A/N: Bolin is another really challenging character for me to write because his comedic tone tends to clash with the way I usually write. You'll note that the style of this chapter is a little bit different. But I also just don't have as much insight into who he is. I think in canon, Bolin is a very sweet guy who has a tendency to be thoughtlessly (rather than deliberately) insensitive and that he might have a difficult time navigating the emotional minefield that is having a close friend with a difficult illness.
I also just sort of decided that in the Bopal context, Bolin is the sort of boyfriend who is always quoting his girlfriend to the point where his other friends get annoyed. That's where the first paragraph comes from, at least.
Opal is always telling him to be honest about his feelings, but she also says that Korra probably wants some space and doesn't need to hear everything he's thinking right this minute. Bolin has difficulty reconciling these two things in his mind. Because he would like to tell Korra that he saw her beat Zaheer and that it was awesome but also really scary. And he would also like to talk to her about lavabending. And he wants to say that seeing her sick makes him sad, and he wants her to get better and knows she will get better because she is the best Avatar there ever was.
But Opal says it's probably not the best idea to lay all of that on her right now. And Opal is right about pretty much everything. So Bolin has found other ways to help.
His favorite fishmonger is a guy with no teeth who sells his morning haul near the dock. He has five silent crewmen who bring in the nets with arms as thick as oak trees, corded with ropy muscle, and tattoos on every inch of exposed skin. Opal is fidgety as Bolin looks over the selection, and he feels her fingers kind of hooking onto his rolled sleeve as her head jerks from left to right.
"What do you think she'll like?" he asks, staring at stacks of fish so fresh he's sure some of them were moving just seconds ago.
Opal pulls herself a little closer, almost like she's trying to hide behind him. "What?" she responds, watching a giant harpoon being unloaded from a nearby whaler.
"I said, what kind of fish do you think she'll like?!"
He watches Opal's eyes dart in several directions but isn't quite sure what that's all about. Is she scared?
"Oh, um, I don't know."
"What kind of fish do they eat at the South Pole?"
"Um…"
"We haf some nishe herring…"
"Herring it is then!" Bolin crows, and he watches as the seaman wraps half a dozen medium-sized fish in newspaper.
"Who'th yer young lathy?"
"Eruk, this is Opal. Opal, Mako and I used to run deliveries for this guy back in the day."
"Nice to… oh," She instinctively extends her hand forward and then withdraws it when she sees his meaty paw, which is missing three fingers and is still slimy with fish juices. "Nice to meet you." She plays with her hair to cover. "Your fish are lovely."
Eruk's face splits into an enormous toothless grin, and Bolin sees Opal quail a little bit before rallying and smiling back.
"Thee's fery prithy," says Eruk, and Bolin feels a burst of pride on behalf of his girl even though he knows the sailor's taste in women runs slightly contrary to his own.
With his paper bundle tucked under one arm and his girlfriend hanging onto the other, Bolin walks tall all the way back to the ferry.
"You really used to deliver fish for him?" Opal asks.
"Oh, we didn't deliver fish."
He guesses by her look—though he can't always tell for sure—that this may not be the right time to tell her all the details. But he promises that one day he will take her all over the city and show her the pro-bending arena and every spot where he ever won a fight and the fruit stand they used to steal from and the secret places in the park where you could catch a few hours of sleep before the police kicked you out. He's proud of all of it because it's part of him, though sometimes he wonders if he shouldn't be. Mako sure isn't as keen on talking about it.
So far, he's just taken Opal to Harmony Tower and the noodle shop. "It's such a beautiful city," she had said leaning over the side of the observation deck, and it was bliss because it was like she was paying him a compliment too.
…
Meelo air scooters toward them as they get off the ferry, his face a vision of childish imperiousness. "Opal! You missed meditation this morning! What do you have to say for yourself?"
Opal rolls her eyes but gives Meelo a sisterly smile. "I was helping Bolin, Meelo. Your dad said it was fine."
"Well that is no excuse!" His finger is still poised in the air when something else catches his attention, and his nose starts to wrinkle. "What's that smell?" and points to the bundle under Bolin's arm.
"Fish!" he says, holding the package up proudly.
"We're not allowed to have fish."
"Yeah? Well, it's not for you anyway." He draws it back against his chest protectively.
Meelo turns back to Opal. "You should pack," he says.
"Meelo, we're not leaving until next week."
"You should still pack."
Bolin hoists the tiny airbender by the collar and sets off toward the temple with the five-year old swinging by his saffron robe. "Ok, boys who try to boss my girlfriend around get fed to the monster." He's legitimately irritated. Because he would rather just not think about Opal leaving for a little while. Again.
Meelo struggles in his iron grip. "Nooooooo … what monster?"
"The fearsomest beast to ever walk on four legs," Bolin says.
"NOOOOOOOOOO!" He howls for several more meters, but it's clear that curiosity and outrage are doing battle in his head, and the lack of airbending suggests curiosity has the upper hand. His eyes dart from Bolin to Opal, who tries to look as stern and serious as she possibly can about the fate that awaits him.
When they round the corner near the small enclosure, Meelo crosses his arms in annoyance as Bolin sets him down.
"That's not a monster! That's just Naga!"
"Yeah? NAGA, GET 'IM!"
Meelo shrieks as Naga lunges forward, tips him over with her nose, and runs her giant tongue over pretty much his entire body.
"Noooooo…!" He is caught between screaming and giggling. "I don't want you to eeeeaaat meee!"
"Ok fine," Bolin relents. "Naga, down, girl."
The beast swiftly obeys. And as Meelo bends himself dry, she catches a whiff of the package under Bolin's arm and begins nudging at him insistently.
"Yes, I bet you aaaaare hungry, aren't you?" he coos, scratching her roughly on the head and tugging at one of her giant ears.
He unwraps the package just a little and takes out a fish. In an instant, it disappears between her jaws, and Bolin frowns.
"Naga, I'll never understand you," he says. "These are the best fish in the city. You need to take your time and enjoy them."
Opal comes closer and massages the polarbear dog's white flank. "I bet she misses hunting."
"There is no hunting allowed on the…!"
"We know, Meelo!"
"Would you like to make this more fun, Naga? Would you?" Bolin teases, and her huge club of a tail wags and thwacks Opal in the back.
Taking that as a "yes," he steps back a few paces and holds a fish out at arm's length. As Naga comes at him, he darts out of the enclosure, launches the fish into the blue, and is nearly knocked on his ass as the bulk of her goes racing by him to catch it in midair.
"Nice," says Opal, and Bolin feels his chest expand. That was "nice." Naga comes careening back toward them, fish devoured, and Bolin takes another one by the tail and sends it flying. It begins it's not so graceful arc, spinning end over end, when from his right side, Bolin feels a gust of wind, and the fish is propelled faster and higher as Naga stops for a second to watch it and then goes bounding into the distance.
Bolin turns to Meelo and raises his eyebrows. "Awesome," he says, and the little boy grins back at him, tongue poking through the gaps in his teeth.
"I want to try," says Opal, settling into an airbending stance as Naga comes sprinting back. "I can do better than that."
"Your wish is my command," he says and launches another fish so hard his shoulder pops.
…
It takes only a couple of days before "Feeding Naga" becomes the favorite secret game of everyone who happens to stumble over them while they are playing it.
"Does Korra know about this?" Asami asks when she comes across them on the third day.
"Taking care of Naga is my job. Korra said so," Bolin is prepared to defend his methods to the death if anyone challenges him. He is the animal expert after all. Well, the expert on two animals specifically.
But Asami just watches as Naga leaps into the air way, way in the distance as her lunch ends its long descent, and when she comes sprinting back, the heiress holds out a manicured hand. "Gimme a fish," she says.
In a few minutes, it's Bolin and Opal, Otaku and some acolyte, and Meelo and "milady" (as he insists on calling her) competing to see which team can make the fish go furthest. Otaku misses his target a lot, but that, Bolin says, is all just part of the challenge.
…
When Mako finds them the next day coming in from work, Bolin's is almost sure the fun is over.
"What's going on?"
"Naga's eating … and she needs the exercise," he says. And he's not wrong. Naga's belly has been hanging rather low the past couple of days.
"Sure," he says, looking at the ragged line of onlookers taking bets on various pairs.
"Does Korra…"
"Take a fish," Bolin says, shoving his last missile in his brother's face. "Jinora hasn't gotten a turn, and she needs a partner."
Mako holds the fish by the tail between two fingers, looks at Jinora—who looks like she's trying not to get her hopes up—and thinks. And then to Bolin's delight, he grips it like a knife and sends it flying in a spiral, the light catching the silver scales as it flies forward, almost as if it's swimming in the sky. Jinora sends a burst of air after it, and as Bolin watches, he wonders if Naga is going to have to dive straight off the cliff to catch it.
He looks back to Mako, who already has his arms crossed and is frowning thoughtfully as he watches Naga make the return trip.
"You need to tell Korra about this," he says, and as Bolin prepares to argue that Korra would love this even as money exchanges hands behind them (are Air Acolytes even supposed to have money?), Mako pulls out his own wallet and presses a fistful of yuans into his shirt.
"And you're going to need to buy more fish."
…
Bolin nearly crashes into Korra's mom as he jogs into her room.
"Sorry!" he yells, grabbing her by the shoulders to steady her and then instantly letting go when he sees her startled face. "I was just, I mean, I didn't mean…" He turns to Opal, searching for help.
"Bolin would like to know if Korra can come out and play," she says, and Bolin turns to see Korra's mom smile back at them.
"Why don't you ask her yourself?"
Bolin relaxes. He likes Korra's mom. He likes that she's here, and he likes that there are so many moms around the Island these days in general. Moms are nice. Bolin tries to think of his mom sometimes, but the image he conjures usually just turns into Mako, which is weeeeiird.
Korra sits in her wheelchair next to the window. She's dressed in her typical shirt and pants, but her boots are off and her hair is mostly hanging down. Bolin can see her in profile as he ambles past her mother, and as always, he just can't quite figure out what the deal is. She doesn't look sick or hurt. She hasn't in a while. She looks like the same old Korra, his best friend, though he keeps hearing stuff from Mako and Asami and other people that it hurts her to move around a lot and that she sometimes can't sleep and gets headaches. But when he talks to her, she just seems kind of sad, not sick.
If there is something strange or bad happening with her, it's something he can't quite put his finger on. He desperately wants to fix it, for sure. But everyone keeps saying they just need to give her time.
"Korra?" he says, trying his best to be quiet. Opal grabs his hand as they approach her chair, giving him courage.
It takes longer than it should for her to look at him, and he wonders what she's been thinking about. Her eyes are still kind of distant, and the darkness around them is the only thing that really tips him off that there is something physically wrong.
"Hey Bo," she says.
"You are needed outside," he says, grinning at her, trying to see if he can get her to smile.
"What for?"
"We need you to help us feed Naga."
One of her eyebrows tilts up, and he knows that he's at least gotten her attention, so he grabs the handles of her wheelchair (she walks waaaay too slow these days) and sets off for Naga's enclosure. At one point, Opal puts her hand on his arm to get him to slow down, but he can't help it. He's excited. He feels certain that this is going to cheer her up.
No one else really knows she's coming because he couldn't be absolutely sure that she would, so when they arrive at their destination, everyone just kind of freezes for a second. But then…
"Korra's here!" Meelo comes streaking toward them like the wind itself and clambers up into her lap, and Bolin sees her crack a smile and knows he's already won.
"Watch!" Meelo yells, jumping off her almost as quickly as he jumped on. Asami grabs a fish from the pile on the ground, hauls back, and lets it fly. Meelo's wind blast sends it into a perfect spiral as Naga takes off a dead sprint.
"You guys know she has a ball she can chase, right?"
"We use that when we run out of fish," Bolin says, keeping his eyes on Naga's path until he sees her leap and catch the fish far off in the distance. "But we've given her a lot of fish," he admits. And his pockets are getting empty.
(And fish and balls have different aerodynamics and so it's hard to keep score because it's like apples to oranges, and the guys placing the bets get mad, and…)
"Fifty meters," comes the call over the radio, interrupting the train of Bolin's thought.
Asami frowns and Meelo stamps his foot in frustration. Their personal best is sixty-five.
Bolin turns back to Korra, and he feels triumphant when he sees that the smile hasn't left her face.
"This is insane," she says, watching as the scorekeeper takes down Meelo and Asami's distance.
"You ok with this?" Mako says, walking over and squatting next to Korra's chair.
"Are you kidding? This is the most fun Naga's had in her entire life."
It's then that the polarbear dog sights her and comes running at her so fast that Mako actually throws himself in front of her oncoming bulk and takes a tongue in the face for his troubles.
Korra laughs—actually laughs—and takes the enormous head in both her hands, pressing her face close to Naga's ear and whispering something Bolin can't hear.
"You want to try it?" Bolin asks, and Mako glares at him hard. Bolin turns to Opal and sees by the way she presses her lips together that he may have crossed a line.
But Korra rubs Naga's head one more time and says, "Sure."
Bolin pumps a fist in the air, unable to contain his joy. "Yeeaaahh! The Avatar is back! See guys? You don't need to treat her like she's broken!"
Opal inhales loudly through her nose, and Bolin feels the urge to clap a hand over his own mouth, though he isn't quite sure what exactly was wrong with what he just said.
"…not that anyone around here does that. And not that…I…"
"Just throw a fish for me, Bolin," she says, and he can tell that she's cutting through the awkwardness of it all for him, trying to give him an out, and he's grateful. He grabs a fish from the pile and then turns to see her struggling a bit to get on her feet. His brother swoops in to help steady her, and Bolin realizes that he should have thought of that before the fish.
"I'm ready," she says, standing in a slightly awkward stance but standing nonetheless.
Bolin feels a slight twinge of fear but pulls his arm back anyway, thrusts forward, and lets it go.
Her air burst isn't as powerful as he expected, but it hits the mark.
"Thirty meters," comes the call on the radio.
"Not bad!" he says as a smattering of applause erupts around them, but it's hard to totally conceal his disappointment. He was sure she'd break fifty on her first try. "It takes a little while to get the timing right."
Korra narrows her eyes and bites at her lip, but Bolin feels sure that she'll do better next time. He hauls back and launches the fish in the air again. He's gotten better throwing it in an aerodynamic way, so that it spirals instead of going end over end.
He sees Korra's strike go a little wild and hears a grunt of pain next to him. The burst of air glances off the fish and sort of knocks it out of the sky rather than propelling it forward. Naga has to regroup and grab it off the ground.
When Bolin turns, Korra is being eased back into the chair by his brother, and she is squeezing her eyes shut like something really hurts. And Bolin's heart sinks to his feet. He runs over to her, and his hands kind of flutter around. He isn't sure if he should touch her.
"I'm so, so sorry," he says. "I'm sooooo, so sorry. I'm soooo so sooo so…"
"Bolin, it's fine," she finally says. And the pain starts to leave her face. "I just twisted funny is all."
He breathes a little easier and looks to Mako to find out just how badly he screwed up. Mako's face is softer than he expects. He doesn't look terribly mad, just kind of concerned. He feels a hand on his back and turns to see Opal, who is making her sympathetic face.
"Do you need to go back in?" Bolin asks. "I can take you. I can get you some tea, and I can…"
"If it's all the same, I think I'd just like to stay and watch," she says, and this time she looks right at him, and her eyes look a little less sad and tired.
"You're the Avatar," he says. Turning back to the waiting group, he calls, "Who's up next?! Assume the position!"
And as the next team steps forward, he feels a warm hand on his arm.
When he turns around, she's actually smiling at him. "Bolin, thanks," she says. And Mako just crosses his arms and nods, his token stance of approval.
"You did a good thing," Opal says and leans to kiss him on the cheek. And as he blushes all the way to his socks, Bolin is almost completely sure that yeah, he did.