Adult-FanFiction.org : Cartoons

Ill-Gotten Goods	By : Whesandra Category: Avatar - The Last Airbender > Slash - Male/Male Views: 12781 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: This is an original fanfiction based on the series "Avatar: The Last Airbender" by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko. The author reserves no rights to the Avatar property and makes no profit by this fiction.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
- 3
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Chapter Two: Giving In
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
How long had it been? Sokka hurt.
His arms burned from being held overhead, his wrists ached in the shackles, his neck and shoulders cramped with tension, and his bare feet throbbed from his constant shifting on the cold floor. Around him, all was dark and silent.
He was becoming obsessed with the sounds of his own body: the faint hiss of his breathing; the rhythmic rush of his pulse; and the low, quiet rumble of his shivering.
The only light he had was the wavery line of firelight coming from under the door, a glow suspended in an infinite void of black.
Every now and then, Sokka would turn his wrists in his cuffs, and the clicking of the chain would call to mind a captive beast pacing in the darkness.
Sokka tried to keep still, but there was no way to be comfortable. For the hundredth time, he stretched up on his toes and took hold of the chain that suspended him.
Before, his only goal had been to remove the pressure from his pinched wrists. But he couldn't accomplish that anymore while standing; his calves and the balls of his feet were too worn out to keep him up.
So now, as soon as he had the chain in hand, his feet would give out, and he would hang there for a few moments suspended only by the strength of his grip, trying to give his wrists and feet a break at once.
But this, too, was failing him now, and it was only a matter of seconds before his hands slipped and he fell back into the shackles, growling in pain and heightened frustration.
He let his toes drag the ground as he swung minutely back to stillness. He'd stand up again in a while, after he caught his breath. Despite the cold, he sweated with effort, fatigued by pain and strain and his inability to do anything about it.
Curse Azula! Why was she putting him through this? He was unarmed—naked—in the basement of a Fire Nation military base. He didn't have any bending abilities; he was not a threat.
And he was useless as an informant, because there was nothing he could tell her that she didn't already know. If her goal was simply to keep him from escaping, all she had to do was give him a private cell, because at this point, he was hopeless without the aid of others.
Keeping him chained like this torture. It didn't make sense!
He was frustrated and angry, near the edge of a breakdown. All of his hope was gradually dying away.
At first, he'd actually thought someone would come for him, that once Azula had had her fun, the guards would come back, let him down, and return him to a cell. But as hours added to hours, he realized this situation was permanent. All he had to look forward to was this room, this chain, this complete isolation, and this embarrassing mess at his feet.
But then, unexpectedly, there were footsteps in the hallway. Sokka lifted his head. He wasn't imagining things again; someone really was coming. And whoever it was wasn't alone; he could pick out two distinct pairs of footsteps.
He stood up and watched the door, anxious about who it might be. A key was turned in the lock, and when the door opened, Sokka had to squint against the brightness of lantern light.
In stepped a pair of girls carrying buckets and cleaning supplies. Sokka blanched. Whatever he had expected, it hadn't been that. As soon as they saw him, he was overcome by a renewed sense of how pathetic and vulnerable he was. He could feel his nakedness under their gaze, could actually feel the warmth of the light falling on his bare skin. He faltered and looked away, reeling with humiliation.
The girls didn't say anything as they set down their supplies; they just lit the torches with a piece of flint and set to cleaning the room in silence. They swept up the charred remains of Sokka's clothes and mopped the mess around his feet.
Sokka purposefully stared at the wall while they worked, wishing he could just disappear. But then one of the girls dipped a rag in her bucket and wrung it out over his shoulder, sending a cascade of cold water down his side.
Sokka gasped in surprise and at the cold. He looked to the girl as she stepped up beside him, but she was pointedly not paying him attention. She just reached overhead to scrub down one of his arms while the other girl stepped up to duplicate the process on his other side.
Descending together in forced silence, the girls bathed him from top to bottom.
Sokka squirmed under their hands, just shy of crying out to tell them to stop. The touch of two strangers was unbearably invasive, but he couldn't stop them. For one, even to acknowledge the situation would be too humiliating. For another, the girls were innocent maids—he couldn't exactly beat them back.
In comfortless justification, he told himself that compared to the treatment he'd been put through earlier, a cold sponge bath was almost a kindness. But it didn't help him feel any less violated. In ways, this was worse than being stripped by Azula.
When the girls finally finished—disregarding modesty but sparing his scorched knee—one of them mopped up the excess water from the floor while the other wrung out a rag to clean his face. Stoic as a statue, she pressed the cloth to his cheeks while Sokka stood waiting, rigid and sober.
The careful way she wiped away the soot reminded him of how his mother might have wiped his face when he was little. His stomach turned at the thought, and when the girl pulled the cloth away, he felt infantile and debased. He averted his eyes as the girls collected their things, and when they put out the torches and left the room, he was glad to be alone again.
But as the darkness and silence settled back in, he started to feel even more miserable than before.
Even without his being wet, the room seemed to be getting colder, which could only have meant that another day had ended. If that were true, then he'd already spent an entire day and a half in captivity, and most of it chained right here.
He hadn't eaten, hadn't slept, and hadn't figured out a way to make the misery stop. He just hurt, all over, this dull, persistent ache, and being unable to sit or move or even drop his arms was driving him absolutely mad.
He tried to relax and embrace the pain, but his body just twitched with discomfort. The only thing he could really do was clench his teeth to keep them from chattering and hope he wouldn't have to endure this much longer.
But a while later, another pair of footsteps came marching down the hall, and Sokka groaned in dread, having no question of who it was this time and no hope that her visit would end in his favor.
Azula opened the door and Sokka looked at her humorlessly. With a wave of her hand, she re-lit the torches, and Sokka closed his eyes to adjust to the light. The torches seemed to burn brighter when Azula lit them. When he looked again, his captor was standing there casually, one hand on the door knob, the other on her hip. She smiled at him mildly; he just stared unhappily back.
"How are you holding up?" she asked, but he didn't say anything. Azula closed the door behind her and took her seat at the front of the room, calmly folding her arms over her chest.
"I've been thinking about you all day," she said.
"Why?" he asked warily. Azula tilted her head at him.
"I've been looking forward to this."
Sokka frowned and shifted his weight, trying not to look like he was in too much pain.
Azula studied him. "What have you been thinking about?"
Sokka ignored her.
"Your friends, maybe?" she asked. "You care about them, don't you?"
She couldn't have actually expected him to answer these questions.
"Don't be shy. I know you do," she said. "I've seen you with them. You're a classic Water Tribesman—always looking out for your family, watching your friends' backs. It must be hard for you, being away from them." She paused. "Do you think it's hard for them?"
Sokka looked at her uneasily. Azula let the silence settle. She was watching him so closely it made his skin crawl. Did she know something he didn't? Were the others OK? Sokka clenched his jaw, the cold prick of worry creeping into his bones.
"Were you important to them?" she said.
Ah, no. So that was it. She didn't know anything about the others; this was just a game she was playing to try to get under his skin.
She purred at him, "Are they any worse off, now that you're gone?"
Her tone was like snow at midnight, soft, quiet, and deadly cold. He knew her words were poison, but how could he help but hear them? And after they'd entered his skull, how could he help but think about them?
He imagined the others packing up camp and flying away on Appa, saved from capture by Suki's warning. Sokka was the idiot who'd fallen to the Fire Nation. The others had to run because he'd screwed up. They could certainly manage without him; maybe they'd even be better off.
He cursed himself. He'd thought he'd gotten over this anxiety with Piandao, but now the old sense of worthlessness was finding its way back. As if it weren't enough that he couldn't bend like the others, it seemed he was also the most incompetent of the non-benders. After all, Piandao and Suki couldn't bend, but they weren't chained up in a Fire Nation base.
He swallowed, twisting his wrists in his chain as a dull, aching sickness built up in his stomach.
Azula lifted her head. It was clear that she had gotten to him, and she seemed satisfied with the result. But rather than gloating, she went a step further and looked at him with such a pained and intense expression of pity that it almost could have been disgust.
The moment Sokka saw her, his heart stopped beating. It was like a hand had been thrust into his stomach and was trying to pull out his organs. The look on her face was the look his father had given him when he'd been told his mother was dead.
"So it's true," Azula said. "Even you recognize your worthlessness." She shook her head, eyes glistening with mock sympathy. He wanted her to stop looking at him like that. This mingling of Azula and the memory of his parents made him feel disgusting.
Then she said, "I can hardly blame your father for abandoning you like he did."
And a bolt of ice went through his spine.
"What?" he said.
Knowing she had gained the upper hand, Azula allowed herself to smile.
"Are you surprised I know that about you? Don't be. The Fire Nation keeps detailed records of our military history. I spent last night doing a little research.
"It turns out, a few years ago, when the Southern Raiders went to the south pole to exterminate the last southern waterbender, the woman who confessed to it was actually the chief's wife. That explains why all the men from the village set sail on a campaign against the Fire Nation immediately after her execution. Chief Hakoda must have wanted revenge. At very least, he needed to make up for the pathetic show of not resisting the raiders in the first place.
"But this wasn't all that long ago. You should be able to remember it. The chief's wife was your mother, after all."
Sokka stared in disbelief. She had no right to know this.
"What interests me most, though," she continued with pleasure, "is why you didn't sail on the campaign with the others. Your mother had just been murdered, and your father was leading the charge—you must have wanted revenge as badly as he did."
Sokka glared at her, never blinking for fear that the water would spill from his eyes. Azula had hit the mark dead-on. He'd practically begged his father to let him come along, regardless of whether he was old enough yet.
"You probably think your age was the reason you were left behind," she said slyly. "According to custom, you were too young to be a warrior. But think about it, Sokka. In times of war, every able boy should be allowed to be a soldier. Crisis outweighs tradition.
"So you know what that means? Your father didn't leave you behind because you were too young; he left you behind because you weren't fit to bring along."
She raised an eyebrow, challenging him to deny it. "You were there when the raiders arrived, weren't you? You could have done something to stop them. You had a duty, in fact, as the chief's only son.
"And yet you never mounted an attack. You let them walk right by you. You failed your family and your entire tribe. You let them kill your mother."
She looked him hard in the eye. "Maybe if you hadn't been such a disappointment, your father wouldn't have abandoned you."
Sokka snorted at her conclusion, struggling to keep himself together. Every nerve in his body begged him to deny it, but his heart knew she was right. Everything he'd done had been a glorious failure, and now here he was, at the mercy of the enemy.
"But don't worry," she added. "There's still a bright side. By letting your mother die, the actual waterbender managed to stay hidden. Your darling sister. What was her name again?"
He would not say it.
"Katara," she said.
"Stop talking," he croaked.
"Ooh," Azula cooed happily, walking right up to him. "I'm starting to get through to you. Do you see now how completely you've failed your people? I mean, look at you—" she pressed a finger into his bare stomach—"imagine who you're shaming right now, just by being here."
He twitched at her touch, even as Suki's face appeared in his mind. If she could see where he'd ended up... He was ashamed even at the idea of it. And what about his father? Or Katara, Aang, or Toph, even Zuko? All of them were still out there somewhere, fighting the fight he'd failed to put up.
Azula curled her finger, stroking his stomach as she pulled her hand away. She was so close, smiling contentedly and basking in his misery. Sokka felt so humiliated he didn't even want to look at her, let alone hang next to her, naked and spread out like a slab of meat.
He was red and uncomfortable with emotion. He felt so small and vulnerable, like nothing was safe from her. She had his weapons, his privacy, and now even his history.
As he turned his head away from her, feeling her breath waft against his chest, he realized she was winning the power game. He was the bug, and she was the boot. The thought made him shiver in sudden anger.
Then it hit him. He knew why Azula was trying so hard: she had a personal vendetta against him. Because he had something she didn't.
He looked at her with new recognition, hate bubbling up in his chest.
"You're just lonely," he accused. "Because all you've got is a giant army and no friends."
Azula's eyes widened in astonishment. She backed up and tried to recover, but the damage had already been done.
"So that's it," he confirmed. "It's not just that you can't take us down, even though you've been trying so hard. It's...you don't know what to do. I saw what happened at the Boiling Rock. Your girlfriends turned their backs on you to help us escape. And that's after even Zuko joined our side. You're not as in control as you thought you were. Your resources are all falling away."
Azula was glaring at him now, trying in vain to conceal her embarrassment. He'd obviously struck a nerve. He was a bit surprised she'd taken it so hard, but pleased that he'd found a way to get back at her. Her eyes were angry but tinged with panic, as if he'd discovered her darkest secret.
And maybe he had.
With a vindictive scowl, he announced the beautiful thing he'd realized: "You're totally alone now."
In a sudden flash of rage, Azula leapt at him with fire. Sokka started back, panicked, but there was nothing he could do. She flung a fireball at his chest and, snarling, pressed it into him with her palm.
He screamed, agonized by the pain as his skin blistered and shriveled in the heat. Even after the flame dissipated, his skin screamed at the burn, and Azula lifted her hand to reveal the steaming red wound as wide as his fist. Tears rolled from his eyes from the sheer intensity of the pain.
Without giving him even a moment to recover, Azula grabbed him by the throat with one hand and held him tightly to hold his attention.
"Don't talk about things you don't know about, peasant," she hissed. "Look at where you are and then tell me who's alone. This is where your friendship has gotten you."
Sokka stared at her, red-eyed, hardly able to focus enough to understand what she was saying. He could smell the smoke rising off his chest. Azula sneered at him violently, her nails digging into his skin, then pushed him away and went to the door.
"Wait!" he pleaded, gasping in pain.
Azula stopped in the doorway and turned to look at him.
"At least let me down," he said, his spirit falling with each syllable. He couldn't stand to be left like this any longer. He would go insane.
But Azula only turned and extinguished the torches before slamming the door behind her.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Late that night, Sokka awoke from a miserable and uneasy sleep. He was exhausted, hungry, frozen, and in pain. Hanging from his shackles, his legs limp below him, his hands had become swollen with blood and felt as if they were about to burst open, or as if they already had. The pain of it was incredible. It was a wonder he hadn't woken up sooner.
His eyes still closed, as if this provided him some kind of comfort, he groaned and whined as he lifted himself gingerly off the cuffs, sending sharp bursts of pain down his arms as he did so. He hadn't even been able to feel his fingers before, but as blood quickly rushed back out of them, they came alive with an unbearable prickling sensation, worse than if they'd fallen asleep. It was maddening and painful, and he clenched his hands over and over to try to make it stop.
Only then did he notice the faint, faint light playing on his eyelids. Confused, he peeled his eyes open and was disoriented to discover that the light came from a tiny point of pale blue. He peered blearily ahead and gradually made sense of the dark, pulsing mass in front of him. Then recognition dawned, and he froze, as if in terror, not sure what to make of it.
Azula sat there in her nightgown, her hair hanging loosely around her face, a single blue flame dancing on her fingertip. She was watching him from the shadows with dark, sultry eyes.
Sokka gaped, his heart suddenly pounding. Azula crinkled her nose as if annoyed that he'd woken, and without saying anything, snuffed out her flame.
He tensed.
The room was pitch black, a darkness as palpable and thick as ink. Even the torches of the hall had been extinguished for the night. Sokka tried to peer into the blackness, his eyes wide and searching, but there was nothing to see—only the swirling shadows of his own vision, the illusion of movement made by his body.
Azula got up: he could hear the scrape of the chair against the floor and the rustle of her skirts as she took a few steps. But after that, there was nothing at all. Absolute silence. He started to panic. His breath caught in his throat. He had a sudden, wild fear that she was behind him, about to pounce like an animal. Adrenaline pumped through his body and goosebumps prickled over his skin.
But then the door opened, and Azula lit a new light, looking back at him like a shadowy ghost, framed in black against a void of black. He looked at her, frightened like a cornered animal. She didn't move, just stood there and stared, stony and cold. Then she turned to the hallway and closed the door to his room, and Sokka watched the light under the door fade into nothingness as she walked away.
His heart was racing. Azula had been spying on him in his sleep. Fiercely on edge, he strained hard to listen and searched through the darkness until his head ached.
Had she really gone, or was she waiting in the darkness, just outside his door, until the moment he was most vulnerable again? Were there others stationed in the corners of his room? Was someone watching him right now? Who or what was hiding silently in the darkness, and how long had they been there, and how close could they be?
He carried on like this long into the night, harassed by paranoia to the point of grief. He had never been afraid of the dark before, so why was he sweating and shaking now? He barely even dared to breathe anymore for fear that something would detect him and attack him.
But there was only the stillness and the silence and the dark. It was like he had gone deaf and blind. The world didn't exist anymore. The blackness had choked out reality.
The next thing he knew with any kind of certainty was that the light under the door had swelled back into brightness. He stood in his room like the risen dead, blinking at the door, hardly able to make sense. His mind was sluggish. His head lolled. It had been an agonizingly long, sleepless night.
When the servant girls returned with their buckets in hand, Sokka stared at them mutely through red, puffy eyes. He didn't care what they did to him anymore. He was so tired and weak. His only thought now was for the incredible discomfort ransacking every inch of his body.
The girls performed an abridged cleaning routine, mopping around his feet and wiping his face but leaving the rest of him mostly untouched. They dabbed at the angry burn on his chest with cold, wet rags, but he hummed in pain and they quickly stopped. He supposed they would leave then, their job done, but they surprised him with one small act of kindness.
One of the girls lifted a cup to his lips, supporting his head with her other hand and gently encouraging him to drink. The cup was filled with sweetened milk, and once Sokka realized this, he accepted it readily. He hadn't had a thing in two days, and he was ravenous with hunger and dehydration.
He gulped and guzzled until the glass was empty and even resisted when the girl pulled it away. He panted and longed for another glass, but that was all the milk the girls had brought. Seeing his desperation, though, they dipped the cup into a bucket of clean water and allowed him to drink at least that much more. He panted again to convey his thanks, but they wouldn't let him drink again.
"You'll be sick," the girl said quietly as she wiped his mouth with the corner of her rag, shame-facedly avoiding eye contact. With nothing more to do or say, they collected their things and left the room.
Sokka hung in detached acceptance, wiped out by the blissful sensation of having something in his stomach again. He was too weak to fight his pain and too tired to think coherently, but it was amazing how so little could restore his spirit. After a few hours of stillness and rest, he felt able to reinvigorate himself in preparation for Azula's next visit.
He took a deep breath, stretching his lungs to their fullest capacity, exhilarated by the feeling of his ribs expanding. He lifted his head and pulled up his legs, shook out his arms and moved his fingers—anything to get his blood flowing and to remind himself he was still alive.
He'd been chained, abused, burned, and neglected, but he hadn't been broken yet. There was still some spirit left in him, and he wanted to make the most of it. It didn't matter how long he'd be kept here; he vowed he would outlast Azula.
When evening came and the princess reappeared, Sokka stood tall and defiant, overpowering his aching body if only for a while, so that she could see she hadn't won.
But Azula was not in her usual lively mood. When she opened the door and lit the torches, she only frowned at him for a moment before sitting in her chair and folding her arms, looking at him like a difficult puzzle. She said nothing, but stared at him closely, for minutes on end, not even acknowledging that he was conscious of her presence.
As her eyes trailed up and down his torso, he twitched and fidgeted, uncomfortable under such a long and intense gaze. He became anxious, wondering when she would make a move, and found it more and more difficult to maintain his bravado as his muscles got shaky and his stamina gave out.
More than once he noticed Azula stop to study the area below his waist, but despite his embarrassment, he gritted his teeth and focused on trying not to appear in pain. But as time dragged on and Azula's fascination deepened, his unease began to get the better of him.
Azula shifted in her chair and put a hand to her face, one finger on her eyebrow, the others brushing against her lips. Her eyes were fixed between Sokka's legs, lingering there longer than ever before. Sokka felt himself go red and shifted his weight from one foot to the other, but Azula never looked away. When she started to chew the corner of her lip, Sokka flushed hot in embarrassment.
"Stop looking at me," he demanded self-consciously. Azula blinked and for the first time looked him in the eye. She sneered.
"Keep quiet." Her eyes stayed locked with his for a moment, then she suddenly diverted her gaze to the side. Something was on her mind.
She avoided looking at him for a while, instead took to rolling a fireball between her fingers. But with time, her eyes started to wander back to him, and eventually she became engrossed in another staring spell. The fire at her fingertips idly diffused, forgotten.
Sokka couldn't stand to play model for her peep show. He closed his eyes to at least spare him the sight of her piercing, hungry gaze.
After waiting in misery for what seemed like an age, the silence was broken by a sudden rapid tapping sound, and Sokka opened his eyes to find Azula nervously bouncing her heel against the floor. One arm was crossed over her chest, her other elbow resting on it, propping up her chin and obscuring the lower part of her face with the heel of her hand. Her eyebrows were knit and worried.
As soon as she became aware of Sokka's gaze, she re-crossed her legs and stopped her fidgeting.
He had never seen Azula so flustered. Her face had even gone a shade redder than before.
"Something's bothering you," he ventured, twisting his wrists to relieve some pain from the cuffs.
Azula narrowed her eyes and looked him again in the face. He was tired of this, angry at her for tormenting him, and his desire for retaliation was growing irrationally strong. Seeing her like this filled him with malicious courage.
"I know why you keep coming here," he said. "Stress relief. Things must not be going the way you want, so you take it out on me."
Azula scowled at him and lowered her hand, a sarcastic smile pulling on her mouth. "Oh, you don't know the half of it," she said.
Sokka's nostrils flared. "I told you. The war must be getting hard to fight with no allies left on your side."
She snapped.
"You," she spat, "are awfully chatty today." She whipped out her arm, and the torches flared up for a moment to triple their size. Startled, Sokka jumped aside, pulling on his cuffs.
"Are you comfortable here?" Azula went on. "Is it easy being my prisoner?" He looked at her as she stood up, suddenly sorry he'd tempted her.
She raised her arm as if to backhand him, but at the height of her anger, she froze. Her eyes narrowed, and her expression grew cold and sinister. She stepped back and made a meaningful fist, looking Sokka in the eye.
He waited anxiously, not knowing what she was planning, but when she opened her fist again, it was empty. A moment passed before Sokka felt the heat at his side.
Looking, he found a tiny blue flame—no bigger than the flame at the tip of a candle—flickering dangerously close, just below his armpit. He shrank back, but Azula drew the flame closer to his skin.
"No, don't!" Sokka said suddenly, too late, and of course with no effect. The heat intensified quickly, lashing at his skin, and he let out an "agh!" as he grit his teeth against the pain.
But this was not a short, pointed burn. Azula kept the flame close, waiting until he blistered, then slowly drew the flame down, lengthening the burn along his side.
He tried not to cry out, but how could he resist? It would take a stronger man than he was not to give in to such torture. He shouted and moaned, not able to get away, his eyes squeezed so tightly shut he would have a headache after. This wasn't like the other times; this was careful, calculated torture. Azula wanted to see him writhe.
By the time Azula had progressed down to his waist, Sokka had forgotten any delusions of restraint. He was wailing now, going mad with pain, moaning and coughing like a dog in a trap.
"Stop!" he begged, over and over. "Stop! Stop! Stop! Please stop!" But Azula wasn't satisfied until she'd drawn a scorched, bubbling line right down to his hip.
When the fire diffused, Sokka collapsed in his chains, weeping and wheezing and mindlessly apologetic. Whatever he had done, he would never do it again. Please, please, let him never do it again. He would do anything; just keep the fire away from him.
"You want to know the real reason I keep coming down here?" Azula said. She walked right up to him and laid a hand on his head. "Just because it's fun."
Sokka wouldn't have responded even if he could. She couldn't be telling the truth. No one was that ruthless. Not unless they were...unstable.
She pushed her fingernails through his hair, spreading her palm out like a spider. "You can gloat and theorize all you want, but the truth is, the Fire Nation is winning, and I have nothing better to do."
She pushed his head away.
She was already opening the door to leave before Sokka collected himself enough to speak.
"What do you want?" he demanded shrilly, his voice tight and hoarse with pain. He tried to stand, but he was too shaky—whether with fatigue, fear, or fury he couldn't even tell. She hadn't asked him a single question, wasn't treating him at all like prisoner of war. He'd been down here two days, and not a moment of it made sense.
Azula stopped in the doorway and shifted her weight uncomfortably. Sokka's head was spinning, his whole body going numb from trauma. She rubbed the back of her neck and looked for a moment like she wanted to stay, then thought better of it and stepped into the hallway, flustered and swinging the door closed as she went.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Sokka couldn't remember anything after that. The next thing he knew, he was waking up slowly, as if stepping out of a fog. He opened his eyes and looked blearily ahead of him, confused as to why he wasn't able to see. But after a moment, he realized it was the darkness, and bit by bit he remembered where he was.
He stood up shakily but fell immediately over again, becoming as fluid and formless as water. He was very light-headed. The room was spinning. He swung for a moment, then settled into stillness, and with every breath he took, his brain functioned a little better.
After a while, he'd regained his equilibrium, and he pulled himself to his feet more surely this time.
His hands screamed out in horrifying pain, shivering down the rest of his body. He called out and squirmed, willing them to stop hurting, but the blood coursing down into his arms felt as if it had been poisoned. It was a while before he could deal with the pain enough to form thoughts again.
His first realization was that he hadn't fallen asleep; he'd passed out. He'd been struggling for days to fight off that impulse, but it seemed he'd finally given in. He felt a pang of failure and worry—he was at his limit; his body couldn't take this anymore. How much longer would it be until he was dead?
But then the rest of his body started to come out of its stupor as well, and he cringed again as pain spread through him. He'd never been in this much pain for this long before. It was making him insane.
His hands hung uselessly from his wrists, throbbing and purple and measuring his pulse in little bursts of biting ice. His chest, meanwhile, felt as if he'd been put on the rack, stretched almost to snapping. The muscles slipping over his ribs objected to being returned to their neutral positions, too used to being pulled as he hanged from the ceiling. His stomach, on the other hand, was cramped and tender with constantly trying to support his weight. His feet and toes were so cold he could barely stand on them, and his newly burnt side poured hot pain into him like waves lapping the shore.
This was the worst situation he'd ever been in. There was no way he could stand, no position he could twist into, which didn't make him delirious with discomfort. The more he tried, the more frustrated he became, until he was wincing over the knot in his throat. This was a living nightmare! He just wanted it to be over.
Tears burned in his eyes as he realized he couldn't take any more. He wanted to go home. He wanted down. He didn't want to fight in the war anymore.
He tugged at his cuffs, grunting in anger and frustration, but his wrists stayed firmly locked in place. Furious and crying, he thrashed around, trying to free himself but not making any progress. He cried out obscenities—to the chains, to the walls—pulling and twisting until he wore himself out.
He wept and sunk down on his knees, swearing in despair when a tear landed on his burned chest and made him jump with new pain. Shaking, he moaned and wiped his eyes on his shoulders.
He didn't want to hang here forever. He didn't want to die. He swallowed. He breathed. And his anger blossomed into a new thought:
Forget spending the rest of his life like this. He didn't want to spend another second like this. He was through waiting and cooperating. He was not helpless. He was going to get out of these cuffs.
But pulling and tugging did him no good. He needed to think bigger. Looking up at the ceiling, he took a few deep breaths and crystallized his resolve. He would push himself out.
With a tremendous effort, he hefted his knees into the air, straining with all his might to lift his feet over his head. But he was too weak and tired. After a moment of shuddering, he collapsed back to the floor. Even after so little, he had to catch his breath. But he wasn't giving up. He was a trained warrior; pull-ups were child's play.
He heaved again, his muscles burning with effort, and made a little more progress before falling back down. He hurt so badly, his whole body pulsed, but as he kept fighting, he started to feel it less. He was getting high on pain. All the better for his escape.
This time he prepped like a runner on the starting line, pouring all his tension into his thighs, coiled like a spring about to jump. With a hearty thrust of determination and an angry grunt, he pushed himself forward, swinging his legs up, and heaved with all his remaining might his legs toward the ceiling.
"Aaagghh!" he grunted, face twisted with effort, and finally, after what felt like a never-ending struggle, his toe made contact with the rough stone of the ceiling. He clawed his way forward until he was hanging perfectly upside-down, squatting against the ceiling, feet planted firmly above his head, his wrists straining agonizingly against his cuffs. He panted and could already feel his hands slipping down into the shackles.
But it wasn't enough. Despite more than all the force of his weight pulling him toward the floor, his hands stopped their slow progress. He groaned and pushed gently against the ceiling, folding his thumbs as far as he could into the palms of his hands, but there was no movement. He was stuck.
Gasping through the pain and effort of holding himself in this position, he blinked away new tears and powered through a moment of hesitation. There was no turning back now; he was not staying here. He muttered a frightened prayer of protection, closed his eyes, and shoved off from the ceiling.
It all happened in a second. Pain shot through both his wrists, he shouted, and his right thumb popped out of its socket. With a nauseating lurch, the hand slipped out of the cuff. This left all his weight and momentum to his remaining left hand. Sokka felt rather than heard the snap as the bone under his pinky finger splintered and collapsed, allowing his left hand to fold and slip free as well. Electricity rushed down his arm, scrambling his senses, and he screamed in pain; but then he crashed against the floor, cracking his head against the concrete and getting the wind knocked cleanly out of him, silencing him.
He writhed on the floor, holding his hands to his chest. As soon as he caught his breath, he wanted to scream again, but instead clamped his teeth into one arm and willed himself to stay quiet. The last thing he needed was for someone to hear him now and cut his freedom short.
But the pain in his hands was immense, now coupled with a splitting headache. He dug his heels into the floor and rolled back and forth like a deranged animal, trying to cope with this psychotic, raging pain. Tears rolled off his face as freely as if someone had turned over a pail of water. He gasped and moaned. He was going to pass out.
As soon as he had the thought, he started to feel detached from the world, and a disembodied buzzing filled his ears. He thought he was in a room full of loudly talking people, and despite his lying on solid ground, he felt a pronounced sensation of falling.
He could no longer hold his arms up; they fell pointlessly to his sides. His head lolled back. Without really meaning to, he stopped moving, and the room disappeared. His pain slipped away, his awareness slipped away, and he fell into oblivion, dead to the world.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
The first thing Sokka became aware of was the cold. He whimpered and felt around for his blanket, but when his hand made contact with the floor, he gasped in pain and jolted awake, feeling sick to his stomach. His head reeled, and it was a few seconds before he even realized he wasn't in camp, as he'd thought he'd been. He sat up, wincing at the pain in his burns, and remembered what had happened.
He sat there on the floor, cross-legged with his broken hands in his lap. He was weak, but he felt better than he had. He must have had been out for a few hours, at least. He was still sore and painful, but his head was less fuzzy. And better yet, he had his arms.
Sokka smiled grimly, looking down at his hands. He could barely make anything out in the darkness, but that wasn't the point. He was looking down at his hands. He was sitting on the floor. He'd beatenthose fucking shackles. He almost felt like laughing, maybe crying.
He tried to move his fingers and found it was perfectly possible, but incredibly painful. His broken left hand radiated pain, swollen around the broken bone. His right hand, though, only hurt when he moved it, and if he could re-locate his thumb, it might stop hurting altogether.
He maneuvered himself so that his feet were drawn together in front of him, then pinched his dislocated thumb between his heels, bit his tongue, and yanked up on his arm.
A burst of pain erupted into his palm as his thumb distanced from his hand, but the bone slid sideways, back into alignment, and when Sokka released his heels, the pain grew quieter. He experimentally made a fist and winced as his thumb jumped minutely back into place, restoring his hand to relative normal.
But his other hand was a different story. He prodded it gently, hoping to feel the break, but the merest touch shocked him with a pain so intense it made him jump away. His hand was useless, then. He would just have to try not to make it worse until he could get it set.
He looked toward the door, his one source of light—and his one chance at escape. He wondered what time of day it was. Who would be his next visitor, and how long would he be waiting for them?
He climbed to his feet and tested the lock, just to confirm that he really was trapped, then listened at the door for any signs of movement outside. He heard nothing, but if he stood long enough, he could imagine the faint crackle of the torches mounted on the other side of the wall.
He stepped away and sank back down to the floor. His spirit was refreshed, but his limbs felt like jelly. Exclusive of the physical strain of having been shackled so long, his body was running on empty. Even in their worst moments traversing the globe, he and the others had never gone so long without food or water. He was literally pushing the limits of what was even survivable.
All the more reason to get out now.
He sat and thought for a long time how he might manage his escape, but in his current condition, nothing seemed especially plausible. For one thing, he could barely move, and for another, he had nothing in the room to work with.
...Nothing except Azula's chair. He looked at it, looming hazily in the darkness near the far wall. It wasn't much, but he would make it work. He dragged it over to the door and sat down, prepared to wait and grateful that he didn't have to suffer the cold concrete.
Now that he was free of the discomfort of hanging, he found it was much more difficult to stay awake. So over the next few hours, rather than risk losing the element of surprise by falling asleep at an inopportune moment, he kept his blood flowing by pacing the room every now and again.
Finally, just as he was pondering getting up again, he heard the distinct approach of footsteps at the end of the hall.
His hair rose. A single pair of footsteps likely indicated Azula, but no matter who his guest was, he had one chance to overtake them and make a break for it. He hurriedly and silently got to the floor, the chair standing between him and the exit, leaned back on his elbows, and braced his feet against the chair. The footsteps drew closer.
Sokka held his breath, fixated on the shadow that obscured his slit of light. A moment passed, then the door swung inward.
Azula didn't have time to notice anything was different as she stepped into the room before Sokka shoved the chair into her. He shouted with exhilaration; Azula shrieked in surprise. She stumbled, cursing, and fell to the floor. Sokka was up in a flash and dashed out the door, knocking the chair over as he went.
For a moment, he was disoriented. His vision fogged with light, and in his panic, he mistrusted which way it was to the exit. He faltered, squinted toward the stairs at the end of hallway, then leapt back into a run.
But Azula was quick, too, and at present, much healthier. Before Sokka had taken three steps, she caught up and tackled him to the ground.
"Aagh!" Sokka screeched, skinning his knees on the concrete and only barely resisting the urge to brace himself with his hands. As such, he hit the ground hard, bruising his ribs and elbows. He tried to recover, but Azula clapped a hand around his ankle, and then he was being dragged backward.
He kicked and twisted, not only in hopes of escape but also to protect his burned torso from the floor. Instead, his hip was scraped along the concrete as Azula pulled him backward into the room.
"Let go!" he screamed pointlessly, struggling to regain control, but Azula dropped onto his back, digging her knee into his spine.
"How did you get loose?!" she demanded. Sokka didn't answer except to cringe in pain and brace himself up on one elbow in an attempt to throw her off. Azula knocked him down again and pinned him on his stomach, leaning over him and grabbing both his wrists. Sokka yelped at the mistreatment of his hand, and Azula lit the torches with a toss of her head.
Out of the corner of his eye, Sokka saw Azula glance up to the still-locked shackles hanging from the ceiling. Making the connection, she turned back to Sokka and adjusted her grip, leaning forward and pressing down onto the backs of his hands. Sokka's broken bone screamed, as did he, and he thrashed in agony.
"You slipped the cuffs!" Azula said, astonished.
She let up, and Sokka gasped through his tears, drawing his hands toward him. Azula pressed his head into the floor as she pushed herself up, then Sokka rolled away from her, further into the room. She meant to deal a sharp kick to his stomach, but Sokka blocked her with his feet, and Azula retreated back into the hallway, slamming the door closed again.
Gasping and panting, cradling his injured hand, Sokka could see her feet under the door. She hesitated a good half minute before hurrying away.
Sokka rolled onto his back, moaning at the slowly fading pain in his hand. His escape had been a remarkable failure. It was idiotic of him to even have tried. He was a dead man now. Now that Azula had seen the extent of his persistence, it might not be worth it to her to keep him alive.
After a few minutes, a collection of heavy footfalls came storming back down the hallway. Sokka rolled onto his knees, bracing his head against the floor. The guards were coming to deal with him, and he didn't want to look like he'd given up.
Not that there was anything he could have done, anyway. When the door opened, six soldiers poured into the room, and Sokka went pale just at the thought of being so horrendously overpowered. He barely had time to blink before a boot slammed down on his back, forcing him roughly to his stomach.
Sokka yelled as two more soldiers put their boots to the backs of his knees and the first sat on top of him, straddling his torso and pinning him down. A fourth soldier kneeled in front of him and yanked Sokka's arms forward, over his head.
Sokka screamed at them.
"Let me go, you bastards! You fucking Fire Nation cowards!"
But all he accomplished by struggling was tearing his burns against the floor.
The soldier on his back was crushing the air out of him, but Sokka kept yelling and screaming until someone hit him in the face. After that he was silent, his fury fizzling out into dry and helpless anguish.
The soldier at his front pressed Sokka's forearms together, elbows to wrists, so that the soldier on his back could bind them tightly in a wide leather strap. Sokka could no longer move more than to twitch his hands pointlessly at the sides.
He laid his cheek against the floor and whined quietly in grief with every breath he took. Above him, someone muttered, "Let's see him slip that."
Throughout this, Sokka had become aware of a sharp, repetitive clanging coming from the other end of the room, but in his distress, he couldn't begin to imagine what it was. The soldiers near him attached a short chain at places near each of his elbows, and now, fully cuffed, Sokka was pulled to his knees to see at last what the clanging had been about.
The two remaining soldiers had pounded two metal stakes into the floor just below where his old cuffs still dangled. To each stake was attached a short length of chain, each of which ended in a thick leather cuff.
Ankle restraints, Sokka realized, and he sagged backward into the legs of a guard, his cuffed and chained arms lying uselessly in his lap. Depression as heavy and dark as the universe weighed him down. The guard kneed him forward, and Sokka hunched over, sobbing weakly into his own knees.
"Please just let me go," he begged. "I can't give you anything. I'm useless. Please just let me go."
They ignored his pleas, hefting him up and dragging him over to the stakes. He didn't resist.
When the guards set him down, he fell numbly onto his back and lay miserably still, staring blearily at the ceiling. He'd lost all his heart and energy. The guards strapped his ankles into the restraints and lowered the pulley so that his old cuffs crumpled into a heap on his stomach.
Someone chained his new arm cuff to the pulley and lifted Sokka into the air like a freshly killed animal. Tears rolled silently off his face. When the guards brought him to standing height, he didn't bother to press his feet against the floor.
The guards then filed out into the hallway, and Azula's voice came drifting into the room: "Now get out of here. I want to be left in private."
Sokka looked to the door. Had Azula been there the whole time? If so, she'd heard him screaming and begging the guards to free him. He dropped his head and swallowed a sob that had rushed suddenly into his chest. He was so embarrassed and so ashamed. He was supposed to be stronger than this.
Once the guards were gone, Azula stepped into view. Her posture was all wrong, her demeanor changed. With her presence, the atmosphere of the room became secretive and dark. She closed the door quietly behind her and checked twice to be sure it was locked.
Sokka closed his eyes, breathing through his tears in the irrational hope that Azula wouldn't see him crying. He was so overwhelmed by pain and despair that he almost didn't notice Azula coming close to him.
But, instinctively sensing he wasn't safe, he opened his eyes and found her staring animally at him, her hand hovering delicately near his face. He started, and Azula parted her lips, pressing her palm gently against his cheek. She smeared a tear from his eye with her thumb.
"Who would ever know?" she whispered to herself. Sokka tried to turn away, but she cupped his face in both her hands and made him look her in the eye. Her expression was ravenous and predatory. She was going to hurt him. A cold sweat swept over Sokka's body, and he drew in a breath and planted his feet on the floor.
With one hand, Azula reached up and untied Sokka's wolf tail. Buzzing filled Sokka's head, and he shut his eyes against a fresh flood of tears. His hair fell forward in thick dirty strands. His heart screamed in panic. Azula's fingers moved down to his neck and felt out the tiny hollow of his collarbone.
"Don't," he begged. "Please don't." Her hands moved down to his chest. "Oh god, don't touch me. Please." His voice cracked.
Azula didn't acknowledge him. She delicately traced the edge of his burn, then circled his nipples. "Stop," Sokka mouthed, but his voice was gone. Azula pressed her fingertips into the soft flesh and caressed the little bumps that swelled up there. She hummed in interest.
Abandoning that, she bent her head close to him and blew softly onto his raw and bloodied chest. Goosebumps broke out over his skin.
Azula stooped lower, bringing her hands to his hips, and lightly kissed his stomach. Sokka shuddered.
He felt her tongue red hot on his skin, but when she pulled away, the wet streaks she left behind became cold as ice, like ghosts clinging to the places she'd touched.
Soon, Azula's hands found their way to his backside, and she was on her knees in front of him. Sokka whimpered at the thought of what might come next, but all she did was lay her cheek against his thigh. The crown of her head pressed gently against his groin.
Moments passed, and Sokka felt sick to his stomach. Azula nudged his leg with her nose and explored with her hands the soft curves of his behind.
She pulled away, lifting herself up by his hips, and stepped around behind him, trailing one hand along his stomach.
Sokka whined as she pressed herself up against him, the thick panels of her uniform not masking the heat and shape of her body. Both her hands were now positioned low on his abdomen, and as she nuzzled her face into the crook of his neck, she slid her palms down and cupped his genitals.
Sokka choked.
Within moments, Azula had his penis in her hands, toying with it and massaging it between her fingers. She kneaded the soft, cool flesh like dough, and Sokka writhed against her, as if trying to escape.
But there was absolutely nothing he could do. He cried and leaned his head back, pushing her face away, but she just tightened her grip on his crotch and wrapped one arm vice-like around his waist. Her breath was on his neck. He shuddered.
He didn't want it but couldn't prevent it when his body started to respond. He flexed his legs and pulled at his ankle cuffs, and his penis swelled in Azula's fist. Delighted, she purred at him, "That's right," and adjusted her grip to stroke him.
"Stop," he said breathlessly, tears dripping from his chin. Azula pumped her fist and Sokka arched his back, panting. "No," he moaned. "Please. Just leave me alone."
Azula pushed her hips forward, pressing their bodies together, and leaned her cheek against the back of his neck. She was panting too, making tiny sounds of effort as she worked her hand faster over his erection.
Sokka twitched and strained against his restraints, and then, involuntarily, as if he'd been shocked with electricity, he bucked into her hand, his hips thrusting forward. Azula laughed in surprise and rubbed her thumb over the tip of his penis.
Sokka gasped, twisting his head to the side. No, he thought, no, no... Resisting her stimulation was impossible. He was horrified and humiliated, the urge for release becoming maddening. He moaned with inexpressible emotion and then found it too difficult to stop. His labored breathing and high, strained cries coupled the rhythm of Azula's beating fist.
After a while, Azula started to slow down, and the change of pace made Sokka more uncomfortable than ever. His breath caught in his throat, and he straightened his legs, his whole body tingling with unspent energy—but Azula was done.
She stopped her pumping and gripped his erection hard in her fist, squeezing so violently she might as well have been strangling him, and Sokka cried out, curling forward in pain. She squeezed from his penis a drop of clear liquid and allowed it to pool between her fingers.
Finally she let go, and Sokka gasped, his erection still standing off him, aching and unsatisfied. Azula lifted her hand and smeared the fluid down his face. He turned away from her and sobbed, new tears simply disappearing into the already too-wet surfaces of his cheeks.
Azula unwrapped herself from around him and backed away, leaving Sokka isolated in his own world of distress. He wouldn't open his eyes and couldn't keep from crying. He was like a child left alone in bed and afraid of the dark. All he could do was tremble.
Azula made no sound and didn't touch him again. After some time, Sokka calmed himself enough to be able to look at the room again.
Peeling open his eyes and peering through his tears, he could only make out the warped shape of Azula as she stepped out from behind him. He wiped his eyes on his shoulders, and she came clearer into view, pacing broodingly away from him. She was wiping her hand clean on the leg of her pants.
Sokka took deep, shaky breaths, watching her closely and blinking away new tears whenever they slowly welled up. Azula seemed more concerned now with analyzing her own part in the encounter than she did in handling Sokka anymore. She picked up the chair from where it lay by the door and agitatedly took a seat.
Sokka wriggled, trying to cope with the slowly fading hardness between his legs, and Azula silently kept rubbing her soiled hand against her knee.
He was so tired. He hung there uselessly, watching Azula with half-lidded eyes red and swollen with unspeakable rage. Azula meanwhile seemed to be wavering between anxiety and resignation. There was no remorse in her, only concern for what would come next, now that this boundary had been crossed.
She pondered her dirty hand, closing it thoughtfully on her thigh, then seemed to come to a decision. "I can't keep doing this," she said.
She looked at Sokka, and he tried to look back. He had an overwhelming, frightened urge to look away from her, but he fought it long enough to catch the meaning in her eye: she needed to get rid of him. She needed to dispose of him.
A cold rush of understanding poisoned his blood. He was never getting out of here. This was the last room he would ever see. Sokka widened his eyes, and Azula confirmed all his fears by setting her jaw and looking away. Sokka's throat tightened against a wave of fresh sobs, and he bit down tightly to keep them contained, scrunching his face up but not able to stop his tears.
"I should just kill you," Azula said, and Sokka choked to hear it out loud. Moments passed.
A clattering of wood on stone told him Azula had knocked the chair back to the ground, and when he looked up, she was conjuring lightning in one hand. His heart dropped into his stomach. He was going to be sick.
Now. She was going to kill him now. He'd faced death before, but never like this. He couldn't cope with this. This wasn't like dying in battle. This was... This was being kidnapped, raped, and murdered.
He thought of his family. He thought of his village. Being home, fishing, throwing snowballs, warming up by the fire. He remembered being a child, before his mother was dead, before they found the Avatar. He was shaking now, pale, sick, and scared. He was going to die now.
Azula raised her hand, and Sokka felt the electric tingle on his skin, even from this distance. The room glowed blue. Azula's hair floated ethereally away from her face. Sokka tensed and waited helplessly, the moment hanging in the air. He stopped breathing.
Azula stretched out her arm and released a blast which screamed right by him and exploded against the wall. Sokka cried out in torturous shock. Stone and dust sprayed from the wall, biting into his skin where it hit him. Azula shielded her eyes from the debris, and the room faded back into stillness.
Sokka retched, losing control of himself completely. His body convulsed, heaving bile up into his throat. There was nothing in his stomach to expel, but he was sick to the very core. Had he been free, he would have collapsed, shaking so violently that he couldn't stand. He wailed, sobbing loudly in the horrific aftermath, his body trying to cough up some poison that didn't exist.
Azula wasn't going to kill him, but she had destroyed him. She kicked the chair across the room then tore open the door and left in silence.
Sokka barely registered her going. He was hysterical, racked with pain and fear and grief. He sobbed until his throat rattled and his head pounded, until his body just couldn't take any more.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
End of chapter two.
Replies to reviews can be found here: www2.adult-fanfiction.org/forum/topic/33756-review-replies-ill-gotten-goods
- 1
- 2
- 3
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Ill-Gotten Goods