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It isn't in Bolin's nature to fight Mako, not at first, so he goes with the motion and turns away as Mako all but forces him to.

But why? What's happened to Korra and Asami? They're friends, surely if they need help-

That's what makes him fight the protection. Makes him pry his face out from under his brother's sheltering wing. Even if it's only to get a glimpse as they pass around the bodies of their friends and see the-

Well. They aren't their friends anymore. They're just corpses. And they've been there for a while from the look of it. Swollen and ripe. One of Asami's eyes has been claimed by a hungry crow. And then, as they pass and the wind picks up just right, comes the smell.

"No-" Bolin chokes, protesting against Mako's hold as though that somehow has anything to do with it.

"No, no no!" The smell hits him right between the eyes and crawls under his skin before rolling right down to his belly and he heaves. He can't help it. He can't control it.

"I told you not to look," Mako says with the kind of desperation that comes from having failed to protect Bolin from something he shouldn't have had to see. Nothing good can come from him seeing this, even if Mako's own stomach is heaving, even if his mind is half-static, full of anger and horror at once. Shouldn't he be numb to this by now? Shouldn't seeing bodies plastered half-rotten to the wall of that awful sewer have changed his bar for what's horrible?

But this is Korra and Asami locked in some sick dead embrace, stuck there on a riverbank, and Mako has no way of knowing that they aren't actually dead.

Bolin is close to throwing up, though, and that needs to be Mako's priority right now. He tugs Bolin close, still trying to shield him and rub his back at the same time.

"It's not real," he says, despite not knowing that at all. "You know how this place works, it just likes to fuck with us. It's no different from the dream, alright? Just—don't look. I'm gonna figure this out."

"What's to figure out?" Bolin tries to ask.. or maybe he's just whining because he's so upset and feels so rotten. He's only just barely keeping down his lunch and there's a sob stacked in his throat just behind.

Like. He's seen stuff before.. ugly stuff. Lots of it. But those are their friends over there. Their family.

So maybe he just.. maybe he just closes his eyes and tries to breathe. Crushes them tight and holds on to the boat and lets Mako take control.

But where can he go? How can he figure anything out, they're on a boat, alone, on a secluded river and those two bodies... they aren't the only ones.

You know who Bolin has wronged? Personally? Who he's felt intensely guilty towards for messing up? The Beifongs.

And one by one their bodies appear- strung up in a web of their own metal wires, impaled on spikes bearing the Earth Kingdom's military crest, his hero Toph, her daughters and grandchildren, all of them collateral damage in Kuvira's plans. And Bolin had the chance to see it early but he didn't. He believed what he was doing was right- so intensely right- that he didn't feel the changing wind. He could have stopped all this so much sooner. If only he'd listened to Opal.

Opal..

Opal who he misses so much. Who he's wanted to see so badly since leaving home to come here.. who he thinks about all the time and wonders about and hopes she's finally happy now that he's gone and she can move on with her life...

There she is on the rocks. In her fancy airbender suit like a sweet little flying squirrel- suspended in the air by wire like she's about to be drawn and quartered. She will be, eventually, as she bloats and rots and falls into human soup on the rocks below. The worms feasting on her brothers wave from the view down there. What a lovely day. They seem to be waving at Mako, too.

Hello. We're having a picnic. Why don't you join us. You look delicious, boy. Just like your parents.

Mako is no stranger to death. He saw their parents fall, heard the crash and thud of their bodies, oddly wet. He was in the city just like Bolin when Kuvira's beam slammed into it, slicing through ships and buildings and United Forces soldiers alike. He watched the life dim from Ming-Hua's eyes, he saw Wu's ghost fall, he felt the cold creep of it steal over him—

But there is so much death here, and Bolin's voice is a shaking thing, and Mako's only concern is for him.

This is his little brother. The one person in the world he can really rely on, the one person who has always been there, sweet-faced and trusting, who Mako promised to protect and then did so with teeth and fire and ragged nails.

He can't look at the Beifongs or Korra and Asami. All he can do is yank Bolin close, maybe a little too hard, and glare down at the red water and breathe shallowly through his nose and think, because there's always a solution.

"It's a puzzle," he says aloud, to focus Bolin, to keep his mind off the carnage. "It's always a puzzle. You get stuck somewhere, you do something, you get free. That's how this works. We just have to do figure out what. We're in a boat, right? If we were meant to be in the water, we'd be there. We're supposed to be looking at this, and there are two of us, so we probably have to—probably talk about something. Share something. That's always how it works. Look at me, Bo, not them. We're getting out of here."

Bolin forces himself to comply. Not because he wants to but because Mako tells him to and that's enough. It's a tether. If Mako weren't here Bolin may very well jump into the river to get to shore. Try to help. Is that what they should be doing?

His eyes are very wide and glassy with emotions so tightly interwoven he can't distinguish them. Confusion, fear, hurt, guilt, anguish. All of them crashing through him at once.

Mako says it's a puzzle and he doesn't understand. He hasn't had the hardening from Deerington's mind games. He isn't tempered enough. Isn't numb enough.

He's seen bad things, terrible things, but not like this. Not so personal.

Fingers clutching his brother's shirtfront he focuses on that. Eyes locked with Mako's. He feels the texture of the fabric between his thumb and forefinger. He's pinching it so hard it will crease.

"What kind of puzzle does this? We have to help them, Mako. Right? We can swim to shore? That'll make this stop?"

He shakes his head a little bit, searching. They can fix this.

"I-- I can pull up the riverbed. I can stop the boat-"

"They're dead, Bo," Mako says, a little too harshly, and reaches out to grab Bolin's shoulder. "Look at me. There's Korra, Asami, and Opal, right? The only thing they have in common is... us. That we dated them. So it's something about that. I need you to think with me, alright?"

He has to fix this, because Bolin panicked and hurting like this is too much to handle. Mako doesn't want to look at the bodies again, but he isn't going to make Bolin do it, and this is what he's here for: do the hard thing so Bolin doesn't have to, hurt himself by looking to solve this.

The boat spins into an eddy and swirls slowly, bringing Korra and Asami back into view. Mako swallows. "We hurt them pretty bad. That's something."

They sure did. It's an uncomfortable truth given all their history.

Bolin thinks about it for a moment. Sure they hurt them but--

He growls and pulls back to scrub his face with his hands and sink down into the boat as low as he can without laying. He doesn't want to look but clinging to Mako like a little kid isn't going to help anything. Neither of them can think if he's being emotional.

"I mean.. sure but enough to bring them here and kill them? Man.. Opal, I'm so sorry. If I'd thought for a second anything I was doing would hurt her or her family I never would have.. I never should have left you and joined the army."

"It's not really them," Mako says with more confidence than he feels, keeping his hand firm on Bolin's broad shoulder. "It can't be. Korra and Asami are alive. I saw Korra earlier today, and that... looks like it's been there for a while. It has to be some kind of illusion."

A sniffle and Bolin wipes a tear from the corner of his eye. An illusion is better but it still hurts. It's any wonder he isn't in a flood of tears already. Shock, maybe.

"What for? To make us feel like trash because we hurt our friends? Well congratulations it worked can we go home now."

Mako shakes his head, making himself look back up at the bodies like they're going to tell him what they're after.

The Beifongs are there, too. The whole family, strung up together, with Opal a little apart. It has to mean something more than just the two of them being shitty boyfriends.

Mako just can't figure out what.

"Maybe it is to make us feel bad," he says, grasping at anything, his voice low. "This place—Deerington—it liked to make you... face things, you know? Things you were afraid of. Or... things you did."

Bolin considers that for a moment. It sits heavy on his shoulders and in his chest before winding it's way up his throat.

"It is pretty scary.. everything that happened. Trying to manage a relationship and then everything going so bad so fast. I mean.. joining the army, believing Kuvira.. it almost got us all killed, not just Opal and her family."

He glances back out to shore, knees drawn up against his chest. The guilt is crushing.

"That's on me.."

Edited 2021-10-27 11:24 (UTC)

The smell is what's really getting him. If this was just some other visual illusion, some other thing they're forced to confront and work their way out of, that would be one thing. Mako's seen some pretty awful stuff.

But the smell makes it visceral and real, and that makes it much harder. He looks up at Asami and Korra's entwined arms and swallows around a wave of revulsion. Kind of can't blame Bolin for—

Wait.

Mako's head whips up back to his brother, his eyes narrowing.

"What? What's on you? Bolin, maybe you believed Kuvira when you shouldn't have, but... you didn't do that shit. That was all her."

Bolin shrugs, slightly helpless. Okay maybe a lot helpless.

"And I was too stupid to see it! Mako, if I'd have found out sooner.. if I'd have seen anything real while I was out there instead of.. of delivering peace parcels then.. I don't. I don't know, I could have stopped it years earlier!"

"Bolin!" Mako sort of snaps, more out of worry than anger, reaching out to yank his brother's head around so he can meet his eyes. "You can't seriously think you're singlehandedly responsible for not stopping Kuvira."

"Well not.. singlehandedly but.." what is he saying.

Has he ever actually put this all together before? Has he ever put this guilt to words? Has he ever sat down to tear himself apart and really, carefully think about his hand in what happened? The opportunities for impact he missed. The truth he couldn't see, too busy helping and living in the moment. Kuvira knew that. Banked on that. Kept him rosy because he would be useful later. If he had just paid closer attention. If he had just thought critically about what was going on. Like how Mako does. If he'd just been more like Mako..

"If I had just listened to Opal, maybe.." he finishes his thought aloud. Bolin's mind is racing so fast his head hurts, full of new realisations and painful truths. Maybe he really does blame hiself singlehandedly. He wanted to do good and he didn't. He wanted to make change and peace and willingly drove his part in anything but. Oh my god, I was a monster.

It's written all over his face, yanked and held in Mako's hands, eyes wide with horror. With disgust. All that pain, all those people dead, the city, Asami's dad, the benders in concentration camps, so many people. Mako almost died. Bolin was the man on the inside and he didn't even think about it. It's heavy. It's too heavy. He can't take it.

When he speaks next it is a whisper. Capsize the boat. Let him drown.

"What have I done?"

Edited 2021-11-05 03:08 (UTC)

"You didn't do this," Mako says again, maybe too forgiving. Maybe he's always been too forgiving: maybe there's no bridge too far, nothing Bolin could really do to pull him from Mako's good graces. Maybe Mako gives him too much leeway, maybe this is on him—

But he can't watch his brother crumble like this, can't let him take on the weight of the world and all its awfulness because that's Mako's job: he bears up under burdens and lets Bolin chase after his dreams. That's how it should be. He pulls Bolin a little closer, hating the expression on his face.

"Listen to me," he says, low and urgent, meeting his gaze and holding it tight, "maybe you could've figured things out a little sooner. Maybe you trusted Kuvira a little too much, but what if doesn't change anything and Kuvira is responsible for her own actions, alright? You're not the person who made that spirit weapon. You're not the one who aimed it at people. You didn't cause a war, Bolin."

The kneejerk when you're upset is to insist the opposite of whatever the person trying to help you says. That's just how it is. But when he goes to open his mouth and say yes I did! he hears it before putting thought to voice and stops himself.

No. He didn't start the war. That is insane. That is actual crazy talk and he knows better than to fly off past upset into mindless dramatics. That just isn't the kind of person he is.

Bolin takes a breath and lets it out, slow and shaky, anchoring himself to the moment and his brother. It's not a time for bad puns, but it's ironic that he's the earthbender and Mako is the rock that holds everything together. And maybe it's stupid but that's what crosses his mind and it's enough to do the job.

"No.. no, you're right. You're right, I don't know what came over me."

Another breath and he signals that he's okay. Mako can let go. His eyes are wet and stinging and there's a shudder in his chest he's only just able to keep down, but he has to pull it together. This whole thing really swept him up, what a blindside.

"You... never really talked about it," Mako notes quietly, and doesn't quite let go. He never could bring himself to when Bolin would cry. A panicked sort of fire would light in his chest and he'd do anything to fix it, anything to make it stop. In those early days, just the two of them, Mako felt so inadequate reaching for all the things their parents used to do, their mother's songs and their dad's stories and both of their assurances that everything would be alright. Mako would press his tiny fingers where larger ones should have been and tug Bolin close and whisper things he didn't believe just to make him stop crying.

That old impulse still lives in him, a glowing coal of worry in his belly that never really goes out. Bolin is his little brother, and Mako will always want to make him stop crying.

He drops his hands to Bolin's shoulders instead, rock-steady things that they are.

"After the war, I mean." he continues as ravens cry rusty around them.

Which one, he almost huffs. The one involving home grown terrorism and an Equalist coup? The civil war with the Northern Water Tribe and a Dark Avatar that almost ruined their world and the spirit world? The one in which The Red Lotus killed the Earth Queen and threw the whole world into chaos again setting the stage for Kuvira? Or Kuvira herself when she took that power and ran her golden vision of unification in the wake of tragedy into violent, extremist dictatorship. And after all of that? He came here. Into a dreamworld apocalypse and now a brand new world run by ancient, powerful beings and blooming with even more problems. When, Mako? When would he talk about it.

It's not like Bolin has been waiting in trenches to fight to the death so he doesn't feel like he has much to talk about. Mako was there too and he isn't complaining. Why would he?

He hasn't been in corpse strewn battle fields, what right does he have to be upset. What right does he have to think about how that might affect him. How can he sit down and think about all the times he nearly died - all the times he would have died if someone hadn't saved him. About the people he's hurt in the heat of battle and the people who have hurt him and his loved ones.. They lived, didn't they? If he thinks about that darkness too much it will consume him. Better to just.. set that aside in a cave and not poke it too much.

Even now that he's directly confronted with it.. look how upset Mako is getting. He doesn't want that. Mako always takes the brunt of everything for him and it isn't fair to keep presenting him with problems and bad feelings. Which... really just makes more bad feelings and argh! It's a mess.

So he plays dumb. He's good at that.

"Well.. what's there to say? We got through it."

Sometimes the seeds you planted grow terrible, bitter-tasting fruit.

Those words could have come straight from Mako's own mouth. They have come straight from Mako's mouth, back when Korra disappeared, when he died and the world spun slightly off its axis. When Wu died, and Mako realized exactly how powerless he was in the face of everything Deerington and its inhabitants could do to each other. He'd snapped them at half the people who tried to tell him to deal with his own feelings until Kristoff had sat him down and told him he was being an idiot and even then—

Hearing it from Bolin's mouth is different. Mako still believes it. He knows the world is an unfair place and that feelings don't change anything: he can hate the injustice and that won't make it any less present. He can miss their parents, but that doesn't bring them back. Getting food into their hands mattered. Putting a roof over their heads mattered. Mako's personal feelings about stealing from someone? About ducking his head against Zolt's smooth words, accepting that he was becoming exactly the kind of person who killed their parents?

Irrelevant.

But he's never applied the same measure to himself as he does to Bolin, and so he reaches out, focused on his brother as always, which means they're never going to get off this river because Mako won't ever bring his own problems to the table while he has Bolin's to solve. He squeezes Bolin's shoulder again, sadness welling up hard and fast, tugging at the corners of his mouth.

"It matters what you think about it," he says, quiet and earnest, a crack in a rock that has stood for centuries. Maybe, sometimes, feelings do matter. "Matters to me."

See that? That right there? Break's Bolin's big, bleeding heart. So much so that it wipes the wind out of his deflection sails and he sighs.

There's a moment where looking Mako in the eye is so overwhelming that he glances back out to the bank and immediately regrets it. Why is all of this so hard and awful! Is this even the place to be talking about it? Probably. He doesn't want to... but probably.

And Bolin not wanting to talk about something is.. hm. But this is a big deal and it's Mako and it's complicated even though it should be the easiest thing in the world.

He takes a breath and looks back, sighing slowly.

"It's just.. it's a lot. You know, you were there. I mean, I try.. I try really hard not to let anything bother me but when you put it all down together it's one thing after another and it's staring you in the face like.. Well, like that-" he says and gestures to the riverbank without looking again.

"It's difficult to acknowledge the part I played in hurting so many people. I really thought I was doing something worthy and giving back and really helping the world. So much that it put a wedge between me and everyone I care about and in the end I was wrong."

Another pause to breathe. Get to the point, Bolin.

"I just. I feel stupid. And naive."

"You were pretty naive," brutal, maybe, but Mako isn't going to pull punches. Not with this. It doesn't help Bolin any to tell him he didn't fuck up when he so obviously did, even it if hurts him. Mako sucks in a breath, making himself look back up Asami-and-Korra, twined together and rotting there. "It... sucks. Hurting people, even when you didn't mean to. The reason doesn't matter. Even if you thought you were doing something good, and helping, if you hurt someone you care about in the process—" he pauses as a raven cries out, rusty and echoing off rock and water.

Maybe he's never talked with Bolin about this. Maybe that's the problem.

"You, uh. You know after I broke up with Korra, when I was... living at the office?"

He nods, ready to move off his own jagged truths and talk about something else. He's hoping this means talking about something else. It is what it is. It hurts and it festers and it aches but at the end of the day it's just another layer of their shitty past settling on top of them like a snowdrift.

Maybe come spring that snow will melt a little and won't feel so heavy. He sure hopes so.

"I'm still not totally sure why you did that but.. yeah?"

"Because I was trying to hide from shit," Mako says tersely, watching their bodies sway together, rotten and awful. "Because I hurt both of my best friends really badly, and I didn't want to face up to what I did, and it ended up hurting them more. I... spun up this whole thing in my head about how they probably didn't want to see me and even if they thought they did they were just being nice, and how it was better if I just... let them drift away. But that wasn't even what I was doing. I was pushing them away because then I didn't have to deal with any of it. And it didn't help. At all."

Bolin listens, nodding softly. That had been such a mess and to be honest it's amazing Mako made it out alive.

"I guess it probably didn't help when Korra lost her memories and forgot you broke up."

He sure remembers that. He sure remembers keeping his mouth firmly s h u t on that one.

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