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[ Catching Pai's look, Hei settles his expression into something mild, almost playful but mostly earnest. The candy apples weren't a bribe; more an alleviant for her inevitable sulkiness. It's the most he can do. As it is, he can feel Korra almost vibrating with tension in her corner. Ignoring her for the moment, he retrieves some tupperware boxes from the refrigerator, brimming with garlic scallops, steamed rice and sesame beef, and sets them in the microwave. With neat precise movements -- barely making any sounds as he opens the cabinet doors -- he sets the table. Korra isn't hungry, but he is, and he and Pai usually eat together after he's off work. It seems important to keep her company. Ticked-off as she is, she might not feed otherwise. ]

[ Eventually, he puts Korra out of her misery enough to say, ] Could you get three glasses out of the dishwasher? [ Then, to Pai, ] Come eat something. [ You may murder each other after supper, ladies. Not before. ]

[He hadn't mentioned dinner first! SCREAM. Korra gets the glasses and reconsiders this whole thing. Maybe she should just go. The music idea had been funny, but here? Now? It's pretty clear it's a bad idea.]

[Pai isn't ticked off. And she would have to be dying in order to not eat. She's not an irrational teenager. She sits down at the table, prim as you please, and waits to be served.]

[ Sorry, Korra. You're hot and everything. But Hei's libido usually takes the backseat to his appetite. The microwave dings; he serves the dishes, with a pitcherful of fresh milky lychee juice from the fridge. Heaping steaming portions liberally into both his and Pai's plates, he pours into the glasses -- one, two, three. At her seat, Pai bears such a neat poise that she might be an illustration for a lo-fat cereal ad, in a magazine aimed at schoolgirls, all without looking like she's personally picked up a dirty plate or made her own breakfast in her life. Meanwhile, at her corner, Korra looks jittery, tense, like a wary animal debating between lapping at a watering hole -- of fleeing altogether. ]

[ Sliding into his chair, he catches Korra's wrist, drawing her to him. His gaze is shaded, but there's a hint of a smile on his lips. ] Sit. The drinks aren't poisoned. [ He's already pulled his chair around so he's sitting between the girls at the little square table, rather than at an angle next to either one. ]

I know it's not. [Korra harrumphs and settles down uncomfortably at the table. She still doesn't touch the drink.

SO. AWKWARD.]

[ The flat is very quiet. The sunlight that fills the high airy room seems to pin Hei in place, though it has no power to more than warm him, through the frosted windows. He tucks into his meal with gusto, eyes half-lidded like a cat, soaking the sun up, his mind drifting. His sharp hearing brings him the low surging of the thermostat, the dainty tinkling of cutlery. But these small sounds only amplify the tense silence. At his elbow, Korra seems to be holding her breath. He knows this isn't what she'd envisioned when he invited her over. By his own plan of events, they ought to be in the room upstairs and in bed right now. ]

[ Still, it's not his way to ignore Pai. There will probably be, he knows, a certain period of unavoidable discomfort and hazing between the two girls. He's made up his mind to endure it with patience. Considering that it would be quite easy -- and even correct, in some lights -- for Korra to feel excluded, and for Pai to feel like he's forgetting Amber. The former is inevitable, given his and Pai's grisly and intimate history; the latter, not true in any sense, but a justifiable concern for Pai to have. ]

[ Still, he's resolved to see the mess through. ]

[ To Pai, he says, over a sip of lychee juice, ] You won't mind if Korra hangs around awhile, right? [ Well. Realistically, she will mind. But he'd prefer to give her a say on the matter. It's her living-space too. ]

[Pai looks at him with complete innocence.]

I don't mind if you fuck her.

[Which is true. It's not the fucking that concerns Pai.]

[That.....had been a really bad moment to try drinking her juice. Korra sputters and chokes and gets stuck in a coughing fit. SHE'S JUST A LITTLE KID!!!!! WHY IS SHE TALKING LIKE THAT?!?!?!]

Pai.

[ Hei intones from behind the turned-up flap of his coat collar, his eyes fixed on the ceiling, a one-man Greek chorus. It sounds impatient, but his voice and manner aren't lacking warmth. However there's a wry warning there, too: No need to traumatize our unfortunate guest. Fighting a crooked smile, he thumps Korra on the back. Dust motes float silently in the sun's rays above them. The day is already at its zenith. It will be dark enough for him to go outside to the Underground in another two hours. But if Korra stays, it'll be two hours well-wasted. ]

[ When Korra's caught her breath, Hei raises his eyebrows with a little eyeroll -- not at her, or a Pai. The message that pulses between them is simple. Relax. She's always like this.. ]

[Why should Korra be traumatized? Oh, right. It's one of those stupid human things. Pai pushes away her empty plate for Hei to clean up later and stands.]

I'll be in my room. If you fuck on the couch, try not to break the armrest. [Yeah, she heard about that little fiasco. (Don't ask how.)

An eerie-sweet smile accompanies that warning; she gives Hei a quick kiss on the cheek, and then she's off to her bedroom.]

[THANKS A LOT, LITTLE SISTER. Korra had been just about to catch her breath with Pai dumped that bombshell and walked out the door. When she could finally breathe again, she glared at Hei.]

You told her?!?!?

[ Hei watches Pai flit away with a kiss, that acetate-sweet, insincere smile on her face. When Pai's door clicks shut upstairs, however, he sets his plate aside, gaze dulling into hardness behind its previously pleasant, absorbed expression. She's being a harpy, but it isn't her fault, really. She's practically clouded with an intense dislike of Korra -- with memories of Amber, and the bleak knowledge of her own loneliness in the City. Besides, she doesn't have all the facts about Korra. He's never told her the truth about who Korra once reminded him of. She knows little of the good, and thinks the bad exponentially worse than it is. Holds grudges because she fancies Korra is a replacement of the woman who once meant so much to her and Hei. ]

[ He will have to talk to her. Ask her, too, how she knows about the broken armrest incident. (Has she been reading his expense reports?) But later. Later. ]

[ At Korra's accusation, he gives her a vaguely blistering look. Rises and gathers up the dirty crockery, carrying them to the sink. ] She's curious by nature. What I don't tell her, she finds out herself. [ Rinsing the glasses, then the dishes, he stacks them in the washer. Shuts it with a tight, jerky motion, wiping his hands on a small towel. After a beat, he adds, ] Try not to be so reactive around her. Otherwise she'll try harder to get a rise out of you.

[Korra's heart clenches when his gaze dulls, and she wishes she hadn't said anything. Wishes she hadn't come. Nothing good happens when his eyes go flat.

She stands up, feeling too vulnerable seated.]

Maybe I should just go. [Kind of hard to feel sexy when he's gone cold and there's a teenager who hates her in another room.]

[ The light from the window filters through, a mellow collision of orange and pink. Hei fixes his eyes on the glow, ignoring Korra. It's not that he's not listening; he's simply thoughtful. A quiet concern for Pai pulses through him like a drug released into his bloodstream. But after a moment, he shakes himself out of it. Blinks at Korra, and for one expressionless moment it seems as if he's going to say, Yeah, you should. Instead he reaches out wordlessly, fingers looping around her wrist -- and swings her in. It's not a gentle embrace -- it's rough and tight and a little forceful. But it's sincere. ]

[ Threading his arms around her, he drops his head so their foreheads touch. Quietly, he asks, ]

Don't want to be left alone with me?

[ The moment he rolls into himself, she gets jittery. He's noticed it over and over. He can't blame her; but he wishes he could explain, that it's easier to turn yourself off as a human being, than to engage in a universe full of tangled emotions and ideas, each one coiling around you, chokingly-tight. ]

[Korra doesn't resist when he pulls her in, although it takes her a moment to actually relax. She winds her arms around his waist and leans against him.]

It's not you I mean being alone with. [It's the person he becomes when he goes away in his mind.]

[ You're still alone, either way. ]

[ He doesn't say that. It's not her fault she doesn't know his secret edges or how they'll never fit with hers. Not her fault she keeps crashing herself into one of the corners of his personality -- or painting herself into one, more like. There is an intimacy to sex, it's true -- tinged cold with the knowledge that it's also easy. And stupid. And pretty futile, really. It just leaves you all drippy and limp and has no power to change anything. If you're a fucked-up saddo going in, if you only have bare fragments of humanity left and your life is ruined, you'll still be sad and fucked-up and ruined coming out. And he's a fool if he thinks it'll mean anything. ]

[ He is a fool. But he's in need of stress relief. Shutting his mind off. Maybe he should just drop Korra, go find the relief by sparring. Or hitting up a bar, finding a girl, someone, anyone Pai won't be so upset with, to use as a receptacle It's what he used to do before. He's not a real Contractor. But he's not a perfect human, either. Never was. He shouldn't be here with a -- a child who can't even comprehend the word ruined, let alone fix it. But ... ]

[ I want. I want. I want. It clamors through his mind, overpowering, as he gathers Korra in tighter. Her forehead feels hot and dry against his. ]

Come upstairs.

[ Flatly calm, but the air vibrates around the words like it's a question more than a demand. ]

[She leans up to press her lips against his.]

You're going to be here, right? [She looks into his eyes, making sure he's back and present.]

[ Hei isn't sure what to say to her. (Why, he wonders, do they call it 'post' traumatic stress? There is no 'post.' It's an ongoing barrage of ugliness, some of it wrenching you so far out of yourself you'll never reach solid ground again; other bits sucking you so deep into the recesses of memory that it's like you'll never resurface. He can only describe it as a history of all the shit that's happened to him, a snapshot by satellite, like the aerial view of a cyclone on the weather channel. That bluish-red striation there -- that was the time I was attacked in a trench as a twelve-year-old. Those pink highlights? Those are all the times someone I trusted pulled a knife on me.) ]

[ To deflect the swirling images, he seeks Korra's mouth, engages her in kisses to postpone the moment when his hands go into her clothes, when her clothes come off. It's all predictable, and meant to happen; after their reconciliation earlier, barring mishaps, it's a foregone conclusion. But that doesn't explain why everything in his head goes up in fire the colour of tangerines. Korra's mouth always tastes of something citrus and sweet, something that can never fill you up yet leaves you hungry for more. He snatches at that elusive taste, the sensation, to ground himself. ]

[ When their mouths break, he murmurs, ]

Stop me -- if I try to go.

[Easy to say. Not so easy to do. But Korra has never backed down from a challenge before. She nips his bottom lip and grins just a little.]

Okay.

[Her arms are already wrapped around him, so it doesn't take much effort to lift him up and spin him around. He won't let her carry him long, of course, but from time to time she likes to remind him that she can. She's not a delicate little girl.]

Hey.

[ It's not irritated so much as amused. All of Hei's knowledge relies on his own center of gravity, so it doesn't take him more than a moment to extricate himself from her grip -- a heartbeat's maneuvering, a gymnast's contortions, a slide of his pitched weight. Untangling himself at the center of the narrow spiral staircase, the wood creaking beneath his feet, he lets a smile tip crookedly in place. He's not exactly in the mood for acrobatics, but that's what he likes about Korra's impulsive rough-housing. It makes him stay, unable to go anywhere mentally or physically, and it's just what he needs. ]

Hey yourself. [She makes a face at him.] You do it to me often enough.

Maybe it's for the joy of hearing you squawk.

[ The smile had lost its battle with his lips, but it was obvious in his voice. Keeping his eyes on her, he takes a backward step up the staircase. Extends a hand almost playfully, the fingers starfishing in empty air as if asking her to come closer, even as he drifts further away. He doesn't wait for her to follow, though. A couple of beats, and he's already turning to head to his room -- the one with the white door at the far end of the landing. ]

Jerk. [But it's said with affection. She takes his hand and follows him up the stairs, sparing a glance at the door that Xing had gone through.]

[ Twining his fingers with Korra's, Hei follows her gaze to Pai's room. In the hall, he pauses to listen. The door is shut, all is quiet. As if the person inside is quiet and still, too. There's a thin pencil of light from the gap where the door doesn't quite meet the jamb. When they were children, decades ago, Hei used to read to her in bed at night without a lamp on, the room completely dark except for the outline of the drawn shades, an atmosphere of sleepy childish contentment spinning between them. There's none of that now. Pai's corner of the hall feels dark, despite the lamp in the corner which mainly serves to produce shadows. It radiates, as it always does, an aura of transience and isolation and either very little or too much sleep. She always locks her door. ]

[ Resisting the urge to knock, check on her, Hei tugs Korra in the direction of his own door. The room is in an indigo darkness, the patterned glass scattering almost watery shadows where it can, giving the impression of a little bedroom being at the bottom of the sea. It's surprisingly small. There's a narrow bed; a wardrobe; a dresser; books; a desk. Yet the furniture manages not to fill the space in the slightest. For all of BK201's sharp urbanity on-duty, there's something strangely unsophisticated about the slightly mismatched furniture and the sense of hard study which seems to be built into the very floorboards. ]

[Korra likes that about Hei's spaces -- their stark simplicity. They're simple, functional, and so much more familiar than any other place in the City. She doesn't notice how the furniture doesn't match, but she knows she likes it.

Closing the door behind them offers a sharp sense of relief; even though little sister had her own door closed, Korra likes having the additional barrier between them. The watery pattern of shadows is not-so-strangely soothing to someone of the water element. This may be the most relaxed she's felt all evening. She tugs Hei down onto the bed, offering kisses and touches to ease them (or at least her) back into the mood that Xing had shattered.]

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