Author's note- I've been working on this on and off for like 2 months, and I'm pretty proud I actually managed to finish it! I tried a little bit of a different writing style, so I hope you like it. A big thank you to anybody who takes the time to read or review any of my stories, it's people like you that make me want to write. As always I appreciate feedback, so reviews are appreciated, and Enjoy! P.S. sorry, I've posted this a few times, but I keep making changes, and I think I'm finally happy... (maybe?)
Slipping Together
She feels so stupid, so completely and utterly betrayed. She had loved him, given her entire heart to him, expecting him to do the same, and in return, he had given her everything she could have ever wanted, well everything, except the truth, except what really mattered.
Everything he had ever done was just a cruel, sick act, every nightmare he'd chased away, every "I love you" he had whispered in the night, they were all lies. Somewhere between the tangled sheets and mingled breaths, they'd gone wrong, taken a turn in the opposite direction, lost in a maze of veins and blood, blue as her eyes. He had clawed his way into her heart, snaking through her innocent body like the most addictive drug, all so he could destroy her from the inside. She was hard to break physically, tough as nails a silver haired hero once said, but behind closed doors, she was an emotional wreck, and Mako, as much of an idiot as he could be, had always known that.
She had thought nothing of it when he had asked her out on a date; they had been going out several months now, so this wasn't anything unusual. She didn't even question him when he had led her down the side streets, insisting that it was a shortcut to their favorite restaurant- or is Miss Avatar scared?- the words hang in the air between them, a challenge, and she never backs down from those, ever. Thinking back to it, she should have known; they never went that way to Kuang's, and they certainly never went after nightfall, but she was too blinded by love to even consider deceit.
They strolled lazily down the damp alley, their fingers intertwined, and a small flame cupped in Mako's pale hand. Their shadows dance quietly along the alley walls, a secretive tango only they know, each footfall a symphony of echoes in the silent night.
He whispers words into her ear, jokes and promises and names of all the children they haven't had yet, and she smiles into his shoulder, her free hand reaching over to play with the frayed edge of his scarf. In this moment, everything is perfect -he's perfect-, but that's the sad part about perfection, it can never really last forever. Eventually every pretty face will age, every talent will diminish and every hair will gray. That's just life, and life chose now to shatter Korra's picture perfect moment.
His flame goes out as warm red is replaced by mechanical green, the same green as gloves, Kali sticks, and fear. Mako's hand has suddenly disappeared from hers, lost in an army of emeralds, and she panics. Her instincts beg her to find him and protect him, so she does the latter. She sends charring flame from one hand at the nearest equalist while simultaneously stomping her foot into the steady earth and sending rock, and stone, and whatever the hell she can find flying. She searches frantically for a set of golden eyes, but all she can see is green, and she feels like she's drowning in a sea of algae, like the surface is too far away, like she's slipping. Well that is until she feels a bola hit her back, and suddenly the world is lightning, consuming and raw and too bright, too hot. The last thing she sees before fading to unconscious bliss is eyes as golden as honey and a beautiful smirk.
She wakes up chained in a small concrete room, hanging limply from the ceiling like an animal ready for slaughter, and for the first time in her life, she in truly terrified. This isn't just another nightmare, another dream Mako can chase away with butterfly kisses and sweet nothings, it is suddenly real, and that thought leaves her breathless.
MAKO! If she was breathless before, it doesn't even begin to describe her state now. She closes her eyes tight, not satisfied until white dances across her vision as she tries, without much success, to remember what happened to him. Is he dead, being tortured at this very second? Or did he escape, save himself? She hopes, prays to the spirits, who never seem to hear her, that he got out alive, that he ran far away, away from Republic City, away from her, with Bolin tucked safely under his arm. She hopes he's not stupid enough to come looking, to risk his life to save hers. She hopes…
Her train of thought is broken as an equalist enters the claustrophobic room. He is sinewy like the light poles that line the streets of republic city, charged with electricity, larger than life. The way green of his goggles bounces off the walls reminds her of the day Mako and her went to the aquarium. She had watched in awe as a shark circled its prey, captivated by it's brilliance, by the way is so fluidly commanded the water; she had never once thought of the prey, the fish it surrounded so easily and killed without a single thought in the world. Now, somehow, she has become the fish, and her captor, one of the many sharks she fears she will encounter.
The equalist stands mute at the door, goggles trained on the restrained Avatar, who in turn, stares straight on through, through his goggle, through his clothes, straight down to his ice-cold soul that's managed to freeze even his heart.
She's the first to speak, her voice hoarse, dehydrated and deadly, "What happened to him?" her eyes narrow, "What happened to the boy I was with?". The words seep from her chapped lips like poison.
She expected a curt response, maybe even a conceited snicker, but what she didn't expect was booming laughter; the kind of laughter that makes your ribs shake or your stomach hurt. It was too loud, too certain… too familiar? For a second, it brings up the image of ocher eyes and torn red fabric wrapped snuggly around her neck by warm white hands, but she shakes the thought from her head, mentally scolding herself for even considering the connection.
The laughing dies down to quiet hiccups, muffled by a green mask, as he approaches the confused girl. He stops a foot in front of her; although he would normally be taller than her, when she's chained up like this, they can finally see eye-to-eye, well eye to mask that is.
She squirms a bit, uncomfortable and slightly claustrophobic with him so close.
"I knew equalists weren't the most considerate people, but I thought you'd at least understand the concept of personal space," she spits, eyes like piercing icicles. He almost laughs, laughs at the fact that even as a captive she's brash enough to test her captor, like prey taunting its predator, but he doesn't. He doesn't because he's too busy reaching his gloved hands up and wrapping them around frigid green glass, too busy unmasking himself.
Once off his chiseled face, the mask falls to the ground, shattering into a thousand glittering pieces, green fire bouncing over the concrete floor, lively and beautiful, like Bolin's eyes, and for a second, unconsciously, he wonders how they could even be related. Bolin is young and innocent, blind to the horrors of the world, nothing like him. He is emotionally scarred, maimed beyond reconciliation, unfixable.
She stares at him for a moment, blinks once, then twice. Her eyes glassy and mouth agape in a most unattractive manner.
" Mako..." her mouth is suddenly too dry and the room too small. For a second, she is relieved. Relieved to see him alive, to know he isn't bleeding to death in the streets somewhere, but that second is short lived, replaced by hurt and anger, sizzling in her stomach like liquid courage. In a single moment her mouth snaps shut and her eyes focus.
" You Bastard! You fucking son of a bitch!" she growls never breaking eye contact, not even daring to blink. Her words are disturbingly quiet in the already silent chamber.
"You know I thought I might have loved you," she spits the words out like sour leechee juice.
"You did," he states simply, a smirk teasing the corners of his mouth. Needless to say, he is pleased, pleased to get such a rise from her, to know he's hurt her the same way benders have hurt him.
"No!" she snaps, "Never!" The words are strong, steady like Naga's comforting heartbeat, but her eyes say more than her mouth ever could. Tears threaten to spill, to run like an arctic waterfall down her cheeks, over the lips he used to kiss, to fall to the ground and slip. Like her.
"Go," she says as she closes her eyes, "Now."
The look on his face makes her sick; the smirk, the simper that had always seemed so alluring, suddenly seems mocking, twisted, and she can't look anymore; she can't pretend that she's strong, when she feels so weak.
Korra doesn't expect him to leave, and maybe, deep down, she really hopes he won't, but he does. He leaves her chained in a concrete room, shocked and heart broken, stripped of everything she thought she knew for certain. Her bending is either gone for good or she's been chi-blocked, but what does it really matter anyways?
And when she cries, she doesn't care that her sobs can probably be heard through the doors. Doesn't care that Mako knows how weak she really is, how much he really did affect her. She is defeated.
As days turn into weeks, she is only slightly relieved to discover that her bending is still intact. She wonders why Amon doesn't take it away already. Maybe because Mako is always the one to block her chi. Amon revels in the upper hand their rendezvous has given him; he has her right where he wants her, and he doesn't plan on loosening his grip anytime soon. If anything he tightens it, ordering Mako to linger a little more with every visit, to remind her that she is to stay put, to wait until it's her turn to give up her bending, and only then, can she go, in pieces, back to where she came from.
One day, whether it be under Amon's orders or his own accord, Mako leans down and touches his rough lips to the frozen skin of her tan cheeks, and suddenly, it's too much. Her eyes snap open, white as the arctic tundra, and her chains yank from the wall like they are no stronger that thread. She rises to her full heights, bending the room, the hallway, the tunnel apart as elements, blood, and tears fly everywhere, and she is strong once again. She has caught herself.
She wakes up, curled awkwardly behind a dumpster, covered in unhealed sores and bruises. She's in a part of the city she's never been before, the part where the sleazy boy's and corrupt woman mingle, but she can see the probending arena, and with what little strength she has left, she runs. Past the hollers and the whistle, around the helping hands and concerned glances, up a set of familiar stairs and into a pair of strong green arms that sweep her off her feet and settle her on the couch with a blanket and a kiss on the temple, and she sleeps.
She wakes up hours –or was it weeks?- later, and she forgets, for a moment that she's safe, alive, as she jumps haphazardly off the couch and stumble to the doors, trying desperately to remember how fingers work. She hears a soft voice from behind her, as achingly familiar arms wrap around her waist, attempting to calm her rapidly increasing heart, but she fights. The avatar kicks and bites her captor until she catches a glimpse of green eyes, and remembers that she is home.
They-Tenzin, Lin, Tarrlok- ask what happened to her, and she tells them. She whispers stories about ocher eyes, and fear, and the avatar state, and Bolin holds her hand the whole time, even when he's afraid because he is a rock, never wavering to water or fire or air. Staying strong for her- for them, and once her story is finished, he picks her up and carries her to bed. Tenzin has given her permission to stay at the arena until she's feels well enough to come back to the island.
He lays her in his bed, ignoring the empty one on the opposite end of the room, and moves to make his way to the couch when a tan hand grabs his own olive one and pulls him back down. Her eyes beg him not to go, so he stays, draping the blanket snuggly over them as he pulls her loosely to his chest.
His hands run absentmindedly through her hair, and he wonders how this could ever work. They are both cracked, on the verge of shattering; they can barely take care of themselves, let alone another human being in the same situation. But then he hears her whimper in her sleep, and he instinctively pulls her a little closer, and he thinks that they can fix each other. He'll hold her when she wakes up every morning and forgets why she feels so lost, and she'll chase away the nightmares that are bound to come because that was always Mako's job. And if they do slip… they'll slip together.