It started innocently enough. On one night following a particularly trying day, Bolin heard a knock on his door. The sound was gentle but firm — but more importantly, it was loud enough to wake him from the light sleep he'd fallen into. Only half awake, Bolin forgot that he'd been in the midst of undressing for sleep when his tiredness had overcome him. His drowsy brain could process only one thought: to answer the noise that had awakened him.

He yawned as he pulled the heavy door open. "What is it?" he asked heavily.

"Bolin, I — " He recognized Asami's voice just as she cut herself off. "Oh, sorry," she said hastily. She turned around and began to step away from him, as if embarrassed somehow.

Confused, Bolin happened to glance down toward the floor — and saw his own bare torso, and his lower body covered only in his undershorts. The realization that he was, at least to Asami, practically naked jarred him to full alertness. "Wait!" he called, halting Asami where she stood a few paces away. She turned to face him, though she carefully maintained her gaze on his eyes, not letting it wander, as she usually did when she looked at someone, assessing their appearance.

"Sorry," he said sheepishly. "I guess I fell asleep while I was getting ready for bed. What happened?"

"Oh, it's nothing," Asami said with a practiced chuckle. "Sorry to wake you, Bo. Sleep tight."

"No, wait!" he exclaimed before she could walk away again. "It's okay. What is it?"

Asami subconsciously fiddled with the sleeve of her nightgown. "Nothing important," she assured him. "It can wait."

"No, tell me!" he insisted, a bit petulantly. As worldly as Mako, he was not, but even he recognized the perturbed expression on her face.

"I was just..." Asami pursed her lips slightly, as if trying to filter out the words she needed from a swarm that wanted to escape. "I had been wondering if it would be okay for me to sleep in here tonight. But I don't want to make you uncomfortable!" she hurried to add. "I shouldn't have asked. I'm sorry. I'll go now."

"No, that's all right," Bolin said. Asami smiled, glad that he hadn't misunderstood her intentions. She wasn't looking for his body, after all, only his company. "I mean, you can sleep in here," he clarified. Then a frown formed on his mouth. "But uh, you'll have to sleep on the floor. There's only one bed. And I know you're used to being comfortable."

"Oh, I knew that," she cut him off. She immediately cringed.

"You knew there was only one bed?" he asked. He was, she was relieved to find, more puzzled than offended. "But you wouldn't want to sleep on the floor. Did you really want to — ?"

"I thought maybe I could sleep next to you," she confirmed. "But it's all right. I don't expect you to. I mean, I know it be uncomfortable for you, and I don't want that."

"It's okay," he said. He was surprised at the words, but somehow, he didn't feel a need to take them back. "You can sleep here. In the bed, I mean. With me. Uh, if you'd still like. If you just want to sleep."

"Oh, yes, just sleep," Asami said, relieved at his response. "I just want some company lately. You're sure it's okay, though?"

"Yeah!" Bolin said with a smile. "I guess I could use some company, too." He opened the door further to permit her entrance. When he closed it, he half—expected to feel some sort of guilt in the apparently prurient act of taking a woman into his bedroom for the first time — and his brother's former girlfriend, no less. But instead, he only felt comfort from her presence.

That night, Asami sat patiently, waiting in the chair in the corner of the room while Bolin dressed, averting her eyes when to do otherwise seemed less than appropriate to the situation. After he'd robed himself in a thin shirt and pants and crawled beneath his sheets, she joined him, burying her head into the pillow. It seemed so soft, she thought, and the bed seemed somehow friendlier with another body in it.

"Night, Asami," Bolin murmured, sleep already crawling back into his voice.

"Good night, Bolin."

The next morning, they woke to find themselves in the exact positions in which they'd fallen asleep: he on his side, she on the other, not touching, but each taking comfort from the other's nearness. Asami patted Bolin's arm affectionately, as she imagined she would that of a sibling, then wordlessly, gracefully rose from the bed and saw herself out. At breakfast, it was as if they had never met in the night. As far as they could tell, no one even guessed at their secret.

"Do you wish it was Korra in your bed, instead of me?" she asked thoughtfully one night.

By this time, their nights together had become a regular occurrence. And though they never flaunted their companionship in front of their housemates, neither did they hide it, somehow no longer caring if anyone were to learn of it and make more of it than really existed.

At some point, a point that neither of them quite remembered, they had stopped remaining quite so firmly on their respective sides of the bed, and often woke to find one's arms around the other's trunk. And though they often talked each other to sleep, it was the first time either had even alluded to sexuality, a topic that both had previously been careful to avoid.

"Huh?" Bolin responded, half playing for time to form his reply, half believing he'd misheard the question. Asami couldn't really say something like that, could she?

"Do you wish you shared your bed with Korra instead of me?" Asami repeated. "I know you loved her, Bolin."

"Well," he hedged, "I wouldn't turn down going to bed with her. But I'd, uh, like to different things with her than I do with you."

Asami's quiet laugh reached him clearly. It didn't seem mocking, he thought. If anything, it was almost compassionate.

"It's all right," she reassured him. "I understand. If I were next to Mako right now, I'd be — "

"That's my brother you're talking about!" Bolin interrupted, horrified.

"I'm sorry," Asami replied calmingly. "I should have thought better."

They lay in silence for the rest of the night, both feeling too awkward to say anything. But just before she fell asleep, Asami felt Bolin place a tentative hand on her shoulder, as if he wanted to cuddle but wasn't sure if it was all right. She scooted an inch or two closer and covered his hand with her own.

Bolin woke with a start. He blinked rapidly, his breathing shallow, for several seconds, until he recollected himself. In the haze after a nightmare, he had failed to recognize the ordinarily familiar surroundings of Asami's bedroom.

It was several months since their arrangement had begun. After they had both returned to Republic City, they had continued to share their beds, finding that they needed the companionship as much as ever, albeit for different reasons. Each had moved on from their romantic disappointments, yet they found themselves needing to navigate the locale of their lives without their old compatriots by their sides. Asami's father was in prison ("Where he belongs, after all," she reflected sometimes, though Bolin knew that she missed him more than she was upset with him), while Bolin's brother had moved to Air Nomad Island, in what he claimed was an effort to learn more about the culture, but which was transparently a way for him to be nearer Korra.

"Everything all right?" Asami muttered, not turning to face Bolin.

"Yeah. Yeah. Fine now," he panted.

She frowned into her pillow. "What happened?" she asked gently.

"Nightmare's all." He closed his eyes with a wince. "You can go back to sleep."

Asami grunted. There was no getting back to sleep for a few minutes, she knew. "What about?" she asked kindly, both wanting to make some conversation to lull herself back into her own dreams and genuinely caring for her friend. Her best friend, she realized in a flash.

"I dreamed … you were gone," Bolin replied.

Now Asami was wide awake. Finally, she turned over onto her stomach, turning her head to face him. "That was scary?" she asked, somehow stunned that losing her could be a nightmare for anyone. Her father loved her in his twisted way, but his desire for revenge had taken priority over his daughter. And Mako … she still didn't want to think about Mako.

"It was horrible!" Bolin exclaimed. "I don't know what I'd do without you. I love you," he continued, thinking nothing of it. He did love her, after all, more strongly than he'd loved almost any of his friends before. Suddenly, he realized too late that he may have said more than he'd meant to. As he had a tendency to do, he thought. He buried his face into his pillow, embarrassed.

Asami bit her lip. Over the past few weeks, she'd begun to think of Bolin as more than a friend. But since Mako had hurt her so badly, she'd tried to suppress those romantic feelings… Tonight, however, her sleep-addled brain seemed to have lost some control of her mouth. "I don't know what I'd do without you, either, Bo," she murmured as she reached out toward him. "I love you too," she added as he covered his hand with his.

"I, uh…" He squirmed uncomfortably. "This may not be the best time to say this, but I don't just love you like a … friend." His eyes widened. Why had he said that? he wondered. He'd been trying so hard to avoid it. "I'll leave," he said quickly. But as he started to rise from the bed, intending to walk to and out the door, he was stopped by Asami's surprisingly strong grip around his fingers.

"Don't go, Bo," she said, a little sullenly. "I guess — I don't know. I think I love you that way, too."

Bolin flopped back onto the bed with a thud. "You do?" he asked, surprised, and not a little elated.

"Mm-hmm," Asami murmured. "But can we talk about in in the morning? I'm a little sleepy now."

"Oh! Yeah! Of course!" Bolin paused. "So do you want me to stay here tonight?"

Asami melted. "Yeah," she said. "I do." He relaxed back into the mattress, and as he did so, she relaxed against him, noticing as if for the first time how easy he was to snuggle with. She lay her head squarely against his shoulder and drifted off to sleep.

Bolin, meanwhile, stayed awake for a few more minutes, reflecting on how powerful his dream had been while gently stroking the ends of Asami's hair.

It was far from the last time that they found themselves in that exact position in Asami's bed. But the next time they lay together in that particular way, they were readying themselves to inform their loved ones of their new engagement.