The first day of spring is grey and cold, a heavy weight overhead suggesting a late season snow no one wants. Spring is overdue; she is far beyond fashionably late, the dreary streets and washed-out parks aching for her presence.
Korra can relate to the earth's wish for sweet breezes and bursts of green overtaking the grey. She understands how it longs for warmth and relief from the ice and snow pressing upon the hardened ground beneath. She knows that another day like this is another day lost to the unending dullness that has been gripping nature for months on end, despite its best efforts to break free, glimpses of weightless, sunny days serving as fleeting respites.
She misses him like the earth misses the sun's caress and the rain's gentle kiss.
She feels the grey seeping into her skin, leeching away her well-guarded warmth, with every day spent tiptoeing around each other, half-hearted greetings and empty words settling over her like frost, but the glimpses of more (the sparks that flicker in his gaze at the brush of her hand or his lingering, needless touches that make their way across her back, her shoulders) are hopeful promises in the grey.
It's silly, really. The feigned friendship speaks of something more between them, something that aches for warm caresses and heated kisses, something that begs to be broken; a tension that could so easily be relieved if one of them was willing to speak first.
But this will not be like the first time, where she brazenly confessed in a blur of strong feelings and blushing confidence, or the second, where he bumbled through confused wants only to be silenced by her own. It will not be like the third time, in which he let "love" tumble from his lips and she ran away only to let herself love him later. And it will not be like the fourth time, where she was lost in a sea of empty memories and he let his flaws and insecurities ease him into the empty sea with her.
It comes after a late night at Narooks with the others, cheered tones and light laughter belying how they've harmed each other in the past, stabbed at tender skin in ways that only and always come with loving another. It comes after he offers to walk her back to the docks for her ferry to the Air Temple and an exchanged glance between Asami and Bolin reveals their hesitance to watch this unfurl once more. Korra would be lying if she said she didn't understand. They've proven they're as blistering as summer days and as frigid as winter at their worst, with temperate days few and far between. But that doesn't stop her.
The beauty and peace of spring and fall are only more appreciated in the face of winter and summer's unforgiving extremes, after all.
They're silent and slow on their meandering course to the docks. His hand brushes against hers, once, twice, before she links her fingers with his own. It's almost always her initiating them, but she doesn't mind. She dives in headfirst while he eases in one inch at a time; a formerly exasperating difference between them, but one she values in him now. He closes his hand tightly around hers.
.
.
Do you want this?
Yes.
Do you still love me?
Of course I do.
.
.
They turn away from the docks, pace steady and slow. She knows this path, knows where it will lead. She can feel the warmth in her hand and the glowing gold of his gaze melting away the grey.
Three years of separation, but his body still knows hers. She has changed; her muscles still firm, rippling across her back, her arms, her stomach, but she has softened as well, her hips more pronounced, the curves of her chest and thighs fuller. His once lithe frame is filled in, still hard from years of training, but far from the eighteen year old he was when they began exploring the expanses of each other. It feels like their first time again, their fumbling hands still capable of extracting gasps despite their lack of finesse.
They're rushing, they know this, yet this is the long overdue relief for which they've both been desperate. He is the rain that longed to fall from the sky; she is the parched ground awaiting his touch.
She isn't shy about what she wants, a smile breaking across her lips as she takes his length in her hands, but the dusting of pink on her cheeks and the pause of hesitation before she slowly slides herself atop him are not lost on him. Her name spills from his lips, framed by curses and aching I love you's, and she swallows as many moans and versions of her name as she can before they're unraveling, panting, collapsing against each other.
When she disentangles herself, he pulls her to him, kissing her face, her neck, her breasts, her stomach, every inch of her that he has so desperately missed. This isn't a build up to something more; it's as if he needs to confirm this is real, you're really here with me.
.
I love you. I love you I love you I love you.
.
She awakes to rain pattering against his window in place of the snowfall the skies spoke of yesterday, the hazy light from the overcast morning hardly touching the room in which she rests, cocooned in cool sheets and a warm embrace.