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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
- 3
- 4
- 5
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Chapter Four: Losing Touch
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Once the firestorm of violence had burned down into the ember of aftermath, all that remained in the bedroom of Ozai's chambers was a naked body shaking on the bed and an impassive overlord shrugging on a robe.
Sokka rolled aside, hoarse and crying, his own semen sliding in warm streaks across his stomach. Blood still ran from his nose, dripping onto the bed cover. Unprocessed trauma roared around him like a thunderstorm, but all Sokka could really comprehend was that he'd been hurt—badly.
Beaten as he'd never been before, slammed against a stone wall, skull ringing, body limp, forced down, strangled, raped. Ravaged.
Bruises blossomed across his body from the bony corners of his shoulders to the soft meat of his thighs. The pain at his backside remained fresh and violating, even absent the weapon that caused it, the sharp details cold in his psyche—Ozai's engorged penis enveloped inside him like a hot poker.
His neck and throat were crushed, his voice breaking apart like gravel.
The pants Ozai had thrown to him were now caught between his feet, and Sokka pulled them to his chest like a pathetic security blanket. His body protested with pain even from such a small movement.
Somewhere out in the room, Sokka heard Ozai ring for the guards, and even in this state of shock he knew he didn't want to be found like this—not naked, not on the bed, not so broken.
So, whimpering like an injured animal, he pulled himself to the edge of the bed and fumbled to the floor, more falling than standing, dragging his pants behind him.
He stayed bent, leaning one shoulder against the bed to keep himself upright, crying still and struggling to get his feet into his pants. Once he'd managed that, he stiffly made himself stand, pulling his drawstrings tight around his waist. Ozai was not even paying attention to him now; he had slipped on his black satin house robe and gone to the far window lighting a pipe.
Sokka hobbled out into the room, halting and unsteady as an old man with palsy, going to where his shirt lay discarded on the floor. He nearly tipped over stooping to pick it up, but he steadied himself again, reached down half-hunched, and hooked the edge of the shirt with his fingertips. As he pulled himself back up, an incredible headache swelled in his head.
Slowly he untangled the shirt and put his forearms into the sleeves, but he couldn't lift his arms to bring the tunic over his head. He was going to vomit. So he just stood there, sagging and tender on his bones, bare shoulders and bandages exposed to the air, blood flowing from his nose and down over his lips.
After a moment, he took the collar between his fingers and pinched the cloth over his nostrils like a handkerchief. It was the most normal thing he could do—self-attentive, grounding. He wanted to go home.
As the moments passed, Sokka in a numb and motionless haze, neither he nor Ozai acknowledged the other. Soon there was a knock at the door, and a pair of guards stepped in.
The guards hesitated, apparently pausing to identify the situation, but once they had, they dutifully went to Sokka without saying a word. Sokka wanted to leave just as he was, but the guards thought he'd better put on his shirt.
Sokka didn't want to move, but he reluctantly let go of his nose, and one of the guards aided his arms overhead, tugging the tunic down for him to his hips. The blood on the collar left a cool, wet patch on Sokka's neck.
At that, the guards led him out into the hallway, Sokka barefoot and not caring. No one made a move to retrieve the handcuffs still lying open on Ozai's table.
By the time they made it back to Sokka's cell, Sokka was barely able to keep walking and his nose was plugged with blood. He leaned against the wall to take the weight off his feet, waiting for the guards to leave. He had a throbbing headache.
As soon as the men were out of sight, Sokka lowered himself to his bed mat. Tears were coming back to him now. He hurt everywhere. His muscles resisted supporting his weight because any tension he held in them pushed against some injury.
By now his backside was almost cripplingly sore, having been aggravated by the long walk back from Ozai's chambers. The shooting pain would have brought him to his knees before had he not been so dead set on getting away; but now, finally alone and safe, he could collapse into some kind of relief.
He sank onto his bed mat, whining aloud at the pain. Safe wasn't the right word; alone would suffice.
He knew he needed to check. It was uncomfortably wet between his legs, and he worried he might be bleeding badly.
He let go of the wall, eyes red and swollen, and untied the drawstring of his pants.
Pulling the waistband down to his knees, it was a relief to see that the seat of his pants was not the dark bloodstain he'd been imagining it to be. In fact, there was no blood at all that he could see.
He moved to touch himself, but it occurred to him his fingers were already bloodied from stopping his nosebleed, so he crawled to his water basin and with his cast hand clumsily ladled water over his fingers onto the floor.
He dried his hand on his tunic, wiped his tears on his arm, then reached behind him. Even barely touching it, the hot, raw tissue hurt, and he hissed. When he looked at his fingers again, they were smeared with a clear mucous struck through with ribbons of red.
He exhaled, shivering and putting an arm over his eyes. The wetness was apparently more Ozai's than his. He was bleeding, yes, but not so much he was in danger from it.
He sat motionless for a moment, face in his elbow, feeling his heart beat, his throat tighten. He cried. He settled.
He wanted to clean up. He pulled off his shirt, still sticky with blood, and wetted a corner of the hem in his water basin to wipe away what mucous and blood he could.
It was unlikely the doctor would come to check on him, he thought. Every time before now, no one had seemed to report Sokka's condition to him after a meeting with Ozai. Sokka remembered the surprise the doctor had shown the first morning when Sokka's eyes were inflamed from having been burned. It was likely no one would report this, either. Maybe it never even occurred to them he might actually be injured.
Feeling angry now, he tossed his rag of a shirt over the puddle of water by his basin. How irresponsible and cruel it was to subject a prisoner to the dragon's claws only to afterward lock him alone in the dungeon without even an eye nearby to see that he stayed alive.
But then, he should remember to keep things in perspective. He wasn't a patient in a hospital; he was the captive of a war criminal. He was lucky not to be beaten, raped, and simply thrown in a trash pile.
At that, a fit of weeping rushed up into his face again.
He pulled his pants back up over his hips and pulled the drawstring tight but couldn't fumble through his watered vision and cumbersome cast enough to tie it, so he gave up, wiping his cheek on his shoulder.
As he did so, a sharp pain shot through his throat, and he snapped his head back quickly, grimacing. He touched his neck. He could feel the welts in his skin where Ozai's fingers had dug into him. Pressing on them even a little now hurt him badly—not just in his skin but clear to the core.
All this time his throat had been painful and knotted with tears, but now it occurred to him there might be more to it, an actual injury. He swallowed experimentally, and it was piercing and difficult. The ache seemed more now like a hard, persistent inflammation.
Ozai had crushed his esophagus and trachea. Sokka craned his neck a little to see if that would help, but all he did was find a new position to make it hurt worse. Deciding it would be best not to bother it, he straightened his head and just sat still, becoming aware of how he breathed. Air was coming to him more slowly
His heart ticked a beat faster, and he put a hand at his throat nervously. He wasn't sure whether this was his imagination or whether there was something physically wrong.
But after a while, simply allowing his body to breathe on its own was no longer meeting his needs. His lungs were getting impatient, and he found he couldn't resist the urge to pull in breath consciously.
He took hold of a bar with stomach-dropping panic. A faint whistle began in his throat. His throat was swelling closed.
"Hello?" he called on a futile hope someone would hear. His voice was pathetic and raspy. No one answered, and he knew no one would.
Cold, helpless abandonment crystallized in his gut. He wanted someone; he wanted the doctor; he wanted his mom in a way he hadn't since he was five. Tears collected on his eyelids as the whistle grew in his throat. He was going to die.
He gripped the iron hard in his hand, knuckles turning white, holding himself upright with a sheer will to keep breathing. He was wheezing now, lungs burning for breath, and he was afraid to move. He felt like if he let go of the bar, if he even loosened his grip, he would drown.
Minutes passed, his heart staccato, staring at an empty hallway wall barely out of reach and yet a world away. He was trapped in this silent cage in the basement where no one would find him until morning.
Then his breath stopped coming.
He rose up onto his knees, gaping, struggling to find a way to get air back into him. He opened his chest and sucked at the air with all his might, and finally a stream of oxygen tore through the barricade on a sickening sound, buzzing in his throat. He hardly collected half a breath, but it was all he could manage. His throat closed up again almost immediately, and dizzy with the effort, he fell backward to the floor.
He rolled onto his side and fumbled to push himself up on all fours, feeling gravity like an oppressive force, the world bent on killing him. His body was getting muffled, feeling heavy, suffocating. Propped on his elbows, staring at the floor, he felt the blackness creeping in on his vision. He wasn't going to make it. This was the end.
His arms going soft, his elbows buckling, he fell again, collapsing to the floor in a jumble with his face against the concrete. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't focus, and in a moment the world was swallowed up in a cloud of black.
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A long time later, in a chilly silence, hungover as if after a late, chaotic raid, Sokka slowly pried his eyelids open, conscious, alive, and breathing again.
He had a stunning headache, his face cold and bruised against the floor, and he lifted his head just a little, foggy and disoriented. With a jolt he found his eyes was swollen and tender and objected to being disturbed.
He winced, and as consciousness gradually returned, he became awake to the various pains throughout the rest of his body. Everywhere, everywhere he was bruised and stiff. He could barely move his head for the hammering inside it. His arms were numb for how he'd collapsed on top of them. Groaning, he pushed himself to his hands and knees. He was very, very tired.
He didn't know what time it was, but it had to have been the middle of the night. Everything was still quiet, undisturbed, and dim. No doubt he'd woken because he was so cold. Lying with his bare skin against the concrete and no slippers on his feet did nothing to help him retain body heat.
He crawled painfully over to his bed mat, gingerly pulling the blanket over him and collapsing onto the cushion. He felt thoroughly used, as battered and empty as a wet cloth run through a wringer—still vulnerable, still raw, but far too exhausted to deal with it. He didn't want to think, didn't even want to cry. He just wanted oblivion.
And after a while, as he warmed up under his blanket, he got it.
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The next time he woke, it was to the doctor and guard invading his cell.
The doctor was speaking to him before he was even awake, and Sokka, facing the wall, rolled back just enough to look deadly at him over his shoulder. The man was stooping to pick up the shirt Sokka had discarded by the water basin.
The doctor examined the bloodstains on it grimly then looked at Sokka.
"You certainly aren't making this easy, are you?" he said.
Sokka was hurt and offended by that. He glowered at him and pulled his blanket tighter around him, only reluctantly dragging himself to sit upright, still facing the wall. The guard, keeping her distance, deposited a fresh breakfast tray in the corner and then folded her arms, looking at Sokka with seeming concern. The doctor knelt beside him and pressed against Sokka's black eye without asking. Sokka flinched away.
"You look a horror," the man said.
Sokka lifted a hand to try to brush away the blood still cracked and crusted under his nose, but to little effect. Having the doctor's eyes on him felt like being under a magnifying glass. Sokka felt uncomfortably aware of the film of grime and sweat coating his skin, wrapped up under his blanket.
The doctor, investigating, tugged the blanket aside from Sokka's neck with one finger.
"Look at this!" he said. "You've been strangled." He huffed and tossed the bloodied shirt aside, standing again, clearly irritated. "This is exactly the kind of thing they need to alert me of. You ," he added, pointing at Sokka almost in accusation, "could have died overnight."
The doctor's satchel was sitting by the cell gate, and he went to it and dug out a common device used for listening to the heart and lungs. He returned to Sokka, kneeling as if to place the device against Sokka's chest, but Sokka backed away, glaring.
The doctor frowned at him, hand still poised waiting for permission to touch him, but Sokka wouldn't relent. Sighing, the doctor lowered the device.
"Any difficulty breathing?" he asked in compromise.
Moodily, Sokka tried to speak. Sound wouldn't form. He tried again: "Not anymore," he said, his voice quiet and raspy.
The doctor only looked more irritated once confirmed. He tossed his listening device back into his satchel. "I can't be held responsible for their idiocy," he muttered.
He settled on his knees and leveled a sober gaze at Sokka. A moment passed.
"I imagine this is hardly the worst of it?" he said.
Sokka just stared down at the floor, biting the inside of his lip. A stony, emotionless numbness came over him.
The doctor seemed to take his silence as affirmation. He nodded. "Can you walk?" he asked.
And then tears welled up, as if on command. Sokka felt his face go hot and red. What was wrong with him? He felt as if he were made of boiling water, rolling and churning and unpredictable, sadness as easily as anger swelling to the surface without warning.
"Will you let me see?" asked the doctor.
"No," said Sokka, defying the man to press him further. Sokka clenched his jaw, looking at nothing, tears dammed stubbornly on his eyelids.
The doctor just sat and looked at him for a while.
"Well then, what do you want?" he asked eventually.
The water finally dripped from his eyes, and Sokka turned his face away, angry. "Leave me alone," he said.
The doctor reasoned with him frankly. "You at least need to get cleaned up," he said.
Sokka didn't move, but to the core of his soul he agreed. His nerves weren't strong enough to withstand staying in this residue.
Taking a breath and stoically blinking away tears, Sokka moved his jaw, seeming to want to say something but not knowing...how. He re-gathered the blanket around his shoulders, feeling the heat rising up again in his face. The doctor and the guard waited for him.
Finally he asked in a monotone, barely above a whisper, "Can I get my burns wet?"
The doctor huffed ironically. "I think that's the least of our concerns for now. Yes, they'll be fine," He said. "You can bathe. You're due to be un-bandaged anyway."
He stood.
"But we'll have to wrap your cast," he continued. "It would be a disaster to have it dissolve."
He offered a hand to help Sokka up, but Sokka didn't budge.
"Soaking in a bath will help," the doctor coaxed him.
After a moment, instead of taking the doctor's hand, Sokka loosened his grip on the blanket and used the wall to help himself slowly, painfully stand. The blanket fell to the floor, and now with bare chest and bandages visible, he suddenly felt very naked and didn't want to face them. Crusts of mucous spattered his skin, and he folded his arms across his stomach self-consciously.
"Do you need Min to help you walk?" asked the doctor.
Sokka looked at the guard, who was still standing by watching him, a soft expression on her face. Sokka just stood scowling, no.
Exasperated but controlling his patience, the doctor said, "Come on, then," picking up his satchel. "We'll go to the bath, and you can decide on the way whether you'll feel like cooperating."
They led him barefoot out of the basement and to a plain bathing suite not far away—presumably for use by the guards. The atrium to the bathing room itself was a long, wood-paneled locker room lined with benches.
The doctor gave the guard instructions for preparing the bath and then dismissed her, removing his scissors from his satchel.
"Will you be all right?" she asked him, apparently hesitant to leave him alone with an enemy.
The doctor turned to Sokka sardonically.
"Are you going to attack me?" he asked.
Sokka was standing feebly by the lockers, every inch of him weak and aching, and for some reason the question made him emotional. Not looking at either of them, he shook his head silently. The doctor, having made his point, sent the guard off with a toss of his head.
Once the guard was gone, the doctor went to Sokka and proceeded to cut away his bandages in silence.
Sokka behaved, keeping his arms out of the way without being told. As the doctor pulled away the adhesive from his side, Sokka's eyes watered. His jaw locked tight, his mind jeered at him: Sex slave.
"Look how well you're healing," the doctor commented, gesturing to the long, uneven stripe down Sokka's side, pale pink and soft under the balm. "Don't scrub this new skin away. Try not to bother it. Let it keep healing."
The doctor wadded up the bandages, cast them in a wastebasket, and put away his scissors, seeming to take his time.
"While Min is gone, will you let me have a look?" he asked.
Sokka, frozen as stone, shook his head.
The doctor sighed quietly but said nothing. He retrieved a towel for Sokka, and Sokka covered himself with it before stepping out of his pants. It was obvious for how he hobbled—obvious for how he'd limped all the way here—that he was in pain, but the doctor didn't press him again to be examined.
The doctor produced a leather pouch from his bag, something like a wineskin, and threaded a strip of gauze through the top of it to use as a drawstring. He slipped the pouch over Sokka's cast and tied the string closed around Sokka's forearm. This would keep water from soaking through to the cast, but it limited the dexterity of Sokka's left hand. It wasn't unlike wearing a mitten.
As the doctor closed up his satchel, the guard returned from her errand with a small wooden bucket carrying a bar of soap and a hand towel. She handed it to Sokka.
"I prepared one of the single tubs for you," she said, "at the end of the room."
"Thanks," Sokka said numbly.
The doctor excused himself, saying he would return in a while, but the guard remained posted in the locker room to prevent Sokka from escaping. She confirmed that he could take as long as he liked since no one else would need the baths until later in the evening, and with that, Sokka was permitted to go into the bathing area alone.
Around a corner passageway and out of sight of the locker room, the bathing area itself was a long, tiled chamber lined on one side with large community baths and on the other with a row of faucets. Each faucet was about knee height from the floor and had a short wooden stool standing before it. At the back of the chamber, beneath a large mosaic of a smoking volcano, stood a row of individual wooden tubs. Each was capped with a bamboo cover, save for one, whose cover had been rolled back. Steam drifted faintly in the air above it.
Sokka padded out to the far end of the chamber and set his bucket down beneath a faucet. He considered for a moment trying to sit on the stool, but the prospect seemed too painful and awkward, so instead he folded his towel and lay it down on the tile so that he could kneel on it like a cushion.
Above each faucet hung a small mirror, and once he'd knelt, Sokka was able for the first time in a long time to look at himself.
He was the picture of assault. A thick, crusted smear of crackled blood coated his upper lip and spread from his nose and across his right cheek. His left eye was swollen partly shut and ringed with deep splotched purple. The whites of his eyes were bloodied in the corners, and there were circles under his eyes as dark as if someone had smudged soot there. He lifted his chin to look at his neck, and it was mottled with bruises like dappled tree bark. His skin was ashen, his face sunken. He looked like death.
A voice in the back of his mind reminded him: Sex slave.
He soaked himself and took up the soap, only able to work one-handed, then lathered his hair till it was thick with foam. He sat a while using the suds to massage his battered face and pick the blood from his skin. The soap turned brownish red on his hand, and he rinsed it all down the drain with the solemnity of a cleansing ritual.
It was difficult to work around his cast; it made the whole process slow and methodical—and as such, Sokka was prone to getting lost in thought. Running the bar of soap over his skin, he couldn't stop thinking: it was going to happen again—the physical invasion, the violation. Maybe not as violent, maybe not as impulsive, but definitely again. And again. That was his sole purpose here—a bodily recreation—and now the precedent had been set. His hands shook as he rinsed himself.
To clean between his legs, he delicately parted his knees on the towel—glad for the cushion, because he couldn't have stood the pain of kneeling without it—and from his bucket he carefully cupped water toward himself with the same sort of care he would give to dressing a wound. Old blood and mucous dropped down from him to the floor.
It hurt to touch himself. And that made him all the more aware that not only was it going to happen again, but it was going to hurt, badly. Especially now. Especially like this.
Tears seeped from his eyes as he worked, as unassuming as the water itself, emotions he couldn't even identify roiling inside him.
At last he poured a final bucket over his head, rinsing everything away, letting the water splash and cascade off him. And when the bucket was empty, he sat there alone in this great chamber, dripping and numb.
Gazing back at him now, his reflection was swollen and dead-eyed, but now that he was clean, he looked much more like himself. His dark hair was plastered to the edges of his face.
The swelling made his left eye something of a narrow slit, and that, coupled with the darkness of his bruising, suddenly struck him as very familiar. Mauled and misshapen, the look produced an effect very similar to the scar on Zuko's face.
Sokka sat there disturbed and staring, startled by the similarity. The mirror reversed the image, of course, but knowing where the wound was on his own body, Sokka realized his was even on the same side as Zuko's. Seeing Zuko reflected here put him profoundly ill at ease. It was a kind of familiarity that felt wildly out of place, totally incongruent with reality. Then, with a sick feeling of gloom, Sokka realized the same man who had done this to him had done that to Zuko as well.
He looked away. There was something deeply, deeply sad and morbid about that realization, like nothing he'd ever felt before, never in his life. It kicked up a depression so profound he couldn't even physically bear to sit in its presence. Almost shaky, needing to get away, he pushed himself up and limped over to the tub the guard had prepared for him.
The tub stood nearly to his shoulders, shaped almost like a barrel, and wooden steps led him up over the lip and down into the seat. He stepped down delicately into the steaming water, hissing as the heat made contact with his cuts and burns, but he settled himself slowly and soon adjusted. The water was deep, and he sank down to his shoulders, one elbow hooked over the edge of the tub to keep his cast dry.
Soaking here was like soaking in a salve. The water was soft and light on his skin, and submerged as he was—floating and easy and weightless in the quiet—he felt safe, like being cradled. Gradually, tension drained from his limbs, and he leaned his head back, closing his eyes.
He was grateful for relaxation to take his body, but he couldn't say the same for his mind. Though many parts of him wanted to avoid it, his reasoning side knew needed to process last night.
And one thing in particular was troubling him most: Why had Ozai reacted the way he did?
In an apathetically rational way, Sokka could understand the point of keeping a prisoner for sexual gratification—even political gratification. There was a logic there he could follow.
What he couldn't understand was how that gratification had morphed so suddenly into...celebration.
"You haven't won," Sokka had said. "They're not coming."
To Sokka, telling Ozai the others were biding their time had been a threat. He knew as well as Ozai did that if they did come now, they'd be defeated. Aang simply wasn't ready yet, and neither was their broken army. Waiting for the comet to pass was their only path to victory. After all, with Ba Sing Se already fallen to the Fire Nation, there was no other purpose Ozai could turn the comet's power toward but to attack Aang himself. So depriving him of that opportunity was the most powerful blow they could deal him right now. And when they finally did return, Ozai would not be more powerful for the comet, whereas Aang would have mastered the Avatar State.
Sokka knew Ozai wasn't a fool, so it seemed this intention should have been obvious to him. But Sokka supposed it was possible that even despite his intentions Ozai could have mistaken this strategy for retreat.
But even if that were the case, it didn't explain Ozai's shift from posturing to jubilation. A retreat, after all, wasn't the same as surrender.
So what was it, then? Sokka was sure he'd said nothing that could have spelled out Ozai's victory—not least of all because Sokka himself had been totally confident the others would come through. But Ozai obviously thought otherwise. Because mere political gratification couldn't explain that kind of enthusiasm...the force, the arousal, the vice-like kiss...beating Sokka into submission, dragging him to the bed, tearing his clothes away, pinning him down...
Without meaning to, a sob erupted from Sokka's chest, and he covered his eyes with his elbow, weeping out loud. Like a tangled fishing line jamming in a reel, his thoughts were getting snagged on painful memories, keeping him from thinking.
He was missing something important, he knew, but he couldn't figure out what it was. Already he was too close to the fire; he couldn't push through the trauma.
So rather than an answer, all he was left with was a sick feeling of lurking danger and a secret suspicion that he was to blame.
He sat and sobbed into the crook of his elbow, done trying to analyze anything.
Never tell Ozai anything ; that was the lesson to be learned here. Ozai was not Azula—not so young, not so easy to manipulate, and Ozai could hurt Sokka far worse than Azula could.
Sokka let himself cry a while, just to feel the catharsis of it, letting the anguish rise up out of him like steam from the bath. He let it pull his misery out of him until there was nothing left to take, and then he finally settled into a post-climactic sort of exhaustion, sinking into the tub and dropping his cast arm back over the edge, leaving his body to be suspended in the water. His eyes were shut, his head resting back, and he fell asleep there, as if returning to the womb.
Eventually he was roused by a tapping near his head. He started and blinked awake, and there standing over him was the doctor, knocking on the side of the tub.
"Time to get out," the doctor said.
Sokka took a moment to wake up then pulled himself to life and wrapped himself in the fresh towel the doctor gave him, letting the doctor hold his arm to steady Sokka and guide him back down the steps to the floor. Sokka felt lethargic now but far less sore. The bath had helped, and his body was warmed and relaxed to the core.
In the locker room, the guard was waiting for them. She presented Sokka with a fresh set of clothes then stepped out so he could get dressed. These were softer than what he'd been given before, satiny and black and stitched with gold thread. The doctor said he no longer needed to wear bandages, so Sokka wore the clothes directly against his skin, and they were cool and luxuriant and comfortable.
But he sensed somehow he was being dressed for someone else's sake, and as such, he found it hard to enjoy the improvement.
When they arrived back at his cell, there was a fresh blanket folded for him on his bed mat and the floor gleamed from a recent mopping. Fresh, clean water filled his basin, and his breakfast was still laid out on a tray for him.
Sokka ignored this and went directly to his bed, curling up into the cool folds of his blanket. The doctor set a vial of clear liquid on his tray.
"Take this when you're in pain," he said, then folded his arms plainly. "I won't give you more without getting to examine you."
Sokka didn't care. He just wanted to lie here alone and not move. He turned his face into his pillow, and the doctor and guard left him.
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It was well into the afternoon when Sokka was disrupted out of sleep by a nagging pain. Grimacing, he awoke, and the whole length of his body felt as if he had fallen down a flight of stairs.
Annoyed and depressed, he pulled himself over to his food tray and downed the vial of medicine. It was a thin liquid, bitter and sweet. Shortly the medicine took hold of him, relaxing his pain and his tension and making him feel drowsy. He couldn't have kept his eyes open even if he'd wanted to. He lazily crawled back to his bed and slumped down onto the pillow, not even lying fully on the mat. Eyes closed, he reached for his blanket and pulled it partly over him, hardly effective, but to do more was too much effort. He fell asleep.
Later, footsteps startled him, and he was yanked awake like being exhumed from a grave.
A guard stepped into view carrying Sokka's dinner tray. The man took away his breakfast untouched, slid the new tray in through the grate, then left without so much as a nod of acknowledgment.
Sokka stared at the tray, registering the time. Evening. It was going to happen again. Ozai was going to hurt him.
Already he was tense, humming with fear and anxiety. The prospect of going back to Ozai now seemed impossible, literally intolerable. In no time, he felt like he was going to be sick. He moved onto his hands and knees, just to calm himself.
Maybe not tonight, he thought. Maybe Ozai was away on business. Maybe he would have mercy on Sokka and leave him alone, just for one night.
Sokka stayed in this state for a long time, walking toward the edge of crippling panic and continually trying to bring himself back, when he heard the door open at the end of the hall.
The sound was like a blow to the side of the head.
Sokka felt the blood immediately drain from his face and down through his gut like a wash of cold water. He started shaking. Within moments, a pair of guards stepped into view, and it all felt much too quick—they were at his cell door, telling him to get up, standing over him, extending a hand to him.
But Sokka couldn't get up. He sat with his head against the wall, unable to move, willing them to go away. One of the guards sighed. Obviously they would have preferred he go with them of his own power, but as he refused, they would have to force him.
They bent down and took hold of Sokka's upper arms, pulling him to his feet. Upon being moved, something in Sokka reacted violently. Horror shot through him like a curse, and he gaped in confusion, knowing something was very wrong but not knowing what.
His vision dimmed and went blurry, and his body stopped responding clearly. He felt himself go slack in the guards' grips. Something about the world felt unreal, like he was someplace else entirely, and his skin went cold. His mind rang with a piercing metal clanging, and beyond a doubt, he felt he was going to die—here, now.
The guards brought him out into the hallway before his cell, and Sokka tried to speak, to call for a stop, but all he could manage was a strangled moan. Their momentum made him sick, his skin prickling with terror, and he felt as if there were a lightning bolt in the room coming to kill him.
Barely standing, feet dragging between the two men, Sokka heaved forward and vomited onto the hallway floor.
One of the guards released him, stepping away in surprise and disgust, and Sokka fell against the other, colliding with him as the man pulled them both away from the feeble splatter. The guard tightened his grip on Sokka's arm, saying, "Steady," and Sokka bent double, bracing his free hand on his knee, trembling and gagging.
Sokka's mind—his whole body—had gone for a moment back to that dungeon in Azula's base, sobbing and emaciated, naked and broken, strapped into a pair of ankle restraints and waiting to be executed. Here in front of his cell, he retched again, spitting onto the floor. It was some seconds before he felt returned to the real world.
The guard who had released him asked from across the hallway, "You all right?"
Sokka didn't respond.
The guard still gripping his arm tugged him up. "Come on, you're all right."
"Give him a second," the other guard said. He pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve and handed it to Sokka. Sokka dazedly wiped his mouth.
Once Sokka had handed the handkerchief back, the guard at his arm asked, "You ready?"
A tide of tears tightened Sokka's throat, and he said weakly, "I don't want to go."
Silence fell for a moment, then the guard at his arm said, "That's not our call to make." He nudged Sokka gently forward. "Come on."
They stepped around the mess on the floor, and the other guard regained Sokka's arm. Sokka, going numb for having no better option, allowed himself to be led out of the basement, light-headed and hurting.
The route they took was different from the ones Sokka had taken before, and when they reached their destination, the guards guided Sokka into a stone room and quietly closed him inside.
The chamber was dim and cavernous, scented with mineral steam and amber incense. In the center was a luxuriant hot pool, ringed with candles in glass vases and flanked on each corner by a thick stone pillar. Frosted glass lanterns hung from the ceiling, casting delicate, atmospheric light. To one side was a fireplace, the flames dying down into a gentle smolder; at the other was an arrangement of black sofas and small tables, presumably for hosting intimate guests. Directly across from Sokka, through the steam of the bath, was a wall of arched doorways, their wooden screens slid aside to offer a glimpse of the star-sprayed night beyond.
He was alone. Hesitantly, he made his way around the edge of the pool and inched toward the nearest doorway, looking cautiously out.
Outside was a shallow balcony overlooking a lush, tree-covered slope, and no one was there. He stepped out into the night air and stood under the sky. Sparse and far away on the very edges of the landscape, the buildings of the Fire Nation capital twinkled in the dark. This, he supposed, was the rear of the palace, overlooking a private stretch of forest.
He stepped forward the short distance to touch the balcony railing and stood looking out into the strange and isolated night. He could hear the movement of air in the trees, could smell the damp earth below, could feel the humid breath of summer on his face.
Everything about this place was beautiful.
Having nature looking back at him without judgment or motive as he stood there wearing his vulnerability on his skin was mysteriously comforting. He felt a sort of primal camaraderie with the mountains and trees, like a long-lost child being welcomed back home.
"It's lovely, isn't it?" a voice said behind him.
Sokka jumped and turned around. Through a doorway, lounging in his robe on a sofa near the fireplace, was Ozai, holding a cup of wine. Sokka's face flushed. How could he have missed him there before?
Ozai set his cup on the floor and rose, coming out onto the balcony with Sokka. Sokka retreated a few steps and turned away as Ozai neared him, but Ozai slipped his hand under Sokka's arm and gently held him around the waist, like a bride. Sokka just stared dimly in the opposite direction, his entire will drained of hope and resistance.
Ozai brushed Sokka's hair back from his face and nuzzled his nose in Sokka's temple. The scratch of Ozai's long goatee made Sokka shiver, disturbed. Ozai was so much older than he was, a middle-aged man with large hands and tough skin, hair on his arms like Sokka's father's. He towered over Sokka, almost encasing him, hard muscles pressing against and mocking Sokka's barely sixteen-year-old body.
Ozai touched the bruises on Sokka's neck, inspecting him.
"I'm sorry I hurt you," he said quietly.
Sokka was immovable, watching the individual leaves of trees rustle in the dark.
Ozai moved his hand across Sokka's chest, dipping into the space between Sokka's pectorals. Sokka flinched to have his burn pressed on, and Ozai retracted his hand as if apologizing. But then he moved his hand to the hem of Sokka's shirt and reached up under it, tracing his fingertips back up the ridges of Sokka's abdomen.
Sokka hummed with tension as Ozai circled Sokka's nipple with his fingers, then Ozai bent and kissed Sokka's neck open-mouthed. Without even feigning to coax him, as if Sokka had asked him to do it, Ozai pulled Sokka's shirt over his head and freed him from it altogether.
Sokka couldn't form words, could barely force out a sound, but as his shirt hit the floor, even his breathing was a cry of protest. His body began to tremble and sweat with cold, nauseating anxiety. Ozai pulled him by the hip, turning Sokka to face him, and with a fluid, warm motion, he cupped his hand around the back of Sokka's head and kissed him.
Assaulted, Sokka crumbled into tears, stiffening helplessly in Ozai's arms. Even so, Ozai kept their lips pressed together.
When Ozai pulled away at last, he held Sokka's head between his hands, his face very close to Sokka's, and wiped tears from Sokka's cheeks with his thumbs. Wordlessly, he pulled Sokka back into the room by his head, watching him intently.
Standing at the edge of the pool, he released Sokka and conducted him toward the fireplace.
"Go on," he said.
Propelled only by momentum, adrift in a mist of tears, Sokka found himself stepping onto a large fur rug laid out before the fireplace. He turned to Ozai, begging him with his whole spirit not to take this further.
Ozai opened his robe and let the fabric slip from his shoulders, leaving him naked and eyeing Sokka with an unaffected lust. He went to him, posture slow and relaxed, and kissed Sokka again, pulling the small of Sokka's back into him and lowering him to the floor.
Sokka tried to make noise, to communicate. As he was swept backward, Ozai's lips pulled away for a moment from his, causing a sharp sucking sound just as Sokka's back made contact with the rug. Sokka gaped up at him, crying and trying to speak, but Ozai descended on him again, his tongue finding Sokka's open mouth and pressing into it to feel out whatever meat it could find.
Sokka moaned. Ozai shifted, kissing Sokka's neck and cheeks, and his hands dipped into Sokka's waistband, teasing it loose. Sokka gripped the fabric in his fists, trying to keep Ozai from pulling it down. "Don't," he begged, feeling trapped by the heat and flesh of the larger man.
"It's all right," Ozai said, taking Sokka's hands. "I'll be gentle," he said.
He pried Sokka's fingers open and took the waistband away, pulling Sokka's pants down past the curve of his backside.
"Don't," Sokka begged again, high-pitched and airy. He wanted Ozai at least to pause, just for a moment, so Sokka could try to reason with him. But Ozai wouldn't give him the chance.
Ozai peeled the pants free of Sokka's ankles then leaned over to reach for a bowl on a nearby table. He brought his hand back dripping with oil and slathered himself, pushing one of Sokka's knees aside to spread his legs.
Sokka cried, becoming vocal and desperate, and he reached for Ozai's hand, just to arrest his attention. But he'd no sooner touched Ozai's wrist than Ozai entwined Sokka's fingers with his own and leaned down over him, kissing the tears from Sokka's cheeks.
"Shh. It's all right," he said. "I'll be gentle."
And in truth, he was gentle, pressing himself inside Sokka slowly, slick with oil, kissing Sokka's face all the while. But that didn't stop the weak screech of pain Sokka let out as soon as he did so.
Ozai moved delicately, pushing only partly in, pulling only partly back. There was no thrusting or plunging, only a mild motion—more fullness than friction. Still, it left Sokka writhing with pain, his face contorted and back arched, whimpering, shaking. Ozai cooed at him, combing Sokka's hair back, like a father trying to shush a baby. But Sokka never calmed; the pain never eased. And shortly, relenting, Ozai slid out of him, at last seeming to have taken pity on him. He rose up on one hand to take another handful of oil, then turned Sokka aside, pushing Sokka's knees together, and slipped in between Sokka's thighs instead.
Sokka let his head fall heavy to the floor and just cried in victimized relief, letting Ozai do as he pleased so long as it didn't have to hurt anymore. After a while, he settled into watery hiccups, waiting numbly for Ozai to finish. Ozai groaned and squeezed Sokka's knees so tightly together it hurt. Sokka winced, and Ozai shuddered, and Sokka was sure it would be done now.
But then, in a single burst of speed, Ozai flipped Sokka back onto his back, throwing his knees apart again, and before Sokka could even make sense of what was happening, Ozai plunged back inside him all at once, jolting him backward on the rug with the force.
Sokka screamed, and Ozai clapped a hand down over Sokka's mouth, thrusting into him with his head bent down beside Sokka's ear. Throat-rattling sobs muffled beneath Ozai's fingers, Sokka couldn't stop screaming. He slammed his heels into the floor, trying to push himself up, trying to get away, writhing like a live fish on a skewer.
Loudly, Ozai came, and he collapsed on top of Sokka trembling, hand still clamped like a vice over his mouth. His naked body was heavy and panting with Sokka weeping beneath him, and Sokka, still ringing with a pain beyond register, felt an idiotic, self-deprecating hate for having actually believed for a moment that Ozai wasn't going to hurt him again.
At last Ozai pulled himself up, leaving Sokka spread out bereft and immobile on the rug. He took a small hand towel from the table and went to the edge of the pool to wet it. Ozai wiped himself clean, and Sokka, even from his cloud of agony on the floor, could see the red smear of blood that came away on the fabric.
For Sokka, there was no getting up. He could hardly even move. Injuries from last night had only been torn open again and made worse.
As Ozai returned to pick up his robe from the floor, Sokka tried to roll aside, but the pain was too much, and he shrieked just from trying. Ozai watched him, pulling his long hair from the robe's collar, then moved toward the door as Sokka fell back to the floor uselessly, gasping and crying.
Ozai opened the door slightly and knocked on its frame, leaving it standing ajar, then went to the sofa to retrieve his wine.
Sokka didn't even care anymore how he would be found. He didn't attempt to move again. When the guards arrived, he was still lying on the rug, disjointed and weak, just a specimen of evidence to be discovered.
Ozai stood out on the balcony and left the guards to deal with Sokka. One of the men went to collect Sokka's shirt while the other went directly to Sokka. This first guard crouched down beside him, assuring that he was conscious.
The man offered Sokka his hand, and after a moment, Sokka took it. The guard, doing most of the work, hefted Sokka to his feet through so much pain Sokka couldn't see straight. The other guard rejoined them, carrying Sokka's clothes, and Sokka stood leaning against the first, trembling and clinging to the man's hands to stay upright.
"Come on, you can stand," the man said to him, though he didn't seem to believe his own words, because he didn't slacken his grip. Still, Sokka made the attempt, gradually transferring his weight to his own feet until he could hold the man's hands only for balance, not for support. The man seemed ready to catch him at any moment. The other guard handed Sokka his pants.
Sokka took the pants in hand but couldn't imagine what he would do with them. He stood for a moment, trying to muster some stamina, and when he finally let go and tried to bend, he nearly collapsed.
So the first guard took his hand again and held him by the arm as the other guard stooped and arranged the pant legs on the floor so that Sokka could step into them. A single trickle of blood was crawling slowly down Sokka's thigh, but soon the guard pulled Sokka's pants up and obscured the view. The man tied Sokka's drawstrings for him. No one tried to make him put on his shirt.
It was obvious Sokka couldn't walk, so the guards each slung one of Sokka's arms over their shoulders and carried him to the door. In the hall, another guard stood nearby, and the first guard whistled to her to get her attention. He told her to go send for the doctor to meet them at Sokka's cell, and without question she went.
The guards brought Sokka back into the basement, and as they were sliding open the gate of his cell, the doctor and his assistant arrived.
The men deposited Sokka crying onto his knees in the cell and then cleared out swiftly. The doctor and his guard stepped in behind them.
Sokka sunk to the floor on his side, sobbing out loud, in too much pain to stay upright, in too much trauma to communicate. The doctor, saying nothing, went to him immediately. Taking Sokka's submission as the necessary consent, he untied Sokka's drawstrings.
Sokka just lay there, crying without talking, and let the doctor do as he must. He removed Sokka's pants, and the guard placed a towel under Sokka's hips. With Sokka's knees bent back, the doctor cleaned his wound with cold water, the guard acting as surgical assistant.
After some time, the doctor pressed a patch of gauze to Sokka's anus and instructed the guard to get something from his satchel.
"It's not that bad," the doctor finally said to Sokka, narrating the end of the procedure. "This area of the body bleeds a lot at first, but it heals quickly, too. You'll be all right."
The woman handed the doctor what he had asked for, and the doctor took the gauze away for a moment, slipping a cooling balm into the area of damage.
"This is medicine," he said. "Let it sit. Don't try to clean it away." He pressed the gauze back against Sokka's body. "And try not to disturb the bandage until morning."
The doctor cleared away the towel, wiping stray liquid from the floor and Sokka's legs, and Sokka let his knees drift back down, curling himself loosely into a fetal position, exhausted and emotionally drained. A brief burst of flame in the corner of the room did nothing even to startle him, and as the doctor re-packed his satchel, the guard laid a newly heated blanket over Sokka's naked body, an acknowledgment that it would be too much now to expect him to maneuver into a garment.
Sokka exhaled under the heat, grateful and heartbroken, and the guard and doctor helped lift him onto his bed mat so that he wouldn't have to lie on the cold stone floor.
"You can use the chamber pot if you have to," the doctor said in parting. "I'll have Min come back in a little while to see that you're all right." Sokka didn't acknowledge this, just closed his eyes, tired and swollen with tears. "The bleeding will stop," the doctor assured him. "You'll be all right."
The doctor and guard exited the cell, but before they had gone around the corner of the hallway, Sokka raised a hand to stop them, one thing to say.
The doctor paused, waiting for Sokka to speak. Sokka struggled a moment, face furrowed and throat tight.
"I can't do that again," he croaked at last.
The doctor pursed his lips, exhaling through his nose. It was late, surely into the small hours of the morning, and it was clear he was unhappy with how Sokka had been torn up. Slowly he nodded.
"I'll see what I can do about tomorrow," he said. It was the best comfort he could offer.
After that, he and the guard went, and Sokka was left alone to sleep.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
When Sokka woke in the morning, he was in deep, soaking pain. When he turned under his blanket, a young male guard was sitting in the hallway on a stool, leaning against the wall with his arms folded, looking bored. He noticed Sokka and unfolded his arms but didn't change his demeanor.
"How you doing?" he asked.
Sokka pulled his blanket up around his shoulders, feeling small and embarrassed.
"Fine," he responded quietly.
The guard rose, stretching and yawning, then straightened out his armor. He stepped up to the bars and pointed into Sokka's cell.
"There's a pair of clothes there for you," he said. "I'll go tell the doctor you're up, and someone will probably bring you breakfast."
He left.
Sokka reluctantly got to his hands and knees, stinging, and pulled the gauze away from between his legs. It was bloody but dry and no longer served a purpose. He discarded it in the chamber pot.
He noticed beside his water basin that the doctor had left him another vial of medicine, and he downed this before pulling on the clothes the guard had indicated to him.
In a while, the doctor returned with his guard.
"I spoke with the Fire Lord," he said, "and he seemed to understand it would be wisest to give you a day's rest."
It wasn't a definite answer, but Sokka didn't press it. He doubted the doctor really had any idea what Ozai would do tonight. The Fire Lord didn't have to answer to his servants.
In any case, Sokka didn't want to think about it. He lay face down on his bed mat, arms at his sides, silent.
The guard set his new breakfast tray in the corner.
"Eat," the doctor said. "You may not want to, but you need to. You can't heal if you don't eat."
Sokka said nothing, and the doctor seemed to see no point arguing now. He set two new vials of medicine on the tray.
"Midday and evening. That's all for one day," he said. "Wait at least a few hours between each dose. And drink your water."
When the doctor concluded his well-meaning check-up, he and his guard departed, and Sokka was left to discover the remarkable truth of how much of one's day one could spend doing literally nothing but lying in bed staring at the wall.
He was so depressed. No amount of time felt like enough either to regain his energy or to calm down.
But by nighttime, he was sitting up again and outright sick with anxiety. He was certain had there been anything in his body he wouldn't have been able to keep it in. Twice in as many days he'd been violently raped, and the looming threat of a third time was making it hard to breathe.
The doctor had warned Ozai off, but Sokka was struggling to find comfort in that. After all, it had been obvious the night before that Sokka was in no shape to endure a second go. For that matter, it had been pretty obvious from the beginning that beating and raping another human being was a monstrous thing no one should ever do. But that had saved him from nothing. Ozai would do what Ozai wanted when the time came.
Sokka was shaking with that knowledge. He pressed himself against the wall with his hands over his face and cried, begging someone, anyone, to spare him tonight. His soul was crying out to whatever spirits would listen.
And in the middle of this, the hallway door opened and a pair of guards' footsteps came clinking toward his cell.
The moment he recognized the sound, the effect in his body was like being plunged underwater. His nervous system became washed in suffocating dread, his chest robbed of air, and the world around him seemed almost at once to become separate and dream-like, left hovering above the rippling surface.
He took his hands from his face, his eyes glistening and staring, and the guards brought him to his feet, his every impulse dead and drowned.
By the time they reached the private bath of last night, Sokka felt almost totally detached, like a spirit moving through the physical world without really being part of it. The guards presented him to Ozai and closed the door. Ozai was soaking in the hot pool.
"Still standing," he remarked.
Sokka stared.
Ozai rose from the pool and wrapped a towel around his waist. Sokka retreated, backing into a sofa and sitting. Ozai approached him, lifting an eyebrow and smiling mildly.
"Were you going somewhere?" he asked.
Ozai stopped over him and put his hand on the back of the sofa, looking down at Sokka fondly, as if he were petulant but amusing child.
"I'm glad to see you're not nearly as debilitated as the doctor made you out to be."
He stepped around behind Sokka and combed his hands through Sokka's hair, gathering and smoothing it idly, pulling it into a wolf tail and holding it there a moment.
Through the open screens at the far side of the room he could see the sky and hillside beyond. The moon was rising over the forest, waning.
Ozai let the wolf tail fall. Sokka's mind was struggling to catch up. He was becoming aware of Ozai's nearness. This was just snow falling on battlements, a sensation light as the air foreboding coming violence.
Ozai bent down behind him, putting his hands down over Sokka's chest and bringing their heads close together. He followed Sokka's line of sight.
"Water Tribe," he said. "The moon is important to you, eh?" They stayed in silence a moment, watching together the thick crescent hanging in the clouds.
"But you're no bender," Ozai said. "What meaning could it possibly have for you?"
Ozai returned to the front of the sofa, and Sokka blinked, feeling present now as he hadn't before, awake and aware. Ozai straddled Sokka's lap, his towel barely concealing him, and Sokka's heart hammered, sweat prickling his skin. Ozai took Sokka under the chin and looked down into his eyes, their faces very close together. It was a power display, an obedience exercise, as with a dog, Ozai doing what he liked and relishing the fact that Sokka couldn't move, wouldn't move.
Sokka's breath was shallow, his head dizzy, feeling his impending torture becoming more real, getting closer.
"You can't imagine what it feels like to have the bending power running through your blood," Ozai said, calling a flame into his palm and trailing it across Sokka's face, letting him feel the warmth and softness of it without the pain.
Ozai extinguished the flame and settled against Sokka's stomach, letting him feel his erection. Sokka took a breath, heat rising to his face, ready to cry. He didn't want to be raped again. Ozai put his hand on Sokka's cheek, as if admiring him, caressing Sokka's lower lip with his thumb.
"I'm not here to tear you apart," he said.
He rose and took the towel from his waist, placing one foot beside Sokka's thigh. Sokka did cry then, and Ozai put his hand on Sokka's head, drawing them together.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Back in his cell, Sokka spat out a mouthful of water, unable to swallow. He was weak, head hanging over his water basin, his untouched food drying on his tray. He hadn't eaten in two days, but he felt like vomiting.
His head reverberated with confusion, distortion. His memories were beginning to seem like a nightmare, not a lived experience. He felt ripped from the universe, no longer himself, no longer a Water Tribesman, no longer human. The feeling was such a profound, vast trauma that it just emptied him out. He couldn't even turn the despair into hate and lash himself with it just to feel alive. It just sucked all the will to live right out of him.
He lay down on his bed mat, feeling thin. His wrist in front of his face looked narrower than it should. His cast felt leaden on his hand, too heavy to lift. Sleep was no longer rest but merely dissolving into oblivion.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
When the doctor arrived in the morning, he scolded Sokka for not eating.
"You're pale," he said. "And sunken." He handed Sokka a glass of juice, and Sokka took it in hand but didn't drink. He could feel the faint tremor in his hands from lack of fuel, but even that couldn't motivate him.
"Don't make me force you," the doctor said.
If only to avoid a fight, Sokka lifted the cup to his mouth and let the juice come in contact with his lips. It was thick and sweet, pear. He licked his lips but couldn't quite stomach pulling in an actual sip. To hold anything inside his mouth seemed excruciating.
The doctor seemed frustrated, but he wasn't going to sit here and spoon feed him.
"Any new pain?" he asked.
Sokka would have laughed had he had the energy. Every day was new pain to him.
"No," he said.
The doctor nodded soberly. "Good." He gathered his things and, before he departed, addressed Sokka one more time.
"You will starve to death, you know," he said. "If you don't eat, you die. That's a simple fact of biology. Your stomach will start digesting itself, and then there's no recovering. And if your system is under stress—which yours clearly is—the damage only progresses more quickly. So eat, " he said. "I don't know how to put it more strongly."
Sokka, unwilling but trying to cooperate, touched the juice to his lips again and licked away the sugar. Maybe if he did this all day long, he would have the glass empty by the time he saw Ozai again that night. Thinking so made him feel faint, and he set the juice aside on the floor.
The doctor sighed, but there was nothing more to be done, so he and his guard left Sokka alone.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
That night in Ozai's chambers, Sokka swallowed engorged flesh, arched at probing fingers, cringed beneath sweat and heat, Ozai's hands on him like leeches. He flickered in and out of reality, dizzy, face wet, body not even his own.
He was an inhuman thing, an object to be invaded, not even really part of himself, not even really alive.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
By the next afternoon, the danger of starving had become real. Before, the doctor's warning had seemed dramatic. Today it felt disturbingly plausible.
Sokka dragged himself over to his tray, foggy and dizzy. He couldn't even hold his spoon properly, but he made what fist he could and forced himself to take a bite of pudding and keep his mouth shut.
He tried to swallow but only gagged. He sat with his jaw locked and waited. He spent a long moment, his heart drumming faster, mustering the courage to attempt to swallow again. But when he tried, his body just heaved, spitting the mouthful back onto the tray and doing its best to vomit.
Sokka heaved uncontrollably for a moment, but there was nothing but air inside him. He cried. He was so hungry but so sick; all he wanted was relief. He remembered the doctor's warning. Was it too late to recover?
He collapsed against the bars, cheeks wet, exhausted from the futile effort. He hooked his elbow over the cross bar at the bottom of the grate to stay upright and tried to breathe in fresh air, trying to still the churning in his bowels. He closed his eyes and didn't move for a long time.
When the guards eventually came for him that night, they found him huddled like a goblin creature against the bars, arm hanging out of his cell, shrinking and decaying. He hadn't moved. The guards stood over him for a moment, seeming hesitant to approach him.
One told him to get up, and Sokka tried to lift his head, but all he accomplished was hardly a half-nod of acknowledgement. Get up, they told him again, and for the first time he realized he simply couldn't. He didn't have the strength.
When one of the guards eventually stooped to heft him up, Sokka's very bones seemed to sigh, like a coat being pulled from the dust. He was hardly more than cloth on a skeleton, and he sagged against the man, drooping in his arms.
"Come on, walk," the man said.
Sokka didn't want to walk. He didn't want to endure this. And when he realized his condition would be no deterrent to their errand, he wept without sound or energy.
They forced him to shuffle down the hallway, slow and clumsy, but there was no way he could climb the stairs. He couldn't even lift his foot to the first step.
"Should we call someone?" one of the guards asked.
The other didn't seem to know what to do. Ozai, of course, had ordered Sokka's immediate retrieval, not sent the guards to take on an endless medical errand.
The other answered, "Just carry him. We'll let the Fire Lord decide."
So the guard picked Sokka up like an infant, cradled in his arms, and Sokka just let him, too weak to resist or protest. He loathed to his very marrow everything that was happening, but it was all outside his control.
Soon, they set him down on a sofa in Ozai's chambers, announced their delivery, and left. Sokka couldn't even properly hold himself upright, so he leaned with his cheek against the seat back, tears leaking into the fabric.
He was scared.
In a moment, Ozai was standing over him, but whatever he said, Sokka couldn't hear. Sokka was losing consciousness. He vaguely understood that Ozai was angry, but everything was quickly going blank. Moments passed, and the next thing he knew, he was being yanked up by the arm and thrown toward the bed.
Sokka fell onto the mattress, not strong enough to catch himself. The jolt reignited his mind, and a shrill terror started sounding at the back of his skill. He was going to be raped.
He sobbed, holding onto the bed cover. Part of him hoped the violence would kill him.
Ozai, cursing at him in anger, wrenched him over onto his back and held him down tightly by his arms, hurting him, using force without reason.
Ozai was raising his voice, shaking him, but Sokka couldn't process what he was saying. He just cried, unfocused and watery eyed, like a sponge being wrung out.
Hurt me, he thought. Just hurt me and get it over with.
Ozai hit him across the face with a powerful backhand, dropping Sokka cold to the bed with a bloodied lip. His peripheral vision swam. Ozai disrobed.
Sokka wasn't ready, didn't want to be here, but Ozai got up on the bed, kneeling over the top of him, grabbed him by the hair in both fists, and violently, violently rammed himself into Sokka's mouth.
Sokka gagged loudly, crying but unable to breathe, trapped between Ozai's legs. His tongue was pressed flat against the floor of his mouth, inducing him to vomit. But empty as he was, there was no telling the difference.
"Get it down your throat," Ozai snarled, pulling Sokka's hair like handholds and pushing past his gag reflex, dipping down the curve of his neck.
Sokka's gaped helplessly, his jaw practically unhinged, and Ozai pummeled his face as carelessly as one would shake out a rag. He came into Sokka's throat, spurting hot and choking, and pulled Sokka's face in close, cupping one large hand on the back of Sokka's head and crushing his nose against Ozai's pubic bone.
Sokka was sobbing vocally, throat rattling, clawing at Ozai's backside. Ozai yanked Sokka's head off him and quickly slammed the heel of his hand up under Sokka's chin, snapping Sokka's teeth together and making his tongue bleed. Ozai clamped a hand over Sokka's mouth to keep him from spitting the fluid out.
"Swallow it," he said panting, his grip on Sokka's face painful.
Sokka retched unproductively, his back arching, throat closing. He wasn't able to comply. His eyes and nose were running, his body heaving, gagging, choking. Ozai kept his grip relentlessly. Sokka tried again, trying to make his muscles function as they needed to, and finally he managed a partial swallow.
Ozai tossed Sokka's head back and hit him hard across the face again. Sokka fell aside, semen and blood smeared on his lips.
He lay there stunned, body convulsing minutely even as he was losing consciousness, and somewhere in the room Ozai threw a chair.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
It was dark and strange and cold sometime later when Sokka was lifted from the bed onto a stretcher. He tried screaming, not even knowing why exactly, but his voice was hardly a hoarse whisper. He was carried away through shadows and doorways that made his eyes roll and his head dizzy, and before he could understand what was happening, he passed out again.
A night of intravenous fluids mixed with a steady dose of sedatives brought Sokka back to stability. By evening, he was sitting up of his own free will and even feeding himself porridge. They had kept him in the infirmary and intended to keep him again overnight, but he was alive and functioning and by all accounts doing better.
Still, the doctor was unhappy with him.
"Look at these bruises," he said to Sokka, holding up Sokka's bicep to display the deep purple splotches there, Ozai's handprint. "You're never going to heal from anything if you do this to yourself," he said, jabbing him gently in the ribs. "You need to keep yourself healthy."
Sokka was sitting up in bed, a world away in a heavily drugged haze, with an entire pot of tea in front of him to drink—readily refilled if he ever managed to empty it.
"I've already brought you back from death's door once," the doctor scolded him. "Don't make me do it again."
The doctor's guard assistant was assigned to keep watch over Sokka through the night. As darkness and silence fell in the emptying chamber, Sokka dozed, and the woman unexpectedly said, "He can't keep you away from Ozai."
Sokka was roused by her voice. He blinked dumbly, not sure what was real.
"Just hang in there. The war is almost over." She sat motionless in the darkness, sitting in the moonlight at his bedside.
There was a long pause.
"What?" Sokka asked.
But she didn't say anything more, and soon Sokka succumbed again to sleep.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Restored to his cell the next day, Sokka sat at his water basin engrossed. For no reason but to occupy himself, he sat submerging his hand, moving slowly as possible, one hair at a time, watching the surface dip around his fingers and wrist where the water clung to his skin as he descended, watching it crest like a snow drift when he pulled his hand back out. It tickled.
He was fed now, hydrated, rested, and recovered, and he found this simple fascination calming.
He thought of Katara. How many times had he secretly tried to waterbend as a child? How much trauma could he have avoided had he been able to waterbend now?
No benders , he recalled. Ozai's strict criteria. Any prestigious prisoner Ozai could have kept in a cell as a prize. But in order to do this, to keep a slave for his pleasure, one thing mattered above all else: no benders . No one who could fight back. A quality Sokka alone of all his companions wore like a badge of defiance.
The doctor kept him sedated. It was the only way he could rest enough to heal. So when the guards brought him to Ozai's room that night—his eye swollen and his lip split—he was still a little foggy and compliant, hazy enough to take the edge off.
A guard stood with him at the door as Ozai came briskly down the hall with an attendant, smiling and chatting. Ozai took Sokka cordially by the arm and led him into the room, the attendant following to help the Fire Lord out of his elegant formal robe.
"Returned from a long absence," he said to Sokka smiling, taking an ornament from his own hair as the attendant folded the robe over her arm. "Welcome back."
Ozai loosened the collar of his under-robe for comfort and handed the ornament to the woman, shooing her out the door.
He spoke loudly, beaming with enthusiasm and glee. "I've been to the theater," he said, going to a side table and pouring himself a cup of clear, hot alcohol. He turned to Sokka and sipped at it as the woman closed the door behind her, leaving the two of them alone.
"The Ember Island Players," Ozai continued, "staging a production in my honor. What a treat."
He downed his alcohol in a final gulp and clacked the cup back on the table.
"Have you ever been to the theater?" he said, going to Sokka like a dear friend, putting his hand alongside Sokka's neck. He put his nose in Sokka's hair, breathing in. "Perhaps next time you can come."
He took Sokka's face in his hands, holding him close, absolutely glowing.
"You have no idea how much I missed you," he said.
Ozai kissed him, humming with ecstasy, and groped Sokka through his pants.
Drug-induced haze or no, Sokka resisted that physically and verbally. He stepped back with a jolt and pushed Ozai's hand away, making a startled noise.
Ozai chuckled and came for him again, as if Sokka were playing a game. Sokka turned, and Ozai caught him around the waist, pulling Sokka toward him like a flirting university student, bending with him and kissing the back of Sokka's neck.
Sokka couldn't run. He knew there was no escape. His head was throbbing already with the unbearable tension of absolute repulsion meeting absolute inevitability. He felt dizzy.
Ozai got him out of his shirt and somehow onto the bed, holding Sokka gently down by his throat and kissing his way down Sokka's stomach. Sokka's abdomen twitched, the ghosts of cooling saliva prickling his skin. His mind was spinning and his heart racing. Ozai put a hand down the front of Sokka's pants, and at that, like a stick snapping, Sokka detached, no longer there, no longer in this body.
Call it cooperating, call it participating, Sokka didn't know what he was doing. His body was outside of his control, acting on biomechanical impulses, responding to stimuli that had nothing to do with him.
Soon he and Ozai were both on the bed, Sokka on his elbows and knees, Ozai behind him, holding his hips.
What little feeling there was was slick and filling, remarkably pain-free—or of a kind of pain, anyway, that heightened sensation rather than overpowered it. Sokka's body was light and tingling.
He gasped, moaning animally into the sheets, his penis erect and body lost in sensation. Electricity poured into him on Ozai's momentum, and he twitched, spasming as a volcano built in his core.
Ozai pulled him backward, entwining their bodies deeper, and Sokka nearly screamed, overcome suddenly. He came, vocally and powerfully, and tumbled trembling to the sheets, pulsing and dripping. He panted, eyes watering, mouth hanging open.
Ozai pulled out of him and covered Sokka's backside in hot fluid. Sokka could barely feel anything, coming down from a staggering high, his face jumbled in his elbows and breathing ravenously.
Ozai pushed him over, smearing their semen into the bed cover, and lay on top of him to kiss him. Sokka grimaced, wanting to pull away, but he was pinned beneath Ozai's body and mouth and had no choice.
Once Ozai had finished the kiss, he dropped his head on Sokka's shoulder, body draped over him, his hand holding Sokka's bicep.
Cold, sobering aftermath settled around them.
Sokka was overwhelmed and confused. He pushed against Ozai's arm.
"Let me up," he said stiffly.
Ozai complied, letting Sokka slide out from under him and get out of bed. Sokka was shaking, unsteady on his feet, woozy and out of sorts. He found his pants at the foot of the bed, pelvis still pulsing occasionally, and pulled them on clumsily, already eager to escape. Every moment his vision was becoming less cloudy.
Ozai rolled over in bed and nestled into his pillows, as easygoing as if he'd been drugged, and looked at Sokka lazily.
"Call the guards if you're ready to leave," he said, his tone contented.
Sokka, trembling, pulled the cord before even finding his shirt and left as soon as he was able.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Back alone in his cell, Sokka was jittery, on the brink of a breakdown. He was disturbed, horrified, wide-eyed, groping. He stumbled to the wall and cried out loud, just to release his voice.
This body he was in wasn't his own. What had happened? He had no answer, just the flat, inarticulate question.
He moaned, staring into the stone, rocking his forehead against the wall, humming meaninglessly, just vocalizing to ease this unbearable, reeling confusion.
He had just enough presence of mind to recognize that he was acting insane. At which thought he cried, because he didn't want to go insane.
He crouched on the floor and covered his face, not wanting to think. But whatever corner of his mind he tried to run to, he was hounded by an unrelenting and intensifying trauma.
He screamed and slammed his cast hand against a bar. The metal rang, and so did his arm, buckling him with pain and knocking him to the floor. His voice was high-pitched, the plaster was dented. He cradled his hand in his stomach and stared wide-eyed at the ceiling.
Without his bidding or permission, a voice seemed to speak directly to him in his skull, saying, More.
He was insane. He rolled over and grabbed the bars, pulling himself to his feet. He tried to suppress or ignore the voice, but like a polar dog barking to be let out, it wouldn't be denied.
More, it said. Hurt yourself. Do something. Make it bleed.
There was a cross-bar toward the bottom of his cell, flat and cut at right angles, not round and cylindrical like the upright bars. It was a stabilizer bar keeping the others in place. Virtually vibrating with stress, frightened and hysterical, he kicked his shin against it, biting into the bone.
The sound he made was more euphoric than pained. He shuddered, losing his balance, and sank down, shoulders dragging against the bars. His leg was debilitated for a moment, but the sensation rushing through his blood was ecstatic. As soon as he recovered, he stood again, braced himself braced himself more strongly, and kicked again, connecting with a solid crack.
He did scream this time, half relieved, half sobbing, holding himself up by sheer strength of will. He kicked again, over and over, losing himself in the rhythm, hitting as hard as he could manage, until he had worn a raw hole into his shin and his voice down to gravel.
He could feel his skin beading with blood, but he kept kicking until he didn't even feel the pain anymore—just the contact, the collision, the satisfying thump .
Eventually he could no longer stand. A final swing of his leg pulled him off balance and sent him collapsing to the floor, arms spread to his sides and eyes unfocused. He felt like he was floating, high on pain and aching beautifully.
For once he drifted to sleep feeling calmed and relieved.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Back at camp, he was with Suki in his tent. They were both in prisoner's clothes and lying together, curled toward each other, falling asleep.
He felt safe with her, and he was thinking about himself.
Before now, he had been a virgin. The most he'd ever shared with anyone were chaste kisses and this intimate closeness with Suki. No one had seen or touched his naked body; no one had witnessed him orgasm. No one had ever put themselves physically inside him.
He nestled against Suki, sharing space and breath and body heat. He loved her—something he was becoming more aware of every day. Being near her was an immense comfort. Talking with her was as easy as talking with himself. They had identities in common: non-benders, warriors, comrades, lovers.
They'd spent a lot of the war apart, but since bringing Suki back from the Boiling Rock, they'd only grown closer. War had a bonding effect. They were two young people, very fond of each other, mutually committed and happy. He felt it in his bones, a trust and kinship and love reserved only for members of his tribe: Suki had become his family.
Lying here, he could feel her breath against his hands, could smell her hair and her skin. He wanted to share that closeness with her—closer even than this. He wanted to give that private extra part of himself to her.
But...something about him felt out of control, a secret that seemed unsafe and scary. Not unsafe to Suki, but to him. While one aspect of himself was magnetized to her, the rest of him felt...repulsed.
He wanted Suki. But the thought of being vulnerable, exposed, touched and seen... It made him cold and sick.
His heart started beating faster.
Suki, as if she could sense his thoughts, looked up at him.
His heart shot through with terror. Would she want him, even now? Could he share himself with her when his gut felt like a gaping blackness, consuming him from inside out? His hair stood on end, a chill running down him like a rough hand laid on the back of his neck.
"What?" Suki asked.
Alone in his cell, Sokka blinked awake in the dark.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
His leg was purple now with a bloody raw spot up and down his shin. It hurt, and no longer pleasantly. He had a pronounced limp. The ache was a constant, irritating reminder of a line he had crossed, an instability he hadn't controlled.
He didn't tell the doctor about it and hid the bloody splotch on his pant leg. And when the doctor and his assistant had gone, he spent the day quietly musing, hovering between a dark shame and the delicious idea that he could do it again if he wanted.
But that night, all such small ideas ceased to matter.
The guards closed him in Ozai's sitting room, and immediately Sokka sensed something was off. He was no longer sedated, nor hopelessly weak, and he felt hyper-aware of a lurking danger.
Candles lined the floor, creating a fiery, formal atmosphere that hadn't been present for his previous encounters with Ozai. Ozai was fully dressed, standing at the window, chest expanded.
Sokka was reminded of the first time he'd seen him in person, the might of his rank intimidating.
Sokka simmered in anticipation of trauma, but he didn't want to move. He was afraid of what this formality meant. He stood awkwardly inside the threshold, holding his wrist, defensive and watchful.
"The day of Sozin's Comet has come," said Ozai, looking out at the night sky.
Sokka's heart skipped a beat. Time had become like an endless monolith for him, always there, never changing. He had forgotten it still moved for other people, and he had neglected to count down the comet's approach.
But he couldn't see why this information should matter. After all, Aang wasn't coming...right? The plan had been to stay away so that there was no use Ozai could put the comet to. There was nothing left to conquer now that Ba Sing Se had fallen. Had something changed? Were the others in danger?
"When the comet last came, my grandfather, Fire Lord Sozin, used it to wipe out the Air Nomads," Ozai said evenly, not even looking at Sokka.
Sokka knew this; everyone knew this. Why was Ozai bringing it up now?
"I've issued a proclamation," Ozai said. "Tomorrow, I will no longer be Fire Lord. I will become Phoenix King, a sovereign above all others, a king who will never die, soaring with fire and devastation beneath my wings."
Sokka got goosebumps. Ozai's speech pattern had changed. He was using grandiose phrases like no normal person would talk. A prick of anxiety reminded him of how Azula had unraveled at the end.
"You're a strategist," Ozai said, finally looking at Sokka, as if inviting him into a fantasy. "You'll appreciate this, something for so long I haven't shared." He stepped down from the window and faced Sokka dead on, smiling. "I'm going to burn the Earth Kingdom and everyone in it to the ground."
Sokka at first didn't understand. Ozai couldn't be serious. The Earth Kingdom took up more than half the world.
But then, slowly, he realized Ozai was sincere. When Sozin's Comet came, every firebender on earth would become a lethal, unstoppable force—and Ozai didn't just have the majority of them at his command; unlike Sozin, he had them stationed in colonies and conquered cities all over the world.
At which point a hard shock settled into Sokka's brain.
"What," he said, not even a question.
If Ozai was serious, his plan was beyond catastrophic. It would spell not just the end of the war but the end of the largest race of people in existence. It was genocide and land destruction beyond comprehension, worse than anything Sozin could have even dreamed.
Sokka wanted to speak, but faced with something that enormous, he felt paralyzed.
Ozai smiled at Sokka's acknowledgment and added with personally tailored satisfaction: "And there will be no Avatar to stop me."
The gears of Sokka's head cranked slowly into motion. The tone of Ozai's voice was purposeful. And then, like a latch falling into place, it clicked.
They're not coming , Sokka had said.
In a flash, Sokka recalled weeping on the floor of this very room, violently depressed, craving blood, and trying desperately to hurt Ozai with the one thing Ozai didn't know.
They're not coming, Sokka had said, by which he'd meant, Your victory is ruined.
But he remembered now how Ozai's eyes had flashed when he'd said it, a reaction that hadn't seemed to make sense at the time. But now Sokka realized that what Ozai had heard was Sokka telling him simply, You win.
Ozai had been planning to destroy the Earth Kingdom all along, even then.
Sokka hadn't known; he'd thought saying the others were staying away would throw sand in Ozai's plans, stop up the machine, force him to reassess, regroup.
But all Sokka had done was let Ozai know his path to victory was clearer and straighter than he'd even imagined.
Sokka nearly screamed on the spot. Violent thoughts started pummeling his mind, blaming him, berating him.
You're such an idiot! he told himself. You gave him the most sensitive, game-ending piece of information you had! You arrogant, reckless piece of trash! You're getting hundreds of thousands of people killed! Fix this!
There was no coming back from this. If Ozai burned the Earth Kingdom, it didn't matter if Aang mastered the Avatar state. There would be no world left to save.
"You...can't do that," Sokka stammered.
Ozai ignored him. "Already I can feel the comet nearing," he said, "the heat in my blood. A taste of things to come."
Ozai went to Sokka and reached for him, but Sokka swatted his hand away.
"Don't touch me," he said. His breath was shallow, panicking.
Ozai smiled at him indulgently, going to him anyway and enclosing Sokka in a hug, laying his chin on top of Sokka's head.
"My pet," he cooed, caressing a knuckle against Sokka's jaw. "Don't be testy with me tonight."
Sokka, manic with desperation, shivered in Ozai's touch. And he stumbled upon one thought that might give him leverage to stop him.
Ozai liked him.
Ozai found physical pleasure in him, yes, but more than that, he liked keeping him. More than once Ozai had had Sokka nursed back to health rather than let him die. And even after a single day's absence, he'd been ecstatic to be reunited.
Sokka saw now in a way he hadn't before that he held a certain value which Ozai deeply relished—obsessed over, even. Maybe Sokka was nothing more than an object, a signifier of Ozai's status. But Ozai, of all people, lived on status.
Oh, Sokka. So industrious. Leave it to him to find one more tool in his toolbox.
He pushed against Ozai's grip.
"I'll kill myself," he said.
Ozai paused then stood upright, looking down at him. Like a spark being stoked into a fire, Sokka lit up with urgency.
He maneuvered free of Ozai's arms and put a hand out to keep Ozai away from him.
"You want me, don't you?" he said, his voice as unsteady as his hand. "If you kill even a single person from the Earth Kingdom, I will kill myself. And then what will you have to come home to?"
Ozai sneered at him but didn't move. He didn't even push Sokka's hand away. He looked as if he'd been backed into a corner.
"You think you can't be replaced?" he asked.
"With who?" Sokka challenged. "There is no one else."
Now Ozai did grab his hand, twisting Sokka's wrist. Sokka hissed in pain and dropped to one knee.
"Don't you have a sister?" Ozai asked, much louder now.
Heat rose to Sokka's face, emotion in his throat. He hated that threat. But he was stony, determined. Ozai was betraying himself by trying to scare Sokka out of it. Sokka had found the chink in his armor.
And at that, Sokka realized they were in the manipulation game again.
Sokka had warned himself never to play this game again. He'd taken on both Azula and Ozai before and come out the loser both times.
To make matters worse, Ozai now seemed to be walking that same line between sanity and psychopathy that had nearly gotten Sokka killed back in Azula's dungeon. Prodding at Ozai's weakness in this state couldn't have a predictable outcome. This was not a safe move.
But Sokka was going to do it anyway. For once in this whole nightmare of imprisonment, he felt he might actually have the upper hand. He couldn't let it go unplayed.
"You can't use my sister," he said huskily, pulling against Ozai's grip to relieve some pressure from his wrist.
"Then stop talking like that," Ozai said, twisting again and kneeling to Sokka's level.
Sokka winced but held steady.
"That's not what I mean," he said, looking Ozai in the eye. "I mean you literally can't. Katara would kill you.
"Or you'd have to kill her ", he continued. "Because she wouldn't let you do this to her. You need it to be me."
He saw his face reflected in Ozai's eyes. He could feel himself trembling.
This moment was crystallizing into the most critical point in the universe. He and Ozai were poised on a precipice, balanced only by the wrist between them, feeling each other's pulse—and one of them had to fall. Whose will was stronger? The whole world was at stake.
"I know what you want," Sokka said, his voice hard. "You want a slave to bring to your bed? Then you need two things: ease and prestige. That's why I work, because you'll only pick from Team Avatar. That's what makes you feel powerful." This last sentence he practically snarled.
"But it's supposed to be a reward, right? Not a chore. So there's one thing you need above all else: no benders."
Ozai's knuckles were white now. Sokka's wrist was going numb.
"You need me ," Sokka said. "Only me. Sokka. Because I'm the only non-bender on Team—"
He stopped cold.
Ozai took a breath, leaning toward him. Sokka, not processing, slipped and caught himself on the floor.
Things had changed. Team Avatar wasn't the team it was a year ago. Even since adding Toph, there were two more players on their roster now: Zuko...
...and Suki.
Sokka sat back, staring into nothing, feeling dizzy.
"What were you going to say?" Ozai demanded. Sokka didn't answer. Ozai released Sokka's wrist and straightened upright on his knees.
"Stop," Sokka said, waving Ozai off absently. He needed to get out of here. He felt like he'd walked into a trap and needed to find the way back immediately. He scooted away and got clumsily to his feet.
He'd been wrong. He didn't have the trump card. He had charged at Ozai full speed only to walk off a cliff without realizing the ground wasn't under him anymore.
Suki was a non-bender. Suki was a member of Team Avatar. Sokka and Suki—the only two non-benders on Team Avatar. If Ozai needed a replacement, Suki would be it.
Sokka retreated to a wall as images assaulted his mind: Suki being touched, burned, beaten, strangled, raped.
Like gunpowder combusting in his synapses, he realized she'd get pregnant.
"No," he said, growing high-pitched. He put a hand to the wall in front of him. He was going to pass out.
Suddenly Ozai was touching him again, hands on Sokka's hips.
"You won't leave," Ozai said, holding him against the wall, speaking into Sokka's neck. "You wouldn't do that. You won't."
Sokka whimpered as Ozai moved his hands up his ribs, kissing his skin.
"Don't," Sokka said, shaking violently, begging. His entire world had been wrenched out from under him. He was scared of breaking.
"Stay with me," Ozai whispered into his ear. "The world will be mine. I'll rule over everything."
Sokka hiccupped like a child, tears in his eyes. Ozai put his knee between Sokka's legs, lifting him to his toes. His hand found Sokka's groin.
"I want you to be hard," Ozai said.
Sokka cried as Ozai's fist pulled him into the open. With a warping sensation that skewed his vision, Sokka stopped being part of his body.
All threads of thought were gone. There was no more need for a solution because there was no longer a question. Sokka became aware of himself only as if he were a figure on a stage, a doll being played with, partly conscious of events but not really feeling them.
He stopped talking and stopped crying, every muscle in his body relaxing like coming detached from the bone. Unrelated to anything, the mass in Ozai's hand became stiff.
Ozai's robe came undone, and Sokka's clothes came off. Ozai lowered himself into a chair and held Sokka in his lap, a body with no identity. Sokka's head lolled back over Ozai's shoulder, arms dangling, back curved to the shape of Ozai's chest. Ozai buried himself in him like a human sleeve and took Sokka's penis in hand to stimulate him at the same time.
In a while, empty as a husk, Sokka's body climaxed and spilled out over Ozai's hand.
Ozai's breath was audible now, his skin wet with sweat. He carried Sokka into the bedroom and laid him out on the mattress like a canvas.
Sokka wasn't truly conscious of what was happening, staring vacantly to the ceiling, limp and non-responsive. The physical world hardly registered. He didn't know where he was.
His limbs drifted in the sheets around him, moved where Ozai wanted them. After a moment, Ozai pulled him by the ankles down the length of the bed, and Sokka's hands were left behind somehow, stretched overhead.
Ozai was out of sight somewhere between Sokka's legs. But in a moment, he did something unnaturally invasive, something Sokka didn't understand, and the pain of it made Sokka sharply gasp. He jerked, arcing his back and crying out at the feeling, a sensation of cold steel dipped in liquid.
His voice cracked, and before the assault had finished, his mind whited out. Like being lost in an aurora, he saw nothing, heard nothing, and disappeared from awareness altogether.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
End of chapter four.
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