Title: And Fire in His Hands
Author: lucindasparks
Summary: Millions of years of evolution say that what he's about to do is against human nature, but he's just so desperate that he's dropping breadcrumbs everywhere, begging anyone, anyone to follow them, find him and bring him home.
Genre: Angst, drama, hurt/comfort
Rating: T
Author's Note: TW for suicide attempt. I got some of this prompt from the ficbending community at LJ. Also, I haven't seen the finale yet, so read with that in mind and please don't leave any spoilers. :) Please review, anonymous or not!

Tahno doesn't leave his house much, not anymore. But he leaves on days like this.

On most days, Tahno stays home and sleeps. When he does wake up, he stares out his window at the reconstruction of the pro-bending arena or, occasionally, eats. For a while, every time he fell asleep, he did so with the hope that he would wake up and find that the past weeks had been a horrible dream.

(The odds got lower and lower until eventually he stopped hoping for anything.)

If only the amount of sleep he was getting would make his under-eye circles disappear.

But days like this were different. These days, there was something worth caring about.

It isn't a far walk from Tahno's house to the arena. He's gained enough from pro-bending matches to own a nice apartment above a bookstore, but no Satomobile. He doesn't mind. Truthfully it's kind of nice to get out and get some fresh air, but he lives too close to the harbor for his comfort.

The ticketmasters wave him in without collecting his money; the Wolfbats were given free access to pro-bending matches as consolation for what Amon did to them. Tahno walks past the gawking spectators, ignoring a few requests for autographs and making his way to his normal seat.

The match begins, and Tahno doesn't watch. He does what he always used to do when he was in the audience, though he never really had to before.

Tahno closes his eyes.

There's such chaos that he can't hear the normal sounds, the ones he used to hear when he was involved in the match- rock hitting rock, fire and water being thrown. But when he closes his eyes, he can pretend.

He can imagine what he looks like right now, out here in the arena. Fire in his eyes and water in his hands.

The other team's firebender shoots flame at him, which he dodges easily, feeling that split second of white heat as it blows past him. Their earthbender sends discs of rock spinning towards him; Tahno steps aside effortlessly to avoid the first and back over to avoid the second, moving the way that Avatar learned to during her first match.

Time to retaliate. He takes the water in his hands, feeling it suspended between them rather than dripping through, as it would between the fingers of a nonbender (oh gods, that's what really hurts). He looks down and improves his posture a tad, watches the water swirl in his hands and sees his skin shine through. This observation occurs in less than a second, because he is a professional, after all- in the rest of that second he's shot the water hard at the offending earthbender, who is knocked back into zone two. He smirks. Amateurs.

Next is the firebender- all it takes is a stream of water to the face and he's knocked far enough out of his concentration that Ming can push him back to zone three with a stone disc to the chest. Tahno knows what both of those things feel like- the water like a fire hose trying to tear off his skin and the stone like being punched hard, the attacker attempting to make it through his sternum into his very heart. He hasn't felt these things in a while, of course, because Tahno doesn't let things like that happen to him anymore.

Finally, it's time to take down their waterbender. He knows the way to deal with other waterbenders is to know the water better than they do. And that isn't hard for Tahno, who has been in and around water his entire life. He knows it isn't all acrobatics and agility. There's definitely a spiritual element to bending, even if he isn't the Avatar.

(And that's what he misses most, that connection he's never experienced before or since he began perfecting his bending—that relationship strong as steel and ceaseless as the earth itself.)

Part of knowing the water is knowing its movements. Dodging and weaving between the streams of water, it only takes a few seconds' hosing (the foul will be ignored) and the waterbender stumbles back into zone two, knocking into the earthbender. The two of them hit the firebender and the three of them-

Splash, met with applause.

With that sound, he can practically feel himself falling, hitting water cold like ice, hard like cement-

(And for every dream he's had that he's bending again, he's had two in which he's falling, headfirst into unforgiving water that envelops him, holds him down. For every dream he's had of bending water, he's had two in which the water bends him.)

"And the Fire Ferrets win the match!" Slowly, Tahno opens his eyes. The people around him are all cheering, because sometimes it doesn't matter who wins, some people just come for the excitement of a pro-bending match. Tahno wishes he could say the same. To him, winning is everything. Everything- self-worth, accomplishment, confidence- lies in that first-place title. And it hurts that he'll never have that again. It hurts, infinitely, that without his bending… well, what is he?

He stands and brushes past the celebrating spectators, leaving the stadium.

Most people know nothing about this Tahno, the one who leaves alone and goes home and eats and sleeps and lives alone. At least none of his fans know it. His teammates know him a bit better. They understand that although he's Tahno, the big-time pro-bending star who lives in luxury and has a new girl to sleep with every night, he's still Tahno, the teammate they used to have to drag out of bed for practice the morning after a lost match.

He's done all this before. Ming and Shaozu have known him since he was a twangy-voiced Foggy Swamp kid new to the city, so they know all about this. They've been there through the "focus on the positives", through the "maybe you should talk to someone" and put up with his smartass answers and hurtful, frustrated remarks. Not only after lost matches, but often for no reason at all. It was something he hid, so it wasn't like they got any credit for it. He's never really tried to thank them at all. He regrets that now, so much.

His teammates aren't doing so hot either, he remembers. He hasn't spoken to Ming since he'd handed in his green belt, and no one's seen or heard from Shaozu in days.

Before he knows it, he's walking in the opposite direction of his apartment. He doesn't turn around, but instead, stops at the bridge to Air Temple Island.

He stares down at the gentle harbor's waves, leaning against the railing. Without thinking, his foot slips between the bars and rests on the bottom rung. His other foot follows, and he swiftly pulls himself up over the barrier, gripping the metal behind him and standing twenty feet above the water and mere centimeters from the edge. He feels dizzy. Carefully, he sits on the ledge and doesn't think about how he's going to get back up.

It would be so, so easy to just finish it now, like he'd always imagined. Nothing would ever be right again for him, so why not make it so he couldn't hurt again either?

The tears itch on his face as the breeze blows them dry, and he doesn't dare take his hands off the railing behind him. Millions of years of evolution say that what he's about to do is against human nature, but he's just so desperate that he's dropping breadcrumbs, begging anyone, anyone to follow them, find him and bring him home.

"Tahno?"

He spends one second being surprised, then two more swiping the sorrow off his face with his sleeve and shaking his mask back on.

"Tahno, is that you? What are you doing here?" Korra's airbending training is probably what allows her to walk so silently.

"Does it matter?" he says, because he has no better response. It seems Amon took most of his snark as well.

"Well… yeah. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

In his peripheral vision, he sees Korra shifting her weight from her right foot to her left. "Listen, Tahno, I'm really so—"

"Please stop saying you're sorry." And just like that, he cuts her down.

"Okay, I'm— okay."

An inevitable uncomfortable silence. She steps forward and grips the railing next to him. She drums her fingers on the wrought-iron and he feels it in his hands. "Were you at the match?"

"Yeah." As an afterthought, he adds, "Good job out there."

"Thanks!" She laughs a little, rubbing the back of her head. "I thought their earthbender was gonna kill me in that second round."

He nods, because it would be rude to admit that he has no idea what she's talking about, that he didn't so much as glance at the real match the entire time.

She stops her self-conscious giggling and sighs. "So… what are you doing here?"

He doesn't really know himself. There was always that one option, that everpresent plan in the back of his head, but that wasn't something he could tell her, was it? "Nothing." Very eloquent and articulate, Tahno, he thinks.

"…Okay." She seems to have taken the hint not to push the issue, but not the hint that she should be leaving him alone. "Well, how have you been doing? Since, I mean…" She trails off, and her awkwardness is palpable.

"I'm… okay." For some reason, he doesn't get the urge to completely lie to her. "Like I said, it's permanent."

"I can't even imagine." He can almost hear her rooting around in her head for something to say. "I… I'd be nothing without my bending. You're so strong for holding up like this."

He can't help it. He laughs. He closes his eyes and laughs, loud and almost hysterical, and the soreness in his throat grows and suddenly there's tears and when the fuck did he start crying again?

"Oh— oh my… okay, Tahno? I'm sorry," she says desperately, forgetting his request. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to… I don't know. I…" She's standing there, her hands off the railing now while his are gripping it like if he doesn't he'll throw himself over involuntarily (and he knows he will). He can tell she doesn't know what to do, and he knows he has no clue either. But since she's here, and she's listening, he decides he'll take advantage of that. Maybe the Avatar, the supposed center of spirituality, would have something useful to say.

"I just don't know anymore," he says between sobs. "I keep coming here and just staring at the water and- and I always knew if I did it, it'd involve water, but now I can't bend and it just hurts," he cries. "It hurts so much."

He can't see her expression, and maybe that's for the best. "Tahno, I don't know what you're talking about."

"I'm not strong, Korra," he whispers, and he's forgotten the mask and everything he's supposed to be. "I'm not strong anymore."

"Of course you are, Tahno," she murmurs. "I— I mean, you don't need to be a bender to be strong. Like… just look at history. Sokka, all he had was a boomerang. And he turned out to be just as strong as anyone else. He helped defeat Fire Lord Ozai without any skill in bending. That's what I think is strong, taking a situation where you don't have an advantage and making it work really well."

Tahno is really just working on pulling himself together, and her words are like wind against stone. A factor in eroding his (empty) shell, but it takes a while.

"And… with disadvantages… think about Toph Beifong! She was blind, and nobody thought she'd be able to bend properly because of it? And she took her disadvantage and turned it into such an advantage, she became one of the greatest earthbenders the world had ever seen. Do you understand what I'm saying, Tahno?" she begs.

"Why do you care?" he whispers. Every time she prompts him to talk again, he gets a little closer to hysterics. She's so spot on and he knows she's right but she can't be because she doesn't fucking get it.

She steps forward, touching his white knuckles gently. He feels a flash of terror as he almost lets go, and that elicits more tears. He wants to do this. He doesn't want to do this.

"You don't want to do this, Tahno," she says.

"Do what," he snaps.

"Come on. I'll help you up."

"What are you—" And she's leaned over the railing, grabbed him under the arms and yanked him back over, and he's so scared of falling that he doesn't hang on.

She rests him on the ground, and by that time he's achy from being dragged over the metal and also sobbing like a fucking infant. She doesn't seem to mind. Korra kneels next to him and hugs him with this comforting embrace he hasn't experienced since he was a kid. He's hugged plenty of girls- he's gone way beyond that with a good amount as well- but there's something about her smell, soap and girl sweat, and the strength of her hold on him that intrigues him. That leaves him craving more.

When she pulls from the genuine embrace, she looks him in the eyes and he's never felt a weirder combination of weakness, confusion and misery. "Tahno, can you promise me you won't do anything bad to yourself in the next couple days?"

He coughs, attempting to mask a sob and failing. "Yeah."

"Okay. I'm gonna go home now because Tenzin is expecting me, but you're going to meet me in the locker room after Friday's match and we'll go out and… we'll figure something out. I'm not going to leave you all alone. Can you promise me you'll call Ming or Shaozu when you're by yourself, if you feel like doing something bad?"

Tahno wipes his nose with his sleeve and takes a deep breath. "Yeah. I will."

"Alright, good." Korra hugs him one more time and grabs his hand, pulling him up. He can imagine what he looks like right now, so the opposite of how he is in the arena, this time with water in his eyes and- he feels her dry palms slide against his- fire in his hands. "I gotta go, but please stay safe and meet me on Friday, okay? I'd really like to see you."

He nods. "I will." Those two words come out anything but strong. Whispered and watery, but she smiles that smile of hers and he feels something like regret and comfort. Something like cover in the rain and warmth in the winter. Something that, for the first time in a long time, doesn't hurt. "I will."