tushanshu_logs | I try to understand you girl

Current Location: Fire Sector; Undisclosed
Current Music: Get Your Body Beat

Entry tags:

I try to understand you girl

Characters: Korra, OPEN
Date: Randomly throughout March.
Location: Fire Sector, one of the abandoned warehouses used in the underground fighting ring.
Situation: Blowing off steam and earning money in her equalist uniform.
Warnings/Rating: Violence, Blood, Broken Bones, etc.

The cage rattled before the raucous crowd surrounding the arena, the clanging metal was lost in their yelling. Inside was a bald, large, shirtless kedan with tattoos covering half his body and he had just thrown a much shorter female wearing a brown uniform mixed with maroon and a mask that had green goggles over her eyes. Both gloved hands gripped into the openings of the cage and she began to climb up, scaling with incredible ease.

The kedan didn’t even try to reach up for her even though he was almost tall enough to simply reach out and grab her. "There’s no getting out unless they unlock the door. And that ain’t happening until I knock you out." A curled sneer came across his face. "Or worse."

It would be near impossible to tell if she was listening, the mask with the large red circle on her forehead hid her expression, but she did stop when he was talking and looked over her shoulder at him. Pushing off the cage with her legs, she turned in the air to build momentum and thrust the heel of her boot into the back of his head. The kedan whirled around and went to push some distance in between her. But he was off from the blow, stunned and she had a window to work with now.

Dashing in under his arms, the female in the equalist uniform dug her knuckles into his side for a kidney shot and followed through with a strike from her elbow in the same spot. Thick muscles she could work through, it was something she knew rather well. The retaliation was coming and she was ready for it. When his punch came down towards her, she reached under his arm to grab the outside of his wrist and she twisted it so his elbow was exposed to her. Hoisting up her folded arm next to her head, she struck it with her own elbow forcing his arm to bend inwards.

Ignoring his howl of pain, she lashed out a kick straight to his knee to do the same and it brought him down to her level. Putting her hand on the side of his head, she slammed her knee directly onto his ear and only retracted her leg to do it again. And again. Blood was getting on her suit, but she didn’t stop until he went limp and she dropped the unconscious brawler to the floor; trickles of red coming out of his ear.

There was an explosion of sound from the crowd and the spot lights danced around the walls at the victory. Cheers from those that bet on her and jeers from the ones that bet against her.

"Nobody blink! The Green Eyed Monster is on a winning streak!" As the announcer spoke, she gave an expertly executed saifa kata. "Hey, can somebody stop this fighting machine? Anyone who thinks they’re up to the challenge, step in the arena and go for broke!"

This was the first time Korra had a chance to flex her martial arts prowess since learning from some of the greatest Keeliai had to offer, and a great way to blow off steam with the adrenaline that was pumping through her. All anonymously and without any bending.

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"Yeah...," he huffs, pinching his eyes closed. It's a nice feeling where she's working on his knee, but his head. It practically cancels out everything else. "Not like I saw her face."

It was a good fight. It really was, and it left him feeling mostly tired and satisfied despite being beaten the fuck up. But he's still pretty sore about losing. Somehow, he has to find that girl and get a rematch. Next time he has to beat her.

"You seen a girl in some kind of weird costume anywhere? It had green eyes. Goggles, I guess. Called her..." He makes a vague motion with his free hand. "'The Green Eyed Monster'."

He can tell he's slurring, but he's only half-aware of how dumb he sounds. Sometimes good hits to the head can do that, and he had his bell rung pretty damn hard. Though at least that means he's not acting all closed-off and cagey around her. That's probably a first. It's the most he's ever talked to her ever, that's for sure. Up until this moment, he's probably made it seem like he completely hates her.

But Raph knows how much Leo and Mike trust her. He remembers her helping him warm up when he showed back up again. And she healed Mike after he pounded his face in. Without his inhibitions, he knows he can trust her, too.

Korra pursed her lips at the term 'her', but stayed silent as she worked her way to his ankle. His head would come next, she didn't want to bring him back to the full on grouch she met at Mike's just yet.

"Green goggles." She repeated as she mended his ankle, peering at the damage through the water as the light let her use redirect his chi to accelerate the healing process. Mako had told her about the equalist uniforms that were worn at Amon's clinic and she furrowed her brow as she healed. "The only ones who had anything like that back home were Amon's chi blockers. Their Equalist getup had green goggles and they could stop a bender from using the elements."

When she was done with his ankle, she was ready to move on to where he took the most damage.

"Amon was teaching chi blocking last year and had a lot students." She brought the water with her and held it between her hands. "You don't have to close your eyes if you don't want to." But she left it up to him before starting.

She wasn't directly lying, but even telling herself that didn't make her hate what she was telling him.

He only grunts as she moves to his head, talking about things from her home that don't really connect in his badly rattled brain. Some person named Amon who taught chi blocking. Someone from her home. People who used to wear that uniform.

"They here?" He mumbles, cracking one eye open to try to focus on her face. It still hurts more than it should.

"Amon isn’t, not anymore." There’s relief in her tone as she begins healing his head. "I don’t know who all he trained out of the kedan and foreigners." The fact that he was teaching the art at all had made a brasher, younger Korra set a clinic on fire.

Now his actions are nothing more than an annoying memory and her own actions have been exactly why she had been working on controlling her temper.

But there would always be times when she’d want to let it all out.

"If Equalists are attacking people, then I’ll look into it. I’ve handled my share back home."

"No," he growls with a surprising amount of force, pushing himself up to sitting whether it disrupts her healing or not. The movement makes his head throb so hard he wants to puke, but he only cringes, hunching forward and holding his head in his hands. "It's my business," he rumbles quietly, "and I'll be the one who handles things. Got it?"

It's weird, but he feels like he needs to protect this woman. This Green Eyed Monster. She gave him one of the best fights of his life, then she dragged him out of there when she was done. And in his eyes, even dumping him in an alley was like she knew him. Like she knew he didn't want those people touching him.

Now, she's his to fight, and he's not gonna let anyone get to her first if he can help it.

Even if things did play out the way Korra's thinking, he can still take care of himself. He doesn't need her help. It's bad enough she's seen him vulnerable twice now. Now he feels like he's got something to prove.

"Don't-!" Too late. He was already up, and she folded her arms as she watched him hold his head. Standing up from her seiza, Korra brought the water along with her and attempted to continue her healing.

The eye roll wasn't obvious, but her sigh was and Korra slowly moved the water around his head to pick up where her healing left off.

"Let me just finish healing you up so you can actually walk back home. Just so you know, I'm the one who's going to be fixing what comes out of your business and that kind of makes it my business too." Her gentle and flowing movements didn't match her tone, perfectly typical of Korra.

Jeez, she's just like April. Totally unafraid to speak her mind when he's being a jerk. But it still rubs him the wrong way because she isn't April. Le and Mike might consider her family, but far as he's concerned, she's just some girl who imposed herself into his life without his invitation.

"I never asked you," he mutters, not bothering, or daring to lift his head.

"Do you ever stop complaining?" It was hardly a question and she took the opportunity to move the healing water down to the base of his skull. The final hits, where she put everything she had to take him down before he could pin her against the cage.

Both her hands gently massaged the soothing water into it, alleviating the pain so she could see what kind repairs she'd have to work with.

"Your brother wouldn't want you coming home looking like this." And even worse, find out it was Korra who did this.

He sighs, both at the pain lifting from the sorest part of his skull, and because of the level-headed way she dealt with his jab. Even as he said it, he felt bad. She's the one who healed Mike up when he snapped and pounded his face to a bloody pulp. And now this.

It stuns him how these people are so willing to help him when he screws up. And Mike... he might be a little obligated to put up with his crap, but Korra isn't. Korra hardly even knows him.

When she mentions Leo, a sharp jab of panic blossoms in his chest, but he refuses to let it show.

"You gonna tell him?"

Almost a year on Keeliai had forced Korra to mature much more so than her home world environment did and she was still growing in maturity, just not as fast as others. The pressures of it are easier to deal with when she was in the company of her friends, like the turtles.

There's a long pause as she continued healing the spot, the swelling going down while she worked. Raphael actually asking her wasn't what she expected. Shrugging it off, yes; but not questioning it.

"No." Her voice was level as she neared the end of circling the glowing water. "He'd rather hear it from you, not me."

"Ha," he snorts dryly. "You really think I'm gonna tell him? He wouldn't get it."

The healing feels good, almost like Splinter's shiatsu techniques on steroids. He can hardly stifle a groan as his muscles relax and the nauseating pounding in his head turns into a dull ache.

Much as he hates relying on magic for anything, especially elemental magic like Korra's, he can see why his brothers are so into it.

Rubbing at his still-battered face, he tries to keep his train of thought.

"There ain't no honor in fightin' people for money," he says, not really caring if she knows. She's already made it clear she's not gonna tell Leo. Maybe he can trust her with this, too.

"I doubt you're fighting them for money." she said flatly as she gave the healed area more attention than needed. Just in case there was more damage than she could make from it, head injuries could be tricky.

Honestly, the money was the last thing she needed either. That she fully understood. "He'd probably try to tell you to meditate instead." That was Korra experience, and while she had finally gotten mediation down thanks to Spock; it wasn't always the way to get out the aggression.

"They never get it."

He lifts his head, finally daring to open his eyes, watching the shadows made by the blue light of her magic. Her voice is barely a whisper, but her words might as well have been a scream, makes his chest go tight with sympathy. He knows that feeling. Way too well. And Korra gets it, too. She really gets it. He can tell.

It's not the type of reaction he was expecting. He's so used to them not understanding, trying to change him with lectures and punishments and yeah, more meditation. But that's not who he is. Who they are.

"No. They don't," he says, quietly, bitterly. "But you do what you have to, even if it makes you a screw up."

His eyes travel to the floor, wringing his hands in his lap. "It's just nice, you know? Gettin' to kick the crud out of people. I mean really letting them have it. Because they want you to. And the crowd loves it. They think it's great. They cheer for you. Pay you for it. And it feels good."

It's weird, talking like this. He rarely opens up like this to anyone. But right now, it just feels right. After the crap couple months he's had, and definitely after the thing with Mike, it's nice having someone rooting in his corner. Somebody who gets it.

That bitterness is exactly the same kind she bitten back every time she was treated like a screw up, deserved or not, and he said exactly what she had believed; do what you have to, even it makes you a screw up. Wherever she went, she managed to mess things up and it was almost without fail.

But being able to just get out that anger, bury someone who accepted the fight underneath it with each hit-

"It does feel good." She admitted, and Korra let out a breath she didn't even know she was holding in.

No one had ever fully understood just what it was like. Always trying to answer it with something else, not comprehending that it was as much of an expression as it was violence. That it was a part of her and bottling it up was more destructive than letting it out.

But Raphael knew. Each word he said hit her harder than the heavy punches he knocked her around with.

And she drew the water away from him now that she was done, debating with herself whether or not she should tell him just who his opponent was.

"Let me see your face. That got pretty messy too." She just bought more time instead. Legitimate time because she knew he needed to be clean when Leo next saw him.

He turns slowly, gingerly, to face her. Their eyes meet, and his mouth instantly goes dry, his chest tight and his heart hammering against his ribs. It's a feeling he's never felt in his entire life, and it too feels good.

She isn't April.

She gets him. Gets him better than maybe even Casey does. And it's weird and terrifying and he doesn't know what to do. So his eyes just dart away, somewhere safe, somewhere off to her left, and he cracks a split-lipped crooked grin. It hurts, but he doesn't care.

"Good thing I wasn't all that pretty to begin with."

The joke sounds lame even as he says it, but that doesn't make it any less true. His face really is a mess. One of his eyes is practically swollen shut, and there's a cut on his forehead that's covered the rest of him in sweat-mingled blood. But at least he doesn't have to worry about winning no beauty contest.

When she looked at Raphael directly, Korra thought she missed a spot on her face from healing herself earlier and that he was piecing everything together. Then he grinned, or as best as he could manage, and the knot from thinking the jig was up untied itself.

"I don't know, I think this could be an improvement." She started to smile as she said it. Those kinds of marks meant something after a fight. Proof that you got just as much as you gave, and the large bruise on her side where she took his kick was silently throbbing as she stayed up straight.

"Beats make up if you ask me." Half joking. If there was one thing Korra skitted away from, it was the girly things other females her age were into. She brought the water up to his face, leaving perfectly shaped opening for his mouth and nose so he could breath.

The blue glow lit up the features on her face as she peered through the water to focus on the cut. Probably from her headbutt. "But I think you should stick just one application for tonight. If you think I'm going stay up late into the night just so you can go back there, you got another thing coming." That smile didn't leave her and she swirled the portion of water over the cut.

"Hey, even I got my limitations," he laughs. "Think I'm good until tomorrow, at least."

He's joking. Honestly, he is. The fight he just had was more than enough to satisfy him for a while, and even after Korra's healing, he'll need to rest up. Then, he'll try to find his Green Eyed Monster. And every day after that, he'll be waiting and watching, ready for his rematch.

But it's funny, because there really is something fishy about this whole situation. Now that his brain's stopped trying to crawl out of his skull, it's all starting to piece together. How The Green Eyed Monster dumped him in the alley. How Korra just happened to find him after that. How she seems to know so much about the fight ring, didn't even question him about it...

When his face is healed enough to swing it, he teasingly quirks a brow. "You gonna be there?"

She gave an approving nod at that, because Korra would have let him suffer until after she got some shut eye if Raph decided to go back for another round. Especially when she really wanted to go home so she could finish healing herself.

The cut was healed up easily enough, the blood and sweat made it seem a lot nastier than it was. The swelling went down without much of a fuss so he could fully open his eye, only to see blurry water, but all that was left was simple clean up.

That was until she froze and the water stilled at his question. Narrowing her eyes to give him a look somewhere between suspicion, curiosity, and apprehension, Korra lifted her chin slightly.

"If you mean am I going to heal you back up tomorrow, that all depends on if I'm in the sector. Fighters would pay good money for a healer. You're just lucky I'm doing it for free." It wasn't a lie exactly and sounded good enough in her head.

"So that's what you were doin' out here tonight. Healin' people." If that's true, he'd be more than a little disappointed.

But he's not so sure he'd even believe that. Not after the talk they just had. She's not the kind of girl who'd be happy just sitting back playing nurse while everyone else had all the fun.

So he just crosses his arms and waits stubbornly for what he only hopes is the truth.

There was a reason she was set on healing his head last, so that he would hopefully just give up on thinking about it too hard; but that didn't go as well as Korra was hoping.

Wordlessly, she sent the water that had his sweat and blood to the sink with a wave of her hand without taking her eyes off him. That look he had was one she'd seen before, the one Korra got when she was caught. So she crossed her arms as well and winced slightly from doing it too quickly.

"No." Her lower lip stiffened, protruding as she pointed at him. "You don't tell anyone and I don't Leo." They both wanted to keep what they were doing a secret, because they both knew about the concern that would come. Along with the scolding and offering of help or alternatives.

"Deal?" The jig was up, all she could do now was hold out a bargain over the one thing they both needed.

"Deal," he says, a mischievous grin sweeping across his face. "But you owe me a rematch."

Go ahead. Just tell him he's right.

Edited 2014-03-22 06:38 (UTC)

"All right, fine." She grumbled it, but the deal was set.

"And wipe that look off your face before you go."

Holy crud he is right! No one can measure his level of smugness right now. No one.

Carefully, he pulls himself to his feet, giving her an innocent expression that hardly seems to belong on his face. "What look?"

Then the smugness is back tenfold. He might've lost the fight, but he won this round. All that's left is to gloat in the victory.

"C'mon, I know you're not stayin' here," he says, nodding his head toward the door. "Do what you gotta do and let's blow this popsicle stand."

They're both sore and exhausted, and this is a rough part of Keeliai. So consider this his own peace offering. They'll walk home together, at least until it's time to part ways, and they can watch each other's backs while they're at it.

There's no telling how many enemies they've made out here, waiting like vultures to get their hits in while they're weak. It's one major downside to mopping up creeps in the fight ring. You tend to make a few unsavory friends while you're at it.

That unassuming look got a weathered, audible straight from her nose, and Korra unfolded her arms to put a hand on her hip. "Yeah, give me a second."

She went over and got on her haunches to lift up the floor trap. There was there mask with goggles sitting atop her folded uniform. After she got the string of juulan coins from it, Korra stood up and sucked in a breath between her teeth at the sharp pain from her side.

"Let's go. The fights will be over soon and I don't want to deal with the mess that's going to come out of there." It's an offering she's willing to take so she can get home and finish getting herself back in shape.

And crash. None of her fights went that far and she was feeling the after effects of it.

The one corner of the Fire Sector that's actually rundown and old, used by some of the gangs, is of course the only place to find the one of the fighting rings. And the abandoned shed's not too far from it. "I didn't bring Naga, so we're going to have to walk back to the Metal Sector." It never even occurred to her that Raphael had no idea about her polar bear dog.

Beat.

"And the Water Sector."

He bobs his head once in agreement, but otherwise says nothing. Still, there's an obvious change in his demeanor compared to the weeks before. Even when they were living with each other, Raphael had done everything to keep Korra at a distance. Never saying more than two words, never making eye contact. And half the time, when she'd enter a room, he'd get up and move to another one just to get away. Until tonight, he'd been nothing but the grouchy, moodier version of a brick wall.

The fight changed all that.

Before then, Raphael did have a grudging respect for Korra, but he always had a hard time with new people. Maybe shy wasn't the word for it, but he does everything possible to keep people at arm's length until he's ready to accept them into his inner circle.

Tonight, it's like a switch flipped inside him. He even holds the door for her as they file out, smiling that crooked smile of his as he talks.

"Gee," he jokes teasingly, "I usually take the bus."

Welcome to his inner circle, Korra. There's no getting rid of him now.

Edited 2014-03-28 01:26 (UTC)

I try to understand you girl

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