Like puppies, Mako thought, looking at his brother and the Avatar slumped together on the couch. Mako shook his head at the pair of them. Bolin was snoring like a chainsaw his head thrown over the back of the couch with the Avatar's head on his thigh, drooling on his knee. The radio spewed the overdramatic after dark program they had been listening to, the host was currently intoning something darkly about zombies. Before going downstairs to help Toza around the gym, he remembered them yelling loudly and repeatedly about how they were going to stay up allll night listening to this nonsense. Mako glanced at the clock; they had made it a record breaking… three hours.

Typical.

Mako shut off the radio, so he could figure out what to do with the two of them in silence. Well. Relative silence. Mako thought, as his brother drew another obnoxiously loud breath.

No one else had ever made it into the brother's cozy attic apartment. Bolin had never even attempted to bring any of his insane fan girls, which meant Mako and never had to stop him. Mako had certainly never invited anyone up there; it definitely wasn't the epitome of fancy living and therefore not something to show off. To anyone. Ever.

But Korra had the annoying tendency to make herself the exception to every one of Mako's meticulously made rules for personal contentment. He had come home one day, heavily laden with groceries to find her sitting on his couch, reading his pro-bending magazines, and sipping his tea. She had even had the nerve to smile at him as if he had come home to find her sitting on his ratty green futon a thousand times before—which was to say, he hadn't.

Since then the Avatar had become a relatively consistent fixture in their home, even though a small part of him couldn't understand why the Avatar (thefreakingAvatar) would bother with them and their shabby accommodations when she could be anywhere, spending time with anyone. Sometimes he wished she would find new, fancy living, friends and stop drinking his favorite tea and disorganizing his magazine rack and leave him in peace. Most of the time he hoped she wouldn't.

"Time for bed, Crazy," Mako muttered, scooping Korra off the couch.

Her head lolled into the crook of his neck and he stopped breathing. But only because he didn't want to wake her. (Yeah, that sounded about right). She didn't stir much beyond a handful of jumbled words and her fingers finding his scarf to curl around.

Mako carried her to the bedroom he and Bolin shared, where Bolin had crafted a makeshift sleeping bag from extra pillows and blankets in between the beds, like he did every time she stayed over. Mako stood for a moment holding the Avatar, holding the most important person in the world, holding stupid, reckless, stubborn Korra, in a moment of horrible deliberation. He glanced between his bed and her potential sleeping arrangements. Then at her sleeping face. Her eyes shut softly, her breathe slow and even, and the way she'd found a little place against his neck to bury her face unconsciously. She looked innocent and young and almost fragile.

Emphasis on the almost.

He knew the floor couldn't be comfortable. He knew she had been training all morning with Tenzin before showing up at the gym to train some more. He knew a sleeping Korra was a misleading Korra. He knew he was going to regret this decision in twenty minutes when the hard boards beneath his shoulders kept him from sleeping. He sighed up at the ceiling in exasperation with himself before putting the sleeping waterbender in his bed.

Mako made his way back to the living room to figure out what to do with his brother. Bolin had long ago outgrown Mako's carrying capacity. Now, the younger bending brother was more designed to carry Mako then the other way around.

Mako's eyes softened a little with brotherly affection, Bolin had since moved to take up the entire couch, still snoring like a badgermole with one arm thrown over his face and the other on the floor. Mako tugged the spare blanket out from under Bolin's knees, thankful his brother slept like the dead. He tucked his brother in, placing his fallen hand across the sleeping boy's stomach, reminiscent of a time not nearly long enough ago.

"Good night Bo," Mako mumbled, worrying the blanket up closer to Bolin's neck.

After pulling on a sleep shirt and a pair of shorts Mako moved to turn off the lamp in his shared bedroom. But Korra muttered something unintelligible and commanded his attention. He stood over her, feeling understandably creepy. That however didn't stop him from pausing to take in the wondrous transformation Korra underwent while unconscious. It was nice to be able to look at her without being infuriated, frustrated, or openly mocked.

"You're going to ruin my entire life, aren't you?" he's glad she isn't awake to hear the note of—Spirits forbid—affection in his voice.

How long would it take before she let that go if she heard it?

Probably never.

He swept a lock of hair away from her face. She nestled further into his bed, away from the ghost of his touch, and started drooling on his pillow. He let out a little disheveled sigh, but he couldn't bring himself to be even mildly annoyed with her. Something warm filled his chest and spread to his veins and he felt a smile coming on but he shut off the lamp and crawled into the makeshift bed Bolin made for Korra on the floor before he could consider what it meant.

He was startled into wakefulness the following morning by a knee in his ribs. His eyes flew open to meet blue eyes and wild brown hair; she had—at some point—let down. He'd never seen a blue quite like her eyes just then and he wondered if it had something to do with the lack of oxygen making it to his brain.

"Hiii," she said the sunlight through the window behind her turning the dust between them to gold. Her smile was blinding and wide and crinkled the edges of her eyes in a way that made his blood feel flammable. He glared at her, breathless for two reasons.

"Are you okay?" she questioned, knocking her head to one side.

"Fine," he wheezed.

"Oh, whoops," her grin turned wry as she removed her knee from his lungs.

"Bolin's making breakfast," she announced excitedly. Distantly Mako heard his brother singing loud and off key to the radio in a way that sounded a lot more like he was competing with it.

"Not again," Mako deadpanned in horror.

"And I made you tea!"

"Not again," he repeated. She pouted at him in that trademark way she had.

"Oh, shut up! I didn't put nearly as much sugar in it as last time."

Before he could form a proper retort, his brother's voice carried from the kitchen, "Korra! I need a dance partner that isn't a spatula!"

"Coming!" she shouted. She nudged his shoulder, "Get up! It'll be more fun with your grumpy face out there."

She darted out the door in a pair of shorts he dimly recognized as his and a white shirt she made look empty, which probably meant it belonged to Bolin. Mako rubbed his eyes, that girl was a hurricane.

When he entered the kitchen, still rumpled by sleep, he found his brother jitter bugging around their tiny dinner table with the Avatar. The radio was a notch or six too loud and the countertop looked more like the ingredients had been used in a war rather than in the crafting of a meal.

Bolin was laughing as he danced still holding the spatula, spattering batter on the hardwood floors; Korra was a horrible dancer and tripped over Bolin's feet in good humor. Bolin spun her out and back in and they bumped the table, making the tea cups jump and spatter Mako's newspaper with rain drops. The small part of Mako that liked to be in control of everything was having a seizure, but an even smaller part of Mako that he had yet to name whispered that it wouldn't be so bad to wake up to this every morning.

"Bolin, the pancakes are burning."

"Shit!"

The pancakes were a little burnt, the bacon a little crispy, his tea too sweet, his newspaper damp and put back together wrong but something about it made Mako smile. Something about it made a little warm bubble of affection pop in his chest. Somehow, Mako's small world had expanded. What had once been two had become three. What had once been Mako and Bolin had become Mako and Bolin and Korra. The Fabulous Bending Brothers had gone from a duo to trio.

Without any kind of warning, without any kind of official announcement Korra and wormed her way into his life. She had managed to carve a place for herself so deep inside him that days without her were empty ones, that fear and dread filled him whenever she mentioned her duties as the Avatar, that something inside him twitched whenever an opposing team member antagonized her.

Looking back Mako could never quite pinpoint the exact moment when it happened but he had a feeling he hadn't had a choice in the matter.