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[ The expression on Hei's face -- a perfect non-expression -- is the result of confusion, not coldness. Blinking slowly, he takes her in, her whole body humming in the early-morning silence like a swarm of angry wasps. Deja fucking Avatar. Waiting for you. Where have you been? Does she realize how that sounds? He searches for something in her face -- some kind of tell or tic of madness (maybe unequal pupils; aneurysms and strokes haven't been discounted yet.) ]

[ Eventually, his tone flat as a beaten coin, ] You know where I've been. [ By which he means in the City. That's what matters, right? They're not the type of people who keep friendly tabs on each other. Why would they even bother to? So why is she glaring at me like a jilted bridezilla? ]

[Because you're a stupid jerk and she really wishes she could just hate you and get it over with.]

No, I don't! You vanished in a house full of angry ghosts. I can't find you at your apartment or where you work or anywhere. [He could have been dead. Could have been a prisoner. Taken to some weird spirit world. Sent home.]

Is a "Hi, sorry, I'm not dead" message really that hard to send?

[ Hei's eyebrows crease -- disgust, dismay, disdain. She's swept up in a deluge of teen-girly emotions and it's making him queasy. His disappearance in the haunted house seems besides the point now. It already feels like it was years ago, and while the horror of the ordeal as a thing in itself is no less, it seems to have happened to another Hei. Someone who had the luxury to build elaborate card-houses of games to play with Korra, for thrills, for time-wastage, because his life here was so very static. ]

[ Too much has happened since then. He isn't being intentionally cruel. He's just literally running on empty, and he can't deal with this mess of consideration and reassurance right now. ]

My comings and goings aren't your business. [ All bite, but no heat. That zzzt of sarcasm is elsewhere at the moment. ] Unless you needed to work some steam off. [ Why else would she be here, in such a stormy fit? He's her dirty little secret, the pit of filth she seeks out to feel less filthy (monstrous) herself -- that's the sum of their relationship, and all it'll be good for. ]

[ Her behavior during the last curse proved it. ]

Not my business... I was WORRIED about you!

[No amount of anger can mask the hurt. It's like that night in the shed all over again. She's not a person to him. All that stuff he'd said about the White Lotus is really what he thought about her. She's just a toy, to be used and discarded as he pleases.

She'd punch him, but she doesn't want to touch him. The adrenaline rush of a fight is too much like sex.]

Go fuck yourself.

[She's never cursed like that before, though she's heard it often enough. There's no satisfaction in it, or relief.

Nor is there anything left to say. She moves past him, giving him wide berth. He can find another toy. She's done.]

[ Worried? So little in life catches Hei off-guard. This bombshell -- which in other circumstances it would've been blindingly obvious -- erupts with enough force to blindside him. Worried. She doesn't really mean it. It's hormones, it's emotional overreaction. She can't mean it. It's absurd. Worried. She doesn't even think he's a halfway decent person. Who wants status updates on the activities of a bloodthirsty monster? ]

[ The profanity doesn't startle him, nor does her exit. He's too stuck on that surreal word. Worried. It sizzles before him, brighter or dimmer with every blink. For the hundredth time he wishes the weekend hadn't happened. Wishes he could have things be the way they were before. When she'd been easy to talk to. ]

[ Shit, he can't believe it seems that way now. It's never been easy -- any of it. But a week ago now seems like a golden age, radiant and light and unreachable. A week. For her you were gone a week. A week where you'd vanished in the Underground, and she couldn't figure out what happened. And then I return from my Thousand Kills In Two Nights and put her at a distance and -- it's not fair to her. She still holds consequence for him, and it hasn't changed. He went into Korra's dreams and yet nothing's changed. Except Hei's mind. He just needs to get a grip. ]

[ Fuck. ] ........Korra. [ It's not Stay and it's not Please. But his stance, his expression -- everything has softened a degree. ]

[His voice stops her. She doesn't want to; her body all but trembles with the need to just go, but her limbs won't move. It's like being bloodbent, except what's holding her in place is hope. Hope that she's wrong. Hope that this is a misunderstanding. Hope that she hasn't yet again come to care about someone who doesn't care back.

Hope had been Master Katara's favorite word. A part of Korra is coming to hate it.]

What?

[ Hei shoves his hands into his pockets, takes a breath to align his thoughts. He can be enormously patient and canny with his words when he's softening a target. But he has a habit of reverting to a more aggressive, deep-seated self with her, same as with Amber. The feelings are the source of the problem. They make him forget himself. They bring forth all the default settings, the good, bad and ugly. (For a moment, he's glad his history makes it so difficult for him to love anything and anyone.) ]

[ Easy. Be more tactical. Not just for her. For you too. ]

[ Even with Korra's back to him, he can see the thoughts flitting across her. Disappointment, rage, hopefulness. It comes off her in waves. Hei bites his lip, unwilling to bring the weekend up, resolve at once firm and shriveling, a little voice inside saying Don't. He brushes through the misgivings like a veil of cobwebs, almost feeling them brush his skin so goosebumps of revulsion rise. ]

I was cursed that weekend. That's why you didn't see me. [ And afterward... He had too much on his mind afterward. ]

[She takes a breath and turns back to face him, crossing her arms protectively in front of her. It's the start of an explanation. But it's not enough.]

What about the rest of the week? [That still leaves five days where he could have done something - anything - to let her know he was okay. Exactly what he was cursed with over the weekend is secondary to that.]

[ Her truculence reverberates around him. Fills him with irritation. What has his life come to, that he's being compelled to explain himself to 18 year old girls and to play Nice Guy with Dolls? The Iceman inside him that is ravening and pacing, cannot settle back to gnaw on thin bones after two days of gluttony. His patience is tenuous. An old doggerel fills his mind: How do you keep them down on the farm, once they've seen Paree? How do you make him go back to Neutered Neutrality after he's gone on a thrilling spree: slit throats, created death-fields, dodged bullets. ]

[ How? Answer me that. ]

[ When he speaks next, he sounds too calm; not looking at her, dropping words as if they're a commentary on the weather. It's not indifference but deep restraint. Not trusting his perception of reality. Feeling disappointed by it. Deep within, that cold voice sneers: You could have so much more. ]

I needed a few days to get my head together. [ He says it flatly, but it's not without emotion -- it's there, subtly, in the set of his eyes. ] The curse. Wasn't... pleasant. [ Liar, liar. ]

[Korra studies his face intently as he speaks, looking for any trace of emotion that might give her a clue what's going on in his head. She wishes he would just speak clearly and say what he feels. It would make everything so much easier. (But she's never gone for easy anyway.)

She picks up on that hint of feeling in his eyes, and just like that, the anger is gone. The hurt remains, but she pushes it aside like every other pain, to be dealt with later, alone.]

I'm sorry. [It's an expression of sympathy, not an apology. She hesitates, then reaches out a hand to quickly brush his arm in a comforting gesture. (She can never tell when he'll accept it and when he'll pull away.)]

Edited 2013-04-13 02:42 (UTC)

[ She touches his arm, and he absorbs the warmth of her palm, wishing he could absorb her seeming sincerity with it, and be eased. Instead, he thinks of other hands, grappling against him, shockingly weak and bruised, attached to battered bodies. Right behind Korra, he sees one particular kill -- a little girl perched on the dumpster, her white dress streaked with black and red, the brown ringlets around her neck caked with blood, kicking with her pink boots against the steel. She'd kicked at him when he snatched her up, while he extinguished the life from her, but not for very long. Children were always the quickest kills. ]

[ He doesn't feel an overdramatic surge of regret or self-loathing. But there's disquiet as to why he's seeing these specters at all. Unsure whether they're leftovers from the curse -- or the multitudes he's eliminated back home. Does it matter? The girl's hollow eyes speak to him. Either way, you won't give us the slip. No iota of atrocity can be undone. ]

[ Hei tenses. Half-turns slowly, and puts Korra back. ]

I have to get started with work.

Okay.

[She wants to give him a hug, but she doesn't know how welcome it would be. She doesn't know what else to say. "See you later" feels tepid and weak.

So she just stands, out of his way. She won't leave until he does. It's the only thing she can do.]

[ Turning, Hei slips his blocky keycard into the cafe's back-door, deactivating the alarm. He can feel her standing behind him, as if silently offering him some crumb of reassurance. But he can't take it. Something in him seems to be cut off. It's eerie, the cottony numbness of it. Hopefully he'll be able to shake it off soon. ]

[ Turning, he steps into her space. No kiss, but he passes his arms around her, squeezes her tight for a moment. She's warm and alive and seems so completely sincere, that he can't at first understand why he hadn't wanted to touch her. ]

[ But in the mirrored doors, he feels like he's standing alone, surrounded by haunters on all sides, even before he lets her go -- and ducks into the cafe. ]

Edited 2013-04-13 04:12 (UTC)

[There isn't much time to return the embrace; barely a moment to get her hands to his waist and squeeze lightly.

When he's inside, she turns away. She's reassured, but somehow she doesn't feel any better. She still feels lost, uncertain, a little used. You just need some sleep, she tells herself. It's been a long week, but it's nothing she can't handle on her own. She just need sleep.]

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