Notes: This was the continuation of my masami break up fic, Tired. There were plans to make it longer but I abandoned them, and this was what I had finished. I got more requests for som bosami so I figured I'd polish this up and post it. So yes this really does not follow what happened in episode 10 at all seeing as this was written after episode 9. Enjoy!
Bolin had fallen asleep on the couch right after excusing himself from breakfast. He had planned to return to him room in the Acolyte's dorms, but when he passed by the living room couch to find a blanket and pillows resting there, he found the sight too tempting to pass up. He wrapped himself tightly in the blankets and shoved his face into the soft pillow, grateful for the plush cushions on the couch that were so much better than the thin mats in the dormitories. He fell asleep instantly.
It felt like he woke up only moments later to the loud, hurried sounds of footsteps he could place anywhere. The same footsteps that woke him up as a child, when his brother would return to their place of shelter late at night, yuans jingling in his pocket. Bolin opened his eyes just in time to watch Mako enter the room, his older brother looking straight ahead and not even glancing once at his little brother. Bolin knew that look.
"Hey," Bolin said, forcing himself up by propping his upper body weight against his arm. Mako froze mid-step and stared wide-eyed at Bolin on the couch. "Where are you going?"
"To check on Korra."
Bolin rubbed his eyes to clear them of sleep, sitting up fully with a groan. "I just did. She's asleep."
Mako was unconvinced. His eyes kept moving from Bolin to the open doorway that would lead him to her, until finally, he shook his head.
"She sleeps like the de-she's a heavy sleeper. I won't wake her."
He started to walk again but stopped when Bolin responded, "Aw, just leave her alone. You need to stop hovering."
"I'm not hovering."
"You totally are," Bolin yawned, and stretched his arms high above his head. He looked around the room lazily before deciding it was too empty. "Where's Asami?"
Mako suddenly tensed, and Bolin knew there was no chance he was getting to crawl back into bed again. Something must have gone wrong, because his brother didn't respond instantly with soothing words or a snapping retort. Bolin rested his feet on the floor and leaned against the back of the couch, running his fingers through his hair as he waited.
Mako turned his head to look at him. "You're sure Korra's alright?"
"Positive."
Mako breathed in a heavy sigh and walked to the couch, plopping down at one end with more force than necessary, making the couch groan under the added weight. Even though Pabu had made a nice nest against the blankets Bolin had shoved off, he picked up the ferret and settled it in his lap, digging his fingers into the red fur.
"Asami's in her room," Mako said, keeping his eyes locked on Pabu. It wasn't the same kind of worried determination he had worn since learning that Korra had been missing, the kind that Bolin had seen for years: ruled by fear and a drive that all-consumed him. The look he directed at the Fire Ferret in his lap was shameful. "We, uh...we broke up."
"Oh," Bolin said. "Did she break up with you?"
"Yeah."
"Because I told her about...?"
"Well, that had something to do with it, yes," Mako said.
Bolin frowned. "Do you like Korra?"
Mako lifted his head and glared at him, but didn't say anything. As if sensing the beginnings of an argument, Pabu lept from Mako's lap and darted out of the room. Bolin watched where he went but didn't run after his pet, because there was no reason for his brother to be this angry.
"So that's a yes?" Bolin taunted.
Mako bit down on his bottom lip and his glare weakened, shifting it to the floor. He shrugged. "I guess."
"She needs more than an I guess, bro."
"I don't want to talk about it."
Bolin sighed explosively, tipping his head back over the top of the couch, and digging his fingertips into his eyes to continue working off the sleep that still called out to him. He could sense Mako shifting next to him, the back of the couch pressing down with added weight.
As far as Bolin was concerned, he had two options. Annoy Mako with more details about the break up, or go find Asami. Seeing as the conversation with Mako would quickly escalate into an argument, one Bolin wasn't prepared to enter, he slapped his hands on his knees just as he decided to find Asami and hopefully apologize for taking part in ruining her relationship. He reached down and across Mako's legs to retrieve his shoes, tugging them on.
"Where are you going?" Mako asked the second Bolin stood up.
Bolin cracked his back loudly as he answered, "To check on Asami."
Mako didn't respond, and Bolin frowned. There was no way he could say Asami was fine.
He had hoped to find Pabu on the way to the door, if only to wrap the ferret around his neck like a scarf. Instead, he ended up pulling open the door to be greeted by snow falling so thickly it was difficult to see beyond the porch. With a sigh, he tugged his coat around himself tighter, and started the trek to the women's dormitories.
The thick layer of wet snow that had blanketed the ground seem innocent enough. However, he only managed to feel the ice at the foundation just as his thin canvas shoes slipped against it. He fell backwards and his arms instantly shot out to catch himself, but they landed in the cold, wet snow and slid down to the ice, blocking him from the familiar feel of earth. He landed on the base of his spine where hard, dull pain traveled up his back, the fall making him bite down on his tongue and tasting iron in his mouth. His head landed back into the snow and he just laid there for a moment, groaning up at the grey sky as the fat snowflakes that landed against his skin melted.
He pulled himself up and his quickly numbing fingers slid over the ice under the pocket of snow that covered his hands. The snow was already melting against his body and he scrambled to dislodge himself to stand. It was thick, wet snow, and the second he stood up and bared his back to the wind, the water that had seeped into his clothing bit down all the way to his skin. His cloth shoes were already soaking up snow with every step he took. That at least felt familiar; he couldn't remember a single winter when his feet had stayed dry during a snowstorm, or when his toes and fingers didn't freeze every morning.
Mako would usually warm them.
He shook that thought out of his mind and stepped quietly through the door, knowing that he wasn't really allowed to be in the women's dorms. When he managed to shut the door and the resounding sound it produced didn't alert anyone to his presence, he breathed a sigh of relief.
The soles of his shoes squished audibly as he walked and he left a trail of water all the way to Asami's room. Or, what he hoped to be Asami's room. There were a few loud sniffling sounds coming from it, and he guessed it would be hers.
If it wasn't, he would definitely be kicked out by an angry Acolyte. If they got angry, that was. He wasn't so sure if they were allowed to be, being peaceful monks and all.
He bent his head close to the door. "Asami?" he whispered.
The muffled sounds instantly stopped. The creaking of wood followed shortly after the silence.
"Who's there?" she said.
"Bolin," he hissed back, looking up and down the hall in case anyone had been alerted by her voice.
A moment passed and Bolin straightened up, thinking that she wanted to be left alone and was too polite to tell him to leave. However, the door suddenly pulled open and Asami stood before him, wrapped in a black silk robe with the red collar of her pajama shirt popping out just under it.
He didn't hide the shock he experienced when he looked up at her face, seeing the grey tracks of mascara sliding down her cheeks like scars, purple eyeshadow partially rubbed away but smeared into her eyebrows and to her temples. Her bottom lip was a raw light pink where her lipstick usually masked it, while her upper lip was still partially covered with the red paint that now spilled over the delicate curves of her lips to edge at the corners of her mouth. Her eyes were wide but unemotional, boring straight through him.
"Are you alright?" he asked.
She tilted her head. "I could ask you the same thing."
He opened his mouth to respond, but she stepped aside and motioned for him to come in. He quickly complied.
She stared at him up and down once she shut the door, frowning. "Why are you wet?"
He looked down at his clothing and saw the darkened marks of water covering his shoes, reaching up to the bloused folds of his pants. As he tipped down his head, a section of his hair fell flat against his face, and he drew his hand up to slick it back only to find that his entire hairstyle had completely fallen apart from the snow.
"Uh, I fell on the way over," he said.
Asami moved to the trunk at the foot of her bed. She popped it open and knelt down to sift through it. "I have some towels and some socks that might fit you."
"Really? Thanks."
He bent over and pulled off his wet shoes, nearly losing his balance twice as he had to rely on having one foot on the ground. He could feel Asami watching him, but he didn't feel embarrassed by his lack of grace. It wasn't an unnatural thing to feel around her.
"You're not very coordinated, are you?" she asked.
Once he finished with the last shoe, hopping forward to catch himself from falling on his face, he proudly straightened his back and smiled. "I'm an earthbender. I'm supposed to have two feet on the ground."
Her marred mouth pulled into a wry smile as she held out a folded white towel and a pair of thickly knit grey socks to him. He held out his sopping wet shoes, one in each hand, and looked down at them pathetically.
"Just toss them on the floor, I don't care," she said.
He snorted and shrugged, held them both out at arm's length, and released them. They hit the floor with a wet smack, his antics making her shut her puffy eyes and shake her head with that wry smile still in place. He took the towel and socks from her, bowing slightly in thanks.
"So, uh, how are you doing?" he asked as he stuffed the socks into one hand to pull the towel over his head. With his free hand, he started rubbing his hair dry, just able to see Asami move to sit on the edge of her bed as the towel flapped around his face.
She sighed and knotted her fingers together, twisting them against the locks she created, making her joints crack. He had never seen her do that before except in preparation to drive.
"Mako told you?"
He nodded and worked the towel against the hair on the back of his head, which had dripped the most and still ran beads of icy water down his neck. "Yeah. And, if it had anything to do with what I said, I just want to say I'm sorry."
She didn't respond. He pulled the towel off of his head to rest it across his shoulders to find her frowning at him in confusion. Not knowing what else to do, he unconsciously mimicked her expression but worked his mouth into more of a pout.
"Why are you apologizing?" she asked. "You didn't do anything."
He shrugged. "I don't know, I just feel like - I don't know. Like I butted in when I shouldn't have."
"You didn't do anything wrong. I'm glad you told me about Mako and Korra."
"You're glad?"
She bit her lip and pulled it under her teeth, where it popped out brighter pink than before. Bolin realized that that was how the lipstick wore away so cleanly.
"I'm not glad," she sighed. "I'm-no, I am glad that you told me about it. Not that it happened, but that you told me. I'm thankful that I'm not going to waste my time with a boyfriend that doesn't love me."
Bolin's heart twisted inside his chest, completely bowled over by her words. "But-but you don't look happy."
That was enough. Even she was surprised when the tears started falling again, feeling them slide down her cheeks and even pressing her hands to her skin to really feel the wetness there. She squeezed her eyes shut to take the moment for herself, running her fingertips over the line where her eyelids met, sticking slightly against the mascara that still mucked up her eyelashes. When she opened her eyes, she was greeted with the sight of Bolin staring at her frozen in place, face horrified and mouth popped open to form a perfect circle.
He could practically feel the open space that separated them, like it had turned into a solid block of glass that gave him the perfect window to view her crying. He was locked completely in place and he still held those socks in his hands while his wet, frigid legs and feet dripped water to the floor to collect in what was now a steady puddle.
"So...you're not happy then?" he ventured to ask.
Asami sucked in an awkward, choking laugh as the tears continued to fall, rubbing them away with the heel of her palm. "No. I'm definitely not happy."
He tugged the towel from his shoulders to bend over and dry off his feet. The ends of the towel fell in the weak puddle, soaking up the water and effectively making most of the towel useless. Asami sniffled watching him as he struggled to dry his feet and legs, until finally he dropped the towel to the floor and started to lift one foot off the ground to cover it with a sock.
"Here, you can sit on the bed," she said, gesturing to the open spot next to her.
"Oh? Thanks," he said and complied.
He put ample space between them and shoved on the socks, and they were a little tighter than he would've liked, but they were wool and warm. He had never worn a pair of wool socks before, nor ones this thick. Stretching out his legs before him, he wiggled his toes.
"They're small," Asami said.
He shrugged. "It's better than too big, trust me. So, uh, do you want to talk? Or anything?"
He watched her as she took her time to answer. She took her hand and cupped the side of her face with it, dragging it down to her jaw and pulling the skin of her cheek with it. It traveled down to massage the back of her neck, eyes wide and unfocused at some far off point ahead of her, silent tears still slipping down her cheeks. Finally, she shrugged.
"No. Not really."
"Oh," he muttered, not expecting that response.
He looked down at his feet again, rocking them back and forth while he tried to think of something to say that would cheer her up. He had already decided to take on the duty of being the happy one in the group, the one that wasn't a born leader, but that could attempt a few jokes to pull out smiles and laughter through tears. It was what he did naturally after years of growing up with the most serious older brother in the world. He had to find something to laugh at because no one else would do it for him.
Mako would protect him, but he wasn't good at taking care of people. That's what Bolin did.
He turned his head to look at her. She worked her hands up to gather her hair, where all of the usually sculpted curls had looped together, forming an inky black mass of interlocking loops and loose tangles. She shifted it all over her shoulder, knocking back the collar of her shirt, messily disrupting the part in her hair. It was the first time he had ever seen her not made up, and not taking care of herself.
"Do you want a hug?" he asked.
Her eyes widened and she snapped back out of her focused daze to look at him. "What?"
He smiled. "A hug? You know, to make you feel better?"
She stared at him as if she had never heard of the word, and was slightly frightened of it. However, she seemed to work through the idea and found it acceptable, because she nodded.
Bolin forced his smile to grow wide and toothy just for her, standing up and moving before her to spread his arms out comically wide.
It seemed to work. Her lips worked into a weak smile, staring up at him for a moment before standing. She was just a few inches taller than him, older than him, and Bolin tried to stand up to his full height in an attempt to match her before wrapping his arms under hers and around her body.
Her arms folded over his broad shoulders, and she was surprised how comfortably they fit together. How it was easy to fold herself over his body, dipping her head down next to his and burying her nose into the crook of her own elbow. He was warm and comforting and just there, in a way other people hadn't been, looking for nothing more than a few smiles out of her and to ease some of the pain.
It surprised him a little when her chest started to jerk and hot, wet breaths moved across his jaw, and her shoulders started shaking to bump against the side of his face. To hold himself back from reacting awkwardly from her crying as he had before, he held her tighter, running his flat palm across the heated silk at her back. It was easier to comfort her than it had been to hold Korra, who was still stubborn and tried to comfort him right back. He was getting better.
"Thank you," she muttered.
He chuckled lightly. "No problem."
"This is just what I needed," she said, squeezing tighter for one long moment before pulling away.
He beamed at her and was happy to see her smiling. It was still weak and a little wobbly, but he had laid the foundation for it and hoped it would grow. As long as he was able to stand with his feet firmly on the ground, he could hold up anyone.
"So, you're feeling better?" he asked, and she nodded. "Great! So, uh, do you want to head back up to the house? It's probably lunchtime. Or I'm just hungry again. Either way I think we should eat."
She laughed. "I could eat."
"Great! That's great, so, I'll head out to the hall and wait for you to get ready-"
She shook her head and moved to the end of her bed to collect her shoes. "I'll just go like this. I'll probably sleep on the couch afterwards."
"Oh, alright, sure." He looked back at her as she easily slipped on her boots while standing, able to balance perfectly on one foot at a time.
She looked up at him and smiled the strongest he had seen her do so in a full day, and the affection that came with that look hit him full force, causing him to beam back at her. She shrugged on a coat, not bothering with the buttons, and he followed her out of the bedroom to brave the snowy world outside.