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It sneaks up on her.
Them, all of them, together, on the island. You'd think she'd be saying things like: "day by day!" and "we're all together, right?" but Korra is impulsive.
So this shouldn't be a surprise.
Walls are thin.
Pema has cravings. Tenzin paces the hallways; he checks on the squirts and Jinora is always last. She hears Bolin snoring and Mako and Asami, half-whispers shuffled into their throats. Korra stays awake most nights just to listen, as if listening would somehow reassure her that she is still allowed to be okay and so what if she's not completely there. It so doesn't work.
It's how she finds herself in the city, late. She's sure she's going to get in so much trouble when Tenzin finds out, if he finds out, when he finds out - whatever - but she cannot stop feeling restless.
Republic City is heavier when it peaks, somewhere between the end of the night and the predawn. There's no color to the sky; instead, it opens and pours into the array of buildings, of grays and silvers, outside of the romance of what people think they know the city to be. The legend is gone for her, even with being the Avatar, even when she struggles with what that actually means.
She ends up in front of the gym. It's not a surprise. Habits and all; her hands shove under her arms as she crosses them in front of her chest. She stares hard at the building.
"Weird, isn't it?"
Her mouth thins into a line.
"Sometimes," she calls back. Her palms are warm. "I sometimes feel like I miss home a lot more."
Tahno appears from the side - or behind her, it really seems sad to not think of him as a viable threat. But he stands next to her all the same, staring at the building.
"There are seasons here," he says.
Korra shrugs. "Flowers and leave changing only hold so much, I guess."
"True," Tahno says. He looks down at her. He seems better, or resigned. There's a difference and there's her guilt. She swallows a little. He rubs his forehead. "I imagine you to be more of an epic landscape sort of girl."
Her lips curl and she shrugs.
"That might be the most romantic thing you've ever said to me," she drawls, and he laughs, like sort of laughs, but it's a sound that she deems okay. It's better than looking for color in his skin. Or the lack of dark circles that are probably so, so there.
"I still got that." And wisely, she doesn't press. He turns though and then climbs the stairs - only midway, before he sits. "I do this now," he says. "When I can't sleep."
"I haven't slept in a really long time," is out before she can stop it and Korra feels herself flush, ashamed. She clears her throat and he's looking at her strangely. "It sucks," she adds, trying to keep it light.
"Amon," he says.
"Yeah," she breathes.
Tahno nods. He stretches back on his elbows. He's still long and too limber. He doesn't offer a place for her to sit. She doesn't assume and take it. It's a safe sense of distance, but it makes her unsure and awkward.
Which is worse, she wonders.
"I saw a new healer today," he says idly. His head drops back and he stares at the sky. "First one that said to me it wasn't permanent - or well, said that it might not be permanent. I think I laughed."
Korra licks her lips. "I don't even know what to say to that," she murmurs.
"Nothing?" his mouth is curling into somewhat of a smile, "I mean, that's what I did."
There's no immediate accusation. She blinks and waits, but it doesn't come.
She finds herself pushing forward then, moving to sit next to him. She sits slowly, carefully. Her elbows dig into her knees. Her boots dig into marble. It scuffs up some dirt and her gaze plants itself on the cluster of buildings across the street.
The mobiles - all Sato - seem to be limber and lost. A light goes on in one of the windows. She doesn't tense, but her lips purse together. She can still tell that she has hours before she should head back to the temple anyway.
"I still feel him."
Her voice rings out. Tahno shifts next to her. Her knees fold out and his leg hits her first.
"Amon," he says out loud.
"Yeah." Her challenge isn't a secret. It's not even forgotten; she's sure they just talk about how young this Avatar is. Her fingers press against her throat. "It probably won't go away," she says. She laughs too, the sound catching. "I can't tell Tenzin. He'll probably tell me to focus that or whatever. Lin will probably say burn buildings or something -"
Tahno looks amused. "The Chief?"
"Yeah," she says. She waves a hand. "Bolin will definitely try to cheer me up and Mako -" Korra forces herself to swallow. "I haven't told Mako anything," she says, or admits. She isn't sure. She doesn't like it. There's more than enough for that.
"Mmm," he says. "Must be nice," he says too and she meets his gaze.
It's a sudden list in her head. She's curious, she's naturally curious, and it's that curiosity, much like her impulsive nature, that gets her into so much trouble. But she's never once felt curious about Tahno and outside of wanting to shove her fist into his face, it feels strange and hard and too confusing to suddenly want to know. She doesn't want it to be guilt, but then she doesn't know what she wants it to be.
Her shoulders rise this way. They flatten back and she's bridging her hands over her knees.
"I'm sorry," she mumbles.
"Shut up," he says lightly. "Apologies are a waste, Avatar. I made the decision to charge him."
It's a dig, it's not a dig. She lets him have it - maybe out of pity, maybe not. She doesn't know what's happening right now. She doesn't know if she wants to.
This is how they sit there then, just outside of the gym, watching some people stir and others fall back asleep. She wonders what Aang thought of the city then, way back then, because what she sees, what she feels, it's all too overwhelming. There's no one around to say sort it like this korra which is the strangest and hardest part of being here.
So she sits here and she doesn't say anything - nothing more about her or Amon, no awkward assumptions or announcements. It feels good to have nothing, right then. If nothing is the right thing to call any of this for now.
Her knee stays leaning against his leg for a little while longer.
-
She can't take the noise.
There is a mountain of text on the table and Tenzin is standing, lording over her, half-paying attention to Pema and the squirts, shuffled into a craving and trying to teach her patience and form and really, really Korra you should embrace the basics.
"This sucks!" she blurts, and everything stops. Bolin chooses this moment to enter the room, Mako and Asami at his heels.
"Sorry?" Tenzin says.
"It sucks," she says. She shoves herself into standing. Her hands open into fists and she glares at her mentor. "Basics, forms, telling me to be patient! It all sucks."
It's stupid, it's childish, and she's having a fit in front of the last group of people she should have a fit. But really, she wants to shove her fist into the wall and be done with it.
"Korra." Tenzin settles in front of her. "Breathe," he says gently.
He sounds patronizing and her eyes narrow.
"I can't," she practically snarls.
Heat doesn't gather at her fist, nor is it the cool, easy familiarity of water. Her feet shuffle out and the ground remains firm and steady too.
The window shutter snaps back.
"Korra," Tenzin murmurs.
A few books flutter open behind her. One shrinks from the pile; Jinora sighs and Meelo giggles.
It brings back a lot of strange memories then. Hers. Her own. The night before she left her parents - she didn't really leave, but coming back home, that was just a visiting thing and, and sporadic at best. She can hear her mother, sad. The window rattles again. There's dad too, her dad, with one arm, holding her to him, saying korra you're still ours and she can only remember thinking about how hard that sounded.
But the books skid and flop and begin to spin around her. Tenzin is stepping forward and Pema is gathering the squirts away, gently pushing Bolin and Asami with her. Mako lingers, worried.
"Korra," Tenzin says again.
His voice is grim. One, two, and three in a row - books hit the wall and the window. One is next to Mako's head.
Her shoulders slump.
"I can't," she says again too, and she lifts a hand. With a flick of her wrists, the books are collected to the table, haphazard and bent.
Tenzin drops a hand on her shoulder.
-
"I feel like a moron," she confesses finally.
Tahno brings her a rose. It's stupid, but it makes her laugh and he kinda smiles (she's not sure) so it's sort of okay. She twirls it between her fingers and then, as they talk (or she tells him what happened), she begins to pluck each petal one by one.
"You're a brat," he agrees.
She rolls her eyes. "That's rich," she shoots back. "Coming from you especially."
He shrugs. "I don't pretend to be anything else."
Her mouth quirks and she says nothing. Her body is halfway turned into his, her knees at his leg again. This isn't like that night, nights ago - so far, there's been a few in between. She likes a routine. Korra was raised on them and sheltered by them, so maybe, maybe it's all in small comforts.
She is trying not to think about how she can't talk to the people she really trusts. Part of her thinks it has to do with trying to make all the adult decisions. It just sounds better in her head.
"Is the footwork different?"
It comes suddenly, his question. Korra blinks and almost drops the rose.
"What?"
Tahno tilts his head to the side. The circles under his eyes are darker tonight. It's dim, really, and the basic lights attached to the gym, they do nothing to hide them.
"Your airbender training," he repeats. "The footwork."
She licks her lips. "It's all different," she says carefully. "If you compare the classic styles to what you know as bending - it's hard to explain, I guess."
"Not really." Tahno shifts and stands. He turns on the step below her, his hand sliding into his pockets. "I've seen you."
A flush licks at Korra's throat. She frames her face with both her hands, drawing them back against the back of her neck. Competition, she tells herself. But there's that strange, strange rush in her belly, a mix of heat and confusion that she doesn't like. She tries and takes it for what it is.
"Yeah, well."
He smirks. It's just like him.
"It's fine, you know."
"What?" She narrows her eyes at him out of habit.
"Throwing a fit," he says.
"Not that kind of fit," she snaps, and she sees everyone watching her. She can't remember if Tenzin was just resigned or disappointed. She doesn't like that either.
He leans forward, meaning to ruffle her hair. She thinks, at least. Instead, his hand drops and he's looping his fingers through some strands. She inhales and sharply, wide-eyed and almost annoyed - she feels caught.
"You don't have to show me," he murmurs, and ugh, she thinks, ego, thank spirits for his stupid ego. But she can't move her mouth, and he's leaning in, still over her, his mouth pressing into his fingers and bits of her hair.
She listens to him exhale.
"But fits are good," he says too. Then he's serious, serious and her heart is spinning too fast.
His words are meant to stick.
"It shows people you're real."
-
The first time she bends air, really, really bends air comes with the next raid.
It's all a ploy; korra, go on the raid and korra, you can trust lin and i we have your best interest at hand and sure, of course, she does, but a dislocated shoulder and an open gash over her belly forces desperate measures or whatever.
Air is clumsy to her hands, rough and unrefined. There's nothing pretty about it when it hits a row of Amon's soldiers and the metal legacy left behind by Asami's father. The air that throws out from her palms rips off heads and tears off arms, pulling the gloves from each Equalist sympathizer along with their bones.
After, she sits on the roof. She cradles her arm (or shoulder, man, oh man) and watches as Bolin and Mako climb the roof to join her. Asami is much more graceful, coming from behind and sits next to her, gingerly, blocking the boys from her space.
"You should change," she says gently. "And the healers -"
Korra shakes her head, looking away. "No healer," she says firmly, and Bolin scoffs, plopping down in front of her.
"Your arm though," Mako says.
Her eyes narrow. She can't help it. She won't.
"Want to put it back into place?" she spits.
His eyes narrow back at her and Bolin groans. Asami sighs too - by now, by now, the specifics between her and Mako are fiercer. Everyone is used to how they fight and words, words are just as cruel as a burn here and there, or the sensibility that always seems to be left behind when it comes to him in her mind.
"Give it," he says.
Asami is on her feet before her. "Mako," she says, and her voice is heavy with warnings.
He keeps his gaze on Korra.
"I'll pull it back into place," he says, and she wants to spit back at him again because everybody knows that she was the one that kept them in the game anyway.
It's stupid and it's petty and she's on her feet too, even as Bolin groans again. His hands push into his face.
"Fine," she grits out and she turns to him, relaxing as best as she can.
When he takes her arm, it's gentle, and then there's Asami moving into her other side. She loops an arm around Korra's waist, but doesn't meet her gaze.
Mako's fingers tense and flex. They drag over her shoulder and then back down to grasp her elbow. His other hand curls around her shoulder and Korra's head falls against Asami's shoulder and neck. No healer, she thinks. It's being stupid. It's being petulant. But she doesn't care.
"Hurry up," she breathes roughly, and Bolin laughs nervously. Asami's sighs change and Mako does not let go, not once, of her arm. His skin is too warm. That's a focus. That has to be a focus.
His nails curl into her skin. The snap comes first, abrupt, and Korra squeezes her eyes shut. If she cries out, no one says - it's the sweat the clings to her lip, the blood that grabs Asami's jacket, and the sudden way she sags between them both.
After, her ears still ring.
Mako does linger close.
-
"I'm not a confessional," Tahno complains.
He takes one look at the tear in her shirt and rolls his eyes. He does not take her hand; somehow they are walking away from the gym and this weird, weird habit.
"I didn't say anything," she argues, rolling her eyes.
They arrive at a building. It's nice enough - whatever, she's not paying attention. Everything is a uniform in Republic City. It's starting to feel too much for her, walls and lack of space and too many people waiting for her to unravel so they can be right.
She hates that, you know. She hates that she can't even muster enough energy to spite them either. There's a list in her head and she thinks she hates that the most.
But then there's this building, and her feet are dragging her behind Tahno, up the stairs and into a small, sort of mediocre apartment.
"Oh," she says, and really, it's nothing that she expects. It's bland; no photos, no trophies, no giant self-portraits (that's a great rumor though), and all she can see is a couch, a desk, and four exits into what she assumes are a bedroom, a kitchen, a bathroom and the hallway they're standing in.
"I'm never home," he shrugs, and she just assumes that's a lie.
It's just the best of and she cannot react; he pulls his jacket off and she just assumes, right there, kicking off her boots. Home is home and this is just a space, so she's going to treat it like that until he gets weird - and so far, so far Tahno is just a little lost.
Like her. Korra can taste the words.
"I'm tired," he says too.
"Okay," she says.
He does this jerking motion with his hand - his fingers curl and uncurl and then he just looks and blinks, the expectation dying. There is the slight curl of his mouth too, but she looks away before she can even consider being caught.
She just follows him and it's one of the doors, or entrances, and she finds herself in his bedroom.
It's just a bed and the sheets are folded neatly, a pair of boots leaning against first. He sits and then stretches out, not saying a word, tucking his arms under his head.
Korra bites the inside of her mouth.
"It's late."
Tahno's voice cracks and sighs.
"Yeah," she says, after awhile, and she is climbing into bed next to him. She drops onto her belly. "Yeah," she says again.
"Your arm - " she can see his eyes close in the dark " - that sucks," he finishes.
"Totally," she agrees.
She can't see much of him in the dark; most of this, most of whatever is happening has been like that, in shadows and shades and more like secrets, just like everyone else.
"If I don't get it back," he starts and the bed shifts. She feels her cheeks heat, half-aware. "I don't know -"
"You don't know?"
He laughs and it's hard, the sound. In the dark, his hand hits his face and he sort of groans.
"I don't know," he echoes. "I'm a little lost right now, Avatar."
She hums, but it's no sort of agreement. Her throat tightens and she sinks deeper into his bed. Her eyes drift close and she feels the bed shift again.
His fingers touch her hip. She relaxes.
"I can't breathe here," she says, just as simply. It's a confession, it's not a confession, and she hates herself a little, maybe even more for saying it out loud and giving it up.
His fingers gather at the small of her back too and she's moving, her feet kicking into the sheets. There's nothing in this room that says anything about him, no heat, no sharpness, no smell. If she's surprised, she doesn't know what to do with it. The city makes strangers, she thinks.
"I miss my parents," she tells him too. "I miss being able to run. It's so stupidly selfish and I just - I hate that it's in me. I hate that I can seem to be what people want."
"Disappointment is irritating," he drawls, and really, it's just like him. She turns a little, shifting under his hand. Her nose brushes against his shoulder. "But I get it."
"You're just saying that."
Tahno laughs. It's warmer. Her foot falls from the side of the bed, dangling from the edge. He touches her shoulder next.
"Probably."
This is the first time in days.
Korra sleeps.
-
She comes back to the temple at the peak of the morning, the sun crawling over the Avatar statue that faces her.
Usually she goes straight to bed.
Waits, like, an hour or two, and then pretends to drag herself to breakfast with everyone else. It's a schedule and a routine and nobody, nobody seems to notice. She feels full of kinks; training hard, patience, okay, patience korra, and everyone is going to be okay - we're together, of course!
But around the third or fourth time (seventh, really) that she comes back from the city, and it's just her and Tenzin's panel of doom, she decides to feel a little older - wiser is coming in spades.
No one is up yet. No one is watching. Her hands cup together and then gently, she pushes the panels into life. They groan and sigh, turning slowly, protesting the early rise, just like her faces for everyone else. She repeats the motion again.
And then again.
And then again - it's the spin that charges, and she focuses on each panel, spinning into a new motion, a new form, trying to change directions and speeds, just before she steps through and battles it out. Tenzin says build habits and lately, Lin's been right there, a keen eye and no filters: it's going to end with you.
"You're back late."
Korra jumps. A rush hits the back panels and they cry out sharply.
When she turns, Mako is there. He is wide-awake and jacket-less, a towel draped over his shoulder.
"No," she says awkwardly.
He shakes his head. "I know you leave," he says, and he doesn't hide his curiosity. For a minute, he wears worry. Then he steps closer and it's gone. "You okay?"
Her lips purse. Her arms drop at her sides.
"I needed the space," she says. It's not impulsive; the expectation hangs and she hides behind it.
"Korra," he starts.
"Yeah," and she's quick, her hands pushing the panels into life again. "I can't!" she throws herself into her footwork. It's pride, ugh, it's all her pride.
She moves as fast as she can.
Second time around, Mako is still standing there, watching her. She has only tipped twice and it's the straining, her shoulder. She should have gone to a healer. She should have done it herself. It's stupid, anyway, to want a reminder.
Mako tosses her his towel though. She catches it in one hand and presses it to her face. Sweat is sinking into her hair. He walks over to her, staring at the panels as they begin to slow.
"Death trap," he mutters.
Korra laughs. "Yeah, well. Patience," she mocks. Mako steals a smile and they both shake their heads. "It's a thing, I guess."
"Yeah," he says.
He stands close to her. Not too close, but close enough. Her heart is there again, crawling up her throat and she cannot even begin to start thinking about him and Asami here. It's different, but she promised herself, she promised that she would just let it all go. It's about spiriting through focus.
Responsibilities, she thinks too. Everyone else. It's the first time she thinks of the flashbacks then, of an older Aang and his friends, friends that built the very city that makes her want to shrink, that is growing all this chaos in other people, in herself.
She thinks of Tahno and his apartment. She thinks of Tahno and that small, small room.
"You need boundaries," she says. She can feel Mako staring at her. She does not want to look up. "I - " she swallows, shaking her head. "I need boundaries. It's not easy being around you."
"I don't need to know where you are," he murmurs, and there's a catch in his voice. The color shifts and weighs.
Korra pulls at the towel.
"You'll ask," she tells him. There's no malice behind it. It's what Mako does, in his own way, between fixing things and just being as stubborn as she is. His sense manifests in harder ways; Korra knows she tends to believe faster.
"Probably," he sighs. He takes her gaze. Then he reaches out and brushes at her hair. "You won't tell me," he says.
"No," she murmurs. "I won't."
Her fingers push at his hand. They catch his wrist and linger. She feels like she's sinking then, drawing back and handing the towel to him. Tradition, she thinks.
It's about to get harder.
-
Korra touches her wrist. She stares at the skin in the dark. It seems to fade too quickly in the city light.
"You need more blankets," she says, out loud.
Tahno's mouth curves into her shoulder. She doesn't know how he got there; suddenly, it's just easier to be a tangle of limps.
"I get hot at night," he says, and it's a lie. She's learned too much about him like this. "It's gross."
What she knows is simple: he likes his right side, his hand seems to find the place across her belly easily, tracing the scar and the bandage. There is the matter of his apartment too, and the white walls and the lack of anything really. The temple is warm, the temple is too much, but Tahno, even with the mass of his personality, seems to fit too well with the contrast of his own space. She thinks she likes that.
"Yeah," she says, and she turns her head. His eyes are open tonight. He seems to be studying her. Her teeth skim her lip. "There's a raid tomorrow," she says.
"Don't die." His voice is lighter.
Her nose wrinkles. "That would just be disappointing."
"What would I do?" he adds.
His thumb catches at her lip. It presses lightly and then draws back. She feels herself flush again and then again - it counteracts everything. Because she reacts. She reacts with everything; her face, her hands, her skin and bones. But here, with him, it's subtle and quiet and she doesn't know what to do.
"I'm sure you'll be okay," she says dryly. She almost rolls her eyes.
It should be simple. Lin is different than Tenzin. Lin goads with experience. She is just as hard and just impatience, but there's a sensibility to that and she teaches. Korra finds herself picking up things and her eyes, oh, her eyes are open wider to the rush. It does not feel as hard.
She has to keep up.
Korra turns this way, away from Tahno and under his arm, curling into her corner of the bed. She can breathe.
"I'm not, you know," and this the end of something that is not an admission, something that she cannot call and say i know too. If she closes her eyes, she can see everyone else waiting for her at home. But Tahno's knee curls into the back of her legs. His arm becomes unsteady.
"I'm not okay," he says. This is how it starts to string together.
Korra is much quieter. "Me too."
It pulls -
-
Bending forces a choice.
The metal monsters are just a grim reminder of what is to come. Korra understands that she cannot stop progress and desperation (both are harder lessons than what she is going to reach) and this is how Amon is counting on the prize of her own repercussions.
She knows she's in trouble again when she starts counting days in raids, and not the comfort of training, or being at the temple (sneaking into the city), or even just counting with the small, strange letter from Katara and her parents. The raid that has Tenzin and Lin locked up in a room for hours, after (Lin's new scars), and Pema not speaking to Tenzin, her hand never moving from the base of her belly - it all feels like it's going to start caving in all too soon.
Tonight she is healing Bolin ("It's ungraceful, but he'll do," Lin rolls her eyes at Bolin's grin) and her hand panics against his arm, watching as Asami and Mako sort of fret between the two of them.
"Bro, I'm so fine!" Bolin waves them off. "Well, I'm fine in many, many ways - physically included - but it's just a scratch!" he holds up his arm and winces, catching her gaze as she tries not to dig her nails into his skin.
It takes an hour at most.
She is cracking.
Lin finds Korra when Tenzin does not. Lin does not care about space.
(Mako is lingering too, but Korra has no room for that in her head; she still sees the tall crawl of Sato's legacy and cannot even begin to look at Asami or him - when all she wants, desperately, is to find her place with the two of them.)
"I am not fearless," the older woman says gruffly. They sit together on the roof. It's just sensible. Korra doesn't look at her. "My mother used to say that to me all the time."
"Hoping it worked?" she quips, and Lin scoffs.
"No," she says dryly. She shakes her head and a fond smile plays at the edge of her mouth. "My mother was not one for pep talks. She said it was all bullshit. Which, you know, is true."
"Tenzin tries," Korra chuckles.
Lin rolls her eyes. "They never work." Then she waves her hand. "But it's not about Tenzin, or my mother, or even me -"
And right there, comes the memories, the heavier memories - she sees Aang and then she doesn't; she sees the metal giants, the fuel of hatred coming from Amon's Equalists. Abuse comes from everywhere, she just wants to say, over and over again - benders and non-benders and harmony. It's all just a whirl in her head. Nobody wants to say that they're people anymore.
Tonight was not the worst, Korra thinks. She looks down at her hands and turns them up to face her. There will be blood in her fingernails and she knows, knows that she used fire too much. It should have been air. She should have used it more - and water too. She is forgetting water too.
Her hands close into fists. Lin touches her shoulder.
"I won't lie to you," Lin finishes. "It's going to get worse."
Korra shakes her head.
She hates how it's still something she needs to hear.
She hates how they all know.
There is a finer texture to blood -
( - when metal hits the ground, next to the pool - it's somewhere in a warehouse, warehouses are traps - it groans and spits and the water seems too reluctant to touch it.
But it went something like this:
Bolin and Lin work in sync. Bolin is learning. Bolin is a nature; he picks up fast, faster than Mako because the rules are different and Lin is impatient to Bolin's patience. Tenzin is frightening on his own; the group tries to pull him down and all the air gathers at his fist, from his body and his weight and Korra thinks if she could just be that good, maybe reaching her peak would be that simple, maybe she could just give everyone a sense of peace.
She has water though, and metal groans, and fire, and metal is impatient - she takes two, no three, no, no it's six down and considers tearing them all apart with her fists and after, there's her shoulder again, and a lot of blood -)
and it doesn't sink, not like she expects, and sure, they have to get Bolin home and to bed, and she should sleep but she won't and there is Tenzin and Lin talking somewhere to the side.
She curls a finger. The pool starts to lift.
Korra does not want to know this either.
-
It's not a mistake, waking up later in the morning.
She sits and her knees are curled underneath her. She stares straight ahead, staring at the wall.
"I have a headache," she says, out loud.
There's a moan next her. She listens to Tahno's fist dig into the pillow.
"Go to sleep," he mumbles. "You're irritating in the morning."
There's a noise that comes out of the back of her throat. She should go back, now. She knows Mako is, will be lingering around the temple by now. Lately, he's been around earlier and earlier and she's just gone straight to training. It's the wise thing to do, she says. Tenzin should see progress, she says. He never answers and she doesn't know what she would do if he decided to (follow her) throw something her way.
So she stretches out next to Tahno again. His hand shifts, then it's his arm stretching back over her belly, like it's finally ready to be a habit. She is awake enough to trace the same patterns his fingers make; her tongue to the roof of her mouth, slow, slow circles and everyone knows the motion, water benders alike.
"Bad things happen when I get attached," he says, and his voice is low. He breathes too and it tuffs into her shoulder, her throat.
Her hair is down - she never noticed, but she knows now, the slight angle of her bangs curling their length against her forehead and jaw. Her clips are the kitchen. She cannot remember why she left them there or why, suddenly, her throat is so, so dry.
"We have that in common," she tells him. She's sharp and feels him grin against her skin.
"What's a little charm?"
She could roll her eyes. She might, later. She might even think about kissing him, even further and after that. This is a place though, it's his place, it's hers, and it's a little scary, this sense of attachment because this is what it is, attachment all the same. She knows he'll never say it and she is giving this to him - maybe out of misplaced guilt, maybe not.
"Turn yours off," she mutters, and his mouth is moving to her hair, the grin slick against her forehead too.
It takes a moment, and then another, right through his stupid aye, aye and the unnerving fact that her hip turning into his is not just some kind of cue. She is relaxed and his breathing starts to even out, on very little trust and what she can assume.
His pillow is wet.
Korra says nothing to him.
She can't. She can't. It's already a routine.
Like clockwork, the temple is still asleep.
Mako waits at the panels.
This is how it works.