speaking to the other girl. Her gaze remains on Hei, obviously puzzled.

Xing? It's been so long, she hardly even knows her own name. Why is he using it with this stranger?]

[Hynnng. She fights back a groan as he pulls away. Sorry, little sister, but right now she and every single nerve ending in her body hates you.]

You too.

[She takes a breath and stands straight. She can see the happiness -- or at least something as close to happiness as she's ever seen in him -- and it fills her with a wistful satisfaction that almost (but doesn't quite) drowns out the pangs of lust.]

I can go. I don't want to get in the way.

三十

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