note: This also took a frustratingly long time to write. Post episode 5.

things we wish we knew

Mako closes his eyes.

They meet in alleyways, behind gym equipment, in the dead of night. There's always that first moment of hesitation—of unease, but then they'll exchange a look, a raised eyebrow, or a small smile and surge together in a tangle of limbs. Korra kisses like she fights; she fists her hands in his hair or rakes her nails down his back, and pushes him against the wall or the floor or the back of someone's sweaty uniform like she's on a mission.

Like she has something to prove.

But Mako doesn't mind, Mako's a fighter too, and he presses and pushes and licks his way into her mouth and nips at her lips until she surrenders, she gives; until she's for once pliant under his hands.

He'll inevitably fumble with the ties and wraps and knots of her clothing, and she'll always without fail push his hands away, face flushed and breathless, a small laugh coloring her voice as she whispers hey cool guy, let me help you.

Mako takes a long moment to show her exactly where he'd like her help.

—

—

As Amon's voice fades and the radio returns to broadcasting bad music and probending stats, an edgy sort of silence falls. Bolin speaks first—because he always does—and clears his throat. The rough hem hem catches Korra's attention, and Mako watches her carefully as she repeatedly curls and uncurls her fingers around her helmet.

"How's Tarrlok and the task force going?" Bolin tries hard to look casual, but his brother's never been good at acting or putting up a cool front; Mako sees through him, and he's pretty sure Korra does too.

She shrugs and says something to the effect of we're on top of things and Bolin takes her words at face value, relaxes. Mako knows better though, and later—when his little brother isn't looking—he roughly takes her hand in his and squeezes, skimming her knuckles lightly with his thumb.

Korra doesn't look at him, but her fingers tighten around his all the same.

—

—

They have time to breathe, for once.

It's noon, and they're on Air Temple Island. Korra's finally gotten the hang of airbending, and Tenzin lets them celebrate by giving her a few minutes to rest because that's all they can afford.

They're down by the bay, and Korra's ankle-deep in water, her pants rolled up to the knees. She's experimenting, idly bending the air into a breeze, half-smiling at Bolin's appreciative groan. Mako stands a bit further back, bare feet buried in the sand, and tries not to stare too hard at the smooth brown skin of her calves, the way water clings to her hair and makes her tunic just damp enough to outline her breasts.

He fails miserably.

Korra looks over her shoulder, smiles at him in a way that makes the fire rise hot in his chest, and Mako blushes, caught. A split second later he's completely drenched, but he can't get mad, not when she's laughing like that, the first time in a lot of days.

"Thought you needed some cooling down, Mr. Hotman."

"…you've been spending too much time with Lin Beifong."

Bolin snickers from the side, but Mako can't bring himself to care. With the sun at its peak, with his important people safe and laughing, he doesn't know how to feel anything past the hard thump of his heart.

Korra meets his eyes again, and she holds him with her smile for a very long time.

—

—

She's straddling him, and it's so like her to want to take charge, to be the one calling all the damn shots. There's that grin on her face—a sharp, feral slash of white—and Mako can only give his own in response, quirking an eyebrow and adjusting his hold on her hips, his fingers gripping into the bone there, hard, before he's flipping them over and sliding his hands down to palm the curve of her thigh.

They're different tonight. Maybe it's because she's actually in his bed for once—Bolin's out having dinner with some old probending friends—or maybe because, Agni, he doesn't even know, but everything's harder and hotter and heavier and closer; he wants her so much closer that he feels like he could crawl into her skin and it still wouldn't be enough.

Maybe it's because they're in the middle of a war, a revolution, and it's like nothing the world's prepared them for.

Maybe it's because she had almost died two days ago, when Amon got too close with that taser of his and she'd almost tumbled over rock bluffs and into the sea.

Maybe—and she's reaching up, nipping at his jaw and doing that thing with her tongue again and Mako loses the ability to think, he can only feel: Korra laughing into their kiss, Korra digging her nails into his shoulders, Korra helping him shrug out of his clothes, Korra's hands warm against his chest, Korra's skin hot against his own.

And then she's naked, body lit in the faint glow of the streetlamps. He loses his breath for a second, because she's beautiful and she drives him crazy and makes him feel like his heart will burst, makes him think in clichés and—Mako stops, because she's gone still against him and her eyes have shuttered.

"Korra?"

"Asami."

He takes a deep breath, nods and tells her ok, that he'll end it officially tomorrow, that he would've done it before but they hadn't had a chance. She stares at him and even in the dim light, he can make out the blue of her eyes. Something in his face must've satisfied her, because she relaxes again, her lips curve, and then—and then what?

Mako opens his eyes—a whole lifetime of maybes slipping away—to find his new wife smiling at him. She's beautiful in white. Radiant. Lovely.

Her eyes are green.

Korra's beautiful too—absolutely fucking stunning actually—in formal water tribe robes of blue, but she's not standing next to him at the altar, and he can imagine a thousand different ways that they have touched, but the truth is that their first kiss was also their last.

Because Korra's not the type to cheat; to hide her feelings or her lover like an underhanded, dirty secret, and that's ok, that's part of the reason why he loves her so much.

She's Asami's first lady, and Bolin stands across from her as Mako's first man. He recognizes the way his little brother looks at her, because he's done it himself. Mako's still doing it, he's doing it when he should be focusing on his wife and the monk officiating the ceremony, and the Avatar avoids looking at either of them because Mako had chosen and she wouldn't settle for Bolin, wouldn't do that to him when she didn't really love him as much as he did her.

Mako wishes he could be just as good, because then he wouldn't be marrying his girlfriend of ten years. Ten years, a war, and all of it spent with his heart half-there. He thinks—he knows Asami deserves better, but what can you do?

(He had found her in the dark and alone, but all they had ever done at most was talk and she always stayed a careful few inches away. He has never had the privilege of crossing that divide, of reaching over and sliding his thumb over her lower lip like a lover might.

And he has never once taken her hand and held it in his, no matter how often or how badly he had wanted to; his hands had already been occupied with holding Asami's.

She has never teased him with her waterbending, and he has never seen her naked by lamplight, moonlight, firelight, or any light at all. He's seen her back before, and her chest and arms and legs, but she was always injured then and he was too preoccupied with all the red to think about anything that didn't involve stopping all the blood.

The world is in balance again and the Avatar has won, but he'll never get to marry the woman he loves.)

The monk intones that they are husband and wife, Asami presses a soft kiss to his lips, and Mako wonders if this is supposed to the happy ending they had been fighting for.

—

fin

note: I am incapable of happiness. And also wow, I need to think of more original endings.

(Inspired by those books and movies and shows where you're like why can't they get together they love each other dammit but they don't because they're stubborn and stupid or there's some misunderstanding and in the end, no one ends up happy. Because I feel like this is a way that things could've gone:

Korra doesn't pursue a relationship with Mako after the kiss because she saw how it'd hurt Bolin, and it's cheating and I doubt the Avatar condones that, and Mako doesn't break up with Asami because he feels guilty at first, and then things just get busy and he never has a chance and the relationship just becomes a sort of habit that he never gets to break.

Um. Going to stop rambling now. Concrit is—as always—very much appreciated.)