Disclaimer: Disclaim, disclaim, disclaim.
Author's Notes: 12/21/12. And here it is. Happy End of the World Day? (At least you'll go out with some lovely Tahnorra in your brain, no?)
MUSICAL INSPIRATION: "Locked Out of Heaven" by Bruno Mars, for sure, but this installment really comes down to "Till Dawn (Here Comes the Sun) by The Weeknd. I'm not kidding. This song captures the essence of this installment perfectly, so please, please, please listen to both of them, and you'll see what I mean.
I got the second song from a recommendation on tumblr, but my messages box deleted the name of the user as soon as I sent back the reply. D: Please send me another message so I can thank you properly! It really helped give me the final oomph I needed to finish this.
If you're looking for timeline clarification, this chapter is slowly approaching the middle of Episode 8: When Extremes Meet.
Beta'd ever-so-thoroughly by the beautiful ebonyquill.
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We got your back, Korra... and we can save this city.
Together.
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"I'm not waiting all day for those fritters, boy!"
"Yeah, well, maybe if you didn't have such a cheap-ass frier, you wouldn't have to wait at all!"
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Somehow, this wasn't the kind of morning that Tahno had always imagined for himself.
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discord
the cracks begin to show
Some hours later, Tahno finally rips the greasy apron from over his head and throws it in the bin near the utilities closet at the far back of the kitchen. His skin is hot and sticky, and he smells like stewed prunes and seal blubber, but the day is over and that's all that matters. When he steps out into the area behind the bar, Narook is busy serving up a hefty wave of customers. Apparently, Tahno has missed the lunch rush altogether and has dived straight into dinner hour.
"Make yourself useful and dry those glasses, will you?"
"I'm off the clock," Tahno says, his voice and throat scratchy with oily kitchen heat; but then he dries them, anyway.
It's almost another hour before the mob dies down to a manageable size, and Tahno finally turns to make his way upstairs. Before he leaves, Narook tosses him a copy of the day's paper and tells him to take a shower, regardless of whether or not there's hot water—you smell worse than a beached whale, boy—and look at that, things could almost be considered back to normal. Right.
He takes the shower, not because anyone told him to, but because he desperately needs one, and reads the paper afterwards while waiting for his water to heat on the stove.
The front-page headline is not a welcome one, but perhaps it's not all that surprising.
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TRADING TASK FORCES:
THE AVATAR'S NEW TEAM
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Tahno reads the article, but the photo—a high-speed chase, a broken city—says it all. He glares at the newsprint with narrowed eyes, and almost misses the screeching kettle, and the burning scent that says his water has boiled dry.
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"Fuck," is all he says.
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"Hey," he says as he steps round the corner. "Good afternoon."
"Mako!" she exclaims, sitting upright at the table with a jerk, and her voice is a little higher than she would like. Ugh. "Yeah, you too."
"I saw you out in the gazebo this morning. I was surprised you actually got up, especially after last night," he notes with a loaded tone, and Korra thinks he's probably either impressed or concerned; she could never be too sure with Mako these days. "I didn't think you were a morning person."
"I wasn't," Korra grumbles, swirling the tea inside her mug. "But monks are, and now, I, by unfortunate association, have just gotten used to it."
"I guess I'm not that surprised," he shrugs at the doorframe and, again, Korra wonders why he's still so close when all he does is remind her of how far apart they are. She also wonders if there will ever be a time when he feels comfortable enough around her to just be around her, but she isn't about to hold her breath. "You've been training with them for weeks, haven't you?"
"Yeah," she laughs, because maybe she's still a little delirious. She hadn't gotten very much sleep the night before, and she'd barely had the mind to eat throughout the whole day. It wasn't her fault though; Korra couldn't remember the last time she felt this ready to fight.
Actually, that's a lie.
"I guess my excuse is that I've just got the natural firebending instincts," Mako shrugs. "I rise with the sun, or so they say."
She scoffs and takes another sip of tea as she stares out the window into Yue Bay. "Yeah, well, I've always known I've got a preference for fire, so maybe that's my excuse, too."
Korra's determined not to look at him, to take back some measure of control—and she feels it, after last night, she can feel the control returning to her limbs—but instead she just hears him shuffling awkwardly against the frame.
"You know," he begins tentatively. "Last night was... well. I feel like ever since we all moved in, we... like we've seen less and less of you. I guess I never really thought... It's just that last night was pretty amazing, tracking down the Equalists like that. I realize now how I've never really taken much time to think about what it's like for you, especially with you thinking that you have to go through all that on your own."
Korra looks up at him, surprised. Mako is leaning heavily against the woodwork, arms crossed tightly over his chest, but he's trying not be so stiff, she can tell.
"It's my job," she says simply, like that's supposed to explain everything.
"Yeah," he concedes. "But I'm sorry for, you know... not getting it. Until now."
Korra nods, quietly and carefully. "Thanks," she smiles, not entirely sure what to do next. Her blood is still singing with restlessness, and she's pretty sure with the mood she's in that she could pick at least ten bar fights, but she's still sitting cross-legged at Pema's dining table and Mako is still standing there, waiting for her to say something else.
"Look, what I'm trying to say is... well, we've missed you," he blurts. "I've missed you."
Korra's mouth runs dry. "I'm still around," she tries, but she knows what he means. She can see him clamming right back up, so she quickly says, "But I've missed you guys, too." A lot, actually.
Especially you.
He looks a little confused, and maybe a little disappointed, but Korra feels too tongue-tied to try anything more.
"We want to go into the city today to get some dinner," he says abruptly, and Korra feels like something has just slipped through her fingers. "We figured we could use a change, and last night's first run with the new Team Avatar seems like as good of an excuse to celebrate as any." He smiles at her, and Korra wonders what alternate universe she has just entered. Was she still asleep? Had she dreamed last night up entirely? She feels like some vital change must have occurred when she wasn't paying attention, but nobody has bothered to tell her.
"Thanks," she says gratefully, and really, she is. "But I honestly feel like I just need to keep going, you know? I felt like I was really starting to make some progress today, and I don't want to lose my momentum."
The disappointment isn't all that hard to see anymore. "Well, it's not really a Team Avatar celebration without its key player."
Korra laughs suddenly, the kind that feels like it's being pulled straight from your chest. "Yeah, well, then you'll have to party extra hard for me. I'd like to save my celebration for afterwards." You know. When I'll feel like I've earned it.
"You sure?"
"Positive."
"Well," he nods, and shifts himself away from the doorframe. The distance feels greater than ever, and Korra wonders if he can feel it, too; the smile he gives her is tight and forced, so she thinks he might. "All right. I'll, uh... I'll let them know."
Korra nods her goodbye and watches him leave with heavy shoulders, wondering when the hell she turned into such an idiot.
Two hours later, it's still the most present question on her mind.
"Korra!" Bolin exclaims, while Asami smiles at her kindly and Mako looks on with pleased surprise. "You came!"
"Oh," she says, stunned. "Hi."
Imagine her surprise when, upon arrival at Narook's Seaweed Noodlery, just as she was about to rush straight past the crowded booths toward the stairs beyond the bar, she came face-to-face with three very surprised teammates.
Well, neither could Korra, but here she is, anyway.
She is so caught off-guard that at first all she can do is blink. When Bolin slides over to make room, however, her body jerksinto action.
"Sorry, but I can't actually stay!" she rushes out, holding up a hand to stop Bolin from squishing into the wall any further. "I just came to, uh, to—to pay off an old tab for Narook!"
"But you're already here," Asami points out. "Why not just stay and enjoy a meal with us? We didn't order too long ago."
"Yeah," Bolin agrees. "Join us! You look like all this Avatar stuff is really stressing you out."
"Sorry," Korra says, mostly to the girl with green eyes, and feels a twinge of disappointment in having lost yet another opportunity to try being a better person to Asami. "But I still have a lot of stuff to do before we head out again later tonight, and I should really go see Narook first."
"I didn't realize you came here so often," Mako observes with another look of poorly concealed disappointment.
"What can I say?" she shrugs, starting to feel a small panic rising within her. How long has she been standing here? Has Narook noticed her distress yet? Has—has he— "Bolin got me hooked."
"You should have told us!" Bolin protests. "We love this place. If we'd known you were coming here all the time—"
"Sorry," Korra interrupts, feeling fidgety. "I just—you know, it was never really a planned thing, so."
Korra's almost certain that Mako notices how awkward she's being, but she's hoping that he's just chalking it up to the fact that he's still sitting just a little too close to Asami. On the other hand, Korra is absolutely certain that Asami notices; from the quiet green-eyed speculation, Korra can only hope that Asami is remembering their talk in the gardens, and will have the good graces to just let her go quietly. And because it's Asami, naturally, she does.
"Don't worry, we'll save you something for later," she says with a secretive smile. "See you back on the island after dark?"
Korra allows herself a smile in return. "Another round of patrol? Can't wait. I'll see you guys later—don't start without me!"
The boys try to call after her as she heads to the bar, but Asami already has them sidetracked before she reaches the counter and an ocean of gratitude wells up within her. Still, it never hurts to be safe.
"Narook," she says in a low voice, all but ramming her waist into the bar. "This is going to sound crazy, but I need you to pretend to take my money." When Narook looks up, she feels more like a hog monkey than ever.
"Beg pardon?"
"Please?" she begs. "Just take this like you're going to collect my money for a bill and then, if—if Tahno comes down, tell him that I'll be back soon?"
Narook's knowing eyes shift to the table on the right. "You know what you're doing, Korra?"
She looks at him with fiery, pleading eyes.
"Not at all."
She goes through the motions of the exchange, then leaves through the front door.
Not more than four minutes later, Tahno is just about to close the living room window when a startling noise from outside bursts through the tide of his thoughts, and he unexpectedly comes face-to-face with an unfamiliar, rocky crag just beyond his fire escape. His gaze slides along the tall, narrow mountain of earth to find a figure at the top and—ah—there's Korra, with one foot already on the metal walkway, crawling in through his window and you have got to be kidding me.
"What the hell?" Tahno mutters as she rolls onto his floor. He is so mind-boggled, he can barely clamp his jaw shut as he glances at the windows of the neighboring apartments. "Someone's going to think I'm being robbed by the Avatar."
She scoffs. "Yeah, well, I'm sure they wouldn't put it past me these days."
He looks back at her then, letting his fingers tighten over the chipping paint of the windowsill, and knows that he doesn't know how to respond to that. She sounds flippant, but Tahno knows her well enough to see how much it truly bothers her underneath. Speaking honestly, he'd always gotten his fair share of notoriety in his old life—free publicity—and he'd basked in it; Tahno wasn't very familiar with how to cheer up someone who genuinely cared.
"Too good for doors now?" he says instead, rising up from the sill and closing the window shut. As an afterthought, he shuts the blinds, too.
"You know," she shrugs. "Just spicing it up a bit."
"Like you don't already have enough spice in your life," he crosses his arms, shooting her a hard, hard look.
She tilts her head to the side then, taking a good look at him for the first time. He's not quite so sickly pale anymore, his white shirt is stark, his hair is still a little damp from his shower, and he smells clean and fresh and like all the things she's missed. His eyes are a startling blue in the light, and all this, Korra thinks, is why she came.
Feeling a slow-burning warmth creep through her limbs, she carefully brings herself closer until they're standing toe-to-toe, just until she's almost under his chin. "Are you saying I should take some of it out?" shes asks meaningfully.
He looks down at her with narrowed eyes, arms still crossed over his broad chest, but her smirk only widens. She's been hanging around me for too long, he thinks distractedly, losing focus with each passing second. He'd wanted to say something about her little joyride as soon as she arrived, to show her the paper, to demand an explanation or call her out on her foolishness or something—but her fingers have already found their way under his shirt, and her lips have found the vein on his neck, so she's off the hook for a little while longer, at least.
The kettle eventually calls.
"Ah!" she breathes, extracting herself from his arms. Tahno looks down in a blurry haze of confusion as Korra rights her top and steps back off of the couch. She's breathing heavily, and so is he. "Good, you've got hot water," she says with a devious smile. "I'll get the tea."
He hears her rifling though his kitchen—the familiar sounds of the afternoon—but for a moment longer, he goes to linger by the sill, staring out the window at the space where the mountain no longer was.
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She may not have realized it, but not long before she'd catapulted herself through his window,
he had already gone downstairs.
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Silently, Tahno follows her into the kitchen.
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Unsurprisingly, they never quite get around to drinking that tea.
Somewhere in between removing the cups from the cabinet and turning around to watch him approach—
Korra finds herself pinned against the counter, and her face in his hands. The cups fall to the sink with a jolting, shattering crash, but the sounds are drowned out by the force of her gasp against his mouth. The top she'd so carefully readjusted just moments before somehow finds it way onto the floor, and it's not long before she finds herself in his bed.
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"You know what you're doing, Uh-vatar?"
Korra laughs, darkly, under her breath.
She wraps her fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck, and shrugs bare shoulders into the mattress.
"No more than I usually do."
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He's not really himself tonight, Korra realizes.
And she has the creeping suspicion that it has something to do with how hard it has been for her to get over here the last few days, now that she and the others have decided to take matters with the Equalists and Tarrlok's wimpy task force into their own hands, but she's still not quite sure what to do about it.
About any of it.
"Hey," she pokes him, though with barely any strength; whatever energy her limbs had carried in with her when she arrived is long gone now. "Why the long face?"
"Just because my face is long doesn't mean I'm particularly upset about something," Tahno replies keenly. "This is a terrible prejudice we long-faced people face each and every day."
Great, Korra notes. He's being especially sarcastic, which means that he's deflecting something.
"In that case, I apologize for any offense," she quips, bouncing onto the space of the mattress next to his. It has a wonderful effect on the upper portion of her anatomy, naked as it is, but he doesn't seem to be paying quite as much attention today.
"Well, if aren't you in a good mood," he observes dryly.
"I mean, you know how spirited I am."
"What?" he snaps, lifting his head off the pillow. "What are you doing? Are you trying to be funny? Or cheer me up, or something?" he asks disdainfully. "Because it's not working and it's not necessary."
"Am I allowed to call it lifting your spirits instead?"
"No," he sighs, slumping his whole body face-forward into the mattress; she has the sneaking suspicion that it's so she can't see the tight, burgeoning smile he's trying to hide.
"Then I withdraw my attempts," she says regally.
"Thank goodness."
"...thank the spirits!"
"Korra."
And then she tackles him.
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It's two days before he sees her again.
But perhaps that's really not all that surprising either.
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She's late.
It's because she's out on patrol, but what else is new? Korra finally feels like she's doing something. It may not be the solution to calming the revolution or finding Amon's true identity, but she is learning more and more about the ways of the Equalists with every attack, every block, every hit. She is the Avatar, she has a job to do, and this is the only way she knows how to do it.
And when she's not on the streets or training with Tenzin, she's at Tahno's. Seeing him the way he is, now more than ever, reminds her of her purpose. She is reminded of what happened that night in the stadium every time she sees him; every glance, every touch, every sigh drives her. She is Korra, she is doing all that she can, and she's going to fix the mess she's made.
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She's late.
Tahno is trying to learn how to live all over again, and he's learning that it sucks.
He's waiting for her all the time now, which wouldn't have been much different from the usual, if not for the fact that now it's spent wondering whether or not tonight is the night that she's going to wind up getting herself killed, or worse. And he resents her for that; every smile, every laugh, every it'll be okay, so don't worry so much is just another blow. He is Tahno, she had never promised him anything anyway, and that's the way he'd wanted it. Wasn't it?
Living in the moment isn't all that easy when your sole source of anything is the Avatar; she's too good at living in the moment, herself.
When she does arrive, it's not until a few hours later.
The skies are cloudy with a chilling storm, but it's peaceful inside the apartment, where the drops patter quietly against the glass and the light is calm with all the grays of rain. The pillow is soft against her cheek, the sheets are warm, and without meaning to, she finds herself nearly asleep.
She blinks—once, twice—and finds him looking back at her, a knowing smile where there is usually a smirk.
"Someone's tired," he says gently, teasingly.
"No," she argues immediately, and then yawns.
"You know, I thought I remembered the Avatar having a little more stamina than this."
"Can't help it," she mutters, burrowing deeper into the pillow, which brings her just a fraction closer to where he lays beside her.
"I guess that's what you get for trying to take on the world all at once," he gives her shoulder a gentle shove, pushing her awake, and when she glares at him, he only smiles.
"I'm not taking on the whole world all at once," she mutters, peeved. Although I might as well be. "I'm trying to cut down on the Equalist mess."
"Yeah," he concedes, still amusing himself with the shoulder pushing, which has now turned into something of a game. "Irritating Tarrlok all the while."
"Tarrlok?" Korra asks a little more loudly, confused. "I'm surprised you didn't just call him three-braids-what's-his-hair."
"I've been reading the papers."
"Yeah, okay, but Tarrlok? He's a weasel-snake, sure, but what can he do?"
Tahno considers her for a moment, and Korra tries not to fall asleep. "Just be careful," he says, surprisingly serious. His fingers brush her hair away from her face, even though they're nowhere near her eyes, and he becomes fixated on the strands. "Tarrlok's a sketchy guy."
"You sound like Tenzin," she sighs.
"Yeah, well, maybe you should get into the habit of listening to your mentors a little more," he points out reasonably, then flicks her shoulder. "He seems like the type who just might lose it one day."
"You also seem like the type who's incredibly biased against politicians."
"And with good reason."
For a few moments, it is quiet. Then: "You know, sometimes I think about... Just how much they're all counting on me... but other times—most of the time—I feel like they're all just waiting for me to fail," she whispers, lifting her gaze to meet his.
"Who?"
"Everyone," she admits, searching his eyes for the answers he doesn't have. "Does that make any sense?"
There are a lot of things he could say, and a lot of things that he'd like to. But instead he gives her shoulder another flick, then trails his fingertips over the line of her collarbone, sweeping them up along the slope of her neck, where they rest, spreading wide and warm over the skin.
"Just as much sense as anything else."
She is already close to falling back asleep, and a selfish part of him wants to keep her awake. He has so little time with her these days, and the fact that her other life—her time spent with her little team, with the firebender—is what keeps her from being here fully just seals the deal.
Mako, a firebender with no appreciation for substance, neither in bending nor in women. She hasn't mentioned him in a while, and he hasn't brought him up, but he knows what he saw the other day in the bar, and he knows the real reason for the impromptu landscaping outside his window; what Tahno doesn't know is if her silence on the matter is a good thing.
"Tahno," she mutters groggily, and his eyes snap back to the lashes fluttering against her cheeks. He says nothing, but lowers himself towards her, and he hates that when she brings herself closer—foreheads almost touching—a warmth spreads all through his limbs. "What will you do?"
Tahno pauses, confused. "With my life?" he asks with an irrational breath of laughter, as his brows deeply crease. "I've got a job with Narook, for now."
"No," she mouthes, and he has to lean closer to hear. He has the feeling that she isn't entirely awake. "What will you do? On the day... when I... fight Amon."
"I... I don't know," he replies honestly. He can think of a good few possibilities, but in truth? He doesn't know, does he? And he probably won't for a long, long time.
"Tahno," she breathes a deep, shuddering breath. He watches her eyes dance beneath her lids and revels in the sound of his name from her lips. Lost for words, he brushes his fingers along her cupid's-bow, and strains to hear. "I don't want you to get involved."
He pauses, and he wants to laugh because—
What would she do, he wonders, if she knew just how involved he'd already become?
"I suppose we'll see," he whispers with an ironic smile. "Won't we?"
But she is already gone, so he pulls up the covers, and lets her rest.
There is a fight later that week. Over something silly, something trivial, and neither can quite remember what it was about, or how it even started. It's usually the same old hat these days, anyway.
That night he watches her drift off to sleep in his arms, much like the way she watches him sleep when she awakes in the morning.
As they part, she tells him that she'll be over later that night, just after she finishes the patrol, she promises. She apologizes for losing her temper, even if she's not sorry for anything else. He smiles a little then, the kind that she feels all the way to the core, the kind that she hasn't felt in so long, and he ruffles her hair and tells her that they still need to work on those apology lessons. She smiles and leans down to kiss him.
"Only if they're private," she breathes against his mouth.
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Predictably, her departure is delayed.
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Long after she leaves, Tahno gets up, gets dressed, and gets ready for the day.
As he waits for the water to heat, he is left staring out the window,
watching the city live on.
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NEXT INSTALLMENT:
Arc IV : discord – and this is how we fall apart