♦♦ 35TH CONTRACT - ANONYMOUS TEXT - Slightly Forwarded to before the 27th

[mortemscintilla]

 It was
a pleasure
to burn

[ A mockery? A salutation? A farewell? Perhaps all three. ]

[ Or perhaps, completely separately, it works for Hei as a statement about his time in the City -- and how he's lived it. He hasn't always embraced it. More often than not, he's been measured and withdrawn. But strangely enough, he's not proud of those times when he's guarded himself against experience. Because although being measured was the rational decision, it was never a pleasure. The times here when he's had the courage to give of himself and experience something without the obstruction of barbed wire and concrete walls has, literally, been like 'burning.' It hasn't been a pleasure in the simple sense of happiness, but in the greater sense of being memorable, mind-altering. Even transgressive. ]

[ He feels that way now. Like he's coming out of a silent stretch of hibernation -- months, years, of being measured, of keeping himself apart. ]

[ Maybe he wants to 'burn' again. ]

[ (Or maybe you're all reading too deeply into it. Maybe he's obliquely advising his teammates on what to do with his body if he accidentally dies during the hullabaloo here.) ]

[ (Don't bury him.) ]

[ ooc: post to tie up loose ends with cr, mostly. Open to action if you want to run into him wherever<3 ]

Comments

action;

[sleepingstar]

[Pai moves slowly as she gets ready for bed that night, taking out her earrings, the dress she had worn for Cain's wedding. Her expression is as level as ever, but there's something pensive in her demeanor.

Getting married seems like such a strange thing to do when the City is ending.]

action;

[mortemscintilla]

[ It's surreal outside -- the air vibrating with a sick, bottled-up tension -- but Hei doesn't mind. He's been worse places with Pai, the air cracking like ice, chaos spilling through the fissures. (Maceió. San Pedro Sula. The terrain of Heaven's War.) Hovering at the window, he studies the view. The grey sky holds a perpetual hesitancy, as if it could open up at any moment. The glow of the doors fascinates him. Step into any one and the possibility exists that you could be somebody else entirely. In his homeworld, everything is a struggle. Disaster knits itself deep inside you. Good things happened there -- sure, he knows that. They just happened to other people. ]

[ In his periphery, he hears Pai shuffling around. Abandoning his perch at the window, he cat-foots into the room. ]

How was the wedding?

[ He's stolen up behind her; he slips his arms now around his sister's neck, hanging over her chair, pressing his cheek to hers. His own face feels hot and moist. ]

[sleepingstar]

[He steals up behind her, but of course she hears him coming. He'd have to try very hard to take her by surprise.

She leans back against him and squeezes the arms around her.]

It went well. [She's assuming. Nothing appeared to go wrong, and the newly weds seemed happy enough as far as she could tell.]

[mortemscintilla]

[ It's not a concept he can comprehend. Marriage. In his mind, a pall of futility hangs over that word. Especially in the City. All the things that seem so important -- financial security, children, ripe old age -- are an impossibility here. ]

[ Still, he doesn't dwell on it. To each their own. Instead, he reaches for Pai's hand. Huddled at the edge of the chair, his fingers encircled in hers, he watches her reflection in the mirror as if to burn the imprint of her face in his retinas. Wondering about what he's going to do, if they exit the City and return home -- to that place that's already stripped them both inside and out. What if she vanishes again? He doesn't want to consider it. Or think about the years he'd spent, after Heaven's Gate dissolved into white light. Years of straining to find her again, hoping he'd recapture the home-ness and rest and peace at her side he didn't wholly believe in, or feel he deserved anymore. ]

[ And then there's the responsibility of Pai. Of what she wants to do, what she needs. It is so huge, it daunts him. ]

[ Rubbing the pulsepoint at her wrist, feeling the fragile tic of her pulse, he murmurs, ]

So what now?

[ No wordgames. No verbal traps. With Pai, he's always honest. ]

[sleepingstar]

[She tilts her head and examines him. No need to ask what he means.]

What do you want?

[For all of the ways that she's struggled against him, rebelled against his need to control, attempted to assert her independence, the one thing that will never change is this: she will do just about anything for him. She will hide the truth so he doesn't have to make hard choices. She will die so he could be free of the killing he hates. She will even let him determine the fate of all Contractors. Anything so that he can be happy.]

[mortemscintilla]

I...

[ He pauses. A piqued silence shimmers in the air between them. In his mind come glimpses of journeys still to be traveled and a stir of echoes urging him onward. It is all ahead in the future, waiting for him: battles, deaths, bloodsprays, exhaustion, coldly glimmering hours strung together like a tightrope without end. He sees himself walking that tightrope with the hourglass frozen in time, the flow of sand arrested. He knows he shouldn't vacillate. It's his obligation to go back, to unravel those messy, blood-slicked knots he's formed by circumventing Amber and Pai's plans. By taking the third option. But there are so many anchors holding him down here. Pai. Yin. Korra. He feels paralyzed. ]

[ His gaze dips, refusing to meet Pai's in the mirror. Instead he focuses on the dark sheen of her hair. ]

I want -- [ An exhale, his tone stark, quiet, worn to the bone. ] I want to know if I still deserve the things I want. Does that make sense?

[sleepingstar]

No. [She tugs him down, so he's kneeling by her side, and strokes her fingers through his hair in a motion she remembers is soothing.] Why don't you explain it to me? [Her voice is gentle, encouraging. She knows how little Hei likes probing into things like this; he's too busy focusing on the present moment and what's happening to look inside himself much. But looking inside yourself was important. That's the only way you really change -- that's how she and the other Contractors began to change.]

private; audio

[maoser]

[Mao snorts a little at the post.]

Hipster.

private; text

[mortemscintilla]

[ Oh don't start, you kibble-guzzling pest. ]

Does this mean we can't strike up a romance at a coffee shop?

Re: private; text

[maoser]

Isn't your love life busy enough?

private; text

[mortemscintilla]

Glass houses. Rocks.

[ He's not the one getting literal pussy flung at him at street corners. ]

Re: private; text

[maoser]

Only when it's springtime.

private; text

[mortemscintilla]

Anything beyond that would make survival extremely difficult.

[ Trust him, he knows. ]

action somewhere

[candothat]

[It's not generally advisable to sneak up on assassins and hug them. As such, Chekov makes sure that he's sufficiently loud and visible as he approaches Hei and... well, hugs him.]

somewheeeeeeere~

[mortemscintilla]

[ Not advisable at all. ]

[ But hey. It's the City. The laws are always rewriting themselves. Besides; Pavel gives him ample opportunity to hear him coming. He intuits that this isn't an ambush. Except he's not anticipating. Well. That. ]

[ Hei blinks as he comes forward, an awkward lunge, hugging him. He's conscious of his own stiff contours, bone and hard angles, and those of Pavel's -- almost a boy's body not yet fleshed into adult. After a beat, he catches Pavel by the shoulders, edging him away. The gesture is as mild as milk, although there's a glint of something wary in his eyes. ]

Has someone died?

[ Because that's usually what calls for spontaneous physicality, in Hei's opinion. (But mostly? Not even then.) ]

ooooout there~

[candothat]

What? No. I don't think so.

[He's perfectly okay with being removed from Hei's person. He obviously isn't a hugging person, which is the only reason Chekov has not hugged him before. Chekov is a fan of spontaneous physicality, but he does know when to reign it in.

Now is not the time.]

I will miss you.

[Chekov has actually had to think about this to make sure it's true. Hei isn't a great person, but he's a friend. Kind of. Enough of a kindred spirit that, if Pavel retains his memories, he will be missed.]

over the rainbow?

[mortemscintilla]

[ Physicality is a neutral thing, for Hei. Contact is a commodity in his world, and perhaps staying apart is his way of trying not to devalue it. (Still. Now isn't the time.) ]

[ Pavel says, I will miss you, and he blinks again. But the admission isn't a surprise. Just that pattern of Goodbye he's both faked and sincerely felt, time and time again. He doesn't step closer into Pavel's orbit. But he doesn't retreat, either. Standing under the pale circle of the streetlamp, he is like a stature: still and alien. But there's some part of him -- the set of his shoulders, the wry little way his mouth quirks -- that suggests he feels the same. Even if sentimentality doesn't run deep in his bones, he's human enough to indulge in a facsimile of it. To feel a faint sensation of being knocked off-balance. No more Pavel. Hard to accept, because he's been part of -- of this, of all of Hei's experience in the City: a bright, chattersome, steady presence through it all. ]

[ Hei looks at him and it's hard to tell if he's trying to speak or just parsing out something. But words haven't always been so necessary, in his profession. ]

[ Instead, quietly: ] You'll return to Starfleet. [ It's not a question. ]

[candothat]

[For his part, Pavel is nothing but sincere, and he takes Hei's subtle reaction as a sign that he will miss him, too, in his own way. It may only be in the way in which one misses a piece of furniture that has been around for a while, but missing is missing.

Chekov nods in response.] I will, yes. [As sure and level as he sounds, he clearly isn't eager to leave (or to leave people behind).] Where will you go?

[mortemscintilla]

[ It's true. Hei measures a person's worth according to their usefulness. Anything else is sentiment, after all, and that sticky trap only gets you killed. But for as long as he's been here, Korra and Pavel, like his team in Tokyo, have slowly been rupturing his conviction that he can trust no one, rely on no one -- a conviction that's central to his worldview. Hei could've emerged from the whole experience either falling-apart or functional. He went with functional -- albeit kicking and screaming all the way. It's enough to fill him with a sharp, dizzying surge of gratitude. But of course, Hei being Hei, all he does is hum absently. ]

[ The reluctance in Pavel's tone doesn't go unnoticed. But Hei supposes the least he can do is not prod his fingers into that threadbare emotional fabric. Instead, in a tone that's more contained that offhand, ]

Haven't decided yet. [ It's less about hesitance, more about trying to make the best possible choice. Because it's not just his own welfare and obligations that need considering. It's the safety of his teammates. ]

[ A beat, before he hitches a shoulder. ]

Maybe I'll flip a coin.

[ Yeah. No. ]

private; audio; sometime after she's spoken with Mao

[moonlitrequiem]

[She normally does video, but this time Hei only gets her voice, soft and a little raspy, as if she's not spoken much lately.]

Hei.

When you decide where you will go, tell me.

private; audio; ;~~~;

[mortemscintilla]

[ Exhaustion has worn Hei down into sincerity. Or at least a semblance of it. At Yin's message, something in his chest cracks, full of a sudden bright, aching homeness. Not happiness -- but a calm, purposeful wrench of gravity. When you decide, she says, as if she has no say in it. Isn't entitled. Except she is. He would sacrifice everything -- including his peace of mind -- to keep Yin safe. ]

[ When he speaks, his voice is quiet, fray-edged, but calm. ]

It's your choice too, Yin. You know that.

private; audio;

[moonlitrequiem]

[It's not that she thinks she has no say, but that Yin has already made her choice, and there is no other one to make, or any need to consider it further.]

This time, you decide. [To her, it only seemed fair that Hei lead this. She didn't have a preference where she returned to, whether it be home, or somewhere new. As long as Hei was there. Preferably Mao, too, but she wouldn't force the cat-Contractor to do anything.]

My choice is to follow you, no matter where you go.

private; audio;

[mortemscintilla]

[ At her words, a sense of deja vu ripples through him. There's a pressure somewhere inside his ribcage -- gratitude and responsibility in equal parts. Gratitude because it's miraculous, the kind of quiet belief battening him down against the wild gusts of his self-doubt. Responsibility, because he doesn't want to be parted from Yin, but he can't take her back to their homeworld, either. That's as good as signing her death-warrant. ]

[ In every way, her answer redoubles the pressure. Pressure to be rational, but also self-effacing. Pressure to keep her happiness in mind, even if his is easier to ignore. A sleep-deprived headache makes every muscle in his face hurt, to say nothing of the knots of tension at his temples. ]

[ But his voice remains level. ] I'm not planning to leave you. [ There's a flat finality there. A beat, in which he lets his options tick over. Then: ]

Wherever we go ... It might be somewhere completely different. But I'll keep you safe, Yin.

[ Not Forever and not Always because that's not how Hei functions. But for as long as there's air in his lungs and that slow-burning will to keep going. ]

private; audio;

[moonlitrequiem]

[If she had known he would be so concerned about her in the equation of finding a new place, she wouldn't have left the decision solely up to him as she had.]

[Yin has only an inkling of what Hei is taking on when he mentions protecting her. Protect, that's something she wants to do for him someday. If she can. He didn't have to give intangible amounts like forever, just the he said it at all means something to her. He does it, and that's more than she would ever ask for.]

[But now she needs to make certain their feline companion is accounted for.]

Mao would prefer going with us.

private; audio;

[mortemscintilla]

I know.

[ Somehow, the weight of his two teammates pressing down on his mind, pinning him between his body and the reality of the situation, is terrible, perfect. It keeps him in the moment. It's so strange. In his profession, you don't have comrades. You live your life in extreme isolation. In the end, it's just you and your skills keeping you alive -- or afloat. You don't have friends -- you have allies, cobblers, drug dealers, weapon suppliers, bootleggers and handlers. That's simple and safe; that's something a Contractor can understand, and nothing that can be used to hurt him. Yet the word By yourself has, of late, a bitter tinge to it. (What, he thinks, is the one thing he's always wished he had? Someone who really has his back?) ]

[ Well, how are you going to get that if you reflexively push away people because you're terrified of trusting them? ]

[ He stays quiet, breathing in the newness of things, feeling both disoriented but calmer at the knowledge that one thing is absolute. The team stays together. And because they do, there's no chance of him returning home. (He should ask himself if he is a worse kind of coward than the sort who runs from danger. But it's not so simple. It's one thing to turn your back on a fight. It's another to drag people you care about into that mess too.) ]

There's no reason the three of us should split up. Especially if we're going somewhere completely new.

[ So please don't worry. You're in safe hands. He doesn't say it. But it's implicit in his tone. ]