Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Sokka first heard that Zuko was being interrogated, he panicked.

He’s not sure why; if he’s being honest, he hates the guy. The only person he probably hates more is the Fire Lord—his father.

He brought Zuko here because he needs to rescue his dad, and Zuko’s the only one Sokka would be willing to bring along. Anyone else, Sokka would be constantly worried for their safety, but Zuko’s is irrelevant after what he did.

Sokka’s gut clenches when he remembers what Toph told him she felt in the Crystal Catacombs. Katara, his sister, being forced to—

Sokka growls and continues marching his way through the prison. Maybe he should just let them do whatever they’ve been doing to Zuko. He can’t imagine they’d be doing anything he didn’t deserve.

But…the logical part of Sokka knows he has to do something. There’s no way he’d be able to escape with his father and Suki without a firebender. If they kill Zuko or incapacitate him, it would put the whole mission at risk. He can’t risk his father and Suki’s safety.

Sokka isn’t quite sure what he’s expecting as he approaches the interrogation chamber. He certainly didn’t expect it to be so loud. There are yells and laughs coming from within it.

Suddenly, the door slams open, revealing a bulky guard. Sokka freezes in his tracks. How could he explain what he was doing here?

Luckily, he doesn’t have to. “Hey, new guy,” the guard says with a drawl. “Are you looking for a piece of the action too?”

“Um, sure?” Sokka says, having no idea what he’s talking about. But why not take the opportunity to see what state Zuko’s in?

“Be my guest,” the guard laughs. “Little brat won’t give anything up, so this could go on all night.”

He holds the door open for Sokka, and he nearly gasps as he takes in the scene in front of him.

Zuko has been stripped nearly naked, the tattered remains of his prison garb hanging like rags from his body. His hands are bound tightly behind his back in metal cuffs, wrists blistered from where he’d clearly tried to firebend his way out. Behind him stands a guard, pinning him face down on a table as he savagely ruts into his ass. Judging from the stream of cum and blood running down his thighs, he isn’t the first to do it, either.

The sight should horrify Sokka, but somehow it doesn’t. He watches in a strange trance of awe as Zuko struggles and sobs, doing nothing to shake off the larger man who’s brutally violating him.

A dark part of Sokka hums to life in satisfaction.

It’s wrong, he knows, but he feels as if there’s a sense of justice in this. For Zuko to receive the pain he’d given to Katara. This is the only way he could truly understand the weight of what he’d done.

Zuko looks up then, and meets his eyes. His face is streaked with tears and his nose and mouth are smeared with blood from where he’d been hit. Sokka sees the recognition as their eyes meet, but Zuko does little else to address him. Smart; it would only get them both in trouble.

The look in Zuko’s eyes is strange, almost like he’s warning Sokka not to do anything but also begging for his pity. It makes Sokka’s blood boil. Why should Zuko expect any pity? He knows what he fucking did, and he must know that Sokka knows too. It’s like he hasn’t learned anything.

Their shared look is broken when the man fucking Zuko grabs his hair and slams his face back into the table. “Stay still, you little bitch!” he growls.

His pace increases, his thrusts becoming so brutal that they shake Zuko’s whole body. Sokka can tell Zuko is trying to keep himself quiet, but tortured little moans still escape him. His stomach flips slightly when he notices his dick hardening in his pants. Sokka tries not to think about what that means.

Finally, the guard finishes. He releases inside Zuko with a sigh, harshly slapping his ass after he pulls out. Sokka can’t take his eyes off Zuko’s bruised ass, his painfully stretched and torn hole dripping blood and cum.

He startles when the guard puts a hand on his shoulders. “Would you like a turn, new guy?”

“Sure,” Sokka says automatically. He’s not sure if he says it because it’s what’s expected, or because some twisted part of him does want a turn.

“Give it to him good,” the man says casually as he tucks his dick away. “Doubt he’ll start talking, but the Warden will be pleased if he does. At least you can enjoy his nice, tight little ass either way.”

Sokka isn’t really listening anymore. He’s moving towards Zuko’s prone body, barely aware that he’s doing it. He lays a curious hand on the abused skin of Zuko’s ass, feeling him tremble.

His dick hardens more.

There are several guards in the room, all of their eyes on Sokka. He takes a breath and unfastens his belt just enough to let out his dick. No backing down now.

Zuko tilts his head up to meet Sokka’s eyes, and still has that frustrating sad-yet-determined look. Sokka scowls under his helmet as he jerks himself to hardness.

It isn’t difficult.

There’s a slight nod from Zuko, as if giving Sokka permission, but Sokka doesn’t care. He thrusts all the way in one go. It doesn’t matter if Zuko allows it or not; this is happening.

He slides in easily with the slickness of Zuko’s freshly-raped hole, but he still feels him tense and ball his bound hands into fists. Sokka doesn’t pause long before starting up a quick pace, goaded on by the whistles and taunts of his audience.

Sokka is at war with himself. This feels so terrible, but so satisfying all at once. He can’t decide whether he wants to throw up or cum.

It’s horrifying. The feeling of Zuko tensing and weakly struggling underneath him, his gasp when Sokka forces his heaving chest back down against the table. The pained whimpers pouring from him, the blood leaking from his body with each thrust. It’s nauseating, but Sokka keeps doing it.

But there’s also the rush.

Sokka had felt so powerless before, forced to watch Zuko wander about camp with the knowledge of what he’d done. He’d just been free, able to go near Katara again, and Katara getting angry when Sokka tried to protect her. She’d been so fucking broken after that horrible day they’d almost lost Aang, and now even she, inexplicably, seems willing to allow Zuko back.

Sokka’s thrusts become rougher.

He’s had sex before, of course, but nothing like this. He’s never felt so powerful, his former enemy trapped and sobbing under him. He thinks of every time Zuko had so much looked at Katara and feels dark satisfaction swell within him. This is how it feels, as Zuko must now know. This is the punishment he deserves, and Sokka can’t deny how much he’s enjoying dishing it out.

Zuko whines and jerks again, and suddenly Sokka’s euphoria comes crashing down at the reminder. It almost reminds him of the scared sounds he’d heard Katara make in her sleep. And now it’s him, he’s doing this to Zuko…

Sokka forces the thought away as he pulls his belt the rest of the way off, cracking it down on Zuko’s back as he continues. “Shut the fuck up, slut!” he snaps, telling himself it’s a performance.

The guards seem satisfied, laughing and cheering him on. But Sokka means it. He doesn’t want to hear Zuko’s complaints; he has no fucking right to feel hurt after what he’d done. Sokka beats him harder, beats him until the red welts start seeping blood and Zuko’s whimpers crescendo into shrieks.

He can’t tell if Zuko’s struggling and crying is fake or not. It could be, but Sokka doesn’t care. Neither do the guards; it’s a good show all the same to them. Even if it wasn’t fake, Sokka wouldn’t stop. He can’t be caught showing mercy without explanation.

Besides, he knows Zuko didn’t stop either…

Before he knows it, he’s spilling into Zuko with a roar. It feels so satisfying, so guttural, and Sokka feels more powerful than he even has in his life. He feels lighter somehow as he pulls out…but then he looks back down at Zuko’s broken body.

The weight of what just happened slams into him like a punch to the gut, and Sokka has to swallow down bile. He’d…just…

Zuko lies motionless, trembling on the table. His back is a mess, now covered in a fresh layer of angry welts, bruises, and open cuts. He peers hesitantly up at Sokka, his expression understanding yet confused and suddenly the lustful rage returns and Sokka wants to do it all over again. Zuko still doesn’t realize the connection. How he deserved it. Sokka hates Zuko.

But what if Sokka’s just as bad now?

Head spinning, Sokka abruptly fastens his belt and storms out without another word. The guards are laughing and saying something behind him, but Sokka can’t make it out. Zuko’s fucked up, there’s no denying that, but he should be able to pull himself together for an escape. Walking would be hell but that’s Zuko’s problem to handle. The guards seemed just about done anyway.

Sokka once again thinks of his sister, and he doesn’t see any reason to stop them from finishing up with their business.

~~~

Hours later, Sokka realizes he’s overdue on sharing the latest escape plan with Zuko. He knows he’s back in his cell by now, and the prospect of confronting him isn’t quite so infuriating anymore. Crushing moral dilemma aside, at least Sokka holds the power now. Even if he decided to kill him on the spot, at least Sokka would die knowing that Zuko understood at least a fraction of what he had been so willing to inflict on others. On Katara.

Sokka steels himself and slides open the door to Zuko’s cell with a grating creak. Zuko tenses and scowls up at him, looking more like a kicked puppy than anything else. He relaxes slightly when Sokka removes his helmet, and that somehow is even more infuriating.

“Oh. It’s you,” Zuko says tonelessly.

Sokka shuts the cell door behind him, and takes a better look at Zuko. He’s wearing a fresh set of prison garb, his previous one torn to shreds. It doesn’t hide his bruises and scratches well, nor the way he winces in pain whenever he shifts his lower body. Sokka notices his red-rimmed eyes and the burns around his wrists where the handcuffs had been, and he wonders if he should feel anything other than blank apathy.

“Yeah,” Sokka says in a voice equally devoid of emotion. “We’re escaping tomorrow. Staged prison riot. Find us in the courtyard just after the doors open in the morning.”

“Oh, alright. That sounds good.” Zuko’s voice is still lifeless, but there’s a faint sparkle of hope in his eyes. As if Sokka is doing this for him.

Sokka turns away to leave with a scowl. He told Zuko what he needed to know, and now he needs to leave before he does something he’ll regret.

“Sokka…” Zuko’s weak voice stops him.

“What?” Sokka snaps. It comes out more roughly than he’d intended, but he doesn’t care.

“I…” Zuko says, then takes a breath to compose himself. “I know you had to do it, Sokka. They would have found us out otherwise. I know it had to look real, and…and, I just want you to know there’s no hard feelings. I don’t blame you.”

Sokka feels his blood boil. How dare he try to take the power back, try to act like Sokka did it for him.

How dare Zuko consider himself the victim.

Before he knows it, Sokka is advancing on him, a sick part of him delighting at the sudden fear and confusion that crosses Zuko’s face. The dark feeling in his heart returns tenfold, and he knows there’s no turning back now.

“Sokka, what—”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Sokka hisses.

Zuko recoils, pressing himself against the wall of his cell like a terrified animal. “Get what? Sokka, I don’t understand, I—”

“Don’t you dare pretend I don’t know what you fucking did!” Sokka snarls, his pent-up rage finally breaking free. He grabs Zuko’s shoulders and pins him down against the prison cot, seeing red as he glares into Zuko’s wide eyes.

“What do you…” Zuko trails off. He still sounds weak, confused, and Sokka almost wishes he’d yell right back. It would make this easier, give Sokka the excuse he needs to crush him into nothing without a guilty conscience.

“Katara!” Sokka cries, violently shaking Zuko by his shoulders. “Don’t you dare try and lie to me!”

“Katara?” Zuko shakes his head and closes his eyes, tears trickling down his cheeks. “No…Sokka, please…you don’t understand. She wanted me to—”

Sokka sees red, and he slaps Zuko’s face so hard his head snaps to the side with a cry. “Don’t you dare fucking blame her!” he nearly screams. “You weren’t around to see how broken she was! You didn’t have to listen to her wake up screaming at someone to stop in her sleep! You don’t fucking know my sister or what you fucking put her through! And now we all have to tolerate your filthy fucking ass in our camp so you can teach Aang firebending. Now we’re stuck with you, and Katara can’t heal. I wish you’d lost your bending permanently after joining us so I could throw you out like the trash you are!”

Zuko is sobbing now, barely trying to resist Sokka’s hold on him. He whimpers a string of apologies; how he didn’t mean to, how she liked it, how he thought he was helping her.

Sokka growls and slaps him across the face several more times to shut him up.

“That’s what you’re going with, you pathetic fucking coward? You were just doing what she wanted? Helping?” Sokka screams down at Zuko. He grips him roughly by the throat, making him choke out a cry. “Well, how about I help you then.”

Sokka squeezes harder on Zuko’s neck and slaps him across the face again. “This is what you did, right? How does it feel?” Zuko only gasps and whimpers, compelling Sokka to strike him again. “Answer me! Does it feel good? Does it feel fucking good to you?”

“No…no…” Zuko chokes out, his face reddening as Sokka clamps down on his neck harder. “Sokka…please…”

“Of course it doesn’t feel good,” Sokka growls. “There’s still something missing, isn’t there?”

He releases Zuko’s neck, the other boy heaving in a broken breath in relief. Still reeling, he’s nothing but a dead weight as Sokka grabs him by the hips and roughly flips him onto his front.

“Sokka, what are you—”

“What does it look like I’m doing?” Sokka growls, grabbing Zuko’s hair and crushing his face against the pillow. “You said this felt good for my sister, remember? Don’t you want to feel good too?”

“No! You don’t understand! I’m—I’m—”

“You’re what?” Sokka hisses. “Why do you think she deserved it and you don’t? Because you’re a man? A prince? Well, I think you deserve it and I’m the one with the power now, understand me?”

“She wanted it!” Zuko cries desperately as Sokka wrenches down his pants to find the fresh bruises and dried blood still caked around his ass and thighs.

“Really?” Sokka demands. “She told you that?”

He feels Zuko release a shuddering gulp underneath him. “Well, not exactly, but she…” he trails off, whimpering as Sokka shoves him down harder.

“Tell me,” Sokka growls, grabbing Zuko by his hair and yanking his head up. “Tell me why you felt justified in doing what you did!”

Zuko closes his eyes and whimpers pitifully. “She…she was a master waterbender. She could have stopped me. And she liked it, she did, I could tell…”

Sokka feels his stomach turn in disgust and he beats Zuko across the face again before dropping him back to the cot.

“I guess you want this too, then,” Sokka says lowly, spitting into his hands as he pulls up Zuko’s tunic, exposing more of his abused skin. “You’re a master firebender, aren’t you? If you really didn’t want this, you’d stop me.”

“It’s different!” Zuko wails, weakly trying to struggle away while Sokka holds him in place by the hips. “I need to be here to teach Aang! I don’t have any options!”

“And you think Katara felt like she did?” accuses Sokka. “All alone with her enemy? Just listen to yourself, you sick fucking pervert.”

Sokka spits into his hands again and slicks himself, no longer feeling guilty for what he’s about to do. Zuko clearly doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand, but he fucking will. Sokka entertains the sick thought that maybe he should let Zuko enjoy this, prove to him how easy it is to justify rape the way Zuko had.

With a sadistic grin, Sokka lines himself up. Zuko’s hole is already stretched enough; he figures there’s no sense in working him open.

“Stop! No!” Zuko begs, dissolving into desperate sobs as Sokka finally breaches him. “Sokka…please don’t do this…”

“Stop? No?” Sokka mocks bitterly, tightening his already bruising grip on Zuko’s hip and hair. “Isn’t that what she said to you? Why fucking should I treat you any differently?”

“I’m sorry!” wails Zuko. “Please! I’ll never go near her again! I won’t even look at her! Please, just—”

Sokka slaps a particularly nasty looking welt on Zuko’s ass as hard as he can, turning his desperate babbling into a scream.

“I don’t care if you’re sorry now. You should have been sorry before,” snaps Sokka, thrusting into Zuko at a brutal pace that makes him shake and scream. “You should have never even fucking thought about doing that!”

Zuko doesn’t answer, only lowers his face to the pillow and sobs pitifully, trying and failing to bite back his cries. No…that’s too easy. Sokka can’t just let him tune out like this, not without fully understanding the weight of what he did. He pulls Zuko’s hair again, forcing his back into a painful arch as he continues battering him from behind.

“What’s that you said, before?” Sokka asks mockingly. “That my sister liked what you did? Well, I bet you can like it too.”

He grabs Zuko’s dick in his hand and jerks it roughly, noting with a dark satisfaction that it’s already half hard.

“See?” Sokka says roughly. “You’re hardening right up, you filthy fucking pervert. I guess that makes this right too. Since you’re enjoying it so much.”

He continues pumping Zuko’s dick, all the while rutting brutally into him. Sokka pours all of his rage into the motions, imagining himself beating down on Zuko’s body with his own, pounding and pounding and pounding until he’s nothing, until he’s even more broken than he’d left Katara. He pulls Zuko’s hair, bites his shoulders to mark him until he’s bleeding, slaps his ass as roughly as possible. Zuko’s dick never once wilts.

“You’re going to cum from this, aren’t you?” Sokka growls, riding his high. More words pour from him, and it’s hard to believe it’s his own voice saying them. “Did you cum when all those guards fucked your ass too? I bet you just loved that, didn’t you? I can see how much you love being raped into the mattress until you’re bleeding. You practically begged me to fuck you with your eyes when I walked into that interrogation chamber. Are you happy now? Are you finally getting what you want? Look at you, already hard and dripping beneath me. Fucking pathetic.”

Sokka can tell Zuko wants to hide his face, but he won’t let him. He keeps him pinned upright by the hair, held with his back arched and legs trembling as Sokka continues slamming his hips against his ass, doing everything he can to make each thrust more brutal than the last.

“You’re not even struggling anymore,” Sokka realizes. “I thought I’d at least have to tie your hands behind your back, but I didn’t even need to do that. You must really want me.” He shifts his grip from Zuko’s hair to his throat, choking him. “Go on, you dirty fucking rapist. Tell me how much you love it when it’s your own ass.”

Zuko cries and pitifully claws at the iron grip Sokka has on his throat, but says nothing.

Sokka squeezes harder, shaking Zuko by his neck. “Tell me!”

“I love it!” Zuko gasps. “I love you fucking my ass!”

“That’s better,” Sokka growls, a false note of kindness entering his voice. “I can see how much you love it.”

It’s true. A moment later, Zuko quivers pathetically as he spills into Sokka’s hand, proving Sokka’s point perfectly. “I told you that you could like it too.”

Zuko begs him again to stop. Sokka doesn’t listen.

He’s thrusting so hard now that for a moment, he fears his own dick might break. But he’s too consumed by lust, by the carnal power he feels as he brutalizes the monster he’d once believed to be untouchable. Before it had been in front of an audience, but now…now he has Zuko all to himself, free to use however he pleases. It’s not an act this time…it’s justice.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he wonders what the fuck is wrong with him. How could he possibly be turned on at the sight of Zuko mutilated and sobbing at his mercy? But that sliver of humanity stays locked away, drowned out by the euphoric lust. Right now, he just wants to see Zuko crushed and broken, humiliated beyond belief. He wants him to fucking pay.

“Is it true?” Sokka asks, spurred on by his own mounting orgasm, the rage and lust crashing together in his mind. “Is it true that just raping a pussy isn’t good enough for you? You have to stick your pathetic little dick into a woman’s asshole to get off, too?” He brutally slaps Zuko’s abused ass when he doesn’t respond. “Answer me!”

“I…I did,” Zuko sniffles. “I just—I didn’t want to get her pregnant—I wasn’t—”

Sokka squeezes Zuko’s throat until he’s unable to speak, his face turning a faint purple. “I guess it’s a good thing you have an asshole too, then. That way you can understand how it feels. Does it feel good when I tear it up?”

He wrinkles his nose and spits on Zuko’s face. Zuko groans, but it’s impossible to make out what he means with his air all but cut off.

Sokka feels a surge of pleasure shoot through him, power and dark lust like he’s never felt before, and he squeezes Zuko’s neck and ass even tighter as he finally cums into him with a roar.

When the thrill finally settles, Sokka releases Zuko’s neck and pulls out of him, leaving him to fall limply to the cot.

There’s a fresh trickle of blood running from his ass. It isn’t as much as Sokka would have expected. His clothes are rumpled, his hair disheveled. He’s lying motionlessly, and Sokka feels a flash of panic when he realizes he might have just killed Zuko.

Sokka hastily flips him back over, and feels a slight bit of relief when he sees the faint rise and fall of Zuko’s chest. He must have passed out. There’s also a trickle of blood running from his nose, where a blood vessel must have burst while Sokka was choking him—he’d learned that can happen in his warrior’s training. His breath hitches when he sinks back down to earth, the crushing reality sinking in.

Even if he wouldn’t be entirely disappointed if he’d accidentally killed Zuko, the thought of how close he was, how much control he’d truly lost over himself in his lust for power, makes him feel ill.

What makes him furious is wondering how many times Zuko had felt like this with Katara. How many times he’d felt this, and gone back to brutalize her anyway.

Sokka slaps Zuko’s limp body. He still doesn’t move, so Sokka slaps him again and again until he finally jerks awake, staring at Sokka with wide, tear-filled eyes.

“Why?” he croaks out, voice so hoarse that he’s barely understandable.

“Why’d you do that to my sister?” Sokka snaps, refusing to let himself feel any sympathy for this monster.

Zuko closes his eyes and whimpers. He clearly has no response to that, which makes Sokka feel a sick rush of satisfaction. Maybe he finally understands.

“You know what?” he says, gently taking Zuko’s chin in his hand, tilting his face up. “Next time you think about my sister, I want you to come to me instead. I want you to come to me so I can remind you what this feels like. You’d like that too, wouldn’t you?”

The look in Zuko’s eyes is broken, helpless, but he nods. “I will. I promise.”

“Good,” Sokka says harshly. “You know it’s what you deserve. We’re going to keep you around as long as you’re useful, then when we finally end your bastard father’s reign, you’ll stand trial. Who knows, maybe you’ll even end up back here. I’m sure the guards would love to see you again.”

“I know,” Zuko says in a small voice. He’s trembling, wrapping his arms around himself as if it will be enough to hold him together. “I’m sorry. I know I deserve it.”

Sokka spits on Zuko’s face, and he flinches back. “At least you’re capable of learning. Remember, tomorrow in the courtyard. Until then, think about what you’ve fucking done.”

With that, Sokka turns to leave. As he heaves the door shut, he catches one last glimpse of Zuko, still hunched around himself and staring brokenly at the floor, quiet sobs shaking his body. Sokka takes a deep breath and walks away, trying to leave the disturbing knowledge of the cruelty he’s capable of back in that cell with Zuko.

Another guard suddenly claps him on the shoulder, making him jump.

“Hey, new guy. Sounds like a fun time you had in there,” the guard chuckles.

“Yeah…” Sokka says nervously. “Just interrogating the prisoner, you know. Official business.”

The other guard just laughs again and pats his shoulder. “Don’t worry, kid. I don’t care how official it is. We all know that dirty little traitor deserves to pay. You’re doing us a service. Goodnight.”

He walks away, leaving Sokka contemplating the prospect of having more or less the same thought process as some sleazy Fire Nation prison guard. Perhaps a case of method acting gone too far.

Sokka shakes that thought away, and goes back to the guards’ dormitory. It’s over now. Zuko paid the price, and he won’t hurt Katara again.

Sokka lies awake, trying to leave it in the past, but he can’t. Nothing he can do will erase what happened to Katara—nor what he just did.

Images flash through his mind as he struggles to sleep. Zuko bent over a table and sobbing. The cries he let out whenever he was slapped. The way his body shook as Sokka thrust into him again and again and again until his ass was torn and bleeding.

He feels his dick stiffen in his pants and he wants to tear it off.

Maybe he had just turned himself into that same monster.

Chapter Text

When Sokka is finally finished with him and slams the cell door shut, Zuko doesn’t know what to do but cry.

He’s not sure if it’s out of anger or despair. Maybe he’d know if his head didn’t feel so fuzzy from being slammed into the wall and if every breath didn’t burn due to his throat being wrung. It’s hard to think of much of anything besides the terrible pain wracking his body. He doesn’t even try to move from the position he’d been left in, sprawled across the cot like a ragdoll with his clothes in disarray and blood soaking into the threadbare blanket below him.

The despair hits Zuko first when his mind begins to clear. He’d finally begun to think the past might finally be buried, that Sokka could have been his friend. There was still tension between them on the ride here, of course…but Zuko is pretty used to that, especially with former enemies. Or are they even former enemies at this point? Sokka had all but told him he was only being kept around as long as he proved useful. A thing to use and throw away.

The anger comes next. It’s a feeling that comes naturally to Zuko when he doesn’t know what else to do. How dare that peasant…

But…

A thing to use and throw away. Just how he’d once treated Katara.

Zuko clenches his fists. Of course that’s what it would have looked like to anyone else at Ba Sing Se. If only Sokka and the others would just understand. He thinks Katara understands by the way she looks at him despite them not having a chance to talk. Well…they never really had a chance to talk before either. All communication was carried out through their bodies. Zuko had felt a kind of power and respect he’d never felt before then.

He wants that again, and he doesn’t.

Zuko can’t think of Katara’s face without seeing Sokka’s in his mind first. The reminder of what he’d done, the feeling of having every inch of his power stripped away like his flimsy prison rags. He wonders if Katara ever felt like this after their meetings, but tries not to dwell on it.

That was different.

Was it? You didn’t fight Sokka.

No. It was different. That’s just her nature, what she wanted…

Do you hear yourself? Maybe you did deserve what happened to you.

Zuko curls back into himself and cries harder. The persistent ache in his ass ensures the rest of his night is full of painful reimaginings of his rape every time he closes his eyes. He feels their hands, hears their dark laughter, and feels more blood and filth slowly pouring from him with each sob that shakes his body.

~~~

It was naive to think the other prisoners wouldn’t know.

Zuko walks in the mess hall to find a broom for cleaning duty. He’s used to drawing stares, but it’s different today. All other conversation practically ceases as soon as he enters. The way they stare at him makes him feel naked. Though he knows it’s hopeless, Zuko tries to shift the fabric of his clothes to hide the bruises and teeth marks that could have only been acquired one way. He doubts they miss the pained limp in his step either.

One man whistles at him as he walks by. Zuko turns to him with a snarl but the man just laughs at him. Any shred of respect for him they might have had yesterday is gone.

Zuko finds a mop and scrubs the floor angrily. He knows they’re watching but he ignores it despite the mortified flush on his cheeks.

One group makes the mistake of speaking to him as he’s cleaning the corner behind the stares.

“Hey there, sweetheart,” a prisoner goads him. “Heard the guards loosened you up real good yesterday. Mind if I take a look?”

Zuko’s knuckles turn white with the strength of his grip on the mop. “Fuck off,” he growls lowly.

The prisoner and his buddies just laugh. “Don’t make this too difficult for us. I’ve never fucked a pretty little prince before, and I’m going to do it whether you like it or not. It’s up to you how much it hurts.”

“You will not fucking touch me!” Zuko spits, turning to face them fully. He doesn’t care if they throw him in the cooler again, he will burn these sick fucks to ash if they come any closer. He’s not weak just because of last night.

The man laughs again. “Suit yourself.”

Before Zuko has time to react, two men he hadn’t noticed before rush out of the dark hallway behind the mess hall to seize him by both arms. Zuko cries out in shock and tries to wrench himself free, but they’re too strong and manage to get him handcuffed before he’s even able to think about pulling himself into a firebending form. He tries to breath fire in desperation but only a puff of smoke comes out after a swift kick to the gut doubles him over. They shove a thick piece of cloth into his mouth before he’s recovered his breath.

“I warned you,” the lead prisoner says, mockingly shaking his head. “I’d tell you it’s a shame to ruin a pretty face; but, well…”

He laughs as he punches Zuko in the face, sending him sprawling to the ground. Zuko tries to scramble to his feet, but the prisoners kick him in the ribs until he stops.

He looks up to find the lead prisoner standing over him, threateningly cracking the mop’s handle against his palm. “You’re new here, kid. Want to know what the punishment usually is for slacking off on cleaning duty?” He slams the wooden rod down across Zuko’s shoulders. “Take a guess.”

The beating hurts, but what hurts more is the knowledge of what will certainly follow it. Zuko is panting in rage and mounting terror, but every attempt to get back to his feet and defend himself is met with a swift strike of the handle. They even pin his shoulders to the ground, leaving him wholly unable to defend himself in his bound and gagged state. The caning and kicks don’t stop until Zuko isn’t moving. He only whimpers softly as blood runs from his nose. This is probably what they wanted, for him to be too battered and weakened to fight them off.

There’s nowhere to go. He can’t stop them.

Zuko struggles at first when they start tearing away his clothes, but is forced to give up on that effort. They’re right; it will only hurt him more to struggle and he needs to save his strength for the escape. He’s only got a few hours left of this hell.

“Look at that bruised little ass. I’m going to fuck you even better than those guards did!”

As his face is pressed to the floor and the first dick is unceremoniously stuffed into his already injured hole, Zuko can’t stop thinking about Sokka. What he’d done and what he’d said while doing it.

Zuko knows he doesn’t want this. Knows it.

But his dick is hard against his thigh. He’s not fighting any longer. Things he’d told himself meant that she was happy with it.

Was she? Does he really care for her, or does he just not want to think himself a monster? Was he just so hungry for any kind of power and validation he’d convinced himself what he was doing was justified?

Deep down, Zuko knows the answer. It makes his gut wrench and helps the sobs escape as he’s brutally and painfully fucked into the floor. The worst part is, he still wants her that way. Despite everything. He’d used her as an outlet for his confusing emotions before and he wants to do it again. He doesn’t know another way.

Zuko doesn’t even fight when they remove the gag from his mouth to fuck his face. He hesitates for a second and immediately receives a slap across the face before his jaw is seized and a dick is forced in. He cries as a cruel hand twists into his hair to jerk his head back and forth.

“Crying like a little bitch already, Princess? Why, we’ve barely even started with you.”

They’re right. Zuko can’t say how much longer it is. It feels like an eternity as they take turns fucking him into the ground. If they get bored by his lack of reaction, they slap his ass until he cries and strangle him until he’s begging for air.

“Come on sweetheart, look alive for me. If you’re going to act like a corpse I might as well choke you out until you become one. I told you to suck it.”

Luckily, the man seems pleased with the way Zuko’s throat vibrates around his dick with his sobs.

Cum is sprayed into his ass and down his throat, painted across his face with bouts of laughter. They bend him over their laps as they smack and spread his cheeks, watching in glee as blood and cum drip from him.

“You look so pretty when you’re covered in my cum, Princess.”

When they’re done, Zuko is left on the floor, glassy eyed and bleeding. Nobody comes to help him. He doesn’t expect them to.

In the haze of pain, he entertains the idea that he does deserve this. His new and only friend here certainly seems to think so.

~~~

If anyone knows what happened to Zuko when he enters the courtyard, they give no indication. Sokka has the same cold demeanor, robotically giving him orders knowing he’ll comply. Zuko hates that it’s true. Suki barely acknowledges his presence. That’s fine. Zuko would rather not think about it anyway.

Although, it’s hard to not think about it when his every movement makes pain shoot through his body. He can’t fight or run or stand without the constant reminder of what his body had just been through. It feels almost as if one wrong step will have his entrails falling out his ass.

Nonetheless, Zuko fights as hard as he’s able. They manage to escape, though it’s all a blur. Bending fire gives him some of his power back, at least. Zuko wants to burn them all; their laughter and sneers calling him their whore ring through his mind as he fights.

Zuko doesn’t notice the blood running down his thighs until he’s back on the airship. At least the dark red trousers hide it. He leaves the rest of the group as discreetly as possible to find some healing supplies, not daring to ask anyone for help. Sokka would probably just laugh and spit in his face, but then again, Zuko knows he probably deserves that.

When he’s managed to clear most of the blood and dried cum from his ass and thighs, Zuko finds a quiet place to cry. He never imagined he’d be in this position or even what it would feel like. He’d been so careless before, because to him, some random Water peasant meant nothing. He’d only encountered them as pleasure slaves back home, so it had been easy to convince himself that Katara wanted what he’d done. It makes Zuko angry more than anything…why did she let him? Why did she let him become this?

Zuko nearly throws his bucket of dirty water across the room in anguish when a shift of his hips causes an intense wave of pain through his ass. The reminder.

He’d spent the past few days being treated like a pair of holes. And he can’t even try to feel sorry for himself without picturing Katara.

He can’t decide if he really does deserve it, or if he wants to take his power back.

~~~

When they finally arrive back at the temple, the inevitable question comes.

While nobody but Sokka is aware of the full details of Zuko’s “interrogation,” they know he’d been injured. Naturally, the obvious conclusion to the more oblivious members of the group is that Zuko should seek out Katara for healing.

Part of him wants to do it.

Sokka had warned him to stay away, but it would be nearly impossible for him to come up with a convincing reason why Zuko shouldn’t be healed. Sokka would have to watch him talk to her. If nothing else, it would give Zuko the satisfaction of knowing Sokka was internally seething. It’s the only way he really has to get back at Sokka.

But…Zuko can’t bear the thought of anyone knowing what happened; especially not Katara.

She still looks at him with an apprehensive stare, hidden as it might be behind her outwardly angry demeanor. It makes Zuko smug to know it’s really just a front. No matter how fierce or angry she’d pretended to be, her will—and her back—never failed to bend for him. Even now, Zuko knows he could fuck her if he wanted to. She would easily let him do as he pleased, just like every other time. That knowledge is the only semblance of pride Zuko can feel right now. The only remaining power he has.

And that would all be lost if she knew. That brutish, uncaring lover Katara nonsensically idolizes would disappear. She wouldn’t look at him with that fear, that respect like she does now. It makes Zuko furious. Furious because he can’t claim his power and furious that he wants to. He knows that feeling this way is wrong, but somehow it also just feels right. It’s all he has left; the rest of his pride has been stripped away. He wants to do the right thing, he does, but he can’t shake the agonizing shame of feeling like a broken shell of himself, a thing to be ordered around when he once gave the orders himself.

Maybe he is just bad at being good.

~~~

As the days at the temple drag on and Zuko forces himself to repress the memories of the Boiling Rock, he finds himself growing increasingly frustrated with Katara. If not for Sokka’s watchful eyes and the implicit threat in his glare, he would have certainly fallen back into old habits by now.

It’s like she’s doing it on purpose.

Katara still doesn’t speak with him directly beyond short orders and taunts, and Zuko tries to tell himself he isn’t relieved because of that little part of him that does still fear Sokka.

But what she does do is make a point of walking slowly in front of him. Her hips sway in a way that makes her round ass obvious under her clothes. Zuko wants to shove her into the wall right then and there. Not to mention she still gives him that look. The look that she pretends is innocent, but that Zuko always took as permission to shove her down and take her in any way he felt like.

The worst thing of all Katara does is flirt with Haru. It would seem innocent enough to the rest of the group, but Zuko is a man. He knows. He knows Katara’s fucking teasing when he sees it. She sits close to Haru at breakfast, laughing at his jokes and even touching his arm. It makes Zuko fucking seethe. She knows what she’s doing. It’s another one of her invitations, and he just fucking itches to get to her alone in some hidden corridor and make her pay for it. He hates this jealous, helplessly angry monster she’s turned him into.

But as closely as Zuko watches Katara, Sokka watches him. Zuko feels like he’s never free of that seething stare, one that pierces straight through his clothes to the shameful vulnerability that none of the others know about. The reminder that as physically powerful as Zuko may be, he’s bound by his promise and his mission. Things that Sokka could strip away from him with a simple word to Aang.

He tries blowing off steam during training with Aang. It doesn’t work. His anger and his injuries make his form sloppy, and it only makes Zuko all the more furious. He shouldn’t have to live like this. He does want to end the war, he does, but the loss of his personal pussy on-demand stings.

~~~

That night, Zuko does his best to blow off steam in the only other way he knows how. By himself, that is.

He manages to find an abandoned, remote room in the temple. When he’s sure he’s alone, Zuko pulls out his dick, already thinking of Katara.

He tries stroking it to hardness, thinking of all the times he fucked her. He remembers that Ba Sing Se alley they would happen across each other in, where he’d slap her and rut harder and harder until Katara looked so deliciously terrified, then he’d stop just short of truly hurting her to keep her crawling back for more. The most powerless time in Zuko’s life, and it tickled him just right to have an enemy so pathetically dependent on him. She bruised up so well and each one made his heart swell with a dark pride. Marks of his ownership and power.

But there are new memories that flash through Zuko’s mind now.

He’s suddenly back in the Boiling Rock, forced down against a crude metal floor. His ass aches and burns as it’s repeatedly pounded into the ground. Katara’s fearful expression as he draws his hand back to strike her suddenly becomes his own, crying and pleading as the prison guards beat him until he accepts their hard cocks down his throat, fucked so hard there that he’s afraid they’ll tear it up just like his asshole.

Zuko’s dick wilts in his hand as angry tears spring to his eyes. No, no no…he’s supposed to be in control now! He will not be robbed of…

Katara. Bruised and afraid. Bound on her knees.

Himself. Naked and hog-tied, surrounded on all sides by hungry prisoners, ever so eager to eat up the guards’ scraps. Nose bleeding from being slapped one too many times. Laughter all around as they force his knees open and beat his ass raw.

After several rounds of trying, Zuko can’t stop himself from sobbing. It’s hopeless; the memories of power are too distant and the ones of pain are too fresh. What did he fucking do to deserve this? He’s a prince. He was doing Katara a favor; she wouldn’t have kept coming back if she didn’t want it. She must have. It’s why she’s still playing her cruel mind games with him, trying to seduce him once again.

“What are you still doing up?” sneers Sokka’s voice.

Zuko jerks in surprise and frantically tries putting away his dick, but it’s painfully obvious what he’d been doing. He can’t hide the tears pouring down his face, either.

Sokka laughs as he enters the room. “What’s the matter, Princess Pouty? Can’t seem to get it up?”

“Leave me alone,” Zuko growls as he turns to exit. Sokka stops him with a shove.

“What were you thinking about?” Sokka says, eyes suddenly darkening in contempt, a distinct note of accusation present there. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed the way you’ve been staring at my sister. Remember what I told you?”

Zuko feels a flash of anger, but he knows he has no options. He can’t do anything against Sokka or he’d go straight back to being an outcast, a traitor to all of the world’s nations. He gulps as Sokka advances on him, backing him into a wall.

“Well?” Sokka demands. “What were you thinking?”

“I…I…” Zuko stutters, knowing the truth would only anger him more.

Sokka punches him in the face, cracking his head back against the wall. Zuko’s pained groan is cut short when his throat is seized.

“You know what? I don’t want to know. I don’t want to hear another word from your filthy fucking mouth,” Sokka growls, but a dark smirk lights his eyes when he looks back down to Zuko’s crotch. “Maybe you did learn your lesson. Can’t get off to raping my sister any more? Good.”

Zuko whimpers as Sokka's hand closes around his dick. The hand around his neck tightens when he opens his mouth to deny what Sokka’s accusing him of. Nothing more than a pained squeak escapes him.

“Let me help you,” Sokka says with a dark, mocking grin. “You got off just fine last time we were together.”

He begins jerking Zuko’s dick in rough motions, keeping him firmly pinned to the wall by his throat. The only time Sokka pauses the restrictive hold is to free up a hand to slap Zuko across the face with when he weakly struggles. Zuko winces as his head snaps to the side, but soon enough, Sokka’s low voice is right in his ear.

“You must have really loved that,” he mocks. “I could see you were hard as soon as I walked into that room. How did it feel? How did it feel when they bent you over and fucked you until you cried and bled? Was it the way they tore up your asshole or the way they whipped your ass that made you cum so hard? Look at you; you’re getting off to the thought of it!”

Zuko closes his eyes with an angry snarl when he realizes that indeed, his dick is erect in Sokka’s hand. “Stop…”

“You should know by now that word doesn’t work,” Sokka says darkly. “I think it’s only fair to play by your rules, don’t you agree?”

He slaps Zuko across the face again when he doesn’t respond. Zuko grits his teeth and feels a humiliated flush rise to his cheeks as his dick only grows harder in Sokka’s grip.

“You like that, whore?” Sokka mocks. “Is that the sort of depraved bullshit you used to say? Tell me, how do you like it?”

Zuko cries out at the sharpness of Sokka’s rough pumps of his dick and the second slap snaps his face the opposite direction.

“I…don’t,” he grits out honestly. He hates this. Sokka is relishing in the fact that he has complete control and that Zuko can do nothing to stop him. He’s doing this to humiliate him, to feel powerful after what Zuko did and it infuriates him; it’s not the same, it’s…

“Really?” Sokka accuses. “I’d say you do. You’re going to cum from this, aren’t you?”

Hot, angry tears escape Zuko’s eyes. He can’t deny that. He also can’t deny that it’s the same excuse he himself used to help himself sleep at night…how could it be wrong if Katara was aroused and didn’t resist him when she easily could have?

But, try as he might to deny it, Zuko realizes he’s in the same position. He’s aroused, and he could light Sokka on fire if he pleases, and yet, Zuko stays obediently in place when he would rather be anywhere else. As he begins to cry in frustration, he realizes those tears of Katara’s might not have been an act after all.

He’s so angry—at himself for what he did, and at her for letting him. The only distraction from it is Sokka’s voice, which pulls him into an even worse reality.

“Come on,” Sokka goads. “I know you love what I did for you. When I choked you out as I came into your filthy ass. I got so carried away I almost killed you. But you just loved that, didn’t you?”

He grips Zuko’s throat until he’s coughing for emphasis.

“You loved it when I beat your ass and made you my slut.”

Zuko yelps at the force Sokka uses to squeeze his achingly hard dick.

“When I held you down and raped you until you were moaning like a whore.”

Just as Zuko cums into Sokka’s hand with a helpless sob, Sokka bites down into his neck. He’s marking him, leaving a bright red scar behind in a place he knows Zuko can’t easily conceal.

Zuko whimpers weakly, his chest heaving as Sokka grins wickedly against his skin. “You’re mine, Zuko. You’re a sick, pathetic piece of trash that nobody else would ever want. Never forget it.”

He slumps to the ground as Sokka finally releases his throat, still panting. His dick still hangs out in the open between his legs, surrounded by the humiliating evidence of his arousal that Sokka had forced out of him. As much as he wants to argue with Sokka, he can’t think of anyone who would still want him. He doesn’t even want himself like this.

Zuko peers helplessly up, seeing that Sokka is still standing over him, as if contemplating something. “What?” Zuko snaps, his attempt at intimidation coming out more like a terrified animal’s whine.

“I don’t think you’ve learned your lesson,” Sokka says simply. “I want you to prove to me you’re still my whore.”

Zuko moves to get up, not liking the sound of that at all, but Sokka fists a hand in his hair to hold him in place on his knees. The smirk on his face and the way his free hand is fumbling with his belt make it all too obvious what he has in mind.

“I won’t,” Zuko growls. “This wasn’t part of the deal.”

“There was never a deal,” Sokka sneers. “There’s only you, me, and my rules. Sound familiar?”

Zuko closes his eyes in shame.

“But I suppose I can make you a deal if you want,” Sokka muses. “How about this. Either you suck my dick until I cum, or I tell Katara what those guards did and have her heal you. Supervised, of course.”

Zuko’s eyes snap back open in horror. No…

Sokka smirks victoriously. “You know she’d be able to see the truth right away, don’t you? Even if you refused, she’d just know you didn’t want her to see. That’s what you’re so afraid of, right? Her losing her fear of you? I’m tempted to just tell her anyway and watch your last scrap of pride melt away.”

“No…please don’t do that,” Zuko says weakly, shaking his head. “I’ll…do it. I’ll suck your dick.”

“Excellent,” Sokka growls as it pulls it out, already hard. “And you’d better do a damn good job of it, too. I know you’ve had practice.”

Zuko swallows down a sob and slowly opens his mouth, preparing himself. Sokka doesn’t give him much of a chance. As soon as his lips begin to part, he’s seized by the hair and forced down onto Sokka’s cock.

He hears a deep, satisfied sigh above him as he chokes around it. “Those guards weren’t kidding about your pretty Princess mouth, were they?” he sneers.

Zuko’s eyes narrow in disgust, but he can hardly focus on his anger when Sokka starts fucking his face in earnest. He can barely breath as he’s jerked along the shaft until his throat aches. Tears are pouring down his face, and Zuko closes his eyes, trying to be anywhere but here.

He’s brought back to reality with a hard slap. He jerks in surprise and accidentally bites down the slightest amount. Sokka pulls out with an angry growl and slaps Zuko across the face even harder before forcing his dick back down his throat. “Look at me,” he commands. Zuko does. “Suck like your fucking life depends on it, you ugly slut. You think I’m letting you off that easily?”

He does his best, limited as he is by the rough treatment restricting his movements. Sokka sighs above him. “Not bad for a dirty, rapist Fire-slut. Are you finally learning your place?”

Zuko nods instinctively, willing to tell Sokka whatever he wants to hear to make this stop. But as he thinks about it, he realizes it might be true. He can’t seem to get off at all anymore without being treated like this. Without being handled violently, slapped and spat at like he’s worth less than a dirty cum rag. As nauseous and shameful as the thought makes him feel, he realizes Sokka is achieving his goal.

“Good,” Sokka snarls down at him. “You’re improving, at least. You should thank me for this. If I left you alone, you’d be just like your father.”

Panic flashes through Zuko at the thought. No…Ozai waged war and violence without a care. He took a sick pleasure in suffering, and Zuko couldn’t be that, he couldn’t…

Sokka’s sneer deepens. “Oh, you thought you were different? The only difference is that your father had more time to let his depravity fester than you. You would have started another war by the time you were his age if left to your own devices. I bet he started out just like you. Hell, your very existence is probably only the evidence of the crimes he committed against your mother. What do you think?”

Zuko feels rage flash through him and he starts pushing against Sokka’s thighs, just wanting him the fuck away! How dare he speak about his mother that way, and to suggest that…that….

That horrible thing that was almost certainly true.

Sokka only laughs and grips his hair tighter, ruts harder into his trembling throat. Zuko whimpers in pain and stops struggling.

“You don’t like that idea, do you?” he mocks. “But you know it’s true. Maybe that’s why you’re such a disgusting, malformed creature. That desire for power, dominance, rape—it’s in your very conception, a curse carried in your blood. You really don’t know another way, do you?”

Zuko closes his eyes and sobs pathetically, a slap on the cheek reminding him that Sokka still expects him to keep sucking him in earnest. The hand in his hair suddenly softens.

“Don’t cry, Princess,” Sokka says in an uncomfortably gentle tone. “That’s why you need this. You wouldn’t have any kind of empathy otherwise. I’m just helping get rid of that desire to harm and subjugate others. I’m curing you of your ancestors’ curse.”

He’s right. Zuko tried to deny it before, but he really was no better than Ozai. It made him feel good to take power from others through their suffering. The control it gave him was intoxicating, and it only fed his dark entitlement. He never loved Katara. He loved that she was powerful and for some reason accepted his depraved abuse of her. Zuko had enjoyed their times together, not for her, but for the misplaced power she’d made him feel over his pathetic life. He enjoyed the feeling of tearing down someone stronger, better than him.

Zuko accepts his defeat. He is a monster. His ugly thoughts are proof of that, and he resigns himself to Sokka’s punishment. If this is what he needs to endure to become worthy of considering himself human again, he’ll do it.

As soon as Zuko mentally accepts his defeat, he feels cum spray down his throat and gags on it, but does his best to swallow as Sokka had demanded. Midway through, Sokka pulls out to paint the rest across Zuko’s tear-covered face.

When he’s finally done, Zuko peers up. Sokka’s expression looks victorious, almost euphoric. Zuko can only imagine how pathetic he himself looks. He’s in a heap on his knees, staring up in apprehensive awe with cum and tears soaking into his skin, and filth dribbling from the corner of his lips. Even more shamefully, his crotch is soaked in his own cum. When Sokka calls him a pathetic slut, he knows it would only be laughable to try and deny that.

“You’re never going to touch her again,” Sokka says shortly.

Zuko nods mutely. He’d probably burst into tears if he tried at this point.

“Why did you even fucking do that, anyway?” Sokka demands, towering over Zuko in a way that makes him curl in on himself. “How did you fucking justify that in your sick head?”

A fresh stream of tears escapes Zuko’s eyes. “She came back,” he says hollowly. There’s nothing else to say. It’s a shitty, worthless excuse, and they both know it.

Sokka kicks him once in the ribs and angrily spits on his face, making him wince.

“So did you,” he growls before turning to leave. “And you will again.”

Zuko says nothing more as he’s once again left alone. He curls harder in on himself and cries. He might as well stay here all night. He doesn’t think he could handle looking anyone else in the eyes or even being near them until he’s had the chance to thoroughly wash the filth from his body.

He wants to hate Sokka, but no longer has the ability. How could Zuko hate someone for the exact same things he’d done? At least in Sokka’s case, he’s doing it to someone who deserves it. Someone dangerous, who needs to be watched and subdued until he’s no longer liable to harm anyone else. Zuko feels dirty, but strangely clean in a way. Cleaner than when he’d come here tonight and attempted to dredge up his darkest impulses to get himself off.

Sokka’s here to clean the filth from his soul, Zuko realizes. That dark, twisted part of himself he thought he’d chased off. He’d sworn to himself he wanted it gone, and for the first time, he thinks that might be happening. No matter how painful and ashamed it makes Zuko feel, maybe he can truly be cured. He can be good.

It’s already starting to feel good—allowing Sokka to cleanse him, surrendering himself in the name of goodness. Maybe that’s why Zuko cums so hard when he’s reminded of what he is, where he belongs.

Now he knows that Sokka is right. Zuko will be coming back to him.

Chapter Text

It’s definitely an improvement after that day.

Of course, Sokka can’t completely eliminate interactions between Zuko and Katara without drawing suspicion, but Sokka is pleased to note how subdued Zuko seems now. If he bumps into her, he quickly scuttles away. He won’t even look her in the eyes most of the time.

Sokka has no way of knowing what’s going through Zuko’s mind, but he hopes it’s fear. He hopes that every time Zuko so much as thinks of laying a hand on Katara, he pictures his cock instead. He hopes the memories of being fucking into his prison cot and shoved down on Sokka’s cock until he’s gagging around it are constantly lurking in the back of his mind.

It’s sick, Sokka knows it is, but the power gives him such a rush. Not just power…security. The knowledge that he, a pathetic non bender who was always brushed off before, stands between the prince of the Fire Nation and his prey. Zuko would never be the same again. He’d never torture or abuse again, and Sokka can give himself all the credit for that.

The one thing that gives him doubts is the way Zuko watches Haru and Katara. Before he looked angry, now it’s more of a quiet seethe. But the message is still the same. Zuko is angry, as much as he can be these days. He’s jealous. And why would he feel that way if some part of him didn’t still feel entitled to Katara?

Sokka’s eyes darken with anger and he stares Zuko down. Finally, as if feeling the dark, ugly anger piercing into him from across the lunch circle, Zuko briefly meets his eyes before looking away in shame. He excuses himself not two minutes later.

Sokka watches him go with a smirk. This time, he’s almost sure he’ll get a visit from Zuko later. And if not? Sokka can think of plenty more lessons to teach the disgusting pervert until he finally learns his place.

~~~

Sure enough, Sokka does receive the visit he’d been tentatively expecting. Zuko can be a fast learner so long as the right pressure is applied, it seems.

“Sokka?” his voice asks apprehensively as he passes him in the corridor that afternoon. “I—”

Sokka doesn’t give Zuko a chance to finish before seizing the front of his tunic and slamming his back against the wall.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Sokka hisses straight against Zuko’s neck. He loves the way he recoils and shifts his feet nervously.

Zuko swallows. “What—”

“Don’t play stupid with me,” Sokka growls as he grabs his throat. “You don’t think I didn’t notice you at lunch today? Tell me, why do you act like such a possessive little freak when my sister talks to Haru?”

Tears spring to Zuko’s eyes as he strains against Sokka’s grip. “I’m sorry,” he chokes out. “That’s…why I came…here.”

Sokka releases Zuko, and he gasps in a breath. “Explain.”

“I admit it, I still have thoughts like that,” Zuko whispers, looking down as his cheeks color in shame. “But I know they’re wrong now. I don’t want to be like my father. And…you made them stop, last time. Help me make them stop again.”

“So you’ve finally learned,” Sokka observes, almost in disbelief. “You understand why you need to be punished.”

Zuko nods tightly. “Yes. I do. Please…let me redeem myself.”

Sokka bites his neck, making him cry out in surprise. “Oh, you’re going to redeem yourself alright.” He grabs Zuko’s hair and forces his head back against the wall, his other still fisted in the front of his tunic. He’s careful not to give Zuko too much praise…no; that could see him slacking off again and losing his way. “Why don’t you start by telling me just what you were thinking at lunch earlier.”

Zuko closes his eyes. “I was thinking about Katara?”

“What about her?”

“Sex with her,” Zuko says, voice wavering. “What I…I…”

“Be more specific,” Sokka snaps with a sharp slap across Zuko’s face, smirking at his quiet whimper and complete lack of resistance. “I need to know exactly what I’m punishing you for, don’t I?”

Zuko whimpers again and tears stream down his face when he closes his eyes. “I think about…what we’ve done before. What I want to do again—but I don’t! Not anymore! I won’t, never again, I swe—”

Slap. “Get to the point, you stupid little bitch. What did you do to my sister?”

Zuko breathes shakily, tears still flowing. “The first time, it was in the forest. I couldn’t tell if she wanted it or not, but she was there. I slapped her until she sucked my dick. She did because I said I’d give her that necklace.”

“You mean our mother’s necklace. Her most cherished possession. Classy,” Sokka growls. He spits on Zuko. “Continue.”

“We also met in secret,” Zuko whispers. “Many times. Last time was in Ba Sing Se. She’d wander at night. I pulled her into alleys. Tied her up sometimes. Then we… But I thought she liked it! She liked being forced! She came back to m—”

Sokka sees red as he spins Zuko around and slams his chest against the wall. He grabs Zuko’s head by the hair and slams it again for good measure. “You’re a sick fucking pig. You know what? I’m going to do every single fucking one of those things to you and see how you like it. I’ll keep doing it again and again, as a reminder to keep your nasty little dick away from her. That’s a fair punishment, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” Zuko sobs weakly.

Sokka licks at the tears on his cheek and groans appreciatively at their sweet, salty taste. “There’s a good boy.”

Zuko lets out a pathetic squeak when Sokka reaches down to grip his ass in one hand, squeezing it roughly before moving to the front. As he does, he forces two of his fingers into Zuko’s mouth, jamming them in roughly until he’s gagging, daring him to bite.

“Suck,” Sokka orders. “Unless you’d like them going in dry.”

Zuko does it, whimpering softly as Sokka presses his fingers deep enough to make him gag harder around them. He imagines it feels terribly uncomfortable and humiliating (and he hopes it does), but Zuko doesn’t dare bite.

Sokka’s other hand begins palming Zuko through his trousers, and he smirks as he feels him immediately hardening under the touch. Zuko can no longer deny that his body now craves this kind of touch, that much is obvious. Something within Sokka stirs to life—something he’s not quite sure he’s ready to think about.

“Look at you, my filthy little whore,” Sokka hisses in his ear. “Already getting hard for me and I’ve barely started with you. Are you imagining this is my cock down your throat? Don’t worry, we’ll have time for that later.”

Sokka feels Zuko try to protest as he forces his fingers deeper into his throat, but the only sound that comes out is a soft moan around the intruding digits. Sokka only laughs and continues groping his crotch. It makes Zuko wilt in his grip.

Finally, Sokka gets bored with Zuko’s lack of response and removes his fingers. They’re slick enough by now, and there are other things he’d like to get to this afternoon. Zuko inhales sharply as Sokka sticks his hand down his pants and starts prodding at his hole with one slick finger. He whimpers when Sokka begins to press inside him. That’s more like it.

“Please,” Zuko squeaks to the best of his ability with his cheek pressed into the wall.

“Please what?” Sokka sneers, shoving him harder against the stone. “Are you going to plea for me to stop again? Or have you finally come to your senses and wish to beg for your atonement?”

Zuko doesn’t answer immediately. He closes his eyes and shakes his head. That won’t do.

Sokka thrusts a rough finger deeper into his ass, eliciting a surprised moan from Zuko. “Well?”

“I want to be better,” Zuko says weakly. He almost sounds sincere. “Help me be a better person than I used to be.”

“There’s a good boy,” Sokka hisses as he nibbles at Zuko’s ear. He feels a rush of power as Zuko moans and presses back against him as he pushes in another finger. “You want to be fucked hard, don’t you? I’ll fuck you so hard you can’t walk and you forget about your ugly past. And you’ll get off to it like the pathetic whore you were always meant to be.”

“Yes,” Zuko whispers weakly. He’s like a shell of that sick bastard that haunted Katara’s dreams, a broken toy good for one thing only, but he seems to finally be learning his place. He only seems to get more aroused as time goes on.

Sokka hopes that Zuko can’t think of Katara without thinking of him first. Fearful, teary blue eyes are replaced by stormy, furious ones. Ideally, Zuko’s cock wouldn’t even stiffen without the thought of his face and ass being forcibly stuffed, reminding him of his crimes. Reminding him of why this is what he deserves.

He moans weakly when Sokka withdraws his fingers and spins him around, pinning his panting body to the wall. Zuko slumps in his grip, staring up with tear-filled, defeated eyes, once-vibrant golden eyes reduced to the dull helplessness of dead daffodil petals. It’s as if he’s waiting to see what’s in store for him next, and it only adds to the shameful lust blossoming in Sokka’s gut.

“What’s that?” Sokka smirks, grabbing his chin. “Tell me what you want, baby. I’ve got all day.”

Zuko closes his eyes and those delicious tears finally roll down his cheeks. “You’re right,” he whispers. “Fuck me hard, until I’m screaming. I deserve it.”

“Oh, darling,” Sokka purrs, pausing to bite and suck along his jaw. He loves the way Zuko trembles. In time, he’ll actually mean it when he begs to be bent over and fucked like the dirtiest of whores. “I won’t stop when you start screaming. You should know that by now.”

Without another word, Sokka rips Zuko’s body away from the wall and marches him down the corridor. Sokka holds him tightly from behind, hands locked around his biceps in a grip he hopes will bruise as he forces him to stumble forward.

Before Zuko has a chance to regain his balance, he’s being shoved into Sokka’s room and locked in by the heavy door behind him.

Sokka feels that dark lust only growing as he watches Zuko’s eyes dart between him and the door he’s just closed. He looks like a terrified animal, cornered by a predator he knows he can’t fight. And Sokka just can’t wait to devour him.

He finds himself fantasizing about Zuko more than he’d like to admit, sometimes in this very room as he struggles to find sleep.

He tries not to think about what that means.

Of course not; there are no feelings here. Sokka has no love for Zuko and hardly even lust. This is about justice and safety. Necessity, not desire.

Sokka advances on Zuko and hates the way his dick springs to life as Zuko cowers back and nearly trips when the backs of his knees hit the cot.

His body’s reaction to this barely-human filth before him makes him furious, but luckily he has a way to deal with that. Sokka slides off his belt.

“You should be punished for those disgusting thoughts of yours,” Sokka growls. “Don’t you agree?”

Zuko seems to pale as he stares at the belt and gulps. “Yes,” he whimpers, closing his eyes.

“That’s what I like to hear,” Sokka says, curling the whip around his fist. “Now strip. And bend over that bed for me.”

Zuko takes his sweet time. He slowly unties the sash at his waist and lets the silk garments slide from his shoulders. Frustrated, Sokka grabs the edges and swiftly yanks them down, making Zuko flinch as his chest is bared. Beyond that, he makes no further move. Sokka’s lip curls as he slaps Zuko’s face.

“I told you to strip. All the way,” Sokka orders.

“I—I didn’t—”

Sokka cuts him off with another smack. “What else do you think I meant? Have I not made it clear you’re my whore? Now take off every stitch of that stupid fucking silk and show me what’s mine. I won’t ask you again.”

Zuko’s throat trembles like he’s barely suppressing a fit of sobbing, but he is quicker about slipping off his boots and trousers. Even the undergarments.

He makes a move to lie across the bed, but Sokka finds he’s too impatient. He seizes the back of Zuko’s neck and throws him down, smirking at the surprised cry. Zuko covers his head with his arms as if that will protect him, but doesn’t get up.

“Good little slut,” Sokka observes. “Maybe you can learn.”

He traces Zuko’s back with his hand, the power intoxicating as Zuko trembles and jerks with each touch. The skin is soft, but still adorned with the evidence of the abuse it endured in the Boiling Rock. Whip marks, bruises, burns, bites. Sokka wonders how many he himself inflicted and feels a rush at the thought. He gives an experimental little crack of the belt across Zuko’s exposed ass and watches in satisfaction as a fresh welt begins to appear in its wake, further marring the pale skin. Further marking him as a thing that belongs to Sokka.

Sokka hits him again, on his back this time. Zuko cries out, but the sheets under his face muffle his voice.

“I guess I wasn’t thorough enough last time,” Sokka sighs. “But this time, I’m going to make sure you don’t forget your lesson.”

He’s brutal as he begins inflicting blow after blow on Zuko’s body. Sokka holds nothing back. All the strength he’s gained through his training, all the techniques he’s learned as a warrior—they all go straight into the belt along with a cruelty he never expected to possess.

Sokka starts with Zuko’s back, beginning at his shoulders and moving his way down. He methodically covers all of the older marks with his own. He makes them even deeper and more painful than before, ensuring Zuko’s back becomes a canvas of his work and his alone. The petty work of those sleazy guards is nothing compared to this, compared to expert blows delivered with a righteous fury.

By the time Sokka starts in on his ass, Zuko is heaving sobs against the bed. His body shakes pathetically, but it only spurs Sokka on. Last time wasn’t enough. Clearly Zuko hasn’t completely learned his lesson, and Sokka finds himself enjoying punishing him more each time. He needs more, and that feeling in his gut only encourages him.

So, he continues.

He’s somehow even more brutal as he beats down on Zuko’s ass with the belt. More flesh there. Less sensitive, but so much more to mark up. Sokka turns it red. Pink at first as the welts set in, then red as they overlap into a single, painful abrasion, then crimson as Zuko’s skin starts splitting. He might be screaming, but Sokka is too carried away with the sound of the belt cracking and the hot rush of blood thrumming in his ears to notice.

When he finally stops, Sokka feels light with euphoria. Everything feels surreal. Sokka stares down at Zuko’s crumpled form. He doesn’t even try to fight or escape the pain; he simply remains still in complete submission, tense as if awaiting the next blow. Sokka can’t believe how hard this is making him.

“What’s the matter?” Sokka hisses down at Zuko. “Not enjoying yourself? I thought this was right up your alley.” He spits on Zuko’s bleeding ass before roughly flipping him onto his back and grabbing him by the chin. “Or is it only hot when you’re doing it to a kidnapped woman?”

The words make Sokka’s dark streak fester even more. Katara—drugged, disoriented, alone in Ba Sing Se—

Sokka releases Zuko’s face with a disgusted shove and grabs his wrists instead. This fucking bastard will pay for what he did, as many times as Sokka sees fit. He secures Zuko’s wrists in place above his head with a leftover piece of rope from last week’s fishing net. The soft whimper Zuko lets out as he pulls it tight makes him even harder.

“Why are you doing this?” Zuko chokes out. “I’m sorry.”

“Not sorry enough.” Sokka spits down on his face and smirks at Zuko’s inability to wipe it away. “I heard how much you enjoy tying up young girls before you rape them, you disgusting fucking creature. It’s only fair that you get to experience your own share of fun isn’t it?”

“You don’t understand! It’s—she—”

Sokka angrily shoves another piece of cloth between Zuko’s teeth. He’s heard enough of this fucking bullshit.

“Don’t you dare make excuses for yourself,” Sokka hisses. He slaps Zuko across the face again. “You had your chance to do the right thing, and you didn’t. You can’t even keep your filthy fucking eyes away from her now. I understand perfectly, your highness. You’re a stupid fucking animal, and if you aren’t kept in your place, you’ll keep on being an abusive shitwipe like your dear old dad. So give it up, you little bitch. It’s your turn to be the whore.”

Zuko closes his eyes and whimpers at that. Sokka sees the stiffness, that faint hint of resistance he’d been holding onto leave him. It’s that complete and utter submission that spurs Sokka on.

It’s victory.

Wasting no time, Sokka shoves back Zuko’s knees and thrusts into him, hard. He fucks into him—harder and harder—until Zuko is sobbing beneath him. It’s a good thing he’s gagged. Sokka can only imagine how loud his screams would be without it.

He fucks Zuko even harder.

“What’s that, don’t like it rough?” Sokka taunts. “I heard you did.”

Well, maybe he does. Sokka watches as Zuko’s cock twitches between his legs, gradually rising as his ass is continuously battered until it’s leaking precum.

Sokka laughs. “Look at you. You really are enjoying this like the whore you are. How does it feel? How does it feel when it’s you instead of her?”

At that, Zuko’s eyes—previously clenched shut—open wide. They stare into Sokka’s with a pleading look, his lips moving like they're trying to speak in between his pained cries.

Sokka doesn’t care. Zuko never stopped before, so he’s heard, so why should he receive the same luxury? His grip on Zuko’s trembling knees tightens, but he resumes his squirming.

Zuko jerks his head and whimpers through the gag. He’s clearly trying to say something, but can’t with the cloth forced between his teeth. Sokka finally decides to humor him.

“What is it?” he growls, thrusts slowing as he pulls the cloth down.

“Please,” Zuko whimpers. “It hurts. Can you—”

Sokka slaps him hard across the face. “Of course it fucking hurts. If it’s redemption you’re after, did you really think it was going to be easy? No…you need this, you filthy rapist. You’re going to keep choosing to come to me, no matter how painful it gets for you. That’s how I’ll know you’re finally clean. Understand?”

Zuko is sobbing by the time Sokka replaces the gag and forces legs back up, immediately starting his brutal pace once again.

Then, something unexpected happens. Sokka begins to hear tiny moans escape Zuko along with his sobs. His half-hard dick stirs further to life, as if it’s learning to enjoy this sensation.

Sokka does his best to ignore it. He ruts harder into Zuko, holding him down, thinking about how much he wants to fucking destroy him. This is a punishment, he reminds himself. It’s an insurance that Zuko won’t revert back to his wicked ways, and Sokka is the only one tainted and twisted enough to do this for him.

But somehow, in the heat of it, that context slips away. Now, it’s just Sokka and Zuko. Sokka tries to shut it out. He tries slapping Zuko across the face. He tries spitting on him and calling him a stupid whore. But that intimate feeling only grows. Zuko’s soft mewls ring in Sokka’s ears. His bleeding, slick asshole feels like it’s sucking him in. It feels like Zuko was made for this, for him.

The thought that Zuko looks good in this state has just crossed his mind when he finally cums, angrily blasting his load into the sobbing prince until it’s dripping from his ruined hole.

Zuko stares up at Sokka fearfully as he roughly pulls the gag free, disgusted at the situation. He hates the way he keeps fixating on Zuko’s strange beauty, his rosy cheeks and tear-filled eyes staring pleadingly at him. Sokka slaps him as hard as he can just to avoid looking at him any longer.

He unties Zuko’s wrists and pushes him off the bed, not sure if he feels more disgusted with the rapist prince or himself. Zuko lands in a heap on the floor with a cry, but before he can steady himself, Sokka pins him down with a boot on his chest. “Remember this, you ugly little whore. This is where you belong. Stay the fuck away from my sister and keep her out of your sick fucking mind.”

“Why are you doing this?” Zuko sniffles. “I understand. I learned my lesson. Please.”

Sokka smiles mockingly before cupping Zuko’s wet cheek, thumbing it softly while he whimpers. “I’m afraid it’s too late for that. You had your chance. You had many chances to make the right choices and you failed, because you’re a dumb fucking ape that’s a slave to his impulses. You’ve proven you can’t be trusted to judge right from wrong on your own. Your only use now is to exist at the mercy of someone who can do that for you.”

“Like you?” Zuko sobs angrily. “You’re doing what I did to her. Why are you right?”

Sokka briefly sees red and rears back to punch Zuko in his vile fucking mouth but thinks better of it. The way Zuko violently recoils with a pitiful cry is satisfying enough. Sokka leans down and kisses his cheek instead.

“Because you deserve it,” Sokka coos. “You know you do. I even noticed you were enjoying it this time.”

Zuko closes his eyes and whimpers. Sokka releases him and allows him to curl into himself, crying quietly into the floor.

“You were so well behaved by coming to me and confessing, you know,” Sokka says before he leaves. “You are getting better, just like I knew you could. You’ll come to me again, won’t you? If you think of my sister that way again?”

Zuko’s head briefly motions a nod before Sokka finally takes his leave, satisfied that his problem might be coming to an end.

Although, now he has a new problem. He doesn’t want this to be over.

He almost wishes Zuko will act out again, just so he has another chance to see him. He can’t get Zuko’s wide eyes and tight hole out of his mind. Who knew the prince could blow him so well?

Sokka buries his face in his pillow, frustrated. No. He’s not like Zuko; he can resist his urges. He can accept his victory and leave it.

But…his dick is already getting hard again at the memories of Zuko’s little moans and his beautifully bruised pale ass.

Sokka wants Zuko like that again, and he can no longer deny it.

Chapter Text

Katara doesn’t understand why Zuko keeps avoiding her.

She knows he’s stressed and she knows she’s been hostile to him, but that never stopped him before. In fact, that often made him more likely to come to her.

Ever since they first met, Katara saw something in Zuko. She saw a hope that maybe he could be good and she always did her best to nurture it. That’s why she kept going back to him. The first time was terrifying, she has to admit. When she was captured by the pirates and Zuko sent them away so he could have her. Katara had never experienced something like that before and even though it hurt, it was different and new.

So she went back. Again and again and again. Zuko took her at the North Pole and multiple times in Ba Sing Se. Sometimes behind his mask. He was always rough but Katara came to like it. She sensed a change in him. His slaps and curses at her felt gentler over time. Katara came to like them. She was helping him. She hoped that one day he would come around and be hers. It made her feel so guilty so it was easier to pretend she didn’t want it.

She never told him yes but she never told him no and that seemed to work for them. Katara doesn’t want to admit she wants him to have her again. She was hoping he’d take what he wanted like he used to but he hasn’t.

Katara watches Zuko carefully. He almost seems skittish now. She even tries to subtly tempt him and it doesn’t work. She flirts with Haru. She talks about Jet. Nothing gets a rise out of him. She wishes he’d be angry again. She wishes he’d be rough again.

What happened?

~~~

Katara is hauling a load of laundry back to her room when she hears it. Grunts, moans, slaps. It almost sounds like…sex.

It’s rude to spy on something like this, but Katara can’t help herself. Especially when it’s something she’s been craving. She sets down the laundry and peers into the room where the sounds are coming from.

She has to suppress a gasp when she sees it. Zuko…and Sokka. Katara hasn’t seen Zuko like this before. She’d never even imagined she could.

He’s bent over a stone pillar. Tied up. Sobbing his eyes out. The sounds coming from him are muffled by a gag. His whole body shakes as Sokka brutally fucks him from behind and whips him with a belt.

Katara should be horrified. But she can’t be. She’s oddly fascinated. After all, this has always been what sex is to her. She knows that Zuko is a firebender and he could burn away the ropes holding him. What Sokka is doing to him is not much different from what Zuko once did to her.

Her first thought is that he’s pathetic. A pathetic whore trying to buy their allegiance with his body. Sokka’s role…Katara doesn’t really think about it. It must have been Zuko’s choice. It always is, isn’t it? Even though Zuko didn’t exactly ask the first time, Katara still wanted it. He must have known. Otherwise that would mean he raped her and she doesn’t want that to be true.

But then she listens to what Sokka is saying. And it makes her blood run cold.

Sokka slaps Zuko’s ass with the belt again, making him scream. “You like that, you stupid bitch? You like getting fucked up the ass?” he sneers. “No? Then why the fuck did you do it to my sister?”

Her? This is about her? Realization begins to dawn but Katara can’t tear her eyes away.

“You’re dirty, filthy,” Sokka spits. Then he literally spits and Zuko cries and winces. “You’re just like your father. You beat and rape and degrade just to feed your pathetic ego. Why did you ever think you could be powerful? You’re pathetic, weak, and stupid and you’re just proving that now. Can’t even take what you dish out. And that’s why you deserve this, you dumb fucking slut.”

Katara blinks as Sokka continues thrusting and Zuko continues crying. She’s never had this view of it before. Every time she participated in something like this, she was the one crying. Her mind was elsewhere, disconnected from reality to get herself through the incident.

Lies, she realizes. They were lies she told herself. Zuko didn’t know if she wanted him or not. He didn’t care. It was about power to him, not sex. Wearing an enemy who kept defeating him down by cruel sex to put her in her place. Taking out his anger on her. Any love Katara tried to read into the situation was a lie. Because now she sees this act for what it is.

Hatred. It was always hatred. It couldn’t be more obvious than now. Sokka fucks Zuko hatefully and brutally, so hard that his thighs are getting scraped raw by the stone pillar he’s tied down to. The same way Zuko had fucked her. A way full of hatred and lust and pain. No love. Sokka is doing this to punish Zuko. To humiliate and own him.

And Katara can’t feel sorry for him. She can’t. Because he did the same to her. The truth slaps her in the face and she can’t help but feel disgusted. Disgusted with Zuko and angry with herself for being so stupid.

Why did she ever believe a man like this could love her? Katara convinced herself that he was strong for what he was doing. That he secretly respected and cared for her. But now she sees him for what he is. A disgusting, perverted, freak that can’t take a fraction of what he used to dish out. A weak, sniveling coward who easily bends over when he’s threatened.

She continues watching with a cringing horror and dark satisfaction until she happens to lock eyes with Sokka. Only then does she finally run away.

~~~

Katara had been hoping that Sokka would just forget it happened. But of course, he finds her.

She’s alone in her room when he cautiously knocks and enters. “Hey…um…about…”

“It’s okay,” Katara sighs. “It was a little shocking to see.”

“Uh…yeah. I can imagine.” Sokka clears his throat. “Do the others…?”

“I didn’t tell them,” Katara says quickly. “I just want to know…why did you do it?”

Sokka closes his eyes. “I was angry at him. For what he did to you. I know you didn’t want to tell anyone, but…”

“How did you know?” Katara demands quietly. “Nobody was supposed to know.”

“Your nightmares,” Sokka grits out. “And I saw the marks. After you’d been around him. You never wanted to talk so I left you alone, but I swore to myself I’d find a way to make him pay. So I did.”

Katara nods solemnly. “I thought I wanted that from him. For a long time. He was always so rough and cruel…but I still thought he might be able to love me one day. If I tried hard enough for him. It…it wasn’t until I saw you today that I realized it was a lie. He never loved me. He hated me. He was insecure and angry that I was stronger and had something he hadn’t. So he…took that out on me.”

Sokka hugs her and it’s only then Katara realizes she’s crying. She lets it all out then. All the hope and faith that people could be good. Her faith that she could somehow take control of one of her most traumatic experiences by lying to herself that she wanted it and seeking it again to try and get a different result. But those were all lies. The result was never different. She still was…was raped and abused by a man who never loved her.

“I’m so sorry,” Sokka whispers. “I saw the hints but I never knew how bad it was. I should have done something earlier. I should have known. So many men…sex is just a means to control for them. There isn’t any love in it. They just want to conquer and control and use you to feel strong. It’s horrifying. It’s evil.” Sokka is breathing heavily and has to pause before he continues. “And I guess I share some of that evil. I know it’s horrible, but I had to make him pay. I had to make him feel what you felt. It felt right, since I can’t just gut him and be done with it…”

Katara shakes her head. “I used to think all of the problems in the world could be fixed. But they can’t. I’m not going to tell you you’re right, because you aren’t. But neither is he. Neither am I…because watching what you did to him…it helped me. Helped me see what he is.”

Sokka nods in understanding as he pulls away from the embrace. “So…this is just between us then?”

“Yes,” says Katara after a pause. They wouldn’t understand. It’s better this way, and the punishment fits the crime. If she bore it in silence all this time, Zuko could too.

They hug once more before Katara lies back down and tries to sleep.

There are tears in her eyes, but it’s not the first time she’s cried herself to sleep. Far from it. Maybe she knew deep down that her situation with Zuko was killing her from the inside out all along. But…even through the pain of losing what she thought was someone who cared, someone who could be fixed, Katara knows this is a step in the right direction.

Katara feels like a person again. Her own person, one that nobody else can own.

~~~

It’s easy enough to avoid interacting with Zuko while they’re still at the temple, but that all changes when Azula attacks and they’re forced to relocate.

Zuko’s presence near her used to bring a thrill of fear and excitement. Now it only brings bitterness. Katara could kill him where she stands with her bloodbending if she pleased and fantasizing about that lightens her mood. He was never stronger than her. Ever. His bravado and sex games were just compensation. What Zuko truly is inside is obvious now.

The first full conversation they have is at night. Zuko slinks out behind her in a way that would have once scared Katara, made her expect to be grabbed and smacked around. But not this time. She’s stronger. The love was a lie but so was the power. He is nothing now. Nothing, and here he’s probably come to grovel.

“Katara…I’m sorry,” Zuko says dumbly. He doesn’t look her in the eyes. Yeah, typical.

“Oh? For what?” Katara taunts him.

“For…treating you like I did,” Zuko says. “I didn’t know. I didn’t…”

“You didn’t understand that being slapped and choked and fucked up your asshole hurt until Sokka did it to you? Is that it?” she says darkly and oh, does she love Zuko’s sick, guilty expression.

“I…no,” he practically whimpers. “But I do now. I’m trying to be better. How can I make it up to you?”

“You can’t,” Katara says simply. “You could have simply not been a rapist. But you were. Maybe you still would be if Sokka didn’t sort you out. So…what’s done is done, I guess. But you know, knowing you're taking it for once is a satisfying thought. How about just keep doing that?”

Zuko gulps. He looks close to tears. “I do. Ever since the Boiling Rock. But…how much is enough? When will he stop?”

Katara blinks, incredulous. “What, do you expect me to save you or something? Nobody ever saved me from you!”

No, not even Sokka. Katara is stronger than both him and Zuko. She just needed to realize that. But now there is nothing Zuko holds over her. Even if he wanted her he wouldn’t be able to take her. Not again. Never again.

Zuko flinches as if he’s been slapped at her words. “I just…please. It hurts.”

“Be honest,” Katara says darkly. “Look at my body, then look me in the eyes.”

Zuko does. Katara glares at him.

“Now be honest with me,” she continues. “If you still had the power to do what you used to do, would you? Do you still have those fantasies about me? About tying me and hitting me and raping me like I’m some fucking toy?”

Zuko whimpers. He opens his mouth to speak but he’s too slow. Even in the night Katara sees red on his cheeks.

“I thought so,” she cuts him off. “And that’s why I’m not saving you, Zuko. You aren’t worth saving. I know it’s horrible, but I guess there are some horrible things in this world we have to live with. I know how you are, I see it now. If you weren’t kept in your place, you’d go off and find some other girl to go off and beat up and fuck like you treated me.”

He’s crying now. Katara would have once pitied him but it’s all run dry now. He only has himself to blame, too. He stole her innocence, her empathy, her faith in humanity. He stole so much that now she has nothing left to feel for him.

And Katara has to admit, maybe even she is liable to get drunk on the power of hurting someone who hurt her. So she continues speaking.

“Back then, when we had our…relationship,” Katara says, feeling her lips twist in disgust. “I didn’t know it was wrong either. I actually thought you were doing it for my benefit. That you cared about me and maybe if I was patient enough you’d be better.” She laughs darkly. “I even thought maybe I succeeded when you left me alone at the Western Air Temple. But turns out, it took being brutally beaten and raped in a Fire Nation prison to teach you empathy. So…yeah. There is really no hope for you.”

Zuko shakes his head. He’s crying harder now. “You…didn’t know, back then? You liked it back then?”

“That was your takeaway,” Katara barks out a laugh. “Sokka was right about you. You really are just like your father.”

That jab seems to be the most crushing. Zuko’s demeanor melts into something broken as he stares at the ground, shoulders shaking.

“Yes, Zuko, maybe I did think I liked it,” Katara spits. “But I was the one being raped. I was a virgin. I didn’t know what to think or how to process what was happening to me. I thought if I learned to like it that I’d be stronger. But those were lies. And you? Nothing fucking traumatic happened to you in those encounters. You were just a dirty fucking rapist. You didn’t know better than to slap, choke out, and rape your prisoner? Gee, what a dilemma.”

Katara finally leaves Zuko then, frozen in place and audibly crying into his hand. She pats his shoulder condescendingly as she passes.

“Tell Sokka hi for me, sweetie,” Katara purrs. “Tell him Katara said to give it to you extra rough tonight.”

It’s liberating, no longer concerning herself with what he thinks of her. No longer concerning herself with him at all. Zuko made his choices, and now he’ll have to live with them.