Song 1 - When She Loved Me - Sarah McLachlan (yes I know its from Toy Story, and its the GAYEST SONG I'VE EVER HEARD)
Ryu had taken a day off work from the diner for this. He was excited.
He'd ridden a bus into the city, wearing his best clothes, which so happened to be a suit he saved for weddings and funerals, including his own, one day god willing.
A bumpkin wandering Republic City, camera strung around his neck, capturing the street signs and landmarks with new eyes. He could get used to this, and if the Republic City Chronicle liked his photos, he just might get that chance.
He clutched the portfolio, tipped forward on his chest as though he would happily give it to the first reporter in there, and they'd be grateful for it. He managed to keep it together long enough to make it to the front desk.
"I'm here for my cousin," he said it in a rush. The receptionist somehow managed to look down on him from sitting.
"Ryu!" Seung waved at him from behind the turnstiles. Ryu waved happily, bumbling through the barriers, ignoring looks of derision from the city folk who worked here. His cousin slapped his back. "Look first thing I'm going to tell you is to not get your hopes up,"
"Uh,"
"Cars aren't that big here, the old Sato cars have a massive stain on them, what with the quote unquote 'Corporate Genocide Cult' but hey, it's a slow news week, and it's good to see you buddy,"
"But this is an exclusive, never before seen, the last car designed by the Hiroshi Sato; you can tell by the-"
"Yeah yeah, save it for the motor editor," Seung waved at him, guiding him into the waiting boardroom. He gave him an encouraging thumbs up, sitting beside the editor, a serious woman in a yellow suit, sharp glasses, and claw like nails, balancing her chin on her thumb and forefingers.
"Ryu this is Hou-Ting,"
"Good morning, lady and gentleman," Ryu took a breath reciting the pitch he'd practiced on the bus on the way here. He took a step holding the portfolio aloft and tripped, sending photos of the hot rod red and gold supercar sprawling on the table top, "Ugh,"
Sueng pursed his lips to hide his smile, his editor bristling with agitation, before sliding the pictures in front of his beleaguered colleague.
"Relax buddy," he admired the shots, "these are nice, why don't you put the negatives on the projector,"
Ryu struggled with a breath, namely he forgot if it was meant to be going in or out, as he did as he was told.
"The emblem is genuine," he gained confidence as he spoke about his passion, "you can tell by the cog, in ratio to the circle, it was his signature. It was Sato's mission to imbue as many pistons in the long front, and by and large this was the biggest-"
Hou Ting released a sharp, excited gasp.
"I know!" Ryu exclaimed, "From the outside I'm guessing a total of eleven or even twelve pistons-"
"Is that?" Sueng mumbled.
"I believe it is," Hou Ting finally cracked a smile, "Young man you do realise the Sato heiress is kissing a woman who is not her new husband in the background of these photos?"
"Uhh," Ryu adjusted his glasses and gazed up at his work projected and enlarged on the screen. Tucked behind the menu of the diner, Asami had cupped Korra's jaw and kissed the corner of her mouth, her eyes, her cheeks, Ryu had inadvertently snapped every smooch from the outside. The evidence was irrefutable, the emotion in their faces, the lingering gaze that followed.
"Ryu this is," Sueng grabbed his cousin by his arms, "this is amazing, this is the scoop of the century,"
"But the car,"
"Forget about the car," Sueng pressed his nose closer to the picture, inspecting the woman. "Oh my god, the woman she's - that's - We gotta call the Water Tribe Tribune,"
"Ginger is going to love this," Hou Ting actually chuckled, Sueng had to pinch himself to check if he was having a fever dream or an acid flashback.
"What does this mean?"
"Buddy! You've sold your first picture,"
"Really?" Ryu was vibrating with excitement, his vision darkening around the edges.
"You work for me now, Sueng get him a badge, we'll need follow ups."
"For how much?"
"Name your price kid,"
Asami stood alone on the street outside Korra's storefront. Calm blue doors beckoned her home to harbour, but in the twilight she could only stare up at the lights of Korra's home and feel doubt pin her where she stood.
I can't do this. Korra's last words to her echoed through her mind. As a result she mined her feelings, long after the cab she'd been delivered in had driven away.
All paths led to Korra. She wanted her friend back. She wanted to spend the rest of her life making up for lost time. She wanted to kiss her lips, hold her sleeping, see her smile, and be the cause of it. In all of this she was certain, this and what she was about to do.
Kai's van shocked her from her inertia. Still in his tails, he leapt from the drivers seat, opened the garage door, hopping back in the cab to park up. Korra wasn't alone it seemed, and from the energy he gave off this wasn't the end of his night.
The firehouse fell to silence. Her nails found the golden cuffs on her wrist and she tick, tick, ticked by the seconds, evaluating.
There's no turning back now. Asami mused, butterflies fluttering in her stomach for the first time in years. She was nervous, Korra actually meant something to her, and their very future rode on what happened next.
She took a breath, and finally a step.
Lifting a hand to knock twice on the door that connected both Korra's apartment stairwell, and the entrance to the studio. It relieved her to hear the pounding of feet on stairs, but it couldn't prepare her for Korra ripping open the door and standing over her on the top step. Asami's heart was in her throat, but the Ice Sculptor's face was turned as she called back.
"Kai, couriers are here there's no time to-" when she turned to face her she stopped, "Oh,"
Asami wrung her fingers in front of her, watchful of Korra's stunned expression.
"Wha-?" Kai's cracking voice squeaked from behind Korra, wrestling out of his waistcoat without bothering to unbutton it, trapped and struggling.
"False alarm," Korra shook her head, "Go ahead get changed, it's fine." she took a step, pulling the door behind her.
"Hi," eyes bouncing from the face she'd committed to memory, to the rest of Asami's extremities. Worry a glint in her eye. It took Asami a moment to realise what she was looking for was already covered and fading beneath her bracelet.
"Hey," Asami flashed a brief mad smile, relief washing over her that Korra hadn't rejected her on sight.
Korra's hand opened when she spied tears, but managed to steel herself from palming them.
Asami hadn't meant to react this way at the mere sight of her, but the weight of everything overwhelmed her; their friendship had been forever changed, as had she. Gazing up at her now filled her with happiness, and dread, that she may lose Korra, even though every cell of her being was drawn to her magnetism. For the moment she was imbued by all those possibilities, paralysed and weeping.
Korra had every right to be furious with her, but here she was watching her with pursed lips and schooled features.
On the surface it could almost be mistaken that nothing had ever happened between the two.
Get it together. She berated herself, swiping errant tears and sucking in a breath. She levelled her gaze, realising that she hadn't actually planned what she wanted to say, only what she was certain she wanted. Korra was everything to her, she just had to get her to see it.
Korra folded her arms against a chill that wasn't there, and waited patiently for her to say anything.
It was a talent of hers Asami had always admired, how Korra could speak more without a sound than anyone else with a thousand words. Despite her withholding demeanour, her eyes were lucid with that same wounded affection she'd always watched her with. Only now Asami understood why.
Another talent she admired was a proclivity for sass.
"So my business is still standing," Korra prompted, shrugging tensely, allowing a dry smirk.
"I've left him." it came out in a rush. Korra's defensive aura dropped immediately. The world had rushed out from under her at those impossible words. "I left Iroh because I know what I want," Asami wanted to reach out, to take her hand, to share in this moment of revelation, but she didn't. Korra spooked easily, one sudden move could have her on the defensive. "It's you,"
Korra's eyes flashed with that trapped light, her whole body tense.
"I'm in love with you Korra,"
The words are a release. Valve now turned, she can only feel more tears falling.
Korra turned her head incrementally, as though she were about to shake it in disbelief. This is Asami, The Asami, the girl from childhood, from her dreams, standing on her doorstep, professing her love, actively choosing her and not the man she'd married. That perfect giant scary man.
A bomb had gone off in Korra's mind, and as she reassembled the pieces, Asami couldn't bare the silence.
Her prodding nerves led her mouth to open and begin the filibuster of a lifetime.
"You have every right to be mad at me…and I'll do whatever it takes for you to forgive me, Korra, anything, I swear," Asami's face is turned up to her in earnest, she doesn't blink, she doesn't breathe, she only speaks; everything she'd held inside; everything she'd deduced; and more she hadn't anticipated.
The words flowed like water, easy and clear, like anything always was with Korra, her best friend, her everything more.
"All our lives I thought you held missing pieces to this puzzle I was making of you. I had the corners and edges figured out and these beautiful patches of this person I adore, the rest of the pieces I thought you had kept from me - which I accepted because you were just so important, and I waited for you to show me but I…it never occurred to me that those pieces were inside me…I have so much to tell you but the long and short of it is; I've actually loved you for a really long time, and I'm so sorry it took-"
She was cut off by fingers cradling her cheeks, and Korra bowing her head, sealing her mouth with a firm kiss. She could feel her tears press on her own cheeks as she reached up and balanced herself by gripping Korra's overalls. Small gentle moans escaped the back of her throat, chest ablaze with joy as Korra kissed her breathless.
"I was so scared, what he'd do to you, that you'd hate me," Korra whimpered against her lips, brows arched inward, the walls she'd built torn to rubble, and her voice gentle and broken, "That I left and I'd never see you again,"
Korra cradled her face against her own as one would a chalice, a myth incarnate between her own two palms.
"Never," Asami assured her, raising her own to hold her the same, "I had to know and now I know, it's you Korra, I love you," Asami whimpered between every press of her lips, "I love you, I love you, I love you,"
Korra couldn't process beyond kissing her harder each time she said it.
Asami fingers tugged on the hair at her nape, her shirt, her arms, wandering hands frantic with joy, happily smearing scarlet sunrise over Korra's mouth and jaw and cheek.
"What are you doing?" she breathed, Korra had stopped, forehead braced over Asami's, thumb arcing tenderly over her cheek.
"Framing this," she smiled and Asami's heart stopped.
"Oh my god," Asami gasped, hands finding their place at the crux of her jaw, "I've waited so long to see you smile like that,"
Korra was surprised by the laugh that escaped her then, dimples deep ingrained in both cheeks, fighting for breath, balance and absorbing every atom of this moment with a full and even smile. It was too much to take at once, so she buried it into the curve of Asami's shoulder.
Asami held her tight against her with all her strength. Biting her lip to keep from saying she loved her over and over to listen to what Korra was building herself up to say. Korra could only hold on to her, and feel the rush of a thousand daydreams coming true in an instant.
"You're not saying it back,"
"I'm not sure I'm alive,"
Asami laughed, joyous fingers soothing the base of her head, carding through her hair.
"I've loved you for a really long time too," Korra sounded weak from the struggle, but her touch and cadence was just so soft, "I couldn't get over you if I tried, and I tried because I didn't want to lose you," she had more to say, years worth, but in the moment she settled with clutching her close.
We have time, the thought elated her, we have time for all of it.
This was an alternative she hadn't even let herself consider when they began on this dangerous road. Not Asami holding her, telling her she loved her the same, not Asami leaning back if only to kiss her soft and true, not her fingers entwining with her own, and for the first time noticing that she was no longer wearing her wedding ring.
She stood up straight, blinking through the tears, grinning madly. Formerly, it was her instinct to hide every sliver of joy she'd ever come across, purely to protect it. Asami have never guessed by how much until it was finally out in the open. In a moment it broke her heart to realise it, only to have it instantly mended by the expression of peace on her best friend's face.
Asami could only feel the slide of that last piece of the puzzle, Korra's taunting you don't know me, and never will half-smile had finally become;
"I love you, Asami. I always have,"
It was a warmer confession than the one Korra had been planning. She'd imagined Asami ripping her heart out of her chest to subsequently punting it across the Republic City Skyline, and Korra pretending to be fine with it just to keep her. Being confessed to first let her feel safe enough to say it the way she always had to herself, the same gentle way she said her name after all these years. Although she did her level best to keep it hidden, she'd imbued her Asami's with her feelings hiding in plain sight.
"Korra! Little help?" Kai called from inside the shop, and it seemed to snap her from her indulgent lovesick languor.
"You guys are working late," Asami didn't think anything of it, until Korra's face dropped just a little, only to shake her head.
"We fell behind on commissions and I've been kind of preoccupied and there's been only so much Kai can do on his own until now- come inside, get comfortable upstairs, we'll talk, we won't be long," she tugged on her hands, and Asami followed her lead, raising up her skirt to step over the top step.
When the door closed behind her she noted the suitcase and duffel bag on the landing beside them, and Korra stared down at them guiltily.
"You're packed," Asami breathed, "for your trip?"
"I couldn't bring myself to leave," Korra loosened her grip, ready for Asami to do the same. Only she didn't, slender fingers wound more tightly with her own and she brought her knuckles up to her lips kiss them.
"I'm glad that you didn't," her tone was somber and quiet, much like their pillow talk that they seemed to suit so well.
Korra's smile was back, coupled with a blush and that adorable neck grab tic.
"Come see," she told her, matching her tone, fingers still knotted. She led her into the studio, to the freezer where the bulk of the work was usually stored, now empty say for one enormous sculpture.
"Kai made this, all by himself," Korra told her, admiring her apprentice's work with smug satisfaction.
When Korra had just established the shop, she'd filled the frozen windows with her art, she favoured sculptures of myth, Raava's, Vaatu's, creatures of legend, as well as the obligatory swans, cupids and ice vodka luges. Still it was an odd choice of store for Kai to want to rob, he even had brought a cooler with him.
Korra had heard the scuffle as he struggled with heavy doors, collared him on his way past the stairs to her apartment.
"What do you think you are doing?"
"Stealing from you," Korra had laughed at him, tossing the boy on his ass in the shop while she inspected his haul.
"Honest thief! You don't get many of those," She mused, "particularly ones with good taste…I have forty sculptures in my shop, forty staples of my trade and yet, you took the only one I can't remake myself,"
In her palm she balanced the lion turtle she'd been given at the hotel earlier that night. The elite of Republic city had come to gawk at Hidetsugu Ueno himself, ice master from across the sea, to let his creations of roses and birds and exquisite snowflakes melt in their whiskey without a second look.
Asami had gotten Korra the in because she knew how desperate she was to meet him. In her hospital bed she'd kept the newspaper clippings of his rare visits to the city while she plotted her escape.
"Why this?"
"I saw you with that in the alley and the ice maker behind the kitchens," Kai shrugged, "Next thing I know followed you from the Palm,"
Most patrons of the eve had come armed with oodles of cash, Korra had only her carving knife and a cooler of ice, not unlike Kai's. She'd come to learn if only for a night, and Ueno imparted wisdom and the most beautiful thing Korra had ever seen. He'd made it in seconds, before the ice had even begun to sweat. Korra cherished it as though it were her very soul, and later that night Kai had broken in to swipe it.
"What would you even do with this?" she asked, replacing it in the cooler, clutching it to her chest.
Kai only shrugged like the lost sullen teenager he was. On the floor he was strangely calm. He'd been in every kind of trouble that getting caught was nothing to particularly worry about. She noticed his green eyes would follow the prize in her hand wherever she held it. If there was one think she understood about the little stranger, it was that look.
"You want to learn to make it?" she asked.
Some years later, that was exactly what he did, only a hundred times bigger. In Korra's absence, and preoccupation with Asami, he'd taken it upon himself to sculpt and hone his craft while no-one was looking.
This Lion Turtle was gnarled and ancient looking, proud tusks, human eyes, wide nostrils and a shell adorned with a thick forest. It even had structure under a faux ice ocean, as well as above it. Asami recognised the silhouette of the Banyan Grove Tree on its back, and the two tiny little girls sat admiring the view on the cliff's edge.
"How did he-?"
"He asked for some photos for inspiration. I couldn't let him use my notebook any more because," Korra's blush crept up her neck, and she coughed, "I was using it," she deflected, avoiding eye contact. "I figured if I was leaving, we might as well get Kai some accolades so the clientele would trust him. This is going to an Ice Sculpting festival up north. We were going to be closing shop for our trips."
"Truck's here!" Kai announced.
Asami's fingers grazed the plaque, carved in a ring around the edge, perfectly inscribed with the wisdom from the legend. She knew it vaguely, but only then did it resonate so deeply within her.
The true mind can weather all the lies and illusions without being lost. The true heart can touch the poison of hatred without being harmed. Since beginningless time, darkness thrives in the void, but always yields to purifying light.
She could only think of Korra's eyes as she read it, bright at the end of a long, arduous, secret tunnel, waiting for her to see the truth. After inspecting the circuit she took Korra's hand again, and leaned to kiss her temple.
"That boy needs a raise,"
"We'll see how many awards he gets," Korra laughed.
"What if someone else snags him?" Asami teased stepping behind her crossing her arms around her stomach as they admired together, Asami's chin balancing on Korra's shoulder.
"They'll have me to deal with…" she trailed off at the press of Asami's lips over the crux of her throat, and the subsequent nose snuggling there for brief reprieve against the cold.
"I'll see you upstairs,"
"Yeah…you too," Korra could only smile dumbly at her and watch her go.
"Hey Boss, you- your face!" Kai balked, pointing at her with an accusing finger, more precisely the lipstick prints on her mouth and neck. "Is somebody here? Is it June? Do we have to protect the shop?" He snagged the closest tool he could find, a small wooden mallet and welded it conspiratorially.
"It's fine Kai, it's just Asami," This only made Kai's panic double.
"Just Asami? - Asami kissed you, married Asami!" Korra gripped his arms and gave him a sharp shake. Still smiling like a madwoman which, to Kai, was just as disconcerting as the last time he'd found out she was involved with a married woman, more so.
"She's leaving him," Korra assured him, and to be able to say it was a balm that soothed her burning tortured soul better than any ice, "She's leaving him for me," Kai watched as tears fell, several pieces clicking into place as he saw his boss, happy for perhaps the first time since he'd known her.
"She's the perfect married woman?"
Korra could only nod, before she could let him go the boy lunged into her arms. It was unexpected, but entirely sweet.
"Don't let her husband punch you okay?" he mumbled against her shoulder.
"I'll try not to," she laughed ruffling his hair.
Asami liked Korra's apartment in the dark. The streetlamp from the outside poured in the floor to ceiling windows. During the day, when she was here, it had been parties with their friends, but at night it was always wound up just the two of them. Impromptu sleepovers devolving to Korra situating herself on the couch protesting when Asami would join her, tipsy and cute and prying all the secrets she could.
How did you survive it?
Asami spied the sketchbook that had formerly been covered in frost. It called to her, the blue prints, the doodles, the one place Korra had been vulnerable with her feelings however inadvertent.
Asami smiled down at the drawing of herself with the crab, lying on the beach, smiling up at her from the page. She surpassed her place from last time, Korra had added sketches of the cliffs at the Banyan Grove, now wilfully refusing to sketch plans and just her memories before they faded.
A cabin solitary and beautiful in the middle of a storm. The barrel of Toph's gun and the tiny old woman holding it.
A page was dedicated to Asami standing waist deep in the lake fully clothed, long lustrous hair matted to her, make up smudged, skin glistening, flecks of rain frozen in the moment. Despite everything that should have made Asami look like a drowned rat, Korra saw her as a siren, searing jade eyes daring and those full lips with that gentle curve alluringly inevitable.
An entire page of hand studies, intricate, and difficult and entirely gorgeous. Asami found she could guess the memories while drawing her fingers over the lines.
Their hands entwined, gripping hard in the rain, water droplets beading over taut skin, Asami's wedding ring jarring between Korra's strong fingers. The next was Asami's knuckles turned white, entangled in the bedsheets, from an angle that could only have been looking up at them from between her legs, and the follow up of Korra's fingers knotting with hers, the second sketch her fingers opening to take them, the third those fingers knotted together in a fist of passion.
Fingers entangled underwater distorted by the ripples, but clear.
Asami's heart was pounding from page to page, the next was a two page spread, Korra had started with a hand on the left but kept going to the right over the crease. The fingers slightly curled, relaxed after so much clinging, both arms bent at the elbows in the afterglow. Korra had tenderly sketched her lithe shoulders; supple breasts pert, parting naturally laid on her back, her elegant neck and angled collar bones dappled with those exquisite mouth shaped bruises. That halo of black mermaid hair splayed out on the pillow beneath her head. The mischievous smile Asami was only half aware that she had given, nibbling her lipstick-smeared lower lip as her chest heaved, and the sweat on her skin began to wick with Korra's kisses.
Asami had suspected then, the way Korra had looked at her, she was committing her to memory, now she had absolute proof.
The next page was a landscape Asami, ending where the sheet bunched over her navel, lying on her side watching her wake. Lips curled up at the corners, coy and welcoming.
Korra had drawn her in her ill fitting Gao-Ling Flying Boars uniform, holding a strawberry rose to her lips before she took a bite. Asami dared to believe she had even made her look cuter than she was, in her high pony and rosy cheeks, gazing lovingly at the flower she had been given.
If this is all I ever get, I can die happy, loving her all the same.
Asami read the inscription over and over. Korra loved her, more than words could ever transcribe, it showed in her sketches and the way she drew her; precious and daring.
She flinched when a drop smudged the last word, and before she could swipe it from the page a thumb was grazing her cheek.
"Hi." Korra breathed, to which Asami could only respond by standing and pulling her into her sudden kiss. "I was worried you'd think I was a freak if you found out I drew you…naked," she came away blushing, bouncing her eyes.
"What is your memory eidetic?" Asami laughed, heat rising up her throat as she felt both admired and aroused. She resolved to kissing her cheek gratefully, combing her fingers through her hair.
Korra was laughing too, palming her tears and feeling her muscles release from their anxious coil with every press of Asami's mouth to her feverish blushing skin.
"I love you so much," Asami crooned into the crux of her throat, nipping there, melting her with a single move. What a victory it was to say it.
"I love you too," Korra whispered back softly, basking in the natural unnatural roll of those words on her tongue, palm resting over the satin on her stomach, "You look really beautiful tonight," Asami pulled back at the second first of the night. Korra never willingly gave her compliments in case she gave away her hand. It was everything Asami never knew she needed.
"So do you," she balked and Korra rolled her eyes.
"Shut up,"
"I'm mean it," Asami smiled at her teasingly, fingers twisting into Korra's clothes letting her know she was entirely serious, "your overalls are really doing it for me, and yours arms and neck and eyes and shut up and just kiss me," she tugged on the clasps to meld their lips, now that they had started it seemed impossible to stop.
"Wait, wait, wait, slow down what happened tonight?" Korra guided them to sit on the edge of the couch. "Did he get angry? What did he say?"
"I…" Asami took her hands, and held them tight. Well aware she had made a crucial error. All the giddiness and fervour that had elated her to this point started to sink. "I actually haven't talked it through with him yet, I just, I had to get out of there, I couldn't stand pretending for another second,"
"So he doesn't know?"
"He might, or he will, please listen," for the first time Korra didn't shut down completely, instead she was open and intent on hearing every word, "He knew when we were getting married that we were without substance or any real love, and I was…you know how I was."
"How do you know this if you haven't spoken to him?"
"I found his vows,"
"That muddled drunk nonsense speech he gave at your wedding?"
"The real ones, he wrote them out and basically wrote a break up letter, he never loved me, we were just trying to… match the portrait."
Korra fell silent, playing with her fingers, mulling her words.
"Then why did you marry him?" she whispered quietly, "I refuse to believe that you're that shallow,"
"Do you remember how I said, I've actually loved you for a really long time?" Asami's thumbs where running circles on the back of her hands now, pain marring her features as she watched them, love flooding her senses when Korra flexed her fingers, showing her she intended to stay.
"I had a crush on you when I was thirteen," her lips felt numb as she spoke, and every blink dropped tears into the air between them, "My parents figured it out and they…whatever my father did it formed this mental block."
Her throat locked, until Korra squeezed her fingers, and she could find solace in those bright blue eyes. She saw her fury, ignited white hot at the mere suggestion that anyone had hurt her. Korra's protectiveness spurred her words.
"We held hands for the first time at Banyan, do you remember? I slipped and you grabbed, and then I faked so you'd keep grabbing and then…I didn't let go, until we reached the top and…they'd seen us, and he took me aside and he said to me 'true family, is a mother and a father and their natural born children…' and that I should 'save my hand holding for the man who will complete mine',"
She dropped her gaze, feeling weak, feeling ashamed.
"It escalated when the headmaster at my school called and told him I'd been writing your name, over and over, in hearts and my name with…your name," she unlatched the bracelet at her wrist to show the bruise there. Asami met her eyes then, and wished she hadn't, that she shielded her from the unsaid. Korra's features twisted in horror, because she could read then what Asami was unwilling to say. She dipped her gaze again, and glossed over it.
"My mom found out what they were doing to me; punishing me for loving you and-"
"She kept inviting me over when he wasn't there," Korra whispered, fingers poised over the nape of her neck. "She wanted us to stay friends,"
"It was never the same, but I just, when she died I switched off, I repressed so much, I crushed all of these memories and feelings because I thought they were wrong…I did what I thought I was supposed to do, and by the time he went to jail, the damage was done. I couldn't see you the way I saw you then, or now, but I…needed you. That's all that was left…the home I'd left in you,"
She looked up finally, the trail of tears on Korra's cheeks glinting in the darkness.
"I'm so sorry Korra,"
"I had no idea," Korra's voice was tight and husky.
"I didn't know until I kissed you, before then I was just fascinated by your love life, crushing on you again," Asami felt herself laughing, and it wasn't the good laugh, "and then it came back in pieces but when I realised how you felt it was like I could see your soul finally," she reached out to press her palm over her heart, thumb bumping clasps and zips, "and how it reflected my own,"
Korra's fingers wrapped around the hand on her chest, her free hand cupping her jaw. Asami fell into place, mouth meeting hers in a well-earned sweet kiss.
"I folded his ring into his vows and put them in his coat where I found them and came straight here, I couldn't waste another second being apart-"
Korra was developing a habit of silencing her with kisses, one that Asami could only thoroughly enjoy. These kisses were more intense than anything she'd allowed prior. Every barrier that had been between them had been broken down, Asami was free, and Korra was free to love her. To kiss her with everything she had, not to persuade or entice or lure her away but to just adore her.
Asami had never known such reprieve, as Korra's hands worked around her neck to unclasp her golden choker. The heiress balanced her forehead on her jaw as she watched her break apart the cuffs about her wrists, and drop them out of sight. Korra's thumb traced the faded bruise, her touch barely there, but it moved Asami all the same. Next she gave attention to the hickeys she'd left in passion on her throat, her fingertips gracing them, before her lips would follow, tender and gentle as Asami had ever known. Her heart was on display, singing, pounding, cocooning her in waves of incapacitating affection.
"I love you Korra,"
"I love you too,"
Korra smiled and Asami smiled back, chest bursting with hope she hadn't dared to feel in decades. She cradled her cheek and kissed her once again, growing deeper and more passionate than before.
Those skilled hands let slip the coat Asami had forgotten was still draped over her shoulders. Soon after the dress pooled at her hips. Asami buckled forward with need, biting her neck, yanking on her zipper. Korra's own hands stroked, her neck, her cheeks, her ears, smoothing away frantic nervous energy, fulfilling such a simple need to touch and be touched. They barely noticed the dropping of an earring falling onto the couch with an imperceptible thump.
So lost in each other, that when Asami instinctively straddled her, Korra could stand without interrupting her exploratory kisses with out expiration.
Asami gasped into her mouth, gripping her arms, marvelling at how she never seemed to lose balance even as she stepped out of her overalls, and carried her to the bedroom. Korra lowered her onto the mattress, it was then Asami took it upon herself to tug her vest over head. They were shifting through motions they'd come to know so well, yet each one was tinged with deep breathtaking emotions neither had felt prior. Four hands fumbled with clothes, tugging Asami's underwear past her hips, unclasping Korra's bra and tossing it, manoeuvring over the furs of Korra's bed and being enveloped by the sweet scent Asami found herself missing minute to minute.
There was a moment of silent, naked, honesty, Korra hips between Asami's legs, her fingers teasing the slake of her wetness pooling there, the patter of gentle cleansing rain tapping on windows. Asami cupped her cheeks, knowing they were once again on this cusp, staring into that eclipse, steeped in raw emotion.
"I can't believe you're really here," Korra breathed, eyes closing, lips a quiver until Asami pressed her own there.
"I'm here," she whispered back. "I'm staying," she added for good measure, nosing her cheek, "Wherever you are,"
"I'm not going anywhere," Korra cradles her neck as she kisses her hard, fingers slipping inside her like a key into a lock, Asami makes a sharp moan into her mouth, incensed by this intense feeling of belonging to her, body and soul, taking Korra's wrist and guiding her free hand over her breast that she'd sketched so perfectly. Everything about this is slow and savouring, and slow Korra goes as her fingers stroke Asami inside and out, her hips matching them in a counter rhythm that has her shaking beneath her.
Asami tugs at her and reaches between Korra's legs, fingers finding her mons and parting her, desperate for closeness. She reacts instinctively, spreading her knees, slotting her hips solidly over Asami's, their hands working almost back to back. All the space between them evaporates as Korra keeps a solid pressure for her to grind against her, and Asami uses her legs to lock her in to match.
They're together, fusing as one in a tangle of cantering hips and wanton sounds, Asami watches her face change, what she could only guess at in flashes before, Korra no longer conceals in the crook of her neck but above her, brows pinched, eyes slick with tears, vulnerable and ecstatic. Asami doesn't stop herself when she wants to say I love you, she paints the words with her lips, and into her skin, her hair, her hands.
Korra saves it, ever the tactician against a worthy opponent, when they're balanced on that edge together, when she can feel Asami's core clenching around her fingers, and her own a stroke away from oblivion, she hovers her lips by the shell of her ear and tells her she loves her with a firm press of her hips.
They're rewarded with the orgasm of a life time, Asami's nails dig into Korra's back, leaving marks, as they both ascend to the ethereal plane, twitching wildly, totally entwined with the other.
When Asami comes out of it, Korra is still inside her, whole body trembling into her, eyes unfocused, breaths coming out in fragments as sweat jewels on the side of her throat.
"Hey," Asami's throat is raw from crying out, "Honey look at me," she cups her cheek and strokes the apples of Korra's cheeks until awareness fills her eyes once again. "Hey," she smiles relieved, as Korra watches her, recognising that, even though she is in her own bed, this is not a dream.
"Again?" she punctuates the request by flexing her fingers, and Asami responds; angling her hips to better take her.
She can only let out an embarrassingly overwhelmed "Mmhmm!" before muffling her groans with her lips against Korra's.
A sort of desperation they've never felt before takes over, Asami's forehead braced over Korra's temple, intent on listening to all the sounds of her jagged breathing, and the white noise of the rain sheltering them from everything else, from every doubt that could ever creep their way.
In the small hours of the morning, after they've shared enough climaxes that they'd surpassed all the days and nights they'd had before, Asami lay on her stomach, every bone popped deliciously from their sockets, her body aching with delight, and utterly spent as Korra kisses her path up her spine. Tasting her sweat slick on her tongue, without commentary, fingers kneading her glutei.
She knew in the morning she'd have to find Iroh, face the music, but with Korra at her back, and in her future, it all seemed trivial. She was set.
Asami's eyes open just a sliver, as teeth graze the small of her back, and she finds herself gazing over the pillow she'd been hugging to the photos on Korra's bedside.
Two best friends in their gi's, holding medals and gurning for the camera.
Look at us now.
Song 2 - Pink in the Night - Mitski