when you try your best, but you don't succeed...
when you get what you want, but not what you need...
when you feel so tired, but you can't sleep:
stuck in reverse.
and the tears come streaming down your face,
when you lose something you can't replace.
when you love someone, but it goes to waste...
could it be worse?
"fix you" – coldplay.
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.
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Wasn't there any other day Varrick could have picked to get married?! Did it had to be in the coldest day ever?
Mako did not know why, at some moment, there was so much snow falling (he kind of remembered seeing in the news last week that this week would have some sunny days, but the alcohol in his blood wasn't helping him much with memories), but it did not stopped him from cursing every single nature god he could still think – no matter the nation – of for the lack of a better thing to do when you simply don't know.
Actually, he did not know a lot of things like if the cold he was feeling was really from the bad weather and snow, or for the fact that he felt so uterly alone.
Not that that fact was anything new, but he came to find after many encounters with friends and meetings in general that trying to ignore his hurt at the same time as pretending to smile was too hard – that, and the fact that he was not about to lose the little left of his sanity for the sake of appearances.
He found that if he could avoid people, his sadness would not scream so loudly - he would have nothing to compare his misery with. But there, at that wedding, celebrating love and acceptance with all those people, his heart started to break in pieces so small that he begun to be afraid that if that kept going – if he stayed there much longer – at some point he would not be able to destinguish the pieces of his heart from the dust on the floor and that, without being able to see all of them and picking them up, mending his heart back together would be impossible – no matter how good he became at it.
So while he could still pick up the pieces, he left.
.
.
.
Bolin was left staring at the horizon and after sometime, the only thing that he could distinguish was the snow and how its vast whiteness made everything else irrelevant, inexistent. He, for a moment there, almost prayed to that ocean of endless snow asking if it could make Mako's suffering despair too – if it could swallow him whole and them spit out only his old brother, letting the hurt and angriness get lost in that strong wind that always came with winter, never to be found again.
He knew it was pointless, but he was never one to stand still: if praying was the only thing he could do, so be it! Someone would have to hear him. And if not, at least when he heard himself whispering words of hope and love for his brother, he could still say he did not give up. Even if deep down, maybe...
"Hey, Bo, what are you doing here all alone?", Korra punches Bolin in his left arm, trying to get his attention – she had been calling him from afar, but for some reason he didn't listen to her. "Is the food over already?".
Bolin felt an urge to shove it in her face that he had learned some manners, how to contain his excitement over free food over the last few years she was away, but there was something preventing him from feeling proud of anything when he could not even find a way to help his brother.
There was also the fact that if she had stayed, or if she had allowed them to be with her at the time she made the choice to be alone because of the poison, maybe she would have known it already. For a second, he wanted to snap at her - hard and unforgiving.
But before he could do so, a voice in the back of his mind – much like Mako's – called him stupid for fighting other people's battles, much less the ones that those people didn't even consider a fight at all: Mako tried to forget Korra for as long as she was gone, that he knew, even if his brother had not make anything out of it just yet. Mako's bad mood was finally rubbing into him and he indeed felt stupid for even considering arguing with Korra over that. Mako had made it quite clear that nothing of this was any of his business and as Lin said, Bolin would have to respect his brother's decision at some point.
So he laugh – full and loud – like he didn't laugh in a really long time with all the korra-gone-becoming-kuviras'-soldier-kuvira-becoming-crazy-i'm-sorry-opal-let's-save-republic-city-together thing over the last years, because when he finally had nothing to worry about, with Kuvira in prison and everything fine with Opal, he just had to try to keep being a hero and making life hard and complicated by trying to solve Mako's life. He said it once, Bolin remembers, that his big heart would kill him someday and Bolin had never understood how could that be until that moment.
"Bolin, talk to me! What's wrong with you?!" Korra now sounded scared, eyeing him like he had grown another head.
"I'm ok, Korra, seriously", he said trying to catch his breathe again after pratically crying from so much laughter. "I was just remembering all the things that got us here", he rubbed his eyes to make the tears go away. "Isn't it funny? How I would have never guessed I'd one day help save the world! Me, Bolin, the orphan kid running around the streets, a hero".
Korra didn't quite know how to respond that, because a serious Bolin wasn't something she knew how to deal with.
But then again life had a strange way of making things change and still make them feel like home somehow, and the next thing he said had just proved it. "I mean, not that I take the whole credit for everything...", he tried to sound humble and that made Korra giggle: there was no such a thing as a humble Bolin no matter how much time passed. "But just think of how totally lost you'd all be without my top secret knowledge of Kuvira's arm, and let's not even remember the fact that without me Varrick wouldn't even be here today... Just, ok, don't even think about it! You'd be dead!".
"Yeah, right" Korra giggles once more, not really being able to hide the mockery on her voice. "All hail to Nuktuk, now hero of all nations!".
That name felt strange in his ears, despite being familiar. He remembered his time as Nuktuk with some fondness, when the biggest problem in his life was trying to win that red-headed actress' heart. "There's a name for what you're feeling, ya know" Bolin says trying to sound offended, "and it's called envy! It's not noble of the Avatar to feel such a thing... I'm totally telling Tenzin".
Korra and Bolin look at each other in silence for some time, before bursting into laughter together, not really caring about the fact that the other guests to the wedding might be thinking them idiots – well, the world is finally saved, so they can be whoever they want now anyway. "So," Korra is the first to talk, "You're fine?".
He takes a deep breathe before answering her, "I am fine, 'you?".
"I'm too", she says with such a smile in her face that Bolin takes the liberty to get a good look at her, now noticing that Korra looks different – she looks whole – for the first time in ages. For the first time since she was that care-free, loud and optimistic girl who helped him and Mako at the pro-bending arena.
And, of course, being whole again makes her as beuatiful as she was back in those old days of youth and innocence.
He remembered how hard he fell in love with her for those exact same traits and some more and he feels happy for her – happy because despite everything that happened she is still the Korra he loved and loves, even if in a different way now.
And he also feels that soft wave of pain and nostalgia washing over him ever so briefly, because if he could saw how well Korra was again, so did Mako. Except that Mako was not whole again... And that realization must have killed him too.
"I'm happy for you - for all of us – I trully am... Even if I'm a little spacey today".
"Sure, I can see that, Bo", except that she does not quite believe him. It didn't bother her as much as it would have some years ago... It wasn't her problem nowadays. There was someone else to take care of him now, and she just knew he'd be fine in no time. "Anyway, I came here because Opal was looking for you! Stop being so down and come celebrate with everyone!".
"I was just going to do that!" he repplied, rolling his eyes before running back to the party to find Opal.
"Geez, you just kinda sounded like Mako and – and, yeah, where is he?! I have just talked to him and now –", when Korra turned to look for Bolin he was gone and, before she could really realize that Mako was nowhere to be seen, Asami shows up out of nowhere too claiming she has to introduce her to someone she knew.
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a/n:
ok, guys, i know there is not much mako in this... but it's because i love bolin and i wanted to show you what he was feeling too! it got begger than i thought it would, but oh well... that's life! and i wanted to justify mako's sudden need to leave.
gotta tell ya that we won't be hearing from team avatar for a really longe time! like, reaaaally long. so leave a review saying what you think and your good-byes :)
again, sorry for the mistakes... not my mother language and my microsoft word isn't working :(
let me know if you think anyone is OOC too!
disclaimer:
i don't own anything related to LOK or A:TLA, sadly.