A/N: Its been hours since the lok finale and I can't sleep, this little one shot is my attempt at reconciling the ending.
Do not go beyond this point unless you've seen the finale/ want to be spoiled
There are times when all I can do is lie in bed and not sleep. Tonight was one of those times. Sleep eluded me while my thoughts raced in my brain.
When I close my eyes all I can see is fire. When I open my eyes I'm left thinking about how fire feels. How good a warm blaze could feel on your skin on a cold night, and how much it can hurt when it burned, and how delicate of a balance that was.
Sometimes the sun can be grueling. The sun can be so intense that it itches at my skin or it can be so soft that I can feel it filling up my lungs.
As the avatar I had a strange relationship with the sun. As the moon wanes I can feel my power ebb and when dawn comes I am invigorated again.
Fire is life, it is destruction. It is rebirth, it is annihilation.
When I look at Mako I always feel fire inside me.
Sometimes its rage. He can make me angrier than anyone I know and when he does all I feel is fire in my lungs. My words come out hot, I want to burn him.
Other times it's not that at all. Once it was just warmth, like the flames in my lungs were extinguished and all that was left were the embers and they heated my heart and spread into my extremities. The warmth filled my head and made me dizzy and delirious and it felt good and terrible all at once. Love made me warm in a way rage did not, but the passion was the same.
Then came a whole different kind of fire, something in between flames and warmth. When his gaze lingered on me for half a second too long I would feel fire between my legs. I felt it on my mouth when we kissed. The same kind of explosion that powered satomobiles existed inside me and created a sense of urgency that only fire could. Fireworks shot up my spine when his mouth was at my neck. And when we were alone together the flames engulfed us both until we were ash. Once the flames died out our bodies laid in heaps of cinders and we dissipated into smoke. We were gases seeking to fill the void until we were both limitless.
When I saw what happened to his arm after Kuvira's attack… When the doctors said he could have lost his arm in the explosion… When I'd heard about what he'd done for me, for the city… I felt hot and sick and like I wanted to cry. It wasn't until he told me that he would be okay and that his arm would recover and he would be whole again did that horrible anxiety go away. It was so different from rage or passion or love or lust. It was awful and painful and made me violent and frantic.
Looking into his eyes bright golden eyes while he told me that he would follow me into battle I saw all the sincerity that could only come from fire. There was no duplicity in fire, fire can't lie or pretend, fire just is. His plaintive declaration simply was truth in the barest way he could give it.
He burned. I burned. We burned together and sometimes for each other.
All of these thoughts filled my head all at once and it was hard to breath around them. Sleep was going to be impossible tonight.
I crawled out of bed and snuck out the window. I walked along the shore of Air Temple Island and saw a figure sitting in the distance. I walked up to Mako and sat down next to him. We watched the horizon as it was tinged with the purple rays of dawn. Being together in silence like this felt good, like hot chocolate on a cold night.
"So I talked to Asami." He said breaking the silence.
"Yeah?" I responded not looking at him. I didn't know where this conversation was going, but the pleasant warmth was gone. I was hot again. It was different from the fear I felt before but it was just as uncomfortable. This kind of heat made me feel sick, it burned in a way that left tears in my eyes.
"She said you two were going to the spirit world together."
I couldn't respond, there was nothing to say.
He didn't ask if he could come. He didn't tell me not to go, but I could hear it ringing in my ears. I closed my eyes and blocked it out. I was making things up, he wasn't saying that. He wasn't even looking at me. God he wasn't even looking at me. Water burned behind my eyelids when I felt his hand cover my own.
He squeezed tightly. I opened my eyes and looked down at where our hands met, I looked up at him and he gave me a small smile, "I'll be here waiting for you to come back. Always."
Always. He'd said that to me before and me to him. I meant it then and I mean it now. I love him, always, he is as constant to me as the sun. But now it isn't just him.
Tears flowed freely down my eyes, I nodded, "Yeah Mako always."
I saw a quick flash of pain on his face before he turned to face the horizon. I laid my head on his shoulder and we stayed like that until morning came.