Alright, so this is the first multi-chapter fic I've done, based on the one-shot 'Frozen' I did way back in Korrlok week. The earliest bits are light on dialogue but that will change shortly. I plan to take this to completion no matter what, but it might take a little while. I'm in the process of completing a PhD in a stupidly short amount of time, so updates get written in between pieces of the dissertation.
Also, I just want to say that this is probably not going exactly where you think it is. It is an eventual romance, but there's a lot of character development to get through before these two can come together as anything close to a healthy couple. It's not going to be a quick hurt/comfort fic, there's some serious psychological issues to work through on both sides.
Tarrlok
All I knew was fire of unbearable heat and the suffocating pressure of the water. I was half-aware that I dreamed, but even in unconsciousness the pain never left me. Even when I thought I'd clawed my way into wakefulness I knew I was trapped in the dream, for my brother stood over me with a hand held carefully to skin that still burned and the merciful coolness of healing followed his fingers. His hair shifted as he looked up at me, and I sank back down into the darkness even as I tried to whisper his name.
When I truly awoke it was worse. I was in a bed in some unfamiliar room, but I could hardly think of anything but the agony. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe deeply, but with every rise and fall of my chest I was painfully aware of the sheets scraping against raw flesh. When I tried to lick my dry lips, the skin of my face was tight and unresponsive. Everything I did only increased the pain and simple consciousness was torture. As I lay there I prayed for any release, anything to end this.
My eyes flew open at the sound of a footfall. Avatar Korra, of all people, stood at the bedside. She didn't look up at my face, but carefully turned over a corner of the sheet and bent water from some place I could not see. She placed a soft hand on my side and healing spread from her fingertips. I gasped at the sudden relief, and her eyes flickered momentarily to my face, then back down to her work. As she moved down my side and leg, the burning returned when her hand had moved on, but was just a bit more bearable than before. When she paused to fold back the sheet, I caught glimpses of twisted reddened skin. Or was there even skin there anymore? I wondered how bad the damage was that I couldn't see, but I was already drifting back into sleep.
The next time I opened my eyes, she was already standing there above me carefully bending water against my burns. I struggled to sit up for a moment, but my limbs wouldn't answer to me and my head swam. I collapsed back against the pillow. She looked up at me, startled, and met my eyes for the first time before she quickly looked away. I opened my mouth, feeling my lips crack as they moved, and managed to croak something that sounded like, "water." Still avoiding my face, she reached over to a bedside table to grab a shallow bowl and dip it in a larger basin. She slid one hand behind my head to raise it and lifted the bowl to my lips. I drank it down gratefully. She reached for another bowl on the table and dipped a spoon into it before bringing it to my mouth. It was warm broth, and although I felt no hunger I obediently swallowed every bite she fed me. But even as I finished the broth and she let my head down again she did not once look at me in the eyes.
I was able to pay closer attention as she worked this time. The burns were somewhat healed by now, but they seemed to cover a great deal of my body. It seemed that I would get better though. I'd been found by healers, I was getting treated right now. I'd recover. The burns would fade to simple scars with healing. The pain of the moment would pass. I still hurt everywhere, but my right arm was by far the worst. I supposed it made sense that the hand that held the glove would have been the worst damaged. It felt like my hand and fingers still burned and I wanted nothing more than for her to bend the soothing water there. As she slowly moved down my body, I managed to mumble something about healing my right arm. She nodded without even glancing up, but continued as she had been doing. What must have been hours stretched by as I watched her work, I was aware of little else but the pain. There was the small area of relief beneath her hands, but everywhere else I felt the same agony as ever. I managed to form some barely coherent question about medicine and for the first time she really responded to me.
"Oh! I'm sorry, I hadn't- This isn't something I've ever-"
She flushed red and abruptly stood up and walked out of the room. I supposed that it wasn't usually an issue with a trained healer around. Wounds were closed and forgotten before pain relief ever became an issue. It must be that these burns were so bad that even multiple sessions weren't enough to heal them. I looked closer at the leg she'd left exposed. It was going to be badly scarred, no doubt about that. Even when I was physically whole it would never look the same again. I was just thinking about trying to move the other sheets when she came back in the room carrying a cup. She poured the liquid into the shallow bowl and again lifted my head to carefully feed it to me. Before I was even half done I could feel it taking effect, but my right arm still throbbed painfully. She placed my head back and picked up a cloth to wipe away some medicine that had spilled down my cheek. I tried to shape the words asking her to heal my arm, but the blackness was stretching up to pull me under and I had no choice but to surrender.
When I woke again she was not there. I felt somehow betrayed as I lay and let the minutes slowly creep by. I tried to sit, to move, but I was too weak to even lift my head. The pain in my arm kept me from falling back asleep and I could do nothing but trace the hairline cracks in the ceiling as I waited. The room had no windows, only two bright lamps mounted on the walls, so I had no way to mark how much time passed before she came in. Without a greeting, she fed me the same water and broth as the last time, then turned over a section of the sheet and began her work. I knew what I wanted today, and I was determined to get it. My stiff lips tripped over the words, but I begged her to at least heal my hand. Every finger was in pain, I could feel the agony across my palm and up my wrist. I needed that relief more than any other healing she could give me.
She stared up at me in shock, then her mouth twisted and she looked away. I pleaded. Anything. I would do anything if she would only heal my hand. Finally she looked back up to me, then down to the sheet. She slowly pulled it up and I had to smile with relief at the thought that I'd finally get that healing. But when I looked down at my arm it just... ended. Where there should have been a forearm, a wrist, a hand, there was nothing. I looked back up at Korra, silently begging her to disagree with what I saw, but she would not raise her eyes to meet mine. I turned my head away from her, trying to hold back my reaction.
It was too much. My breath caught in my throat as hot tears leaked out of my closed eyes and ran down my cheek. I heard Korra stand and walk around the foot of the bed to kneel by my face. I refused to open my eyes to look at her. With a gentle touch she brushed the tears away, then reached under the sheet to take my hand in both of hers. I clung to that support as I cried. What were my dreams of recovery after all? No bending, no arm, and covered in horrific scars. I could still feel that strange tightness in my face, so surely that was as disfigured as the rest. What was left to take? I gasped for air as the weight of reality bore down on me. Korra stayed as I wept all the way to exhaustion. Finally, I was able to let myself sink into the merciful peace of sleep, holding desperately to her hand until the last.