Chapter 4: The Bar

Mako decided to take Tahno's inadvertent advice and go out for a drink. A little alcohol never hurt anybody, right? He wandered around the city for a while, eyeing the cheerful storefronts bitterly. He couldn't believe Korra had just broken up with him—with HIM! Mako of the fabulous Bending Brothers! She didn't know what she was missing.

After half an hour or so of aimless walking, he spotted a promising bar. It was a dark, hole-in-the-wall type place, but the counter was nearly full, so it couldn't have been too bad. He walked in, plopped his equipment bag next to the only empty barstool, and placed an order for the cheapest beer they had on tap. He received his drink and took a long pull, the foam leaving a trail on his upper lip. As he swallowed, he looked to his left and realized who he'd sat next to. He very nearly choked.

"Oh, hell…" he muttered. He quickly swiped a hand across his upper lip to remove the foam mustache as Tahno turned to look at him. Tahno's cheeks were a little pink and the counter in front of him was littered with empty shot glasses, but he was still perfectly coherent.

"'Sup, hotshot?" Tahno smirked. "Long time, no see."

"I'm not talking to you," said Mako, realizing a little late that he'd already contradicted his statement.

"Hm…'s that so?" Tahno took a moment to down another shot of some ambiguous amber liquid. "Shouldn't you be out partying or something? Champ?"

His lips made an exaggerated popping noise at the end of the word, and Mako had the distinct impression he was being mocked. Mako raised his glass to his lips, muttered, "I don't think they want me there right now," and quickly drained the remainder of his beer. He called to the bartender for another.

"'s that s'posed to mean?" asked Tahno. "Lady troubles?"

Mako's second beer had arrived, and Mako made a big point of taking a large sip and ignoring the question.

"Aah," said Tahno triumphantly. "Lady troubles." He picked up another shot glass and took a sip of the mysterious liquid. As he swilled the remainder of the drink around, he swiveled his barstool to face Mako. "Y'know, if it makes you feel any better, I jus' got dumped. By three girls." He held up three fingers, as if his words weren't clear enough by themselves, and then drained the rest of the shot.

Mako snickered. The alcohol was finally taking effect and warming him a bit. He'd been unnaturally moody for the past few hours, and he was finally starting to feel like his normal self again. "Oh, yeah? Why? What'd you do?"

"Well…" Tahno started, "two of 'em found out 'bout each other…"

"You were dating them all at once?"

"Yeah," shrugged Tahno, as if it were no big deal.

"Then what happened with the last one?"

Tahno grimaced. "She just didn't like me."

"Shocker." Mako took another big gulp of beer.

Tahno extended a threatening finger toward Mako. "Hey, hotshot, tha's not fair. You're my competition. You're s'posed to hate me. But I can be a perfectly…all right…person when I feel like it."

That reminded Mako of something. "How come you didn't pay off the refs?"

Tahno raised an eyebrow at him. "Tha's pretty random."

"Just answer the question, will you?"

Tahno let out an exasperated sigh. He thought carefully about the best way to phrase his reasoning process, but couldn't come up with anything particularly good in his marginally drunken state. "I guess I…had a debt to pay."

Mako snickered again as he sipped his beer. "Oh yeah? To who?"

"Uh-vatar Korra."

Mako was not expecting that. His eyebrows knitted together in confusion. "Huh?"

Tahno traced the rim of a shot glass with one long finger. "She ga' me my bending back. I wouldn' even be in the finals withou' her. So I figured I owed the Uh-vatar a fair game, at leas'."

"A-vatar," Mako muttered under his breath.

"Wha'?"

"I didn't say anything."

"Oh."

They sat together in silence for a few moments. Mako couldn't believe what he was hearing—Tahno actually sounded like a real person. With, like, feelings.

Suddenly, Tahno interjected, "But we're all even now. So don' 'spect a fair game nex' year, 'cause you won' be getting one."

Mako almost smiled. That was the Tahno he knew and hated. "Wouldn't want it any other way. It'll just prove how much better the Fire Ferrets are than the Wolfbats when we win anyway."

Tahno's finger stopped its incessant circling and he picked up the shot glass. He said, "Cocky. Jus' like me." He downed that shot, then another, as if steeling for what he was about to say. "Y'know, in another life, I think we coulda been friends, hotshot. I see why the Uh-vatar likes ya so much."

Despite Mako's usual poker face, he visibly cringed. He took another long pull from his glass in an attempt to cover it up, but Tahno caught it anyway.

"Oh, yeah. The Lady Troubles," he said, swinging around to face Mako again. "Wha' happened there, anyway?"

"None o' your damn business, that's what." Mako, now a ways through his third beer, was beginning to feel the alcohol. His face was hot, and he was positive he was blushing.

Tahno smirked at Mako's red cheeks. He decided to just wait out Mako's stubbornness; bitter, intoxicated men always talked eventually.

And suddenly, Mako was talking. He told Tahno everything, from his and Korra's first kiss to their break-up. As he talked, they drank. By the end of the story, they were both nearly incoherent.

"So tha's it," slurred Tahno, eyelids drooping heavily. "She's holdin' ou' on ya."

"I jus' don' see wha's the big deal," complained Mako. "Asami slep' with me af-der the secon' date. I've been wid Korra for 'bou a year, an' nothin'."

"You shittin' me? You fucked 'sami Sato?"

"Yeah…"

"Man, bitches these days got no standards." Somehow, despite his unhealthy level of intoxication, Tahno still managed to make jokes.

"Dude, you go' dumped too. You're not gettin' any more 'n I am."

Tahno laughed and clumsily placed an arm around Mako's shoulders. "Ho'shot, ya jus' gave me the cra-ziest idea."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Wha' is it?"

Tahno looked into Mako's golden eyes very seriously. "So Korra won' have sex with you, right?"

"Right."

"So you haven' slep' with anybody in like a year?"

Mako grunted bitterly in affirmation.

"You're a stronger man 'n me, ho'shot. I's only been a couplea weeks since I 'ad sex, and I'm dyin'."

"Where're you goin' with this, man?"

"I'm sayin' we can help each other ou'."

"How'd ya figure tha'?"

Tahno removed his arm from around Mako's shoulders and poked a single finger at the center of Mako's chest.

"We can have sex."

Mako looked at Tahno, dumbfounded. "If I wasn' drunk, I'd punch you. I'm straigh', man."

"So'm I, bu' we're no' gonna get any anywhere else."

It may have just been the alcohol, but Mako was starting to see some sense in Tahno's argument. The things he was saying, although somewhat outlandish, were completely true.

"Y'know wha'?"

"What?"

"I think you're righ', man. Insane, bu' right."

"You soun' so surprised."