disclaimer: disclaimed.
dedication: KSJEFHSKJ TUMBLY BOLINORA FANDOM I LOVE YOU
notes: I said I would write Mako/Korra. I lied. maybe later.
notes2: this was supposed to be funny but then it just turned sad.

title: endless and i know
summary: They both had plenty of things to do, but it was nicer there in the sun. — Bolin/Jinora.

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Jinora very rarely allowed anyone to watch her practise her bending.

Bolin was one of those very lucky few.

Not because of any particular regard on either of their parts (who was he kidding); it was just that a lot of the time, Korra would be her hurricane self and break a lot of things and Mako would be dragged along to clean up after her, and Bolin… well, Bolin would hang back with Jinora because there was nothing else to do.

(Actually there were plenty of things to do. It was just that none of them were very appealing.)

She was a blur of golden-yellow and orange as she whirled through the complicated steps, more dancer than bender. It was strange and complex but peaceful, as tranquil as a leaf lost to the wind. Jinora bent as easy as breathing.

She was beautiful.

Watching her, Bolin could see why the Fire Nation of old would have wanted to destroy someone like her. The danger that belay the inherent grace of her movement shivered along his bones—the very air he drew into his lungs was held between her fingers.

It was a heady thing.

And very lucky that the Air Nomads were so quietly peaceful.

Jinora twirled through the final set and froze, arms held aloft with a ballerina's poise. She held it for a second more, and then another, and then she collapsed to the ground. She was smiling.

Bolin ambled towards her with his hands stuck in his pockets. He stared down at her, eyebrow raised. "Was it worth it?"

"Of course," she whispered. "It always is."

"You're going to hurt yourself."

"Probably," Jinora said. "Would you sit down? You're blocking the sun."

"You'd be a terrible Firebender, Jinora," and he flopped to the ground beside her.

"Have you met Korra?" the question was rhetoric one. "If there is anyone in this world who should not be a Firebender, it's Korra. And she is a Firebender. I would be better."

Dirt clung to her sleeve as she reached up and pulled her hair from the loose confines of her topknot, the dark mass curling in its freedom.

Bolin watched her with a fierce kind of pride, a fierce kind of hunger that made him think—eighteen, she's eighteen, and had him counting all the ways that this was probably illegal.

Jinora's eyes were closed. "You're doing it again."

"What? What am I doing again, I'm not doing anything again—"

"Overthinking. Stop it," she murmured. "Be the leaf."

Bolin was sure that there were plenty of important metaphors in that statement about going with the flow, but all he got out of it was that—well, actually, nothing. Maybe that he was getting too old for this bullshit, and she was just too young.

"Jinora—" he started, but she cut him off.

"Not today, okay? Not right now. Just let me have this."

"Jinora—?

"Please, Bolin. Please."

He could not deny her that.

"Okay," he said. "Okay."

Throat constricted, he slid an arm underneath her throat to press her head into the crook of his shoulder. The pulse in her neck was fragile as a sparrowkeet's wing, on count-one-count-two. She curled into his side.

Jinora slept.

Bolin did not.

fin.