so i "accidentally" read a section of the dream thieves and i couldn't get it out of my head.
It was hard to remember a time when his eyes weren't her entire world, when a simple glance at those impossibly bright emerald fields of green assured her that everything was okay and that she wasn't alone. But it had happened before she could catch herself from falling, from walking down the same road alongside him knowing they could never end at the same place.
She just had to say it once, just to get it off of her chest. Clear the air, so her heart wouldn't feel so damn heavy anymore. It felt like an air bison was sitting on top of her chest, her breaths would become ragged without reason.
"Bolin," she started, moving toward him and wiping her sweaty hands on her thighs. He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, before looking back at the view of Yue Bay from Air Temple Island.
He took a deep breath, his eyes trained on the water surrounding them. "Don't." The earthbender stood up, finally meeting her eyes as he walked toward her. "We can't." Bolin gathered her hands in his, the rough calluses that the pads of his fingers moving over her knuckles.
"Just once," she leaned forward to press her forehead to his collarbone. "Just let me say it once and then I won't ever say it again. We can pretend it never happened afterwards. I promise, Bo."
He exhaled hard, his chest shaking from the action. "I'm holding onto just a few threads of my self control, Korra. If you say it I won't be able to help myself."
Her insides burned. Love wasn't supposed to hurt like this.
"If I could," he moved her hands up to his mouth, pressing the gathered mess of fingers to his chin. "I would kiss you right now Korra.I would take that breathe right out of your mouth." He dragged his bottom lip across the knuckle of her index finger. "But that can't happen. We can't be selfish," his upper lip lowered onto her skin, gliding across her skin as he spoke. "No matter how badly we want to be."
Her breath was erratic, her chest heaving while her vision blurred. "But we could be happy." She said it as if he hadn't already planned out their future in the depths of his mind, watched her face when he fastened his betrothal necklace around her neck, named their children.
Bolin laughed softly, smiling into her hands. "You silly girl. You say that as if being yours wouldn't make me the happiest man in Republic City."
"He could learn to accept it. He'll forget what it was like to love me. Bolin, he would want us to be happy."
The earthbender shook his head, allowing his lips to slide from finger to finger with each shake. "I'm only letting that slide because you don't know what it's like to be in love with you." He glanced up at her, his long thick eyelashes casting a shadow over his cheekbones. "We wouldn't be able to live with ourselves. We both know that. It would ruin what we have, turn it into something ugly."
She watched his hands as they moved over the back of her hands, one made its way up her arm, softly rubbing her biceps before finding its way onto her neck, his thumb trailing over her jaw, while the other settled at the curve of her waist. She could feel the lone curl pressed between their foreheads.
"I don't ever want to look at you and feel anything different than what I feel right now." He tilted his head, and his lips settled right above hers, his breathe shaking as he inhaled hers. His thumb trembled against her chin. He moved away, but kept his forehead against hers. "And now we never talk about it again."