Chapter Text
Korra was no stranger to sex. She was an instinctual being, and the physical expression of attraction came as naturally to her as the first three elements.
Always an arrogant and willful child, her tendency to buck authority had only worsened as she approached the cusp of adulthood. Confined to the compound, one would think that she would have found it difficult to get into such trouble. But trouble seemed to her a natural state, something that just happened, like an ice-storm in winter. It wasn’t hers to question how she’d end up necking a particularly pretty earthbender in the storeroom, just like she didn’t question why the sky was blue. It just was.
The utility of such trysts had nothing to do with affection and everything to do with relief. The tragedy of them was that this relief was short-lived, and often not worth the blowback.
If she had been a more introspective person, inclined to the close examination of motives, she might have attributed this to some inherent need to find a small sliver of freedom in an otherwise imprisoned existence. She may have wondered if it was a desperate grasp at autonomy in a life that was promised to duty, to balance, to the world - to everything and everyone but herself. She might even have recognized the hard, cold lump of fear in her gut - the one she buried under her earnest desire to be an exemplary Avatar - and realized that these dalliances, for one blissful moment, made that fear disappear.
She was not that person. All she knew was that it felt good, and Korra liked doing things that felt good.
No, Korra was fairly acquainted with sex. Relationships, though? Relationships were like a distant relative, some cousin twice removed - something she’d heard of her entire life but had absolutely no idea what to do with when confronted with one.
She loved Mako. She really did. He was handsome, talented, and a loyal friend. More than once he had saved her ass in a fight. He smelled like musk and just a hint of woodsmoke, and like the wind before a thunderstorm. He was also infuriating. Lately she wanted to sock him in the face as often as she wanted to kiss him.
Like today when Raiko denied her request for military reinforcements. The Southern Water Tribe was under the thumb of a hostile, foreign army. Her father was in immediate danger. Her mother. Katara. Her entire fucking culture. Couldn’t he see that she was sick with worry? Wouldn’t he do everything in his power if Bolin were in that sort of peril? No, that insensitive ass had the nerve to defend Raiko’s decision, like it was the most reasonable thing in the world to sit idly by and watch everything you love ripped away.
Korra tossed on the hard pallet in her room on Air Temple Island. She cursed under her breath, sat up, and aimed an enthusiastic punch at the threadbare pillow. Hearing her master’s distress, Naga raised her head and whined.
“Sorry, girl.” Korra slung her legs over the side of the bed and leaned forward to give the beast a reassuring pat. Leaning into the touch, Naga whoofed contentedly and nuzzled her head into the young woman’s lap.
“Mako can be such an ass.” She sighed. “It’s going to be okay, though. I’m meeting Iroh tomorrow and we’ll get this mess sorted out. Promise.” Naga nudged her affectionately. “And Varrick and Bolin are behind us. Even Asami.”
Asami who, spirits knew, had little reason to like the Avatar and less reason to help. Well, she was making a huge sale out of the deal, possibly putting her company back in the black if she could convince the army to buy those Mecha-Suits. There was that.
Still, it baffled Korra that the beautiful CEO had the conviction to stay on with Team Avatar after... Well, after Mako.
Korra admired her for that, really. Asami was made of stouter stuff than most. If she harbored any ill-will toward the Avatar, she never showed it. Maybe it was high-society etiquette - to dress hostility in the trappings of friendship. Or maybe Asami was just that forgiving. Korra thought the truth probably lay somewhere in between. She’d seen hurt in Asami’s eyes before. She’d also seen kindness and sincerity, and this indomitable will to move through the wreckage and on to better things.
They had never been close. In truth, Korra was kind of intimidated by the older woman. She was just so damn... pretty. She had eyes that could light you up in the most delightful way - smoldering with sex and suggestion - or could slice a man to ribbons over the boardroom table. Her voice was cabaret smooth, and could be soft and comforting or knife-sharp by turns. And she was smart. Crazy smart. Crazy stupid smart.
Korra had long wanted to bridge that uncomfortable distance between the two of them. She never knew what to say, though. Every time she had a moment alone with the other woman, she lost her nerve. It always sounded so dumb in her head. “Hey Asami. So I think you’re really smart,” (and pretty) “And snazzy,” (and pretty) “And like, really really cool. Want to be friends? Like more friends than we are now? Because we’re not not friends. But we’re not, like, close or anything. And I think that would be nice. Oh. P.S. Sorry I stole your boyfriend.”
She wondered, not for the first time, why the White Lotus had failed to teach her much in the way of interpersonal relations. Seems like something an Avatar should know.
Settling restlessly back onto the unforgiving bed, Korra silently assured herself that yes, everything was going to be okay. Things with Mako would work out. She would enlist the help of Iroh’s army. She would liberate the South and her family would be fine. Hell, she might even make a new (and pretty) gal-pal.
Eventually, sleep found her.
--- --- ---
She was sitting on her bed in the temple. Orange planks of afternoon light shone in through the slatted shutters. The room had an odd quality to it, some indefinite anomaly making the once-familiar space utterly and irrevocably “other.” It was like some master artist had reproduced her sparse quarters in exquisite detail, lending to it the illusion of life without the substance. The edges of her vision were slightly blurred, and as she sat contemplating this she would sometimes notice a flurry of movement in her peripheral, only to turn and find the same, empty, almost-entirely-familiar room.
A small sound alerted her to a change in her surroundings. She looked up to find the rice-paper door sliding quietly open. In walked a tall, familiar silhouette. As the figure approached, his features settled and sharpened. Amber eyes looked softly at her. Mako.
She was instantly furious, though she could not find the reason.
He closed the distance between them in a few long strides, pulled her to her feet, and gathered her close. He leaned down and laid his face against the top of her head. Strong, sinewy arms held her flush against him.
“I’m so sorry, Korra.” She wasn’t sure what he was talking about or where this anger was coming from, but she offered no response to his words and no resistance to his actions. “You were right. I was such an idiot. You were right and I’m sorry and please, please let me make it up to you.” The words spilled out of him, soft and pleading, rolling like a brook down a gentle slope. He tilted her head up then, and captured her mouth in a tender kiss.
Anger forgotten, she returned the kiss with passion. This she understood.
The world lurched around her. When she opened her eyes again she recognized the bedroom ceiling of Mako’s flat. Cracks spiderwebbed the flaking plaster. The fan spun lazy circles and the sounds of evening traffic punctuated the growing twilight.
Strong, calloused hands kneaded her breasts, and she arched into the touch. Hot kisses travelled down her exposed midsection, blazing a trail toward the thrumming heat at her center. She carded her hands through Mako’s hair and moaned appreciatively. Closing her eyes and burying the crown of her head in the pillow, she cherished every electric moment.
The room shifted, listing like a vessel in a storm.
When she looked down, she met green eyes cloudy with lust. Asami was laying atop her, chin resting on arms folded over Korra’s stomach. Her crimson lips were parted, a high color in her cheeks. Korra could feel the beautiful engineer’s quiet, shuddering breaths where her midsection pressed firm against the juncture of her legs. She was knocked breathless by a powerful longing, the urgency of which astounded her. She thought she had known need - that pulsing, primal hunger - before. This new sensation was like that, in the way that an ocean is like a puddle.
The ocean loomed before her. And she dove.
She pulled the older woman up and into a kiss, drinking deep and drowning. She could feel the press of breasts against her own, her hard nipples sensitive to every slight shift, her clit throbbing in response to that movement, like the two were separate parts of the same electrical system, and Asami the current.
Asami kissed her neck, nipped her pulse-point, ghosted her lips over collarbones and skirted the curve of her breasts. Her hands were soft and strong and insistent. Korra whimpered, unintentionally, when Asami’s finger slipped teasingly along the length of her slit, and she pressed into the touch.
Korra’s mind had lost the ability to think, her mouth the ability to speak anything but a single name, over and again. Spirits! But that felt so good! When she felt the warm, wet mouth close gently around her clit, her mind imploded. She buried her hands in thick raven locks. She bucked, rolling her hips, riding out waves of pleasure against the other woman’s face. Black consumed her vision, white lights exploding behind her lids like a thousand tiny flashbulbs. Her entire existence distilled down to one pin-prick impression. She-
She woke with a start, the taste of Asami’s name still on her tongue.
--- --- ---
It’s the kind of thing that sneaks up on a person, change.
A year ago, had Asami been present on the compound, Korra would have found her a tempting challenge. The undercurrents of rivalry, the aloofness, the heiress’s damn near impenetrable equanimity - those would have made it that much more satisfying to reduce her to a panting, quivering mess. Another notch in the bedpost, baby. Now, the thought caused her stomach to flop queasily.
This was a different time, a different place. She was no longer a prisoner of the compound. She was in love with Mako - Asami’s ex-boyfriend - though that love was sometimes a volatile thing.
Upon waking, flushed and heaving and thighs slick with her need, Korra had attempted to relieve that ravenous hunger burning hot inside her. The problem was that every time she tried, images of Asami flashed unbidden through her mind. It was unnerving.
Despairing of relief - and by extension, sleep - Korra dressed hurriedly and snuck out of the temple into the unnatural glow of Republic City.
--- --- ---
Mako was dead asleep when the knocking roused him. At first he wasn’t sure what that sound was, filtering in through the haze of exhaustion. “Hrm? Hullo?”
The knocking continued, insistent.
“Hold on! Jeez! I’m coming!” He shouted from the bedroom. He stood, tried (unsuccessfully) to flatten an unruly lick of hair, and plucked grumpily at his boxers. Grumbling under his breath, he shuffled into the living room. “What the flameo is so important that I have to deal with it at...” He cut a glance at the clock as he passed, “Three in the morning?” He sighed and pinched his eyebrows together. Fuck. He had to be at the station in less than four hours.
There had better be a damn good reason for this.
Navigating his apartment by moonlight, he reached the door, disengaged the deadbolt, and flung the portal wide. There, standing in the softly humming electric light, was Korra, knuckles poised mid-knock. She seemed slightly startled, frozen in the ensuing (and merciful, Mako thought) silence. They blinked.
And then Korra was pressed against him, pushing him bodily into the apartment. Strong, tan hands fisted in the collar of his undershirt, guiding him backwards, as her lips pressed hot and hungry against his. Mako returned the kiss, unable for a moment to form a coherent thought through the sleep-haze and surprise. Even if he had been thinking clearly, he had learned early on that questioning the motives of his headstrong girlfriend gave him a whole lot of headache and nothing in the way of understanding.
Still, this was... odd. “Mrrph,” he said into her mouth, before successfully disengaging. “Korra, wha-?”
She silenced him with a fierce kiss. “No. Talk,” she growled and gave him a shove that sent him sprawling backward over the coffee table and half onto the couch. He had a split second to crabwalk the rest of the way onto the cushions before Korra was on him, straddling his waist, hands roaming up under his shirt.
He hissed as her nails raked trails of fire down the hard planes of his stomach. Her hips rolling against him, he felt himself harden, manhood stretching against boxers, and instinctively ground into that delightful friction. It was at this point that all vestige of reason fled him.
They writhed together in the moonlight. Mako thought he had never felt anything so heavenly - the press of Korra’s body hard against him, soft curves and sharp edges in equal measure. He groaned low in his throat as Korra moved her hand down to cup his manhood.
“Condom,” she commanded, voice husky and blue eyes dark with desire.
“Yes ma’am.”
--- --- ---
She rode him hard and to completion, limbs slick with sweat and shining in the moonlight. They collapsed, spent, onto the couch and lay together in the quiet hours of early morning.
It was later, as sleep snuck slowly into his limbs, that he remembered their fight. “So... you’re not still mad?” He asked.
He could feel Korra frown against his neck, her muscles tense under his fingertips. She was silent for a long moment. “Yes,” She said, and her voice was thick with hurt. “I’m fucking mad. You’re my boyfriend. You’re supposed to have my back.”
“I do have your back.”
“No. You...” She sighed. “Can we not talk about this now?” She relaxed into him, nuzzling his neck. “I just want to enjoy this. Us.”
The low thrum of a satomobile engine crescendoed as it passed nearby, some happy soul heading home after a night on the town. In the distance a foghorn sounded, slow and mournful.
Mako’s eyebrows knit together in concern. “Korra... Please, can we resolve this?” He asked, pensive. “You can’t just show up in the middle of the night and fuck my brains out, not when you hate my guts for no reason.” He played distractedly with her hair.
“One: I don’t hate you,” Korra breathed. “Two: I do have a reason. A damn good one. And Three: I didn’t exactly plan this. I couldn’t sleep. I showed up. It just sort of... happened.”
“What?” He laughed. “You just slipped and fell on my dick?”
She poked his side playfully. “Something like that.”
Mako listened to her breathing and traced circles on her back with feather-light fingers. He frowned, and nudged her with his chin. “I hate fighting with you.”
“Then don’t do it,” hummed Korra.
“Can’t we just... I don’t know... agree to disagree?”
A pause. He could feel her breath hitch. “Not on this, no.” Her voice was quiet, serious. She propped herself up on an elbow and looked him in the face. “Mako, I’m worried about my family.”
“I know you are. I understand that. I’m worried too. I just think Raiko has a point. He has to protect his people, y’know?”
“This is what I’m talking about! What about my people? Who’s going to protect them? You’re such an ass, Mako!”
“What? Because I don’t think it’s Republic City’s responsibility to fight a foreign war?” Mako’s irritation was apparent in the question.
“You’re my boyfriend,” she said, as if it were an explanation in and of itself.
“That doesn’t mean I have to agree with you when you’re wrong.”
“Damn it, Mako! I’m not wrong about this!” She pushed herself off of him and shot him a glare fit to cut diamonds.
“Spirits! You’re impossible!” Mako thumped the coffee table hard. “I don’t know how to make you happy!”
“Help me save my family!”
“I can’t, Korra! There’s nothing I can do!”
“Fuck you, Mako. You won’t.”
Mako growled in frustration, one hand clenched in his hair. They sat now on opposite ends of the couch, shaking with fury. The only sounds were their labored breathing and the clock ticking away the present, each tock another moment gone forever.
Mako heaved a heavy sigh and dragged his palm down his face. His shoulders slumped, and the hard edge of his anger was replaced by something tender and full of sorrow. After a silence that stretched into infinity, he looked back up into blue eyes full of fire and hurt.
“You drive me crazy, you know? ...But I love you,” he murmured, reaching out to brush Korra’s cheek, hesitant. She swatted his hand away, hard enough to sting.
“Yeah.” The anger in her voice bordered on contempt.
Something broke inside Mako then. That one word reached into some deep, secret part of him, grabbed ahold, and twisted.
“Get. Out.” His amber eyes a slitted threat.
“Fine!” She rose and pulled on her underclothes and shirt. She stalked to the door. For a moment she paused, and the fire in her eyes dimmed. Her features softened. She opened her mouth. Closed it. She looked down at her bare legs, at her toes curling against the floor. “Mako... I... I’m sorry,” she said quietly to her feet.
“OUT!” He threw her pants at her, whipping them across the room with surprising force. She snatched them from the air. Her boots followed suit, thumping off the wall on either side of her. Scooping up the footwear, she spun on her heel and stormed out into the night, slamming the door with such force that it rattled the walls and dislodged a few photos from their hooks. They clattered on the hardwood floor.
Quietly, slowly, Mako set about collecting the pictures, carefully replacing them on the cracked walls of the flat, just as he collected the sharp shards of his grief, and tucked them away, deep inside. Everything in its place.
--- --- ---
Korra thought of Mako as she padded through the hushed halls of the temple, silently tending the growing guilt that had made its home in her heart. She had messed up this time. Royally. She couldn’t shake the sound of Mako’s voice, cracking with hurt, from her memory. She swiped at her eyes when she reached her quarters, trying in vain to convince herself that these were tears of anger, not shame. Anger was familiar. Anger she could deal with. Shame, though? That dark maw gaping at the intersection of her heart and mind... That was something she just couldn’t handle.
She had to make this right. She would make this right. She resolved to apologize to Mako - truly and sincerely - to hold him for as long as he would have her. To kiss him gently and whisper her love until her voice failed her. After all, she would have the full strength of the United Forces by tomorrow, and whether or not Mako agreed with her would be irrelevant. Her family would be safe, and her conscience clear. She could forgive him his ignorance if he could forgive her hers.
Even after she had undressed and was beginning to drift into oblivion, her shame was a pit threatening to swallow her whole. But with this new resolution she felt like she had taken a step back from the edge, like the next gust of wind wasn’t going to knock her sprawling into the infinite black. Things were going to be all right, she told herself, and stepped back once more.
As exhaustion claimed her, she also resolved to forget about the dream. Definitely forget the dream. That was never going to happen.
Despite this, it was a good long while before Korra could look at the heiress without blushing.
--- --- ---
“There are those who look at things the way they are, and ask why... I dream of things that never were, and ask why not?”
Robert Kennedy
“Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today.”
James Dean
“Dreams, I have dreams,
When I'm awake, when I'm asleep.
And you, you are in my dreams.
You're underneath my skin.
How am I so weak?”
Brandi Carlile, “Dreams”