llamafordrama | texts from your ex

[ His pulse doesn't kick up -- but there is that half-familiar, thrilling tension locked in his chest. (It makes him furious with himself -- has it been that long since he's been out of the game?) Hei breathes slowly, his expression ironed flat under the weight of her gaze. As if it's nothing to see her after a whole month. As if the nostalgia isn't a hot ripcurl surging up his chest. Her face, framed in its streamers of dark fur, is as fresh and fine as ever, and her eyes hold that concentrated brightness that still unbalances him as surely as a sniper's beam. ]

[ There's a moment of frozen uncertainty. Korra's reflexes seem trapped by an unvoiced wish for more time, for a few more precious seconds to decide what to do. Hei decides faster. It isn't even a decision as such, more a reflex honed by a lifetime of offense/defense. A reflex that was delayed by his unaccustomed emotional state, but that now, as he recognizes the threat to his own equilibrium, snaps efficiently into place. ]

Here.

[ He hefts the cardboard box as if it's a needful barrier between them. ]

[Korra hesitates, then reaches out to take the box ... but stops short.]

Why? Why did you do it? [She doesn't need the stuff; she needs an answer she can understand.]

[ Hei compresses his lips and keeps his eyes fixed on the haphazard contents of the box -- rolled socks, spray-on deodorant, a comb with dark twines of hair, plain yet girlish underthings that in retrospect he should've kept as keepsakes. Anything to focus on so he won't have to answer Korra's question. He knows what she's referring to. Her tension practically buzzes through the air as if she's ready for a physical fight. ]

[ Except Hei knows he isn't the opponent she wants. She just seems angry and lost and in need of reassurance. For a beat he verges on touching her. That habitual boyfriend-ly itch to soothe her nervous energy. Forcibly, he aborts the reflex. ]

I have no idea what you mean.

[ Matter-of-fact tone. Dismissive body-language. The classic We are not having this conversation. ]

Don't give me that crap. [She knocks the box out of his hands, needing him to look her in the eye.] You killed someone. And don't try and tell me it doesn't matter because he'll come back as City!Dead. I've been City!dead, and I wouldn't wish it on anybody.

[ The box tumbles from his hands, its contents scattering in every direction. Hei's jaw briefly twitches in anger, the muscles in his shoulders flexing beneath 'Li's oversized green hoodie as if he is considering attacking her. Instead he relaxes abruptly, as if he's swallowed a sedative pill. It's hard to take these bursts of violence seriously. It's practically the tantrum of rowdy toddler. It's not worth it to aim for that weak spot of hers, either -- her soft, privileged idealist's need to deny the tactical realities of war. ]

[ Not that killing Zaheer was an act of warfare. It was more Hei being unable to manage his insecurity, protectiveness, and other unfamiliar emotions, then winding up using his professional talents for deeply personal vendettas. ]

[ Exhaling, he kneels to gather up the fallen knickknacks. Doesn't look her in the eye. ]

We've been over this before.

[ Ad nauseum. ]

[Yes, they have, but Korra's going to go over it as many times as it takes for her to get an answer she can understand.]

Steve arrested him. He was in prison. He wasn't in any position to hurt me. He wasn't a threat!

[ Hei's composed expression has given way to a tired blandness. Typical child: so obsessed with her own idealism she is incapable of grasping the dangers right under her nose. ]

He was biding his time.

[ All Zaheer needed was the right opportunity to escape. A appropriate curse, a misstep among the prison guards, a lapse of security... Any risk of that happening outweighed Hei's usual indulgence toward Korra' overdeveloped conscience, her sentimentality, and his own thrice-damned ambivalent streak which the City's sheltered environment were only worsening. ]

So what, is that giant potted plant on the 10th floor biding its time before falling on my head? Are you just biding your time before killing me in my sleep? With that kind of attitude, everything is a threat!

[ The anger Hei is trying to contain nearly bursts through. Forcibly, he counts his breaths, slowly getting them down to five a minute. Then he unclenches his hands from around the fallen knickknacks, and drops them back in the box. The hollow thunk is oddly final. ]

[ Without meeting her gaze, he rises, jerking the full box into her hands. Part of him wants to pick apart the fallacy of her argument, to remind her that Zaheer isn't a fucking potted plant but a real and undeniable threat to her safety. But another part of him knows that if she starts off mining that rich conversational seam, she'll understand the sentiment weighing his actions. She'll realize that he was motivated by nothing beyond the fact that he stood to lose her. ]

[ To strike on impulse is to invite disaster. A dictum he's lived by all his life. Or had -- until he'd arrived in the City, which is a disaster-zone in and of itself. ]

[ Flatly, ]

Think what you like.

[She wants to scream. She wants to punch his stupid face, kick him in the balls, and beat him up until he starts making some fucking sense. She wants to go back to a time before Zaheer arrived in the City, when things were still complicated and painful but fixable.]

Just ... stay out of my life. [It's the exact opposite of what she wants, but it's what needs to happen.]

texts from your ex

he'd be dead already if he had 8'(

true that

maybe he killed zaheer ... after wrecking half the city in the process...

pffft also setting this in Poly!City

excellent at some point he will get cursed and start singing at her >3

a million years later i respond

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