( what? no. stop that. mako immediately swings his gaze around to study. something else, some crumbling architectural marvel, where the only marvel at all is that this place is still intact enough that they can occupy it without it crumbling around their ears. a firebender always knows heat, and he can feel the crawl of it on his skin. he doesn't think he's properly blushed in years.
he's in the locker rooms with the other guys all the time. if he can handle it when beifong walks in like she owns the place and everyone jumps to attention regardless of the status of clothing or towels, he can put up with one airbender — a criminal stripping down in his vicinity.
but. he does spare a sideways glance for those scars.
mako's been roughed up plenty. his left arm up to the elbow is a fractured lichtenberg pattern, loudly proclaiming the pathways of least resistance that lightning took beneath his skin as it cooked the meat of him from the inside out. and he has a few others, knife-wounds, places where bolin winged him with sharp little discs of rocks during their training. mostly, what he's gotten in the last few years korra's healed or he's ignored.
dick's body is a graveyard of remembered hurts. a few burns that draw the eye, and make him clench his hands involuntarily. but the vast majority aren't bending injuries at all. and they're sure as hell things an airbender should have been able to avoid, cuts and stab-marks, stuttering suggestions of a blade along the parapets of his ribs. it tells a story, but mako doesn't have the cipher yet. the characters aren't in a language he knows how to read. but he knows suffering when he sees it, and years of pain, and everything else inherent in the map of all this misery. and it's not like they're all fresh, either. dick's his age, roughly, and these date back at least ten years. maybe more.
the reaction that caused him to blush suddenly feels very childish, and completely out of place. mako closes his eyes briefly, pulling himself back to center. )
Even if I were crooked, there wouldn't be much you could do about it. You still can't know for sure.
( beifong runs a tight ship, and most of the officers under her are afraid of her — with good reason. but mako knows there are... things that fall through the cracks. they don't live in a perfect world, and a cop's wages sure aren't as flush as a criminal's. he has his suspicions about a few of his brothers and sisters in arms because he knows how it goes. you take a bribe once, and that's it. the triads own you. and then they remind you again, and again, and again, and if you ever try to pull back from it, they threaten not just you, but your family. everyone you love. and you capitulate, or you die. mako had to walk a tightrope just to stay more-or-less on decent terms with the triple threats even after he became a cop, because he knows that they'd never go after him. it'd be straight to bolin, or asami. they wouldn't touch korra, they know all too well how easily she'd win that fight. but the others... even talented fighters can be overwhelmed by sheer numbers. it's something mako lives in constant fear of. it's. one of the reasons he hasn't gone as hard after them as he could. maybe as he should have. )
no subject
he's in the locker rooms with the other guys all the time. if he can handle it when beifong walks in like she owns the place and everyone jumps to attention regardless of the status of clothing or towels, he can put up with one airbender — a criminal stripping down in his vicinity.
but. he does spare a sideways glance for those scars.
mako's been roughed up plenty. his left arm up to the elbow is a fractured lichtenberg pattern, loudly proclaiming the pathways of least resistance that lightning took beneath his skin as it cooked the meat of him from the inside out. and he has a few others, knife-wounds, places where bolin winged him with sharp little discs of rocks during their training. mostly, what he's gotten in the last few years korra's healed or he's ignored.
dick's body is a graveyard of remembered hurts. a few burns that draw the eye, and make him clench his hands involuntarily. but the vast majority aren't bending injuries at all. and they're sure as hell things an airbender should have been able to avoid, cuts and stab-marks, stuttering suggestions of a blade along the parapets of his ribs. it tells a story, but mako doesn't have the cipher yet. the characters aren't in a language he knows how to read. but he knows suffering when he sees it, and years of pain, and everything else inherent in the map of all this misery. and it's not like they're all fresh, either. dick's his age, roughly, and these date back at least ten years. maybe more.
the reaction that caused him to blush suddenly feels very childish, and completely out of place. mako closes his eyes briefly, pulling himself back to center. )
Even if I were crooked, there wouldn't be much you could do about it. You still can't know for sure.
( beifong runs a tight ship, and most of the officers under her are afraid of her — with good reason. but mako knows there are... things that fall through the cracks. they don't live in a perfect world, and a cop's wages sure aren't as flush as a criminal's. he has his suspicions about a few of his brothers and sisters in arms because he knows how it goes. you take a bribe once, and that's it. the triads own you. and then they remind you again, and again, and again, and if you ever try to pull back from it, they threaten not just you, but your family. everyone you love. and you capitulate, or you die. mako had to walk a tightrope just to stay more-or-less on decent terms with the triple threats even after he became a cop, because he knows that they'd never go after him. it'd be straight to bolin, or asami. they wouldn't touch korra, they know all too well how easily she'd win that fight. but the others... even talented fighters can be overwhelmed by sheer numbers. it's something mako lives in constant fear of. it's. one of the reasons he hasn't gone as hard after them as he could. maybe as he should have. )