Boom. I own nothing.
Mako had a few things planned the evening. Only a few things; it was a Friday night, he and Bolin had already decided that practice was unnecessary for tomorrow, and he had worked all day doing tomorrow's chores so he wouldn't have to do them Saturday.
So. His plans. They were very relaxing plans; a little reading, maybe some yoga, a few drinks in the safety of his bedroom. He had even counted on Bolin attempting to drag him off somewhere more exciting. He had every minute planned out, had factored in everything.
What he had not factored in was dealing with a very drunk Korra.
So now here he sat, sitting in the window with the Avatar asleep in his lap, drooling on his scarf, and snoring loud enough to wake the dead. Every time he tried to move she would groan and turn over so violently he would struggle to keep them both from falling off the edge and to the ground below. It was not exactly pleasant, especially as Bolin was doing absolutely nothing to help, even though the entire thing was his brother's fault.
It started three hours before, when he had been climbing the stairs to the attic, having just deposited the broom in the storage closet where all cleaning supplies were kept right after he had finished sweeping almost the entire building. He was exhausted, dragging his feet, and looking forward to a long, hot shower and a few relaxing hours reading before bed.
The door was locked when he reached the top of the stairs. He pounded on it with a fist.
"Bolin, if this is some joke of yours, it's not-"
"Mako, my favorite brother!" The door had whipped open and there was Bolin, squeezing out and closing it behind him immediately. Mako caught a flash of blue in the infinitesimal crack between the door and wall. Bolin was grinning nervously.
"What did you do now?"
"Korra's here."
"So you locked yourself in the room with her?" He leaned against the wall and crossed his arms, expression stony. "Great idea. You might have warned me." He ignored the tiniest little twinge of jealousy that flared up inside of him at the thought. Bolin laughed nervously.
"So, see, it's not like that."
"Then what's it like?"
His younger brother rubbed the back of his neck. "Okay, um, you know that stash of spiked leechi juice you keep hidden underneath the loose floorboard in the closet?"
Mako flushed. "I don't have any stash of spiked leechi juice."
"Well, you don't now, because Korra drank all of it."
"She... what? I've been saving those!"
"She didn't exactly drink all of them," Bolin muttered. "I had one. She had two and a half."
Mako's jaw dropped. "Two and half? Two and a half? How on earth did she drink two and a half bottlesof leechi juice?"
Bolin shrugged. "We were talking, and I mentioned that really great drink at that one bar we snuck into last year, and she mentioned that she'd never had anything, you know, alcoholic before and I just couldn't resist giving her some, and then... she kind of... really liked it." He was rambling in his anxiety.
Mako dragged his hands down his face and pinched the bridge of his nose. "How bad is she?"
"She was trying to convince me that she could fly a few minutes ago. I had to stop her from jumping out the window to 'prove it.' And she's laughing at everything and, uh..." Bolin's ears turned red. "She's talking a lot."
"Great," Mako muttered. "Just great. How are we supposed to get her back to Air Temple Island in this state?"
"Oh, uh, speaking of state, she sort of trashed the room."
"She what?"
He couldn't wait any longer. He whipped the door open and stared in dismay at the pillows and other small objects scattered throughout the room, the small table and chairs lying on their side, and the three broken bottles on the floor.
That was, he would have stared in dismay, had he not been distracted by the blue and brown blur that was his teammate staggering up to him and wrapping her arms around his neck before giving him a very wet, very sloppy kiss on the cheek and slurring, "Hiii... Ma-ko!" She giggled and he wiped the slobber off his cheek in disgust, too annoyed to be embarrassed.
"Hello, Korra."
She stuck her tongue out at him and his somber tone. "You... are too..." She paused and tried to find the word she was looking for; her face lit up when she apparently did, but it took her several more seconds to articulate it. "Sherious." A strong smell of alcohol and fermented leechi was on her breath, and he pushed her away as gently as he could. She still fell on her butt, and glared up at him for all of two seconds before collapsing into an almost violent fit of giggles.
"What's so funny?" he asked calmly, stepping into the room and allowing Bolin to enter also before he closed and locked the door.
"You!" Korra gasped, rolling around on the floor. "You're sho purrretty!" He flushed again.
"Thank you for the compliment. Perhaps you should lie down."
"Nnnope. I'm flllloooaaatiiin'." She slurred the word so much that Mako raised his eyebrows at Bolin in a silent request for translation.
"Floating."
"Right."
Korra staggered to her feet; he caught her elbow to keep her from falling over again. She laughed raucously. Apparently the situation was amusing, but Mako despaired as visions of his quiet evening were destroyed rather violently.
"I got grrreat taste in men," Korra boasted as he led her to the beat-up couch.
"Do you now."
"Uh huh." She went off into some ramble that he didn't even bother trying to understand, though he caught a few words that made him glad he wasn't really listening. Something about a boy from the South Pole who couldn't compare to certain "eyebrow men." He ignored her and tried to communicate to Bolin that he needed to help keep Korra still until she fell asleep. However, he remembered belatedly that Bolin himself had downed an entire bottle of fermented leechi juice, and, while he certainly had a higher alcohol tolerance than Korra, was not to be relied upon for anything that required too much concentration. He sighed, steeling himself for what promised to be a very long night.
"And then there's you," Korra said, frowning at him.
"Yes. There's me."
"Pretty boy."
He didn't respond, sitting on the floor in front of her trying not to feel too offended, reminding himself that drunk-Korra was not regular-Korra and anything she said was probably not what regular-Korra actually thought.
"I liiike pretty boooys." She attempted to pat his head and wound up whacking his ear with surprising force. Bolin laughed. Mako scowled.
"Make yourself useful and clean up, would you?"
"Why? She'll just trash it again."
"Not if I can keep her still. Get your sorry butt to work."
"Okay, Captain."
Mako snorted.
Korra was nodding, just about in her own world. "I like purretty boy firebenders 'cause they're... purretty." She thought. "An' smart an' nice an'... an'..."
"Pretty?" he suggested, and she nodded enthusiastically.
"Yeah! Pretty." She attempted, once more, to pat his head. He dodged her hand, fearing for his safety.
"Tired yet?"
"Nuh uh."
The next two and a half hours continued in much the same way. Korra talked and talked and talked, and when she wasn't talking she laughed. She didn't throw up once, for which he gave her credit. Twice more she attempted to kiss him. He dodged one, but the second time she caught him by surprise and managed to land one on his neck. Any pleasure he might have had at this was ruined by the fact that Korra was completely out of her wits, and that his neck was now dripping with drool.
Bolin did his best to help him, but at some point he had discovered a fifth bottle of leechi juice and, unable to help himself, now sat in a corner with his legs splayed out all over the place, singing a very off-key song of his won compositions, something about spiders and airbending.
Mako fought the urge to scream with frustration. It was past midnight, and he hung his head out of the open window; he didn't worry about Korra trying to leap out of it again; she had long since lost that ability. Instead, she collapsed against him while he wasn't looking, and he tumbled forward with the girl on his back. He caught himself - and her - before they fell over the edge, and twisted around to go back inside, but suddenly (and he couldn't say how it happened) Korra was in his lap, her right hand clutching a fistful of his shirt, and she was asleep on his shoulder. He blinked several times, trying to figure out how she had managed to fall asleep in approximately four seconds, then gave it up and leaned his head back against the window frame, sighing again.
He was still sitting in the same position, half-dozing, when he felt someone lay a hand on his shoulder. He looked up blearily to see Korra's master - what was his name again? Tenzin? That was it - looking down at him in apparent amusement.
"Hello... Mako, is it?"
"Yes, sir," he rasped, then coughed. "Can you get her off me now? My legs are going numb." Tenzin smiled.
"Of course."
He sighed in relief as the teenage girl's weight was lifted off him. "Um, what are you doing up here?"
"Looking for Korra." The older man glanced around the disheveled attic. "Do I dare ask what happened?"
"Bolin happened," Mako muttered, pointing at the corner where the young earthbender slept peacefully. "He thought it would be amusing to get Korra drunk. Blame him for absolutely everything." Interesting, he thought. He seemed to have a strange disconnect between his mouth and his brain. He needed to sleep desperately.
"Oh, and since I don't think she'll remember it, could you tell her no practice tomorrow? Thanks." Tenzin nodded.
"Of course."
"She'll have a pretty wicked hangover."
"I understand." Mako nodded blearily.
Tenzin exited through the window, oddly enough, and it appeared that his sky bison had been waiting there for him. He shrugged and collapsed on the couch, glad it was over.