CHAPTER FIVE - Infrastructure

Korra and Bolin narrowed their eyes at Mako, arms sternly crossed as they stood over him. He cowered on the couch, fidgeting nervously with his fingers tugging at loose threads in the cushions.

"Soooo…they're the reason I left my job at the hospital," Mako admitted.

"Ghazan and Ming-Hua," Korra recalled the names of the vampire couple that thoroughly handed their asses to them in a public parking lot. "You've mentioned them before. Them and that guy Zaheer."

"You said they were your friends," Bolin accused.

"They were. I mean, they told me early on that they were vampires," he rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Zaheer took me under his wing, kind of. Even when I told them I wasn't going to be...killing. That I'd never do it again. He didn't care, he just continued to help me out, even if the other two more or less kept their distance after that."

Korra frowned. "Is he a normal vampire? Does he kill?"

Mako sighed. "Yes."

"So how did he 'take you under his wing', then?"

The long pause to this question made all of them nervous.

"Bro," Bolin prompted impatiently.

"Vampires have been around for a really, really long time," Mako began reluctantly. "Like, really long. And we're technically immortal. We're so long-lived that...I mean, they've developed a system. They have an infrastructure in place. They keep a certain order. Like…"

"What, like some kind of underground society?" Korra scoffed. She didn't like how he was saying "we", although that might have only been because she didn't like the idea of Mako being in a "we" that didn't involve Bolin and herself.

"It goes deeper than that, Korra. Way deeper. It - " He closed his eyes. "I wanted to keep this from you guys. You don't need to worry about crazy stuff like this."

"Is there something to be worried about?" she asked, alarmed.

"No! Not really." Mako looked at his brother. "Not for you guys."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Bolin asked skeptically.

"Mako, please," Korra pleaded. "Tell us what's going on."

He looked vastly uncomfortable, like he wanted the couch to just swallow him whole into the cushions.

"Vampires have infiltrated society. Like, deeply integrated themselves, and it's been that way for centuries. The degree varies, but here in Republic City…" he hesitated.

"Please do not tell me they secretly run the place." She was only joking, but felt a sinking feeling in her stomach when Mako refused to look up.

"None of the elected officials are vampires, no. But of the 50 or so people on the board of the Avatar University Hospital System, there are 5 vampires. The city's head medical examiner is one, too. And a few of the police, including the chief. They also have a law firm that's entirely vampires - Red Lotus LLP."

Bolin's jaw dropped. "Are you serious?! That's practically running the place!"

Mako shook his head. "No one in actual positions of power in government."

"The hospital board?! Medical examiner, the police chief, and a law firm!?" Korra repeated incredulously. "Those aren't positions of power to you!?"

"I mean, it's just the Avatar hospitals. The Republic City General hospitals don't have - "

"Over half the city goes to Avatar Hospitals, though!" Korra cried. "The medical and nursing school sends their students there! I have labs there!"

"Vampires aren't interested in ruling the world, you guys. They just want to live."

"So any kind of vampire-related crime or...murder…" she realized in horror. "You can just cover it up. That's why they're in hospitals and law enforcement. Something bad happens, someone dies, you can cover it up!"

Fuck.This was beyond conspiracy theories. This was already set in stone. Korra couldn't even consider it just a threat anymore, vampires had been pulling strings all over the city and who knew where else for centuries. How many times, how many deaths over the course of - of human historywere thanks to vampires that got away with it, just so they could do it again?

"Is she wrong?" Bolin asked quietly. "Mako, is she wrong?"

He gave him a pained look. "You don't understand. You don't understand what it's like to be this. To have to fight this every damn day."

Korra bristled. "You do it, though. You do it! Those other vampires are just - they're killing!"

"Not necessarily!" Mako interjected. "You don't have to kill a human to drink from them."

"Oh, what, you just take a sip, then?!" she squawked in disbelief. "Oh, it's fine, you just maim them in dark alleyways and run off so your fucking vampire infrastructure can wipe your ass?"

Bolin's eyes were wide and round. "Mako, when you say you haven't hurt anyone in a year do you mean...do you just mean…?"

"I haven't bitten anyone," he snarled, starting to look defensive for the first time. "No humans."

"But the others, are youdefendingthem?!" Korra demanded.

"No, I'm not!"

"They just murder, with no consequences!"

"No consequences?!" Mako's clenched his fists angrily. His eyes flashed red, but it didn't scare her. If her eyes could do fancy things like that, they'd be shooting lasers right back at him. "You think there aren't any consequences?! My entire existenceis a fucking consequence for something I didn't ask for, something I didn't deserve! It's not like a craving. It's not like asking you to go vegan at Narook's on BBQ Wednesdays. This is more like an addiction. It's like asking someone to survive on a drop of water every morning! That's what it feels like. No amount of deer or rabbit blood can make the thirst go away. It's constant, it's strong, and it's like I can't ever focus on anything a hundred percent because it's just always there.When a little kid skins her knee bloody falling off her bike I have to run off because every fiber of my being, everything that I am, wants to grab her and tear out - "

"Stop." Bolin whimpered. Mako just looked at him, defeated.

"I've tried animal blood, preserved human blood from the blood bank, I've even tried drinking my own damn blood." He rolled up a sleeve and showed them the two new puncture wounds healing on his arm. They hadn't known it was getting that bad. "All it does is keeps me alive. I'm still just always hungry, always thirsty, always resisting the powerful apex predator instincts vampires have evolved for as long as humankind existed. I kill myself every fucking day to stay in control because...because…"

Because of Bolin and I, Korra realized. He fought everything he was because of them, wanting to still be a good friend and brother in their eyes.

"Listen, I don't claim to know what it's like being a werewolf, but at least that part of you disappears like 353 days of the year." Mako sounded exhausted. "I'm a monster every day and it's...really tiring not to just let myself be a monster. Really, really tiring."

"I'm sorry," Korra found herself whispering. She couldn't imagine it, being the wolf every single day. She could barely handle it exclusively on full moons, and even then it wasn't like she actually remembered the experience.

He shook his head.

"This isn't new. This is how it's always been, for all of us."

What could she say? Thank him for not hurting people, even though it caused him existential torture? Korra had no idea if any of this had changed who he was. He was still her best friend, and Bolin's big brother, that was for sure. He still loved them. He still liked all the weird things he used to like - indie rock vinyls, quinoa recipes, foreign films, vintage crap. Mako was still Mako.

Wasn't he?

He never slept, but never looked sleepy. That was probably thanks to whatever vampire magic stuff made him immortal. In the same vein, he never lost or gained any weight, grew wrinkles, lost his hair, got dark circles in his eyes, or anything else that would indicate he was suffering. Obviously he got irritable every once in a while, but regular human Mako was always like that. Nothing had ever seemed particularly out of the ordinary. But all this time...

"Not everyone can resist the vampire instinct," he continued. "And knowing first hand what it's like, I honestly can't blame any of them for giving in sometimes. I won't hurt anyone, I've already gotten this far, but I can't blame any of the rest of them for choosing not to live like this."

They just looked at him silently. Mako wasn't technically advocating hurting or killing people, but he wasn't condemning those that did it. Bad guys and good guys were shaken up into this grey area with him smack dab in the middle. Korra had absolutely no idea how she was supposed to feel about this.

"I'm gonna make some tea," Bolin said, disappearing abruptly.

Mako let his head fall into his hands.

"I didn't want either of you to know this," he said bitterly. "Bolin is such a good guy. He always was. He could never understand something like this. Something like me."

"Mako…"

"I freaked you out," he said. "I can see it on your face. Now that you know..."

He wasn't wrong, she was a little scared of the whole the vampire infrastructure thing, but not of Mako. Never of Mako. All this time, he had been suppressing everything he was. He held his rabid wolf in every single day and never said a word. All for them. If anything, Korra should have felt more proud of him, not more disgusted. Mako wasn't a monster for this. This made him human.

Mako was still theirs. More so than ever before, really, because it was clear now that he needed them. If he wanted to cling to his humanity, he needed people to do it for. The first step was distancing himself from those thugs in the parking lot, and he'd taken it all on his own.

"I'm not freaked out, I just feel guilty," Korra said softly. "You should have told us it was this bad. We knew it was hard for you, but I don't think we ever really understood how hard. You never showed it, so we just assumed you were okay…"

"There's nothing you can do," he shrugged. "Better, older vampires than me have tried. Zaheer himself is over three hundred years old. He tried going clean, but his streak lasted fifty years before falling off the wagon again."

Korra sat down and hugged him suddenly, which always left him floundering a little. She waited for his obligatory awkward pat on her back before letting go.

"Zaheer didn't have me or Bolin," she said confidently. "We won't let anything bad happen to you."

"That seems to be our motto lately," he said sardonically. "But look at us. We're both still bruised and bleeding."

"You're both still alive."

Bolin had reappeared suddenly with two cups of steaming hot tea.

"Well, I mean, figuratively in Mako's case. Not that being alive means all that much to me, anyway." He shook his head. "Okay, wait, this is coming out all weird. What I'm trying to say is, you're both still here. With me. So we're all gonna be okay. Okay? That's enough about that."

He set the tea on the coffee table firmly and glared as if daring them to challenge him. Korra knew what he was doing, he was sweeping it under the rug. Bolin did that sometimes when things got to be too much. She imagined it was how he stayed happy all the time, although it solved nothing. Some day, it would need to be addressed. There was a possibility, slim as it might be, that Mako could fail. And there was the possibility that this vampire society thing could catch up to them, could ruin everything.

"Okay," Korra said, taking her cup. Mako didn't immediately take his.

"Bolin, I know this isn't - "

"I'm here for you," he said shortly. "So is Korra. No one has anything to worry about. That's the whole point of this, isn't it? All us freaks under one roof? The other vampires don't matter, whatever werewolf infrastructure might be out there don't matter, I don't care if the other ghosts have a fucking battleship in Yue Bay where they wage war on fucking mermaids! So drink your tea and stop acting like we should feel any different about you!"

Mako obediently took his tea and looked over at Korra, who nodded.

"That's two for the Swear Jar."

"You guys suck." Bolin grumped, plopping down on the table.

Korra laughed. "Anyway, I'm glad you left your job at the hospital."

"They got too preachy," he admitted. "It was nice at first, having vampire friends. Like a community feeling, you know? But they would talk about stuff…"

"Like what?"

"Dumb stuff." Mako waved his hand dismissively. "It was all just like, vampire locker room talk. Some of them kind of feel like we're being oppressed or something. I don't know. It was stupid. It was tolerable for a while, but then I got tired. Especially since I don't agree and they knew I lived my life a certain way. It's like having a bunch of racist coworkers, you know?"

Bolin shrugged. "I'm glad you got out of there when you could, then."

"Yeah," Korra agreed, although it did make her feel uneasy. "But, like, a vampire revolt can't actually happen, though. Can it?"

Mako shook his head. "The entire history of vampires is literally them just trying to prevent stuff like that. They don't even want humans to know they exist and look - we're still only a myth after thousands of years."

It was a good point. Vampires had an eternity to stage a coup and it hadn't happened yet.

"Anyway, they took offense to me leaving my job. I guess they felt like I was turning my back on them. I haven't really seen them since I left, so I guess this was their moment to show their muscle. Ming-Hua and Ghazan are basically thugs for Zaheer. That's all that was about. Nothing else."

Mako's revelation about the seedy vampire underworld had gotten her thinking. Never once had Korra considered seeking out another werewolf. The very idea of it sounded catastrophic - two destructive, bloodthirsty beasts in one place at the same time? She shuddered at the thought.

Or would it be a support system, like Mako's coworkers once were? Another person to talk to. Someone with shared experiences, maybe someone with moreexperience. Someone that could help her? Come to think of it, what if they could find someone to help Bolin? Another non-crazy ghost?

"Have any of your old vampire buddies met any other werewolves or ghosts like us?" Korra asked him. "Werewolves in the city, or ghosts that weren't horrifically insane?"

Mako looked surprised at the question.

"They've come across them, yes, but I guess it doesn't come up a lot. Why?"

"Just wondering," she found herself saying. She wasn't quite sure why she didn't want to bring it up to Mako yet, but this definitely didn't seem like the time.

Bolin rubbed his hands together eagerly, clearly more satisfied with this conversation than Korra was.

"Well, if we're done with this emergency family meeting, my new Stellar Battles blu-ray collection should be delivered soon and I'm thinking maybe I can make you guys some kettlecorn and - "

BRINGGG!

Bolin nearly shot through the ceiling.

"That's it! It's here, it's here! Korra, go, go, go!"

He shoved her towards the door and she made a show of rolling my eyes at Mako before opening it.

It wasn't Bolin's blu-ray delivery. Instead, a middle-aged gentleman stood at the door. He wore plain clothes and simple work boots, with a shaved head and deep wrinkles that only appeared when smiled softly.

"Hello," he said, his voice deep and charismatic. For just a moment, Korra almost felt the impulse to smile back.

But then she caught the faint scent, a slight air of something that generally did not come from someone still walking around.

"Zaheer?" Mako asked, appearing behind her. "What are you doing here?"