Song 1 - Shut Up Kiss Me - Angel Olsen
Can my life get any stranger?
Korra mused it with annoyance, and Asami's own thoughts were along the same lines except this whole endeavour had left her in a dream like state.
Instinctively Korra placed herself between her best friend and the tiny elderly woman wielding a shot gun bigger than she was, and raised her hands.
"What are you doing in my swamp?" she seethed.
"We came for the hiking trail," Asami insisted in a worried pitch, bracing her hands over Korra's flexing shoulders, ready to tug her out of the way at a moment's notice.
"We don't want any trouble," Korra assured over the cacophony of torrential rain hitting water, hitting mud, drawing patterns in the dirt.
"No? You didn't hear about a weak old blind woman out in the woods alone in a storm and think it was a good time to ransack my property?"
"You're blind and you're wielding a shot gun?" Korra screeched.
"I'm aiming at ya ain't I?" to make the point she corrected her aim where her weakening arm had dipped it.
"You're Toph Beifong, aren't you?" Asami asked, thumbs digging into Korra's raising hackles to keep her calm.
"Whose asking?" her silver eyes narrowed.
"My father was Hiroshi Sato, we used to rent from you every summer, third cabin on the lake,"
"You're related to that maniac!" Toph had the gall to look a little shaken.
"She's nothing like him," Korra had a knee jerk reaction.
"Ease back Louise, Thelma was talking,"
"He died," Asami swallowed the hurt she was very much still processing, "We came here to say goodbye,"
"Oh that's just great!" Toph scoffed, "Another pile of ashes for me to clean up! Gross, you people are gross,"
"The wind took him, look lady, we're on our way back to the city, just let us go and we can all get out of this rain!"
"Which city? Republic or Ba Sing Se?"
"Republic," the couple in the lake spoke in unison.
Toph lowered her shotgun and took to leaning on the barrel.
"Hmm, that's a no go, storm took out some trees a little while ago over the main roads, traffic is backed up, you'll be there all night,"
"We'll take our chances." Gun now gone, Korra pulled herself up on the deck and turned to brace Asami after her.
"I do however have some dry sturdy cabins going for a good price…"
"It would be nice to shower, and get warm." Asami mused aloud and knew it was a mistake from the look Korra shot her.
"I can't," Korra whispered it, only to her, clinging to her convictions by the skin of her teeth.
"You want to just wait in the car in the freezing cold instead?"
"Asami,"
"No Korra, we're not done here," Asami reached for her arm and gripped her wrist, before letting it fall to squeeze her palm.
"I have to be," it was all Korra could do, but shake her head and pull away, an out of body experience from the sheer lunacy that drove her to add, "I can't keep doing this,"
"Shall we take this debate in the office where this weak old woman won't freeze to death?"
"I'm staying," Asami told her, an edge cutting her voice.
"Great!" Toph tossed her a key she was lucky to catch what with all the precipitation and tension in the air. "Might I interest the other one in a rental car?"
"Fine," Korra snapped, palming off the keys to Hiroshi's super car to Asami without looking her in the eye. She didn't know why her gut was boiling, she was doing the right thing, she was doing the right thing!
"What's her problem?" the old woman questioned, gun swinging over shoulder that Korra was extremely wary of given that she was following her lead.
"She loves me," Korra snapped, thoroughly irritated. Why was it so impossible to follow the plan she'd made to the letter? Why couldn't she stop herself from giving in when Asami reached for her?
"Well it's never too late to stay."
"She's married,"
"Congratulations!"
"To someone else,"
"Nobody's perfect."
"You charge per person don't you?"
"I could have shot you!" Toph laughed, "But I thought about it and I have made the best out of it, a tenant! In the off season, who'd want to stay here when it's wet!"
"Yeah, you're a real saleswoman," Korra muttered.
"Hey I'm no expert, but it seems to me you should consider taking an opportunity you can never go back to, trust me when you get to my age, you know it's better to live without regrets, or don't, what do I care."
You're right, you're not an expert.
Korra thought twice about continually sassing a woman with a deadly firearm. Still the word, regrets, batted around her mind frantic and unrelenting. Korra had lived with this regret for the last few years. Regret was her rising sun and waning moon. Regret tucked her in at night and kept her company, and for the most part, she hadn't minded, because she had thought her best friend was happy.
"What cabin key did you throw her?"
Asami decided to save her tears for inside the cabin. Watching Korra all but run away from her into the forest had sobs already clawing their way out that took everything to tamp down. Shivering, clutching two keys, marching through the storm like a drowned rat on a mission, she began the short run to the first cabin she saw.
The key Toph had given her wasn't a match. The little fob had only an embossed leaf to identify the house, useful only to the blind woman who ran the place poorly. She let out a frustrated screech and darted to the next one, slipping a little in the mud as the down pour raged and thunder clapped in the distance.
She groaned when the second didn't work, she was really hoping for the third cabin it would fail too, alas when the key cut into the lock, it turned with ease.
She made a show of slamming doors and shouting to punctuate them for no one in particular. Out of the deluge she could mop sopping locks out of her eyes and fought with leather boots that were surely ruined. She'd just whipped the last one to the ground when she lost balance and her spine came into contact with the porch door jamb. She let it carry her weight, and the events of the evening wash over her in a rush. She couldn't blame Korra for leaving, if she could, she would leave herself too. She was marred by the mistakes of her past, of her father, of her own weak decisions. She'd let the best part of her life go utterly unnoticed.
For a moment, she remembered what it was like to be kissed by Korra. She let herself be seduced and tantalised by it, trying to recapture what it was to taste her lips and hold her so close. She'd have to memorise it, because Korra was gone, and likely never coming back.
The door she had viciously sealed, snapped open, only to be jammed by her boot's toe. Standing straight she watched in fascination as Korra stepped in after her, closing the door, pushing out the fierce spray of a world in chaos outside. Rolling her jacket from her shoulders as though it were the only part of her that was soaked as ran her fingers to push her hair out of her eyes, and god, her eyes, Asami had never felt so pierced by them before.
A beat, and then Asami remembered found the will to move her lips, though they were numb at the sight of her.
"I thought you left,"
Korra pursed her own lips, give back stare open and honest.
"I can't,"
"What do you mean you can't-?"
"You were right. We're not done here," Korra cut her off, but with a serene, even tone that cut Asami's intensifying temper in its tracks.
"What's left to talk about?" Asami questioned quietly, fingers playing nervously with the wood at her back.
"Nothing," Korra shrugged, with that maddening half smile, all the panic and chaotic energy she had earlier was gone. Oddly, she was resolute and calm. Asami could only look into her eyes and remember an interesting fact about her best friend that she'd learned quite recently; Korra could entice, seduce and bed a woman without so much as speaking a word. Asami felt her core tighten as she took the smallest step towards her.
Her movements were deliberate and slow, Asami almost left her body as a finger fed through her belt loop and gave a gentle tug, bowing her head with an almost smug skill, her lips closing over her pulse point, her teeth biting the skin. If Asami didn't have the wall at her back she would have melted into the ground there and then. Her hand flew up to the jut of Korra's jaw, her fingertips feeling it work that gorgeous mouth, if she had the intention to push her to stop, it quickly passed when lips grazed a nerve that had electricity firing behind her eyes.
She let her press firm, wet kisses along the column her throat, all the while Asami's own hand gripped Korra's bicep tight, wringing her t-shirt still dripping and cold. Asami was mad at her, she had to stay mad, but how could she when lips and tongue suckled at the crux of her jaw? Asami's eyes rolled back into her head before she could stop it, no-one had ever made her body react like this before, no-one but Korra.
It was with a whimper she realised Korra was pulling apart her buttons.
If she turned her head just so, she could kiss her again, but partway Asami stopped herself. An errant thought occurred to her that she should stop this, that Korra may regret it, that she was outwardly cheating on a man her best friend was making her forget. A man that had never made her feel anywhere close to this.
There was a point of no return coming up, a time to stop and think and talk through everything, over again, they still hadn't crossed that line when - oh.
She had a hard time knowing who moved first. Korra tugged down the lace of Asami's bra, the hot muscle of her tongue suckling the peak of her breast. While at the same time, Asami had Korra's wrist in her grip, and guided her hand past the clasp of her jeans.
"Fuck," she breathed, Korra's fingers pushing aside her underwear, her middle finger sliding over her wet slit, parting her, coating her digits and tenderly teasing her clit.
Fingers framing her jaw she bowed her head, kissing her hard, a bruising kind of kiss, to which Korra responded just as intensely, enthused and finally refusing to hold back.
She felt a loss when Korra pulled away, but resolved when she realised why. Her mouth reclaimed its descent, soon enough Korra was on her knees, tugging, even with coated fingers, on her jeans, lips tracing her naval. Peppering biting kisses on her hipbone as she exposed it guiding Asami's feet to step out of her pants and her thighs, slick at their apex over her shoulders to brace her.
Korra looked up at her, mapping the sight, before dipping her head and her tongue replacing her stroking fingers.
This wasn't how Asami had imagined it, being eaten out standing in the shoe room of her childhood vacation cabin, but she'd be damned if she was going to stop it now. Especially since the digits playing at her entrance now filled her exquisitely which had her arching forward, nails clinging into Korra's shoulder and hair, unable to stem the instinctive fluttering of her hips against her mouth.
It was no secret Korra had done this before, but the sheer speed she learned Asami's body, what had her twitching, and whimpering, and crying out had to be some kind of record. Pumping shallowly her fingers found her g-spot it was all it took to drive her over the edge. Asami's trembling became seismic shudders, a litany of curses and promises and prayers falling from her breath, arching her back and bearing down on Korra's mouth as her tongue laved hard unrelenting circles. With a sudden lock of her spine she was at her peak, mouth open, balanced on the precipice, a single stroke away from tumbling over that edge. Asami had never felt more alive, until the flex of Korra's jaw, suckle of her clit and curl of two burrowed fingers.
She let out a cry that would only have been heard by the two of them, her eyes were closed, but Asami could guess that the rumble of thunder and flashes from the outside had timed perfectly for her.
Korra let her ride the high and carried her back down, numb toes finding the floor again, limp body shifting weight from Korra to the wall as she rose up to face her, chin shining.
When Korra was certain she could stand on her own two feet, the blades of her lips brushed the corner of Asami's, her gaze dark and challenging, her fingers still between her legs, playing with her gentle and sure.
"Is this what you wanted?"
There was no coming back from this. It would be like asking the dead to go back to sleep after having stolen that exquisite second chance at life. Asami knew then how damned she was, she'd make a thousand deals with the devil, if it meant kissing Korra one more time.
Asami tasted herself when she kissed her, and was surprised to find Korra's response to be tender, and loving, cradling her cheek as she angled her head.
Pushing her backwards into the living room where countless families had spent summers making memories. Subtle initials carved in beams, throws and pillows waiting in darkness for their guests, a gas fireplace balanced and cold as drips from the storm out side tapped down the chimney.
Korra's mouth never left hers as her fingers skilfully pulled down leather, tossing Asami's jacket into the neglected dark, her shirt tangled with it. She felt the ring on Asami's finger, cold, reminding her that she knew exactly what she was doing. She also listened to the encompassing way her breath hitched when he hooked her hands under her thighs and lifted her.
Her knees gave when they met the couch, and so it was that Asami was now mounting her with only a bra in disarray to cover her, while Korra was still in the wet clothes she arrived in.
"Take it off," Asami seethed, biting her lip, tugging at her shirt, "Everything," but Korra ignored her, unhooking her opponents brazier with her thumb and forefinger, tantalising her thigh with the tips of her fingers.
Asami reached down and unhooked her jean button but stopped when Korra's fingers found her clit again, mesmerised and somewhat annoyed that Korra didn't seem interested in taking her turn. Asami sat back, blushing fiercely and finally bare to the world, but more importantly to her best friend. Korra stared at her, blue eyes a sea of calm she could get lost in, drinking her in, in return.
"It's your turn," Asami complained, leaning forward, kissing her hard, but Korra could only smile helplessly into it, all the while her fingers slipped into Asami without friction.
"Korra," she whimpered, certain she couldn't hold on for too long without coming again. Determined that she wouldn't let the balance slip so unevenly as it had with her last partner, albeit in the other direction.
"Shh," Korra hushed her, lips still touching Asami's even as she spoke, "do you trust me?"
Asami froze, overwhelmed by the earnest affection in her best friend's voice, combined with the way she filled her, one more digit than last time. She took a moment to respond, wherein she puckered her lips to kiss her softly, the wet sound of their lips parting reverberating through her ears, as she sank slowly onto Korra's fingers.
Her whimper was instant, cantering her hips and kissing her wildly until Korra's lips found home over her chest, and set her attentions on a nipple she could suck, her free hand supporting Asami's back and guiding her strokes. Asami gripped the wooden frame of the couch for something to tether her to this world, for it wasn't long before Korra pulled a second earth shattering orgasm from her and fierce claps of lightning from the outside. That can't be a co-incidence.
"Stop,"
"Is something wrong?" before Korra could fear the worst Asami's mouth was on hers.
"I can't take it anymore I have to fuck you in a bed,"
Korra laughed as Asami found her feet, bandy and melted, stumbling toward the master bedroom dragging Korra after her.
"How am I the only one naked?" She lamented, turning Korra into the room and stepping close. It was now she grew tense, as Asami's fingers played with the hem of her shirt, and lifted it by running her palms up her sides, thumbs stroking stomach, ribs, grazing breast until Korra lifted it the rest of the way. She kissed her gently, slipping her the tongue as she finally seemed as awestruck as she had been the minute she had began kissing her neck.
She let herself be kissed, as Asami unzipped her jeans and tugged them down for her, and fumbled with the latch of her bra, no less graceful than anything else she did, although it did admittedly take a little longer. There was a moment where neither touched each other, bare and cold and finally the same. Asami dipped her gaze to meet the old scars, long since faded on Korra's belly and legs, to her dark nipples, new to her, begging to be caressed. Her thumb grazed its peak, before taking her into her arms and simply holding her close, peppering her cheek and neck with riotous kisses. She heard her laughing, how long had it been since I heard that laugh?
"Get into bed,"
Korra stepped back and fell into it, never breaking her gaze, lifting the sheet for her to follow.
Asami made the most of climbing up her body, cupping thigh with one hand and kissing it, her hip bone, her belly, sternum, settling and suckling her breast, satisfied to hear her partner unable to hold in a gasp. Asami played a game she liked to call distraction, kiss her here, while her fingers played with her down here. She'd only ever touched her self, this was all the knowledge she had to go on, but her confidence was bolstered by the way Korra's grip tightened on her arm as her fingers parted supple lips. God, she was wet, her middle finger swept over twitching clit, as she planted her knee behind her hand, a pressure that had Korra's back arching.
"How are you doing this?" she breathed, mouth falling open as she felt Asami's fingers sink into velvet walls, her thumb brushing clit.
Asami's mouth found home on Korra's lips, free arm feeding under her shoulder to tangle in her hair, until eventually their foreheads balanced. Her hips between her legs, pressing against her hand, Asami rolled her hips experimentally, she'd never fucked like this before, but the way Korra's eyes closed and mouth dropped in ecstasy was no incentive to stop. As she rutted and Korra's hands splayed on her back, pulling her flush, their bodies entwined as intimately as she never been with anyone else, her eyes pressed into the curve of her throat, listening to her moan and gasp and finally fall apart.
It became her mission to seek out those noises over and over again and memorise their pitch, their nuances, how Korra tasted when she made them.
"It's something sweet," Asami told her, hours later, the storm has faded into a soothing trickle, a rainy early, early Saturday morning to fool around in bed with nothing to do. She'd mounted her, and finally the great Ice Sculpting Surfing MMA Champion had been exhausted, as she was laid spread eagle on the bed as Asami kissed and tasted her neck, "Maple or…marzipan?"
"I knew you were a freak, but I didn't know you were this kind of freak,"
"Korra, you taste like desserts, did you know this?"
"No one's ever mentioned it," If Korra wasn't pinned she would shrug, or pinch herself, because as Asami pressed her mouth to her collar bones in wet kisses she wasn't sure she hadn't died and gone to heaven.
"Maybe it's pheromones…"
"Will you stop," Korra laughed, sweeping her legs so she could turn and roll her.
"MMA in bed Korra? Uncool," but Asami didn't mind when Korra began her own ministrations, lips tracing her jaw, teeth nipping her ear lobe.
"I know how'd you get so lucky,"
It was then Asami felt the weight of what she had done, falling on her like a tonne of bricks, arranged in the shape of a piano on what once had been dangling on a long piece of unsnapped twine. She thought of Iroh, how crushed he'd be, how betrayed, she loved him, she must have, to have spent so much time with him, to have shared a life, even as passing ships in the night, the meals, the laughter, the parties, the boredom, it all had to mean something but all in all she couldn't deny how happy Korra was making her, it made it all seem so dull and fuzzy in the wake of it. That made it all so much worse.
She took a moment to comb her fingers through Korra's hair, concentrating on the way her body felt eclipsed over hers, and the weight and warmth she wanted to feel at that moment.
"What do I do Korra?"
Korra caught her meaning immediately, only her answer was not as expected.
"Which Korra are you talking to?"
"How many are there?"
"Best friend Korra would tell you to be smart about this, to really think about who is right for you, in all of life not just sex…and she knows, it might not be me, but she'll be okay with so long as you're happy," she felt her thumb soothing her jaw then, stroking rhythmically as Asami stared glassy eyed up to the ceiling.
"The second Korra?"
"The second Korra, is the Korra you just met… she wants you to run away with her, some where far flung, Fiji, Kyoshi, she'd have you sipping mai tai's, getting a tan, and she'd make you come a thousand times, with my fingers and mouth and well… until you forgot anything and everything that could ever make you sad,"
"And the Korra that loves me?"
Korra paused, she hadn't said it, but it was out there. Asami felt the press of her lips over the salty tears that had fallen over her temple. Korra kissed her there, three times, and Asami's lips quivered and thinned as she slammed her eyes shut.
"She can't give herself to you until you know what you want. I can't pressure you into making a decision. I can't tell you how it would end with either one…you know how I feel, and I'm here for you…until I'm not." it broke her heart to add the last part, but in the interest of self preservation she had to be honest.
"So three,"
"Yeah, three," Korra's head sank into the pillow beside her, watching her tears fall as she steadied herself, taking solace in stroking the curve of her spine.
"You never let it show, hurting over loving me."
"It was enough to spend time with you, and not risk losing you,"
"And then I got married and you were what? Just going to leave without saying anything?"
"It didn't pan out that way did it?"
"I'm your friend Korra, you could have told me how you felt I wouldn't have been mad."
"You sound kind of mad now,"
"Of course I am! Korra if this had happened five years ago we'd be on a completely different path, look at what we did tonight, I've never felt so - ugh!"
Asami rolled away from her, out of bed, pacing with her head in her hands.
"I cheated on my husband and I don't regret it because I can't say it- I'm going to shower," she turned on her heel, and Korra was both mesmerised by her very naked best friend, and the fact that she was in the middle of a crisis. "That was an invitation," she yelled back, and Korra followed dutifully.
She found her, palms cupping her face under the stream, tense, reeling. She tenderly pried her hands away from her face and kissed her forehead, her eyes, her cheeks.
"I've become my father," Asami's voice broke, and her lip trembled.
"No you haven't," Korra had her wrists to keep her from hiding, "I'm not some secretary you decided to fondle after getting bored, it's me, Asami, only me."
"Why can't this be easy?"
"You don't have to decide now…we can pretend like we came here 5 years ago, for nostalgia, and we just knew what we were," Asami felt the planes of her fingers curl lovingly beneath her jaw, it took everything to listen to her and not turn her head to kiss her palm. "after this I can give you your space, so you can make your decision. No matter what I'll go on loving you all the same,"
Asami couldn't look into her eyes, so blue and earnest, not as her shame enveloped her then. Korra seemed to know, and her arms pulled her so Asami could lean into her, and place kisses on her shoulder.
Asami knew this was the third Korra, her hand secure on the small of her back, the other combing her fingers through her hair. She let herself be taken care of, not that she deserved it. Mostly she was curious to see how far Korra would go for her. She felt a lather of bubbles massaging her back, and soon enough Korra had turned her, back to her front, carding shampoo into her scalp without a word. It wasn't sexual, but it felt incredibly intimate, and had Asami weak in the knees to feel so taken care of, she couldn't say how she remained upright because she felt like she was floating.
Song 2 - Song 2 - Feels Good - Julia Nunes