This strongly, strongly, strongly implies relations between Bolin and Korra. It also speaks of infidelity. Rated a sturdy T. This really is a dark Borra. This is a sad chapter. Also, this part 2 differs stylistically from the first part. I think it's easier to read.
For a Taste of Eternity (Part 2)
Sweat clung to him, marking him salty. The heated embrace of the sheets only augmented the flush of his face as he sat up, clouded in sin. Aside him, Korra snored contentedly, sated. Bolin shivered. Rising from his cluttered, crowded bed, he made his way to the wide window, throwing it open to the cool dawn's dew. His stomach bellowed, complaining of its emptiness.
Bare feet padded across the room, stopping only for their owner to cover himself in a fresh pair of shorts, gray like the wink before sunrise. He moved beyond the lazy door to his combination kitchen-living-room-dining-area. The icebox contained a few stiff buns stuffed with noodles, so he set a bamboo steamer atop a pot of clear water. As the water boiled, he rinsed his face in the kitchen sink, the trepidation associated with guilt settling into him in waves. Icy drops fell from his hair, clinging to the curls and running down his face. Swallowing thickly, he wondered how long it would take him to run to Ba Sing Se.
Suddenly, rapid knocks vibrated off his front door. It was barely morning, the clear wash of sunrise yet to settle– a strange time to have a visitor– twice in a 24 hour period. Briefly, Bolin apologized to the Spirits for whatever caused his quiet, healing life to burst into flames at the Avatar's tempting touch. Steeling himself, he approached his door and opened it slowly.
Flesh and blood stood before him, and his chest began to ache. Surely his guilt manifested on his face in a terrible frown, a sadness in his eyes and the tell-tale wrinkles of culpability. Mako's distraught, sleepless face stared at him, words erupting from his dry lips as his face twisted further into worry: "Bo, I can't find Korra– she's not home or at the island or the arena or Narook's or City Hall or Asami's–"
Bolin didn't know what to say. But his face twisted into a pained grimace and somehow a whisper of suspicion reached his dear brother, making him enter the home enough and pause. Pause; listen. And hear the the snores of the Avatar trickle from the other room. Bolin slowly started to cry.
"She's only staying because she's mad, right Bo? She's just sleeping. She came over to sleep here, right Bo?" The water, slowly brought to a boil, suddenly exploded in a flurry of bubbles and heat. Steam rose dramatically toward the air as the pot's reserve was exhausted and the metal became dry. The strange round sound of hot water granted the situation an eery hilariousness, as Mako laughed.
But it was empty, angry, and lost all at once. It wasn't the laugh of old: the lighthearted stress-releasing gurgle chimed at cute antics, saved only for him. It wasn't a side-splitting chortle at an unsavory joke in off-character moments of amusement after a long day training and toiling. It was in this humor that his older brother left.
The firebender walked away from the earthbender many times before: when he left for numbers with the triads leaving the other boy silent and hidden from the world; when he crisply stalked off to work at an honest factory or power plant; and when he left for dates and appointments. An emptiness settled in as an uncertainty never before touched on pressed heavily against Bolin: would his brother turn toward him again?
Eternity tasted sweet, but the price for immortality– high– so above the world the view below lay fogged in obscurity.
A hissing came from the pot as it finished drying. Tendrils of sunlight fell through the door as Bolin fell into the floor, the unmistakable embrace of loneliness chilling him to the soul.
Oh my poor baby boy. ;A; My feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelsssss.
I'm thinking there's at least one more part to this. Most likely two more parts. Reviews make me momentarily stop tearbending at this situation.
