Who: Mako and Korra When: Early April 23 Where: Mako’s apartment What: Korra had a scary dream. Rating: Mentions/handwaves of sexy time, but fairly PG. Status: Complete
Korra wasn’t having a very good week. Failing exams, breaking up with Mako, and having a series of nightmares about Republic City. The most recent had her up in the middle of the night, and before she even knew it she had her coat on and she was halfway to Mako’s.
The Avatar ran the rest of the way there, face streaked with tears as she pounded on Mako’s door. It was the middle of the night, but she didn’t care. She just needed him, as much as she hated to admit it. After seeing him with Asami and her encounter with Amon, Korra just needed a friend. Even if he hated her, even if he pushed her away, it would help just to see him.
So when he didn’t answer straight away, Korra leaned an arm against the door and her head against it. She continued knocking, sniffling and shaking her head.
“I’m coming!” Came a yell from inside after the second minute of knocking. Mako was pretty fucking positive he hadn’t ordered a pizza -- but he had to face the truth in this situation. Sometimes when he’d been drinking too much he texted and called the strangest people for the strangest reasons. His pride still wasn’t completely over the set of texts he’d sent to Korra the day before. So. Yeah. Maybe pizza.
He opened the door with a rough tug, fiddling through his wallet for some sort of cash. “How mu---oh.”
Korra stumbled forward a bit when Mako ripped open the door. Catching her balance with a hand on the doorframe, she met his eyes. And though she’d been the one knocking on the door, she probably looked just about as startled as the boy in front of her.
“Hi,” she said, sounding and looking like she’d just had the worst night of her life so far. Which she very possibly could have just seen in her dream nightmare. “Sorry, I, uh,” she paused, looking away and then back to him. She was fidgeting a bit. Why had she decided to come here again? “I shouldn’t have come here.”
Mako would be the first to admit he’d had a few. From the look of him, he probably wouldn’t need to admit it aloud -- he was a bit bleary eyed himself, and not from crying. Still, he wasn’t so far gone as to not see that Korra was in some sort of distress. And he wasn’t cruel enough to turn her away -- even if she’d done it to him. It just wasn’t the sort of man he was.
“No,” he said, his voice more steady than what he’d been willing to give himself credit for a moment prior. “Come in.”
Korra was letting out a heavy-sounding breath as she moved past Mako. She hadn’t brought anything with her and was still in her tank top and shorts from sleeping. She looked like she’d literally just hopped out of bed -- which she had. Oh fuck, did she even have her keys?
Moving into Mako’s living room, Korra beelined for the couch. Curling up on the end of it, she drew her knees up under her chin with her arms looping tight around them. She stared blankly ahead, sniffling a bit. “How, uh, how are you?” It was a bit awkward.
Instead of answering, Mako gave her a long, thoughtful look from the other side of the room. She looked so -- well. Fragile. It wasn’t something that suited Korra very much, he thought, and even though he was kind of mad at her, he didn’t want to make things worse. “Hang on,” he muttered, and then left the room.
When he returned, it was with a throw blanket under one arm, and a bottle of booze and two glasses balanced in his other hand.
Korra didn’t look up when Mako reentered. Still just staring off into the distance, it wasn’t until he’d been back in the room for nearly a minute before she looked up. Blue met amber but she didn’t smile -- she just watched him, looking as if she might break at the wrong word. Definitely not like the usual Korra -- headstrong, cocky and a fighter. She looked scared.
“I had another dream,” was all that she said.
He dropped the blanket over her lap before sitting down on the other side of the couch and leaning forward to press one of the glasses into her hand and pour her a stiff drink. Ice? Ice was for suckers.
When they were both set up with booze and comfort, he chewed his bottom lip and settled into the armrest of the couch. “Tell me.”
Korra unfolded herself from her fetal-like position when Mako handed her the blanket, taking the offered cup without a second glance. Letting out a sigh, the girl hung her head and hunched over, elbows on her knees. She knocked back the entire drink, grimacing a little, then held it out for another.
A very, very bad dream, indeed. “Do you remember the Equalist group I told you about?”
There wasn’t much else to be done beyond pouring her another -- Mako of all people wasn’t the person to judge when someone knocked back a drink that fast. “I remember,” he agreed -- because he did. He did listen when she talked, after all. “What about them?”
The second drink was sipped at for the moment. She turned so she was looking at him, though she was still hunched over. Korra was starting to feel the interrupted sleep, thanks to the drinking. She was tired. “I challenged their leader, Amon. He beat me and... He was going to take my bending. Forever.”
She watched him for a long moment, frowning. “I saw him take other people’s bending. He almost took Bolin’s,” she was rambling a bit now, trying to get it all out. She told him about the gang leaders, and the task force, and everything that she had seen. He might notice she was telling him as if he were the Mako in her dreams. Which, okay, he was, he just didn’t quite remember it yet.
No. He didn’t. So it was a little weird to have his own name and his brothers in her stories -- weird, but not exactly a hard limit. He wondered when he’d have his own dreams. And if they would be just like hers, or what.
For the most part, he listened. He sipped his drink -- refilled it and topped hers off too before setting the bottle back down on his coffee table. “Well,” he said after she appeared to have finished, “That’s... scary. But. You’re fine here, right?”
She was on three now, after about five minutes. She felt her face getting warm as she looked down at the ground, head hanging from her shoulders again. “I think so,” she said. Just to confirm, she turned a palm up and (controlled, thank you Mako) flames appeared above it. It disappeared quickly after, and she smiled a little at that. At least that was still working.
“There you go then,” Mako said, as if confirming something. “I know the dreams seem real. And they kind of probably are in a way,” he didn’t know for sure, obviously, “But that’s a different life than now, you know?”
For some reason, that set the Avatar off. But not in the way Mako was used to. Korra was crying as she shook her head, she lifted her free hand to wipe the tears. She wished that Tenzin was here, that she could go to someone who might have the answers. But she was with the next best thing: Mako.
It was getting hard to separate real life from her dream life. “I was so scared,” she admitted, sounding tiny.
Mako gave a pause at that. There was something really, really off about the sight of Korra crying. One, because girls were terrifying when they cried. Two, because it was Korra. And three? Well. She was kind of his not-any-longer-girlfriend. Still, he couldn’t just sit there. How could he, really?
“Come here,” he said, holding his arms open, even as his brain told him what a terrible bad idea that was. Fuck his brain, anyway.
She paused for only a moment before launching across the couch and into Mako’s arms. She curled herself against him, burying her head in the groove between his neck and his shoulder. Korra ventured the thought that this was so fucked up but she couldn’t give a fuck right then and there. She just let herself sob against his shoulder.
“It’s okay,” Mako said, reaching over to set his drink down awkwardly before wrapping one arm around her shoulders and threading the other through her hair in a reassuring sort of petting. He’d let her cry it out if she needed, because that was the sort of thing you didn’t interrupt. Plus Korra was moody at the best of times, so there was no telling what words would make everything go further south and pear shaped.
So that’s what she did: she cried it out. After a little while, she finally leaned back. As if only just realizing she’d been holding her cup the entire time, she knocked it back and then set it down. She was back a moment later, wiping at her tear-stained face as she let out a small, embarrassed-sounding puff of air.
“I’m sorry,” she said. Because she was. She was sorry for breaking up with him over the internet, for hurting him, for coming over tonight, for needing him. Deciding to sum it up in a few words, she frowned. “For everything, Mako. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Mako said, awkward and confused, but not without some heart in the matter. He wiped tears off her cheeks with the tip of his thumb. It wasn’t really okay, because she’d been confusing and cruel and -- well. It hadn’t been very fair, he guessed. He could have called her though, he knew that. Maybe they could have worked something out before all this and he wouldn’t have had to wallow in his own stupid, drunk self-pity. Maybe.
“You were stressed out.”
“That’s not an excuse,” she pointed out. It really wasn’t. He knew it, she knew it. Nuzzling him, she gave him a squeeze and pressed her lips to his neck. Once, twice, then a small nip, and she let out a breath. “And I’m still sorry,” she mumbled. She wasn’t crying anymore, but the girl still sounded sad.
Well, as long as she meant it, right? Mako closed his eyes, unsure of how to handle this particular situation before him. She was kissing and biting and sad all at the same time, and it was a bit of an overload. “It’s --uhm. It’s okay,” he said, and this time it was more like an accepting of apology than it was a reassurance.
He wasn’t complaining. That gave the girl some confidence. Liquid courage, man. Korra pushed herself up into Mako’s lap, straddling his hips as her mouth connected with his neck again. One hand on his shoulder, the other fixed into the hair at the back of Mako’s head and pulled to give more real estate.
So wrong, but so good. Right?
More or less. Mako was lost again. Was this right? Was he taking advantage of a girl who who’d been sad and scared and now drunk? Was he thinking too far into things?
He tilted his head a little, enough to connect their lips together instead of hers just being on his neck, jaw, general emotions. He’d think this through. He’d ask if it was okay. Just after this kiss.
Fixing her arms around his neck, the Avatar was not even close to complaining when Mako’s lips connected with hers. She shifted in his lap, bit his lip and pulled back for only a moment. She’d kind of missed this. Okay, she’d really missed it. And seeing Mako with that girl Asami? It hadn’t been pleasant.
The assault continued though as Korra pushed Mako deeper into the couch, hands on his shoulders. This talk had turned into anything but talking. Korra had always been more about the physical anyway.
Mako wasn’t really much better -- he wasn’t the greatest conversationalist at the best of times. This clearly (up until a minute ago, maybe) had not been the best of times.
His fingers found a perch on her hips in a way that was probably all too natural, too easy. He didn’t stop to think about it that much though; just did it. That was kind of how they were, Korra and him.
“Is this -- I mean. You had a few--”
“Shut up,” she ordered in possibly the nicest way she could. It was followed by her tugging his body against hers, fingers tangling in his hair as she pulled him back on top of her.
----
In the end, Mako had shut up. After a while more, he’d even gotten his conscience and his brain to shut up too. From there out -- well. Things had gone well. Spectacularly well. Not as violent as the last time, but he supposed he couldn’t blame Korra for not being on her A-Game this time around.
Now they were both a bit of a mess and the couch seemed too small. Mako felt tired, but not entirely displeased. Not really displeased at all, actually. “We should move,” he said in a bleary sort of tone.
“Mmmm,” Korra mumbled. They were a tangle of limbs on his couch, and to be honest she didn’t feel like moving a muscle. But she could understand Mako’s desire to move. She was sprawled across him, after all.
“Mkay,” she managed after a moment, pushing herself up to sitting. She rubbed at her eyes and rolled her shoulder, letting out a sigh. To be honest, she wasn’t sure if she felt any better. Perhaps physically, but otherwise? She didn’t know. Having Mako around helped, though.
Reaching for her discarded clothes, the Avatar didn’t really want to leave. But she assumed Mako would want her out of his hair. They still weren’t on the best terms, and they hadn’t ever really had the most normal relationship. So she began dressing, figuring she’d get out of the way.
Korra was kind of stupid. Based on her behavior, Mako was sure, sometimes, that he liked her way more than she liked him. It was a strange thought to be having after the intimacy of sex, but there it was anyway.
“What are you doing?” He asked, perking up a little into full awareness with a side order of concern -- he really didn’t want to be a crying shoulder and an occasional-night-stand. “I just meant the bed’s more comfortable.”
“Oh,” the girl said, blushing just a bit. Which was kind of ridiculous, because she was still half-naked and he’d just spent a good deal of time with everything of hers bared. Korra was a complicated girl, to say the least. Still, she continued pulling on her tank top, feeling just a bit self-conscious now. “I thought you wanted me to leave,” she admitted in a quiet voice.
“Why would I want that?” Mako was clearly perplexed about her assumption on the matter. Crying it out and then making out turned into sex did not equate to getting dressed and leaving afterward. Nevermind the fact that she’d dumped him over the internet a few days earlier. Nevermind the fact that they hadn’t quite been dating in order for her to properly dump him, either.
Korra just smiled and shrugged, because she didn’t really have an answer for that. Standing, she grabbed his hand and pulled Mako to his bedroom. She dropped it once she was there, climbing in and settling into the pillows and sheets. Much more comfortable than the couch, she agreed.
Stretching out, she let out a noise that signaled she was happy to be where she was.
That was something, anyway. Mako scooted into the bed, too (because that made sense), and leaned over just enough to turn the light off. And then, because he was either greedy or pushing his luck or both, he wriggled a bit closer to her and then pulled her a bit closer. Because spooning was both romantic and awesome. “No more weird dreams,” he said, and it was meant to be a reassuring sort of sentence, really.
Korra grabbed the arm around her middle and pulled it tighter around her, turning her head to smile at Mako. “No more,” she echoed, reaching for a quick kiss before settling back to a proper sleeping position. “Night, Mako.”