CHAPTER ONE - Day To Day

The doorbell rang. Korra winced.

"Bolin, no!" She shouted from the bathroom, desperately trying to hasten the toilet paper process. "Don't do it!"

Mako was away at work. There was no one else but her around to stop Bolin. Korra could practically hear the whoooosh of air as he sped down the hall.

"Bolin!"

Too late. Korra heard the front door creak open. He must have ended up teleporting, one of his new favorite ghosty things to do. Korra stood up quickly and began fumbling with her jeans. She staggered out into the hall with her belt still undone, just in time to hear Bolin swing the door open and his chirping voice greet the visitor. Or at least, try to.

"Hi there!" Bolin smiled brightly. "Lovely weather we're having!"

The delivery guy looked around, confused, at the empty house in front of him.

"Hello? Anyone there?" he wondered, holding a package that likely contained the textbooks Korra had ordered online. He hesitated, unsure if it was okay to just walk into a house whose door apparently could open all by itself. Bolin didn't seem to put off by any of this in the slightest.

"I always had a question for you delivery folks," Bolin said, glancing over his shoulder at the street. He knew very well that regular humans couldn't see or hear him, but that never stopped him before. "How come your little brown trucks don't have doors? Like, aren't you scared you might fall out? I know you guys are in and out delivering packages all the time, but that just seems unsafe."

Of course, the delivery guy didn't answer.

"Um, excuse me, I need a signature? I can't just leave the package here alone. Is anyone home?"

"Yeah, sorry! Come on in!" Korra leapt down the stairs and swatted at Bolin until he moved away. She didn't want the delivery guy accidentally walking through him. The chill of walking through a spirit unknowingly was very disorienting, and she didn't want to have to explain that and their magical opening door.

The delivery guy furrowed his brow because, obviously, he didn't see what Korra was waving at.

"Uh, mosquito," she said sheepishly. "Here, I'll sign."

"How did your door open by itself?" he asked, holding out the signature pad.

"Wind?" Korra suggested lamely, scribbling a vague 'K' and a squiggly line on his pad. "Okay, see ya!"

When she turned around with her box, Korra found Bolin breathing right over her shoulder, eyes wide and distinctly puppy-dog featured.

"Korra, can you pleeease ask him?"

"No," she hissed.

"What was that?" the delivery guy asked, looking back at her. "Did you say something?"

"I...said...nooo...now I have to studyyy…" Korra stammered, holding up the box of books.

"Oh." He smiled. "Sorry about that. Where do you go to school?"

"Avatar University." She tried to discreetly inch her way over to the door to shut it. Delivery Guy needed to go away so she could yell at Bolin for answering the door yet again. Mako was going to be pissed when he heard about this.

"Wow, good school!"

"Ask him for me?" Bolin pleaded. "Please, just ask him and I won't open the door again for a whole week! I promise!"

Korra scowled. He shouldn't be opening the door at all, but she would take what she could get. Bolin didn't have a whole lot to do now that he was dead, so he had plenty of time to think of really dumb questions that didn't need answering.

With a heavy sigh, she asked, "Hey, I always wondered, don't you guys feel unsafe without a door on those trucks of yours?"

The delivery guy laughed. "We get that a lot. There is a door, we just roll it back when we're on the streets. If we're on faster roads or highways not actively making deliveries, that's when we close them. Want to see?"

She very much did not, but Bolin was bouncing up and down excitedly. "Yes! Yes! Yes, we do!"

"Yeah, I guess," Korra replied, in a completely disinterested tone that the neither Bolin nor the delivery guy seemed to notice. She followed him to the truck parked across the street, but unfortunately Bolin was only able to go about the length of the front yard without touching the sidewalk. He'd never made it further than that yet, although a few months ago he could only take a few steps out the door. It was one of the many ghosty-things Bolin was working on.

He'd see enough from where he stood, though. The delivery guy flipped a latch and sure enough, a thin door rolled out of the side of the truck, concealing the drivers side.

"Cool, huh?" He winked in a way that made her uneasy.

"Awesome!" Bolin gushed.

"Yeah," Korra shrugged as casually as she could. This whole thing really needed to end now. "Thanks. Bye."

"My name is Noatak," he said, holding out his hand. Korra just stared at it. Oh boy.

"Hah! He's so into you," Bolin snickered from his perch in the yard. "Just shake his hand! Can't hurt!"

Her mouth narrowed into a thin line. It was hard, trying to glare at someone you couldn't make direct eye contact with in front of other people.

"C'mon, I wish I could shake a hand," Bolin said. "I miss that. Let me live vicariously through you."

Korra sighed again, knowing full well what he was trying to do - pull the sad invisible ghost card. Again. She shook it, but chose not to introduce herself. She really, really wanted to yell at Bolin now and this guy was holding it up.

"And your name is Korra," Noatak said. At her alarmed expression, he laughed. "I remember the name on the box. This isn't the first thing I've delivered for you, actually."

"This is the first time I'm meeting you."

"Yeah, someone else signed for the others. Tall guy, kind of pale, black hair? Wore a red scarf for some reason, even though it's still technically summer."

"Oh, yeah. That's Mako."

Noatak looked back up at the house. Korra and Bolin even turned around to see what he was looking for, but saw nothing.

"Your boyfriend around now?"

That was a strange question to ask, and it made her uncomfortable on multiple levels. Korra raised an eyebrow, deciding that if he didn't leave now, she was going to make him leave.

"He's not my boyfriend," Korra said, dodging the question of Mako's whereabouts.

"You don't wanna open that can of worms, buddy," Bolin joked unhelpfully. She discreetly gave him the finger behind her back, so Noatak wouldn't see.

"Oh, sorry, I just thought...?"

"Don't you have other things to deliver?" Korra asked impatiently, pointedly eyeing up his truck. He looked like he wanted to ask something else, but they were so done.

He grinned nervously at her bluntness. "Right, right. Well, I'll see you around. Good luck at school."

"Thanks." She turned and headed back to the house, making sure to swipe at Bolin so he followed. Korra didn't even bother to watch Noatak get in his truck and drive away.

Inside, she dropped the box of textbooks onto the couch.

"Make your head corporeal," Korra ordered.

"Why?"

"Just do it."

He did. Korra couldn't tell just by looking if it was really solid, but when she smacked him upside the head, her hand connected and he stumbled forward.

" Ow , hey!"

"You can't even feel that," Korra reminded him.

"I know, I know, it's just a reflex." He shrugged. "But then why bother smacking me at all?"

"Because I get to feel it, and you deserve it," she said angrily. When Korra took another swing, this time a little more light-heartedly, her hand went right through him. He just laughed.

"You know, that guy was nice!" He flopped onto the couch and started to rip open her package. "You were kind of rude. Didn't you think he was handsome?"

"He was like, forty-something!" Korra sniffed. "And weird! Don't try to change the subject! You have to stop answering the door, Bolin! As if we didn't have enough to worry about with all the haunting rumors and people starting to - "

"They're not rumors," he pointed out, withdrawing one of her textbooks. "The house is haunted. By me."

Korra frowned. She hated when he said that. Despite it being true that Bolin was a ghost and he was inhabiting the house, he wasn't haunting it. If anything, she thought he brought more life to it than Mako and Korra put together.

"We just want to - "

"Ooooh, anatomy . Hahaha. A wiener."

"Mako and I just - "

"I know, you're trying to help me," he said, without looking up. "I'm trapped in this house and you two don't want me to be alone forever so you guys are stuck here too."

"Bolin. Come on."

"Which means you have to make the rent every month, keep up appearances with the neighbors, and be sure not to freak everyone out and get evicted," he said bitterly. "Meanwhile, all I can do is stop being a creepy ghost opening and closing windows and doors all the time, trying to talk to people on the streets that can't see or hear me. And I can't even do that ."

Her heart broke. Of all the people in all the world Bolin was probably the least deserving to become a ghost. Korra had never met anyone so bubbly, happy, hopeful, and alive, even in death. Just over a year ago he was the biggest nerd on campus, but in a way that made somehow made him more popular. He was the class clown, girls thought he was cute, guys thought he was funny, and he had plenty of geeky little friends. He was a motormouth, and there was little in the world that could shut him up.

To not have anyone see, hear, or even touch him was almost unimaginable. Korra wondered, not for the first time, how he managed not to go completely insane. She tried, and his brother tried, but they knew it was killing him all over again to be so lonely. And it was killing them that there was nothing they could do. Bolin was trapped on this plane of existence, dead to everyone except two people, and unable to go more than fifteen feet outside of the house he'd been murdered in.

But all three of three of them had problems. Korra sat next to him gently, knowing that she wouldn't be able to put her arm around his large shoulders like she wanted. Not unless he let her. Instead, she rested it on the couch behind him.

"Hey. We love you. You know that."

He shut her anatomy book. "Sorry."

"Don't be sorry."

She could feel the weight of his back press against the couch. Korra smiled. He was letting her hug him, so she did. She only wished he could have felt it.

"You have enough to worry about," Bolin said guiltily. "It's your time of the month tonight, isn't it?"

Korra couldn't help but pull out their old joke.

"Which one?"

He laughed, as he always did. "The one with the howling."

"Which one?"

Bolin smirked. "Seriously. You feel okay? It's starting to get a little late."

She nodded grimly. The full moon usually hit around early afternoon, contrary to popular belief. That was when her milder symptoms started. A little moodiness, a little bit more of a temper, maybe a certain impatience with chatty delivery guys. Fortunately, the real symptoms didn't start until it got dark. Once the sun was completely set, it was showtime.

"I'm still fine right now, though."

Suddenly they heard the clinking sound of metal scratching against the door knob, and the muttered cursing of someone whose keys all looked the same. This happened to Mako every evening.

"I told you to use those color-coded key labels Korra ordered!" Bolin shouted from the couch. Neither of them made any effort to get up and open the door for him. Served him right, Mr. Too-Cool-To-Label-His-Keys.

After several more moments of failed key-testing, he finally got the door open and stomped in, looking thoroughly annoyed.

"Key labels are for dorks," Mako grumbled, before they could say anything.

"At least dorks can get into their own houses," Korra quipped.

"How was work?" Bolin asked, elbowing me. Obviously he didn't want her blabbing about him answering the door. Mako didn't look like he was in the greatest mood, and they probably shouldn't have been making him more cranky. He got even more annoyed than Korra did when his brother did dumb stuff like that. "And why'd you go in this morning? You usually do the night shift."

"I went in this morning to empty my locker and collect my last paycheck," Mako grumbled again. "Got fired this weekend. Spent the day looking for a new job."

They stared at him as he pulled off his boots to set them neatly on the shoe rack in the corner, kicking Korra's haphazardly tossed sneakers to the side so he didn't trip on them. He then unraveled his beloved red scarf and hung it on the hook by the door, revealing the dark, angry scar on his neck.

"What do you mean you got fired?! " Korra demanded. Mako moved her box of books to the coffee table so he could tiredly drop onto the couch next to them.

"I've been feeling like I didn't fit in there for a while," he admitted. Bolin and Korra shared a look. Mako was always weirdly quiet about his job, which he'd held down for over eight months. It was almost like he was embarrassed to work at the Avatar University Hospital Center. His night shift security job was actually a pretty sweet gig. Mostly he just roamed the empty hallways aimlessly. The life of a hospital guard offered minimal human contact and a decent night shift differential, which was always good for a vampire.

Mako had been clean almost a year. He had not bitten a single human in all that time, getting his sustenance primarily from the blood of animals he hunted. But despite his impressive vampire track record, it was still a constant struggle for him. Human blood would always be his drug, it was in the vampire's nature no matter what his morals. That was why his job had been perfect.

And why it made no sense that he'd been fired.

"Did that guy Zaheer do something?" Korra asked. What little they did know about his job was mostly complaints about his dickhead coworker. Mako spoke more about him being a jerk than anything else at work. Apparently he was a preachy hippie that pushed his politics on anyone that stood still long enough to hear.

"Zaheer...was a part of it," he confirmed, leaning back on the couch and sighing. "But I don't work there anymore, long story short."

Korra made a face. His long work stories were always short.

"What about your other work friends you talked about? Ghazan? And P'Li, was it?"

He shrugged. "No huge loss."

"Well...as long as you're okay…" Bolin trailed off.

He scowled. "I'm not okay. Rent is due - overdue, actually. We can try and charm a few more weeks out of Raiko, but he's not gonna let us keep doing this. Especially if our lease is up next month. We won't be able to renew, at this rate."

They sat quietly, processing the troubling realization. It was a bit of an extravagant house for people who were just barely in their twenties to be renting. Especially if one was still splitting time between college and work, the other just lost a shitty job, and the third technically didn't exist. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a remodelled kitchen and living room, and large unfinished basement. It was a home for an established family, parents with two kids and a dog. Normal humans with normal lives.

Not them.

Mr. Raiko, their landlord, was pretty decent. He was elderly and living in a small condo with his wife now that his kids had grown up and started their own families. Still, he couldn't be expected to let us skimp on the rent, it was already ridiculously discounted due to the attack and murder that had occurred on the premises last summer.

Technically, they owed our relatively cheap rent to Bolin and Mako being killed by vampires in their living room. That was why they couldn't leave, even if they couldn't make rent. Mako was turned, an undead vampire that could move about freely, but Bolin was killed completely. As a ghost, he was trapped on the property for whatever reason. And as long as he was tethered here, they could not let ourselves get evicted.

"I've been thinking about how we could possibly make rent..." Korra said slowly. The boys looked at her curiously and she cringed. They were not going to like this, and even she thought it was a fairly awful idea, especially after what Bolin had pulled earlier. They couldn't ignore the fact that Mako was right, though - unless something changed, this thing they had wouldn't last. "Look, Mako, you'll find another job eventually, but even if you do, we were barely making a living as it is. The only reason we've lasted this long is because we've been scraping together the crumbs from Bolin's wrongful death lawsuit with the city!"

"Which, I gotta say, really weird to be living off my own death money," Bolin interjected.

"I'll get two jobs," Mako said gruffly. "Three, if I have to."

"In this economy you'll be lucky to get one," Korra pointed out. And despite not needing sleep, vampires still needed to rest. Mako still got stressed out and emotional when he was overwhelmed, and that was no good for anyone. But he only really slept when he had nothing else to do, and Bolin never slept at all. It wasn't really a requirement for vampires, and a complete impossibility for ghosts. Which led her to her point. "I've actually been speaking to Raiko... Look, we have three bedrooms and only two people that need an actual bed. One, really."

"What are you saying?" Mako's eyes narrowed.

"I'm saying, well, you would keep your bedroom the same…" Korra slowly looked at Bolin. "But I think I should move out of the master bedroom into Bolin's room. We could spruce up the basement for you."

He opened his mouth to protest, just like she knew he would. She was prepared for it.

"Don't worry, we'll stick all your little toys and dolls - "

" Models and action figures! "

" - into all those big storage shelves. There's way more room for all your stuff down there, anyway. All that space is just wasted. Bolin can have his own little haunted apartment down there!"

He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "That does sound like a good idea. The basement is even bigger than the master, and it's not like I can feel how warm and stuffy it gets down there because of all our soundproofing. I'd have to throw a decorative covering over the cage, but with a little clever lighting and a nice rug…"

Mako raised an eyebrow. "But why? "

Korra took a deep breath.

"So...we could get another roommate."

The parade of expressions on their faces was almost funny, starting with confusion, melting into amusement as if she were joking, and finally twisting into horror when they realized she was dead serious.

"What?!" they both yelped.

"No way!" Mako cried. "I am a vampire. My brother is a ghost. You are a werewolf. Are you kidding me!? You want a human living with us!?"

"I'm only a werewolf once a month," Korra reasoned. "And I know you won't try to hurt anyone, Mako, you've been so great. And Bolin will just... behave. "

"It's not going to be that easy!"

He was right. In so many ways, Korra knew it was stupid. When she transformed, they always secured her pretty well in the basement, but there was no guarantee a human roommate would be safe. And she knew introducing a human to the household would just pile more temptation on top of Mako's daily struggle not to fall off the wagon. Worst of all, it was cruel to ask Bolin to stay hidden in the one place he was allowed to exist, especially since he was just learning all his new ghosty tricks like teleporting and touching stuff. The house was supposed to be their haven. A place where they kept their demons to ourselves.

"But what other choice do we have?" Korra demanded. "We just don't have the money to stay in this house without another roommate. At least not until I graduate and get a job that pays better."

"You do have another choice," Bolin suggested, his voice hollow.

Mako and Korra rounded on him immediately.

"Shut up, Bolin," Mako said angrily. "We're not leaving you."

"Don't you dare think that again," Korra agreed.

"I'm just saying - "

"No," she said firmly. "Guys, come on. We'll make it work. We have to. Just until May. It's temporary, and we'll kick them out after I graduate. Okay? Nine months. We can do it. We've come this far already, right?"

It was hard to believe that a whole year had passed since they had moved in. A whole year since two brothers were chased by a gang of vampires into this empty house. A whole year since they cursed one with the life of a vampire and turned the other into a violently murdered corpse. A whole freaking year since the newly-turned vampire ran into his ex-girlfriend, found out she had broken up with him because she was a werewolf, and invited her broke college ass to live with him and the ghost of his brother.

It was a long story. A very, very long story that was awkward on so many levels. But they'd already overcome so much, why wouldn't they be able to handle living with a human?

"We are what we are, and we can't help that," Korra continued. "But we're still here. We're still okay. As far as the outside world is concerned, we are human. We just need to be... extra human now."

"Nine months..." Bolin said uneasily.

"Nine months."

Mako took a deep breath, meeting both their eyes.

"Okay. Maybe...there's a slim possibility we could pull it off."

Korra started to smile. "We put them up in her big master bedroom. That way, we can charge them a larger portion of the rent. And they'll have their own attached bath, so maybe we won't even need to see them all that much. We'll try to find that quiet stay-in-room type, you know? Or one of those always-out-the-house people with busy social lives. Although we should enforce a strict rule about no guests. One human will be enough to deal with."

Mako was nodding slowly.

"Ooooh, I'll write the listing!" Bolin gushed. "This'll be fun! I'll have to take pictures! Gimme your phone, Mako - "

He snatched his brother's phone excitedly and opened up the camera, immediately holding it out and looking for good angles. Mako repressed a grin and grabbed it back.

"All right, we'll give it a shot. But we can do all this later. Korra, it's your time of the month. The sun goes down in an hour."

She nodded, acknowledging the goosebumps on her arm. It wasn't just because of this whole roommate thing. Soon, she would feel her system flooding with whatever the hormones and chemicals were that caused her metamorphosis. Her breathing would get faster, her heart would pound harder, and she would break out in a cold sweat.

"I'm still okay," Korra said, heading to the kitchen. "I should have some dinner, though. You know how I get if I wolf out on an empty stomach."

She always tried to keep it light, as if she was used to it all by now. Like it was just a minor inconvenience. The boys knew better.

They followed her and watched as she stuck her head in the fridge, packed full of food. There were also a few blood bags that Mako had scored after stealing from the blood bank's rejection bin. Blood-transmitted diseases didn't affect vampires, so whenever he got the chance, he swiped what was screened as unusable. It tasted awful, he told them, but it still felt a little better than raccoon or goose blood. Those stayed in the drawer at the bottom of the fridge, far from Korra's dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets.

She pulled out an entire package of mozzarella string cheese and a jar of tomato sauce. From the freezer, she removed a frozen sausage lasagna and threw it in the microwave.

"Raiko was totally okay with the idea of us getting a roommate, as long as it was just one person without children," she said, dunking a stick of cheese into the sauce and chomping it in two bites. She immediately started to open another one.

"No arguments here. Kids are awful," Mako said, sitting down across the table from her. Bolin hopped up onto his usual place on the countertop.

He snorted as Korra started on her third string cheese. It had been a whole two hours since she'd snagged a couple burritos and an ice cream sundae on the way home from work. She was starving.

"And that's just on other reason we broke up. What kind of jerk thinks kids are awful?"

"Bro, you're a monster," Bolin agreed.

" You're practically a kid, Bo." Mako rolled his eyes. "A ghost trying to learn how to hold things, dropping and breaking everyone's stuff in the process?"

"I apologized like a thousand times about your goldfish!" he cried. "And the old TV, but our new TV is so much better! You should be happy!"

"You too, Korra. A werewolf eating everything, all the time, everywhere, leaving a trail of sauce and crumbs in her wake?"

"Hey, shut up, you try burning like six thousand calories a day," she purposefully flicked some of the marinara at him. It was probably even more calories than that during a full moon, when she got ravenous. "I can't help it if I need to eat all the time."

Korra topped off her fourth string cheese and returned the rest of it. Bolin moved aside so that she could reach past him into the cupboard and pull out a can of Spam and a party-size bag of Doritos. Mako looked on in disgust as she started slicing out little pieces of the meat and sandwiching them between the chips.

"And there's another reason we broke up. I get that you have to eat a lot, but you can at least eat normal things!"

"Like that raccoon you had last night?" she asked cheekily.

"I don't care what she eats, it all looks delicious to me," Bolin said. "You never eat boring stuff like a salad or like, pretzels. It's always something interesting!"

The microwave beeped.

"Finally, thank God!" Korra groaned, pulling out the lasagna. "Want some, Mako?"

"What kind of lasagna is it?" he asked. He got zero nutritional value from regular food. It just went straight through him, so to speak, but he did still have sense of taste that he liked to exercise on occasion. His food preferences were ironic, though.

"Meat."

"Pass," he said. "Remind me to get us some lasagna florentine later."

Bolin laughed. "I still can't believe you are a vegetarian vampire ."

He shrugged. "I drink blood because I have to, not because I want to. I like the taste of a good garden salad with croutons. Pita chips and hummus. Beans with seasoned rice and quinoa - "

Korra proceeded to make gagging noises into her lasagna. "Yeah, you and I never would have worked."

"This is going to a special kind of person that's gonna have to tolerate living with you two," Bolin snorted. "I wonder what she'll be like?"

"She?" Korra asked.

"Yeah, I figure it should be a girl to balance things out," he shrugged. "You need a nice gal pal!"

Mako's eyes darkened. "The point is to keep our secrets to ourselves. I don't think becoming pals with the new roommate is a good idea."

"You're the one that keeps saying we have to blend in - "

"For survival. We have to be human out there because if we aren't, they won't understand. They'll fear us, and then they'll fight us, because that's just how people are. Making friends with humans in the outside world is fine for appearances, but don't forget the real reason we're playing this game."

Korra frowned quietly. Her heart rate rate was picking up and she could feel herself getting breathless. It could have been because Mako was making her anxious, or maybe even because she hadn't let her lasagna heat up long enough in the microwave, but it was most likely because of that sun being bullied out of the sky by the full moon.

"Way to ruin the dinner conversation."

"I just don't want us to get so complacent about the idea of having a human in here," he said. "They're dangerous to us, just like we are to them. Out there, we're nice normal kids. In here, this is where our secrets come out. Once we have one of them living with us, we're going to have to work really hard on making sure they have no idea what we are. We have to be really good at being human."

The telltale beads of sweat began popping up on Korra's brow. Her hands quivered as she dropped her fork in the half-eaten family-size lasagna.

"Korra?" Bolin noticed.

"I...think it's time."

Despite all she ate, Korra was starting to feel empty. Her stomach grumbled, as if her human food wasn't satiating enough. At least she'd gotten some down, though. When she transformed on an empty stomach the wolf was even more out of control than usual.

Mako came around to help her stand up, but Korra pushed him aside. Her feeling of self was starting to slip away, but she could still walk. This was far from her first full moon, but it never got any easier.

"I'll catch up with you guys downstairs!" Bolin said. "Gonna grab the laptop!"

Typical Bolin. Korra managed to roll her eyes fondly as he poofed away upstairs.

"Ever since he learned how to teleport," she shook her head as Mako followed her to the basement. "I hope he remembers he can't teleport things with him. We can't afford a new laptop if he breaks that one like he did your fishbowl."

The basement was mostly unfurnished other than industrial-looking storage shelves, with a concrete floor and oddly pristine-white padded walls. That was because they'd soundproofed the entire space, a massively expensive endeavor, but it mostly worked. Korra's screams and howls were kept private and none of the neighbors could hear. When the construction company asked what they had needed soundproofing for, they'd told them it was going to be a home recording studio. Bolin sometimes called it that jokingly, "Time for Korra to record her album".

With some decorating, though, it would be okay for Bolin's new room. Well, except for the cage. Seven feet on each side of reinforced steel. Mako refused to tell them where he'd gotten it, but Korra did notice that whenever they walked past the window of the "exotic" sex shop on 67th, the owner would wink at him.

"Ugh…" Every part of her head began to ache, from the dull throb at the back of her skull to the sharp pain in her forehead. An incessant ringing began stabbing at her eardrums.

Mako helped her remove her clothes and folded them for the morning. With their history, there wasn't much need for modesty. Their lives were weird for plenty of reasons, and them being exes was the least weird of all. He took the leather straps, which funnily enough came with the cage, and bound her wrists together without batting an eye.

"We'll be all right," Korra said, noting Mako's sad expression. The boys hated her time of the month almost as much as she did. "You, me, and Bolin. We'll take care of each other no matter who else is here. That's all that matters."

"I know," he said. Korra went into her prison for the night and sat down hard. Her muscles were burning so painfully she could barely stand it anymore. All Mako could do was tie her legs, and then reinforce the leather bindings with chains that had also hilariously and conveniently come with the cage.

"I'm okay."

"I'm not." Mako attached the chains to the loops he'd installed into the cement floor.

Korra fell to her side, new chills wracking her body. Mako and Bolin used to try covering her with a blanket at this point, but the wolf always ripped it to shreds in seconds. Eventually, she managed to convince them not to bother. It was pointless, and kind of expensive.

"I never wanted you to have to see this." That was the main reason she'd broken up with him in the first place. It was the reason Korra broke up with everyone, really - previous boyfriends, family, and friends. This didn't have to be anyone's probl problem but hers.

Still, she was grateful every single day for Mako and Bolin.

"Well, you're stuck with us whether you like it or not." He put on a stern face, but she could see his worry. He got up and backed out of the cage, beginning the usual process of locking it.

"And we'll never leave you, either. No matter what," Korra assured him gently. "Thank you."

Bolin swept into the basement, laptop clutched in his hands. "You started without me!"

Her grin was really more just baring her clenched teeth. It was getting very close to the unimaginably painful part.

"Not the kind of thing I could hold in, Bo."

He set the laptop down and scooted over to sit on the floor by the cage. Even if Korra did try to attack him, it wasn't like she could hurt him. Mako had a chair by the stairs, so he could sit further away.

"You okay, Korra?"

"Yeah," she lied, curled in a fetal position. She looked at the clock. It was 7 in the evening. The sun didn't completely set until almost 9. They still had a long way to go. She could only hope this time she'd get lucky and pass out earlier.

"Large Master Bedroom W/ Attached Bath In Charming House," Bolin said through the bars. "The title for our ad."

"D-Don't forget to mention the sh-sh-shower/tub combo."

"You loved that tub," Mako said.

"Yeah, w-w-well, you have to share your b-b-bathroom with m-me now, buddy."

"Ugh, your hair gets everywhere!"

"Well, all y-your girly hair products take up so much space by the s-sink!" Korra countered. The cramping began. This was it.

"Sorry for being shiny and volumized!" Mako retorted, trying to keep the banter going. But they could see they were losing her.

"I'm gonna mention we have an extra spot in the driveway for another car," Bolin said, his voice strangled as spasms jerked Korra's muscles violently, her fingers clenched and eyes squeezed shut. Tears rolled down her cheeks and hit the floor as she started to gasp.

"That's a good idea," Mako said. "And make sure to say we're only a five minute walk to the bus line."

"Easy commute," Bolin agreed. At some point he had turned around. He could never stomach the sight of her transformation. He could barely even handle the sound - the cracks, the squishing, the scratching. He was staring at the laptop now, his fingers quaking as he typed. Any second now, Korra would start to scream, and that was the hardest part for him.

The change was beyond excruciating. It could take as long as three hours sometimes, during which Korra felt every bone break, every tendon and ligament stretch, and every organ tear apart and reform. Korra felt her heart stop and restart again, her lungs mutate, her intestines twist inside her gut. Fangs tore through her gums, thick fur erupted and spread like fire across her skin, a tail burst from her back like someone trying to rip out the bottom of her spine. She felt everything, as if there were hundreds of surgeons tearing her apart and sewing her back together for hours without anesthesia. She felt like she was going to die, and she begged the wolf for death, every single time.

Korra used to ask Mako and Bolin to leave her alone. They didn't need to stay and keep her company, and she didn't want them to hear her. It wasn't her anymore, anyway. There was a point where the girl they were trying to comfort was just gone, and only a wild animal remained.

They never budged.

"Quiet neighborhood," Mako continued. He reached into the crevice between the washing machine and dryer and pulled out his rifle, resting it on his lap. "Living room furnished with couch, TV, and coffee table. Remodelled kitchen with pots and pans…"

"And the best roommates ever," Bolin said, just as Korra's first tormented screams pierced through the basement, changing back and forth between cries of agony and howls of rage.

"And the best roommates ever," his brother echoed.

Author's Note

Obviously Legend of Korra and Being Human are copyrighted/trademarked/whatever by their respective owners and this work of fanfiction is purely for entertainment blah, blah, blah.