welcome to republic city | legend of korra one-shots

when's our next vacation? | l. beifong

Pairing: Lin Beifong x Healer!Reader

Word Count: 1.1k

Requested: "hii, could you please write some fluff (maybe it's a little angsty) for lin with an s/o who's a doctor? like both of them overwork themselves so when they finally see each other at home they feel at peace, but they're both really tired. maybe they just tell each other about their day, eat together, slow dance or smt. tysm! please take care ♡"

Summary: At the end of a hard work week, you and Lin cook a nice dinner for yourselves together.

Warnings: Food mentions.

As soon as you got back home to your apartment, you collapsed on your bed, feet hanging off the edge due to the fact that you hadn't taken off your shoes. Your limbs felt too heavy to lift anymore, and you desperately wanted to just sink into the bed. Why was it always the end of the week that was the hardest day to get through?

The sound of the front door opening and closing echoed loud enough for you to hear it, and you preemptively rolled over on the bed so that you weren't taking up the middle. Your wife's metal shoes clacked against the floor as she walked towards the bedroom to join you. Groaning, she stretched out on the bed slightly less unceremoniously than you had a few minutes prior, but with no less exhaustion in her frame than you possessed. She threw an arm around your waist and pressed her lips to your temple briefly.

"How was your day?" you asked.

"Terrible," she replied with a long exhale. "The Creeping Crystals are really testing my patience this week. After what Avatar Korra did for Jargala, I would have thought she would have had the decency to not cause problems for at least a couple months."

"What kind of trouble is she causing?"

"Same old garbage - now that the Triple Threats are scrambling without Tokuga, she wants to take some of their territory," she said, rolling her bright green eyes at the predictability of it all. Rubbing a hand over her face, she braced herself up on her forearms and looked at you. "How was work for you?"

You rolled onto your back and hugged your aching arms. "My patients get increasingly ridiculous every day. Some entitled mom came to me in a huff worried about her daughter, and do you know what was wrong with her?"

"Hm?"

"This little kid somehow got a tiny little bead stuck in her ear. A bead. I had a construction worker from the evacuee residences waiting for me to set and heal his broken arm, and this witch of a mom is yelling at me that her poor little angel is a top priority when really all I had to do was use water to flush the bead out."

Lin groaned in sympathy. "The depths of people's stupidity never cease to amaze me." She rested her chin on her forearms for a moment before she turned back to you. "Did you eat anything since your lunch break?"

"No, did you?"

"No."

Closing your eyes, you shook your head. "I don't wanna get up, and I don't want you to have to get up either."

"Come on," she said anyway, reluctantly pulling herself up and off the bed. "If we make dinner together, it'll get done faster which means we'll come back to bed faster."

Despite the overwhelming desire you had to just sink into your bed and never get up, you hauled yourself up and changed out of your work uniform into a comfy blue sundress. Lin took off her metalbending gear as well, left in just a light green undershirt and loose, dark gray pants. The two of you walked to the kitchen and got to work. A pan floated out of one of the top cabinets and set itself down on the stove in response to her metalbending it down. She flicked her other hand to turn the metal dial of the radio so it lit up with life and cheery music filtered out of it.

You opened the fridge and asked, "What'll we have tonight? Shrimp fried rice?"

"Sounds good," she said, heating up the pan.

Nodding, you took out the ingredients - enough between the two of you to eat without leftovers. Lin hated leftovers. Food tastes best the first time you eat it, she'd say, in the same way she told her metalbenders, Orders are followed best the first time you hear them. You didn't mind, though, also preferring not to eat the same thing two nights in a row or risk forgetting about the food and letting it get spoiled.

While you waited for the onions and cauliflower rice to cook on the pan after mostly cooking through the shrimp and eggs, you put your arms around Lin's waist from behind and swayed with her to the beat of the music. You hummed and pressed your lips to the junction between her neck and shoulder, and she wiggled slightly in your hold at the contact. Her weakness was that spot right there, highly ticklish when it was kissed by her loving wife. Of course, you'd never tell anyone else about that little secret.

"I'm trying to cook," she chuckled when you kissed her there again, knowing how she would react. "Unless you want me to burn the rice."

You conceded as she turned over the rice, reaching forward to bring back the eggs, shrimp, and vegetables for her to stir in with the rice. "I could use a nice, hot meal after today."

"Aren't you glad we got out of bed, then?"

"No, I think it would be best if we could both stay in bed and the food magically cooks itself," you answered honestly. You let go of her waist to add the other ingredients into the pan. "I envy Korra for her Spirit World trip. When's our next vacation?"

She huffed out a laugh. "Aside from being too injured to keep working, neither of us have taken a vacation in over fifteen years. Though, maybe we should soon. Su keeps pestering me about how much she wants to properly meet you since we didn't have much time to talk at Varrick and Zhu Li's wedding."

"Hm," you said ponderously, getting out the plates and utensils. "A vacation at Zaofu. How much time do you think we could take away? I know my boss begs me to take time off at this point, and I imagine your metalbenders are much the same."

"A couple weeks would be good." She evenly divided the food between the two of you on the plates before setting it back down on the stove and turning off the heat. "The real question is, how long will both of us last being out of work?"

You laughed and took one plate while she took the other to your small dining table. "Maybe it's good Suyin will be there to force us to relax. We could both use it."

"Plus, getting to spend more time with you sounds like a pretty good deal to me," she added lowly, raising her eyebrows suggestively.

Recognizing that look in her eyes, you purred back, "Sounds good to me, Chief!"