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

[ Maybe later, when the fog's lifted from his mind, he'll apologize. But right now, he doesn't care. He keeps a tight grip on her hips as he rides her, deep and relentless. Each motion, each wet pistoning, threatens to grind her along the mattress until her head thumps against the wood. The best way Korra can avoid that is to grab the headboard and push back against him. Breathless, fevery, he stares down at her exposed back: the flared hips pinching into her waist, then broadening out to her shoulders, a lovely ribbed curve of vertebrae down the center. Gripping her hip with one hand, he splays the other palm along the smoothness of her skin. Her spine is sinuous, and her shoulderblades seem like they'll sprout wings. ]

[ Gorgeous. So fucking gorgeous. (Does he say it out loud or think it? Maybe both.) ]

[ Withdrawing, he thrusts again -- hard enough to send a shockwave resonating through her. Letting her feel how hungry he is for this. How much he wants her -- even if it comes out in less than pretty ways. ]

[Whether he apologizes or not, she's going to make him regret it. She growls as she grips the headboard and pushes back against him. It feels good, but his lust his hardly flattering. It doesn't feel personal. It doesn't feel like it has anything to do with her at all. He just needs a body to come into, and while physically it might feel good... she still doesn't like it. (It never occurs to her to try and use their safe word.)]

Edited 2014-01-14 00:44 (UTC)

[ Hei has no idea what's going through her head. To be honest, he has no idea what's going on in his, either. ]

[ Instead his fingers snake up into her tousled hair. He fists them and tugs. Drawing her body into a taut arch, her throat bared, he watches the dip of her spine -- a perfect legato. When he smacks her -- two stinging blows -- it sets the dark, smooth curve of her ass to shuddering under the flat of his free hand. He follows immediately with a caress, tracing the curve of her backside with his palm, before coaxing her up onto her knees. (It's an effort to remember this isn't some whore he's paid for the night. This is Korra. She deserves more tenderness. Deserves more warmth than Hei's miserly doses of it.) ]

[ Maybe next time -- will there be a next time after this? -- he'll lavish her like a fucking profligate. Right now, he is too frantic to get off. No subtlety. All locomotion; pounding her fast and with only one end in mind. ]

[ Hauled upright against his chest, his free hand spans her belly, keeping her close. The fingers of the other hand are still tangled in her hair. Tipping her head back, he rubs his rough cheek against her soft one, gnawing hungrily at her jawline. He's rocking in tight, sharp jabs now, sunk completely into her. But when he says her name, it's on a breath that's wrenched like a sob. He may be manhandling her. Mounting, rutting, taking. But with every gasp, every stroke, it's clear she's beyond his ability to resist. ]

[ The house could burn down around his ears and he would still fuck her. ]

[He did not just -- Of course he did, and she is going to kill him. She's going to break his nose and his jaw and then knee him so hard his testicles will come out of his mouth. She reaches back and claws his face. If she draws blood, so much the better.]

[ Her nails dig into his cheek. There's a rasp of cuticles on skin, and a bright burn of pain. He's pretty sure she's drawn blood. Somehow that excites him further. God, what is wrong with me? This isn't how it's supposed to be -- how he is supposed to be. Not now. But Hei can't wonder. Can't think. There is no space. He only realizes he's coming when the aftershocks hit him, his body drenched in warmth and sharp unbroken tremors. It seems to go on, all the misery of his nights on the run emptied into her. His spine cramps up painfully; he lets off a long soft groan into Korra's shoulder, slowly unwinding. ]

[ Thudding heartbeats. Slowing breaths. His erection stays in the twitchy clutches of her sex -- half-hard and oversensitive. After his long famished time, he isn't finished with her. But the moment's lassitude is welcome. Slumping sideways, he takes Korra with him. Still wrapped around her, cinch-style, but loosely now, arms and legs gone lax. He feels far off -- ransacked and cored-out -- as if his orgasm has thrown him back into the depths of himself. ]

[ But one thing is clear. He's afraid to meet Korra's eyes. ]

[As well he fucking should be.

She elbows him, hard enough to knock him back and get his erection out of her. She can already feel her muscles throbbing complaint from his rough treatment, and it just makes her angrier. How dare he. How dare he. He knows better. They've been through this before. She's not crying, but she can't tell whether it's because she's not quite angry enough or if she's too angry for tears. She stares at his blank face, his eyes empty, like there's nothing inside him.

Crack. The room seems to echo with the force of her slap.]

[ She elbows him off. And Hei jerks back, even as he realizes that he's moving to embrace her; his arms close on nothing. Now that the cruel spike of lust has diffused, misgiving takes root. He shouldn't have done this. Shouldn't have gone about their reunion this way. He's too unhinged, too troubled, to be drawn into any semblance of sweetness. He'd feared all throughout coming here, that this wouldn't work, that his return has left him too altered, and this confirms it. Mostly he feels like Hei. Hei firmly in the saddle, more so since he's fucked. But the mere thought that this is so hints that things inside him are out of sync. He can't let them be. Shouldn't waste time, hers, his. ]

[ He doesn't want to be parted from Korra. Spend time with the morbid, and you develop a taste for the wholesome. He probably appreciates her twice as much, having nearly been swallowed by the fiasco in Tokyo. The universe is composed of pairs of opposites. ]

[ But it's not worth it if he keeps pummeling her -- body and psyche -- into one big bruise. ]

[ He wants to speak. But then her hand is connecting with his face, hard. He hears the slap almost before he feels the sting on his cheek. In other circumstances, it'd be easy to see the blow coming. Easier, still, to retaliate. But he doesn't. His eyes are wide, but the rest of him is expressionless. Not angry, not sad. Just nothing. ]

[ Inside, a cruel voice murmurs: It's a fraction of what you deserve. ]

[She swallows thickly, struggling to find her voice.]

I don't care how bad it was for you. I don't care that you need to adjust. When I say no, I mean no.

[She needs him to understand that. As long as he understands that, things will be okay. Because while she might say that she doesn't care, she does. It matters to her that he's suffered. She's willing to forgive. She just needs to know that he understands.

(She's ignoring the part of her that knows better.)]

[ Numb, blank-faced, Hei stares at her. ]

[ The intensity in Korra's eyes, all that anger and hurt piled up, might tug someone else's heartstrings. Her emotions are always so enormous and all-encompassing, the risk of being sucked into them like flotsam in a whirlpool so strong, he knows he has to stand firm lest he disappear inside it. Part of him is almost grateful for the slap. It clears that awful muzziness from his head. But the other part isn't sure if clarity is exactly what he wants at present. Intellectually, he understands where her fury stems from. He wishes he could say something. I know I fucked up again, like I always do. I messed up this meeting. I didn't just leave you in doubt about it, about me -- I was actively cold and strange and awful. I used you. She's probably thinking he can't be trusted, probably thinking he's just going to hurt her and hurt her. And while he wishes he could claim it won't happen again ... there is no guarantee. ]

[ It occurs to him, then, with a crawling inexorable softness, like drifting out of a dream ... He really is dead inside. He can't be loved better. There is no special snowflake who can "fix" him. He needs a whole hospital wing of experts to get to work on that. For decades. And even then, he's not a guy someone like Korra should spend a second whinging on about his damage, scars or feelings. ]

[ If you admit all this, why not cut her loose? He doesn't want to examine the answer too closely. ]

[ With effort -- sick, unsteady, dull and dumbstruck -- he speaks. ] I'm sorry. [ Can he even say he's sorry? What does that even mean between them? Every I'm Sorry just tears them up a little deeper. ] I know that doesn't mean anything. Saying it. But it's true.

[Whatever it means, it takes the wind out of her anger. She sags into the bed and stares up at the ceiling.]

I know.

[Sighing, she rolls over to look at him. She winces a little at the marks she left, and hesitantly reaches out to touch the wounds. She doesn't say I'm sorry because she's not...but there's still a hint of apology in the gentle touch.]

[ The silence that follows her I know ... It seems unbreachable. For once, Hei has no idea what she's thinking. She seems to believe she cares about him, though he can't sort out what that can possibly mean, if it doesn't include knowledge, trust. The kind of instinctual ease she has with her other friends. It's so stupid, this whole tangled affair, like he's knocking his head against a wall. How has she become so twined inside him that he can't rip her out without ripping some part of himself out too? ]

[ Again: he doesn't want to know the answer. ]

[ He's so trapped in the sticky web of his mind, that he actually flinches when she touches the gash on his cheek. He stares at her with a blank sort of alarm, stiff and automatically jerking back, as if she'll slap him again. But that's not what this is. He hesitates, then lets her touch him, gaze fixed on that doubt sparking in her eyes. Feeling like he's in soldier mode, heartbeat steady, hard and intense. Forcibly, he overcomes it, putting up a tentative hand to cover hers. Something hot and damp backs up behind his eyes, but at the same time they feel dry and hollow in their sockets. ]

[ Nuzzling her palm, he whispers, ]

Do you want me to leave?

Is that your answer to everything? Leave? [Annoyed, but not pulling away. He's the stupidest, most aggravating person she has ever met, and all she wants to do is curl up against him like everything's normal and okay.

It is okay. (It isn't.) It will be okay. (Maybe.)]

We should clean that up. [She doesn't like the way her fingers are sticky with blood.]

Usually.

[ He manages but doesn't quite succeed in a smile. The way he's phrased it, it isn't even a lie. Korra's fingers are separated from the thin skin of his cheekbone by a sheen of blood. But he can feel them; slick and imparting, it seems, electricity. His mind seems to be flashing on and off like a landing light on a dark airstrip. Signalling to what and for what reason, he doesn't know. But signalling. It'll be all right. It'll be all right. It's the same mantra he's recited to himself, those months he's been on the run. Repetition has turned them stale. Pointless white-noise. ]

[ Squeezing Korra's hand, he gently nudges it off in what he hopes is a reassuring way. ] I'll handle it. [ Don't trouble yourself in another language -- but less dismissive. It's hard to separate himself from the cozy nest of her bed, but he finds himself rising. He pauses at the bathroom doorway. Head tilted, looking at her in that way he realizes Amber sometimes watched him, too, as if he was very far off, and which usually made him feel like he had to reach out and grab her to make a strange feeling of displacement go away. But now isn't the time to do that, so he sketches an awkward little finger wave, and goes inside to wash up and get rid of the condom. ]

[ He'd like nothing more than to re-start where they'd left off, before everything went pear-shaped. But he has no idea if Korra will want him hanging around -- regardless of how welcoming she seems. ]

That's dumb. [She ends up saying it to his back as he heads to the bathroom. Running away never solves anything. Yeah, sure, sometimes you need a little space to think, but at the end of the day, you still had to practice your figures, and memorize your histories and work on your airbending forms.

She stretches as she waits for him to come back. Despite everything, she does want him to stay. It's not like it was even that bad, really. They were already having sex. It wasn't that awful. (The lies and the rationalizations are already beginning.)]

[ He'd agree. It is dumb. But Hei is practiced at postponing disaster. Too often, he's living it. ]

[ In the bathroom, blinking in the bright lights, he flushes the condom. His mind is curiously empty, but he can feel a dull hum of contentment, how that good hard fuck has cooled him off and warmed him up, both. Then he remembers it was at Korra's expense, and he feels sick. At the sink, he scrubs his face, and stews. He should leave. Regardless of what Korra thinks. What point is there, touching her again? What has really changed? His mind feels like it's working in stops and starts, like a faulty engine. He has no idea what he'll do -- who he'll be -- a minute from now. It's only the temporary leg-over that's turned him so suddenly sweet. It doesn't mean anything, but maybe she'll think so. ]

[ He doesn't want to mislead her. No more than he already has. Under the brief veneer of kindness, he's as much of a heartless fuck as he's ever been. ]

[ When he comes out of the bathroom, bandaid fixed to the point of his cheekbone, he's ready to tell Korra he's going. But at the sight of her, her hair hanging loose around her shoulders and breasts, that beautiful skin, the color of coffee with a splotch of cream, the kind that makes his mouth water ... He's seized with a stupid uncertainty. ]

[ He starts to say, ] I should get going. [ What comes out is, ] I could wake up every day to that sight. And I wouldn't complain.

[ It's too matter-of-fact to be flattery. ]

[She blinks at him. Well that was an unexpected compliment.] ...thanks? [She draws her knees to her chest, not closing herself off, just suddenly self-conscious. She thinks so little about what she looks like most of the time that it's disconcerting to remember that she has an appearance and people can have opinions on it.

That reminds her, though.] Did Xing mention she's been staying here?

She did.

[ He settles at the foot of the bed, his back curving as he leans forward, elbows on his knees. Almost cringing for a second, before he tosses his head, flicking the hair out of his eyes, and looks at her straight-on. He wants to ask her why she took Pai in. What she's angling for -- if she's angling for anything at all. But his throat is clogged. Watching Korra, a deja vu descends, reminding him of that card incident. Back then, he really could've gone the rest of his life without confirming Korra's interest in him as if he was a teddy-bear to be patched up. It was one thing knowing, intellectually, that she liked him. Was developing an attachment. But that was something he could shunt off into an alcove of his mind, and not let it change anything. But to see it, printed bold as brass on paper. Challenging his isolation, as if it really mattered to her. That was just too much. ]

[ It would've been bad at any time, but back then, when he'd just sent half his friends to their deaths at home, and had no idea how to navigate his already rocky route to humanity, much less his ideas of himself, it felt unbearable. He'd never expected to have intimacy as a staple in his life, and so he'd compartmentalized Korra, and whatever interest he had in her, and he was comfortable with the fact that she'd never want more than a handful of fucks with him. ]

[ It's moments like these, however, that remind him his ideas about Korra are all wrong. There's so much light and kindness in her. More than he deserves. He keeps going about everything all wrong ... but she is more patient through it all than most other women would be. ]

[ Quietly, ] I don't know what you were thinking. Taking her in. But ... thank you. [ He's unsure, like his Sorrys and Pleases, if he means it. But it's important to let her know. ]

I'm not sure either. [Translation: Your sister is a major brat. But Korra just shrugs.] It just...didn't seem right. Leaving her alone. [They didn't know that Hei would be coming back, after all. Letting Xing live alone for a few days was one thing. Leaving her entirely alone in the City was something else entirely. (And, okay, maybe a part of Korra had hoped that the younger girl would be less obnoxious with her brother gone. For some reason.)] Besides, it's not like I'm lacking in space or anything.

[Korra likes her solitude a lot, but she's not suited for living alone. Even when she needs her space, she likes knowing that other people are nearby. Even if those people are obnoxious tweens who hate her.]

[ There seems to be a subtext to that last remark. But it's shapeless and indistinct, like an after-image in a camera flash. Not ready to dwell on it, or risk another tense, crammed silence, Hei says, ] I'll take her back to my flat tomorrow. [ He won't lie; Pai seems marginally better than when he'd last seen her. The cloud that last hovered over her ... It's still there. But it seems to have lifted by degrees, letting in brief glimpses of light. He's not sure if it's permanent or temporary. Not sure if it's because of a change of scenery, or if she's pulling a brave face. He's not sure of a lot of things anymore. ]

[ Eyes cut away, he draws a little closer to Korra. A pause, and then he hesitantly -- can BK201 do something hesitantly at all? -- reaches out to rest his hand at the round of Korra's knee, lower so that it's approaching shin territory rather than thigh. ]

[ He's already said Thank you. But somehow, in light of everything that's occurred, it's woefully inadequate. ]

Is it still yours? I thought maybe your landlord would've rented it out to someone else. [She doesn't say You don't have to do that because that comes way too close to You could always stay here and yeah she wouldn't mind having him around more but that doesn't mean she's ready to tell him that. Especially with his head in a particularly messed up place.

She hesitates a little herself before putting her hand on top of his and squeezing.]

Who says that 'someone else' can't be persuaded [ spooked ] to vacate?

[ A smile stirs, faint and dry. If he puts his mind to it, he can get the flat again, paperwork be damned. But in the silence, he feels the mental gears clicking, facts fluttering astonishingly into place. Calling his attention to the problem of everything they aren't talking about. Can't talk about -- for no reason but the fact that they're Hei and Korra and things between them don't work that way. But then Korra's hand covers his, and Hei shifts his palm so his fingers are slotted through the spaces between her knuckles, and everything seems so simple. ]

Right now ... is it okay if I crash here? For a few days.

[ It comes out in a blurt. It's not nerves, exactly, or even that he's afraid of ruining whatever the hell is going on here -- it's just the truth, in the scope of things. An I need a little time before I start integrating with the City that pushes past his teeth and out of his mouth. It comes and goes like the tide, whatever part of Hei that worries that it's so fucking obvious that Korra is the only person who hasn't thoroughly screwed him over yet. And there is always that same selfish part of him that wonders if he'd feel this way if Amber -- well. No point wondering, really. ]

[ That's not how the world works; Hei only knows what he knows. What he likes. It's combat, it's efficiency, it's the simmer of adrenaline and a bowlful of rice in the milky sunlight at noon, starlight and telescopes and Pai's sweet prattle, it's the silvery shades of Yin's hair catching streetlights, it's pressing wet kisses up the inside of Korra's thigh. ]

Sure. [It's ridiculous, the little spike of happiness she feels. Everything that happened earlier shoved to the back of her mind as though it doesn't matter. People in the Beach House again. Maybe even sex more than twice a month. (She tries to stay far away from Chekov's sex life, but she knows he gets more than she does and she resents that. Just a bit.)] You can stay as long as you want.

[ She says Sure. And Hei blinks, surprise flashing through him like a current which he quickly shuts off. The happiness is clear on the surface of her face. It makes him wonder, with a chill, What am I doing here? Why am I welcome? Why do you smile at me so? He knows he wants something from Korra. Not just sex, not comfort or intimacy, any of that. Contact, is all. Not loving contact, or even tenderness. Something more forceful that will, for once, not leave him scarred. Except, regarding her expression, his mouth turns into a dark, tight line, taut enough to tug on something in his chest; he feels it open and spill out inside him. ]

[ He wants to tell Korra she deserves better than this; she should've had a proper boyfriend, not this vacant, hard-hearted killer; that she should have a pile of proper presents instead of whorish lingerie; that she should have friends from home here, family, not having to skulk with him in dangerous and grubby places, or inviting him into her house because she's so lonely it's whittled away her sense. He imagines himself embracing her, gathering her in tight and peppering her with kisses -- all the expressions of affection he's learnt so well to feign. ]

[ Say it, you coward. "I'll stay here a week. That's all. Because you deserve better than me." Three simple sentences. She doesn't know you've been slitting throats since you were knee-high, or that half the assassins in the world are hunting for you and your Doll, at home. She has no idea what she's gotten into. ]

[ But all he can manage, hoarsely, is, ]

I'll cook all your favorite meals.

[Her lips quirk into a smile.] Just make sure to leave some for me, Mr. Appetite.

[She takes her hand off his so she can poke his stomach teasingly.]

[ She pokes his stomach, and Hei's mouth tics to the side in a tired, grateful half-smile. He wants to say something -- something light, if not nice. But instead he's leaning in, chin angled so his lips can brush against hers. It should be like a war-zone, this kiss, in its urgency. It isn't. His hand lifts from her knee to span across her back, to press fingertips into the gaps between Korra's ribs, drawing her hesitantly against him and kissing her until he's out of breath. His mouth is soft, slow on hers. Exploratory, somehow. He's sure Korra can feel his heart shuddering against her chest, the tremor in his free hand as he cups her cheek, pushing her hair back from her face, smoothing his thumbs across her temples, kissing her over and over. ]

[ When he breaks away it's on a wavering breath. ] I can pay rent other ways too. [ If she'll accept that, anyway. ]

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retroactive content warning for anyone reading this thread oops

8'( orz

oh god hei WHY

cray cray

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