Joining the Agni Kais had been his downfall, Xin knew. But he wouldn't have had it any other way. Part of The Other Side of Me 'verse.
Well, I did say that I was going to write that oneshot about Xin and Liao and their escapades in the Agni Kais, didn't I? :) To anyone who doesn't know, this story takes place in The Other Side of Me 'verse, so please read that first to get a better understanding of the characters, okay?
Hope you enjoy! :)
Disclaimer: I do not own The Legend of Korra, or any of its trademarked characters. I do, however, own Xin, Liao, Gainika, and all of my other OC's.
The Weighted Life by boasamishipper
He peeks around the corner of the hallway, giving him a clear view of the living room, where his mother sits on the lumpy couch and folds laundry into meticulous piles, Daddy's on one side, his on the other. The light streams through the dusty windows, illuminating the grease stains on the beige rug. Poppa won't like that, he thinks. I'll help Momma clean it later. He takes a step closer, entering the room.
"Momma?" he asks, his voice a whisper and trembling slightly. He doesn't want to wake up Poppa, because things get bad when Poppa wakes up. He'd been partying with his Uncle Feng and Uncle Jiao (who aren't really his uncles, but they're close friends of his Poppa from way, way back) until late last night. He'd trembled under his covers in his room, making sure that the door was locked as slurred voices downstairs asked Momma (and not very politely either) to "Damnit, bring me a beer, you stupid bitch!" He doesn't know what a bitch is, but judging by Momma's sobs from downstairs, it can't be too good.
His mother startles, dropping the two socks that she was folding back into the hamper. "Bao bei, you scared me!" she says, her hand over her heart. She pushes her glasses up on the bridge of her nose, and he notices a smudge of dirt on her cheek. She moves the laundry to the side and pats the couch cushion in an invitation to sit down, which he does. "What's wrong, darling? Are you hungry? I can warm up the jook we ate last night…"
"No, Momma," he replies, fiddling with the collar of his shirt. He doesn't want to meet her eyes. "I…I have a question."
"A question?" she asks, like it's the most astounding thing in the world. Her eyebrows lift about an inch and her eyes widen. She seems interested, and now he really doesn't want to ask it. "What is it, my baby? Ask me anything you want."
"Momma…" he pauses, steeling himself. You're not going to get another opportunity, he thinks, and gets ready to ask the question. "What's a—what's a b-bastard?"
His mother gasps, her hands flying to her mouth. "Where…" she swallows. "Where did you hear that, bao bei?"
"Some teachers at school," he mumbles. "And Uncle Feng and Uncle Jiao call me that too. It's not a nice word, is it?"
Her eyes fill with tears. "No, darling." She takes a deep breath in and out through her nose, and finally puts the laundry aside. She places both hands on his shoulders and stares directly into his eyes. "Listen to me carefully, bao bei. 'Bastard' is a mean, mean word, and I will deal with whoever calls you it personally."
He nods. "But…but why do I got blue eyes, and can firebend t-too?" This is where all the problems started, and it's why all adults that his momma and poppa know stare at him funny. It's where he heard 'bastard' for the first time in his life, actually.
She smiles, and this kind of smile he knows very well—it's the kind of smile that she has when she's about to cry. He knows it like he knows his own name, but it still makes him feel horrible on the inside. "Darling," she says, "you inherited your blue eyes from me, because my family is from the Northern Water Tribe. You got your firebending from your father, because he's a firebender. I don't ever want you to be ashamed of what you are. You're my baby, and that's all that matters to me."
His mother starts putting the laundry back in the hamper, now completely folded and creased to perfection. Poppa will be happy. The thought brings a smile to his face, because in their lives, they need to make Poppa happy. "Xin," she begins, "your name means 'new' in the old language. When I first held you in my arms, I knew that you were going to be special. You're going to do big things someday. I know it."
Momma sounds so assured and confident that Xin believes her.
The words are firmly imprinted in his mind for the rest of his life.
(*) (*)
Xin is thirteen when his mother bucks up her strength, packs what little they own into boxes, and leaves with him to Republic City. He loves her for it, and buys her gifts for a whole entire week, depleting his whole allowance.
She gets a job working as a maid in a cheap hotel that pays a decent amount every month, practices reading and writing with him for hours and hours every night, and has enough money saved in their bank account for both of them to splurge on nice things—clothes, bags of fire flakes on their birthdays, sea prunes for special occasions, etcetera.
He even gets to go to school, a real school, not like the one back in the Fire Nation with the horrible teachers and bad students where you get beaten if your shirt is untucked. He's not the best student, but he's respected. The teachers like him.
There are no whispers of 'bastard' here.
One day, there's a new girl in his class, with pretty, long dark hair and grey eyes that remind him of a thunderstorm and are just as fierce. She wears long sleeves, even when the temperature outside feels like death warming over, and she smears her face with pale foundation and bright blue eyeliner and dark lipstick, making her look like a clown.
The other kids tease her, but he feels connected to her, for an unknown reason. She speaks quietly, and never puts up her hand to answer questions. The teacher calls on her a lot, though, and her answers are almost always correct.
He likes her.
At recess he sits next to her on the dusty ground, watching the other kids in the school play a rough, violent game of kuai ball. Shouts of expletives fill the air as the teachers blow whistles and wrestle kids off the field.
No one pays attention to them.
"What's your dad like?" she asks out of the blue, filling her hand with dirt and clumping it into a pile next to her. "Is he nice?"
He's taken aback by the question and draws nonsensical patterns in the dirt, plucking blades of grass from the ground and makes the letters for his name. The design looks weird, but he likes it. "I don't have a dad," he answers. "We left him in Capital City."
"Oh." The girl nods. "My poppa beats me up," she informs him, her voice shaking. Her head whips back and forth, like she's afraid someone will hear. "Mom says that it's all okay, though. He loves us, but it's…" she pauses for a second, looking like she's trying to think of the right word. "Unconventional," she decides. "What's your name?"
"Xin. It means 'new' in the old language." He can't help but introduce himself this way, even after all these years. "What's your name?"
"Yuki." She clams up after that, hugging her knees to her chest. Silent tears stream down her face and her makeup smudges, revealing a puffy black eye. For some reason, he puts a hand on her shoulder, making her look up.
He leans forward on an impulse and kisses her on the lips, pulling away quickly.
Yuki gasps and slaps him across the face, but she's smiling as she skips off across the yard and back into the building along with the other boys and girls, who are still arguing about their stupid kuai ball match.
He has a grin on his face for the rest of the day.
(*) (*)
Yuki doesn't show up for school the next day, or even the next week. Her death is ruled as an accident in the papers—she'd apparently fallen down the stairs and cracked her head open.
He's the only one from school who goes to her funeral.
He's the only one who doesn't cry.
(*) (*)
One afternoon when he's sixteen years old, Xin opens the door to his mom's bedroom, ready to tell her all about his day. The essay that he'd worked all night on is crumpled in his fist, a 98% scrawled in the upper right-hand corner. The door creaks open, and just as he's about to speak, he hears a voice that he's been dreading for the past six years.
"You stupid bitch, how long did you think that you could hide from me?"
His breath freezes in his lungs as he hears his mother respond in the shakiest voice he's ever heard, "…I…I'm s-sorry. B-but...we h-had to leave you. Y-you could handle your—yourself, Karu…"
"You could handle yourself, Karu," he repeats in a high-pitched, sing-song voice that sounds nothing like Xin's mother. Xin peeks around the door, and sees his father, exactly how he remembered him—tall, balding, bloodshot eyes and smelling like a dead badgermole. "I couldn't handle myself, YinLi, don't kid yourself. You know you couldn't live without me either." He presses a kiss to her lips, rough and fierce while Xin trembles with rage.
Then his father smirks, looking demented, and his hand lights on fire.
Xin knows what will happen a second before it does, but knowing isn't stopping as his father presses his fist full of flames to his mother's throat, stopping her life in the blink of an eye. He cackles darkly, throwing Xin's mother onto the grimy cot that they'd gotten at a garage sale, and begins to tear off her clothing.
Tears stream down his face as Xin runs away, his 98% essay lying crumpled and forgotten on the landing as he fills a bag with as much food as he can find and a long-sleeved jacket, because it's getting cold outside and his mom would want him to stay warm.
He finds an empty refrigerator box lying abandoned in an adjacent alleyway and huddles in it, wrapping himself in his jacket and shivering despite the small fire he built in an empty trash can next to him. A badgermole slinks out of the shadows and rests near the fire.
"Mom," he whispers, and a tear trickles down his cheek. "Oh, Spirits, Mom, I'm sorry…I—I should've been there for you…"
"You're going to do big things someday. I know it."
Xin grits his teeth together and clenches his fist, vowing to get revenge for his beloved mother's death, because he'd rather die than have his father run off unpunished.
You'll get what's coming to you, Poppa. I suggest you watch your step, because one day I'm going to put a bullet in your back.
(*) (*)
Finding his father isn't hard—he asks around different taverns and hotels, asking if there's a Karu registered in the logbooks. He remembers that his father once worked in a power plant, so he asks at the local one, holding up a photograph that he'd found in his mother's wallet of his mother's murderer.
"Karu, eh?" one older man inquires in a scratchy voice, scratching the back of his head as he squints at the photograph. "I think I've seen him around here—yes, most definitely. He came around here and asked me for a job. I refused, though—his lightning-bending ain't up to par, you understand, right?"
Xin nods like he knows exactly what the old man was talking about. He shoves his hands in his pockets and tilts his head to the side. "He's my uncle," he lies with a huge, fake smile etched on his face. "He's visiting up from Omashu, except I dunno where he's staying. Thought I'd buy him a birthday present, take him out for lunch or something."
The old man studies him carefully. Xin makes sure to keep his smile up on his face, knowing that if his plan succeeds he'll be the luckiest man in the world. His mom would be proud of him.
"I shouldn't be tellin' you this, kid, but I think your uncle's holed up at the hotel on the corner of Seventh and Tenth Avenue," says the old man. "Room…four fourteen, maybe? It's somewhere in that range."
"Is it a big hotel?" Xin asks, his mind racing to formulate a strategy with this newfound information. "Like, say, the Republic City Hotel?" That's the biggest one he knows—if the hotel is that big he would probably need to reconsider some variables in his plan.
He chuckles. "Spirits, no, kid. It's a small tenement house. Last I heard only junkies and hookers were holed up in there—no offense to your uncle, of course—"
"No offense taken," Xin replies, because really, did it matter? He'd found out the information. This is going to be great, he thinks, beaming at the old man and thanking him several times before he exits the building, trying not to skip down the street.
This was going to be great.
(*) (*)
The hotel on Seventh and Tenth that the old man had told him about was a small brick house the size of a five car garage, with grimy windows and faded paint on the door and a sign in the front yard with flickering lights spelling the name of the hotel, Rhyolite's, in large letters. The place reeked of drugs and stale cactus juice, and several women in short, tight skirts skulked around the driveway, offering their services to anything that moved.
It was dirty and disgusting, just like his father.
At around nine o'clock, Xin sneaks out to the back of Rhyolite's and sits on the grass, not caring if he gets the back of his trousers wet. He shrugs off his duffle bag and pours the contents of it onto the ground. He takes the bottle of cactus juice out and turns it upside down until a few drops remain on the inside and glisten in the moonlight. Looking both ways, he pours a container of oil into the bottle, filling it up to the neck. Tying the rag around the neck of the bottle and taping it shut, he beams at his creation. Poppa likes to drink, Xin thinks with some satisfaction. I wonder just how much he'll enjoy a Molotov cocktail.
Lighting it on fire, he throws the concoction with every bit of strength that he has through the window of the hotel, and jumps to his feet, hearing drunken curses and screams as the fire rips through the room. Xin grins as he pours the rest of the motor oil around the decrepit hotel, and, with a flick of his wrist, the slick oil is aflame with large, crackling orange flames.
He runs away just as the first of the sirens echo in the distance and alarmed passerby fill the streets. It's better to keep a low profile, after all.
RCPD never finds out who did it, and the four scorched and blackened corpses get carted off to separate morgues.
Xin doesn't come to claim Karu, and neither does anyone else.
(The old man that had helped him find his father gets a card in the mail a week later, with a simple thank you as the inscription.)
(*) (*)
"Maia, baby, good to see you!" Xin grins, pressing a chaste kiss on the cheek of the short redheaded girl that he'd been seeing for the last two days. She was his ticket into the more upper class bars, having been the only daughter of Wong Kuji, the entrepreneur who made a million yuans look like pocket change. Not much to look at, but Xin had been getting desperate for shelter—especially with the cold winter ahead of them. "Where we going tonight, dollface?"
She taps a finger against her lips, trying to look sexy and failing—at least to him. It could've worked on anyone else, someone with lower standards. "I'm thinking Asoka's?"
Xin tries not to grimace. He hated that bar—simply because a lot of gang members hung out there, and it wasn't exactly a nice place. Plus the snacks they served tasted like toasted tigerdillo shit. But what could he do? He was only twenty years old, technically not old enough to drink yet, and orphaned. It wasn't as if he had anything else he could do but have one night stands with rich Daddy's girls' looking for a good time in the wrong places. "Sure thing, babygirl," he says with an easy grin.
Once they arrive, Maia squeals at the bar like she's seeing an old friend. "Oh, Xin, it's so fun coming out with you," she says in a sultry voice. Most likely she'd been practicing that voice in the mirror of her penthouse suite. Besides, the words are nothing he hasn't heard before. "Wanna go back to my house afterward?"
He does, oh yes, but not for the reasons that she's thinking of. "Wouldn't miss it for the world," he replies, "but we may have to sneak around your dad—don't want him to know that I'm at home with his seventeen year old daughter."
"He won't care; he's out on business with Mom. The only one around is Farrah, but she won't tell if she knows what's good for her."
Xin beams. Great. Not only does he have a place to stay for tonight, but he can avoid the conversations from Mr. Kuji about being his princess's punk hobo boyfriend. This just keeps getting better and better. "Why don't you grab us a few drinks, Maia, and I'll be inside in a few minutes."
Maia leaves him, and for a few moments everything was quiet. He lights up a cigarette and exhales slowly, watching the smoke drift out on the breeze. He looks up at the stars, wondering when the last time he'd actually had a chance to see them was.
"You're going to do big things someday. I know it."
Somehow, he doubts that this is what his mother had had in mind for him.
Suddenly, his arm is twisted roughly behind his back as he's slammed into the wall, knocking the breath out of his lungs. He elbows whoever had dared to touch him with as much strength as he had and runs away as fast as he can.
Xin doesn't look where he's going as he slams into a man, feeling like he'd run into the side of a mountain. He lands on his ass with a hard thump, and the two who had been chasing him roll him over onto his stomach and tightly bind his hands behind his back. They jerk him to his feet and blindfold him, stuff a rag into his mouth and shove him forward.
"The fuck are you doing?" he asks indignantly, but his words come out muffled through the gag in his mouth.
The message that he's trying to convey manages to register to the two goons. "Someone wants to have a chat with you, Xin," the taller one says in a deep, low voice. He wonders if the hulk practices it in front of a mirror just like Maia practices her sultry voice.
He's too panicked to ask why they know his name. Are they RCPD? Triple Threat Triads? Red Monsoons? He doesn't know, and can't ask. What if they had been friends with his father? What if they wanted to nail him for Karu's death?
Momma, help me, I'm scared…dear Spirits, someone help me…
The car ride is terrible—bound, blindfolded and gagged is no way to travel, and Xin doesn't wish his fate on anyone. He hasn't ridden in a car since he was sixteen, and hates the fact that his first memory of driving in a Satomobile since then is when he's being kidnapped.
The goons shove him into a chair while he tries to breathe normally, keeping his expression nonchalant while his hands tremble at his side. He's pretty sure that his shirt is torn, which sucks, because that had been his last good shirt. I swear I'm gonna kill these suckers…they better buy me a new shirt, Spirits damnit…
His gag is taken out of his mouth and his blindfold is ripped off, and he sees a young woman standing in front of him, probably a few years older. She has light amber eyes (firebender, he immediately knows), dark brown hair in a loose braid down her back, and wears a blue jacket with a red trim over a black tank top, khakis and laced combat boots. She's pretty, sure, but not his type—there's a psychotic gleam in her eyes that makes him understandably nervous.
Not to mention the heater holstered in her pocket.
"Who are you?" he asks, his voice hoarse. His brows furrow together in both curiosity and apphrension.
"Gainika." Her teeth are pearl-white and straight. He flinches, because as a rule of caution he can't trust anyone with perfect teeth. Cops, for example, had good teeth. So had his father.
"And…is that your real name?" he hazards, because it sure as hell sounds fake to him.
She snickers. "No."
Alright, sure. He'll buy that. "Alright, Gainika. That doesn't answer my question. Who are you?"
"I'm the Section Leader of the Kasai Mage Makumei." She rolls her eyes at his look of bewilderment. Kasai with the what now? "You may know us by our more popular name—the Agni Kais."
If Xin had had anything in his mouth, he would've done a spit take. How in the world was this broad, who looked barely old enough to drink, the freaking Section Leader of the Agni Kais? "Are you shitting me?" he asks, immediately wishing he could take back his statement. Damn, did I just dig myself further into my grave or what?
Her lips quirk upward into a half smile. "I assure you, Mr. Xin, I am not 'shitting with you'." She makes air quotes around the last three words, and his cheeks flush with embarrassment. "You're a very hard man to find, you know."
He's not sure what to make of that statement. "Um. Thanks?"
She slaps a photograph onto the table between them, and his stomach roils. It's a picture of him holding a Molotov cocktail from when he'd burned down Rhyolite's. Oh, sweet Spirits, I'm fucked… "This is you, isn't it? My Recruits went to a lot of trouble to find this picture—I'd hate for it to somehow be of your identical twin brother…"
"It's me," he mutters. "Am I going to get arrested now? Are you going to turn me in?"
To his surprise, she chuckles. "That depends."
"On what?"
"On whether or not you would like to be arrested and handed over to the RCPD."
Xin can't help himself—he outright laughs in her face. "Lady, have you ever been arrested before? It's not a Sunday picnic, let me tell you."
"I think you'll find that your rap sheet, even with the murder of the three men and one woman at Rhyolite's added to it, will look like a grocery list compared to mine." She grins at him, and his insides feel like they've been strapped to a booster rocket. "Don't underestimate me."
"Yes ma'am."
"So, Xin, I have an offer for you." Her fingers tap a lazy pattern on her arms, and he can't help but notice just how long her fingernails are. "Either I hand you over to the police right here and now, or…" Gainika draws out the word until impatience threatens to choke him, but he holds his tongue. "Or you join me and my Recruits."
His jaw nearly drops to the floor. "Ex—excuse me?" he stammers.
"Did I stutter?" Her voice is smooth and calm. The chances of her stuttering at all are probably nil. "I said I want you to join the Agni Kais. You're a good firebender, a good strategist. We could use someone like you."
This seems too easy to him. "And exactly what does this—joining the Agni Kais, I mean—entail?"
"You get a warm bed at night, a roof over your head…" she pauses. "Not to mention good food, training sessions, and protection from the Triple Threats and Red Monsoons."
It sounds too good be true, and he almost tells Gainika no. But really, what else does he have to go back to? To girls like Maia and one night stands and a life on the streets? To not having enough food at night and having the cops after him? Sure, he'll have the cops after him for bigger reasons if he joins the Agni Kais…
What choice does he have?
"Okay," he finally says, looking at Gainika. "Okay, Gainika. I'll join you."
Her grin is feral as she shakes his hand with a firm grip. "I think this will be the beginning of a beautiful friendship, Xin," she says.
Somehow, he doubts it.
(*) (*)
Xin's a good Recruit, and is surprised by the fact that being in a street gang suits him so well. He's not sure what that says about him, and is pretty sure that he doesn't want to know. He quickly rises in the ranks of Agni Kais as the years go on, lasting longer and longer in the training sessions. Gainika sends him to obscure locations to fetch even more obscure items from people who owe the gang money, and he appreciates it, because he knows when Gainika sends him places, he won't get hurt.
He's needed, and he likes that he's needed.
It's definitely an interesting feeling.
Xin works solo on missions, refusing the notion of working with a partner because he doesn't want to have someone rely on him. At least if he gets hurt—which rarely ever happens—he has no one to blame but himself, but if someone else got hurt because of him? The guilt would probably end up killing him.
He's made this abundantly clear to Gainika and the CIDs at training sessions, so it's a surprise when he gets called into his Section Leader's office a few months before his twenty-fourth birthday. Gainika is waiting for him in there, her feet kicked up on her desk as she nurses a bottle of whiskey.
Standing next to her in a crisply tailored uniform is a young man with short black hair, amber eyes, and a turned up nose.
His brows furrow. "Section Leader," he says politely. "Who is this?"
"Recruit Xin," she says with an authoritative tone to her voice, "I'd like you to meet Recruit Yangzi. He's going to be your partner."
"…you're kidding, right?" This kid doesn't even look like he's graduated high school yet. The last thing he needs is some wet-behind-the-ears Recruit following him wherever he goes. "I don't need a partner, Ga—Section Leader."
"That's not what I think," Gainika responds. "I think that you need a partner for two reasons. One, because you need someone to watch your back and to keep you calm during missions."
He doesn't want to ask because he already knows the answer, but he opens his big fat mouth anyways. "What's the second reason?"
She slams the bottle on the table. "Because I said so."
(Yangzi dies a week later. It comes as absolutely no surprise to anyone that Xin doesn't request a new partner after his demise.)
(*) (*)
Amon's Equalist Revolution comes and goes. Half the Agni Kais lose their bending. On Gainika's orders, half the Recruits escape to Omashu and hide out there until further orders.
Gainika loses her bending too, although he's not supposed to know this.
It's hell for them all for here on out.
(*) (*)
They begin working with the Triple Threat Triads immediately after the Harmonic Convergence, spying on a kid who faked his death in Republic City and moved to Ba Sing Se under a fake name to go to community college.
The rumors of Gainika and Zolt sleeping together circulate around the compound faster than the black plague.
Gainika's not sterile, but she's careful, so the chances of her and Zolt making a baby are next to nothing.
(Xin had bet fifty yuans on the matter, so he's hoping that he's correct.)
(*) (*)
Four months after his twenty-sixth birthday, a new wave of Recruits fresh out of training come to the compound, eager to please Gainika and the Combat Instruction Directors. Xin, when he's supposed to be on an ordered shore leave, spends his time in the Arena—or the Hellhole, as Recruit Chan calls it—and watches the new Recruits. Only a few have decided to stick around the compound, while the others have been transferred (or killed in especially hard-core TS's).
Jiktun, one of the new Recruits, is uptight, unbearably so. He's a fucking genius on the side, with a perfectly tucked-in uniform and says kind things to everyone, although he can tell a dirty joke like nobody's business. As a gag, Xin recommends him to Chan as a partner, and the boulder of a man actually hits things off with the nerdy Recruit, resulting in their partnership being firmly cemented in a week.
That alone was an oxymoron if there ever was one.
Xin can't figure out Recruit Liao, though. He's an enigma wrapped in a cryptogram wrapped in a cypher, and it frustrates the hell out of him that he can't figure the kid out. He's moody most of the time during training, but laughs with other Recruits about trivial nonsense. He's melodramatic over paper cuts but doesn't whine during five mile sprints. He looks like death warmed over in the mornings and flirts with anything that moves—a true dace of the first degree.
And yet, Liao interests him. Liao makes him think.
Xin doesn't regret anything when he marches down to Gainika's office and asks her for Liao to be his partner.
"Why now?" she asks simply, ready to sign the paperwork.
His voice is dry as he responds. "You always wanted me to have a partner, and now that I want one, you ask me questions?"
"Touché."
"He interests me," he admits.
Gainika signs the paper with a flourish and laughs. "Well, Recruit Xin, I hope he interests you for a long, long time."
(And Liao does.)
(*) (*)
Xin races into the warehouse, his heater drawn, because if Jiktun's intel is correct, then their mission will have been shot to hell in a handbasket, and will end with Liao getting riddled with bullets.
That, of course, is unacceptable.
The fight takes less than a minute—bullets fly through the air, and he empties his clip into a man that's holding a knife to his partner's throat.
Then, silence.
He's on his knees next to Liao in less than a second, pressing onto a gaping wound in the kid's stomach and wincing at the feel of the blood soaking through the knees of his pants. "Hey," he says, shaking him fervently. "Wake up, buddy. Wake up, okay?"
Liao grunts, opening his eyes and stares at Xin like he can't quite believe what he's seeing. "…Xin?"
"You better believe it, buster. Come on, I'm gonna get you out of here. Chan's waiting around back with Doc and the meddies."
"Arkani…and the guys…"
"Riddled with bullets. Can you stand?" His voice is calm. He'd already eliminated one threat, now he had to eliminate the other one and get Liao to safety.
Liao inhales sharply. "I…I dunno, Xin."
Xin curses violently and puts even more pressure on the wound as Chan and the others race in, wrapping up the wound with precision and picking up Liao onto a gurney.
The meddies get the bullet out of his stomach with remarkable ease, as Doc says, but that doesn't stop Xin from throwing up at the sight of his partner's stomach ripped open and the monitors wailing.
He sits at Liao's bedside, holding his hand and not feeling ashamed in the slightest of showing emotion. "Too close, partner," he mutters under his breath. "Too close."
And he vows not to ever let it be that close again.
(*) (*)
Xin raises his eyebrows at his partner, who leans nonchalantly on the doorframe. "Is this your idea of a joke, Liao?" he inquires, trying really, really hard not to start laughing.
Liao shrugs, and the other Recruits are silent as they surround the chocolate birthday cake. "It could be," he responds evenly, "but then I'd have to eat this cake—this delicious cake, in your favorite flavor—all by my lonesome…" He flutters his eyelashes and pretends to swoon, and Xin loses it.
"O-okay, partner," Xin finally says, wiping a tear of mirth from his eyes and grinning widely. "You're a dork, but you brought cake. I guess that cancels everything out."
Liao throws an arm around his shoulders, and it feels like the most natural thing in the world. "Happy twenty-eighth birthday, Xin."
And it's the best birthday he's ever had, even if he's smart enough not to admit it.
(*) (*)
The kid—Bolin, he thinks his name is—is brought to the compound kicking and screaming expletives at Gainika.
A month later, Satoshi Daichi, some rich kid punk, is brought to them alive and well and with enough spunk to last a lifetime.
Daichi is buried in the backyard with a bullet in his gut a day after Bolin's twenty-first birthday.
(*) (*)
"We do not permit pro-Avatar propaganda in this compound! Whose is this?!"
Liao, you idiot! Xin thinks as the CID stalks closer to the two of them, tailed by the Triple Threat initiates. "This was found in your quarters," he snaps, "buried in your dresser drawer. Which of yours is it?"
Liao gulps, and the CID whirls on him. Damnit, kiddo. Don't let them see you cringe. You're a fucking Agni Kai; don't let them see you cringe… "It's yours, then!" he growls, raising a baton. Xin has to fight to keep from punching him. No one threatened his partner. "Isn't it?"
"Yes, but I only—"
"Shut up, you maggot!" yells the CID. "Why, I'll—"
"Stop!" Xin suddenly barks, surprising even himself but knowing deep down that he had done the right thing. "Stop. It's mine."
Liao looks ready to shit himself as the CID turns to him. "Yours?" Judging by his disbelieving tone, Xin is going to have to lay on the bullshit a bit thicker.
"Yes, sir," he replies calmly. "My partner was covering for me. It's mine."
"No, it—"
"Liao, it's alright, you don't have to cover for me." You really need to shut up now, little buddy… "It's mine, sir," he repeats for the third time. "I apologize for storing it, but I needed to…see what Detective Mako looked like so my partner and I could spy on him."
"Senior Recruit Xin, this is your final word, correct?"
I would've taken it back by now if it wasn't. He nods. "Yes."
"Yes, sir."
Really, man, I am not going to fish for compliments with you. "There's no need to call me sir, Combat Instruction Director," Xin retorts, because he's already screwed, so what the hell does he have to lose?
Staring him directly in the eyes, the CID whacks his baton over Xin's head with a loud crack, and the last thing he sees is a panicked Liao before everything goes black.
(*) (*)
He rejoins consciousness with the grace of two trains smashing into each other. "'S my prop'g'nda. D'nt h'rt…hmm…s'fine…" he feels the need to make this abundantly clear, just in case the CIDs punished Liao. They wouldn't, would they?
To his surprise, he hears his partner's voice and nearly passes out in relief. "…It's okay, Xin, that asshole's gone, no one cares if it's yours, we got an appraisal from our Section Leader, 'member? Open your eyes, will you, partner? Please?"
He opens his eyes and sees Liao grinning wildly down at him, tears in his eyes. Spirits, what alternate universe did I just step into? "Hey, bonehead." Liao's voice shakes, but he continues. "Welcome back to the land of the living."
Wanting to play a joke on his friend, Xin squints up at him, making his voice especially shaky as he whispers, "W-who're you?"
"What?!" Stunned, Liao falls backwards out of his chair, not able to keep himself from shouting, and then looks pissed once he catches on. "That is not funny!"
"S'kinda funny."
"Doc, you had better get me out of here before I strangle him!"
"Don't—don't w-worry 'bout it, k-kid." His voice is hoarse, and if Doc wasn't in the room, he would've started laughing. "It'd be—" Xin coughs, feeling like he's hacking up his lungs. "It would be…damn hard…to f-for—forget y-you." He glances at the head meddie, who's in the corner of the room with his nurse—Su-Bin, he thinks her name is. "W-what's t-the pro—prognosis, D-Doc?"
"What's the prognosis?" Doc chuckles darkly, and Xin knows that that can't be good. "Hm. Let me see. First, you had intracranial hemorrhaging, which we managed to fix up, but you went into cardiac arrest because of it. Twice. Broken ribs, internal bleeding, external bleeding, dislocated shoulder—so no use of guns for the next two weeks—and a lot more than that that I'm not going to mention right now because I don't want to give you a relapse. You've got one hell of a guardian angel, Xin."
Liao is trying to campaign for his attention and Xin focuses on his partner instead. Spirits knows that the kid is less annoying than listening to an angry meddie. "I was betting every meddie in this joint that you'd wake up. Even Doc lost hope after a few days."
Xin's eyes shine with barely suppressed emotion. "Th-thanks, Liao." He grips Liao's hand in his—not a strong grip, but not weak either. "S-so what've I m-missed?"
Liao laughs; looking like the weight of the world has dropped off of his shoulders. "Partner," he says, "have I got things to tell you."
(*) (*)
"What do you mean you want to break out the prisoner?"
"For Spirits' sake, Xin, hear me out!"
"Do you have a death wish, you idiot? Gainika will bludgeon you to death if she finds out!"
"She's not going to find out."
"Oh, really? How do you intend to do this, then?"
Xin listens to the plan and nods quietly to himself for a while before looking back up.
"You're an idiot," he begins, and Liao deflates slightly. "But you're my partner, and, although it goes against everything I believe in, I will help you."
Liao's smile could outshine the sun.
(*) (*)
"What happened to you?" the younger girl asks sympathetically.
"Got into a slight altercation."
"Slight my ass," Liao mutters under his breath, clenching his fists.
"What was that, kid?" Xin asks with a cocked eyebrow, knowing full well what he'd inquired. Enough with the histrionics, kid, I'm fine.
"Slight my ass," Liao repeats, his voice louder. "Xin, you were in a coma for a week. You got the ever-loving shit beaten out of you, partner. I don't call that slight."
"In any case, I'm fine now. What'd you expect me to do, stay with Doc and the meddies? Reading old magazines from Avatar Aang's time and sleeping can really only entertain me for so long."
"Doc told you that you were supposed to stay in bed for at least another week, buddy," Liao says, half-smiling. "You insisted on coming after me."
"Like I could let you go out on a cock-brained scheme without me?" Xin laughs, knowing what had happened the last time he'd let Liao go on a solo mission. His partner probably still had the scars. "Not on your life, sport. We're partners, remember?"
"I remember, Xin." Liao proceeds to introduce him to everyone in the room, and Xin is so nervous he feels ready to piss himself here and now until his partner begins talking about the plan that the two of them had come up with over the last few days.
"Who do you want to make the call?" asks Korra.
Liao pauses. "Midori," he finally says. The girl looks pale, and Asami looks murderous. Liao holds up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Spirits, Asami, you aren't going to punch me in the face again, are you?" he asks with a mock grin.
Xin snorts, because this is just priceless. "She's the one who punched you? I figured you got it beating up the CID that beat the shit out of me."
"Negative," Liao replies, shrugging. "Punched me in the face when I told her that I belted Bolin."
"Great way with people you got there, kid." Liao shoots him a death glare. "Kidding." Xin goes over the rest of the plan, and then Asami jumps to her feet, her hands on her hips as she asks what happens after that. "Will a band of armed zozzled idiots come and kidnap my sister and torture Midori like Bolin? What if—"
"Hey." Liao places a hand on Asami's shoulder and looks into her eyes, a classic move that he often uses on damsels in distress. "That won't happen, okay? I promise."
"He's right," Xin adds, feeling like he needs to speak up. "We won't let anything happen to Midori or to Bolin, Asami. Liao and I are firmly on your side. We aren't going to switch back or turn you over to Gainika and Zolt." No matter how much I want to, I guess I'm stuck on the side of good.
"Asami." Liao takes his hand off her shoulder and cocks his head to the side a couple of degrees, like he's sizing her up. She blushes. Xin tries not to roll his eyes. "Don't you trust us?"
Asami looks conflicted for a moment, and then makes eye contact with him. Xin gives her an imperceptible nod. Trust us; we're not going to let anything bad happen.
"Not especially," she finally says. "But I trust Bolin, and he trusts you guys. If you can rescue Bolin—" She coughs and looks at her hands. "Then I'll trust you," she finishes awkwardly.
Liao doesn't even blink. "Works for me. Everyone's packed, right?" They nod. "Brilliant. Let's go to Ba Sing Se, everyone."
(*) (*)
They go to Sin City and return to Republic City, and the following occurs in the interim:
He gets his ass royally handed to him by Midori Sato, a sixteen year old, in poker.
Mako and Korra get hitched.
Liao and Asami almost sleep together.
Everyone is hung-over except for him.
He still can't believe he lost in poker.
Liao kisses Asami.
Liao is in love with Asami.
He hopes he doesn't have to pay Midori back.
(*) (*)
Break him out a week early, he thinks bitterly as Chan holds a heater to his head while Gainika makes small talk with Liao, who's holding up a barely conscious post-op Bolin like his life depends on it. It'll be a good idea. I'm a fucking idiot.
Chan cocks back the trigger of his heater. "Point that gun away from my partner."
"I will if you will," Liao replies, more serious than he'd ever been in his life.
There's a moment of hesitation, then "Shut the fuck up and stand down," Chan orders Liao. "Otherwise your partner might not be so handsome anymore."
Liao freezes. Xin swallows, the heater's muzzle actually moving against his skin with the motion. Their eyes lock, and he tries so hard to convey the message that Spirits damnit, he does not want to die. Not like this.
His partner lowers the heater, and he's so relieved that he could've started crying. Thank the Spirits, thank the Spirits, thank the fucking Spirits, I'm not going to die.
Xin zones out for a few seconds until he hears Gainika ask how long they've been partners, and he knows that they're completely and utterly screwed now—the Section Leader does not chit-chat for shits and giggles.
She means death now.
"Almost three years of partnership," Gainika ponders, tapping her finger against her chin. "It'd be a pity if such a long, brotherly relationship were to be severed just like that." She snaps her fingers. "Just by one, simple mistake that could easily be eradicated."
Liao looks like he gets it now. Bolin looks terrified.
"Hand over that street scum," Gainika says, and he's left wondering just how the hell she sounds so fucking nice about it. "If you hand over that piece of ostrich-horse shit, I'll let your partner go. You both can live. I'll even forget this minor infraction, if you just give Bolin to me."
Oh, hell no. That is not happening. "Don't you dare, kid," Xin suddenly barks, thrashing in Chan's grip and trying to get Liao's attention. "Damn it, if you let this kid die, Liao, I will fucking kill you myself."
And he will. Because Bolin needs to live. They'd made a fucking agreement that they were going to get Bolin out no matter what, and sweet Spirits, they are going to honor that commitment.
Even if it kills him.
"But I can't—Spirits, Xin, I—I can't, I just c-can't let you die!" Liao's voice is shrill as he turns and pleads with Gainika. "Please, G—Section Leader, please don't make me choose…"
"Oh, I'm afraid you have to."
"Why are you making me choose?"
"Because I can," she answers with a small smile. "Will you choose, or will you have the choice made for you, Recruit Liao?" Gainika jerks her chin sharply at Chan, who pulls the trigger back and the thundering crack of a gunshot echoes in the parking garage.
It takes literally every ounce of willpower he has not to collapse on the ground screaming as a semicircle of red blossoms over his left knee.
"No!" Liao yells, a sound literally painful to hear, even with the pain in his leg reaching a crescendo.
"Interesting." On Gainika's gesture, Jiktun steps forward. "The street scum, then?"
"Fuck you!" Liao screams, his hands clenching into fists as he takes a step in front of Bolin. "No. No, no, damn you, no!"
"Me!" Xin shouts abruptly, instantly fixating the attention of everyone on him. He can't take this anymore, and he doubts that Liao can either, so he makes the choice for both of them. "He chooses me." He's scared out of his mind, and he thinks Liao is too, but he continues. "Leave Bolin alone."
Liao is shaking even harder than Bolin when Gainika fixes her gaze on him. "Do you choose him?"
Xin inhales sharply through his nose and exhales through his mouth, steeling himself. "Yes, he does," he tells Gainika firmly before Liao can open his mouth to speak. He has to do it. There's not another option, and he doubts that there's anything they can do to stop this from happening, save divine intervention.
"Then they both die," Gainika suddenly declares, turning to Chan and Jiktun as Liao's silence lengthens. Damnit, kid, I know you like to take your time, but hurry up, for fuck's sake.
Liao furiously shakes his head, a few tears trickling down his face. He swipes his eyes on his sleeve, and Xin feels a lump in this throat watching the scene. No one should have to make this decision. No one. Goddamnit, Liao, I'm so sorry…
"If you don't choose, then they both die," Gainika repeats in a softer, more nonchalant voice as she gazes at Liao. She looks like she knows the answer already, and so does he.
"N-no…" Liao pleads, his voice trembling. He locks eyes with him, and manages to say his decision in a horrible quavering voice. "I…I c-choose…I choose Xin."
Xin exhales. Okay. Okay. Okay…it's fast, like falling asleep. It'll be okay, it'll be okay… He doesn't know if he's inwardly reassuring himself or Liao.
"It is as you wish." Her hand flickers to her pocket, and then time seems to be infused with molasses as she whirls around and the gun goes off.
There's a jolt as his world suddenly thuds to a halt, and for a fraction of a second he doesn't understand the pain in his skull as he falls backwards into Chan's heavy grip. He doesn't understand what's happening. Liao is screaming, and gunshots are going off.
And then he's there, his partner, the kid he thinks of as his own brother is there, whispering apologies. He wonders why he can hear them.
He's slipping, falling farther and farther into a tunnel of red and gold in the dimly lit parking garage and his life flashes before his eyes quickly, like he's watching a mover.
"You're going to do big things someday. I know it."
And then, a quiet roar in the back of his brain drowns out the sound of his name being called. It overtakes him, and it's warm in the darkness, no more pain. He's sinking, not floating.
Xin smiles once, at the end.
And then there's nothing at all.
Well…What do you think? Good? Bad? Let me know what you think, please.
Free cookies with every review. The next chappie of The Other Side of Me should be up soon as well.
Yours in Fanfiction,
-Boa :)