Patience was not a virtue Hangetsu was blessed with growing up. This was of particular frustration to his teachers, his grandmother and his earth bending sifu, especially. He was in the throws of puberty when his sifu tried to teach him the benefits of nuetral jing so the perverted old hermit put it the best way he knew how.
Imagine a beautiful woman slowly undressing.
It was perhaps the most interesting and uncomfortable guided meditation he'd ever been through. Images of an undressing Lin Beifong filled his young mind and gradually, slowed down. It took months but eventually Hangetsu's raging, hormonal positive jing decreased and settled down to nuetral. Eventually his adolescent fantasy consisted of Lin Beifong letting down her hair.
As as result of this unorthodox path to nuetral jing watching a woman let her hair down held significance to the earthbender, only the subject of the fantasy changed.

When Ren mentioned a massage Hangetsu sprung into action.
As far as insignificant acts imbued with eroticism went, Hangetsu felt he had nothing. He undressed but didn't feel sexy. He felt like someone being careful with the pieces of a new suit and spools of cables he armed himself with as he hung them up, hardly the actions of the hero of a romance novel by the likes of Omoi Tenoh. Hangetsu didn't feel up to the standard of the pulp fare his sister wrote. More importantly, he felt accepted standing there unimpressive in his boxer shorts.

A desk job at the police station consisting of lots of sitting was countered by sparring with his sister and occasional work as a detective's leg man but Hangetsu was by no means perpetuating the stereotype of a lean and muscular policeman found in fiction. He vowed that in time he'd have the kind of body that would set at least one woman's heart aflutter.

Bruises and scratches from his sparring littered his torso even more than his face. It was the price he paid for improving his hand-to-hand combat as well as going up against a woman who knew her way around a three-sectional-staff.
After he lowered himself onto the bed face down next to Ren Hangetsu remembered his manners.
"Yes, please."

As always a small metal spool of thin garrote wire remained strapped to his right forearm. Even in such an intimate and relaxed situation Hangetsu did not feel comfortable being unarmed, not since his abduction.

When Hangetsu felt Ren's hair against his bare back and her kiss on his shoulder there were shudders at feeling something that good.
"You know, maybe we can do this more frequently."
Hangetsu's body jerked slightly when Ren's hand brushed one of the bruises on his back
At the time he could only grunt something he hoped sounded affirmative. He felt like a snail sloth on it's laziest day. The day of bruises and stress had been completely forgotten.

"I love you,"
Some believed that before there was life there was a word spoken which created everything. The three words Ren had spoken seemed far more powerful.
He wondered who Ren loved. The damaged and neurotic Hangetsu or the Hangetsu who seemed to have control over his emotions. Whichever Hangetsu it was, he mused, he was the luckiest bastard on the planet.
"I love you too, Ren."

The nude earth bender disappeared underneath the sheet until he arrived at Ren's feet. In between kissing his way up to feet and stroking her legs with his hands Hangetsu spoke. It wasn't until he was about at Ren's thighs that he realized how muffled his voice must have sounded. He poked his head up and crawled up to where his head rested on Ren's stomach.
"I forgot to ask earlier but would you teach me some simple airbending forms? Please?" He wasn't sure if he was asking at the worst possible time or at a time when he would get an automatic "yes". In order to push things more Ren's answer more towards a "yes" he punctuated several more pleas with kisses up her torso.

ooc; i think this is a good time to fade to black. :]

---

Ren laughed huskily, giving Hangetsu's head a playful nudge. "Oh, I see," she said, putting on a fake-angry face. "You're just after airbending secrets! Well, mister, you've got another thing coming to you." She sat up in the bed, motioning for Hangetsu to lie back down. "I don't know about airbending forms," she murmured as she kissed him, her eyes sparkling, "but I can teach you some other forms. You can thank some novelists for these."



The darkness work Ren from a sound sleep with a start. She sat up, drawing the blankets around her, looking around the room wildly for a clock. There wasn't one.

"Hangetsu!" she whispered, her voice a hiss. She shook him awake. "Do you have a watch?" she asked, her panicked eyes visible by the sliver of moonlight coming in through the window.

Not that she needed a watch. It was very, very clearly after nightfall. But how much after? Pulling the duvet around her body, Ren got out of bed and went to the window, flinging open the shutters and peering out, her long hair falling over her shoulder. The tower clock was visible from many parts of Republic City, and this hotel was no exception.

Nine forty-five.

Running her fingers through her hair in frustration, Ren walked back over to the bed and sat down. The moonlight from the window shone off her pale skin, illuminating the curve of her back as she leaned forward, her hand rubbing her forehead.

"I... It's late. It's late! How did we fall asleep for so long?" Even through her agitation, though, she couldn't help but smile. She had been worn out from their ... activities, and considering Hangetsu slept as well, so was he.

She took her glasses off the bedside table, sliding them up the bridge of her nose. "I ... I think it's too late for the ferry to go across," she said, trying to keep her voice calm. "Do... do you mind if I stay with you, f-for the night...?"

"I don't know about airbending forms, but I can teach you some other forms. You can thank some novelists for these."
"Omoi Tenoh...you're my hero."



Hangetsu was in a daze when Ren asked to stay the night. He dreamed about sliding down a glacier on the back of a walrus while the cold wind sliced through his face and then limbs. He spent the rest of the trip down the glacier as a blood-spewing torso without a face. For a moment he was grateful Ren had woken him...but only a moment.
"Stay? The night? Here?"

The nightmare-addled brain of Hangetsu Tsukishima finally processed the question.
"What? No, no, no, no. I-I'll get you back to the island. There has to be a passing airship or a lemur or something I can get a cable around."
He scrambled naked and clumsily towards his spool of cable in the closet next to his suit and stopped.
Dream logic still clouded his mind. Once it cleared and hitching a ride on a passing lemur no longer seemed logical he saw that he would have to risk Ren seeing him at his most vulnerable. He told her of his night terrors but not about what happens when the dream recedes and reality intrudes.

Hangetsu sighed and sat back down on the bed resting his head in his hands. "Okay...but will you leave before I wake up? I'm...I'm not a morning person and I don't want you to see me like that."

"But if my staying over inconveniences you, then that is okay! I'll — I can stay the night here, or maybe find some kind soul on the docks willing to take me back to the Air Temple."
Hagetsu nervously scratched at the cuts on his face while looking off into the horizon for a moment.
"Every morning...I.." The man clad in boxer shorts and spools of cable sighed in a way that belied the image of what seemed a confidant man armed to the teeth.
"It's just a struggle. Waking up, leaving the room, facing the world. These days my victories are getting dressed and leaving my apartment. I can't just wake up and live my life like I used to." He looked up at Ren and immediately looked somewhere else. The badly painted image of Avatar Roku fighting a dragon looked like a good place.
"I have to gather the courage for an hour in order to do the most mundane things. Everything's dangerous. What's keeping me from being collateral damage again next time spiritually imbued monsters decide to fight?"

Hangetsu shook his head and sighed with disgust before finding his rectangular glasses and strapping them behind his ears. He was determined not to cry in front of Ren. He felt pathetic enough. I already hit the bottom depth of manliness. Crying probably won't make a difference, he thought.

"I was taken out of my home and then they took...they took me. I was my bending and they took it." The macho part of the brain of the man with the quivering voice shouted "shut up" over and over.
What meant to be a short explanation became more like a confession that he was weak. Something that happened half a year ago still affected him. That certainly wasn't manly.

He hated how emotionally vulnerable some bad dreams and night terrors made him. Even more than that he hated how along with his bending, confidence and his sense of safety Amon also took away the simple joy of Hangetsu sleeping next to Ren.

He stood and the sudden pressure on the carpet made the stale cigarette stench more apparent.
"Please spend the night with me." He took Ren's hand and kissed it as he knelt. It seemed like something Ren would like. "That masked bastard took so much but I'll be damned if he takes away waking up in your arms."

"I normally need about an hour to gather the courage to get out and face the world but I think I can do that if I wake up next to you, Ren."

ooc; sorry about the godmoding, but i didn't think you'd want them to stay in the inn all night.

---

Wordlessly, Ren scooted closer to Hangetsu and pulled him into a cradling embrace, tucking his head underneath her chin and running her fingers through his hair. He was more than frazzled, and Ren felt a tightness in her chest seeing him in such distress. She kissed the top of his head gently, remembering how she felt hearing about the kidnappings... and how her world seemed to crumble at her feet when she found out Hangetsu was among them. The newspaper had done its best to avoid naming the victims, but somehow the names had gotten out anyway.

Lost in her thoughts, the tall woman started when Hangetsu stood from the bed.

"Please spend the night with me." He took Ren's hand and kissed it as he knelt. "That masked bastard took so much but I'll be damned if he takes away waking up in your arms. I normally need about an hour to gather the courage to get out and face the world but I think I can do that if I wake up next to you, Ren."

Her face coloured as Hangetsu's lips brushed against her skin; she smiled shyly, pleased. "If you're sure," she murmured. "Come on, why don't I make you dinner or something before we go to bed again? — I mean! I-I-I-I mean, sleep. Not the other thing. Though," a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. "I don't think I'd mind the other thing again either."

~*~*~

They arrived at Hangetsu's little apartment over Lemurland after a small detour to an all-night corner shop. Ren had picked up some fairly cheap, thick, dried egg noodles in a package, along with small bag of green onions, a single knob of ginger root, bonito flakes, sesame oil, some tofu, and a small (overpriced) package of raw cowpig meat.

She gave Hangetsu a kiss as they stepped inside. "Why don't you relax, sweetheart. I'll take care of the food. Maybe you can pick out a book for reading after dinner."

In just a little under twenty minutes, two piping hot noodle bowls were ready to eat. "I got you some sliced meat," Ren said with a smile as she handed Hangetsu his bowl, chopsticks laid neatly across the top of the bowl. Her own bowl had tofu instead, but both bowls had the panko and green onions chopped into bits and sprinkled on top.

Curling up on the couch, Ren chewed her noodle in silence for a few moments. Hesitantly, she looked up at Hangetsu, unsure of how to approach the subject.

"Um... did — did you ever want, I mean, would you like to — I mean, you don't have to or anything if you don't want to — but maybe talking more about what happened would help you process it."

Words couldn't break through the obstructive humiliation Hangetsu suffered. Every time he woke up he felt vulnerable but that was the first time it affected his time with Ren. Worse yet she caught a glimpse of him at one of the low points of his day, just after waking.
He was far more nervous about Ren seeing him in such a state than he ever was concerned about anything else that might happen in his bedroom with Ren.

The brown bag Hangetsu had carried with him containing books and a change of clothes dropped from his hands to the wood floors of his apartment.
The short walk from the entrance of his apartment to his bedroom was too difficult to traverse so Hangetsu took off his boots, socks, shirt and coat and left them to hang on the coat rack by his door.
His couch, though...he could make it there. It took a moment to register that Ren had been talking to him and even kissed him. He merely nodded and retrieved the book from his bag he had intended to read in lieu of a more physical activity, Principles of Bloodstain Pattern Analysis.
"This was just a book I picked at random from Han's bookshelf. I was too young to know what it meant. I just wanted my grandmother to read to me," Even to his own ears he sounded exhausted and rambling and unsure if he would ever arrive to a point.
Then the point hit him sharply enough to draw blood.
"I was taught to track a single blood droplet to it's area of origin but I couldn't detect a group of Equalists outside my door. I thought I was so smart and capable..."

His voice trailed off until Ren presented him with a bowl of noodles. She even bought him meat even though she was trying hard to stick to the Air Acolytes' strict vegetarian guidelines. The food, not mentioning the fact that she had wasted money on a room that night they weren't using further cemented just how incredibly lucky Hangetsu felt to be dating Ren.

Hangetsu almost felt like a child having someone prepare a meal and offer to read to him. The past six months had been littered with moments like those and not once had Ren's support wavered. It made a perverse sense to doubt his ability and even the value of his existence since the attack but sheer depth of stupidity it took to doubt Ren would be there for him gave Hangetsu pause.

"Um... did — did you ever want, I mean, would you like to — I mean, you don't have to or anything if you don't want to — but maybe talking more about what happened would help you process it."
Hangetsu remained looking down into his noodles for a few moments considering looking up at Ren. "They're forcing me to talk to a counselor at work before I go back to full duty. I can't say anything so I just stare at him until my time is up or read a book. I don't want someone to talk to, I want someone to understand. I'm not explaining it well. It's...I don't want people to feel bad for me or tell me to get over it or pretend like they know what I'm going through."

The drowsy bender leaned over and set his bowl by a stack of books on the coffee table that also inhabited the area between the two large bookshelves that made up the bulk of his living room.
It was difficult to put the torrent of feelings he had into something as clumsy as words but he tried as he laid his head on Ren's arm.
"The scariest part about the whole thing is that a large part of me was taken and restored so easily. I had no power. I didn't even have the opportunity to cope before I got my bending back. It not only taught me that I was insignificant but that I'm also horribly shallow. It turned out that without my bending there wasn't a whole lot to me."

He reached over and stroked Ren's cheek.
"I think I've done enough processing for one night. I owe you something big after tonight." For the first time since waking earlier that evening Hangetsu felt like smiling which he did while standing and gently taking Ren's hand.
"I'll show you something cheerful. Close your eyes."

It was a short trip due to the limited space of Hangetsu's apartment. There was a living room, a kitchen, a bathroom and a bedroom and it was obvious which room he wished to display yet he still wanted it to be a surprise.

"You can open them now."
Previously Hangetsu's bedroom had consisted of a small bed, a shrine and a rolling rack of clothes. The small room now looked to be engulfed by a bed, one that could easily and comfortably accommodate two people.
"See? Sometimes I'm an optimist."

"A new bed! Oh my goodness, you got a bigger bed!"Is — is it for... for us?"
"Yes," Hangetsu said with a tired smile. He decided not mention the larger frame was also if he experienced a night terror he didn't roll onto the floor and the metal frame was to grip onto to remind himself that his metal bending was still a part of him.

"Oh, this is so nice."
Seeing Ren on his new bed, which his sister had bought him made Hangetsu feel even more grateful for the women in his life as well as little guilty for not giving much back. He stripped off his shirt and crawled underneath the covers.
"Feels...right...doesn't it?"

He was incredibly tempted to do things that would probably void the warranty on his mattress with Ren-tempted but tired. Very tired. It had been an odd day. He had a major victory in finding a weapon his father had stolen and pawned years ago, something which meant a great deal to his sister Izumi. He was then lovingly beaten up by the same sister. He got to see Ren...then again in another sense. He exposed his vulnerability to her and much to his surprise there was no rejection.

Such a full day needed a proper cap. A bedtime story.
"Hey, Ren," he said half in a daze as he placed his glasses on top of the decorative box on his nightstand next to his alam clock. "Tell me a story. One about my faaaaavorite acolyte."

He doubted any words would make it through the fog creeping through his sleepy mind, but Hangetsu wanted to fall asleep to the sound of Ren's voice.

ooc; if you want to move it forward to hangetsu's wake up, be my guest!

---

"A story... about me?" Ren removed her outer garments and situated her self under the covers of the new bed, patting the pillow next to her for Hangetsu to lie on. She ran her fingers through his hair, pondering exactly what kind of tale she'd tell.

Soon, her wood-smoke voice began:

"The village I grew up in was usually really boring. It wasn't big enough to be a town, so everyone knew everyone else; it wasn't a small village either, so individual events often got lost in the shuffle of everyday life.

When I was about eight years old, a stranger came to town. It wasn't uncommon for travellers to pass through or stay for a night during a journey to elsewhere, but this stranger was different. I don't remember him too well, other than he wore a hat that shaded his eyes and was very, very tall. Well, tall at the time! (Laugh) I think I might be taller now.

All the neighbourhood kids thought he was weird. He arrived with little more than what could be carried on an ostrich horse, and his fingers were stained black. He would spend every day in the middle of the village square, looking around at the goings-on, and then bending over and scribbling in a little book.

I was fascinated. The other kids didn't much play with me, so I took to following the man and sort of hiding behind the nearest available object to watch him work. I think he must've seen me, but he didn't say anything; every day, I got bolder and bolder and came closer and closer, til I worked up the nerve to sit next to him and peer over his arm.

I think that notebook was one of the most amazing things I'd ever seen. There were detailed drawings of the things in our village, scribbles in the margins about how things worked, scribbles down the main page about our customs. I'd never seen anyone write about something like that before.

The stranger stayed for two weeks before suddenly disappearing one day. The innkeeper said he left after dinner one night."

A small nostalgic smile spread across Ren's face. "He left behind a little notebook for me. I have it with my things at the Temple. On the inside cover he wrote, to the little one who watched. write down what you see."

The grey-haired woman paused and looked at the already-sleeping Hangetsu. With a grin, she kissed his forehead gently before undoing her braid and going to sleep herself.

Hangetsu drifted to sleep thinking about a gray-haired boy wearing large glasses made for an adult. He couldn't help but wonder how child Hangestu and child Ren would get along if they had grown up in the same town. The idea of the two of them being friends was comforting but Hangetsu knew that it was a myth that misfits got along with other misfits.
Before his Lin Beifong crush materialized Hangetsu considered himself, for the most part, a normal child. He liked kuai ball, candy and picking on kids who were different. Upon falling asleep it disturbed him to think that he might of, at one time, been one of those kids who picked on and marginalized the most important person in his life.
Compared to remembering that he wasn't as good a kid as he once thought a nightmare about being stuck in a void cutting off all of his senses was almost pleasant.

When the metalbender awoke there were indentations in the metal frame of his bed. It seemed like a bad omen for the rest of his day until he turned and saw Ren lying next to him. Upon further investigation Hangetsu saw something on Ren's bare shoulder that he suspected was drool. Writers never mentioned the possibility on drooling on someone while sleeping in the same bed after love scenes. Gently and with the same amount of care he would take bending a metal basket full of kittens out of a tree Hangetsu wiped some of the drool off of his love's arm.

The internal clock of Hangetsu Tsukishima was set for sunrise and no amount of sleep medication could make him sleep too late. Growing up he took turns with his sister waking early to make breakfast and later help their grandfather shave once his hands grew to shake too much. It was his first taste of being useful and since then Hangetsu had been a morning person.

The leftover's from Ren's graciously bought groceries were chopped and eggs were beaten. Omelets stuffed with leftover food she had bought hardly seemed like a breakfast worthy of Ren which made Hangetsu wonder if he was charmingly frugal or a cheapskate.
It felt good to make breakfast for someone else again. The idea that it had taken over six months of dating to actually spend a morning together filled the omelet-making officer of the law a little ashamed.

After he finished making breakfast Hangetsu discovered that there was another important thing left out of popular fiction regarding the morning after: How was he supposed to wake Ren up? Would the smell do it? Should he make noise? Wait for his alarm clock to go off? He opted for silently creeping into his bedroom and shaking Ren's shoulder gently...the one he had drooled on.
"Breakfast?"

Despite the fact that all they did was sleep, seeing Ren waking up in his bed felt like an entirely new level of intimacy to Hangetsu. He had some trouble answering Ren until she proclaimed her love for omurice.
"Thank you. My dad and grandfather insisted that it was their cooking that was the key to their success with women. Then again I think they said that about things so I wouldn't complain about chores.

"I slept surprisingly well last night! You picked a lovely mattress. I don't usually sleep the night well in a new bed at first! In fact, I actually slept so soundly I don't think I dreamt! Just closed my eyes then suddenly, poof, you're waking me up or breakfast."
A sound night's sleep was nothing short of miraculous to the night-terror prone man. He knew not to take sleep for granted."That's great!"
"I... I hate to bring this up, but... do you know the morning ferry schedule?"
Unknown to Hangetsu himself but when trying to remember something not readily available in his mind he tended to roll his eyes to their top left corners while emitting a steady hum. After doing so he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with the heel of his palm.
"We should have about an hour in a half until it leaves." Knowing the ferry schedule and the best route to get there was essential when dating someone who lived on Air Temple Island.

"You know...if this happens again it might be a good idea to leave some things over here. Clothes and such. Book space. You can use some more book space, right?"
Hangetsu sighed into his omurice and looked up at Ren with a slightly embarrassed smile.
"I just think the place could use a touch of Ren, that's all."

Keeping personal effects at another person's place was a large step in Hangetsu's mind and wondered just how Ren would take such a bold suggestion. It was tantamount to kind of sort of being engaged to one day live together, after all. A few books and a toothbrush were a small commitment but a commitment nonetheless.