like bluebells in the late december

[outfoxy]

I have an idea.

It had started with that, the last time Naruto and Korra had gone out to the old pumpkin patch to practice. Naruto was getting pretty good at the air scooter. And pretty tired of constant chapped lips and leaking noses.

So he'd said, no, look, seriously, it's a good idea. They go to the local public gym, the one with the biggest pool that's open after hours, and they make sure the place is damn near empty. It's hot and humid in the natatorium, conditions Naruto is far more accustomed to, and it lets him peel himself out of the layers he wears constantly against Darrow's winter air.

They'll practice there. Korra can use her waterbending. Naruto can avoid her attacks. There's no better way, he thinks, to learn one another's reaction style in a fight. It's his goal, after all. He doesn't just like Korra as a friend. She's the closest thing he's got to a comrade, in the sense he best understands, in Darrow.

Although right now, he's feeling a little awkward as he sets his short stack of folded beach towels down on the bench by the pool and moves to stand at the water's edge. There's only one other person in the space other than the lifeguard, so the water is lapping only very gently. He can practically see his own reflection in it.

He hopes his slight butterflies aren't as noticeable to Korra as they are to him. He scrubs at the dark whisker marks on his cheek before turning to stare at the exit for the women's dressing room.

Comments

[outfoxy]

He has no doubt that he can catch her -- though he's so surprised and delighted by her display that he's silent for a long moment, even as he finally moves to pull himself, dripping and shivering, onto the floating layer of ice.

"Aw, shit," he says. The powdery snow is just as bad as the water was, making his ability to use his chakra to stick to any surface pretty much moot. He'll just have to get his muscles themselves accustomed to handling his body on the ice.

The air above is densely foggy from the evaporate now, and still dotted with snow. Not penetrable for Naruto's senses normally, but he knows how he can even the scales a little. He pulls chakra not from himself, but from Kurama; not enough to cloak him entirely, but enough to turn his irises the rosy pink of their combined eyes, pupils thin slits. He doesn't need the extra chakra pool to draw from, but he does need the benefit of Kurama's superior senses.

In a few breaths, the thin, whispery cracks of the ice over the water are clear, her breathing and heartbeat there for him to stalk with his ears.

He still struggles to move after her without slipping, and after ending up on his ass for his protracted third time, Kurama finally speaks up again to his advantage. Claws, he counsels, and it takes a minute for Naruto to get the hang of actually putting that into play, but once he does, on four legs is the way to go, the ice simpler to navigate with sharp grips and a low center of gravity.

"You are so screwed," Naruto announces, followed by an ill-advised bark of obnoxious laughter.

[unrestraint]

Unaware of the full extent of the changes Naruto's enforced on himself, and with her vision just as obscured as Naruto's, Korra relies on the sound of his feet — is it his feet? — on the ground to keep track of his movement. Skating easily across the ice, even through the snow, Korra waits until he's significantly far from the hole she'd left in the ice when forming it, quickly waterbending a bubble around her head before diving down underneath the full layer of ice.

Kicking strongly, Korra waits until she's at the far end of the pool before turning to stare in his direction, briefly bending the bubble to the side in order to better see through all the water.

Your move, she thinks, and wonders when she started to enjoy playing defense so much.

[outfoxy]

Naruto hears her disappear beneath the water, can even track her by sounds for some time after, long enough to know she's somewhere below. Quickly dusting away the snow and shining the ice below him to clarity, he crouches low over it, staring through his window at Korra in the water. They're facing each other, but Naruto doesn't make a move yet, simply staring down at her, out of his reach, like a fox after a field mouse down a deep hole.

He can think of only one thing to do to get at her down there, at least, one thing that will let him do it without entering the water. The water is her territory. Up here, in the open air, it's his. It would be as foolish as going after Gaara on a beach, or Yamato-sensei in a forest.

He could reach out with a shroud of chakra and snatch her. But he's worried. It's the first time he's worried, actually. That he might do something that will honestly disturb Korra. If she freaks, he finally decides, she'll either get over it or she won't.

Without further hesitation, he pulls one arm back, pounding it forward until it breaks through the thick ice and into the crisp water below. Immediately, the arm keeps reaching out, his reach extended by the dull red glow of a limb made entirely out of Kurama's chakra.

It grasps the small of Korra's waist, intent to reel her in as Naruto's free hand works to tear away chunks of surrounding ice to widen the hole.

"Sorry," he mouths, honestly a little apologetic.

[unrestraint]

She's not expecting it. Not expecting for an arm of fully bright red color to suddenly reach underneath the water and close around her waist. Not expecting it to start pulling her away, strongly enough that she loses control of her air bubble, which releases and rises only to break into a million smaller bubbles that froth underneath the ice. Korra does her best to try and swim away, but without enough air in her lungs and a mouthful of water later, she loses her momentum and ends up getting dragged to the surface.

Coughing as soon as her head's above water, Korra slumps over onto the ice, spitting up chlorinated water and trying to subdue the burning sensation in her nose, shoulders shaking for a few seconds. As soon as she's caught her breath, she turns her gaze onto Naruto, for the first time fearful. Of him.

[outfoxy]

"I'm sorry," he says again, emphatic as he moves closer, wanting to rub at her shaking shoulders. An unexpected mouthful of water like that is awful, and he really should have thought it all through more, but the fact is ... he wants to work with Korra. And that means he can't be afraid of holding something back that could be their boon in a fight, whether it's one of offense or defense.

He groans, holding his head in his hand for a second while trying to get a grip of himself. It's difficult between Korra's fearful expression and Kurama's grumbling disappointment.

He's sorry, but he's going to have to stick up for himself. Nobody else will.

"I should have told you I could do that," he says, firm. "I'm totally comfortable using Kurama's power like that. But I still should have told you before that things were like that between the two of us. Still, I don't want you to look at me," he finishes, raising his voice a little louder. The old woman is already scurrying for the women's dressing room, but the lifeguard holds his ground for whatever reason.

"With those kind of eyes, Korra!"

[unrestraint]

Breathing in shakily, Korra continues to stare at Naruto for a few seconds, glancing from his eyes to the more pronounced whiskers on his face, before finally gathering her courage around herself and sitting up fully, shoulders hunched in frustration. In a moment of panic, it's easy to feel like crying. She doesn't, though. Not yet.

"Why are you yelling at me?" She asks, voice raised and tone accusatory as she briefly grabs at her stomach, suppressing another cough. She can feel the water in her throat, and maybe she could bend it out of there, but not while she still has words to give him. "Yeah, you should have told me that you could do that! You should have warned me that you've got this big power that can yank people without your body moving at all. I know that we're training and trying to make each other better, but how much can I really learn from suddenly getting hit by something I didn't know existed in the first place?"

Taking another shuddering breath, Korra coughs again, but this time gets to her feet, cheeks red in embarrassment. It's not losing that she minds, but losing like this just makes her stomach twist.

[outfoxy]

"I wasn't thinking," he admits, still shaking from all of the ambient cold. He tucks his knees against his chest for a minute, before the ice starts crackling and snapping more and more often, and louder, making it obvious it won't hold much longer. Like Korra's good mood, it's crumbling.

Standing, he trails miserably after her, arms gripping at his shoulders to try to calm the shivers away. He's more acutely aware of the scrape of clawed feet against the surface of the ice now than before, when he'd just ... been being Naruto.

"Everyone in the village has known what I was capable of practically since I was born. Actually, it's a relief to them, to know I can use those powers at will now and not just when I lost it. All the people I've known have always known exactly what I was. I'm not great at forethought, so it never even occurred to me to ... sit you down and explain all this jinchuuriki stuff to you like we're in class or something. Korra, please. I didn't scare you on purpose or anything, I just got caught up in the game. I really like you. So I just ... want to know how to make up for screwing up like that to you."

[unrestraint]

Still forced to take slightly uneven breaths, Korra stares balefully at Naruto, watches as he draws closer even as the ice starts to rot and crack around them. Pulling her lower lip under her teeth, Korra tries to remove herself from the panic that she'd seen only a moment before, and tries to see things from Naruto's perspective. She's made the same mistake before, more or less, with people in Darrow. Used bending when they didn't have the slightest clue what it was or what to expect from it.

The only difference is that she's the one who was scared this time, and what a world of a difference that seems to make.

Punching the center of one palm with the knuckles of the other, Korra exhales, utilizing her firebending to melt the ice until both of them sink back down into the water, warmer now than it was when they first arrived. Warm enough to start and soothe aching muscles.

"I don't need you to make it up to me," Korra says, her shoulders square even as she bobs in the water. "I'm... not used to being surprised like that, that's all. I hate not knowing things, because every time there's something I don't know, I end up in trouble. Sometimes more than others." She wraps her arms tightly around herself, thinking of Amon, scarier than any other time while he was behind the mask.

"Just... warn me. When you think you're about to do something I might not have seen before. Show me before you, I don't know. Use it against me."

[outfoxy]

The water is comfortingly warm now, but Naruto still feels too tired to keep treading it, and kicks toward the edge of the pool to hook his elbows over the side and hold himself up and stationary as he laps against his chin and shoulders. He stares back at Korra, eyes clear blue once again. He sighs.

"That was actually," he explains, wincing slightly, "The smallest thing I could probably do with that chakra. Your world seems kind of similar to mine in a lot of ways so I guess I get ahead of myself. You really ... don't have anything like me where you come from, do you? You don't have any jinchuuriki. Maybe that's a good thing? I'm not smart enough to be able to tell. Those arms are made of Kurama's manifested form. I could turn myself fully into him if I wanted to. But something like that is only practical for certain kinds of things. It wouldn't fit inside this building."

He shakes his head. "That's why jinchuuriki were originally made. Because we're ... scary. Countries could use as as threats against one another. But I don't want to be that kind of a thing. Neither does Kurama. So I'd do anything to just ... make sure you could look at me and never feel that way again. Whatever I can do to make you confident in me."

[unrestraint]

Korra surveys Naruto for a few seconds, dipping underneath the water and letting herself get a little lost in the warmth. As much as she loves the South Pole and wouldn't trade it for the world, she appreciates the mix of fire and water most, how the warmth leaves her just a little lazy and drowsy. Comfortable, more than anything else. The pool glows slightly as she applies her healing powers, working the kinks out of her muscles and taking in a deep breath, then swimming closer to rest against the wall of the pool next to Naruto, leaning until the back of her head rests against the tile.

"We don't have anything like you where we're from, no. Actually, most spirits have been closed off from us, and live instead in the Spirit World. We don't try to have spirits and people combine or anything. I feel like... we don't understand spirits well enough for that to happen, and maybe the spirits wouldn't want that, anyway," Korra says, wrinkling her nose momentarily. Everything that she's saying is just a guess, really. "But I do know that I would never feel right about using spirits to make someone into a weapon. That's not right. Maybe it happens anyway without spirits, you know, people becoming soldiers because they don't feel like they have a choice. But that doesn't make it right."

She closes her eyes, letting her body float slightly in the water.

"It's not that I find you scary, Naruto. But, what you do, sometimes I don't know how to respond to it. I just... have to learn, I guess. About you."

[outfoxy]

He's pretty confident that Kurama is pleased to be with him, now. As pleased as he can be, anyway. After all, while Kurama is powerful on his own, it's Naruto's ability to cast jutsu and control that power with his physical body that makes Kurama's power itself more substantial. Kurama may give Naruto power, but Naruto know he gives something to Kurama as well. He gives Kurama substance and humanity.

Still, one of his hands still finds its way uncertainly to his belly, spreading over the dip of his navel.

"So ... we'll understand each other," he decides. "And until that happens, I'll try not to give you a heart attack. Alright?"

Smiling a little shyly, Naruto lifts his hand out of the water again, holding it dripping out to Korra, balled into a fist.

[unrestraint]

Glancing over at the sound of the splash, Korra gives Naruto's fist a small grin before lifting her own to press against his, knuckles to knuckles. "Alright," she agrees, gaze briefly skirting up to meet his before it drops, catching the movement of Naruto's hand over his tummy, the lines of his seal clear even through the rippling water.

Struck with a sudden whim, Korra darts forward with a quarter turn, hand breaking contact with Naruto's as she reaches fingers out to skate and dart over his abdomen, trying to encourage a laugh with the light scrape of rounded nails.

"Tell me, you aren't ticklish, are you?" she asks, grinning broadly and kicking at the water underneath her feet.

[outfoxy]

"I'm not ticklish," Naruto says, trying to hold as straight a face as possible, although the effect is more constipated and pinched than anything. And at any rate, his reactions prove him wrong, the skin of his stomach leaping away from her touch and his fingers curling where they hold him against the pool's edge safely.

"What would give you that impression? I'm a highly trained warrior. Wouldn't being ticklish be a hugely dumb weakness to have?"

[unrestraint]

"...you are," Korra gasps accusingly, laughing as she redoubles her efforts, watching Naruto's expression as his eyes suddenly squint and his cheeks deepen to a nice, deep red. Maybe he's trying to throw her off by holding his breath, but she can feel the way his body moves to avoid the brush of her fingers.

Personally, Korra thinks that he should just give in already.

"People have dumb weaknesses all of the time. That's what makes us human," she points out, wheedling as she brushes a hand up to tickle underneath his arm, snickering all the while.

[outfoxy]

"Oh my god, why would you do this to me?" he asks, his body jumping again as her nails and fingers brush over the sensitive skin on the underside of his arm, near where it joins his body. He curls both arms loosely against himself, trying not to give her any room to work with, and adds, a little overdramatically, "I'm gonna drown!"

[unrestraint]

Only when Naruto starts slipping down the side of the pool wall does Korra relent, giggling as she kicks up some water underneath him to keep Naruto's head well above the water. She finds that it's fun finding his silly little weaknesses, things that are okay to exploit when it's just the two of them.

Well. And a still confused lifeguard.

"You're not going to drown," Korra says with a snort, rolling her eyes for good measure. "You'll never drown, as long as I'm around."

[outfoxy]

Something about her matter of fact statement stalls Naruto entirely, still and staring, drifting closer to her face in the water a foot from his own. Face blossoming into a smile, he smooths his bangs out of his eyes, before giving her a look nothing short of quixotic. He's close enough now that he can see the water beading in her lashes and eyebrows. It's an image he thinks he doesn't want to give up any time soon.

"Really?" he asks, voice smaller, and rougher, to cross only the small distance between them. "I guess I need a little help keeping my head above water."

[unrestraint]

From the short amount of time that they've known each other, Korra's already learned that Naruto smiles easily. Doesn't hold back on expressing how he feels at all, really, be it positive or negative. But as he steps closer, Korra can't help but think that there's something slightly different about this smile, soft where Naruto's usually intolerably bright; warm like a muted fire instead of blazing like the sun. It's a stupid thought, one that she chastises as soon as it crosses her mind, the sort of thing that Ikki probably would have gone on at length about.

And really, she shouldn't be thinking in those terms at all, not when she's not sure that she should be drawn to anyone like this, and certainly not when it's easier to think of Naruto as just a friend. Their friendship is one that she dearly values the stability of with how much he reminds her of home.

"Yeah," she says distantly, without remembering what it is that they're talking about in the first place. Her cheeks redden quickly, and Korra can only focus on the pedaling of her feet as she wonders if he's always been this tall, or if it's just her bending that's pushing him up a little and highlighting the difference in their height. "I guess so."

[outfoxy]

In an hour, he's bound to curse himself for an idiot, but all he wants to do now is finish closing the distance with an impatience of nearly half a decade behind it. Why Korra, and why now, he doesn't have the words to fully describe, but he knows he's doing it because it's her, not just to be doing it. He can remember feeling this way about one other person, and that person still loved a man that wasn't Naruto.

It's boyish and mortal urgency that presses his lips against Korra's. They're wet, and soft, and it's even more than he expected. He pulls away only to take a shaky breath, not willing to move even more than an inch away.

He presses their mouths together again, wincing his eyes slightly as his sense catches up to his instinct. He expects retribution for taking this graceless liberty with her. A telling off, an I'm not speaking to you for a week, maybe even a slap across the face. If it makes him able to accept that she just doesn't want any of it like that, if it lets him forget about it and really move on, maybe it's worth it and he can't regret it.

Her mouth tastes a little like the chlorine of the pool, and mostly like sweet water.

[unrestraint]

Her arm gets trapped between them the first time, a small subconscious barrier raised to reflect the fact that this isn't completely a surprise. The expression on his face, the softness of his gaze, disturbed but not shattered by the impatience behind his movement and the clumsy press of his lips to hers. It's not the press of his mouth that she takes most note of the first time, but instead the fluttering in her stomach, nerves drawn tight as she breathes faintly against the kiss and presses back, less of a pointed action than the simple result of the rise and fall of the water around them, drifting her body closer to his.

His lips are softer than she expected, but warm, the shock leaving her breathless for a moment when he pulls back. Only just. Not even enough for her to meet his gaze.

Yet it's enough pause for her to be ready for him the second time. Korra's never been shy about kissing a boy, even if there had only been two in her life before him, before this overgrown kid with his stupidly matured smile and wide palms. She wraps a hand around the back of his neck, anchoring her as her pulse runs fast, and her teeth bite briefly down on the curve of his lower lip, boyish and full. The other hand traces clumsily over the whisker lines on his cheek, brushing in their same direction until fingertips meet with the line of his jaw.

Before he pulls away, Korra lets out a small hum, nervous and tightly wound, yet somehow content.

[outfoxy]

He feels his body arch toward hers when her teeth grab at his bottom lip, familiar heat pooling in his belly, rolling and wanting more, though he thinks he's satisfied with what he's been given. He doesn't like to think of it as a stolen kiss, especially because it's clear that Korra let him have it. She could have pushed him away. He'd have given no resistance and taken no insult.

He breathes when they pull away, wishing a little that he could have managed to be cooler about it. Maybe said something, or done anything but keep staring at her pretty face framed by dark hair with a stupid expression and the light fuzzy in his eyes. He wonders if he should admit he's never actually kissed a girl until now. That she's his very first and he likes it that way, kind of.

She might laugh about it. Then again, he thinks that's where she and Sakura might truly differ, the thing that made him kiss her instead.

Korra's never told him he had to try to be anyone but himself. With words or otherwise. And she isn't doing it now.

"I liked that," he tells her. "I'll remember it. You're good at it."

[unrestraint]

She half-expects for Naruto to mention something about their earlier conversations, about wanting to learn how to grow with someone and eventually come together to make a family. But he doesn't. Relief overcomes her in the first few seconds as she lets out a sigh, careful not to make it too fast, too hasty, lest Naruto think that she just decided to kiss him for the hell of it. Which she did, but... something about the way it went.

It's not that simple.

It quickly becomes clear in the next several seconds as a weight sinks in her stomach, barely there but noticeable. Something like disappointment, or the unease that comes from contained affection. She remembers it well from her early days in Republic City.

She keeps her lips tightly shut on the topic for now.

"Of course I am," she says with a mostly confident raise of her chin, crossing her arms over her chest. "As you get to know me, Naruto, you'll find that I never like settling for only being average. If I'm going to do something, I'll do it well."

[outfoxy]

"You're confident," Naruto murmurs, more of a criticism of himself than anything else, now that he's gone and acted without really thinking, and somehow it feels like he's lost some of the confidence he did have in it. But he still smiles, and gives a sheepish little laugh, before grabbing the side of the pool and hauling himself up to sit on the edge of it, legs still dangling into the warm water.

"I was worried they were totally gonna kick us out after that, but ... " he nods to the lifeguard, who's gone back to reading a magazine from his post in the high chair.

"So ... maybe we could do this again. I don't mean this exactly necessarily, just, you know, you and me, swimming. At the pool. Or whatever. I mean we could just chill out together, too, right? It doesn't have to be a whole thing, right?"

[unrestraint]

Swimming after Naruto to the edge of the pool, Korra reaches up and rests her elbows on Naruto's knees, smiling faintly up at him and pedaling her feet comfortably in the pool. Glancing over to the side, she catches the lifeguard giving a wink in her direction, arching a brow in challenge before turning her attention back on Naruto.

"I assumed we'd hang out again," Korra admits, pressing her lips tightly together. "I've only shown you waterbending and airbending. We still have two more elements to go."

After a pause, she adds in a quieter tone, "And if you want to grab lunch or dinner sometime, we can do that. Or watch a movie. I don't believe in all work and no play."

[outfoxy]

Thank god, Naruto thinks, relaxing immediately as Korra continues. When she'd brought up that she still had two types of bending to introduce him to, he'd started to worry; worry that he'd end up stuffing himself into another situation like with Sakura, where he clearly liked her more than she liked him.

She loved him, but it felt more like the way you'd love a brother, than what Naruto wanted out of things. And she didn't always like him much.

But Korra wants to do stuff. Just stuff, normal people stuff. Not that he's not normal, which he isn't, but whatever. It's just that, he's been focused so much on his work as a shinobi and the goals he's set for himself, he doesn't think he's ever just ... gone to see a show with someone. Anyone.

Pretty girl or otherwise.

"I've never been to a movie before," he admits, finally working up a smile with a little more wattage in it. "So you'd be my first again. Keep it up and we can call it a pattern."

[unrestraint]

The sight of Naruto's boyish grin makes Korra relax from inside, her chest no longer so unbearably tight as she swims back a little, then uses a jet of water to propel her up to the edge of the pool, splashing Naruto a little in the process.

As much as he comes off like a kid, there's a part of Korra undeniably drawn to that abandon, to a willingness to chase after one's goals without too much worry about the how.

"Come on," she says, waving for both of them to head towards the shower rooms. "Let's get out of here. After all of that bending, I'm starved."