Title: The South's Lone Wolf
Fandom/ Pairing: Avatar: The Last Airbender; one-sided Bato/ Hakoda
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Written in stream-of-consciousness format; takes place prior to Episode 15 "Bato of the Water Tribe"
he is a warrior, and warriors do not scream, no matter how much they bleed or burn or hurt hurt hurt and he can feel the skin melt and mottle beneath his breastplate and tunic and someone very far away is screaming but it is not him; warriors do not scream and Bato is a warrior before anything else, because only a warrior can fight a dynasty and free his people and stand by the side of his chief, and when he is not a warrior, Bato is only a man, and sometimes he wonders if he is even that in the small hours sewing night into morning when he fears and wishes despite the fact that true warriors do not fear or wish any more than they scream; they must be focused solely on the fight because someone must be strong for those who are not he must be strong he must not
scream
and he doesn't, shocking to himself and he attempts to rise but his body simply will not allow him to do so but he must do something he must be useful; a warrior is only useless when his heart stops and nothing can break him before then, but he gasps and feels sick and then Hakoda is above him meeting his eyes with a storm-blue gaze which Bato realizes has broken him thousands of times before but never like this; he had always been broken when that gaze turned toward a woman with warm tired eyes and warm tired hands which held children and soothed Hakoda's wounds, and while Bato knows there is no bond like that which warriors share he still wants to be that woman who holds Hakoda's love even in death; she must have been truly good to have his love and so Bato cannot hate her but he can want and once he starts wanting nothing is the same—he forgets his pain if only to make room for the revelation he has kept tied under his heart for years and years; Hakoda asks can you stand and Bato can with his help but when he touches Hakoda's armor and lupine headdress he remembers that he is a warrior oh what has he done to let these thoughts get past his careful guard; was it the pain that brought it down, the pain which consumes him now and blissfully rids him of all thought he only feels the motion and he can feel
the sea, so pure so far so mystical that maybe if he used the boat his father built he could overtake the horizon and go back to a time in which they were not quite warriors and fooled Mother Kanna with an octopus and a spooky voice which never failed to make Hakoda grin afterwards a smile like warm sunlight which since faded whilst fire consumed nearly everything else and now it has burned Bato and Hakoda is carrying him so gently so as not to jostle his wounds and Bato moans, not for the pain but for the delicate deadly thing he has loosed into his mind and he feels so weak for it but he must hold on; he cannot let himself be anything but a warrior and if you whine like an abandoned wolf you may just become one said his father when Bato was young and afraid of being left in the snow but Hakoda would never leave him and he does not instead taking him to a safe safe place which smells of perfume and healing and says my friend is hurt please can you help him and Bato does not want him to go back to the men though as a warrior he knows they need their chief leader strong-willed champion and does not want to think about what he wants because he is a warrior and warriors do not want or fear or wish or scream even when all he needs is for Hakoda to speak his name and say stay with me stay
because he must be left
I love you.