Chapter Twenty:
Winter wrapped around them, icy and gray, with howling winds, short blustery days and long, cold nights. Nights they spent wrapped in each other's arms.
Sokka tried to justify it. It was just too damned cold to sleep alone. She seemed to have less nightmares too, so it just made sense to keep bedding together. Nothing else happened, although he often awoke with heat in his chest, his dreams full of images he was hard-pressed to forget whenever she slipped one of her legs over his, her sweet scent filling him with an aching need it was getting harder and harder to ignore.
With that need came guilt. Over Suki. Over even thinking about another woman. Over thinking those things about Azula, who needed so much more from him than his stupid libido. It wasn't right. He was ashamed at himself.
And still, he slept beside her every night.
The days wore on. They set fire to the Fire Sage Temple on Wolf Fang Peak, and watched it burn from a ridge close by. Close enough to see the Sage's evacuating down the snow-covered mountainside after their efforts to control the blaze proved fruitless. Watching it burn, Sokka felt no satisfaction at all.
It was just another rotten deed done in the name of an organization he wanted nothing more than to watch burn to the ground instead. He wanted to see each and every Smoke Demon brought to their knees, but he knew it would be a long time before that happened. And until then, he had to play his part.
And he hated every moment of it.
He was homesick. He missed his sister. His father. His friends. Suki. But whenever the feeling came upon him, he found himself staring at Azula, studying the way the light played in her dark hair, or the plush of her red lips, the way she moved...
Until he caught himself, and he forced his gaze away.
It didn't help that he caught Azula's eye on him too, when she thought he wasn't looking at her. She would quickly look away, pretend to be busy with something. He didn't know what to make of that. Sometimes, she would stop what she was doing and turn to him, putting her hand on his chest and mumbling, "You're real."
It helped ground her. Helped her breathe, staving off a panic attack or driving back the terrible visions only she could see. He would put his hand over hers, reassuring her that he was real, until the look of confusion in her eyes faded away.
It wasn't much, but it was enough to get through the days as they dragged on. They moved from safe house to safe house. A tiny cabin in the woods. An inn in a large town. An abandoned barn in the middle of a desolate winery. Tenting in the snow.
They were ghosts, usually only coming into villages to resupply, meet a contact, find out what was happening outside of their little bubble.
There was talk about the Fire Lord taking a wife. Rumors about a ball scheduled for the summer. He tried to feel something about that—if Zuko was looking for a wife, that meant he wasn't involved with anyone at the moment. Which meant that the rumors swirling about him and Suki weren't true. Which meant...
What exactly? He didn't know. The rumors persisted, like a knife in his guts, and he had no defense against them. What could he say, what could he do about it? And what kind of hypocrite was he, when he was sleeping next to another woman every night, thinking the things he had no right to think?
It helped when other rumors started swirling, eclipsing the Fire Lord's scandalous love life. News of the rash of fires on Black Rock had spread throughout the Fire Nation. The explosion at the army garrison was also being put on the mad Firebender's shoulders. In fact, it seemed that every time he and Azula pulled off a mission, the credit went straight to the Fire Bug, which was what people had started calling him.
The fire at the Temple, the depot they'd blown up, the ship they'd sunk, the shipment of swords they'd stolen and dropped off at a barn in the middle of nowhere (presumably to be picked up by another agent), the scrolls they burned at a library by the sea; all if these things were being attributed to the Fire Bug.
This would only help them, in the long run. No one was looking for a man and a woman traveling together. The Fire Bug was a convenient scapegoat. Sokka should have been happy that the man was getting all the blame, but he wasn't. It was the things that he knew the Fire Bug were actually responsible for that were weighing on him.
Whole towns were being put to the flame. Farms. One single home in the middle of a city. An entire flock of pig-sheep, burned in their field. There was no sense to it. No rhyme, no reason.
The Fire Bug was mad. He needed to be stopped, but Sokka was in no position to do anything about it. Not when the Smoke Demons were sending him and Azula on mission after mission. They barely had time to sleep, moving from one place to the other, like whipped beasts driven before the plow. What terrible harvest would their work sow?
It began to wear on them both, as winter stretched on. They were both on edge, exhausted, frustrated. Something had to break.
Their latest safe house was a small cottage by the sea. Set among desolate, ice-covered rocks, with a towering cliff dropping off precipitously in front of them and a stand of weather-beaten pines at their back, the place felt lonely and cold. The wind was heavy with salt, stinging their faces as it swept through the trees. Snow littered the ground in humps, but it was the ice that made everything sparkle, dripping like crystals from the eaves, the boughs of the trees.
The cottage was an improvement on their last safe house, a tent in the forest. It had an actual bed in it, with a straw-filled mattress, a table and chairs, a wash tub. It wasn't much, but it was better than sleeping on the cold, frozen ground. Sokka liked the place, lonely as it was, with its sea view and searing wind. It was cozy. Warm.
They both needed a rest. Their last mission had come perilously close to disaster. They'd barely escaped a contingent of soldiers who had chased them through the woods after they'd put fire to one of the army's grain storage facilities.
Sokka sat on the bed next to Azula, watching as she wrapped a bandage around a burn on his bicep. The sting of it was almost unbearable, but he held on, watching her work. When she reached into his pack and pulled out his flask, he waved her off.
"Are you sure? We don't have any other pain meds," she said bluntly. "You used the last of them when your head was still healing."
"I don't need them," he said bracingly, but the look in her eyes was disbelieving.
"You know, you don't have to act all manly for my benefit. That's a second degree burn. I know how much it hurts, so go ahead and yell."
He met her eyes and then tilted his head at her and launched in. "Motherfucking son of a cocksucking whore that fucking bitch hurts!"
Her eyebrows climbed her forehead, a smile tugging on her lips. "There, now don't you feel better?"
"No."
She shoved the flask against his chest and started packing up their meager medical supplies. He made a note to buy more on their next trip into town. Whenever that would be. They had only been given instructions to come to this safe house, and to wait for their contact to come to them. He didn't like waiting, but maybe they'd get a few days of rest in.
He took a drink of whiskey and then offered it to her too. She waved him off, meticulously packing up the supplies. He took another drink. And another, his eyes glued to her.
Feeling his eyes on her, Azula looked up at him. "What?"
"Nothing." He took a drink.
"If you're going to get drunk, could you do it after you chop us some wood? We're running low."
"Why do I always have to chop the wood? Why don't you do it? I'm injured, you know."
"I know, but I'm not the one with the big burly man-arms," she said, prodding his shoulder. "Besides, I'm going to make dinner."
"You don't have to. Really," he said flatly, but she stuck her tongue out at him.
"It's just soup. You just throw everything into a pot and wait, I think I can handle it."
"Don't do that."
"Make soup?"
"Stick your tongue out at me," he said huskily, with heat in his voice. Azula froze, her lips parting. Sokka wet his lower lip and bit down on it, watching the heat climb to her face.
"Or you'll do what?" she challenged him, her gaze flicking to his lips and back.
"Something I shouldn't, probably," he said, reaching out and cupping her face. He slid his thumb against her bottom lip. Something bloomed in her eyes, something deep and needy. Then she seemed to grab hold of herself, pushing his hand away.
"You're drunk," she bit out, grabbing the bag of supplies and practically leaping up from the bed.
"I'm not drunk, Princess." But his pulse was thundering in his ears. He should stop. He should stop and walk away, pretend he was joking, pretend he wasn't about to do what he knew with certainty that he had been about to do, which was something stupid. Unbelievably stupid.
He was getting angry. At himself. Her. The situation. The ache in his guts that wouldn't go away.
"I'm not a princess, Sokka," she said with a sigh, shoving the bag back into her pack. "I haven't been for a very long time."
"Yes, you are. Zuko never banished you. Never disinherited you or stripped any of your titles from you. You're still his heir. I think he always wanted you to come back."
"My brother doesn't care about me one wit, Sokka. He never did. I never gave him a reason to," she said sharply. "In fact, I tried to murder him on several occasions, so he's probably very relieved that I've kept my distance. Every family has its black pig-sheep, its dirty little secret. Growing up, I always assumed that Zuko was the family disappointment, but it's me. It's always been me."
"That's some pretty low self-esteem you got there, Princess."
She turned on him, her cheeks flaming now, anger in her gaze. "Excuse me?"
"The Azula I met all those years ago wouldn't let anyone make her feel inferior, not even herself. Where is that girl? I know she's in there somewhere," Sokka said, standing and walking over to her. He bent down, squinting as he peered into her eyes. "Hmmm...she's definitely still in there. That hint of fire, that spark of anger...there's that ruthless girl."
"Are you trying to piss me off? Because it's working," she snapped, her hands fisting at her sides.
He didn't know what he was trying to do, but seeing the anger in her eyes satisfied him a little. He couldn't say why, but he liked watching her rearing up at him. It made his blood heat, his heart pound, his skin buzz.
"Good. Get mad. Tell the world to kiss your ass, Azula. Tell them that you're not going to let anyone treat you like you're less than what you are," he ground out, stepping forward. She stepped back, hitching in a breath as her back hit the wall. He leaned in, both hands on either side of her head and braced against the wall. "You are motherfucking force of nature. Say it."
Her eyes were blown wide, the anger in her eyes edged out by fear, and also something else. Something hot and wild.
"Sokka-"
"Say it!" he barked.
Her eyebrow immediately quirked and she glared at him. "No one tells me what to fucking do."
And her hand slammed into the center of his chest, pushing him back a step. A grin broke out on his face, sharp and full of satisfaction. "Now that's the bitch I was looking for. "
She slapped him. So hard it turned his head and made him go cross-eyed for a moment. Lifting a hand to his cheek, he blinked a few times, bringing her back into focus.
"Yeah, I deserved that," he mumbled.
"What is your fucking problem, Sokka?" Azula said, pushing him back another step. "Look, I'm exhausted, and so are you, but don't you dare take your foul mood out on me!"
"I wasn't-" Was he? He wasn't sure. He had definitely been trying to take something out on her, but he wasn't entirely sure what.
No, that was a lie. He knew exactly what he'd been trying to do.
"I'm sorry," he said shortly, scrubbing a hand down his face. "I'm being a jerk. I'm just so... I'm frustrated."
Extremely, painfully frustrated.
"So am I, but you don't see me taking it out on you," she bit at him and then crossed her arms over her chest. "One of us should take a walk or something. We need a little breathing space. I think we're just sick of each other."
He wasn't sick of her at all, though. He didn't tell her that, just nodded and walked over to pick up his shirt and his cloak. "I'll go chop some more firewood."
"I think that's best," she said shortly and turned to the table, where their food was piled. She started chopping vegetables as he pulled on his boots, the knife banging against the table as she took her temper out on the carrots. She didn't say anything when he left.
The wind was icy as he stepped out into the glittering world, his boots crunching over brittle, jagged patches of ice and slippery rocks as he made his way to a stump set beneath the trees. There was a rusted ax jammed into the stump, a pile of rough-hewn logs tumbled beside it.
Just as Azula had taken her frustrations out on the vegetables, he took his out on the logs. The burn on his arm ached with every swing of the ax, the logs splitting with the force of his blows. His breath steamed into the air, sweat running down his back.
What had he been trying to do back there? Trigger one of her panic attacks? No, he hadn't wanted that. Or did he just want to see her get angry? Maybe he'd been spoiling for a fight.
Mostly, he was sure he was just taking out his sexual frustrations out on her. Which wasn't fair to her at all. It wasn't her fault he was finding her more and more attractive the more they traveled together, the more they slept in each other's arms. That his guilt over his attraction to her was driving him like a whipped dog. It wasn't Azula's doing at all.
He was a bastard. An utter bastard. The last thing Azula needed was some jerk treating her like that. What if he had triggered one of her panic attacks? What if he'd ruined all of the progress they'd made? Just because he'd wanted to get her riled enough to...
To do what, though? What had been his endgame there?
He was afraid to explore that line of thought, though. He knew what lay at the end of it, and it was nothing but regret and sin and need.
Sokka split one last log, and stopped, panting, his head bent into the wind to dry the sweat on his temples as he vowed not to take his own frustrations out on her again. She didn't deserve that. He'd find some way of apologizing.
Gathering up an armful of firewood, he walked back up to the little cottage on the cliff. Freeing one arm, he swung the door open, and stopped when he heard a gasp. The wood fell at his feet as he met Azula's swimming eyes.
He looked from her to the knife in her hands, and then down to her bared thigh, where a cut on her skin was slowly dripping blood.
Azula heard the door bang behind Sokka, and then glanced out the window, watching him walk down to the stand of weather-beaten trees. She bit down on her lip, feeling an energy beneath her skin that buzzed out and down, circling the hollows of her body.
She knew the feeling all too well. Hadn't she been feeling it for weeks now, whenever he looked at her? Whenever his arms went around her in the bed they shared? They hadn't discussed their sleeping arrangements, other than Sokka's assertion that it was too cold to sleep alone. Was it more than that to him, though? More than just shared body heat?
She didn't know. She had tried talking herself out of the way she felt every morning, every night, every time he met her gaze, smiled at her, gently ran his hand along her flesh.
Did he even know what he was doing to her? The madness that he was raising beneath her skin, deep in her belly where everything was hot and warm and wanting?
And what had he been trying to do today?
There had been something in his eyes, something that had told her that he wasn't trying to get her angry, not really. He'd wanted some kind of response from her, some reaction that was beyond her, because all she'd been able to feel was how hard her heart was pounding. The heat in his eyes had sizzled her, scorching down to the roots of her soul.
She knew what she had wanted to do to him, and it hadn't been slapping his face.
She turned back to the vegetables, chopping potatoes into rough chunks and tossing them into the pot with the carrots. Her thoughts were dark. Darker than dark.
For weeks she had tried to tell herself that she was empty, a shell, unable to feel anything. But she wasn't. She knew that now. She wanted him, in ways she hadn't ever thought she would want a man again. A part of her was terrified to feel that way, sure that it was all a lie, that pain would follow. That if he put his hands on her she would scream as she curled up and blew away like old leaves. Maybe she would. Maybe it didn't matter.
She didn't trust her own feelings. Didn't trust anything...except him. She wanted to trust him, and that was the most terrifying thing of all.
But he wasn't hers. He would never be hers, not even for a night, so the things she felt meant nothing at all. She was made nothing again. And again. And again.
Pain ripped through her, tears in her eyes. What she wouldn't give to be the empty shell she'd once thought she was. Shells didn't feel pain like this, so deep she couldn't root it out with the sharpest knife.
Pain. It was all she had. All she had to grab hold of. Her oldest friend. The only lover she had ever had.
"Go ahead and bleed. It's what you deserve," a voice said from everywhere and nowhere at once. "Pain is the only thing you need."
A shuddering gasp left her as she gripped the knife in her hand and pushed her green robe open. She lifted her short nightgown up, and then...
Pain. Biting. Deep. Comforting.
She sighed in relief as the knot in her chest loosened a little. But it wasn't enough. She needed more. Needed something she could control. She started to drag the tip of the knife along her thigh again, but the door opened, letting in the wind, Sokka, and reality.
She gasped as she met Sokka's gaze. Saw him drop the firewood at his feet, his gaze stormy.
"Sokka..." she said, trying to hide the blood flowing down her leg. "I..."
"I thought you weren't going to do that again?" he said softly, still framed in the doorway.
"I... I don't have to explain myself to you," she said, pushing her thighs together and backing up against the wall again. Her face was burning, her limbs like water.
"No, you don't. But I don't have to stand by and watch you hurt yourself either," Sokka said. "Especially when it's my fault."
She started, blinking at him. "Your fault? No-"
"I shouldn't have done... Any of that," he said bitterly. "I didn't want this to happen."
"That's not why—" But Sokka was reaching for something above him, on the outside of the cottage. She heard something break, and then he stepped inside, pushing the door closed on the cold, salt- and ice-laden wind. Her brow furrowed in confusion when she spotted the icicle in his hand. "What are you doing?"
"A little experiment," he said, approaching her slowly. "Do you trust me?"
She didn't hesitate, looking up into his eyes. "Yes."
He hung his head for a moment, shame burning in his eyes, but when he looked up at her, he had a determined glint burning there. "Show me."
She bit down on her lip, feeling the urge to run. She didn't. Instead, she pushed her robe open and lifted her nightgown, showing him the bloody cut on the inside of her thigh. Sokka grabbed a cloth from the table and pressed it against the cut.
"It's not deep," she whispered. "It'll stop bleeding soon."
"I know I can't stop you, but I don't want you to do this again. So that means we're going to have to find other things for you to do when you feel the urge to cut yourself. Okay?"
"Like what?" she said, her voice breaking.
He tossed the bloody rag down and turned back to her, looking her up and down thoughtfully. "Show me where you were going to cut next, if I hadn't walked in."
Her hands shaking, she slipped her hand between her thighs, running her finger along the skin above the other cut she had made, just below her underwear. "There."
"Hold still," he said, and slid the icicle against her thigh, right in the spot she had pointed to. It was a shock against her hot skin. She jerked away, but he followed, pressing it against her skin until there was no retreating. "Tell me when to stop, when you can't handle any more."
Water dripped down her thigh, shockingly cold. Sokka pressed the icicle against her skin until she was squirming in place, gasping, grasping his arm. The cold bit into her, searing, numbing. It was a different kind of pain. A cold pain, but pain nonetheless.
"Stop!" He immediately pulled the icicle away, leaving her gasping, biting her lip. She pushed her hand between her legs, feeling the raw, wet skin, the water mingling with the blood from her cut. She looked up at him. "That hurt. I... Do it again."
He pushed the icicle against her other thigh, branding her like a cold lick of flame until she couldn't stand it anymore and she asked him to stop. The icicle was slippery in his hand as he stepped back, watching her with a strange look on his face.
"Did that help?"
"I... Yes. I think so."
"Good. We'll do this until the ice melts. Then we'll think of something else. I don't want you to cut yourself again," he said, walking over to the fire and tossing the icicle in. It hissed, steam rising as it sizzled and melted on contact. He turned back to her. "Azula..."
"It wasn't your fault," she said, walking over to him, her knees like water. "My head... There's a lot going on up here, okay?"
"I was being a jerk though. I was taking some stuff out on you that wasn't your fault. It wasn't right. Nothing that's going on in my head is right at the moment."
"What's going through your head, Sokka?"
But Sokka just cupped her face, staring into her eyes. Then he kissed her forehead, lingering as she slid her hands up his chest, putting her palm over his heart. She could feel his heartbeat, strong and steady.
"You're real," she whispered, the scent of him filling her senses. He smelled like wood and ice, the salty sea air, fur and sweat and Sokka.
"So are you," he said and then sighed. "And that's the problem. You're so damned real to me, Azula."
He tilted her head back, his finger on her chin, staring into her eyes with an intensity that shook her to her foundations. Her blood rushed in her ears, the world a blur around her.
She rose up on tiptoe, her arms sliding around his shoulders. "I'm realer than she is."
She pressed her mouth against his before he could respond, before she could rethink it, before every force in the world tried to stop her. Sokka started in surprise, stiffening against her. Then, a split second later, he melted, his arms wrapping around her waist as he deepened the kiss with a groan.
The door slammed open a moment later, letting in a gust of cold sea air that shocked them apart. Reeling, confused, her lips warm and tingling, Sokka's taste in her mouth, she found herself staring at a cloaked figure framed in the doorway.
There was an amused smile on Rian's lips as he looked between the two of them.
"By all means, don't stop on my account."