Archive of Our Own

There is something that you are missing. Something that is meant to live so deep inside you that despite never having known it, you grieve its loss. 

Maybe that’s why when you got kicked out, you went straight to Republic City. It was a fresh start for you, away from your shitty little town full of shitty little people who only want to smother your light. Walking out felt like breathing for the first time in your life. You decided that Republic City would be where you found what you were missing. 

Still, making your way here has been…a little harder than expected. You knew it would be more expensive in the city, but you didn’t quite have the right frame of reference to really get just how expensive rent could get here in the city. Your savings (which you thought would be perfectly adequate for covering the first few months of your living here) turned out to be nothing but a drop in the bucket for any sort of sizable apartment in a decent area. 

So, instead, you go with the tiniest apartment you’ve ever seen, in the worst part of town. And maaybe it’s a bad idea to live in a place where police sirens regularly wake you up in the middle of the night, but you like being able to afford three meals a day. 

You find work in a small bakery that’s a 20 minute bike ride from your apartment, in a slightly nicer area of town. The hours are long, (every morning you curse the fact that you get there well before the sun rises) but the pay is good, and the added perk of being able to take home leftovers makes up for the early start. It pays for your apartment, dingy and small as it is, and gives you hope that you’ll be able to save up for a nicer place someday. To prove to everyone from your old town that a “naive non-bender” can make it in Republic City. They’ll never know if you survived or not, and maybe they don’t need to know. 

It’ll be your win to celebrate, not theirs. And hopefully by then, you won’t be alone anymore. 

Today is one of those early mornings at the bakery. You’re accompanied by one of your coworkers, a firebender name Amai. She’s taller than you by a lot (not that most people aren’t), which is helpful when trying to fit in the first few pans and trays into the back of the top oven.

“You still dealing with those neighbours of yours?” Amai asks, abruptly breaking the silence as you knead into the dough in front of you, pushing your weight into the counter. Amai is a bit more bold than you in her attempts to become friends, always initiating conversation and asking you to go out to bars or get lunch on weekends. You haven’t quite acquiesced to her friendly advances though. 

Realising you’ve been silent for a bit too long, you scramble to reply to Amai’s question. 

“Oh! Um, yes,” you stumble, losing your focus on the bread and instead searching your mind for the right words to say. Sighing, you continue. “I swear, every single night those guys come in and make it their personal goal to wake up every single person in our building. It’s crazy!” 

Amai nods, and you return to kneading the bread. “I hear you,” she says. “You’ve got to try and move out of that place soon, I’ve lived in that area before—it’s not safe.”

You give her a weak smile, and try not to let on how much you can’t afford to leave yet. “It’s not all bad,” you say, eyes still fixed on the dough as you now shape it into a round loaf. “There’s a great, really cheap breakfast stand outside my building that’s always open when I go to work. The women who work there always give me way more than I’ve paid for,” you laugh, and Amai chuckles with you. 

“That’s fair,” she says, then places a flour dusted hand atop your own. “Just be safe, okay? It’d kill me to see you get hurt.” 

You giggle a little bit because she’s always so dramatic with her statements like that, but you know she means well 

“Don’t worry, okay? Nothing’s gonna happen to me.” 

You reach over to the side of the counter where the bread lames sit in a basket and grab one. Making a few slashes across the top of the bread, you admire the handiwork of your scoring. 

“I think this one’s ready,” you say, using your dough scraper to lift the loaf off the counter, and place it on the tray where other similar loaves sit. 

“Great,” Amai replies. “Now do the next one,” she jokes, nudging you with her elbow, and you can’t help but smile a little bigger as you grab the next ball of dough. 

You are so, so tired of this city. 

Maybe it’s just you, but being robbed doesn’t really constitute the Republic City experience you were expecting. 

“Keep your hands in the air and take all the money out of the register,” the masked assailant barks, a ball of fire twisting in his hand. “ Now.” 

Trying to keep your breathing calm, you walk behind the glass display shelves loaded with baked goods in front of you, til you reach the register. Your hands are at your shoulders, and they shiver slightly as you raise your head to meet the eyes of the robber. 

Your hands lower slowly, inch by inch, as you reach to open the register. Everyone in the bakery is dead silent, forks frozen in mid-air, held by shaking fingers, their cooling cups of tea abandoned. 

The register opens with sharp kaching that radiates through the room. You wince at the sudden sound, and scramble to grab all the money you can from the register, hands grasping at every bill and coin. You can only think about how if it were thirty minutes earlier, it would be Amai here instead of you. 

“Faster!” the robber yells, panic rising in his voice. You watch as he turns his head to each side frantically, searching for any signs of the cops. The ball of fire sustained in his hand flickers, then grows in size till you can feel the heat waves hitting your cheeks. Tui and La, when will the police show up? 

Who the hell even robs a fucking bakery , anyways? 

You don’t have time to answer that question, though, because the robber is growing impatient, and reaches out with his free hand to grab the cash from your hand.

“Thanks, hon’,” he says, and your face is stuck between shock and mild revulsion. “I’ll be taking this too.” 

He reaches for the tip jar, which is stuffed to the brim with deep pink bills. There goes your savings. 

Tucking it under his arm, he leans over and takes another handful from the register, then turns around. His demeanour has relaxed slightly, and a sense of confidence seeps into his words as he begins to walk away. 

“It was nice doing business with ya’ here,” he says, the smirk in his voice almost audible. It makes your blood boil. He shouldn’t be allowed to get away with this. 

Still, you keep your mouth tightly pressed shut out of a sense of self-preservation. 

The thief is leaning over to grab an untouched bun from a customer’s table when sirens burst into the air, and you can’t help but smile. Satomobiles burst onto the scene, police leaping out of them as the vehicles jolt to a stop.  

Your grin drops when the thief turns around, and dashes back towards you, hand outstretched. Your reflexes aren’t fast enough to get away from the firebender, and quicker than you can even try to step away, he’s gotten behind the counter and has an arm locked around your neck. 

Panicking, you try to struggle, nails scraping at the clothed arm. It does nothing but anger your assailant. 

“Move again and I’ll burn that pretty face of yours to a crisp,” the firebender says, voice far too close to your ear for your liking. “You’re gonna walk with me out of the store, and tell the police not to attack a nice man like me, okay?” 

Your arms fall to your side, and you nod rapidly. “Okay.” Your voice comes out weak and small, and not sounding like your own. 

“Good,” he replies. 

He leads you slowly to the front of the shop, one hand around your neck, the other holding a steady stream of fire next to you that could be directed at your face at any moment. You’ve never felt more afraid in your life as you step out of that bakery. 

His arm tightens around your throat and you gasp, your hands raising to try and pull his arm off of you in reflex, then dropping out of fear of retaliation. 

“Chief, the situation has escalated,” you hear one of the nearby cops say, raising a walkie talkie to his mouth. “A hostage has been taken, requesting backup.” 

You almost want to laugh when you hear that, because you’re the hostage! Out of all the things you thought you would do today, or even in your whole entire fucking lifetime, becoming a hostage in a robbery was definitely not one of them. 

One of the cops to the side stomps his foot solidly on the ground, then pulls a chunk of earth into the air. Your pulse spikes and your breath hitches as your assailant whips the two of you in the cop’s direction. 

“If one of you even thinks about trying to knock me out, I’ll burn her face off!” he yells, and you can tell he’s starting to get frantic now, having lost almost all of his control over the situation. As he loses control over the situation, his grip on his firebending starts to slip too. 

The flame in his hand grows more erratic, twisting and jumping in his hand, and the tip of the flame aches to touch your skin. 

Suddenly, another Satomobile pulls up next to the others, and a few more cops jump out, most notably the chief of police—Lin Beifong—and Avatar Korra. You recognise the stone cold glare  of the chief from a few headlines in the newspaper. 

“You don’t have to do this,” the avatar shouts, stepping forward.

“Don’t get any closer!” the robber yells, and there’s a squeak in his voice as he does so. He’s getting more scared—more dangerous. 

“Let the girl go,” the chief barks, her fists tense at her side. “ Now. ” 

Your attacker’s body stiffens behind you and you wince as flames lick your left cheek. “Only if you agree to let me go—unharmed.” 

Korra is slowly working her way closer to the robber, her movements slow and smooth. “Listen, I’m sure we can work something out,” she says, but your attacker isn’t convinced. You hear a whoosh and turn your head slightly, only to see that he’s pushed the fire straight at your cheek. 

Time freezes in that moment, and a wave of icy pain rushes through your body, radiating from the left side of your face. Chaos breaks out and you raise your head to see a small team of metalbenders on the roof, attacking from above. Thick metal cables shoot down, wrapping around the thief’s wrist, twisting him back. Lost in the action surrounding you, you only just register another set of cables ripping you away from the robber’s grasp. The constant heat finally stops, and the world spins around you as you’re pulled away. 

Blinking furiously, you try to regain your bearings as you stop moving, and find one hand pressed on your shoulder, and another gently holding your upper arm to keep you stable. Somewhere in the distance you hear the robber shout as he’s subdued by the police force and Avatar Korra, but your vision is still blurry—and the searing pain in your cheek is becoming overwhelming as your head clears and the adrenaline starts to leave your system.  

“You okay, kid?” the hand on your shoulder has a voice attached to it, apparently. It’s gruff, but with an almost soft quality to it at this moment. You turn your head, and as your vision comes into focus, a stern face and a head of salt and pepper hair faces you. You slowly recognise it as Chief Beifong. She’s a lot prettier up close than in the newspapers. 

Now is not the time to be thinking that!

“I’m—” your voice feels rough in your throat as you speak. “I don’t know.” 

Her brow furrows slightly, then she yells out, “Is there a healer on site?” her head craning around the group of policemen. A crowd of people have formed around the scene, and most of the police on site are occupied with either keeping those folks away from the bakey, or helping to escort out the customers.“Take her to sit down somewhere, then wait for a healer,” she grunts to an officer next to her. 

A tall officer with dark hair comes and gently ushers you away, and suddenly you feel a lot less secure without those strong hands keeping you stable. You turn behind you to look for her face in the crowd again, but she’s already made her way over to the police officers hauling the criminal into the back of a van. 

The officer leads you over to a nearby bench, then waves down a grey haired woman dressed in water tribe clothing. She must be the healer. 

“Kya!” the police officer exclaims. “Over here.” There’s a sense of familiarity in his voice as he speaks to the older woman, and as she gives him a small grin, you start to think that maybe they know each other. 

“Good to see you again Mako,” she says, addressing the officer standing at your side. She turns to look at you, then grimaces at the sight of your cheek. “Though I wish it was under different circumstances.” 

She kneels down on the ground in front of you, angling her head to get a better look at the wound. “How are you, honey?” she says, voice warm like melting butter on toast. 

“About as good as I can be with half of my face burned,” you remark, and wince as pain radiates from your cheek as you talk. 

“I don’t know about half, maybe more like 20 percent,” Mako says, almost reflexively. 

Kya glares at him, then gently takes your chin in her hand. “I don’t think now is the right time for that sort of thing, Mako. If you want to be useful you can heat up this tea for me.” She hands him a satchel presumably full of herbs, and a thermos, then turns back to you. “It’ll help dull the pain while I work,” she says, a sad smile on her face. 

You nod, almost imperceptible, as any significant movement of your face is far too painful. 

Suddenly, there’s a warmth coming from next to you, where Mako stands. You turn to see that he’s emptied the satchel into the thermos, and is holding a small controlled flame beneath the metal container. 

The pain in your cheek flares, and you can’t help but stiffen. You can’t look away from the fire, and yet every inch of your body is screaming to get away—to avoid getting hurt again. Crying out, you try to push yourself away from Mako, heart rate spiking.

“Stop!” you yell, head frantically shaking as you scramble away from the fire.  “Get that away from me!” 

Mako and Kya both jump slightly, and the flame is immediately gone from his hand. Still, your heart is racing, and you’re standing now, unsteady on your feet and hands shaking. 

“What’s going on here?” a familiar voice asks, sounding mildly annoyed. You turn, eyes still wide like a cat-deer in headlights. The chief is standing in front of the three of you, arms crossed over her chest, an unamused look on her face. “I told you to take the girl to a healer, not scare her more.” 

“I—” Mako starts, hand still frozen underneath the thermos. “I didn’t think—”

“Yeah, you sure didn’t,” Chief Beifong cuts him off. “No firebending around her, got it?” 

Mako nods quickly, then hands the thermos to Kya. “It should be warm enough already.” 

The chief shakes her head, and you think you hear her mutter “This kid,” under her breath, following up the statement with a grumble. She looks like she’s about to walk away, then pauses, her eyes locked on you. You realise for the first time that she’s got a set of scars on the right side of her face, crawling from her chin to the middle of her cheek. 

It’s almost funny, in a way, how you’ve now got burns in the exact same place—just on the other side of your face. Her rigid stare softens as it reaches your burns, almost invisible to anyone who isn’t studying her face so intensely like you are. 

Your eyes meet, just for a second, and you swear you can feel your jumping heart slow in your chest. Looking at her, you feel safe. And just as quick as that feeling came—it leaves, and she jerks her head away violently, like she had to tear herself away from you. 

“Have her come in to give a statement tomorrow,” she says to Mako, brisk and flat, then turns around—and leaves. 

You hear Mako start to say something to you, but you’re still watching the chief walk away, captivated. 

“Did you get all that?” Mako says, and you blink a few times, then turn to meet his face. 

“Oh, um,” you start. “Sorry, no—I didn’t.” 

Mako smiles sheepishly, then rubs the back of his neck. “That’s alright. I just said that you’ll need to come down to the station some time tomorrow to give a statement about the robbery, does that sound okay to you?” he says. “Also—sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.” 

You process his words, then give him a half smile. “It’s okay. I’ll come in sometime tomorrow afternoon.” You don’t have a shift that time tomorrow, and to be honest—even if you did? You think you deserve a day off after all this. 

“Great,” Mako says. 

Kya clears her throat, and you realise that she’s just been kneeling in front of you this entire time. She probably saw you staring at the police chief the whole time she was here. You feel like a schoolgirl caught ogling boys during gym class. 

“If you’re done apologising, Mako, I’d like to do what I came here to,” she says, tone playful and only mildly bordering on annoyance.

“Oh, yeah, sorry,” Mako says. 

Kya sighs, then turns to you, sympathy on her face as she examines your burns further. “I can heal it at a surface level, but you’re still going to have some scarring—I’m sorry.” 

To be honest, your expectations weren’t set very high to begin with—you’ve never even experienced waterbending healing before—so you’re honestly just glad she can do something. 

“If you don’t mind, I’m going to start now,” she says, pulling glowing water from a water skin at her side. The ball of water spins and twists in on itself, hovering in mid-air. You nod. 

“Go ahead.” 

The instant the water touches your face, you sigh in relief. You didn’t even realise just how much it hurt until relieved of the pain. Your shoulders relax slightly, and your breathing becomes deeper as the water spins over your burn, Kya’s hands moving slowly over your face. It’s peaceful, so much so to the point that you close your eyes and let the coolness of the water overtake the rest of your senses. The mid-morning sun hits your face, and you realise it’s not even lunch yet. 

Today has already been too long. 

You get home a few hours later, gauze over your burn, and a small bag with a medical salve and some more bandages in it. It’s only mid-afternoon, but with how tired you are it might as well be the middle of the night. You’re exhausted, mentally and physically. 

Fumbling with the keys in your pocket, you shove them in the keyhole, and you groan when they grind to a stop after a half turn. You kick the door, and swear under your breath, then try to turn the keys again. This time, the lock clicks and the door swings open in front of you. Sighing, you walk in, kicking it shut behind you. 

Your apartment stands in front of you, and as much as you have cursed it in the past, you’ve never been more glad to be there than right now. The damp coolness to the room feels comforting instead of cloying in the moment, and you quickly drop your stuff on your table. 

Right as you’re about to throw yourself into your bed and try and forget this day ever happened, your phone rings from your kitchen counter. You groan loudly, as if the phone will leave you alone if you do, then walk over and pick the receiver up, bringing it up to your ear. 

“Are you okay?” a frantic voice says through the line immediately, and you recognise it as Amai. “I heard about what happened at the bakery this morning.” 

You relax a little upon realising it’s just her, but you can’t help but wonder how long you’ll be able to muster up the energy to keep a conversation going. 

“Uh, yeah,” you drag your hand over your face, consciously trying to avoid the bandaged cheek. “I’m alright now. The guy who tried to rob us burned me a bit, but it’s fine,” you say. You don’t know why you said that, downplaying the whole incident, because it’s really not fine. 

You hear Amai gasp. “Spirits, that’s terrible!” she says, like you don’t already know that, like you weren’t the one there. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there to help.” She sounds almost on the brink of tears. 

“It’s alright Amai, really,” you affirm her, trying to calm her down. “I’m glad you weren’t, it would’ve been terrible if you got hurt. I know you would’ve done your best if you were there, though,” you say, and it’s true. 

“Okay, well,” she pauses. “Call me if you need anything, okay? I’ll let the boss know you’re taking a few days off—if that’s alright with you.” 

You smile a little, then nod as if there was anyone else but you in the room. “Thanks, Amai, that sounds great.” One less phone call for you to make today. As you roll your tense shoulders a bit, you have to stifle a rising yawn, and realise just how tired you are all over again. “I think I’m gonna take a nap now, but I’ll let you know if I need anything else, okay?”

“Okay,” she says. “Stay safe and rest up.” 

The receiver clicks as you set it down, and the call ends. Sighing, you stare at the phone. It taunts you with its silence, asking you questions you never thought you’d have to answer by yourself. Would your parents call if they knew what had happened? Would you even want them to call? 

The questions tumble in your head, tying knots into any string of thoughts you try to form. You can’t help but wish your mother, as cold as she was at times, was there to hold you like a child. To make all the bad things go away. At this point you’d settle for anyone doing that for you. It’s been so long since you’ve been held. 

You drag your feet on the dusty floorboards as you walk over to your bed, and it creaks under your weight as you land on it, not even bothering to change out of your clothes. Your work uniform smells like sugar and soot. 

Your eyelids grow heavier by the moment as you roll over, pulling a thin sheet atop your body, and after a few moments, reality blends into sleep. 

That night you dream of orange blazes surrounding you, burning at your skin, the smell of charring flesh seared into your nose, a smell you never thought you’d come to recognise. You dream of pale green eyes, hard like jade, and silver hair that glints in the sun. You dream of strong, firm hands that pull you from the fire and into the light, saving you from the twisting flames. 

When you wake up the next day, it’s not even morning. You’ve slept for more than ten hours, and ironically, you haven’t felt this well rested since arriving in Republic City. Sun streams in through your windows, peeking through the curtains you couldn’t be bothered to close all the way when you got home yesterday. You stretch your limbs out lazily in bed, yawning as you do so. Your body aches in the sore kind of way that you’d feel after a spending a long day in the sun. 

Your dreams from the previous night play out in your mind as you try to blink away the sleep, and you match the eyes and the hands in the dream as Chief Beifong’s. Your eyes widen at the realisation, and you lower your head into your hands. 

You’ve met her once , and she’s already in your dreams. Heat rises from beneath your cheeks, and you bet if you looked in the mirror right now, the tips of your ears would be a bright pink. Still, you can’t help yourself. There’s just something almost magnetic about her, something that you don’t quite understand. 

A small part of you hopes you dream about her again tonight. 

Kicking your sheets of your body, you remind yourself that you’re supposed to go into the station to give a statement today. You tire at the thought of moving from the comfort of your bed. Still, you know it is a necessity, especially for helping to put your attacker in jail for as long as possible, so you get up. 

The police station is closer to the centre of the city, in quite a fancy part of town. You marvel at the overwhelmingly tall building that seems to expand in every direction in front of you. There were never any buildings this big in your hometown, that’s for sure. 

You take one deep breath in, let it out, then walk into the building. 

Immediately you’re met with a cacophony of noises and people rushing around that’s overwhelming enough in and of itself that your heart rate starts to rise. You look for a familiar face, for Chief Beifong—or even Mako, but you can’t seem to find one. You’re lost in a sea of people in the lobby, and don’t have a lighthouse to guide you to safety. 

“Are you alright?” A voice jolts you out of your head, and you jump slightly. A police officer asks you. He’s got green eyes and a curly mess dark hair atop his head, and you assume he’s probably an earthbender due to this colouring. When you don’t reply, he continues. “I’m Bolin, I work here…I can help you if you need something?”

“Oh,” you say, trying to draw yourself out of your thoughts. “Yes, please. I’m supposed to give a statement about a robbery that I was involved in yesterday—” you cut yourself off, laughing a little. “Sorry, that makes it sound like I was doing the robbing.” 

Bolin laughs too, then replies. “No, don’t worry, I got what you mean.” He motions with his head to a set of doors across the lobby, then continues. “You’re probably supposed to go over there, follow me.” 

You and Bolin walk over to the large set of double doors, and he pushes them open with ease to reveal a much smaller, much quieter room full of police officers working at their desks. You exhale a sigh of relief as the noise is shut off behind you when the doors close. Bolin cranes his head around the room, seemingly looking for someone or something. He apparently finds what he was looking for, because he smiles, then calls out, “Hey, bro!” 

You follow him as he walks over to the person he was addressing, and you’re pleasantly surprised to see Mako standing up to hug Bolin. You never would’ve guessed that the two of them were siblings separately, especially with their different demeanors.

Mako releases Bolin from the hug, and the latter gestures towards you. “She says she’s here to give a statement about a robbery—mentioned something bout’ you and the chief.” 

Mako turns to you and recognition lights up in his eyes. “Oh, yeah,” he says. “You can come with me.” 

“Sounds good,” you reply, and the two of you walk off, waving goodbye to Bolin as you go. 

Mako leads you to a plain room, furnished only with a table and a few chairs. The walls are a cool grey, and the room feels uncomfortably sterile. You take a seat on one of the metal chairs, Mako follows suit. 

A few seconds tick by before the silence becomes quite awkward, and you can’t help but break it. 

“So…” you start. “What exactly am I meant to be doing here?”

“Oh, uh,” Mako starts, scratching his head. “Well, I think y—” 

He’s cut off by the door opening, Chief Beifong now standing in the doorway. She looks exactly the same as she did yesterday, hair parted perfectly down the middle, brows in a permanent furrow, and segmented metal armour moulded to her body. 

“Let’s get this over with,” she says, matter of factly. Looking at a silent Mako sitting across from you, she continues. “No need to waste more time than necessary.” 

“Oh, uh,” Mako stutters. “Yes, chief.” 

With a flick of her hand, she metalbends the other chair in the room to the table, and takes a seat. She does it with such ease, like it’s second only to breathing to her. You can’t even imagine being able to have that much control over your bending if you were a bender. 

“So,” she says, and your attention is brought to her gaze again. “Start off by telling us what happened yesterday, to the best of your knowledge.” 

Her voice is commanding in a way that makes you immediately want to tell her everything that you’ve ever done wrong in your life, and yet so intimidating that you’re worried you might not be able to get a single word out of your mouth. 

“Well,” you start, but find your throat dry as bones, and the words sticking to it. You cough slightly, then try to keep going. “I got there at 4 am, li—” you cut yourself off, breaking into coughs again. Trying to clear your throat, you apologise, but the Chief is already ahead of you. 

“Mako,” she says, and his head immediately perks up. “Go get the girl a cup of water.” 

“Yes, chief,” he says, and immediately rushes out on her orders. 

The door shuts behind him, with a quiet thump , you’re left alone with the chief. 

She stares at you, and you feel like time stops. 

“How’s the cheek?” she says briskly, still not breaking eye contact with you. 

“Huh?” you say softly, your brain too enveloped in her gaze to process the meaning of the words. She gestures with her head to the left side of your face, where your bandages sit, taped to your skin. 

“Oh,” you reply, your voice sinking. Your hand reaches up to your cheek mindlessly, and you wince at the contact. “Shit,” you say under your breath. “Uh, it’s okay.” 

Her eyes soften, and her lips purse to form a frown. “Don’t do anything stupid. Take care of the wound or the scarring will get worse,” she pauses, like she’s unsure of what to say next. “Okay, kid?” 

You almost startle at the advice—it’s probably the longest sentence that she’s said directly to you. 

“Oh, um,” you say, quietly. “I will. Thank you, Chief Beifong.” Her name sounds strange coming out of your mouth, and yet your lips form the vowels so easily, like they were just waiting to bring the sounds into existence. 

You think you see her smile for just a second when you say her name. 

Just as you think she’s about to say something else, Mako bursts in the room holding a cup of water. 

You both whip your head towards him, and he blinks looking between the two of you. 

“I, uh, got your water,” he says, walking slowly to the table as he observes the two of you, then sets it down on the table. 

“Oh, thank you, Mako,” you say, and pull the water closer to you. You take a sip, and relax a little as the water cools you down. “Can I start telling you guys about what happened now?” you ask, unsure of what the protocol is. 

Mako pulls out a notepad and a pen, and the Chief nods. “Go ahead.”

You clear your throat, and start speaking. 

“It was around 10 a.m. when the robber showed up.” 

About half an hour later, you’ve recalled every single detail you possibly could about the event—how the robber showed up, what his demands were, who else was working at that day, all those things. You’re tired again, and you can only hope that you never have to do this again. 

Mako leaves the room first, holding the door open, and you nod to thank him as you leave. You walk out of the room, and feel a sense of relief come over you as your first peek of sunlight since entering the room where you gave your statement. 

The chief follows behind you, and you nearly freeze as her hand brushes up against the small of your back to get around you. The touch itself is completely thoughtless—you know she probably didn’t even realise she did it, just an afterthought while trying to get around you, but you still can’t help the shiver across your skin and the heat on your back where her fingertips ghosted over your spine. 

Bolin comes and greets the three of you, and immediately launches into a complaint of how hungry he is, which (though you don’t know him well) seems fitting for his character. 

“Spirits, I could really go for some food right now,” he says, rubbing his stomach. “Mako, you wanna go get something to eat?”

The customer service side of you takes over, and you can’t help but open your mouth and start speaking. “You should totally go and try the bakery where I work,” you say, excitement rising in your voice. “It’s really good—and I know we just got robbed yesterday, but all the better to visit then, we could use the business. I can show you guys the way there, and tell you what are the best things to get.” 

Bolin lights up, and a big grin spreads across his face. “That sounds amazing!” he says, then nudges Mako. “You up for it, dude?” 

Mako looks down, checking his watch, then looks back up at Bolin with a small smile on his face. “Yeah, sure,” he says. “I’m off duty for now anyways.” 

You turn to the Chief, but Bolin gets there before you do. “C’mon Chief, you should come with us,” he says, like he already knows the answer. “It’ll be fuun!” he continues, sing-songy and playful as he pokes the her in the shoulder. 

She rolls her eyes at him and gives him a laugh that’s halfway between a huff and a chuckle as she shakes her head. “I have work to do,” she replies. 

Bolin throws his hands up in the air and steps back, shrugging. “Alright,” he says. “But I bet you’ll be missing out.” 

He laughs a bit, and throws an arm around Mako as he turns to make his way towards the door. They start to walk over, but you stay back for a second and turn to the chief. 

“You should come by sometime,” you say to her. “If it’s my shift while you’re there, I’ll give you somethin’ on the house.” 

She looks a bit surprised at your offer, then blinks a few times before replying. “I’m—” she says, and it’s the first time you’ve heard her speak where she hasn’t sounded impenetrable and rock solid in her confidence. “I’ll keep that in mind. Thank you.” 

And with that, she turns around and walks towards her office. 

You linger in the moment for a bit, watching her walk away from you, just like you did at the crime scene yesterday, but snap yourself out of it to catch up with Mako and Bolin. 

They’re standing by the door, laughing and talking with each other when you get to them, and you grin. 

“Ready to have the best egg custard tarts in the city?”

The three of you decide to take a trolley from the police station to the bakery, as it’s a little bit of a ways there if you just walked. You make light conversation as you go, the thump of the trolley wheels beneath you creating a calming rhythm to the trip. Oddly, you find comfort in talking to the two of them. Even though it’s a bit strange that some of the first people that you’ve truly gotten along with here are police officers you met because your bakery got robbed. 

You guys arrive at the bakery some 20 minutes after leaving, and the familiar jangle of the bell on the front door greets you as you pull it open. 

“This is it!” you say, a sense of pride in your voice. It might not be the best or biggest bakery in the world, but you work hard to make sure the food and service is top notch. “Let’s grab a seat somewhere, there’s usually a few tables open.” 

Mako follows you, but Bolin immediately runs to the front display cases filled with goods. The bakery is almost completely empty, but you guess that’s to be expected—not everyone wants to shop at a crime scene. 

You drop your bag on a chair, then turn to go meet Bolin at the front. Mako sits down and waves you ahead. 

“You guys get whatever, I’ll wait here,” he says, and you nod, smile on your face. You meet Bolin at the front, and you swear he’s nearly drooling at the sight of all the food. Trying to hold back laughter, you nudge him with your shoulder. 

“So, you gonna order or what?” you ask, giggles following your words. The kid working the register is someone you’ve only met a few times before—your schedules don’t really overlap, but you exchange familiar hello’s as you and Bolin go to order. 

Bolin beats you to ordering, and immediately starts pointing at an array of things in the cases. 

“I’ll have one of those, those, those, and those” he says. “Ooh—and that!” 

You laugh, and add on one more thing to the extensive list. “I’ll have a tea, please—green.” 

The poor kid at the register nods, and you go to pull out your wallet but Bolin puts his hand up. 

“I’ve got it,” he says, and you’re about to protest when he continues. “You can spot us next time, kay?” The assurance makes you feel a little better, but you’re not entirely sure that he won’t just pull the same thing the next time. The implication that the three of you will see each other again brings an infectious smile to your face as you reply, “Next time.” 

A few minutes later, Bolin is carrying a big tray stuffed full of pastries, and your tea. He sets it down on the table with a quiet oof , and slides into the seat next to Mako. Mako takes a survey of everything on the tray, then glares at Bolin. 

“How much did you spend on this stuff, dude?” he says, crossing his arms. 

“Hey, listen, it’s not like we don’t have the money!” Bolin says with a shrug. “I think we can afford to live a little, bro.” 

Mako sighs, but immediately grabs a sweet bun and takes a big bite, followed by a quiet sigh of relief. Bolin quickly follows suit, and pulls an egg tart off the tray, and quickly puts the whole thing in his mouth. 

“You were right,” he says, mouth still half full. “These are the best egg tarts in the city!” 

You laugh, and grab a cookie for yourself. As you chew, your mind wanders away from the bakery, from the guys sitting across from you, and you start to think what Chief Beifong is doing right now. You take another bite mindlessly, but your brain doesn’t even register the flavours—the only thing you’re thinking about is how she’d look right now, brows scrunched together as she leans over her work, flipping through sheets of paper. 

All of a sudden you hear your name being called, and you raise your head up, cookie crumbs falling out of your mouth. 

“Hello? You good there?” Mako asks, chuckling. 

“Oh, uh,” you say, trying to keep the cookie from falling out of your mouth. “Yeah.” You swallow, and cough a little bit as it goes down. “That was a dry cookie.” 

“So,” Mako says, a teasing smirk on his face. “What were you thinking about that had you so wrapped up in your head?” 

You blush, hard. You didn’t think that it was that obvious that you were thinking about…well, something. 

“Nothing!” you say, obviously lying. “Just got distracted is all.” 

“ Mhm ,” Bolin says, beforing pausing. “So who’s the lucky guy?” 

“Bolin!” Mako says, punching him in the arm. “Don’t be an asshole.” He turns to you before continuing. “Sorry about him.” 

“It’s okay,” you say, trying to hide your pink tinged cheeks. You pause, weighing the decision you have before you. “And even if it was someone” you say, slowly. “—and it’s not—” you interject, giving Bolin a playful glare. “It wouldn’t be a guy,” you finish, words barely audible. 

You’ve never admitted that to more than your closest friends back in the village, and their reactions didn’t give you anything good to go off of, that’s for sure. It’s a big reason as to why you didn’t even try to stick around after you told your parents—telling the few people you did left you so isolated, and you realised no one there would ever truly understand you. 

“That’s totally cool, man!” Bolin says, smiling. It’s so unlike the disgusted stares you’re used to seeing in response. “This sucker here was such a bad boyfriend that his two exes just decided to date each other instead,” he says, nudging Mako. 

Your eyes widen, and Mako rolls his eyes, shaking his head. “He’s making it sound much more dramatic than it actually is.” 

Bolin laughs, then continues. “Seriously though, that’s totally cool.” His smile has softened, and he reaches his hand out and gently pats yours. You’ve never felt this seen without the moment tinged by disgust before. 

“Thanks, guys,” you say, smiling at the fact that you even have some friends to address right now. 

The table goes silent for a bit, but you realise that you have an opportunity to learn more about the chief—through Mako and Bolin. Excitement jumps inside of you, and you pat yourself on the back for having the idea. 

“So what’s working for the Chief of Police like?” you say, trying to make it sound as casual as possible. It does not sound casual. You’ll live. 

“Oh, uh,” Bolin says, scratching his head. “Well, I don’t see her that often, Mako works closer with her than I do—but she’s pretty chill in my opinion.” 

“I don’t know if ‘chill’ is the right way to describe her, dude,” Mako says, looking at Bolin. He stops, looking as if he’s searching for the right words to say next. “She’s dedicated to her job almost entirely,” he says. “Honestly, I don’t know if she does much outside of her job. That might just be because she doesn’t have many friends except for her ex-boyfriend and his family.” Mako stops, and rubs the back of his neck, and you can tell he’s a little embarrassed he said all of that. “I probably shouldn’t have you all that.” 

You laugh, and shake your head. “I’m sure it’s fine,” you say, then ask “What else?”

“What else? Well, she’s also probably the most talented earthbender that Republic City has…her favourite food is sesame cakes, and she almost always works later than anyone else at the station.” 

Nodding, you take a mental note of the sesame cake tidbit, then grab an egg custard from the tray. “She sounds pretty cool to me,” you say, not even caring that your voice goes airy and high as you do so. 

“She is,” Bolin agrees. 

After finishing off the tray of baked goods, mostly by you and Bolin, the three of you part ways, with Mako and Bolin heading back to the centre of the city, and you heading off to your apartment out towards the outskirts of town. 

Your stomach is full, and you haven’t laughed and smiled this much in a day since arriving in Republic City. The pain of your burn is dull compared to the happiness that has taken seed within your soul. You almost want to thank the robber for showing up yesterday, because without him, you never would’ve met Mako and Bolin…or Chief Beifong. 

It’s starting to get dark by the time you arrive home, and you immediately kick off your shoes, drop your bag, and fall into bed. This time, you make sure you change into a set of pyjamas before you fall asleep (and by pyjamas you mean that one ratty old shirt that goes down to your thighs and will probably disintegrate sometime within the next few years) and crash hard. 

You didn’t realise how tired you were from everything, not to mention being out all day and the long walk home, but the moment you’ve tucked yourself into bed, your eyelids feel far too heavy to do the work of keeping them open, so you fall fast asleep. 

Dreams flood your mind again tonight. These dreams are absent of fire, but your skin burns in the most pleasant way possible as ghostly touches grace your lips, your neck, your thighs. You’ve never been kissed like this, never been touched like this.

 A voice— her voice—growls in your ear, and as you open your eyes to see her, to touch her, to make sure it’s all real, all you find is the morning sunshine blinding your eyes, and sweaty sheets sticking to your hot skin.

Your breathing is unsteady, and your heart even more so. Peeling the sheets away from your body, you sit up, and let the images from your dreams flash through your mind. They bring back that dull ache inside your stomach—that deep and yearning want—and you immediately let them go again, watching the memories sink into the far corners of your mind that you don’t dare access. 

Days pass, and yet the feeling does not. You still see the chief in your head, in your dreams, permeating your thoughts when you dare to let them wander. Still, you decide it’s just a silly crush—nothing that you’ll ever act on or bring to fruition, something harmless. 

So harmless as it is, you let it stay. You indulge in the fantasies—fantasies that bring you both shame and joy—building little worlds where you bake for her, where she holds you as you sleep. You can’t decide whether to smile or frown at these fantasies, to relish in the comfort they bring, or to let the disappointment that it will likely never be real sink in. 

You’re back at work, and while you still rely on Amai to do most of the work with the ovens and open flames, you’re glad to have something to do with your life again. As much as recovery is restful, it gets boring as hell at times. 

Today it’s just you at the bakery. Amai nearly cried telling you she had to take off work today and leave you alone. You reassured her you would be fine. The chances of you getting robbed again are very slim…probably. She needs a break from morning shifts, anyways. (You need a break from her complaining about morning shifts, too.)

Dusting the flour off your hands on the sides of your apron, you head out to the front of the shop to load some of the fresh baked goods into the display cases. You grab a tray and lean it against your hip, then push the door open with the side of your arm. 

The door to the front part of the bakery swings open, and you quickly get into a simple rhythm of sliding open the display case doors, putting in the baked goods, whether that be egg tarts, fruit pies, or sticky rice buns, and sliding it shut. You’re about to go into the back to grab another tray, the first empty one still pressed against your hip, when you see a figure in the window. It’s still dark outside, so you can’t quite make them out, but your heart rate spikes. 

Carefully, you make your way over to the door, then yell out, “We’re not open yet,” like it’s not abundantly obvious from the lack of lights in the bakery, and the closed sign on the door—not to mention the fact it’s five a.m, the sun barely starting to rise. 

You squint, and see the figure turn to walk away, when you recognise the familiar uniform. 

Fumbling with the lock, you push the door open as fast as you can. 

“Chief Beifong?” you say, bewilderment in your voice. “What are you doing here?” 

She stops, back still turned to you, and you think you can hear her sigh before she turns around. 

There’s this awkward sort of look on her face that begets the image of a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar. It’s almost…funny. It takes quite a bit of self control to not laugh. She clears her throat, then straightens her back. 

“You mentioned you shifts start early. I…was just checking to see if everything was okay here,” she says, trying to force authority into her voice. “I see now that everything is in order, and I will be on my way.” For the first time since you’ve met her, it’s not working very well. Your self control slips and giggles fall out of your mouth in response. 

“Wait,” you say through a few light laughs. “Come in. We’re not open yet, but I wanna give you something.” 

Her eyebrow quirks up at you, but she doesn’t show any real sign of resistance and you wave for her to follow you through the door. You gesture towards a table, then start heading towards the back.

“Do you like tea?” you shout as you walk away, and you hear her reply as she sits down. 

“Yes, green.”  

You smile, and turn around in the doorway to the back kitchen. “Me too.” 

In the back kitchen, on the third tray to the left, is a special request you asked to start putting on the menu—just in case. Sesame cakes layed out, row after row, little circles of flaky pastry coated in sesame seeds, handmade by you. (And your coworkers, but she doesn’t need to know that.) 

You grab a few and slide them on a plate, then quickly fill up two cups from the pitcher of cold green tea that you keep in the back for Amai and yourself. 

Trying to hold everything in your two hands, you knudge the door open with your knee. 

You see Chief Beifong jump up from across the room, and briskly make her way over to you. 

“Let me help,” she says, and takes the cups from you. 

Her fingers ghost over yours, and your eyes meet for just a second. 

“Thanks, Chief Beifong,” you say quietly.

She sighs, then shakes her head. “No need for formalities. Call me Lin.” 

“Okay,” you say as the two of you walk over to a table. “Lin.” The word forms slowly in your mouth, like you’re testing the waters of a too-hot bath, trying desperately not to plunge yourself in all at once. 

She repeats your name back to you in the same manner, careful and hesitant, her lips quirked in an odd half smile. 

Your chest flutters. You hope hers does too. 

Trying to brush the moment off, you sit down across from her, and present the sesame cakes. An incredulous look passes over her face and she raises a brow at you.

“These…are my favourites,” she says, trying to see through you, to look into your brain and see what you’re thinking. “How’d you know?” 

You look at the ceiling—anywhere but her, and flush. You’re slightly embarrassed now that you’ve done it, but still push the plate towards her. 

“Mako may or may not have mentioned it when I asked about you,” you say, trying to sound casual and not totally super embarrassed. 

She chuckles slightly, cocking her head to the side just a bit. “So, you asked about me, huh, kid?” she says, smirking. 

All sorts of thoughts rush to your head, and you feel your cheeks bloom red as you eagerly try to explain yourself out of the situation. “I—uh,” you start, trying to figure out what to say, your brain short circuited by her smile. “I didn’t mean—well—yes, I did.” 

She laughs heartily, and you try to hide your face in your shoulder.  “And I’m not a kid,” you mutter, and funnily enough, it’s the most childish you’ve ever sounded. 

She sighs, the smirk still on her face. “Compared to me, you might as well be. What are you, 20?” 

You sigh, as she’s only off by a few years up. “Around that, I guess.” 

You look up at her, and your eyes meet, and her smile softens a bit, leaning more towards kindness than teasing. “Thanks for the cakes.” You hear her pause at the end, almost like she was going to add that unbearable ‘kid’ at the end, but she doesn’t. 

“Yeah,” you say, gently. “No problem.” 

Eager to change the subject, you realise yet again—it’s 5 a.m., and she’s in your bakery. You take a sip of your tea, then ask, “So, do you normally work this late?” 

Lin grimaces across from you, then checks her watch, and swallows a bite of the cake. “No, not always.” She pauses, and sips from her own cup of tea as well. “There’s been reports of a new gang forming in one of the outer parts of the city—it’s got me completely bugged down in reports and middle of the night calls.” 

Your brows scrunch and a slight frown falls on your lips. She sees it, and all of a sudden, the guard is back up. 

“I’m sorry,” she says flatly. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this. I’m not even supposed to discuss cases with people who aren’t involved.” 

“No!” you say, quicker and louder than you meant to. Her eyes widen just a little, but you're glad it at least got some reaction out of her. “It’s fine. I don’t mind listening, and it’s not like I’m going to tell anyone anyways,” you joke, and your smile is back. “Where is the new gang, by the way?” 

You’re shocked, but not as much as you should be, when she mentions a street just a block away from you. It must show on your face, because she immediately asks, “What, do you know someone who lives near there?” 

You laugh, but it’s not as happy as you wish it was. “ I live there, Lin,” you say. 

Her gaze darkens just a little. “It’s not safe there. You should move.” 

You can’t help but purse your lips in return as you reply, “Not everyone there is bad, Lin. And don’t you think I would’ve moved out if I could? I only got to Republic City a few months ago, after all.” 

The anger on her face drops, and she reaches out, putting her hand slightly atop yours. 

“I’m…sorry.” 

It’s brief, but the display of emotion from her latches onto you, and you can’t help but to keep your hand under hers, your thumb instinctively hooking over hers. You expect her to immediately pull away, but on the contrary, she doesn’t. Neither of you acknowledge the shared touch, and when you continue talking, she still doesn’t move. 

“It’s okay,” you say. “I get it.” 

She gives you a half smile, then grabs the last of the few cakes on the plate you brought out earlier. “Just don’t end up in any more radio calls I get, alright?” 

“Can’t promise anything!” you tease, and warmth spreads through your body as she rolls her eyes at you, looking only mildly annoyed as the smile on her face grows. 

She checks the time again on her watch, and all of a sudden, the comfort of her touch is taken from you, and she looks at you apologetically. 

“I’ve got to go,” she says, brusquely. 

“Oh,” you reply, your hand rubbing the other when hers just was. “Okay. Thank you for stopping by, Lin. It was nice.” 

“It was nice,” she says. 

“I work everyday except for Wednesdays and Sundays,” you blurt out as she’s about to head out the door. 

She raises an eyebrow at you, then pushes open the door. “I’ll keep that in mind.” 

The door shuts behind her, punctuated by the ringing of the bells—and she’s gone. You watch her walk away, the sunrise outlining her figure, until she turns a corner and disappears from sight. 

You sigh, then turn to the crumb filled plate and the two half full cups of tea. 

Still, there’s a buzz under your skin and a smile on your face as you clean up the table, finishing off your tea before dropping your cups in the sink. 

Maybe, you think, just maybe, she’ll come back tomorrow.

You think the spirits have finally decided to turn good luck in your direction, because the next day, at the same time, as you’re putting out today’s baked goods into the display cases yet again, there’s a harsh rap on the front door, and a familiar figure in the doorway. 

Beaming, you rush to open the door, the tray of pastries abandoned at the counter. You push the door open, and grin at her. 

“Hey, Lin,” you say, affection pouring out your words. It’s embarrassing, and to be honest? You don’t care. 

She looks startled, flustered almost, but you quickly convince yourself you’re just seeing things as she clears her throat to reply. 

“Good morning,” she says, still in that work voice of hers you’ve come to recognise. The one that remains mostly flat, succinct, and commanding. It’s very easy to imagine her commanding people around with that voice. It’s very easy to imagine her commanding you around with that voice. You try to ignore that stray thought. 

“I didn’t think you would come back, to be honest,” you say, and you’re sheepishly looking down at your shoes. 

Her eyes widen, then she chuckles. “Neither did I,” she says, and it’s short and to the point—and everything she could’ve needed to say. 

Realising the two of you are simply standing in your doorway, with you half leaning against the frame, you quickly straighten yourself up and gesture inside. 

“Come in,” you say, and she thanks you briefly as you hold the door for her. She goes and sits at a table—the same one as last time, you note—and you head to the counter to finish putting away the things on the tray. 

She notices you doing so, and stands up. “If you’re working, I’ll go. I didn’t mean to interrupt you.” 

“No, stupid, I’m almost done,” you say out of reflex. It hits you just a second later that you just called the Lin Beifong stupid, and you stumble over your words trying to apologise. “I didn’t mean to call you stupid—I mean—you’re not stupid!” 

You can’t help but calm a little when you see her face go from bewildered, to amused, to laughing as you speak. 

“You’re fine,” she says, chest still shaking from laughter. “If it were anyone but you, I’d probably smack them upside the head, but I know you don’t mean any harm.” 

Your stomach twists into excited little knots at the implication— anyone but you. Does that mean you’re special? 

Special in what sense, though? 

Special in the, this girl seems incredibly unstable after an attack and so desperately lonely that I feel bad leaving her alone kind of special, or…a different, kinder sort of special? 

You can only hope it’s the latter. 

“Just let me finish up here, then I’ll grab us some snacks,” you say, trying to push the confidence back into your voice. The next few minutes are quiet, only filled with the noise of the display case doors sliding open and shut and the crinkle of parchment paper. You watch Lin when she isn’t looking, the crinkles at the outer corners of her eyes, the few grey hairs out of place. She looks serene as she stares out the window, chin resting on her palm, watching the glow of the low sun softly illuminate the street. 

When you’re finished loading everything up you leave the tray on a counter and head over to her. You’re almost reluctant to break the quiet trance she seems to be in, watching the occasional passerby through the glass. Still, you’re going to have to talk to her eventually. 

“Do you want tea?” you ask, and her head turns towards you slowly. 

“Something strong, please,” she says. “It’s an early start, not a late night, for me today.” 

You’re a bit surprised by her words, but can’t find the push within yourself to ask her why she’s up early today—if it’s for you, or just a lucky coincidence. Who knows, maybe getting up at the crack of dawn is part of her normal routine. Now that you think about it, the idea honestly doesn’t seem too far off from what the truth might be. 

“Sure thing,” you say, and hope that you still have a few sesame cakes in the back somewhere. 

A few minutes later you come back holding a cup of steaming oolong in one hand, and a plate of rice cakes in the other. 

“Sorry, we’re all out of sesame cakes today,” you say, an apologetic smile on your face. 

“Don’t worry about it,” she says, flippantly waving one of her hands as she picks up the tea with her other. “You don’t need to go out of your way to do anything like that for me, alright?” 

“I…” you weigh your next words carefully. “I like doing that stuff, though.” You pause. “For you, that is.”  

The admission should be small, shouldn’t really mean anything other than a gesture between two friends—if you can even call the two of you that—but it isn’t. It’s so much more than that, and you both know it. 

She splutters slightly, and as you giggle you wonder if maybe you should’ve timed that when she wasn’t in the middle of taking a sip of tea. She sets the cup down, and lightly wipes her mouth, and you think that in the dim lighting of the shop, you can see her blush. 

Still, in regular Lin fashion, she just clears her throat and coolly says “Okay, then.” 

“Okay,” you say, as that is the only thing that comes to your mind at the moment. 

You watch her face as she searches for something to say, to draw you both away from the flustered heat of your cheeks in the dark room. 

“So,” she says, her voice tentative. “How long have you been working here?”

You purse your lips, and rack your brain, trying to figure out exactly how many days you’ve spent in this bakery. 

“Probably about three months,” you say. “I got the job pretty quickly after I moved here. Just lucky, I guess.” 

She nods. “That’s good. Your boss treats you well? Pays you fair?” 

You laugh softly at the way her age shows in the questions. You feel like you’re sat down at dinner with one of your parent’s friends, asking you questions about your plans for the future. 

“Yes, Lin,” you say, a crooked smile on your face. “My boss is nice—was really understanding about me not having much prior work experience. And don’t think I would’ve stayed here for this long if it didn’t cover the bills.” 

She gives you an approving nod, and takes a long sip of her tea. 

“My turn to ask questions,” you tease. 

She rolls her eyes but smiles, and says, “Go ahead.” 

All of a sudden any question you could’ve had in your head has disappeared, and you’re left stuttering, stalling, trying to think of something. 

“Uh…” you say. “Well…How about—I mean…” You sigh, and it draws out real genuine laughter from her. 

You scoff in mock offence, and cross your arms. “Do you think me struggling is funny?” you say, trying to hold back a smile. 

She calms her laughter, but not enough that you don’t hear it between her words as she speaks. 

“Is that your question?” she says, and breaks out into laughter again. You don’t think you’ve ever seen her this relaxed, this open. It’s lovely. 

“What’s your favourite colour?” you blurt out, and suddenly feel even more stupid than before. Still, you stand your ground. “That’s my question.”

She hums, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back in her chair. “I’m a fan of yellow. My turn.”

You take a mental note of that, like you do with everything you learn about Lin; no matter how small or big it is, it goes in a vault in your brain. You feel like a silly teenager with the way the two of you are talking, exchanging questions—and by her relaxed posture, her boisterous laughter, and wide grin, you can’t help but think she feels the same way. For someone with a reputation of being so uptight, she’s so…fun. You wonder if Mako and Bolin would agree with your description of her. Something tells you they would not. 

“Go ahead,” you say, shrugging. “Anything you want.” You add the last bit on without thinking, your words and brain just going with the natural flow of whatever feels right in your playful banter. 

Lin smirks, a low chuckle coming from her chest. “Anything I want, huh?” 

You’re frozen, and you can’t help but think (wish?) that there’s a subtle implication in her voice as she taps her fingers on her biceps. Do you run with it, or stay frozen? 

She chooses before you can. 

“Why’d you move to Republic City?” 

That was not the question you thought she’d ask. The smooth, liquid tension in the air is cut, replaced with another, more uncomfortable type of tension. You shift uncomfortably in your chair, and run your hand through your hair as your eyes fall to your lap; a nervous habit of yours. You could easily tell her the full story of why you left, of the disgusted stares, of the dirt kicked in your face as you were told you were nothing—that you’d always be nothing. You probably should tell her. 

But old habits die hard, and your brain fills with nasty thoughts of her eyes narrowing like theirs did, of her leaving you right now and never talking to you again. You know it’s nonsense, you’ve seen the way she looks at you, the way she speaks to you, you know the tender touch of her hand—and yet, you’re scared. 

You look back up at her, and she looks visibly worried, like she’s offended you. The lock of her arms across her chest has loosened, and her brow is furrowed, not in anger or annoyance, but concern. 

“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to,” she says, followed by your name, and you want her to say your name over and over again until it does not even sound like a real word anymore. There’s a part of you that aches to rest your hand on the table, to see if she will touch it once more, reach out and hold you as you speak. You do not give into that part. Your hands remain balled in your lap. 

“No,” you say, a sad laugh coming from your throat. “It’s okay.” 

Your gaze meets hers, and in the cool jade of her eyes, where you once found ice, there is a pool of warmth. You do not know if it has just appeared, or you had missed it all along. It is enough to calm your heart, mirroring the day you were burned, when your eyes met as she chastised Mako. 

You exhale, then continue. She sits, quietly, patiently. 

“My parents…they didn’t approve of some of the things I did. The ideas I had,” there is a push from inside of you, and you force the last words out. “The people I loved.” 

You can see Lin stiffen across the table, and you cannot tell if it is because she is angry on your behalf, or simply uncomfortable being presented with the image of your preferences. Still, you continue. 

“I told them I wanted more than the village I was raised in,” you say, and your brain is flooded with painful memories. “I told them I was different from the people there.” Pausing again, the memories of your mother’s harsh words and your father’s silence play in your mind. You laugh, scornful. It is an awful sound. You wish Lin didn’t have to see you like this—hear you like this. “They agreed.” 

“I had always wanted to move here, I’d been saving up for it ever since I ever realised leaving was an option. But I thought I’d have more of a choice. They left me none,” you finish the sentence quieter than you started, and you realise your eyes have dropped to your lap again. You force your head up, but cannot meet her eyes. 

“Still, I’m glad to be here,” you say, and try to force a smile on your face, try to force the cheer you know she’s used to hearing from you. It feels wrong. 

Lin is silent, and with each second she stays that way, your panic grows. Maybe you made the wrong decision telling her. Maybe she thinks you’re just a stupid, broken kid. You don’t know. 

She says your name, strong and firm, and your eyes lock. There’s a small, pained smile on her face. You hope she doesn’t say she’s sorry, that she understands, like other people have—hollow words that could never mean anything. Instead she simply says. “You must be so tired,” and you want to cry on the spot. Because it’s true. You are so tired, and you don’t even know if it’s all caught up with you yet. “Thank you for telling me.” 

You smile, and while it’s small and probably ugly, it feels a little less wrong on your face. 

You don’t dare to say anything, any of the words that you might have wanted to say have been absorbed by this moment, by the hurt. 

“I’ve only dated one man before, you know,” she says, and this time she’s the one avoiding eye contact, poking at a rice cake with one of the little plastic forks you brought out. However, she quickly looks up, a wry smile on her face. “Councilman Tenzin.” 

You gasp, and your brain pushes some of the hurt to the back of your mind because what?  You know that Mako mentioned she had an ex-boyfriend, but there’s no way you heard that right. You know your jaw is dropped, and it takes you longer than it should to pick it up again.

“Yup,” she says. “I know, right?” 

“We were childhood friends—our parents were very close friends—so it felt almost…natural for us to start dating, especially after I moved to Republic City for police work.” 

You’re completely invested in what she’s saying, eyes wide. 

“We dated for a while—pretty seriously, actually,” she says, and there’s a twinge of unwarranted jealousy in your chest. This was years ago, you remind yourself. Tenzin is married , for spirit’s sake. And you have no right to be jealous over someone you have no claim over. 

“But we were too different, in many respects. I always thought of dating him as a friendship, but just a little…more.” She says the last part with a light chuckle in her voice, and you’re not sure you want to know what ‘more’ entails. “And when he started to bring up talk of marriage, of children, of lifelong commitments to only each other, I noticed how wrong everything felt.” 

She pauses, and you don’t dare move, fearing that you will somehow shatter the moment of vulnerability—that her metal armour will clasp around her real self once more. 

“I pushed him away, not even knowing what I wanted. I don’t know what I was trying to do, if I was trying to get him to break up with me, or something like that, I really don’t know. But it worked.”

“He became more distant, and I realised that I had spent the whole relationship silently suffocating. So, when he told me that he had feelings for Pema, that she had confessed her love to him, I was almost relieved.” 

She looks up at you, and grins. “Almost.” 

You don’t ask what that means. 

“You should’ve seen Air Temple Island after I was done with it,” she says, a satisfied smile on her face. Your jaw drops once more. “Ultimately, I wasn’t angry that he broke up with me. I was angry at myself for the way I was feeling, angry at him for the way he made me feel, and angry at Pema for being what I couldn’t be. Does that make sense?” she asks, her hand in the air as she shrugs. “I’m sorry, I’m rambling.” 

You rush to answer her, enamoured by her story. “No, no—it makes sense, Lin.”

She smiles at you, soft and fond. “I’m glad you think so.” She pauses. “I had my first relationship with a woman a few weeks after Tenzin broke up with me. It was casual, and short lived, but confirmed everything that I was thinking. ” 

The words shouldn’t shock you, but they do. She says them without shame, with such casualty and pride. She says outright what you cannot. 

“I haven’t dated a man since,” she says that firmly, then opens her mouth to say something else. 

There’s amazement and reverence on your face as she says so. You cannot discern between the feeling of wanting her so badly you think you might die, and wanting to be her. 

There is a part of you that urges you to tell her about your ex-boyfriend, to respond with your own story of the same vein. For once, you listen to that part. 

“I dated a guy once, too,” you say, embarrassment creeping onto your face. “It’s not quite as…cool as your story, though.”

She laughs, and though it is neither cruel nor with malice, you grow red still. 

“It was short, but my parents absolutely loved him,” you say, remembering how proud your mother was of you for finally starting to settle down, and with such a nice man too. “He was a nice man.” 

You consider whether to add the next part in, and again, decide that there is no secret worth keeping from her right now. 

“We slept together once,” you say, your face screwing up in distaste. “It was…” you trail off, but Lin fills the rest in for you. 

“Bad? Underwhelming? Like kissing a wet eel? All of the above?” she says dryly, and you cannot help but burst into laughter. 

“Yes,” you say, your hand covering your mouth as giggles continue to escape from your lips. “All of those things and more.” 

As your laughter slows, and you are able to take full breaths without your chest heaving, you continue. 

“I broke up with him a few days after that.” 

This time, she is the one to break out deep, rolling laughter. 

“I, uh, still haven’t dated a woman yet, though,” you say, and she quiets her laughter, her face going to mild surprise. 

“Really? You’re far too pretty for that to be true,” she says, completely casually, and you blink, slow and hard. There is no way you heard that right. 

You rub the back of your neck and let out a nervous giggle, because there’s no way that she thinks you’re that pretty. 

“Really,” you say, ignoring the fact that your ears and cheeks and collarbones are a deep, flushed pink from her one little comment. “I’ve kissed a woman before,” you rush the words out of your mouth, like you must prove your sexuality, prove to her that you are worthy of more compliments and future kisses from women. (From her.) 

She raises an eyebrow, amused. “Have you now?” 

You nod, and quickly go to say something in reply, unrelated to how many girls you’ve kissed. 

“Are you dating someone?” you ask, not knowing why, of all things, that is what you say. “After all, if you think I’m pretty enough to have a girlfriend, you must have one.” 

She coughs slightly, clearing her throat. 

“I, uh,” she says, and it’s one of the few times you’ve ever heard her stutter. “I don’t.” 

She shrugs. “I’d be a terrible partner, anyways. Too old and cranky. Too married to my job.” 

She says it right at you, almost like a warning—a caution sign. Tread carefully. 

You would disregard any warning sign for her. Even one directly given by her. 

You nod. “Your job is important. I understand why you spend so much time on it,” you say, and she looks a bit surprised that you do. “I, for one, am glad we have such a diligent chief protecting our city.” You say that with a triumphant smile on your face, and she looks embarrassed and proud all at once. 

“Thanks,” she says, softly. 

This time, you’re the one to look at the clock on your wall and realise how much time has raced by as you talk, and you register the fact that the sun is all the way up, your mutual sign that your time together is up. The sun is here, so she must go. 

“I need to open up the shop soon!” you say, mentally going through the checklist of things you need to do to get ready, things that you have neglected in favour of conversation with the most beautiful woman in your life. 

“Oh, yes,” she says, sounding startled. She pauses to check her own watch, then the same sense of urgency seems to overtake her as well. “I need to get to work. Thank the spirits I don’t have a boss, or I’d be in trouble over being late,” she says, her dry wit lacing the words. 

You chuckle, and grab the dishes off the table. You drop them on the counter behind the register, then go to see her off. 

Before the door closes behind her, you grab it, the bells jangling as it halts.

“For the record,” you shout after her. “I don’t think you’re old or cranky at all.” 

This cycle repeats, day after day, until you fall into a sort of comfortable rhythm with each other. She arrives, sometimes earlier, sometimes later, each time ready to sit and talk and sip her tea. (Black if she’s tired, green if she’s stressed.) 

You learn more about her, and she leans into the conversation as you tell her about yourself, about your childhood and your life here in Republic City. She tells you stories of her sister, the rebellious child, and regales you with tales of saving the world with the avatar. She makes it all sound so casual, so easy. You make baking sound hard. 

You asked about her mother once, but she brushed it off, saying that there really wasn’t anything interesting to say about her. You doubt that, after all, her mother is probably the greatest earthbender the world has seen and helped the avatar save the world, but you don’t push her. You know what it’s like to have a difficult mother.

Amai notices Lin, sometimes. Mostly, the schedules between your sunrise chats and Amai’s shifts don’t align—she hates getting up early all the time, and has shifted to —but there are a few times where she shows up as Lin is leaving. They trade awkward hello’s, and you try to hide your blush as Amai gives you a knowing look, the teasing that you’re about to endure already written all over her face. 

One day, as Lin’s about to leave, you realise something that you probably should’ve realised and prepared for ahead of time. Something that will interrupt the comfort of the schedule you’ve created. 

“I’m not working tomorrow,” you say to her as she’s about to leave. She pauses in the doorway. 

She stands still for a second, thinking. You wait for her to say nothing at all, or to tell you she’ll be back the day after, but instead she asks, briskly, “Would you like to get lunch together, instead?” 

You’re thrown off kilter by the question. That was not what you thought she would say. 

She doesn’t wait for you to answer. She already knows. 

“My lunch break starts at 11,” she says, and she’s out the door. 

Your dinner sizzles in your wok, and the smell of garlic and veggies fills your apartment. It's only 4 in the afternoon, but with your early start to your mornings, your nights are early as well. You stir the food in the pan, but your mind is wandering. You wonder what Lin’s doing right now. Would she like the food you cook? 

As you scoop your stir-fry into one of the few bowls you own, and sit down at your little wooden table, the empty chair across from you stares you down. Would she like to have dinner with you? 

Fantasies begin to spin themselves in your head, weaving and stitching beautiful, entrancing patterns out of the threads of your hopes and wishes. You see yourself at a table, much nicer than this, with Lin across from you. She’s tired, and you’re tired, but you’re happy to see each other. The food is warm, and fills your stomach, and by the time you’re both finished eating, you’re laughing and smiling. You’d kiss each other til your lips hurt, not bothering with the fact that you know she can taste your shared dinner on your lips. She would not care and neither would you. 

You blink, and the tapestry unravels. You’re left alone in your apartment, the only remnants of the fantasy being the blooming warmth inside your stomach. 

You are not sure if this is a date. 

Is it a date? 

Standing in front of the mirror in your bathroom, you weigh your options for clothes. Any of your work clothes are a no-go. (You think, like she hasn’t already seen you in your work clothes.) Anything from your town would mostly likely be too homely, too old-fashioned. You want to look nice for her, to impress her. This isn’t her just dropping by for a quiet chat, alone and hidden from the sun. This is a step up from that, at least in your mind. 

You wanna be called pretty by her again. 

You huff, frustrated by your lack of options, and leave the bathroom to rummage through your closet. After a few minutes of searching, you think you’ve found something suitable enough for the date—that is, if it is a date at all. You let yourself indulge in thinking it might be, regardless of the fact that she technically gave no implication it was. Just because you’re interested in her doesn’t necessarily make it a date. 

You slide on the outfit you’ve chosen, and run to the mirror in the bathroom. Your reflection faces you, and you observe it quietly. The burn on your face is prominent, no longer red and angry, but still—it remains. The scar crawls along the outermost part of your chin and cheek, nearly touching your ear, but thankfully straying from your hairline. It’s an adjustment to see on your face, but you think of it as proof that you survived through a bad situation. That you continue to survive in this city. 

You go to pull your hair back, or plait it, like you would if you were going to work, but decide against it. Your hair falls down and you tuck it behind your ears. Quaint, your mother would say to you, backhanded. A stray piece of hair falls in front of your face. You like the way you look. You look nice. You can only hope that Lin feels the same way. 

Ducking out of the bathroom, you quickly look at the clock on your wall and realise that if you want to get to the station anywhere near on time, you have got to hurry. You grab your bag, and slip on a pair of shoes, making sure to lock the door behind you as you stumble out. 

You’re nearly running as you get to the trolley station, and you’re not sure if it’s because you’re worried about being late, or just so excited to see her. It’s probably a mix of both. 

The trolley arrives shortly after you do, and you decide that the spirits are on your side today. As the cart rumbles along the city streets, your head is full of thoughts and your body buzzes with excitement. 

Thirty very long minutes later, you’re standing in front of the massive police station for the second time in your life. You’re just glad that this time it’s not because you were involved in some sort of crime, and the primary emotion you’re feeling isn’t anxiety, but anticipation. 

You check your watch, just to see, and notice you’re a few minutes early. You guess that your nerves got the best of you and you rushed, a familiar habit of yours. An empty bench beckons your tired legs towards it, and you sit down. 

You’re bouncing your leg and trying to pass time by fiddling with your fingers, when you hear two voices you recognise. They call your name, and your head raises.

“Is that you?” Bolin asks, and you see him, accompanied by Mako, walking towards you. You grin and wave, then nearly drop your smile as you realise that you have to explain what you’re doing here in the first place. Still, you’re happy to see them. 

“Hi!” you say, and stand up to greet them. 

Bolin just looks happy to see you, but Mako seems a bit confused. 

“What are you doing here?” he asks, purely quizzical. “Don’t tell me you got into another robbery,” he says, a playful smirk on his face.

“No, no,” you laugh, your hand reaching up mindlessly to touch your cheek. The painful part of the healing is mostly over, quickened by Kya’s bending. “I…uh, have lunch with someone.” 

This time, Bolin is the one to raise an eyebrow. 

“Someone?” he says, sounding suspicious.

You’re about to answer, when your eye catches on someone leaving the office that you gave your statement in. It’s Lin. Your brain scrambles for an explanation, not knowing if she wants Mako and Bolin to know that you’re going to lunch together. Still, it’s just as friends—right? Friends that spend early mornings divulging secrets over tea, friends that comfort each other with gentle touches of the hand, friends who look at each other like they are precious jade, fragile and rare. You sigh, barely audible. 

“Lin,” is all you say, unsure of whether you’re addressing her, or telling Mako and Bolin that it’s her. Her eyes meet you, and she stiffens at the sight of Mako and Bolin, and you watch as her eyes harden. Her professional mask slips on, something you’ve come to recognise as it comes and goes during your conversations. You see it less these days. 

She walks over to you, stride confident and bold. 

“Mako, Bolin,” she addresses the two of them quickly. 

They stand there for a second, then quickly straighten up and respond. 

“Hey, Chief,” says Mako. 

Bolin sort of just…stands there, looking between the two of you.

“What are you looking at?” she sneers, and Bolin stutters out a reply. 

“Oh, uh, nothing—m’am.” 

“Get back to work, detectives,” she sighs, planting one hand on her brow and waving them off with the other. 

“But—” Bolin starts. “It’s our lunch break.” 

“Then go to lunch!” she says, sighing. “I don’t care. Just get out of here.” 

They quickly walk off, and you hear Mako mutter a quiet, “C’mon, bro,” as he leads Bolin away. 

She looks at you apologetically, but you’re already beating her to it. 

“I’m sorry!” you say. 

Her face shifts to confusion, and she raises an eyebrow at you. “What for?” 

“I should’ve waited outside, or something,” you ramble. “I don’t know it’s weird for me to be here, for Mako and Bolin to see me here, and they were asking about who I was here to see and—” 

She cuts you off. “Woah, there,” she says, placing a firm hand on your shoulder. It reminds you of the first time you met her, just after she’d saved you from the firebender. “Slow down, hon,” she says, and you feel your brain short circuit as her words stop you in your tracks. Your eyes widen and your cheeks go pink at the pet name, though it probably means nothing. 

She doesn’t seem to notice, though, and continues. 

“It’s fine,” she says, then sighs. “Those idiots don’t know how to mind their own business.” 

Her face softens, and she gives you a little smile before pulling her hand back to herself. You look her up and down, and realise she’s wearing a jacket—a trenchcoat to be more specific. You realise you’ve never seen her wearing anything other than just her police uniform. 

“I like your jacket,” you say. “It looks nice on you.” 

She scoffs, then smirks. “Don’t flatter me,” she says, then looks at your outfit, then your hair, then your face. You grow self-conscious under her gaze. “Your hair looks nice down. You should wear it like that more often.” 

You blush yet again, but can’t help but to quip back, “That would be a safety hazard with my job, Lin.” 

She just shakes her head at you as she smiles. 

“Why don’t we go get lunch? That is what you came here for, right?” she jokes, and you smile a little bit, your worries quelled for now. 

You nod. “It sure is. Sorry I don’t have any cakes or gifts to give you this time,” you say, only half joking.” 

“You being here is a gift in and of itself,” she says, then waves towards the door. She really needs to stop being so casual with her flattery, or you might die. “Let’s go, I know a great noodle place near here.” 

You follow her out the door, and smile as the two of you walk alongside each other, making light conversation as you go. 

“Have you made any progress with that gang in my area?” you ask as the two of you turn a corner. 

She grins that triumphant grin you’ve come to know as a victory. You already know the answer. 

“Busted their hideout early this morning,” she says, pride seeping into her voice. She turns to you, then continues. “Hope you can sleep a little more sound at night now.” 

You smile, bashfully, knowing she thinks of you. You’re about to congratulate her on the win, but she points to a small noodle shop a few stores down from where you are and says, “There’s the place.”

When you get there, she greets the servers with such familiarity that you can’t help but wonder how many late nights after a long day of work she’s spent in the little restaurant, slumped over a bowl of noodles. 

You sit down at a table, and look over the menu. You’re a bit overwhelmed by all the options—none of them being anything you’ve had before. You frown, and look up at Lin, who apparently hasn’t even picked up the menu. That’s to be expected if she’s been here before, you guess. She seems like the kind of person to pick one thing and stick with it.

“I’ll just get whatever you get,” you say, setting the menu down on your desk. 

She smiles, and flags down a waiter. “Good choice,” she replies. 

She orders quickly for the both of you, efficient and short in her speech as usual. You’re anxious. The setting isn’t what you’re used to, and while there aren’t many people in the restaurant, you still feel observed. It makes your nerves buzz. 

“How was your day?” she asks, and you look over to meet her eyes. She’s slid her jacket onto the back of her seat, and as she often does, her arms are crossed across her chest. The metal of her uniform is perfectly moulded to her muscles and you can see as they flex slightly as she shifts in her chair. You wonder just how strong she is, if she could pick you up. You bet she could, easily. 

Realising you’ve avoided her question in favour of admiring her biceps, you rush to answer. 

“Oh, it was nice,” you say, and it’s not a lie. “I get up a lot later on my days off, so I’m always well rested. Usually I just go grocery shopping and relax at home.” 

She nods. “That sounds nice,” she says. “I’m glad you got to sleep in. Sometimes I worry about how much rest you’re getting when we meet in the mornings.” 

You laugh awkwardly on the outside, but on the inside your heart is pounding. She thinks about you. She worries about you. 

“I could say the same for you,” you retort. “I’d argue you’re worse, staying up until 5 a.m. one night and getting up that time the next day!” 

She laughs, but waves her hand in dismissal. “You’re young, you should be taking care of yourself. Besides, my job doesn’t give me the luxury of sleeping in often.” 

You almost want to tell her that she’s old, therefore she’s the one who should be taking care of herself. You keep that little quip to yourself. 

“Aren’t you the boss?” you ask, already knowing the answer. “Can’t you just give yourself days off?”

She laughs heartily. “Who’s the boss if the boss decides to take a day off just to sleep?” 

You soften as she says that, looking at her face for the signs of weariness you commonly see on yourself and her. She looks so tired. 

“Oh, Lin,” you say softly, shaking your head, and her laughter comes to a slow stop. “Please, take care of yourself.” 

Her smile turns slightly sad, and she reaches out for your hand, mirroring that first time in the bakery. 

“Only if you promise to do the same,” she says, and her voice is low and smooth, like warm honey dripping in your hand. “Okay?” 

Your heart rate rises as she squeezes your hand, and you swear there’s love—or at least something adjacent to that—in her eyes. The moment draws on, and electricity races through your body, lighting up every inch of your skin. You feel like you’re engulfed in flames, but unlike the ones that scarred your cheek, these don’t hurt. They smoulder like embers, and spread warmth all throughout your body, starting where your hands meet. This touch isn’t enough, you think, you’ve got to have more—to let the flames consume you whole. 

Her hand loosens, and you pull your hand away slightly, fearing what you’d do if you didn’t. It’s almost painful to lose her touch. If she’s hurt by your reaction, you can’t tell. Tension fills the air, thick and hazy. 

Suddenly, jarringly, it’s broken, and the knot in your stomach shatters like glass. 

A server greets you both, and places two steaming bowls of noodles in front of the two of you. In the moment, you kind of want to kill the server for showing up. 

Still, the food in front of you smells amazing, and you breathe in deeply above the broth. 

Lin breaks the silence between the two of you. 

“I hope you like it,” she says earnestly, and you wonder if she’s ever brought anyone here with her before. 

“I bet I will,” you say in reply, and give her the brightest smile you can muster. 

Your bet is right—you love the food. It’s amazing, especially for such a small place. You wonder how Lin found it in the first place. 

The two of you barely talk as you eat, both of you surprisingly hungry, and only stopping to comment on the quality of the food, or the decoration of the restaurant.

Some twenty minutes later, the two of you are done, her bowl empty and yours nearly so. You wash down the soup with some tea, iced jasmine, and as the server walks over with the check, both of you reach for your wallets. 

“I’ll pay,” Lin says, assuredly, but you’re not having any of that. You are perfectly capable of paying for lunch for the two of you, and she needs to know that. 

“ No ,” you say, firmly. “I will.” 

She rolls her eyes at you, and pulls out the cash to pay. 

“C’mon,” she says, followed by your name, firm and commanding.“I owe you for all the times I’ve come to the bakery.” 

You look at your wallet, thin as it is, and sigh. You can’t argue with her, especially not after the way she said your name. 

“Fine,” you relinquish, throwing your hands up. “But don’t think I’ll let you get away with this next time.” 

She smirks, and you realise what you’ve said. 

“So there’s going to be a next time, is there?” she teases, and leans back in her chair. 

“I—” you start. “There better be,” you huff. 

She loses her cool facade, chuckling, then sets the money down on the table. 

“Let’s go,” she says. 

The two of you walk out the restaurant, but the memory of her hand on yours and the burning warmth throughout your body stays seared in your mind, playing on repeat. 

“I’ve still got time on my break,” she says, looking at her watch. “Let’s go for a walk.” 

She gestures to a park across the street, and you eagerly agree. 

The two of you stroll quietly, your hands brushing against each other every so often. Neither of you move apart, though. The park is basically empty, which makes sense, it’s the middle of a weekday, and you’re glad that it is. It makes it feel all the more intimate between the two of you. 

“Is it weird that I’m glad that firebender robbed my bakery?” you say after a few minutes of light conversation, laughing as you look up at her. 

She looks down to meet you as you two continue walking, a look somewhere between disbelief and agreement on her face. She laughs, then shakes her head. 

“Why would you be?” she says, and you can’t help but wonder if she already knows the answer. 

“I got to meet you,” you say softly. “Mako and Bolin too, I guess.” You tack their names onto the statement, just to give you some sense of plausible deniability. Your eyes turn towards the path in front of you. 

When she doesn’t immediately reply, you continue, sunlight hitting your face through the gaps in the trees above you. 

“I guess I did get burned,” you say, and in your peripheral vision you see her look at you, frowning. “Does it look bad?” You angle your face towards her, so she can see the burn in all of its mottled glory. 

“No,” she says, roughly. She goes quiet for a second. “I was around your age when I got my scars.” 

Your eyes go wide. She’s never talked about her scars before, never even acknowledged it out loud. 

“I’m so sorry,” you say to her, and the pain in your voice is genuine. The two of you come to a slow stop, and you turn to face her. 

“Don’t be,” she says gruffly. She looks down at the ground, away from you, and you can’t help but step closer to her.  Slowly, carefully, you raise your hand to touch her cheek. Her eyes instantly turn towards you as your hand makes contact with her cheek, the scars cool and raised beneath your fingers. You stroke your thumb lightly across the skin of her cheek.. She makes no effort to shrug you off, to give the impression that she doesn’t want this like you do.

You shouldn’t be doing this, shouldn’t be blurring the lines and crossing the boundaries, removing yourself from the safety of friendship and placing yourself into something that’s far more dangerous. 

“If it’s any consolation,” you say, voice barely above a whisper. “I think you’re beautiful.” 

She closes her eyes for just a second, and you feel her lean the weight of her head into your palm. 

“They’re better than mine,” you say, and it’s selfish and wrong and you know you shouldn’t—but you do, just like with so many other things in your life. 

She opens her eyes again, and looks right at you, her gaze half-lidded and soft. 

“They will fade” she whispers, and leans her forehead against yours. Your bodies are nearly pressed against another now, your lips only a whisper away from touching. Her hands go to your waist, and she pulls you in against her, the hard metal of her armour pressing against your chest, your stomach, everywhere your bodies meet. The metal may be cool, but you can feel the heat of her skin radiating through it, begging to touch you, to burn you. Your chin is tipped up preemptively, begging. 

“Can I kiss you?” she murmurs, and you nod. 

“Yes,” you breathe out, your eyes still closed. “ Yes ,” you cannot help but repeat it, as if the one millisecond between the first and the second is too long a time for her to not have kissed you already. 

Then, before you can repeat it a third time, her lips are on yours. You tilt your head up, and lean into the kiss, her lips plush and warm against your own. This is nothing like you’ve had before, nothing like the tedious makeout sessions with your ex-boyfriend, nothing like the stolen kisses that lasted only seconds with other girls who were too afraid to say it out loud. No, this is different. This kiss is fire, raging and all consuming, one that will leave you standing only in ash, reborn anew. 

This is what you have been waiting for your whole life. This is what you have been missing. 

The world does not exist to you any more. The park is gone, the cars on the road outside are silenced, and the only thing that you can bring yourself to care about is the feeling of your hand sliding into her hair, of hers tightening around your back, of her teeth softly grazing your bottom lip. You do not care that you are in public, that people are seeing you—any shame that you had just moments ago is crushed beneath the weight of your bodies pressed against each other. 

You stop only for heaving gasps of air, for moments of quiet reverence. 

Sometime in one of those breaks, you hear her whisper, with such fierceness it shocks you, “You’re beautiful.” Then her lips are on yours again, and you lose all sense of reason. 

When you finally stop, there is a permanent stunned look on your face, and your lips are kissed pink and puffy. 

You look at her with worship in your eyes, and your whole body feels like it’s floating. 

She does not return the look. 

She steps back from you, her hands pulling from your waist, and your face twists in confusion. She huffs, and runs a hand through her hair, muttering something you cannot hear under her breath as she steps even further away from you. Your heart drops. 

She takes a few moments to herself, trying to compose herself again—shifting her armour and smoothing back her hair. You let her have these moments, out of fear of what will happen if you do not. 

Finally, she turns to you, and there is a pained expression on her face that you cannot quite define. 

“We shouldn’t have done this,” she says, and she says it like it’s something good, like a prayer better left unsaid, kept only in the depths of her mind. She reaches up to touch your cheek, the one free of scarring, and then turns away from you. “I’m sorry.” 

“I’m going to go,” she says, followed by your name. You never want to hear her say your name like that again. 

There is nothing you can do but just stand there, your clothes still mussed and your cheeks still hot. She turns, and walks out of the park, leaving you alone. 

If she is jade, you have dropped and shattered it. If you are fire, she has snuffed out the spark. Either way, something has broken. 

You cry. There is not much else you can do in the moment. 

You cry and you walk and you let the pain wrack your body, your breaths coming in heaving waves. People look at you with concern as they pass you by, but you take no notice. Her words replay in your mind. “ We shouldn’t have done this,” the Lin in your head repeats over and over, so like the girls you kissed as a teenager, who’d wipe their mouths and tell you how wrong it was, all while refusing to let go of your hand. You thought she would be different. Your mind flashes to the story of her and Tenzin, of the knowing look in her eye as you told her about your parents. She said she was different. 

By the time you’ve reached the trolley station, your eyes are puffy and your cheeks feel tacky under your touch as you try to wipe away the dried tears. You get on the first trolley that arrives, and hope that the journey home will be faster than the journey here. It’s not. 

As you get home thirty minutes later, you decide you want to go to bed. You are too tired to stay up, to think about what happened, to acknowledge it. And a silly little part of you hopes that maybe you’ll go to bed, and when you wake up, none of it will have happened. 

The next day you go to work and it has still happened. As you bike to the bakery, your body feels slow and heavy on the pedals. Your brain cannot stop taunting you with memories of the kiss, with moments where you swear you can feel her lips ghosting over yours. Moments that make your chest physically ache. 

15 minutes after your shift starts, you get to work. You spend another 20 waiting for her to show up. She never does. There’s an stabbing pain in your chest as the sun rises and she has not come. There are no plates with only crumbs left on them for you to clean up, no twin cups of tea. Every single one of the tables is pristine and clear, completely untouched.  

You open up shop with your mind floating elsewhere, adrift in a sea of feelings that threaten to drown you. Is this what heartbreak feels like? You feel silly for even thinking that, for letting the thought pass through your mind. 

You were never lovers.

You repeat that to yourself until it feels somewhat close to true. 

Amai shows up sometime between morning and midday. You can’t bring yourself to care when exactly. She looks worried when she sees you, and places a gentle hand on your shoulder. 

“Are you okay?” she says. “You look upset.” 

The touch is too similar to Lin’s, though weaker and less assured. You shrug her hand off of you sharply. 

“I’m fine,” you say, and the grit in your voice yet again does nothing but remind you of her. In the moments where you wish she was gone from your mind, she is all you can think of. 

Amai walks away from you, and you know you’ve hurt her. It doesn’t feel as good as your brain said it would to push her away. You sigh, resting both of your arms on the counter in front of you, and let your heavy head drop. Lashing out does nothing but spread your hurt. 

Breathing in slowly, you straighten up and walk after her. Your hand snags on her shoulder, and you tug lightly to pull her around. She looks slightly surprised, but is just as eager as you when you pull her into a hug, rebellious tears pooling at the corners of your eyes even though you do not allow their presence. 

She smooths your hair and shushes you quietly as you cry, your tears making an ugly damp patch on her apron. Luckily, she doesn’t seem to mind. 

“Did something happen with your early morning visitor?” she says softly, referring to Lin in the way she always does, as you refused to tell her Lin’s name. 

You nod silently, face still pressed against her apron like a child. There’s a part of you that wants to tell her everything, to let the words and the pain spill freely from your mouth until there is nothing left to say, until Lin is completely out of your system. Your mouth stays shut. Maybe another time. For now, this is enough. 

When you pull away finally, Amai has a determined and angry look on her face. She plants both her hands hard on your shoulders and looks at you with a comical fierceness. 

“Tell me her name and I’ll kill her,” she says, and you let out a halfhearted laugh at her attempts to comfort you. You wonder if she’d say the same thing if she knew who Lin was. 

Time passes and the pain grows smaller, but it does not dissipate like you hoped it would. It lingers in the smell of sesame and jasmine, in lush parks and trolley rides—in every insufferable sunrise you watch alone from the emptiness of your shop. The overwhleming barreness of your apartment taunts you every time you return home, reminding you that you are oh-so very alone.

You wonder what she fills her early mornings and late nights with now, without you. Is there someone else she can go to? Someone who will care for her in the way you do? Or is she simply alone now, isolated in her magnificent office with only stacks of paperwork to accompany her, the way you are in the bakery. You wonder if anyone brings her tea in the mornings. 

One day, a few hours after one of those lonely sunrises, while your bakery is bustling with people, a familiar pair of cops walk through the door. 

It’s Mako and Bolin, and the latter is immediately craning his head to look around the shop for you once they enter. You try to muster the biggest smile you can, but seeing them only brings back memories of the last time you saw them—on the day Lin kissed you, not even a week ago. It seems to not be convincing enough because when Bolin and Mako see you, they frown. 

You walk over to greet them, a serving tray held flat on your side. 

“Hey, guys,” you say, and your voice sounds pathetically miserable. You nearly wince at the sound of it. “Nice to see you again!” Only half a lie. 

“Hey…” Bolin says, hesitant. “How are you?”

You sigh, and then laugh bitterly. “Why don’t you guys go find a table,” you say, gesturing to the nearest empty one. “I’ll meet you there in a sec’.”

Their eyes widen just a hint, but they nod and sit down. You put your tray on a counter behind the register and grab a pitcher of water and three cups. Sliding into the chair across from the two men, you can’t help but feel strange sitting down at one of these tables again. As you push two of the cups towards them, you only wish that it were Lin sitting across from you. 

“So,” you say, sipping your water. “It’s nice of you guys to pop by.” 

They both nod quietly, but Bolin looks like he’s about to burst. You give him a sort of confused look, trying to figure out why he looks so strange. 

Suddenly he blurts out a quick string of words. 

“Did something happen with you and the chief?” he says in one breath. 

Mako shakes his head at Bolin and sighs, then begrudgingly continues what Bolin was saying. 

“I know it’s wrong of us to assume things, but we saw you last week with the chief,” he pauses. “And we saw her come back by herself.” 

“She’s been grumpy lately,” Bolin says, crossing his arms across his chest. “ More than she already is normally. Which is quite a bit.”

You smile a little bit at that, because the Lin you know isn’t quite as grumpy as Bolin is implying. 

The Lin you know is rough around the edges, but still tries her best to be kind. She’s frank with her words and blunt, but only because she doesn’t care for dancing around words and leaving you without an answer. Usually, that is. 

“What Bolin is trying to say is that we just thought there might be a correlation between the two things,” Mako says. “I know you guys are friends.” 

You almost want to laugh. Friends is certainly one way to describe the relationship between you and Lin. 

“Mako’s leaving out the part where we asked about you and Chief Beifong yelled at us then made us do extra paperwork. I hate paperwork,” Bolin says, finishing the statement with a dramatic sigh as he slumps onto the table. 

You weigh your options here carefully. Their reaction isn’t something you can gauge ahead of time, you don’t know them and their emotions the way you do Lin’s. Still, they’re giving you an opportunity to come clean and spill out every bit of emotion that’s been burning you from the inside out every day since the kiss. You don’t know if you’re ready to relive all that hurt. As you watch the two men across the table, their gaze locked on you, waiting for you to say something, you know you can’t just lie to their faces. 

You muster up all the courage and bravery inside of you to just say the stupid thing you’re about to say and blurt out a quick, “We kissed! We kissed, and then she left me.” 

Mako and Bolin did not seem to be expecting that because their jaws drop and their eyes nearly bug out of their heads. 

Bolin breaks the silence first, basically shouting at you when he says, “You kissed our boss?” 

Heads turn in the bakery, all looking at you, and your cheeks go red in shame.

 You can’t help but keep the same volume and energy as you defend yourself to him. 

“Your boss kissed me!”

Mako doesn’t seem to know what to do, simply sitting there with the biggest look of disbelief you’ve ever seen on anyone’s face as he tries to put the pieces together in his mind. 

“Okay, okay” Bolin says, waving his hand in dismissal. His hand now rests on his chin, and he looks like he’s doing the hardest thinking he’s had to do all day. “But how does that correlate to the chief being all grumpy and you looking like you wanna cry every time we mention her? And what do you mean by ‘she left you’?”

Mako smacks Bolin upside the head and mutters, “Don’t be a dumbass.” 

Bolin pauses, looks at you, looks down at the table to think, then back up at you again—only this time, his eyes are wide and he looks just about ready to spill apologies from his mouth. Still, he doesn’t say anything. 

Instead, Mako takes over the conversation. 

“So, you haven’t talked since?” he asks, an inquisitive look on his face. “Did she say anything to you before she…well, left? 

You sigh, and shrug. “She told me that we shouldn’t have kissed, then apologised, then left,” you say. “And no, we haven’t talked at all since. I have her telephone number, and she has mine, but I didn’t bother. She also stopped coming here.”

“She used to come here?” Mako asks. 

“Just about every morning,” you say, and there’s a sad smile on your face as you do, the memories rushing back to you. “She’d come in before I opened up shop and we’d talk and drink tea until the sun would rise.”

Mako and Bolin’s looks turn sympathetic as you speak. 

“I’m sorry,” Mako says softly. 

“She’s being a major ass,” Bolin grumbles, less soft, and you can’t help but giggle a little. 

“She is, isn’t she?” you say with a sigh, sad little smile still fighting its way onto your face. In hindsight, it’s so like her to do something like this, so in line with all the little parts of her personality that you fell for, that you don’t know how you didn’t see this coming. 

“You should talk to her,” Mako says firmly. “I’m sure if you did, you’d be able to figure all this out.” 

You shake your head. The possibilities of how it could go are just too wide and varied for you to want to take your chances with it. 

“I don’t think she wants to talk to me,” you say. “Don’t you think she would’ve come to talk to me already if she did?” 

Mako hums. “I don’t know about that. Chief Beifong isn’t known for being the best at handling her feelings.” 

“I’m still in shock at the idea of Chief Beifong kissing anybody!” Bolin butts in. “She doesn’t seem like…the kissing type.” 

You give him a half-hearted glare. “Well she is, and it happened.” The frustration in your voice doesn’t take long to give to sadness, to the aching weariness that lives inside of you now. It must show on your face, because Mako and Bolin both soften their looks towards you. 

“You should go out with us tonight,” Mako says, a half smile spread across his lips. “It’ll be good for you to meet some new people and have some fun.”

The idea rolls around in your head, and you ponder it for a second before agreeing. 

“Sure,” you say, hoping you sound assured, like someone who goes out for drinks and to clubs at night. Someone who you are not. “I think you’re right about me needing to get out more.” That part is easier to sound confident in, because you know it’s true. Spending all your time with Lin doesn’t make for the most fulfilling of social lives, especially now that she’s out of the picture. 

“Good,” Mako says, and Bolin grins, then whoops. 

“We’re gonna have so much fun,” Bolin says, and you almost believe him with the amount of enthusiasm carried in his voice. “Just you wait.” 

Mako gives you the location and the time they’ll be there, and the two men head out. As they leave, your chest feels a little lighter, and your burden slightly lessened.

Maybe it will be fun. 

This may be…a little out of your realm of comfort. 

Still, you think, you’ve already called out of work tomorrow in anticipation of a late night, so it’s a little too late to back out now. 

The place that Mako said the three of you are going to is somewhere between a bar and a club, and you’re not quite sure what constitutes appropriate dress for that sort of place. You decide to go with the one dress that hopefully won’t make you stick out like a sore thumb, and attempt to do some makeup, avoiding anything that would irritate the burn on your face. 

When you get to the location Mako told you to go to, splurging on a taxi to get there, you’re shocked to see a warehouse sort of building in front of you, flashing lights and thumping bass already apparent from the outside. 

Hesitant, you step out of the taxi and try to find the entrance. Is this what Mako does in his free time? You can’t help but think a quiet night with Lin would be much nicer. Still, as you walk into the space, smoke and strobe lights hitting your face, you wonder if it might have been fun to go out with her like this. You shake your head, like that will rid you of thoughts of her. The point of going out tonight is supposed to be getting away from those kinds of thoughts, not to encourage them, right? 

A sea of people bigger than you’ve ever seen in your life fills the warehouse, with makeshift bars set up at points throughout the spacious room. There’s a sort of heat and haze that presses against you as you skirt around the edges of the crowd, one that sticks to your skin and begs you to let yourself get sucked in. 

While on your mission to find the two men you’re supposed to be here with, you stop and pay for a shot, naming the first type of alcohol that comes to your mind when the bartender asks what you want. The cool liquid burns as it slides down your throat, but it’s not something you’re unused to. While not as extravagant as this crowd, you and your friends back in your town had your own ways of having fun. Ways that mostly consisted of drinking stolen wine and spirits from your parent’s cabinets, but fun nonetheless. The familiar feeling of alcohol on your tongue loosens your restraints, and you decide to order another shot—you’re here for fun, aren’t you? 

When you reenter the crowd, this time you let yourself be pulled into the music and the people as you look for Mako and Bolin, the world becoming a little slower and a little funnier as the alcohol enters your bloodstream, and by the time you hear a familiar firebender's voice, you’re thoroughly tipsy. Not quite drunk, but definitely enough to add a little pink to your cheeks and spunk to your words. 

You’re smiling when they see you too, and Bolin waves emphatically as you walk over. 

“You were right,” you say to Mako, nearly shouting as you try to fight the volume of the music. “This is fun!” 

He smiles, but there’s something off about the way he looks, something that says he’s hiding something. 

You frown, and cross your arms across your chest. 

“What’s wrong?” you ask, and Mako gives you a shocked, caught look. 

“What? Nothing, there’s nothing,” he says awkwardly, but the way he’s laughing discredits any denial he gives you. 

Bolin leans onto his brother, dopey smile on his face, then hooks a lazy arm around Mako’s shoulder.

“He’s just trying to keep it a secret that he brought the Chief,” Bolin slurs, obviously intoxicated. “Shh!” 

He giggles to himself and Mako groans, shoving him off. 

“Guess I sort of threw myself under the bus telling you, huh?” he grumbles to Bolin, but Bolin doesn’t seem to notice, already heading back out into the sea of dancing bodies. 

You glare at Mako, and any sign of tipsiness in your voice has disappeared as you confront him.

“You brought Lin?” you yell, this time not just because you’re trying to get him to hear you over the music. You groan and drag your hands over your face, your body tensing in anger. “Why in the world would you do that?” 

Now that his brother has already confessed to his crime for him, Mako’s abandoned the guilty sheepish look for one that’s a little more serious. 

“You two need to talk,” he says, and gestures with his head to a figure next to a bar in one of the darker parts of the warehouse, body only sporadically lit up when strobes and lasers hit that corner of the room. It’s Lin. She’s wearing only a thin, white tank top, and what look like police issued sweats. It’s exactly what you’d expect her to wear, and it’s quite possibly the hottest thing you think you’ve ever seen in your life. Her skin glows pink and orange and blue as lights hit her every few seconds, and you watch her bare biceps flex ever so slightly as she raises the beer in her hand to take a long swig from it. You can barely tear yourself away from the sight. 

When you look back at Mako, still reeling over the sight of her, he grins knowingly. 

“Have fun,” he says slyly, and passes you another shot. “For good luck,” he says, then slinks away into the crowd, leaving you alone. You slam down the shot angrily, and instantly regret it as the burn floods your sinuses, leaving you coughing. 

“Fuck you!” you yell after him, only half joking, lingering coughs punctuating your words. 

He throws you a grin over his shoulder, then waves as he walks away. You swear to yourself in the moment that you’ll find a way to get him back for this some day. For now, however, you are left with only 5 aching metres between you and Lin, a distance that could be passed in seconds, a distance that feels so intimately close and yet at the same time like you are watching her from afar—a voyeur into her little world. 

The anger you feel towards Mako mixes with the alcohol in your blood, and turns to anger at her. Anger at her for abandoning you in that park, for taking your heart in her hand and crushing it beneath her steel boots like you meant nothing . 

Feelings trump reasoning in the moment, and you stomp over to her, closing the distance between the two of you in a few large strides. 

She turns towards you as you reach her, nonchalant at first, then shocked as she recognises you. 

Your name falls out of her mouth, not quite a whisper, like she doesn’t believe you’re really there. 

“Don’t say my name like that,” you bite, greeting her with a bitterness she’s never seen from you before. 

She looks taken aback for a second, then the cool mask that she wears at work slips onto her face—but that only angers you more. You want a reaction from her, something, anything to prove that you make her feel things. That you meant something to her. 

“I’m sorry,” she says flatly, and you scoff at her. “I wondered why Mako and Bolin insisted I come out with them, but now I see why.” She shakes her head, then sets her beer down at the bar. 

“I’m going to go,” she says, and you’re thrown back to when she said those exact words to you at the park. 

“Stop!” you shout, and you don’t know if you can trust yourself not to cry if you keep talking to her. “Stop avoiding your feelings and just fucking talk to me, Lin.” 

She winces as you say that, but refuses to meet your eyes. 

“What do you want me to say?” she says, somehow still sounding calm. Even though you know it’s all a front, it’s infuriating. “There’s nothing to say.” 

You laugh incredulously, because there’s no way she actually believes that. 

“Nothing? You kissing me meant nothing?” you snap, and that seems to provoke something in her, because her head whips up towards you. Something slips in her composure, and you watch as her fists ball up at her side and her face contorts slightly. 

“ Yes, ” she barks, but neither of you believe it. 

“I think you like me, Lin,” you say, scorn dripping from your words. “I think you like me, and you’re too fucking afraid of your feelings to let yourself feel it.” The last part is bordering on cruel, but you decide to let the regret come later. Now is not the time for that. 

You watch as she breathes in slowly, one hand pressed against her brow as she squints her eyes shut. 

“Maybe!” she finally says, shouting back at you. “Maybe you’re right, but it means nothing. I am too old, too busy, and too mean for someone like you. You will never find what you want in me.” 

You’re in disbelief as she says that, a scathing attack, not on you—but herself. 

“I don’t care about any of that! You are what I want, Lin,” you groan and run your hands through your hair. “You are so stupid!” you shout, your frustration at her only growing in size. 

“Don’t you get it?” you say, stepping closer to her. She looks almost afraid as you do, her body tensing up. “I want you. More than I’ve ever wanted anything.” 

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” she bites back bitterly, back on the offence. She looks away from you, pain on her face. 

“I do,” you say firmly, standing your ground. “You ran because you were scared that I wouldn’t want you, truly want you, but I do.” 

She scoffs. “I did not run .” 

You roll your eyes, and let out a huff. “What do you call leaving me in the middle of a park and cutting off all communication? Because I call that running.” 

“Fine,” she growls. “Maybe I ran—but it’s for your own good.” 

You laugh again, loudly and sharply, because the absurdity of what she’s saying is just too much to handle. 

“That is a lie ,” you say. “Running was for your own good, your own comfort. You were—and still are—afraid.” 

“I’m not afraid!” she shouts, but her eyes continue to avoid yours. 

“Then why won’t you look at me?” you yell, matching her volume. You step closer to her until the only time you have been closer than this is when she kissed you, a silent dare for her to face you, to prove that what she’s saying is true. 

She doesn’t reply this time, and the silence hangs in the air, the bass of the music thumping along with your aggravated heartbeat. 

“You need,” she says quietly, just loud enough for you to hear, then inhales. “To leave.” 

“Look at me,” you say, quiet too. “Look at me, and I’ll leave, Lin.” 

She winces as you say that, but you watch as her head slowly turns towards you. 

You feel her heaving breath on your skin as she looks down at you, your eyes meeting. There is no calm in her eyes, no kindness, only a brewing storm of anger, frustration, and tension. You inhale sharply. There is little space between your faces, and you know that if you were just to rise on your toes the tiniest bit, your lips would meet, just like they did in that park. You wonder what that kiss would feel like, so fueled by anger. 

This time you’re the one to drop the eye contact first, buckling under the weight of her gaze, your eyes falling to her collarbones, right at your eyeline. 

“Look at me.” She throws your own words back at you, her voice raspy and commanding. 

You acquiesce to her demand, as you always do, willing and compliant. Any fight left in you has fled. 

There is hurt on her face as you look at her once more, but more so than that, there is an undeniable hunger. One that threatens to consume you. You can only hope it will. 

“Are you still going to leave?” you ask, you breathing heavy and faster than you’d like to admit. 

You watch her gulp, squeezing her eyes shut as she shakes her head. 

The air between you is thick, forcing an unspoken wall between your faces. You want to shatter it. 

“Are you going to stay?” you whisper, leaning your head up to her ear. You’re teasing now, and you know it. You love it, baiting her to do something, to prove her want. You have proclaimed your want for her, want that’s threatening to transform into need, and it is time for her to do the same. 

“Fuck you,” she bites out through sharp breaths, and with that, her lips are on yours. 

You almost pull away, purely out of shock, but your body relaxes into her touch after a second, pushing up against her firm frame. 

The kiss is nothing like the tenderness at the park. It is fierce and devouring, harsh and unforgiving. There is no slowness as you grip a hand in her hair, none as she snakes her hands along your body, pressing her fingers into the soft flesh of your waist. 

Your mouth opens to hers, and you taste the beer on her tongue as she deepens the kiss. You cannot help but mould your body towards hers, your dress riding up ever so slightly on your thighs as you desperately try to move against her. 

She takes her mouth off of yours, and you nearly cry out, scrambling to make sure she isn’t leaving you again, but instead her lips go lower. They press first to your chin, then down to your neck, nipping softly at sensitive skin, and you think this is what heaven feels like. Her tongue drags ever so slightly over the top of your collarbone, and you gasp, tugging your grip on her hair. She pauses as you do so, and you hear a soft groan of pleasure fall out of her mouth as you do. You kissed people before, but this? This is new territory. You ex never did this, never took the time to worship your skin and pray to your body. 

Her lips move back to yours, and there’s a growl in her throat as she does, her hands growing bolder as they move to grip the softness of your ass. Your kisses are sloppy and fueled by the alcohol in both of your systems, enough to let your limbs grow loose and your lips even looser, but not enough to cloud your head so much that you cannot tell that you want this with every fibre of your being.

“We should go,” she whispers, before nipping just below your ear and drawing out a sharp gasp from you. 

“What about—Mako—Bolin—” your words come out stuttered and staggered as she continues to drive you mad with her hands and her mouth, not seeming to care that you are very much so in public and very much so trying to speak to her. 

“Fuck them,” she says with a low laugh, then looks at you. “Let’s go.” 

You do not know if it is logic, love, or the desperate ache between your legs that compels you to nod at her, taking her hand as she leads you through the crowd. 

When you reach outside, the cold air shocks your blisteringly hot skin, and Lin immediately walks to the road and hails the first taxi she sees. You do not have to ask where she’s taking you, because you already know. 

She is hungry and eager and apparently far too impatient to wait for the two of you to reach your destination, because as soon as she’s pulled you into the taxi, her hands are wrapped around your waist and she’s kissing you again. 

You almost pity the poor driver that has to listen to the two of you.

Luckily the drive is short, and you’re soon dropped in front of an extravagant building, and Lin quickly punches in a code to the door, then leads you inside wordlessly. 

She leads you into an elevator, then slams a button, before pressing you to the wall with a harsh kiss. 

“Are you sure about this?” she asks between kisses, breathless. 

“Definitely,” you manage to reply. You have never been more sure about anything in your life before. 

The elevator opens up directly into an entryway, with a mostly empty shoe rack, a coat rack that holds the trench coat she wore the day she kissed you for the first time, and a closed metal door. 

You don’t have that much time to take in the scenery, though, because she’s brisky leading you in, one hand holding yours and the other roughly metalbending the door open. 

She slams it shut with a flick of her hand, and you pause to look at the room. It’s plainly decorated, exactly like you expected of Lin. Everything in this room has a purpose, she’s practical like that. 

Still, you kick off your shoes, and as she does the same you hook your arms around her neck and pull her head down into another messy kiss. Your lips are already red and puffed, but you cannot help but go back for more, to indulge in your own personal poison. 

“ Please ,” you whisper as her hands make their way up your thighs, dipping beneath the fabric of your dress. Your skin is burning at her touch, the fire within your stomach begging to be let out, to be set free. You can feel the smile in her kiss as she hooks a finger in the side of your panties. She’s so close to where you need her to be, and yet so far. 

“Please, what?” she teases, and you nearly want to slap her for teasing you at the moment. 

“You know,” you whine, leaning up your hips against her, chasing any sort of relief. 

“I don’t think I do,” she says, smirk on her face as you look up at her with desperate eyes. You feel so small beneath her gaze. You know what she’s asking you to do, what she’s asking you to say, but shame burns hot in your cheeks and the words die in your throat. 

“ Say it, ” she continues when you don’t reply, forcing authority into her voice. She spends her days ordering people around, and it shows. (You kind of love it. Scratch that. You really love it.) Your face buries into the crook of her neck as you whisper the words, your hands dragging down her clothed back, the muscles in her back tensing as you do so. 

“Fuck me.”

She grabs your face with a surprisingly gentle hand, and tips your chin up to meet her, though you can’t quite look her right in the eye after saying those words. They feel so filthy in your mouth, so unlike anything you’ve ever said before.

“Good girl,” she croons, and a part of you lights up that you didn’t even know existed. The shame in your body dissipates, and you realise you’d say anything she tells you to if it means she’ll talk to you like that. 

She chuckles at your apparent reaction, low and smooth, then nods her head towards another closed door. 

“This way,” she says, and the next few seconds seem to blur as she leads to the bedroom. 

Your head is swimming and your body aches in the most pleasurable way possible as she closes the door behind herself. She tugs off her sweats, then walks to you, that same hungry look on her face, and pulls you into another kiss. You melt into her touch, her hands going straight to your ass. Your hands grow curious too, one toying with the waistband of her boxers, the hard line of her hip bones just barely peeking out as you tug ever so slightly, and another gently tracing the curves of her breasts. You can feel her kisses growing impatient, and you gasp as she picks you up, hands gripping at the flesh of your thighs as you wrap your legs around her waist. 

You feel her turn around and drop the two of you on the bed, letting you down so you’re straddling her lap. The position gives you a new angle to push against, and a feeling of power that you know is no less than an illusion. You grind slowly against her thighs, whining at the friction you so desperately crave.  

Her lips move to your chest, sucking at the untouched skin, and you straighten when you hear the back of your dress unzip with a single flick of her hand. 

“Hey,” you exclaim. “That’s not fair.” 

She hums, and gives you an indulgent grin as she looks up at you. "Metalbender perks,” she jokes, tugging the straps of your dress down. The fabric pools at your thighs, and you feel oh-so exposed by your choice to forego a bra tonight. Your arms instinctively go to cover your bare chest, but Lin softly pulls your hands down and away from your breasts, leaving them bare and on full display. 

You blush, and turn your head away. It’s not like it’s the first time you’ve been naked in front of someone before, not even the first time you’ve been naked in front of a woman—but it feels so different with her, so vulnerable. 

“Is this okay?” she asks, ever so softly, ever so gently. She sounds afraid to break you. If only she knew how bad you wanted that. 

“Yes,” you sigh, breathlessly, as her hands go to your now bare back. “ Yes, Lin—” 

There’s a long, drawn out gasp that’s pulled from your lips as Lin’s mouth drops to your breasts, her tongue swirling over one of your erect nipples. It’s like lightning, shocks sending through your body as she drags her teeth over it—it’s nothing you’ve ever felt before. 

“That’s—” you gasp, trying to get out the words as she switches to your other breast. “Really good.” 

She chuckles, her breath hot on your skin, and pulls you in closer to her by your waist. 

“Is it, baby?” she asks, knowing you can’t answer as she pinches one of your nipples, twisting the bud ever so slightly between the rough pads of her fingertips. She laughs at you as you arch up into her touch, and the shame wrapped in pleasure only furthers the slick heat between your legs. You nod, shuddering gasps falling from your lips. 

You grind against her with a renewed fervour, and Lin seems to take notice, because she pulls you back further onto the bed with her, then lays down, you still straddled across her hips. 

“You know,” you manage to say as you lean down to kiss her, shimmying out of your dress and kicking it to the side. “It’s really not fair that you’ve still got all your clothes on, and I’ve got none.” 

She quirks an eyebrow at you. “You seem to think a lot of things aren’t fair,” she says, then drops her eyes to your thin cotton underwear covering your ass. “And if I’m seeing things correctly, you’ve still got some clothes on.” 

You blush, and wonder how you’re still finding things to blush over when you’re straddling her, near naked, with her hands groping your ass. Still, you’re aching to see her skin as bare as yours, and you prop yourself up on your knees, reaching for her tank top. She notices where your hands have gone, and takes initiative for you, sitting up slightly to tug it over her head. Unlike you, she’s got a bra on underneath her shirt, and you decide immediately that that has to go. 

“Off, off, off,” you mutter to yourself as your fingers dip beneath her back and unclip the strap, then tug it off her arms. She seems amused at your eagerness, at the way your fingers slip and fumble with how fast you’re trying to go. 

Her breasts fall free as you toss her bra to the side, and you think that it’s the most beautiful sight in your life. You could look at her like this all day. 

She, on the other hand, does not seem content with just looking. 

“Are you going to do something, or just sit and stare?” she deadpans, fingers gripping the plush flesh just below your waist with such strength that you just know you’re going to have bruises there tomorrow. You kind of love it. 

“Oh, you know,” you tease, not knowing where your newfound confidence is coming from. “I might just stare for a while.” 

She hums at you, letting out a small huff, then pulls you down into a kiss. You gasp into her mouth as your bodies touch, your breasts pressed flat against her own. It feels so intimate, so close—but you cannot help but want to be closer. 

She breaks free from your hungry mouth, and you whine, but her mind seems to be moving elsewhere. 

“Sit up,” she grunts, and you give her a confused look, but follow her commands. It’s hard not to, anyways. 

Her hands tug your hips in closer to her face, and for a second, you don’t understand what she’s trying to do. Then it hits you, and you realise just how close her mouth is to the one still-clothed part of you. Your knees sink into the bed on either side of her neck, and you feel your whole body go warm as a ghost of a breath passes over the heat between your legs. 

Her hands go to reach for your panties, and you’re made so very aware of how thin they are as her mouth kisses up the inner parts of your thighs, leaving blooming bruises everywhere her lips go. 

“I’ve never—” you say between gasps, your hips jolting forwards instinctively as her lips brush over your clothed clit. “Never done this before.”

“Really?” she says sarcastically. “I couldn’t tell.” 

You want to glare at her, but any quip dies in your throat as you hear the sound of fabric tearing. 

You look down to see your underwear torn at both sides, and Lin nonchalantly tossing the now useless scrap of fabric to the side. 

“Lin!” you say, somewhere between annoyed and very turned on. 

She huffs a laugh, and you should be more mad, but her parted lips sit just in front of your now exposed cunt, stopping any other thoughts you could have from forming. 

“Buy better quality underwear and maybe I won’t be able to rip it so easily,” is all she says before pulling your hips against her mouth. You let out a pitiful whine as she licks a stripe down your slick folds. The muscles in your stomach flex reactively as she focuses her efforts on your clit, swirling that damned tongue of hers around and around. 

You grind against her face shamelessly, letting wanton moans fall from your mouth with each tiny thrust you make against her hot, wet mouth. Ocasionally she drags her tongue lower, letting herself savour the taste of you on her tongue, ever so slightly pushing inside your walls to draw out a sharp gasp from you. The slick sound of her tongue dragging against your folds fills the room, filthy and wet. 

Her arms are wrapped tight around your thighs, her short fingernails digging into the soft flesh. It stings, and you want more of it. Your own arms have fallen behind you, just barely holding your body up as you arch your spine against her sweet, sweet mouth. 

“ Lin ,” you whine, as the knot in your stomach grows tighter. Your grinding becomes more frantic and loses its rhythm as you feel yourself growing closer to the edge. She growls against your skin, her tongue working faster on your aching clit, and your moans fall sharp and stacatto from your mouth as it hangs open in pleasure. You know you’re close to cumming, you’ve felt it before as you touched yourself at night, dreaming about something like this, but that doesn’t even come close to comparing to how you feel right now. 

“Jus’ like that,” you mewl, high and breathy. “Please —” 

Her own moans come soft and muffled by your thighs around her head, shivering and threatening to buckle under the weight of your pleasure. Your breath comes in heaving pants as your mind singles in on the pleasure of your clit in her mouth, her hands on your thighs, your pussy pressed flush against her face. 

You can feel your heart racing in your chest as you careen on the edge, and as she takes your clit into her mouth once more, the tension inside your stomach snaps, and you see white. Blinding pleasure rushes through your body, and all of your muscles tense at once, then release, your thighs clamping against her head. You cannot help the aching cry that is torn from your chest as you cum, and your eyes squeeze shut as you ride out the remaining waves of pleasure rippling throughout your body. 

Your body collapses backwards against her, and you feel her arm just barely catch you.

She tugs herself up, and places you on her lap once more, not even bothering to wipe her mouth as she pulls you into a messy kiss. You can barely kiss her back, your mind still hazy and floating in the afterschocks of your release as you taste yourself on her tongue. 

“That good, huh?” she says, smiling against you, and you taste yourself on her lips. 

“Mm,” you nod, words still a little out of your reach as your drop your head onto her shoulder. There’s sweat on dripping down both of your bodies, but you don’t care. In fact, you mimic what she did earlier, taking the soft, unmarked skin of her collarbone into your mouth, letting the salt linger on your tongue. Embolded by the remaining alcohol in your system and the dopamine rushing through your brain, you drag you tongue up, up, up her neck until you reach her chin. She shudders in your grasp, a low groan just barely making it out of her mouth. 

You press soft, little kisses along her jawline, and when you reach the familiar texture of her scars, you do the same, following the smooth line up her cheek. When you’re finished, you look at her, and you have to bite back the urge to tell her how much you love her. 

“You’re beautiful,” you say instead, worship dripping off your words like honey. 

She furrows her brow at you, and you expect her to say something back, but instead she just kisses you once more—only this time it’s softer, sweeter. The hunger within her still remains, but it has at least been partly sated. 

The kiss is slower, and you feel dampness grow once more between your legs as she rolls her hips up against you with each push of her tongue. Your hand on her bicep tightens, the muscle beneath barely giving as you press your fingertips against it. Your other hand goes to her face, cupping it softly. 

With much care, she rolls you onto your back on the bed. You let her easily, your thighs spreading beneath her without care. Any shame you had is gone, erased by how wonderful it felt to cum on her tongue. 

She moves on top of you, and you buck your hips up with a whimper when she doesn’t immediately start fucking you like you want. 

“So impatient,” she mutters, and you can’t help but let out an impish giggle as she does. 

Still, you never need to be told twice by her, and you let yourself melt into her hands as she moves slowly, the fabric of her boxers dragging across your sore clit. 

“Wait here,” she says, and you whine softly, still choosing the pitiful vocalisations over actual words. She chuckles softly as she pushes herself off the bed, and you don’t bother watching where she goes. Your head is too heavy and your mind too light for you to care. Your body sinks into the mattress below you, and your eyes shut, the image of Lin between your thighs flashing in your mind. 

Seconds seem to stretch into hours as you wait for her return, the aching emptiness inside of your growing more uncomfortable by the moment. You need her, and you need her now . 

Luckily for you, the spirits seem to hear your prayers, because Lin returns shortly. You grin dopily at her, then your eyes widen as they drop down to see the a harness wrapped around her thighs, and a thick strap facing you. 

“Worth the wait?” she grins, and this time you have a response for her. 

“Definitely,” you say, breathless. 

She makes her way over to you on the bed, and you let your arms fall to either side of your head as she kisses you, again with that same tenderness. You feel her hand trace down your body, lower and lower until it reaches your cunt, and you gasp into her kiss as she dips a finger into your folds. 

“So wet,” she mutters, and the filthiness of the words makes your skin flush, and you turn your head away from her. There’s no way you can watch her as she does this—as she fucks you. 

Lin seems to have other plans, though, because her free hand quickly comes up and grabs your face by your cheeks, turning your head towards her. 

“Look at me,” she says, repeating those words that started all of this. You let your eyes open, cheeks still pinched between her index and her thumb, and she smiles at you. “Good girl,” she hums.

Your eyes light up, eager and ready to please, as you let out a quiet, “Mhm!” 

Her fingers drop your face, and you try your best to keep your eyes on her as she pushes a slick finger inside of your, biting back a moan as she does so. Your walls clamp around her fingers tightly as she moves them inside of you. They’re so much bigger and so much more fufilling than your own fingers could ever be, and no matter how many times you thought about this before, you could’ve never imagined it feeling this good. 

She fucks you open, until your pussy is drenched and ready for her strap, your back arching into every little touch she gives you. 

“Is this okay?” she asks, pressing the head of her strap against you, and take a shuddering breath in. 

“Yes, yes,” you grit out through your teeth, pushing your hips up against the cool silicone of the strap. 

“Please—just fuck me already, Lin,” you cry out, gripping onto her arms on each side of you. 

She wastes no time pushing the rest of the strap into you, and you let out a sharp moan as the gentle burn of the stretch fills you. She stills for a second and spreads your legs just a little more, letting you adjust, but only a second. After that she drags it out slowly, watching every inch of the strap leave you, your pussy drooling over her cock. 

“That’s, oh —” your sentence is cut off short by her snapping her hips back against you, filling you up whole again.

Leaning down as she fucks into you, you raise your head as much as you can to meet her lips, your body shaking with each of her thrusts. Your mouths meet in a hurried kiss, messy and wet. 

Every inch of your body feels like it’s burning, your neurons overloaded with the sensation of her fucking you, in and out, and in and out. 

“You don’t— fuck —know how long I’ve wanted to do this,” Lin says above you, her voice just above a growl. 

You try to reply but all that comes out are pitiful moans, followed by her name, over and over. Her name feels like a prayer in your mouth, and her touch, salvation. 

A gasp leaves your permanently parted lips and she grabs you by the hips, thumbs pressed into flesh next to your pubic bone, and pulls you into her lap. The change of angle leaves you moaning ever louder than before as the strap hits a new deepness inside of you, one that’s never been touched before. 

“T-there— shit —harder!” you whimper, as your back arches off the bed. Lust runs wild in your mind as the sound of her cock fucking you fills the room, salacious and oh-so beautiful. The two of you build a symphony of pants, moans, and whines as you feel yourself falling closer and closer into perfect oblivion. 

You see it on her face, too, in the moments you can collect yourself enough to open your eyes for more than a few seconds. With each thrust, each harsh grind against your body, her face twists in pleasure, and you think you could spend a lifetime watching her come undone atop you like this. 

A familiar feeling blooms in your stomach, and your breaths start to stutter as you realise how close you are to cumming. 

“ Lin ,” you manage out, her name falling broken out your spit slick lips. “M’so close.” 

She keeps her pace, hitting that perfect spot inside of you with each of her thrusts, watching as you fall apart beneath her. 

“Come for me, pretty girl,” she says, breathless, and there’s no way you can do anything but obey. Not when she says it so nicely like that. 

You come with a sharp cry, pussy clenching on her cock as you do, and your thumping heartbeat radiates through your whole body as your back arches off the bed. Pure, perfect bliss fills your mind as she fucks you through your orgasm. 

Your body melts in her hands, and she pulls you closer as you do, overstimulation sending electric shocks throughout your body as she grinds againt you, chasing her own pleasure now. Her face twists as she thrusts for a final time, then drops her head on your chest, sighing your name. 

You’re halfway between conscious and unconscious when she pulls herself up, wiping sweat from her brow and running a hand through her hair. 

“You look so pretty when you come,” she says, peppering sweet kisses along your breasts. “Take my cock so well.” 

You give her a halfhearted nod, your body still limp and floaty beneath her. 

“Now, be a good girl for me and help clean up,” she says firmly, and you force your heavy eyelids open. 

She’s kneeling in front of your, slick strap still wet with your cum, and you realise what she’s asking you to do. You’re in no state to fight it though, and the thought of pleasing her burns away any shame you could have. 

“Mkay’,” you sigh dreamily, and pull yourself onto your knees. Your body feels so heavy as you lift it, but it feels so, so worth it as you see her face looking down on you from above. 

You take the strap in your mouth sloppily, letting your tongue swirl around it as you taste yourself on it. While your eyes are shut at first, you open them to watch her as you drag your tongue down the length of her cock. 

“ Fuck ,” she groans as you make eye contact with her. “Look so pretty like that, baby.” 

That’s exactly what you wanted to hear. 

She softly runs a hand over your hair as you finish cleaning the strap with your mouth, then lays you down gently on the bed, your legs feeling like jelly and your breath coming ragged like you just ran a marathon. 

She leans down for one more kiss, soft and chaste. You instantly chase her lips, whining into her mouth. She just chuckles as she breaks away, wiping the spit from your puffy lips. 

“I’ll be right back,” she says, and you frown, your head still fucked out and foggy. You want her to stay right here with you. 

“Promise you’ll come back?” you say, trying not to slur your words together. You manage a fair job of it. “No running.” 

She laughs, then smooths your hair on the side of your head. 

“No running,” she repeats back to you. 

You give her a dopey smile, then let yourself fall into blissful darkness, exhaustion overtaking your body. 

When you come to, she’s wiping down your sticky legs with a cloth, and pulling a big, soft t-shirt over your head. There’s a soft clink of a glass on the bedside table next to you, but you don’t quite have the strength in you to make yourself sit up and drink. 

Instead, you just let sleep steal you away once more, only half aware when you feel her warm body slip underneath the covers with you, and press a kiss to your forehead. 

You sleep sounder than you ever have before next to her. 

When you wake up a few hours later, groggy and confused, you sit up, grateful as you sip slowly from the cup on the nightstand. 

Lin is still sleeping, and you can’t help but watch her silently, enjoying just how calm she looks. 

As you look out the window, a small laugh escapes your lips when you realise it’s sunrise. If you hadn’t gone out last night, you’d probably be at work right now, wishing she was in the bakery with you. You lean over to look at her again and decide that this is so much better than any sunrise chat or lunch date you could’ve wished for. 

Yawning, you pull yourself under the covers once more and Lin sleepily reaches out for you, muttering something you can’t quite make out. 

“G’morning,” you say as she blinks her eyes open, slowly pushing herself into a sitting position. “Do you have work?” 

She looks almost offended at the suggestion, and rubs her eyes. 

“Fuck work,” she grumbles, then lays back down. “This is much better.” 

You smile, but can’t help but feel a question bubbling in your throat. This is the wrong time to ask, you know, but you don’t want to put it off any longer than you need to. 

Letting yourself get pulled in closer to her, your voice is barely above a whisper when you ask, “So…what does this mean for us?”’

Lin groans, her eyes still closed. 

“I don’t just fuck people for fun,” she says, and you flush as memories of last night replay in your mind. “Not that it wasn’t fun,” she chuckles. 

You wait for her to say something else, but apparently, that’s all she has to say. 

“So…are we…dating th—” you start to ask, but she cuts you off, apparently done with your cautious line of questioning. 

“Dating, yes, that,” she mutters, and reaches for your waist once more, this time leaving her arm thrown over it. 

“Okay,” you say, and that’s all you can say. You are so happy, you might just die. 

“Okay,” she says, and even though she sounds nonchalant, you think you see the tiniest of grins on her sleepy face. 

You yawn again, and follow her lead, letting your eyes fall shut again. Any further talking will have to wait for later, when the sun has long risen. 

Sleep triumphs over the sunlight peeking through the window, and this time you do not dream of fires or burning or shattered hearts. 

In fact, you dream of nothing at all. 

You simply sleep, next to Lin, in her bed. 

The sunrise comes and goes, and the two of you are still together, content. 

[ three months later ] 

Lin’s hand is firm around your waist as the two of you walk into an extravagant building, press shouting questions at her and flashing cameras as she ushers you in. You’re greeted by a room full of people all dressed in fancy clothing and with waiters bustling around, trays on their hands. 

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that,” you joke, turning your head over your shoulder to look at the mob of reporters. 

“You’re lucky you don’t actually have to talk to them,” she says, her eyes scanning the crowd. 

You laugh, and look up at her. She looks beautiful, as always. 

“You’re right,” you reply, grin on your face. “I don’t think I’d be able to do that.” 

She turns to look at you, and tucks a piece of hair behind your ear. 

“You don’t give yourself enough credit,” she says, and places a quick kiss atop your head. 

You were surprised when you started dating at how much PDA Lin was willing to show. She never really seemed like the kind of person to be into that, and when you asked her about it, she agreed, but told you that you seemed to be the exception to the rule. You, in turn, ended up being the one who’d fluster and bat away her casual displays of affection, something you’d never experienced with a partner before— especially not on the scale of publicity Lin faces. The disgusted reactions of your family and friends in your hometown held you back for a while, but Lin showed you that not everyone would hurt you like that—that you’re allowed to love her publicly, not just in secret. 

The event is being held as some sort of fundraiser the police department is taking part in, you’re not really sure, and being the Chief of Police, Lin is expected to give a statement on it. You know that she will—something brief and to the point, yet powerful. Exactly like her. 

You, being her plus-one, are not expected to really do anything other than accompany her—which you are endlessly grateful for. 

This isn’t the first event she’s brought you to (that ended with much more press, and much more anxiety than this), but the extravagence and sheer magnitude of these affairs never ceases to amaze you. You know you don’t really fit in here, even in your nicest dress, but you don’t really want to fit in with these people. 

Your eyes turn to the crowd, scanning it for familiar faces. You make out Mako and Bolin, dressed in their fanciest suits, along with Avatar Korra and Kuvira. 

The former has an arm snaked around Kuvira’s waist in a similar fashion to Lin with you. You watch as Korra breaks into laughter at something Bolin says, and Kuvira just watches her with a reserved smile on her face. The pair is a new development, one that drew much more press and attention than you and Lin ever could’ve, with their relationship technically blurring many lines within diplomacy and global politics, but who was gonna tell the avatar, of all people, what to do with her love life? 

Lin gives you a knowing smile as you watch them, then drops her arm around you, and places a chaste kiss on your lips. 

“Go,” she says. “I have to go find President Moon, anyways.”

You smile, giving her a quick wave as you make your way over to the group. You still feel like an outsider when Korra and Kuvira are there, but Mako and Bolin always find a way to make you feel comfortable. 

Bolin calls your name when he sees you, pointing to a drink in his hand then giving you a thumbs up. You can’t help but giggle as he does, trying to make your way over to them as fast as you can in your damned heels. 

“Hey, Bolin, Mako,” you address them. “It’s been forever since I’ve seen you two!” 

Bolin pulls you into a hug, and when he releases you, you go to give Mako a quick hug as well. When you turn to greet the avatar and her companion, your words come out a little too awkward and formal. 

“Avatar Korra, Kuvira,” you say, and Korra just laughs, then shakes her head. 

“Just call me Korra,” she says. “It’s not like we haven’t met before.” 

“Okay,” you say, a shy grin on your face, head still trying to wrap around the fact that she’s the kind of person you’re friends with now. “Korra it is.” 

She looks like she’s about to say something else when a familiar voice rings through the room, clearing her throat. 

President Moon is standing at the podium in front of the room, and Lin is just standing just to the side of her. 

“And now, a word from our chief of police,” she says, then steps back, leaving room for Lin to take over. 

Everyone claps, and you can’t help but try to clap even louder, the grin on your face so wide it’s hurting your cheeks. 

Lin begins her speech, and it goes off flawlessly, just like she practiced. She’d had you sit and listen to her recite it a thousand times, each time going and muttering about how this could be changed, or this could be cut out. You thought it was perfect with each try. 

Her voice is strong as it radiates through the room, and you think she could convince everyone here of anything she wanted if she tried hard enough. 

When she finishes up soon after, you cheer for her, as you always do. 

She thanks the crowd, then steps off the stage. 

Immediately, you’re giving the group a quick excuse of how you have to go, how you’re so sorry, how you’ll be right back, knowing it’s probably not true. They just dismiss you with a laugh, waving you off as you go. 

As fast as your wildly inconvenient choice of dress and and shoes will let you, you make your way over to the side area where Lin stands now, slightly separated from the rest of the crowd. 

Their attention is on the President now, anyways, who’s also giving a lovely speech about the fundraiser. 

When you reach Lin, you pull her into a tight hug, then, in a rare act of confidence for you, initiate a kiss, bringing your lips to hers. 

“You did so wonderfully up there,” you murmur, and warmth blossoms in your chest as you feel her smile against you. 

“Thank you,” she says, a quiet admission that would be rare for other people to see, but is something perfectly normal between the two of you. 

You kiss her once more, leaning into the weight of her body, and let your cheeks turn wildly pink and your lipstick smudge ever so slightly.  

“I love you,” you murmur. “Just in case you forgot.” 

She laughs, a rumble deep in her chest, and cups your face gently in her hands. 

“I did not,” she says, short and too the point. While kisses may be easier for her than you, the words are not, and you don’t expect her to say it back. Her childhood was not one where communication and words of love flowed freely, and that sentiment still holds true for her sometimes. 

To your surprise, as you turn your body to face the crowd, back pressed against her, you feel her lips brush your ear. 

“I love you too.” 

You grin, and cannot help but wonder how your life worked out so amazingly that she’s in it. 

You are so, so lucky that you got robbed that day.