poly_chromatic | ♦ ♦ 13th Contract

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darker than black - hei

♦ ♦ 13th Contract

[ The weekend has come and gone. ]

[ Familiar faces have come and gone with it, leaving him feeling like an animal who's been taunted through the bars of a cage. Ugly memories, dormant for so long he expected to be free of them, emerge now as if risen from the dead. Horrors worse than what lurk in a crate of vodka have his head pounding -- tick tick tick like the City Clock. Like a time-bomb. Sometimes he sees Amber, free-floating, whispering riddles in his ears. Sometimes it's Yin, watching him with blank eyes and a sad not-smile. Pai is almost always closeby: never quite visible, calling out to him from behind a spray of blood. ]

[ Barely able to distinguish sleep from wakefulness, he isn't sure which is worse. The City feels twice as surreal after the atmosphere of the weekend, the atmosphere of his mind. ]

[ Fortunately there are ample distractions. ]

[Audio]

~~So this place has taken its 'prison' aspects a step further.~~

...Is this a practical joke?

[ Options For Run-Ins: ]

[ Shed: Pent-up energy and a mind for solitude have him trekking through the woods. He's in no mood for the chatter and music of smoky bars. He can't muster that effort to be On tonight -- to handle human faces and prying questions. Worse, the City's full of pests and spies. He'd rather not be out in public, where he could be recognized. The outdoors are a better bet, particularly so late at night. Holed up in an unheated shed, a flask of something foul in his coat pocket, he can lull himself into imperfect numbness. ]

[ If he doesn't freeze to death, locked and stranded, first. ]

[ Houseguest: The moon is pale in the sky. Masked and armed, Hei slinks through rooftops in the early-night darkness. Passing like a shadow past signboards and sloping tiles -- graceful, nearly weightless. He's alert, keeping track of everything. But his mind is fixed on Pai, on Amber and Yin and all the possibilities wasted. The thought-pattern is irrational. A time-waster. Dropping into an empty flat, he tries to snap out of it. It's chilly in here. He doesn't bother switching on the lights. Changing into civilian clothes in the bathroom, he splashes cold water on his face and resolves to head home. ]

[ Until he realizes he's stuck in. ]

[ What now? ]

[OOC: open to action and network replies. I'm cool with assuming he was stuck with more than one person during this curse. On that note, those he's trapped with are welcome to threadjack any network responses! Hei's in a tetchy mood after 4th Wall, so GIVE HIM HELL<3 ]

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[ Her bite -- a tang of blood -- hits him with a cold deja vu. For one moment, like a trapdoor opening beneath his feet, he's there, not smelling the dusty air or Korra's sweet scent but the fumes of sulfur and blood. A body under his, struggling, eye whites showing. He hears the squelch of torn skin -- not his but the opponent's, as Hei draws the edge of his blade across his throat. Choking. Death-rattles. Stillness. In the next breath he shakes it off, as if repelling a swarm of flesh-eating flies. Impossible to ignore the way the static in his head is spiking, white noise getting redder as pressure builds at his spine, and, oh fuck, oh-- ]

[ The climax is like a high voltage shock, turning him rigid. It pulls everything out of him, all rage, all enjoyment, all resistance, in one shuddering undertow. Then nothing. ]

[ Sweaty, gasping, he slumps against Korra -- dead-weight. ]

Oof!

[Korra was not expecting him to collapse on her after coming, and his weight squishes her breasts in a way that's not entirely pleasant. With some effort -- her entire body feels like it just wants to melt into the ground -- she rolls him off of her and onto his back. She wiggles closer to him and rests her head on his chest, taking comfort from his warmth and the steady thumping of his heart.

She actually feels happy right now.]

[ Hei lets her push him off, boneless, languid, a forearm resting across his eyes. Lets her settle in. Her skin has a welcome tinge of coolness after their exertions, but claustrophobia closes in a dark ring around his vision. For a second he lets himself think of Amber, back in the war, how she used to lie against him this way under threadbare tents, leaking shacks, after a few stolen moments of heat. Then, he thinks of Pai -- how after battles she'd slump into his arms like a ragdoll, bloodsplattered and drained as she paid her payment. ]

[ Shit. ]

[ Carefully, he disentangles himself from Korra's arms. Sits up to attend to the condom, eyes averted. He wants a shower and something to eat desperately, not to mention a million years to think. Any justice, the girl would turn into a big bowl of ramen now. ]

[Well that didn't last long. Korra sits up as he pulls away, watches as he won't even look her in the eye. She doesn't understand where he goes, or why he leaves in those times when his mind is clearly somewhere else.

Without his body heat, the cold seems to claw at her skin. She slides her coat back on, but without any body heat to trap, it provides no defense against the chill. It helps her feel less vulnerable, at least. Li never had completely taken off his pants. She holds the jacket tightly closed against her and watches him.]

...Li?

[ He stares at her like she's speaking to him from behind a wall of glass. Her features are suddenly unfamiliar, as if they've recombined into another shape. The failure to be someone else. Why did he even do this with her? Why did he think he could forget for awhile and it wouldn't matter? Somewhere, something in him wakes up again. He'd been out of control, he'd let the moment take him out of it. But that control, he reminds himself bitterly, is what keeps the ugly memories at bay. Glancing away, he does his pants up. Retrieves his shirt, shrugging it on, feeling it stick cold-damp to his sweaty skin. ]

You should get dressed.

[ His voice is a monotone, like a doll whose string has been pulled. ]

Edited 2012-11-18 06:07 (UTC)

[She stares at him, waiting for some kind of recognition. A twitch of his lips, or just a little bit of light in his eyes -- something that would connect him with the man she had spent more of the night with. But there was no sign of that man, or any human being at all.]

Li, what's wrong?

[ It's hard to feel like a human being, when emotion seems like nothing more than a silly conceit. He knows what's happening here -- to Korra -- but he feels nothing. Nothing that can let him make it better. He still had a chance to soothe her, to give her a hug, to say the right thing. Lying comes naturally to him. But what's the point? ]

It's nothing. [ Pointedly, he scoops her fallen clothes up. Hands them to her, neatly bundled, before checking his wristwatch. ] It's past midnight. [ How time flies when you're making mistakes. ] I should go.

It's not nothing! [She takes her clothes, but doesn't try to get dressed yet. Instead, she reaches for his arm, to hold him in place.] And you're not going anywhere until you tell me what's going on.

[Until you tell her what she did to make you leave. She knows she has a tendency to run her mouth without thinking and hurt people...but she hadn't even said anything. She has no clue what she did wrong and it frustrates her.]

[ His whole body is tense in her grip. He's not in the habit of explaining himself. Huang and Mao learnt that back home, knew well enough to mostly leave him alone. But Korra doesn't know that. He can tell she's getting angry. Big frown on. Volume and pitch rising. Thar she blows, he thinks, and almost smiles. ]

[ Except there's nothing funny here. ]

Let go, Korra.

[ It's flat enough to sound disinterested. ]

Not until you talk to me.

[Her voice is hard but her eyes are pleading. She just wants to understand, but she needs things explained to her.]

[ It's not you, it's me. Yeah, that cliche will go down well. Except his distance really isn't about her. It's about him. He tries to ignore the plea in her eyes -- what he's starting to refer to as The Look. ]

I don't need to spell it out. [ Be cruel, to be kind. The further she stays from him, the better for her. ] We had fun. Now it's over. I have no reason to stay.

[She doesn't know why that hurts, or why she suddenly feels used. It's not like she thought they had some deep emotional connection. She'd wanted to prove to herself that she could get over Mako, and he had been there.

And somehow she had forgotten (not forgotten -- seen beyond, but she's too hurt to remember it that way) his callous cruelty and how he had threatened her friends.

She feels disgusting. It goes beyond the dirt in her hair, the rank smell of sweat, and the fluids crusting between her legs.

He had threatened her friends. Threatened her friends. And all it had taken was a children's game and a few sips of alcohol to get her clothes off.

She can't let go of his arm fast enough.]

Yeah. Fun.

[She turns away from him and starts pulling on her clothes. The jacket reeks of him and what they did, but she doesn't want him to see her again, so it has to stay on until she's dressed. It makes putting on her bra and shirt difficult, but she manages.]

[ The relief when she lets go is almost unsettling. Good. The message has sunk in. This needn't escalate to quoyanisquatsi levels. (More so than usual?) He pushes the thought aside. Retrospect is like trying to determine how much scopolamine is too much -- essentially as soon as you introduce it to the equation, you're treading a dangerous line. ]

[ He turns away as she dresses. Retrieves his Network Device and flask, drawing his knife from the wall and tucking it into his belt. The silence is a discourse on the failures of speech. But Contractors take what benefits them, it's as natural as breathing. Hei is no exception. He tries the shed's door. It opens easily. Curse officially over. He wants to glance back at Korra, say something, but there's no point in that. What's done is done. ]

[ He steps through the door, leaves it open, and walks away. ]

[Naga is curled up near the shed, resting her head on the blankets that Rita had brought and then left behind in her fear.

She perks up her head eagerly as the door finally opens. A man steps through -- she recognizes his smell from her first day here. He's covered in Korra's scent. She shoves her nose at him, trying to figure out why.]

[ Dammit. He steps back, half-wary, but lets Naga prod in close. The blankets -- likely Rita's -- are a sign that she tried and failed to get supplies here. He'll have to return them to her later. Kneeling, he gathers the bundle up. Rises without looking at Naga. ]

Go bother your owner.

[ She looked like she needed any anchor of familiarity within reach. He can't give her that. Or anything really. Holding the pile under his arm, he turns to go. ]

[Korra listens to him leave. After he's gone, she rips off the jacket and hurls it to the other side of the room. It's too soft and light to offer any kind of release, but at least she no longer smells like him.

Wood creaks as Naga sticks her head through the small doorway. Korra almost falls over as she stumbles to wrap her arms around the polar bear dog's neck. Her body aches in strange, unfamiliar ways, and her heart feels like an earthbending disc that got smashed against a wall. She buries her face in Naga's fur, making her huff with concern.]

I'm okay, Naga. [Naga clearly doesn't believe her.] I will be okay.

[She has to be. She refuses to be anything else.

She follows Naga outside, staying close in an effort to keep out the cold. It'd be faster to ride Naga home, but her insides are so sore, Korra decides she'd rather endure the cold and walk.]

C'mon, girl. Let's go.

[She leaves the jacket behind.]

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♦ ♦ 13th Contract

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