Archive of Our Own ^beta

When the sled pulls to a stop, Hakoda’s heart sinks.

Before them stands an ice cliff that stretches so high it disappears into the night sky. Hakoda’s sure that, in daytime, you still wouldn’t be able to find the top amidst the clouds. The cliff is pockmarked with scores of caves and tunnels, each looking so vastly different and yet Hakoda can’t tell the difference between them. Each entrance is lined with dripping icicles and crafted bars, but if he squints through the torchlight and the last remnants of the moon, he can make out darker patches in the ice. Metal that’s been hewn in.

They’ve arrived at an impenetrable fortress.

The leader of these men lets out an ear-piercing whistle, and tucked away at his side, Sokka hisses as the sound grates against him. He’s still reeling from the drug overdose and, oh how Hakoda wishes he hadn’t switched drinks with him. They may still be in this mess but at least Sokka wouldn’t be in pain every time the sled took a sharp turn or a loud noise echoed across the tundra. All Hakoda can do for him is glare at the men as they begin to empty the sled.

A moment of silence greets the leader’s whistle, before two men emerge from the cave before them. The leader jerks his thumb over their way, and Hakoda stiffens, pulling Sokka closer as much as their restraints will allow. “Cell’s ready for them?”

“Just missing the prisoners.”

“Wonderful,” the leader drawls, before turning on his heel. “Get them up.”

Sokka groans against his side, before opening his eyes and blinking furiously against the light and the cold breeze. Hakoda tries to -

Well, it doesn’t matter what he was trying to do. Suddenly, there’s a man behind him and he’s being yanked back, yanked away from his crouch around his son and Sokka’s being grabbed and pulled to his feet. His boy cries out in shock. Hakoda snarls at the rough handling, but then he too is being hauled up.

“Can you stand?” the man asks Sokka. His son doesn’t respond - so completely out of it - and the man just releases his arm, standing by as Sokka in vain tries to keep his balance. Between the slippery ice and the dazed look in his son’s eyes, it’s all the men behind Hakoda can do to stop him from running over to steady Sokka before he falls to the ground.

The leader rolls his eyes. “Just carry him again.” He motions at the men behind Hakoda and they shove him forward towards the ice cliff. Behind him, he hears Sokka yelp as he’s thrown once more over the man’s shoulder, and the party makes their way into the tunnel ahead.

The tunnels twist and wind and turn, and Hakoda gives up trying to remember their route a minute in. The walls close in around them, and it takes only a shocked gasp from Sokka and a quick glance behind to see the final man in the group waterbending over the exit.

So much for that idea.

It seems an age before the leader slows down, pulling out a comically sized set of keys from his pocket and opening the cell before them. It’s small, with chains hanging from the walls and it’s to one of these sets that Hakoda’s led to. He glances behind at Sokka once more as they lower his son.

The leader follows his glance. “You go quietly now,” he says softly, and Hakoda feels sick as the man rakes his eyes over Sokka.

He sits himself to the ground, and does not fight back as they untie him and restrain him to the wall. Sokka is shoved into the cell as they leave, hands still bound behind his back, and his dazed eyes only just manage to focus on Hakoda. The door clangs shut behind them, and they’re alone.

“Socks?” he asks cautiously, not sure how lucid he is right now. Sokka stumbles on the ice for a moment, before hurrying the last few paces and falling into his arms. He squeezes him tightly and doesn’t make any move to let go. “Are you alright?”

Sokka hesitates, pressing his face into Hakoda’s parka. Finally, he gives the tiniest shake of his head. “Can’t think properly,” he mumbles.

“Does anything hurt?” Hakoda asks. He had the most splitting migraine, he doesn’t want to think what double the dose would do.

Another pause, and Hakoda’s hit with the thought that he may be taking longer to simply process the information. How… how bad did these bloody drugs affect him? “Head,” comes the response eventually. “And wrists.”

“Oh! I think I can reach… shuffle closer for me,” Hakoda instructs, and waits for Sokka to slowly inch himself further into his embrace. At last, Hakoda’s fingers brush against the tight rope around Sokka’s wrists, and he alternates between rubbing Sokka’s wrists and growing more frustrated as he unpicks the knots. They bound him so tightly that when at last the rope falls free, flecks of dried blood peel away as well.

Hakoda sees red. He - Sokka was unconscious when they took him, why -

“It’s ok,” Sokka whispers, and Hakoda looks down in surprise, before realising how tense he’s grown. He sighs, bringing his arms back around Sokka as his son inspects his hands. There’s a moment of silence before Sokka huffs, and lands his head squarely against Hakoda’s chest. “I’m tired.”

Hakoda brushes his hair back from his face. There’s a spare tie on his wrist from the night before and he gently cards his fingers through Sokka’s hair before beginning to braid it back. “Go to sleep,” he urges. “I’ll be here when you wake.”

Sokka pauses, looking over at the door with a furrowed brow, lips thinning. “Sleep,” Hakoda whispers again, and Sokka gives up the watch.

He’s fast asleep before Hakoda can tie off the braid.

It’s been hours.

It’s been hours, and the guards haven’t been back, and Sokka is still fast asleep against his chest, and he can’t even close his eyes for fear that when he opens them…

When he opens them, Sokka won’t be safely in his arms anymore.

Hakoda sniffs again in the cold confines of their cell, and patiently waits for Sokka to groan, toss, turn. At least he’s not still anymore - now that had been scary.

Sokka settles once more, and Hakoda can’t help but smile at the frustrated pout on his son’s face. Off with the spirits, he thinks, restraining his itching fingers from pulling out Sokka’s hair yet again to retie.

It’s getting long, he thinks with a little surprise. While Sokka could have grown out his hair into the full wolftail that so many of the warriors sported, particularly after his ice-dodging trials, he’d always maintained his signature shaved look, only passing up on it while in the Fire Nation. Spirits , that seemed an age ago, didn’t it?

At least back then, Hakoda knew what they were facing.

He’s been trying to ignore the weird, lingering feeling that he’s missing something, he’s missing something big, but he can’t deny it when it looms over the back of his mind, encroaching.

Hakoda, once more, runs over what he knows: they were drugged. Chief Miki was very probably the instigator: the stilted conversation he remembers from the men who took them, and the odd glances he received when he originally switched with Sokka now ring alarm bells alongside each interaction he had with the man.

But Chief Miki has not the influence nor the resources to pull this kind of thing off. Hakoda was not all that well versed in Northern politics, but Sokka seemed particularly invested for reasons he thought were somehow linked to the Northern Princess but could never understand how.

Amidst the snatches of peace found between Miki’s fired questions, Sokka had whispered, “Miki’s the kind of man to ask for anything and everything: credit, land, money. Bit like a swamp-leech: folks round here think he’s a bit desperate, which…” Sokka had hummed, his facial expression telling Hakoda everything he’d needed to know. “That’s probably why they fobbed him onto us,” he had added bitterly. “The perfect man to deal with us Southerners.”

Hakoda hadn’t even had the clap Sokka consolingly on the back before Miki launched into some misguided venture about ice-dodging, something which Hakoda had been surprised wasn’t a part of Northern culture. He’d thought, with their surplus of waterbenders, that it would seem the obvious rite of passage for both benders and non-benders. The differences had jarred immensely, for every other glance almost felt like home.

So… if he hasn’t any of the resources or the influence, and from Sokka’s assessment none of the popularity either, someone must have been helping him pull this off.

He doesn’t… well, he hopes it wasn’t someone in the Northern Water Tribe. Hakoda had wanted their support in the rebuilding of their own tribe - without ceding power to them of course, a suggestion which had boiled the blood of every Southerner in that meeting room - and Arnook had seemed amenable. He hopes it’s not someone from the Northern Tribe, but if it is, they wouldn’t have Arnook’s support. Perhaps someone on the privy council? Arnook, along with the two most high ranking chiefs… it could be one of those two, Hakoda relents a little reluctantly.

The Fire Nation’s out, he knows, unless there’s been another uprising lately, but Sokka pesters Zuko enough to know about these things, and Sokka usually relays the message on so that Hakoda can support Zuko when he gets grilled by whiny Earth Kingdom ministers when Zuko has been unable to meet the staggeringly high reparations quotes, and send a few warriors up conspicuously to barge into the palace and ensure that the young Firelord is getting a few hours of sleep every night.

Little things. Besides the point: Sokka hasn’t mentioned an uprising or coup or even any dangerous groups recently, so he can rule out the Fire Nation.

Earth Kingdom? It’s… more probable than Hakoda would like to admit. He knows that the south-western portion is mostly under King Bumi’s jurisdiction, and the northern areas are monitored by the Council of Five - now that the war is over - and they remember all too well the state of the Earth Kingdom Navy before the Southern Warriors arrived to be anything but grateful. But perhaps one of the less fortunate regions? The southern parts under Ba Sing Se and the Si Wong Desert were hit surprisingly hard - or, or perhaps the colonised areas? Now that could be an avenue worth considering, especially since -

Sokka whimpers, and immediately Hakoda’s arms are tightening around Sokka, his eyes frantically searching his son’s face, searching for any pain, any lucidness, any fear…

Sokka turns once in his arms, and falls back into his quiet, but shifting, slumber. Hakoda sighs, smoothing down the little bumps in his boy’s hair, before Hakoda pinches the bridge of his nose, trying desperately to stay awake.

It’s been a while since he’s slept, he knows. And that drug-induced sleep probably did nothing for his health.

But instead of listening to the filtering moments of wisdom in his mind, Hakoda stares determinedly at the shining ceiling, and wills himself to stay awake.

Just a little longer.