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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
- 2
- 3
- 4
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Chapter Three: Into the Fire
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Sokka was done with. Horror and trauma had sucked from him the final dregs of his stamina, and now, wholly overtaken by a corrosive exhaustion, he fell heavy into unconsciousness. For hours and hours he hung from the ceiling of his cold, silent prison, sagging in his bonds as if dead, his arms folded and bound together above him, his ankles chained to the floor. His skin, naked and glistening with still-raw wounds, burned with fever, and his mind, sick with deliriousness, tormented him in his dreams.
He dreamt that he was screaming, thrashing psychotically against a suffocating darkness that engulfed his head and limbs like fog and held him down, exposed. Azula's hands moved over him, violating him, and through the rattling of his throat, he coughed up blood, thick and hot, dripping from his chin. The room around him was crumbling black charcoal, smoke and brimstone filling his lungs. He was choking, dying, becoming nothing but a convulsing body stretched out for someone else's use.
He cried in his dream, shivering under the unwelcome touch, when a sharp drop in his stomach jolted him awake, his blood racing with the panic of suddenly falling. Sokka blinked blindly, unable to comprehend what was happening, but perceived the sound of a clinking chain in the background as his body slowly collapsed to the floor. His knees hit stone, he dipped forward, his face sinking near the floor, and only then did he realize that he was being lowered by the pulley.
Before his face made contact with the ground, a large, rough hand pulled him back by the shoulder, and he was hefted back onto his knees. Being moved, having his arms lowered again to his stomach, sent pain washing through his sides. His muscles, too far stretched for too long, had forgotten where their proper places were on his body. Sokka whined at the pain, a sound so small and thin it could hardly be heard.
The hands that held him upright gripped him under his arms, digging into his tender muscle and hurting him, but Sokka couldn't move or object, too weak to properly interact with the world. His head rolled and hung forward as someone knelt before him and removed the leather cuff binding his forearms together.
Guards, Sokka hazily recognized.
Loosed, Sokka's arms fell free to his sides, and at the jostling of his left hand, he chirped in pain, stung sharply by the jarring of his broken bone. He tried to lift his head, but he barely had the strength. Every inch of him hurt , so much, his whole body sore and aching with abuse, cold, and sickness. And as the first guard set the arm cuff aside and the second pulled Sokka closer against his legs, Sokka's skin crawled with disgust, repulsed by the idea of being handled and touched without the ability to resist.
The guard in front him stooped down and wrapped his arms around Sokka's torso, lifting him to his feet. Sokka winced as the burn on his chest tore against the guard's armor, but he could do nothing to alleviate the pain, his cheek merely sinking against the man's chest, limp in his arms, dead weight. At his feet, the other guard unstrapped his ankles from the restraints.
Seemingly out of nowhere, a third guard appeared, and together, the three men maneuvered Sokka into something loose and baggy, bending his arms into sleeves and draping long fabric over his shoulders and down to his knees. He was leaned back into the arms of the guard behind him, and the guard before him tied a belt at Sokka's waist before the word robe came into his mind.
The guards laid him out on the floor on a stretcher, and one of them pulled his robe over him, to cover his nakedness. Next moment, Sokka was lifted away, bobbing out into the hall on the gentle current of their footsteps. His head reeled. The sensation of being carried felt surreally familiar, like lying in the bottom of a boat, and with this thought playing on his memory, he was lulled back into oblivion.
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When next he awoke, he was so delirious he wasn't even aware of the position of his own body. Someone was pulling on his robe. There were hands at his waist, untying his belt, and at once Sokka's consciousness revved with anxiety. He tried to open his eyes, overcome with a sudden panic— don't touch me! —and tried to lift his hands to stop them. But he was too weak to move, and within seconds, he felt his robe open.
Cool air rushed over him, making him aware that he was lying on his back, and tears came into his eyes. He whined, little more than a whistle of air. The person beside him put their hand on his forehead, talking to him gently, but he didn't know what they were saying. Around him, others took his limbs in their hands, bending his arms to get him out of his sleeves, pulling his robe out from under him, as if undressing a baby. He wanted to stop them but was powerless to protest, unable even to open his eyes, his head too heavy to lift from the pillow, tears seeping from under his eyelashes.
In the darkness, someone took him by the arm, pressed a finger into the crook of his elbow, and put a needle into him. Sokka took a breath, turning his head toward the sting, but too soon he felt the sweep of warm relaxation wash up his arm, through his blood, and again he lost consciousness.
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Some time later, as if in a new reality a universe away, Sokka woke to someone smartly patting his cheek. He blinked groggily, turning his head away, only faintly aware of the world around him. His eyes wouldn't focus. All the world seemed like nothing but a blur of dim colors and hazy light, but he perceived that he was lying on a bed with a woman sitting beside him. The woman spoke, then rolled his head gently back and forth by his chin, brushing his hair from his forehead. When Sokka resisted the push of her hand, she desisted and instead helped him to sit up.
She put her hand on the back of his neck and pulled him forward, but even that small amount of motion made him dizzy, and once upright, he leaned clumsily forward over his legs, confused but trying to make sense. He became aware now of a white-haired man standing at the foot of his bed. Sokka peered lethargically up at him, squinting uselessly at the blur in his eyes, his whole body feeling tingly and warm.
The woman beside him brought a warm cup to his lips, guiding his head with her hand again, and as the cup tipped, he immediately tasted broth, and at once, all thought slipped from his mind except the need to swallow it.
He gulped clumsily, eyes closed and barely remaining upright, and as he drank, the man asked him a question. Without lifting his face, without opening his eyes, Sokka tried dumbly to answer it without even having understood it, mumbling into the cup. No one said anything after that, and Sokka drank until the broth was gone.
The woman took the cup away, and on his own, Sokka tried to brace himself up with one hand, but the hand didn't seem to be working properly. In confusion, he sank instead down to his elbow, head hanging, but soon after, he lay back down entirely, unwilling to put in the effort to stay upright anymore.
The man stepped up beside him then and leaned over him, patting his cheek again. Sokka tried to look up at him, his eyelashes obscuring his vision, but he was too tired—he only wanted to sleep. The man was talking to him, but Sokka couldn't understand it. His eyes were already rolling back under his eyelids. He closed his eyes and lay there a while, listening to the man and woman exchanging words over him, but soon lost track of the world.
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Not long after that, in a dim and echoey chamber, Sokka came awake once more as he was being lifted from a stretcher onto a mat on the floor. Blinking in confusion, he caught a glimpse of a gray stone ceiling, moving away with dizzying effect as he was lowered to the floor. Someone put a pillow under his head and a blanket over his body, and around him, there was the click of many footsteps. He turned his head, his hair falling over his face, and peered blearily out across the floor as a row of barely-discernable boots filed away from him. A barred door slid shut with a clang, and the boots faded from sight, the sound of their footfalls becoming just a dim echo in his mind. As he closed his eyes again, he vaguely registered the change of scenery but was too tired to care, and within moments, he fell back to sleep.
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When Sokka finally regained consciousness, it was gradual and quiet but finally marked once again by the same sense self-awareness that might have accompanied any morning waking up in his own sleeping bag. Whatever drug had disoriented and detached him for so long had finally set him back down on the earth.
Lying with his eyes closed, he noticed first simply being awake, then expanded his consciousness to include the awareness of his physical existence in space and the position of his own body. He was nestled comfortably on his side on the soft mat beneath him, warm and secure under his blanket. In peace, he lay still for a while, not bothered enough to move beyond his solitary bubble, but after a long hesitation breathed in deeply and adjusted himself, rolling onto his back. Only then did he notice anything out of the ordinary.
Opening his eyes and stretching his arms out under the blanket, he registered that his left hand felt cumbersome and heavy, unable to move or bend at the wrist. Propping himself up slightly and pulling back the blanket, he found that it had been cast in plaster and bandages. He blinked at it, realizing that someone had set his broken bone for him, and was amazed that anyone would go to the trouble. He pushed himself up to sit.
His body was weak and hesitant to wake up, but as his blood started pulsing through his veins again, he could feel it reinvigorating his muscles. He looked at himself and saw that he was dressed in a simple prisoner's tunic and pants again, russet colored, and in much better condition than the ones he'd initially been given. He pushed his hair out of his face with his uncast right hand and saw, too, that this wrist was wrapped in bandages. Seeing that, he pulled open his collar and glanced down his shirt, finding that his chest, too, was wrapped in bandages, and that a long bandage also ran down his left side. They felt as natural on his skin as his clothes did, as if he'd been wearing them quite a long time. And, he noted, the burns that they were covering ached only dully.
Dropping his collar, he looked up at his surroundings, taking in now what he'd only barely perceived before. He was in a private prison cell. The foremost wall was a long row of bars with a sliding gate in one side, and the other three walls were polished red stone. The whole space was roomy enough to walk at least five paces across it any direction, and in front of him, in the far rear corner, stood a simple chamber pot. Looking behind him, in the opposite rear corner, his eyes fell upon a meal laid out for him.
At the sight of food, his heart raced, and for a moment, nothing else mattered. He rolled onto his knees and crawled over to the tray, his blanket clinging to his legs, trailing behind him, and found a small helping of cold porridge, sliced bananas and cheese, and dark bread and butter, laid out beside a generous wooden pail of water accompanied by a drinking ladle.
He sat for a while, eating single-mindedly, virtually starved, then sucked down ladle after ladle of water until the pail was nearly half empty. Panting, he set the ladle back with a sharp click, resting with his thumb hooked over the edge of the basin, and took a moment to catch his breath, monumentally grateful for what he was sure had been his first meal in days. He waited with his head bowed, letting his stomach settle, cherishing the feeling of food in his body again, and when he was ready, lifted his head and turned back to his room, ready to think.
The most obvious question he had was, where was he? Bracing himself with one hand against the wall, he shakily pushed himself to his feet, stepping out of his tangled blanket and seeing that there were even slippers on his feet. He walked over to the row of bars which faced nothing but a blank stone wall and grabbed one of the bars with his right hand while resting his cast on a waist-level cross bar, leaning forward to maximize his sight line, but to little effect. To the left was nothing but more of the blank wall, stretching only far enough into the distance to accommodate, he supposed, three more cells like his, and to the right, just at the corner of his own cell, was the corner of the hallway, turning and leading away behind him along the rightmost wall of his cell. The floor all around was simple concrete, and the space was lit by creamy white glass lanterns set high into the walls. The air around him was dead quiet.
"Hello?" he called, his voice crackly with disuse. Clearing his throat, he swallowed and waited for an answer he didn't expect and was rewarded with ringing silence. He was alone.
He turned back to his cell, looking over its sparse furniture and realizing how much better this was than anything he'd yet seen in captivity. A warmth of pained gratitude overtook him, and he leaned back against the bars, fully registering now how unspeakably glad he was just to be unchained and clothed again.
He took a breath, as if to confirm the truth of it, and concluded that these new accommodations were not Azula's doing. He was in someone else's care now. Azula had gotten rid of him, just as she'd said she would.
He folded his arms across his stomach, trying to reassure himself of the reality of it, to grant himself a rare moment of unironic optimism, when the unfamiliar bulk of his cast against his hip drew his attention. He looked down at it, holding it in front of him, and prodded it with his right hand, doing what he could to disturb it and move it, but he couldn't shift it enough to cause pain to the broken bone. Wonderful, he thought, shaking his head in amazement. He'd been given quality medical attention. This was the work of a real physician, not some shoddy battlefield medic. Whoever he was with now took some pains to be professional and clinical, quite a far cry from anything Azula would have granted him. So he was safe now, out of that nightmare of a dungeon forever. He could be confident in that.
He stood quietly for a while, cradling his cast in his hand, staring unfocusedly into empty space as his thoughts turned heavy and uncomfortable. With a sudden shiver of disgust, he pulled himself away from the bars and returned to his mat, sitting down with his back against the wall, folding his arms across his knees and resting his head against them. Thinking logically, he knew it had been days, at least, since he was last in Azula's presence, but the memory of it was so vivid, and his level of consciousness since then so tenuous that it felt as if he had only just survived her mock execution last night. He was invaded with the memories of his own body jerking in her fist, his childlike weeping, begging to be left alone. The terror of death, the convulsive dry heaving.
He felt sick, a cold sweat pricking at his skin. He was consumed with the feeling of being at fault, guilty, dirty and betrayed. Sitting here now, he was surprised at how readily his throat tightened and eyes burned at the mere memory of it all. He lifted his head, nostrils flared, and blinked coldly at his room, swallowing once to enforce his control of himself.
Stop it, he told himself. Don't go there.
He let out a quivering breath and purposefully turned his attention back to his room, refocusing on the mystery of his change of fortune. He knew he'd been moved, not just from the dungeon but from the Earth Kingdom base entirely. The state of the infrastructure here was too permanent and too well-maintained to be a temporary outpost. From the decor alone, he could safely assume he was in the Fire Nation now, but where exactly he was hesitant to guess.
Scanning his scattered memories from the past few days, he wondered if he might be able to form a more complete theory, but his impressions were virtually useless. All he could recall were vague shapes of light and shadow, people without faces, hands moving him because he couldn't. He couldn't even accurately get an impression of how long it had been.
His unbroken wrist itched beneath the bandages, and he rubbed it against his knee. He thought how he would like to see the state of his burns now, then touched his chest, wondering at how little they hurt compared to the raw, aching mess Azula had left them in. But to see them, he would have to destroy the bandaging, and his desire to let them go on healing was greater than his desire to investigate.
He sighed, leaning his head back against the wall. It was so quiet here. Strange, he thought, that there were so few cells, and no other prisoners. He wondered if this was some kind of quarantine bay. In any case, his isolation was somewhat disappointing, because he would have loved to have had another prisoner to talk to. Alone and deprived of all his belongings, there was simply nothing to do .
As such, with nothing to occupy him, it wasn't long before he felt drowsy again. Resigning himself and succumbing to his own exhaustion, he lay back down on his mat, pulling the blanket over him and feeling almost as though he could rest without end. Allowing his grip on consciousness to be weak, he lay there for a long time dozing.
After a long time, what could have easily been hours of solitude, Sokka once again became alert at the sound of two people coming up the hallway. He opened his eyes, distinguishing the separate sounds of the sharp click of a pair of boots and the smart padding of slippers.
Before he'd even lifted his head from the pillow, a man appeared on the other side of the bars at the corner of his cell. He was older, with slickly parted white hair and a number of wrinkles creasing his bronzed face, but there was still an air of youth and liveliness in his body. He wore a long black austere uniform and carried a doctor's satchel. At his shoulder appeared a stoic woman guard.
Sokka propped himself up cautiously, looking at him, and the man said, "You're awake. Good evening." Sokka didn't reply, but the man waited a moment before accepting his silence. "I'm just here to check on you," he continued formally. "If you cooperate, I won't have to call for more guards." He signaled to the woman to unlock the gate.
As the guard moved to the door, Sokka asked, "Who are you?"
"The prison doctor," the man answered.
"Which prison?"
The doctor met his eye. "You're in the palace," he said.
Sokka was taken aback by that, struck with a mild thrill of anxiety. That couldn't be.
"The Fire Lord's palace?" he asked.
The doctor lifted an eyebrow tolerantly. "The only palace," he said.
Sokka could think of nothing to say but merely stared at the doctor for a moment. The guard slid the gate open and stepped aside for the doctor. As the man entered his cell, Sokka raised another question:
"Do you normally keep prisoners in the palace?"
"Only in rare circumstances," the doctor replied, setting his bag on the floor. "As you can see, we're not equipped to hold many." He gestured to the left, toward the other empty cells.
Sokka followed his hand distractedly, already getting lost in nervous thought. Why was he in the palace itself?
The doctor kneeled at Sokka's bedside and took a stethoscope from his bag. He held it up, as if to indicate his intentions, and asked Sokka simply, "May I?"
Sokka looked at the device and reluctantly sat up, nervous of the man but trusting his intentions. He sat with his legs crossed and his hands folded in his lap. Taking this as consent, the doctor put the ear buds into his ears and lifted the back of Sokka's shirt. The cold metal of the stethoscope touching his skin sent a ripple of goosebumps across Sokka's back. He waited patiently, if on edge, while the doctor listened to his breathing, and glanced up at the woman guard, who was watching disinterestedly from the gate.
"Are you in pain?" the doctor asked, moving the stethoscope across Sokka's back. Sokka shrugged a little but didn't elaborate. The doctor didn't press him but moved the stethoscope again. "Do you feel sick?" he asked.
Sokka shook his head slightly, answering, "No."
The doctor pulled his hand from Sokka's shirt and shifted to kneel in front of him. "That's good," he commented, gesturing for Sokka to sit up straighter then slipping his hand up Sokka's shirtfront, pressing the stethoscope against him just under his collarbone, above his bandages. He paused, listening closely for Sokka's heart. "Weak, I imagine?" he asked, turning his eyes to Sokka's face for a response. Sokka simply looked at him and shrugged again. The doctor nearly sighed.
"Yes, well," he said, removing his hand from Sokka's shirt and pulling the ear buds from his ears, "that's partly due to the sedation. It will wear off." He pulled his satchel to him and replaced the stethoscope inside. "The condition you were in when you first arrived here," he began to explain, then paused. "Well, you were very ill. If you had come any later, I'm not sure you would have recovered." He looked at Sokka soberly as if to emphasize his point. Then he reached forward and put his hand against Sokka's forehead, pausing only briefly before taking it away again. "But your fever finally broke yesterday morning, and I expected you'd be much improved today." He nodded slightly, seeming satisfied. "I'm glad to see you doing well."
The doctor rose and picked up his bag. "The Fire Lord has been waiting to see you," he said. "I'll tell him you'll be able to meet with him tonight."
Sokka's heart skipped, and he looked up sharply at the doctor. "What?" he asked. The doctor cocked his brow at him. "Why?"
The doctor took a breath and explained to him patiently, "For a debriefing, I imagine. You are a member of the Avatar's party, yes? You couldn't have thought you would be held without questioning."
Sokka furrowed his brow but accepted this answer.
"The guards should come to collect you in a few hours," the doctor said. "I'll have someone bring you dinner before then."
The doctor stepped out of his cell, and as the woman guard turned the key in the lock, Sokka wondered why the Fire Lord himself would want to see him. It was a moment before he realized he was letting the doctor escape.
"Wait," he said suddenly, and the pair stopped just as they were about to turn down the hall. "How long have I been out?" he asked.
The doctor looked at him and answered evenly, "Six days."
Sokka's eyes rounded slightly. It seemed a long time to be unconscious.
"Don't exert yourself," the doctor warned as farewell. "Just rest for now. I'll see you again in the morning."
And with that, the pair disappeared down the hall, and Sokka listened to their footsteps until they faded behind the sound of a door closing.
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It was late in the evening when the guards came for Sokka. He stood calmly for the pair of them while they shackled his wrists in front of him in a tall pair of metal shackles, one cuff fitting just over his arm, above his wrist, to accommodate his cast. The cuffs were bound together by only three links of chain, severely limiting his mobility.
The guards led him down the dark hallway around the corner of his cell, up out of the basement, and down a few interior passages. The architecture around them was stately and businesslike, simple and unadorned. At the end of one hallway, they stopped, and one of the guards knocked on a heavy, wooden door but didn't wait for an answer before swinging the door inward and ushering Sokka, with the other guard, inside.
The room they stepped into was a large office and library, the walls paneled with dark wood and lined top to bottom with books and scrolls. The rows of bookshelves were punctuated with tall, narrow windows which blurred the radiant blue night sky through their decorative glasswork. On one half of the room stood a writing desk, backed by a tall, mountainous painting, and on the other, where Sokka and the guards stood, were arranged a few reading chairs. Here, in one corner of the bookshelves, holding a small book open in his hands, his eyes fixed on them, stood Fire Lord Ozai.
Sokka stared at him, half in analytical observation and half in intimidated wonder, struck by the significance of this encounter. This was Ozai, the single man for whom the entire world was at war.
Ozai closed his book and replaced it on the shelf, waving the guards off almost disinterestedly. He stood and regarded Sokka with composure as the guards bowed slightly and stepped out, closing the door behind them, the heavy thud reverberating through the room.
For a moment, Sokka and Ozai regarded each other in silence. Ozai was dressed simply for his position, in formal red-embroidered robes without accessory. His hair was loose but for a simple half-ponytail, long and dark, with a narrow, carefully trimmed goatee. Sokka was surprised to see how young he looked, glowing in the prime of his life, healthy and fit. Aware of his own deteriorated physique, Sokka suddenly felt self-conscious. He absently twisted his arms in his shackles.
"Welcome," Ozai said. Sokka said nothing. "Let's not waste any time, shall we? I know who you are, and there's only one thing I want to know from you: where is the Avatar?"
Sokka flexed his jaw, feeling compelled not to answer but conscious of the fact that there was no reason to stay silent. There was no information he could give. Ozai waited for his reply but seemed to understand his silence.
"You don't know," he said.
Sokka gave up his reticence, not wanting to draw this out longer than it had to be. "How could I?" he asked, his tone low and serious.
Ozai pressed him regardless. "They're your friends. You must know their plans."
"You and I both know they're on the run," Sokka said, showing all his cards at once, because there was no point playing coy. "There are no plans."
"None at all?" Ozai insisted.
Sokka was already impatient with this line of questioning. "There is nothing I can tell you," he said. "You're wasting your time."
Ozai seemed to accept this, and not merely with professional grace but with some element of satisfaction. He looked at Sokka with an expression that could only indicate a sort of respect. He seemed to appreciate Sokka's directness.
"How are you tolerating your imprisonment?" he asked, his tone becoming light, changing tacks. "Not clinging to any rescue fantasies, I hope."
Sokka narrowed his eyes. "They don't even know where I am," he said, and a dark shadow passed over his heart, because he was admitting it to himself for the first time as much as he was answering Ozai.
"But they might guess," Ozai suggested, and Sokka immediately resented being played this way.
"They wouldn't come anyway," he answered with finality. "At this point, it would be too dangerous, and a waste of resources."
He stood there defiantly, looking back at Ozai, swallowing once to sustain his resolve, and Ozai looked back, studying him with interest. After a moment, he smiled, seeming pleased with Sokka's answers.
"You're quite the pragmatist," he said. "And very intelligent. I'm impressed." Sokka sensed that he was actually sincere. But the calm change in Ozai's manner gave Sokka the impression that the Fire Lord was getting to his real purpose now, and not knowing what to expect, Sokka's senses hummed with vague disquiet.
"When Azula sent you to me," Ozai said, crossing the room as he spoke so that Sokka had to turn in order to follow his movements, "her letter contained what amounts to glowing praise, coming from Azula. You are the only non-bender in the Avatar's party, yet you are the one who organized the invasion on the Day of Black Sun. You are the one who executed the only successful escape in history from the Boiling Rock. And moreover, for having no bending skills whatsoever, you've somehow managed to fight alongside the Avatar all this time, against even Azula herself, and still hold your own."
By now, Ozai's enthusiasm was virtually palpable, his growing appreciation evident in his body language, his sincerity.
He stopped near the door, and Sokka realized that Ozai had managed to position himself in such a way as to block the exit. Suddenly the room took on the atmosphere of having become a trap. Ozai said in a smooth and mild voice, "You have been a worthy adversary on the field. And I am very happy to have you here."
Sokka was uncomfortable. His body tingled with anxiety, the hairs on the back of his neck rising. He and Ozai locked eyes, and Ozai seemed now far too familiar to be conducting a formal interrogation. Sokka suspected things were about to turn very bad. Then Ozai stepped closer.
Sokka thrilled unexpectedly with a wave of adrenaline, reactively taking a half-step back before freezing again, having caught himself too late, failing to stifle the impulse.
Ozai noticed this and chuckled a little as he closed the remaining distance between them. Sokka tensed at Ozai's intimate proximity.
"It's all right," Ozai cooed reasonably. But as Ozai lifted his hand, Sokka sensed there was real danger here, and he flinched back slightly as Ozai took hold of Sokka's shirtfront. "If you cooperate, I won't have to hurt you," Ozai said, and he pulled Sokka toward him, looking down into his face with a chilling smile. "I just want you to perform a little service for me."
Their faces were only a few inches apart now, and Sokka was unable to tear his gaze away from Ozai, his body going cold with a latent fear. Ozai seemed consumed with a gluttonous admiration, the color in his face slowly rising. When he next spoke, his voice was low, morphed into a husky growl.
"Suck my dick," he said.
At first, it was as if Sokka didn't understand him, all meaning in words suddenly incomprehensible. But as reality caught back up to him, his breath hardened in his throat, his heart pounding in the void behind his ribs. He nearly lost his balance.
He pulled back against Ozai's fist, a shiver going through him, staring into the face of the man and not believing this could be happening. But Ozai didn't let him go, instead stepping closer to him and bringing their bodies together. Sokka felt the tip of the Ozai's erection brush against his hand, and it was as if an alarm suddenly exploded to life in his head. Jarred into action with an appalled noise of distress, Sokka violently flinched away, tearing himself out of Ozai's grip.
No, he thought. It was the only word he could think of.
The realization of what he'd been asked to do hit him like a battering ram to the chest. Every nerve in his body came alive, screaming at him, making the world seem unreal. He backed away from Ozai in a cloud of buzzing panic, and in only a few steps bumped into the desk behind him. He started, looking at it as if it were about to attack him, frozen in bewilderment.
Ozai approached him again, saying, "None of this, now. You're only delaying the inevitable."
Sokka flashed him a look, edging away from him, feeling like an animal in a cage. His chest was tight, his lungs empty, but even now he could see the inescapable truth of Ozai's words. The knowledge of it barreled through him like a suffocating wind. For every inch Ozai neared, Sokka backed away further, not letting him get close, his heart contracting in a dread so powerful it was like sickness.
Ozai's expression was no longer amused but hard and impatient. He reached forward, and when Sokka tried to dart away, Ozai caught him by the back of the collar and yanked him roughly back. Sokka shouted, trying to tug free, but Ozai snarled at him, " Enough ," and slammed him facedown onto the desk.
Sokka barked in pain, a cascade of brushes and ink bottles clattering away from his impact. Ozai pinned him from behind, trapping Sokka's arms beneath his chest, the metal of the cuffs digging into his ribs. He struggled to get up, but Ozai was too strong and too heavy for him. Sokka's heart was pounding frantically, his pulse in his head seeming loud enough to deafen him. Squirming under the weight of Ozai's arms, the realization of his complete helplessness hit him hard. There was nothing he could do. He shouted, nearly crying, because this wasn't something he was capable of escaping. This was going to happen.
The next moment, Ozai reached forward and took Sokka's head in his hands. Sokka gasped, not expecting this, and Ozai held him firmly down, his fingers forming a cage over Sokka's head, fanning out wide and digging into his scalp, covering his eyes and blinding him.
"Aaaanh!" Sokka cried, as much in confusion as in anger and pain, trying to lift his head, straining his neck against Ozai. But under the force of all that weight, he was useless. Ozai leaned down over him, covering his body with his own, and Sokka felt tears welling up in his eyes even beneath Ozai's fingertips. He could feel Ozai's erection pressing into his leg and couldn't even move to escape it. He whimpered, agonized, his spirit dying on the table.
There was a brief moment of stillness, of giving up, like dropping off a ledge, when Sokka had stopped struggling and Ozai had him encompassed, before Sokka noticed the warmth developing at his eyes. But once the sensation registered in his mind, he recognized what it was, and as quickly as the heat built up, so did his panic. Gasping in horror, he tried once more to push himself up, shouting "No!" and tossing his head to get away, but Ozai's grip was unshakable, and within moments, the heat at his eyes had intensified into a blinding pain.
Sokka forgot everything around him. Ozai's fingers dug into his eyelids, over his tear ducts, pouring heat like fire into his corneas. Sokka screamed, thrashing on the desk, and Ozai put all his weight forward, shoving Sokka's head down onto the table to keep him still. Sokka twisted aside, his cheekbone grinding against the writing surface, and cried uncontrollably, mad with the desire to escape the pain. Ozai flared the heat in his fingers to a level Sokka couldn't withstand, and he screamed shrilly, like glass breaking, for the sheer terror of having his eyes burnt out of his head.
But Ozai didn't maim him, stopping there and letting the heat die away without searing Sokka's skin. But the heat was so piercingly painful that, to Sokka, the difference was almost negligible. He lay on the desk, Ozai's hands still encasing him, half wailing, tears running down his face in hot rivulets, coursing around Ozai's fingers. Ozai said nothing, but his message was abundantly clear: he was absolutely in control.
Without further show, Ozai released him and pulled him from the desk, turning him around and pushing him abruptly to his knees. Sokka blinked wildly at the pain in his eyes, vision red and watery and full of shooting lights. He hit the floor nearly as blind as if Ozai's hands had still been on him, but he could perceive enough to recognize the motion of Ozai opening his robes and exposing himself before Sokka's face.
Sokka fell back, whimpering, but Ozai reached down and grabbed a fistful of his hair, bringing him back and shoving his head backward against the desk. He bent and put his hands on Sokka's face, prying his mouth open and forcing himself in.
Sokka gagged, his eyes flooding and his face turned upward, Ozai's hands pressed hard into his cheeks to keep his teeth apart. The force of Ozai's body knocked him back against the desk, and he tried to reach for Ozai's wrists, but he was crowded out, his shackles limiting his maneuverability.
Ozai moved into him not with violence but with deliberation, and Sokka cried, choking and gagging, unable to pull away, unable even to keep his balance, shoved back awkwardly onto his heels, slipping against the desk. He clutched with both hands at Ozai's knee in an attempt to stay upright, struggling just to breathe, gasping through his nose in the brief moments he had an open air passage. Ozai slammed against the back of his throat, bruising and hurting him.
When at last Ozai came, Sokka gagged suddenly and loudly, choking on semen and heaving uncontrollably forward, coughing violently even as Ozai slipped prematurely from his mouth. Sokka lurched forward, bending double, a string of mucous smearing back across his cheek, and Ozai stepped back to give him room, taking himself into his own hand to finish. As Sokka hacked unceremoniously into the floor, bracing himself on his cuffed hands, white splashes of semen spattered the tile beside him.
In the aftermath, Ozai stood panting above him, and Sokka stayed buckled on the floor, shaking and trembling, unable even to lift his face. He spit, clearing his throat repeatedly, even as his mind seemed to be freezing up, going into shock. After a moment, Ozai stepped away, and Sokka unsteadily picked himself up, mechanically getting to his knees. He wiped his cheek on his shoulder, his vision dim and swimming, and when he looked up, Ozai was standing across the room, quietly retying his robes.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Sokka didn't resist being led back to his cell. When the guards came for him, he went where they nudged him, jaw locked, eyes unfocused, hands clasped together tightly to hide his shaking, bottling himself up like an explosive. He wouldn't look at them, couldn't bear to acknowledge with them what had just taken place. But he had no doubt they knew; at very least, there had been semen on the floor.
When they arrived again at his cell, he allowed them to remove his cuffs at the gate and then stepped rigidly inside as they latched the lock behind him. And there he remained, standing like stone until the last of their footsteps disappeared at the end of the hallway. After a moment, he took a single step toward his mat, but his legs gave out, and he stumbled forward.
His knees hit the mat hard and he caught himself clumsily against the wall, covering his mouth with his one good hand, staring into nothing, fighting back a wave of grief that seemed to wash through his body like a pounding waterfall.
No! he scolded himself, commanding himself not to lose control. Calm down. This is nothing. He didn't even do anything to you.
But his mind revolted immediately against that, feeling the false justification, making him sick with dismay. He pinched his eyes shut, making a noise into his hand thick and shrill with distress, but he quickly locked his throat closed, refusing even to breathe, lest it fan the flame.
Sokka shook his head slowly, replaying the interrogation in his memory, unable to understand where it had gone wrong. Where had he slipped up?
But a sinking, collapsing feeling in his chest made him stop suddenly and scold himself again, No! Stop thinking. You're safe now. You can deal with this. Calm down!
But with his body screaming for breath, crumpled and quaking against the wall, his mind retaliated against him frantically, even as he tried to reason with it, and a single thought broke to the surface, like lightning ripping through cloud cover:
I can't!
And his diaphragm spasmed beyond his control, sucking in air through his constricted throat, breaking his hold on himself.
With a gasp like surprise, he cried into his hand, a broken-sounding muffled screech, and sunk further onto his knees, curling in on himself and falling into sobs which carried him long into the night.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Sokka was awakened the next morning by a screech of metal which startled him into consciousness. He flinched, turning quickly over in his bed, half sitting up, heart racing, before realizing it was only the doctor opening his cell door.
"Relax," the doctor said to him, stepping inside and setting what appeared to be a small metal wastebasket in the center of the cell. The woman guard who'd accompanied him the night before entered just behind him and set a fresh meal tray in the corner near his water basin, then returned to the hallway and stood without facing them, her hands folded in her lap, waiting patiently.
Sokka was worn out and in no mood for company, but he sat upright in bed, squinting at the world, his eyes still puffy and hurting from the abuse of last night.
The doctor sat his bag down near the bed mat and kneeled before Sokka, bending forward a little to peer at him.
"What did you do to your eyes?" he asked irritably. Sokka blinked, shrugging, and leaned back against the wall, not up for a confrontation. He just felt...tired. The doctor shook his head and grumbled a little, rummaging in his bag for a moment before pulling out a small tube of ointment.
"Here," he said, uncapping the tube and reaching his empty hand for Sokka's face. Sokka flinched away, ducking as if he were about to be hit, and looked up at the doctor in surprise. The doctor scowled slightly.
"Come on now, hold still," he said, and reached again. He took Sokka's face and rested his fingertips against Sokka's eyebrow, pulling his lower eyelid down with his thumb. "Goodness, they're red through and through," he grumbled, then told Sokka to look up.
Sokka did as he was told, clenching his jaw as he did so, trying to cooperate though his eyes burned the more they were opened. The doctor balanced his other hand against Sokka's cheekbone, steadying himself with his pinky as he squeezed a strip of ointment into Sokka's eyelid.
The doctor released him, then turned Sokka's face with his hand, Sokka blinking at the goop already cooling and soothing the irritation, then repeated the procedure on Sokka's other side. When he was done, the doctor returned the tube of ointment to the bag, and Sokka peered foggily around his cell, everything seeming hazy and underwater through the ointment.
"How are you feeling?" the doctor asked, taking Sokka's bandaged wrist into his hands and prodding it gently.
Sokka swallowed, watching the doctor's hands. "Fine," he said, a bit croaky. The doctor took a pair of bandage scissors from his bag, one blade blunted at the tip to protect Sokka from being cut as it moved along his skin, and snipped away the bandage from Sokka's wrist, pulling back the gauze and revealing the brown-and-purple mottled bruises and the ring of scabbed skin from where he'd rubbed his wrist raw on Azula's shackles. The sight was ugly but greatly healed already.
"It looks all right," the doctor commented, reaching for the little wastebasket he'd brought and dropping the old bandages into it. "I think we can leave it alone now. Just don't pick at it." Sokka snorted. From his perspective, the issue of picking scabs was not a top concern.
But then the doctor said, "Now let's have a look at these burns," gesturing for Sokka to take his shirt off, and Sokka balked at him, a little taken aback. The doctor wrinkled his eyebrows at him. "What's the matter?"
Sokka didn't know what to say, he just didn't like the idea anymore of removing his clothes for a stranger. But the doctor seemed to have no patience for such insecurities. He gestured again, almost sighing. "Come on now, we have to change the bandages."
Sokka felt very uncooperative, but he knew there was no sense arguing. He understood the necessity of healing and didn't want to begrudge a man who'd only come to help him. Slowly, he rose to his knees and reluctantly pulled his tunic over his head.
As the fabric came free of his body, the complete extent of his bandaging was revealed for the first time. Around his torso was a wide band of white gauze, wrapped across his pectorals, and layered under this, tucked up under his armpit and running down his left side, ran a long vertical strip of similar dressing held in place by many cross strips of adhesive tape. Lifting his arms overhead made his side twinge a little where the skin stretched, but for the most part, his burns were remarkably painless.
Sokka lowered his crumpled shirt self-consciously to his knees, not looking at the doctor, and when the man moved closer, Sokka stiffened, ill at ease. But when the doctor presented his scissors, Sokka lifted his arm out of the way to grant him access to his side, and the doctor slipped the blade up under the lower edge of Sokka's chest wrapping, snipping carefully upward. When the wrapping was cut all the way through, the doctor slipped the gauze out from around Sokka's torso, pulling gently at the oozy spot on his chest where the moistened dressing clung a little to his burn. Sokka hissed as the cloth pulled away, looking down at the glistening pink disc of skin at the base of his sternum, nestled in the dip between his pectorals.
It was the first time he'd seen the burn in full light. The damaged skin was a bright, vivid pink, seeming almost to glow against the natural copper of his skin tone, speckled with spots and wisps of red where flecks of blood beaded or flowed too near the surface. The wound felt raw but oddly numb and shone with the residue of some kind of pearly ointment.
The doctor heaped the used bandages into the wastebasket, then sat a moment, watching him. "How does that feel?" he asked.
"Fine," Sokka said, idly touching the skin at edge of the burn and smearing a bit of ointment between his fingertips.
The doctor nodded. "Let's see this now," and he tapped the underside of Sokka's broken wrist to tell him to lift his arm. Sokka did so, holding his cast over his head as the doctor gently peeled strip after strip of adhesive tape from Sokka's side, pulling the dressing away as he did so, stinging him with the repeated tugging and causing him considerably more pain than he had with the burn on his chest. Sokka didn't object, however, but merely winced in silence as the doctor slowly exposed the vibrant pink stripe running all the way down his side.
When he got to Sokka's hip, however, the doctor paused, seeming at a loss, and stuck his finger into the waistband of Sokka's pants. Sokka pulled away, startled.
"You'll have to loosen these," the doctor said. The bandage continued on beneath the fabric.
Sokka just looked at him, unresponsive, and didn't immediately obey. The two of them stared at each other for a long moment.
"Well?" the doctor asked, holding the mess of stained bandages in one hand and tugging impatiently at Sokka's pant leg with the other. Sokka knocked his hand away and reared up a little to escape his reach.
"Let me do it," he said defensively, and the doctor huffed but waited.
Hesitantly, Sokka rose to his knees and carefully untied the drawstring at his belly, struggling to overcome the hindrance of his cast but determined to do this alone. Once he'd loosened the knot, he held the drawstrings in his good hand and ran his other thumb along through his waistband, loosening the pants only a little, then carefully pulled down the section at his hip just low enough to expose the remaining few inches of bandage. He would have liked to have removed the final adhesive strips himself, but with his cast, he simply wasn't dexterous enough to accomplish it on his own, so he was relegated to merely holding the fabric out of the way as the doctor tugged the rest of the bandage free from his skin. The angry mark Azula had left on him ended just at the crest of his thigh.
"Healing nicely," the doctor said nonchalantly, pressing experimentally on the skin at Sokka's ribs. Sokka twisted away from him a little, oversensitive to being touched, but the doctor seemed not to notice. He dropped the last of the used bandages into the wastebasket, saying, "A few more days of wrapping, I think, and then we'll reevaluate."
As the doctor rummaged again in his bag and Sokka sat there with his drawstrings in his hand, his pants half hanging off of him, he turned that over in his head. He remembered getting these burns—the smell of his own charred skin, the madness of pain. It seemed remarkable that after only a few days—little more than a week—they'd healed this much. They had been horrible burns, throbbing and raw. They should have taken weeks to repair, not days.
The doctor soon found what he was looking for and sat back with his attention turned from Sokka, removing the lid from a metal tin and stirring up more of the pearly-colored goop with what seemed like a thin, metal spatula. Sokka rubbed again the ointment between his fingers, the texture of it creamy and slick like melted frosting.
"What is this stuff?" he asked.
"Flame balm," the doctor said, scooping some ointment out onto his spatula. "Made from the seeds of certain fire lilies, I believe. Nothing in the world is better for burns." He turned to Sokka, then noticed the concerned expression on his face, and seemed amused at his disbelief. "We're firebenders," he said. "We've learned how to treat our own injuries." The doctor motioned for Sokka to lift his arm again.
Sokka followed the doctor's instruction, keeping his cast overhead and out of the way as the doctor leaned forward to apply the ointment to his side. Sokka flared his nostrils and watched the bars composedly as the doctor slowly slathered his side, clear down to his hip, Sokka's skin crawling all the while. The gentle caress of the doctor's work made him deeply uncomfortable, but he set his jaw and behaved, exhaling with relief when the doctor at last left the spatula in the tin and set the tin on the floor. Having the vertical bandage re-applied was easier, though the constant prodding and taping left him irritable and anxious. When the dressing was once again fully applied and the doctor took his hands away, Sokka settled back on his heels, edgy but thrilled to be finally released, and retied his drawstrings quietly.
After that, it was only a matter of endurance to allow the application of fresh ointment to his chest and to let the doctor wrap new bandages around him, the doctor leaning in close to transfer the clean roll of gauze from one hand to the other around Sokka's torso, nearly hugging him in the process. Sokka merely sat stoic with his hands on his head, head bowed, eyes closed, waiting.
As the doctor tied the end of the bandage at Sokka's side, he said to him, "Now let's see your knee."
Sokka begrudgingly readjusted on his mat, leaning against the wall with his legs stretched out in front of him, and attempted to roll up his pant leg. But his cast made him clumsy and inefficient, and soon the doctor shooed him away, saying, "Let me," and Sokka was forced to relent, leaning moodily back against the wall with his arms crossed, lifting his knee slightly to aid the doctor's work.
The doctor folded the pant leg up with practiced quickness and cut the bandage from Sokka's burnt knee in methodic silence, seeming content to redress the wound without uttering a word. But Sokka, now released from the agony of bodily closeness, felt his mind at work again and was itching to ask questions about the outside world and the friends he'd left behind to fight.
"So what's going on with the war?" he asked.
The doctor glanced up at him quizzically, then returned to re-wrapping his knee, saying, "I don't see why that ought to concern you."
Sokka frowned, feeling a swell of anger, somewhat startled at the shortness of his own fuse. He huffed, barely keeping himself in check. "I'm a prisoner of war ," he said coldly. "What's going on out there is about the only thing that concerns me anymore."
But despite his vehemence, the doctor said nothing.
" Tell me ," Sokka pressed, aggravated. "You can even gloat if you have to, I just want to know."
The doctor finished tying the bandage, then sat back on his heels, taking a breath and looking at Sokka for a moment, seeming to be trying to decide whether or not to speak. In the end, he bowed his head, shaking it a little as he turned to collect his things, and said, "As I said, I don't see the use of your worrying about that anymore. I have nothing more to say."
Sokka's heart ached as the doctor pushed himself up to stand. He took his satchel and the wastebasket in his hands, then added, "The balm should keep your pain down on its own. If not, tell the guard when he brings you your meals, and I'll have some medicine sent to you." With that, he turned to leave.
"Wait!" Sokka protested, resorting to desperation. "Why won't you just tell me? Did something happen? Is it bad?" His expression was forlorn and begging, but he could do nothing but watch helplessly as the doctor and guard filed silently away. He wanted to rush to the bars and call after them, Just tell me if you've heard anything about my friends! , but the hopeless futility of it crushed his spirit, and he was left sitting alone on his mat, listening to the distant thud of the door closing at the end of the hall.
Sokka groaned and put his face in his hands, frustrated by the pointlessness of his efforts and upset and confused with himself about why he couldn't even put up a decent fight.
Eventually, he took his hands from his face and looked tiredly over at the heap of his shirt still crumpled on the floor. After another moment, he reached languidly out and pulled it back to him.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Later in the day, Sokka stood moodily gripping his bars, leaning forward with his arms splayed, head hanging between his shoulders. All day long, he'd been turning over and over the memories of his encounter with Ozai, trying to reason it out, to find his fault, the place where the whole situation went wrong. But in the end, looking back, Ozai's motivations were simple: he'd only ever wanted the blowjob.
Sokka shivered with disgust. He had come to the conclusion that that was the whole reason he was being kept here. There was no other explanation. As a prisoner with no information or bartering value, Sokka could serve no other purpose. If this wasn't what Ozai had always had in mind, as a permanent arrangement, there would be no reason to keep him here, to give him medical attention and a private, nearby cell, at hand and convenient. Everything, unfortunately, made perfect sense now.
Sokka rolled his head against his shoulder, eyes closed and taking a breath. The question was, then, what was he going to do about it?
The sound of the door opening at the end of the hallway interrupted his thoughts. Sokka stood up, listening to the footsteps approaching his cell, and stepped back from the bars as a single male guard stepped into view, bringing his dinner tray. Sokka looked at him and let out a breath, and the guard slid the tray into Sokka's cell through the grate near the floor of his bars. Their exchange was wordless and civil, and within moments, the guard had departed, and Sokka was alone again.
He glumly stared at his meal tray, rubbing his neck in distracted thought. Evening now. The predictable routine of the palace made it easy to keep track of time, at least. But it meant if Ozai was going to call on him tonight, it would be soon.
Sokka sat and tried for a while to pick at his meal, but he found he had no appetite. So, giving up, he crawled over to his mat and lay back with a whump , his arms overhead, dreading and waiting for the moment he would be summoned.
He didn't know what to do. Thinking of going back to Ozai twisted his stomach into a knot, but he didn't see any way out of it. He lay there and agonized, fantasizing of ways he might side-step his fate, avoid another meeting, or find some weakness in the system that would allow him to make a sudden escape. But it seemed that every fantasy he conjured up inevitably ran into failure. There was simply so little opportunity for creativity that he soon found himself resorting instead to mentally bracing himself for the worst. But that, in turn, made him sick to his stomach, and when he could no longer tolerate his empty rationalizations, he returned again to his fantasies. He lay a long time like this, battling back and forth, never actually able to calm his anxiety.
And yet, no one came. Sokka sat up, agitated, leaning against the wall and combing his hair back from his eyes. It must have been late by now. If no one had come for him yet, was it possible no one would? He rubbed his face. Almost against his will, a little sliver of hope crept into his chest. He tried to quash it with some rational pessimism, telling himself there was no way he wouldn't hear from Ozai again, and it would only make things worse if he allowed himself to believe otherwise. And not long after that, the hallway door opened again, and at the sound of two pairs of boots coming up the hall, Sokka grimly congratulated himself on refraining from being optimistic.
The guards called him to the gate of his cell, and when he merely stared at them and didn't come, they stepped in and jerked him roughly by the arm to lock him into his shackles. Sokka didn't fight them, merely watched in silence as the key turned at his wrist and then proceeded with them down the hallway as they led him away.
But as they crossed the threshold out of the basement, Sokka could already feel his heart rate picking up, his chest tightening. He clenched his jaw, trying to stave off the dread and fear, and watched the guards' feet in front of him as they walked, seeing nothing else, focused only on keeping his cool. So he noticed only belatedly that the route they were taking now was different from the night before.
He looked up. It seemed they were going to an entirely separate wing of the palace, well-removed from the one that housed the prison cells and office. The architecture here was much more ornamental, the decor more residential. They turned down a short corridor lined with tapestries and wide windows which looked out on the torch-lit palace grounds sweeping away before them, the sky inky black and expansive overhead.
In the middle of the hallway was a tall, ornately carved door, darkly lacquered. One of the guards knocked as warning, then opened the door and ushered Sokka inside alone. The room Sokka found himself in was a spacious sitting room, softly lit with flickering lanterns, and finely decorated. As he stepped awkwardly over the threshold, he caught a glimpse through a door standing partly open at the other end of the room of a dressing table and the foot of a grand bed. His stomach turned.
This, he imagined, was Ozai's private living suite. With his face twisted in a grimace of dismay, he turned his attention to the sofa on his right where Ozai lounged calmly in a black silk house robe. At Sokka's back, the guards closed the door again with a meaningful click.
Sokka felt suddenly weak. He wasn't prepared for this. He'd tried to be resolute, to steel himself against it, but it was just too much for him. His whole body felt unnaturally light and unresponsive. Looking at Ozai looking back at him, his mind felt as if it had shorted out. It suddenly hit him hard, the knowledge of what he was here to do and the realization that had no choice . The impotence was overwhelming; it was the most painful thing in the world.
Ozai said something, his tone light and friendly, but Sokka didn't hear what it was. He was too sickened by the feeling of his arms in his shackles, by the thought that he couldn't even move. He watched Ozai and saw his mouth moving without comprehending his words, noted how his posture was so relaxed and passive, and when he lifted a hand, beckoning Sokka over, he realized that Ozai had called his name.
Sokka looked at Ozai's hand, then back to his face, but refused to respond more than that.
Ozai wrinkled his brow a little, and his voice came through to Sokka again, reaching his ears as if after a delay, saying in a reasonable tone, "I don't want to fight you."
Sokka just frowned at him, utterly immovable. Ozai took a breath and lowered his hand, then rose from his seat and walked to Sokka. Sokka looked away as Ozai neared him, stifling a whine that threatened to break free from his throat, closing his eyes and tensing to his core but making no move to avoid him. He felt the change in air pressure that signaled Ozai's proximity and shuddered when the man's hand fell on his shoulder. Ozai stepped around behind him, an arm across his back, both hands on his shoulders, like a father comforting his son, and gently led Sokka forward toward the sofa.
Sokka moved only as much as was necessary to keep from falling, his face a mask of misery, allowing Ozai to puppeteer him into kneeling before the sofa. He sat there lifelessly with Ozai at his back, his shackled hands hanging between his legs, and Ozai rested a hand on the crown of Sokka's head, pausing there with their bodies pressed together. When Sokka felt a hard bulge against the back of his head, he bowed his head quickly forward, cringing to get away.
Petting his hair fondly, Ozai stepped around to the front of Sokka again, returning to his seat on the sofa and baring himself without preamble. He waited a moment, as if curious to see whether Sokka would move on his own, and when he didn't, Ozai gave him a simple command to proceed.
But Sokka could do nothing but stare in immobile resignation at the object of the task Ozai had presented him with. So, without impatience, Ozai reached forward and cupped his hand behind Sokka's head, pulling him gently toward him. Sokka did whine this time, resisting his pull only feebly, cringing with disgust as Ozai touched himself to Sokka's un-parted lips.
Sokka breathed, fighting the urge to break down and cry, but after a few moments, knowing that it was pointless to keep resisting, he slowly, hesitantly, opened his mouth.
Ozai smiled, easing himself in, and gently brushed Sokka's hair from his face, pulling the strands away from his mouth where they had gotten caught in his saliva, and pushed it all delicately behind his ears. Sokka made a disgusted noise, breath held, face contorted, and braced his cuffed hands against the sofa between Ozai's legs. Doing his best not to gag, he closed his eyes and haltingly moved his head over Ozai. His hair, too short to stay behind his ears for long, fell back forward against his cheeks.
Ozai leaned back, leaving Sokka alone to work, and Sokka put all his focus on the thought that the sooner he could get this over with, the sooner he could leave. After a few minutes, Ozai started shifting in his seat a little and humming with pleasure.
When Ozai dropped his hand on top of Sokka's head, Sokka flinched, opening his eyes at the fear of being shoved down. But Ozai made no such move, merely resting his hand there, as if in encouragement. Sokka could see now that Ozai's head was thrown back, and in a moment, he lifted his hips from the sofa, groaned sharply, and came into Sokka's mouth.
Sokka gagged in surprise, immediately trying to back off, but Ozai quickly moved his hand to the back of Sokka's head and held him there in place, not letting him free until Ozai had finished.
By the time Ozai finally stilled, Sokka was nauseous with the strain of keeping his mouth closed, trying to contain the mucous which was already spilling out of the corners if his mouth. When Ozai let him go, he turned immediately to the side and spit unglamorously onto the floor, almost as if vomiting. He coughed and hacked and spit again, just to clear the mucous from his throat, and lifted his cuffs to wipe his mouth awkwardly on his knuckles, wanting to be clean of this and frustrated by the fact that he didn't have real use of his hands.
With Sokka preoccupied, Ozai muttered, "Excuse me for a moment," then rose, pushing himself up by Sokka's shoulder. Sokka shrunk from his touch and watched only out of the corner of his eye as Ozai disappeared into the bedroom at the end of the room. Shaking, Sokka pushed himself back from the mess he'd made on the floor, then turned to the sofa, longing for comfort, and leant with his forehead against the cushion.
When Ozai returned, he brought with him a hot, wet rag, which he handed to Sokka.
"Wipe your face," he said.
Sokka looked up, then took the towel and wiped his mouth silently, not looking at Ozai. He then did his best to clean his fingers of the sticky mess he'd coated them in.
"There's a wash room to clean up in, if you'd like," Ozai said, nodding toward the bedroom door. Sokka gripped the towel hard in his hand and didn't reply.
Ozai stood over him a while, as if expecting him to get up, but Sokka just sat there, hunched forward, trying not to be upset. Eventually Ozai left his side, saying, "As you wish. I'm ringing the bell now."
He went across the room and pulled a braided cord hanging near the bedroom door. Sokka, frightened by the idea of the guards finding him like this, forced himself to stand, unsteady though he was on his feet. It didn't matter how disturbed he felt; he would not be pulled from his knees like some broken victim. After a moment, he managed to drop the towel from his fist.
Sokka turned from the sofa and took a few steps toward the center of the room, eyes to the floor, scowling with sickness, and when the guards opened the door, he went numbly toward them, eager to leave. When one of the guards reached for his elbow, Sokka shrugged sharply away from him, snarling without looking at him, and proceeded into the hallway on his own. Without further fuss, the guards fell into step beside him and led him back to the basement.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
At his cell, Sokka stood in the gate while the guards removed his cuffs, then reached out and gripped a bar with one hand as the guards slid the gate back into place. He stood there, leaning against the bar, balancing himself and grounding himself, saying in his head, You're safe now, as the guards departed and left him again in silence.
By the time he heard the door close, he was already repeating the same thing over and over in his head, a self-soothing script of, You're safe now. It's all right. Calm down. You're safe now.
But a terrible, uncontrollable fury was churning inside him, and though he tried to mentally block it out, with a sudden crash of anguish, his thoughts betrayed him. Safe?! he mocked himself. You're not safe! This is waiting, knowing helplessness!
Crying in inexpressible rage, he lashed out, lunging toward the wall and punching the stone, hurting himself, bloodying his knuckles. He dropped to his knees, bending forward and gripping his head, shaking. You are not safe, he repeated. This is not safety. There is nothing safe here.
A prisoner of war, he had called himself. But now, the word that pervaded his consciousness was a cold, vindictive accusation: Sex slave .
Sokka wept, unable to keep it back any longer. This was so wrong. What had he done to bring this on? What did it mean about him?
A memory came into his mind of the last night he'd spent with Suki—the night Katara and Zuko had returned from finding his mother's killer, the night before Sokka's capture.
He and Suki had been in his tent. He had laid her down and leaned over her, put his knee between her thighs and his hands on either side of her head. At the time, it had felt right, but remembering it now, he doubted himself. He was frightened of the idea that he had done something wrong. He remembered that he had wanted to feel that she was his , that he could encircle her completely and contain her. Keep her. Pin her.
He felt sick. Thinking of it now, it seemed so invasive . How could he ever have thought that that was all right to do? Had he forced her without realizing? Had she felt unsafe? He pressed the heel of his hand into his eye, groaning in distress. In that moment, he had meant no harm to her at all. He would never try to take advantage of her! The thought of Suki in distress—the thought of him doing something to her—it was too painful to bear.
He was torturing himself. He was consumed with harsh, self-judging paranoia, but he needed to be sure. He needed to see the moment clearly. He stopped, forcing himself to recall the exact details of their encounter, her exact expression, the exact mood.
They had been clothed all the time. But they had been intimate. They had touched each other.
Suki had been on her back, her arms resting beside her, her hands near her face, near his hands as he leaned over her. His hair had been loose, dangling at the edges of his vision as he looked down at her, and she had looked placidly back up at him.
She'd looked so relaxed and soft, giving him the impression that there was no tension in her body at all. Her cheeks had been pink with a slight flush, and when he'd smiled at her, she'd smiled back, small and understated but utterly content. Looking into her eyes, the rest of the world had seemed to fade out of his awareness, so much less important than her at the moment, and when her eyes creased slightly as her smile widened at him, he'd felt heat rising to his face, a rush of warmth in his chest, a swell of unbelievable affection which had made him think, I love you , without any kind of filter. He'd bent, then, and pressed his lips to her forehead, and Suki had closed her eyes, tilting her head back on an intake of breath like a sigh. Willing. Wanting.
On the floor of his cell, Sokka was hit with a powerful pang of grief. A sob boiled up to the top of his chest, and though he tried to contain it, it poured out of him anyway, rolling up out of his stomach and spilling into his mouth. The sound of it was low and strained, a wordless note of heartache, of incredible, crushing longing.
She had loved him, too. That had been her expression.
He leaned forward on one elbow, covering his eyes with his good hand and convulsing timidly on the floor. He felt so broken and alone, like a stone statue cracked through the middle and left discarded in a cold tomb. He wished that Suki was here, to hold him one more time, if only for a moment.
For the first time since his fall into captivity, the pain that Sokka felt the most was a haunting, echoing loneliness.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
In the morning, the doctor and female guard returned to Sokka's cell, waking him with their footsteps. Sokka was too tired and miserable to care what they did to him, but as the doctor entered his cell, Sokka took the effort to at least sit up, slouching forward cross-legged with his blanket over his legs, not bothering to turn to face the man.
The doctor set his satchel down and kneeled beside it in the middle of the cell, watching him quietly. The guard, over his shoulder, set his breakfast tray on the floor near the gate, then stood up and uncharacteristically trained her eyes on him, too. As Sokka stared ahead at the spot where the far wall met the floor, the weight of a realization slowly settled over on him. The doctor knew. And the guard knew. They had always known. It seemed so obvious to him now. How had he not thought of it before?
He exhaled, feeling like a rock had just been dropped into his chest. As he and the doctor sat there in silence, the knowledge of Sokka's purpose here seemed to loom over them like a separate presence in the room. Sokka's eyebrow pinched into a self-pitying scowl. He felt like such a freak show.
The doctor spoke first. "How do you feel?" he asked.
Sokka wouldn't speak.
"How is your wrist?" the doctor asked, pointing mildly toward it. Sokka blandly lifted his hand, giving it to the doctor for inspection. The doctor rubbed his thumb over a fading bruise, pressing on a tender spot and hurting him, but Sokka made no reaction. The doctor paused, then released his wrist. After another moment, he said, "We can leave your bandages for today."
Sokka nodded a little, grateful for the consideration, and the doctor rose to his feet. But as he stepped out into the hall, as the guard put her hand on the gate to close it, Sokka interrupted, asking hoarsely, "Are there others?" He turned his head slightly, looking up at them, expressionless and tired.
The doctor paused and turned back to him. The guard looked at the doctor. The doctor shook his head a little and answered simply, "No."
Sokka waited, letting the answer settle in the air, then nodded once and turned his face back to the corner ahead of him. There was nothing more to say. The guard slid the gate closed, and the pair of them left.
Sokka sat motionless a long time, not caring to touch his breakfast, not even caring to lie back down. He was the only one, then, the only one Ozai kept.
His mind churned away at it. If Sokka was truly the only person Ozai used for sexual gratification, then Ozai's motivations weren't driven purely by sex. If they had been, he could have taken any number of concubines, and he would have had no use for a prisoner. So there was something more to it.
Sokka easily concluded it was merely the excitement of being able to subdue a prestigious enemy. It wasn't lust Ozai was satisfying, but his megalomaniacal fantasies. He had chosen Sokka only because he was a member of Team Avatar.
But then again, there was something else, too. Sokka thought back to their last encounter, how Ozai had lounged so passively, wanting Sokka to take the initiative. Even despite his first show of force, Ozai had made it clear: he didn't want to fight for it. No doubt it wasn't the fight that excited him, but the victory . So it seemed his primary concern was not only that his victim be prestigious, but also that they be easy . Someone who would pose no threat, who would have no chance of making things difficult. Which meant, above all else, no benders .
Had it been Aang, Katara, or Toph, they would have simply been imprisoned, or killed. It was just Sokka who fit the bill so nicely, Sokka who couldn't defend himself, Sokka, and no one else, whom Ozai wanted. Never before had he been so painfully aware—as Ozai had even pointed out on their very first meeting—that Sokka was the only non-bender on Team Avatar.
He sank against the wall with a thud, sick to his stomach, having never felt so disgusting before in his life. Sluggishly, he lay back down, sliding against the wall, and then put his forehead against it when he landed, feeling nothing but heavy and depressed, like he wanted to pass out and think of nothing ever again. To disappear into oblivion.
He lay without moving for so long that he eventually fell back to sleep.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Later, when the guards woke him, Sokka blinked groggily as he was hefted up and shackled, slowly coming to realize that he'd slept all day long, right through dinner, as if by sheer force of will.
With the night sky heavy and black in the windows, Sokka was deposited once again into Ozai's private sitting room. As the guards closed the door behind him, Sokka looked to Ozai, again in his silken house robe, who stepped up before him and stood with his arms folded across his chest, merely looking at him. Sokka looked back, expressionless and listless, and the moment stretched on. Finally, Ozai lifted a hand and touched the side of Sokka's face, running his thumb across his cheek. Sokka turned his head away from the touch but made no other move to fight it.
Ozai moved his fingers to cradle Sokka's chin and said simply, "I love this mouth of yours." Sokka flexed his jaw, unhappy.
Ozai took a step closer, dropping his hand and running it down Sokka's arm, taking Sokka by one cuffed wrist. He pulled Sokka's hands toward him and pressed his knuckles gently against Ozai's crotch. Ozai was still soft and harmless beneath the fabric.
"I have an idea," he said. He watched Sokka a moment for a response but received none. Sokka's eyes were turned aside, refusing to look at him. "You're a good kid," Ozai continued, releasing Sokka's wrist. "A smart kid." He hooked one finger over the chain between the cuffs and tugged on it gently. "Let's get rid of these."
Sokka's heart turned in his chest, his eyes flickering out of focus for a moment as he registered the statement. What? He flicked his eyes up to Ozai's face, and Ozai was looking at him calmly, half-smiling even, gauging Sokka's reaction. Sokka's heart rate ticked slightly faster. Remove the cuffs?
It occurred to him that if Ozai took away the one, final thing literally binding him in helplessness, Sokka would be free to fight back, to escape. A timid panic filled his chest. If that happened, how would he react? He couldn't possibly justify his cooperation if he were really free to run.
But Sokka's silence only communicated to Ozai a lack of objection, so he smiled, then stepped away from Sokka, going to a nearby table and picking up a key lying there. As Sokka watched him, his heart raced. He suddenly realized that this was going to happen, that his release was imminent, and it filled him with racing panic, his breath short, his jaw locked. He was afraid, he realized, to lose the chains. He didn't want to be released. He didn't want that pressure put on him. The prospect of freedom was unbelievably frightening.
But Ozai returned, unperturbed as ever, and Sokka watched intensely the key in his hand, eyes unblinking and wide. Ozai took Sokka's cuffs into his hands and unlocked one, then the other, with a soft click. He folded the key into his palm and with both hands slipped the shackles from Sokka's wrists. As the metal pulled free of his skin, Ozai looked up at him, but Sokka stayed still, eyes staring at his naked arms, still held in front of him, not knowing what to do. He glanced up at Ozai, catching his eye, and Ozai nodded once, pleased, then turned and unconcernedly made his way back to the table.
Sokka's eyes stayed locked on Ozai's retreating back, every fiber of his being screaming at him to make a break for it now, while he had the chance.
Go , he told to himself. Go. But he felt locked in place. He couldn't move. As he watched Ozai walk away, he couldn't even bring his eyes to look toward the door, as if even that imperceptible movement would give him away, sound the alarm, get him caught.
He swallowed, face flushing, heart hammering in his throat. He hadn't even realized until this moment how afraid he was of being caught, this petrifying panic of a failed escape attempt. He'd tried before, struggled against all odds for the smallest chance at freedom, but each time, it had only made everything worse. He'd been beaten, chained, tortured, neglected, and the thought now of being left alone once again to hang in the bleak darkness of Azula's dungeon shot through him like ice, left him shaking where he stood. As Ozai set the cuffs on the table, Sokka's throat constricted and knotted over painful, self-hating tears.
Ozai turned back to him, standing by the table, peaceful and smiling at Sokka's good behavior.
"Good boy," he crooned ironically.
He returned to Sokka and laid his hand on the back of Sokka's neck, making Sokka tense up, his eyes burning with tears. Why couldn't he run? What was he doing? He was appalled with himself, astounded, angry. Ozai rubbed the back of his neck, like a massage, and Sokka stared at him, red-faced, nostrils flared, saying nothing, afraid to even blink.
"It's so much better this way," Ozai assured him, and Sokka felt the first tear slip traitorously from his eye. Ozai took his hand from his neck and reached for Sokka's uncast hand instead, pulling him gently from his rooted spot by walking backward, leading him toward the sofa. Sokka, once moved, followed mechanically, his vision warped and flooded.
When they reached the edge of the sofa, Ozai dropped Sokka's hand and merely stood for a long moment, peering down at him from his greater height. Sokka, stubbornly, stared straight ahead into Ozai's collarbone, unmoving. Finally, Ozai sat, saying nothing but watching Sokka's face all the while. Moments passed.
"Kneel," Ozai said at last, very plainly and undemanding.
Sokka blinked, finally allowing his tears to fall freely from his eyes. He couldn't comprehend how he had allowed himself to get into this situation. But after a moment, reluctantly as a rusted gear, he did as Ozai said, lowering himself to the floor with his hands on his thighs, his breath stalled in his lungs.
As Sokka came down, Ozai spread his knees to give him room to kneel and idly rubbed one hand over his groin, his erection tenting his robe now. Sokka clenched his fists and sat impassive, staring into the soft black fabric parted between Ozai's shins.
Ozai waited again before encouraging him with a gentle, "Come on."
Sokka swallowed, hands shaking, and miserably reached forward with his cast left hand, pinching the hem of Ozai's robe between his fingers and pulling it aside with as little involvement possible. The white of Ozai's bared thigh made Sokka shiver, but he continued, putting his right hand under the other half of Ozai's hem, not grasping it, but letting the fabric slip back over his knuckles, bunching up at his wrist, then lifting the panel away over Ozai's knee.
Sokka's arm brushed the bare skin of Ozai's leg, and he reactively moved to pull his hand back, but before he could, Ozai caught him around the wrist and held him in place. Sokka jumped and froze again, a new tear spilling from his eye. Ozai brought Sokka's hand slightly forward, directing him to where his erection now stood exposed, and held Sokka there gently until Sokka, of his own volition, gripped him in his fist. Ozai released him and leaned back, and Sokka scowled in misery.
He stared at his thumbnail, unable to proceed, the muscles of his neck jumping with bottled sobs. Ozai squirmed beneath his hand and took a long breath, urging him, "Go on."
Sokka sat shaking, battling every nerve in his body for the ability to get this over with. He leaned forward, nauseous, barely able to breathe, but in the end did as Ozai wanted, disgusted and horrified to the core of his bones, crying quietly even as he did so, choking and hiccupping, utterly tortured with self-hatred.
When Ozai had finished, Sokka pulled away, spitting violently onto the floor, his whole body trembling with distress. Even as Ozai rose to go to the washroom, Sokka sat shaking with barely-restrained sobs, face splotched red and streaked with tears. He felt so worthless, so appalled with himself. He knew now that he would never escape this. There was nothing left to take from him if he would not even run when he'd been freed of his chains.
His throat weakened, and he coughed, a high-pitched, barking whimper, and unable to maintain his silence any longer, he crawled forward on his elbows, away from the sofa, hunched down, and wept dejectedly into the floor. It didn't even matter anymore whether Ozai saw him like this, whether anyone heard him crying. He simply couldn't contain it anymore.
He cried and cried until he was virtually exhausted, his voice hard and broken. His sobs gradually disintegrated into heartbroken moans and whimpers, interrupted only by the shaking breaths jumping in his throat. Sinking, he became nothing but a loose heap of limbs piled in the middle of the room, his hands lying open like dead insects, his head hanging on the floor. When he'd finally settled and quieted again, lying in heavy, dejected silence, Ozai returned to the room, stopping in the doorway behind him and saying nothing.
Sokka was aware of his presence but would not turn to see him. He instead stared into the wavy reflections in the polished stone near his face, the lantern light flickering innocently, peaceful and somehow comforting in its simple obliviousness.
"I'm glad you're cooperating," Ozai said from the door, his tone steady and not unkind. "This was never meant to be difficult."
Sokka's throat tightened, his anger and indignation flaring at Ozai's calmness. He was right: this was never supposed to have been this difficult. Sokka had been prepared, on some level, to become a prisoner of war. But this— this —he had not anticipated, could not have prepared for.
After another moment, Ozai asked, "Would you like me to let you be for the night?"
Sokka turned his face toward the floor, closing his eyes in irritation. Of course he wanted to leave, but he wouldn't grant Ozai the satisfaction of a response. Ozai didn't move from the door.
"There's no shame in submitting to a superior enemy," he said, as if in some attempt at comfort. "It shows you've learned respect, acknowledged your place in the hierarchy. One will always be superior to another. That's the proper order of things. In life, in war. In here." Sokka's stomach clenched in sick anger. Ozai paused. "That's how it should be. That's why this war is already won."
Sokka opened his eyes, his patience worn through. He wrinkled his brow and broke his silence, his voice hoarse. "You haven't won."
Ozai hummed, seeming glad to have gotten Sokka speaking. "Well," he said, "maybe not yet. But the Fire Nation controls most of the world now, and the Avatar is in hiding, weaker than ever. His supporters are overrun, and his team is falling apart, right before my very eyes. Right here on my floor."
Sokka scowled in fury, glaring hatefully into the floor. Taking a breath, he pushed himself up, sitting with his back to Ozai. He wouldn't lie dejectedly on the floor for Ozai's amusement.
"You must see it," Ozai reasoned. "You are the first petal fallen from the dying flower. Every day, we come one step closer to the end—the Avatar's demise and my ultimate victory. At this stage, it will take little more than a wave of my hand to finally see his end."
Sokka felt the blood rushing to his head, pushed to anger far beyond caution or care. "It won't be that easy," he said. "When Aang comes for you, he's going to be more powerful than you could ever imagine being." Gruesome images came into his mind of the most violent ways Ozai might be murdered. He relished the thought of seeing Ozai dead and gutted on the floor. "You won't even have a chance to move before he kills you where you stand."
Ozai laughed at him.
"Oh, I doubt that," he said. "You seem to be forgetting one thing." His voice turned slick, and Sokka could virtually hear the grin on his lips: "You do intend to put an end to this before Sozin's Comet, don't you?"
Sokka's heart skipped a beat. He and the others had made a specific point of keeping their self-imposed deadline to themselves, trying to keep the Fire Nation from anticipating an attack. How could Ozai have known about it? Without even thinking, Sokka turned to look at him.
Ozai was leaning against the doorframe of the bedroom, his arms folded over his bare chest, having changed into a deep red pair of pajama pants and nothing else. He was smiling; he knew he had just dropped a bomb.
"There simply isn't time ," he said. "Any day now, your friends will have to rush in every bit as beaten and disorganized as they are at this exact moment. And even without the hundredfold power the comet will give me, it will be an easy kill."
Sokka stared at him, not knowing what to say. Every word Ozai said slammed against him like a stark offense, driving home the bitter point that Ozai had always known what they were trying to do, that nothing had been secret from him.
But Ozai's self-assured smugness got under his skin, and soon Sokka's fury was burning in his throat again, his heart pounding in his head. He hated Ozai, this cruel, arrogant, malicious man, standing there mocking him as if he were some naive kidnapee holding on to some idiotic, unassailable faith in his rescue. He couldn't stand to let Ozai win this round. He wanted so badly to tear down this grandiose fantasy.
But he knew that he had only one weapon left, and it was weak, at best. It wasn't enough; it wouldn't change anything. But he had to use it anyway.
"That's not going to happen," Sokka said slowly. Ozai looked at him with mild curiosity, readjusting his arms on his chest. Sokka knit his eyebrows, wanting his words to pull the earth right out from under Ozai's feet, but he knew that the one thing that would hurt Ozai most now was the one thing that hurt Sokka most, too.
"They're not coming before the comet," he said. "They're waiting, so that Aang can master the Avatar State."
Ozai's expression sobered slightly. There were tears in Sokka's eyes now, of hatred and dismay. He wanted to bore his gaze into Ozai, to let him know that there was hope yet, that he didn't have all of the pieces to the puzzle. But his chest felt as if it were collapsing. He turned away again, too upset and angry to keep looking at him, and put his fingers to his eyes, hatred turning to nauseous despair.
The comet would pass, so Ozai wouldn't be able to use it to overpower Aang. But that also meant that Ozai was safe for now, free to do as he pleased until then—and that Sokka would remain here, indefinitely.
Ozai made his way over to Sokka, his bare feet virtually silent on the tile, the rustle of his pant legs whispering softly as he crossed the room. His feet appeared at the corner of Sokka's vision, and Ozai crouched beside him.
The Fire Lord raked his hand forward through Sokka's hair, combing it back over Sokka's forehead and turning his face up to look at him. Sokka's throat was tight and his eyes wet, but he looked at Ozai stoically, full of defiance and pain. Ozai stared at him, his eyes rounded with new intensity, searching his face.
"Is that true?" he asked.
Sokka scowled and flared his nostrils, killing and suppressing a wave of pain, but that was confirmation enough. Ozai removed his hand from Sokka's head, sitting back on his heels and resting his arms on his knees, seeming to process this revelation. Sokka turned his eyes back to the floor, seething. They sat in silence for a while.
Then, without warning, Ozai grabbed him by the elbow and hefted him up to his feet. Sokka was startled, but a single look at Ozai's face made the man's intentions clear: again. Sokka's mouth, Ozai's pleasure.
Sokka's heart sank. Ozai hooked him by the back of the neck, turned, and pulled him toward the sofa. Sokka moaned, grabbing onto Ozai's arm, a knot already aching in this throat. Why this all of a sudden? What had he missed?
Ozai shoved him toward the sofa, and Sokka stumbled onto it, knees hitting the cushions, catching himself by the backrest. He was so sick with dread already that he could barely move. He turned slowly back around, and Ozai stood before him, unhurriedly undoing the knot of his own drawstring, the bulge of his erection rising.
Sokka shifted away on the seat, shaking and shuddering with impotent fury, new tears coming into in his eyes. He sat wretchedly on one foot, but Ozai unexpectedly abandoned his drawstring and pushed Sokka backward by the shoulder, knocking him down, then slid one hand up Sokka's shirt.
Sokka jerked away, startled, pulling back onto one elbow and staring at Ozai wide-eyed. Ozai knelt over him, hovering in indecision, his hand on Sokka's hip. They locked eyes together in silence, and in the span of a heartbeat, Sokka's mind shifted from confusion to recognition of Ozai's true intention. Then, the moment broke, and Ozai shoved him down onto the cushion, taking his face in his hands and kissing him hard. With the force of a beam breaking, Sokka registered the real danger he was in and made a noise of panic into Ozai's mouth. He tried to break away from the kiss, but Ozai forced him down harder.
Sokka gathered his strength again and shoved against Ozai with all his might, tearing his face free and squeezing sideways out from under him, falling clumsily onto the floor. He scrambled up and broke for the door...and made it a total of three complete steps before Ozai arced a fire whip overhead and brought it cracking down in front of Sokka, making him yelp and jump back, shaking.
"Stop," Ozai said.
Sokka stood there trembling, staring at the wisp of smoke fading into the air ahead of him, and knew he was at an unfair disadvantage. Ozai was one of the most powerful firebenders in the world. And Sokka was an unarmed teenage boy with a broken hand. Besides which, Ozai was much bigger than he was, and much stronger. He physically—easily—overpowered him. Sokka was frozen with the despair of this realization when Ozai grabbed him from behind, vice-gripping his arm.
Sokka shouted, wrestling to break loose, but was only flung around and knocked to his knees. As he tugged back against Ozai's grip, Ozai reached back with his other arm and brought his fist flying forward into Sokka's face, slamming against his cheekbone, sending him reeling backward to the floor.
Sokka rolled dumbly, mouth gaping, his hand over his eye, blinded by the impact, and Ozai dropped to his knees on top of him, straddling one of Sokka's legs, his hands at Sokka's waistband, untying and loosening the drawstring. Sokka protested, blindly kicking, knocking Ozai's hands away and pushing himself back from him, turning onto his stomach and clambering to get back up as his vision slowly edged back into focus. But Ozai caught him by the ankle and pulled him back, knocking him to the floor again. "No," Sokka cried, fingers dragging along the tile, and Ozai took a fistful of Sokka's hair and pulled him back up to his feet.
Sokka stumbled, wincing and gripping Ozai's arm, terrified. His pants now dangled from his hips, sagging at his feet so that he was walking on the hems. He managed to right himself just long enough to throw one good punch, landing it solidly in Ozai's ribs. Ozai barked, flinching away and losing his grip on Sokka's hair, but he retaliated by manhandling Sokka toward the bedroom door and throwing him like a sack against a stone wall.
Sokka shouted, careening forward off balance, and tried to shield himself with his arms, but the speed of the impact was too much.
His elbow hit first, and then his head, cracking hard against the stone. His shoulder and the rest of his body followed, slammed with momentum, jarring all the bones of his skeleton.
He crumpled to the floor, ringing with the collision, debilitated by a shock of pain that turned all his muscles to putty. He tried pointlessly to press his hands against the wall and lift himself back up, but before he could recover, Ozai slung one arm around his chest and carried him into the bedroom, half-limp under his arm, feet dragging.
Ozai heaved him up onto the bed, pulled the slippers from his feet, and yanked his pants from him. Sokka cried, resisting, but was too dazed to coordinate himself. Ozai climbed up onto the bed with him and wrestled him out of his shirt, flinging the garment aside and shoving Sokka back onto the bed, naked now except for his bandages.
Ozai wedged his knees between Sokka's thighs, and Sokka flailed, hitting him and trying to scoot away. But Ozai leaned a powerful arm down onto Sokka's chest and hit him in the face again, knocking his head aside. A trickle of blood from Sokka's nose dripped sideways across his cheek.
Sokka was stunned and immobile, and in the momentary stillness, Ozai reared up and freed himself from his own pants, tugging the waistband down just to his thighs. Then he took Sokka's wrists in hand and lay down over him, pinning his arms above his head.
Sokka became vocal, wriggling fruitlessly under Ozai's weight. With one hand, Ozai adjusted himself between Sokka's legs, finding position, and Sokka cried and fought against him right up until Ozai forced his way inside.
The surprise of pain was so intense that Sokka couldn't do anything but cry out sharply, shocked and paralyzed. The jolt wiped his mind of everything, racking his body. His throat rattled in a wordless wail.
It was surprising, how painful it was—a violent wrenching, pulling, and abrading which sliced through him like a knife and made the nerves in his pelvis and spine quiver. He gasped shrilly, nearly choking, sight flickering with agony.
Ozai settled into a quick rhythm, rocking Sokka's body as if by the intestines. Then one of Ozai's hands darted to grip Sokka's neck.
Sokka jerked, and Ozai pressed his thumb into Sokka's trachea. Sokka cried in protest, grabbing Ozai's wrist, but the sound was pinched into a rasping screech.
Sokka watched in disbelief as Ozai wrapped both hands around Sokka's neck and propped himself up, strangling him.
Sokka gaped and clawed at Ozai's hands. Air and blood could no longer travel through the constriction. As soon as Sokka couldn't breathe, Ozai seemed satisfied, and he turned his attention elsewhere, bowing his head and rocking his hips against Sokka with disregard.
Sokka's mouth took the shape of a soundless scream, craning his crushed neck and digging his fingernails into his own and Ozai's skin to try to pry the man's fingers loose. He strained his lungs with all his might.
In no time, the world felt surreally silent. The image of Ozai's pinched eyebrows, the gleam of his sweat, the red of his skin seemed somehow unconnected to the ambient grunting or shuffing of the bed.
Blackness crept in on the edges of Sokka's vision, and he felt his body becoming slack, hands weaker, efforts clumsier. It was as if he were nothing but an inanimate mass pressed beneath Ozai, jostled on the mattress, muddled with pain and fear and suffocation. He was losing consciousness.
At the same time, the buffeting plow of pain warped under a different sensation, something foreign and unwelcome. Sokka became aware of a pressure between his legs, and in a moment, a tidal wave rushed through him, ejecting hot, thick liquid onto his stomach. His back arched.
It was then Ozai let him go.
Air rushed back into Sokka's body, screaming down his throat and blinding him with oxygen. He shrieked, the release an onslaught, making his body convulse in death-like climax, semen squirting from him.
Trying to get away from the intensity, he pulled at the sheets above his head, head rolling back. But Ozai held Sokka's thighs close against him, not finished, driving electricity into him against his will.
Sokka spasmed and twitched, the pain of penetration fusing with violating intoxication, destroying his grip on reality. It seemed as if nothing really existed, only this raw, terrifying sensation, overwhelming and mind-destroying.
When at last Ozai released him and pulled away, Sokka writhed on the bed cover, abandoned, dragging his heels across the mattress and wheezing at the ceiling. Blood streaked from his nose and across his cheek, phlegm sputtering in his throat.
He moaned, hoarse, a long, drawn-out sob, curling in on himself. His entire body pulsed with pain. He could feel the wetness of tears now, smeared across his face and neck, but he hadn't been aware of crying.
After a few moments, Ozai threw his pants back to him, the fabric draping across Sokka's trembling legs. In a straightforward tone, Ozai told him to get dressed; he would have the guards bring him back to his cell.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
End of chapter three.
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Ill-Gotten Goods