A/N: These characters belong to ATLA. I'm writing for myself and posting for your entertainment. This fic is going to be an epilogue of another fic that is in the works. I'm uncertain if I'm going to post that one as I have issues finishing longer works. I'll probably post that one once I'm finished with it (if I get finished with it). This one can be read as a standalone as it is centered around Hakoda and his issues. The only questions that might come up are how the three of them got together and why they're in the Southern Water Tribe.

Here is a bit of background to help prevent confusion: I'm writing a fic about Jee/Bato because I absolutely adore how the two interact in the series "Leaving It All Behind" by Sreeder. It's very subtle Jee/Bato, btw, as the fic is a Zuko/Sokka, which diverts from the original cartoon and has very dark undertones. In that fic, being homosexual in the Fire Nation is illegal. The fic that I'm doing in response to that is focused on Jee's point of view after the war is over. It will go through Jee's life as he tries to adapt to the Southern Water Tribe and get past his own internalized homophobia, all while helplessly falling for the water tribe's biggest flirt and knowing that the man who is tugging at his heartstrings has a heart that belongs to another. Anyways, since this fic is clearly after the one I'm mentioning, it's a bit of a spoiler that the three of them end up together...

Pairing: Bato/Jee, Hakoda/Jee, Bato/Jee/Hakoda, Hakoda/Bato, past Hakoda/Kya

Warning: Small bits of depression caused by lack of sunlight (it's a real thing), M/M, M/M/M

Rated: M (this may change to explicit if I decide to make more chapters. They're all thirsty)

Sodium Acetate Trihydrate
(Hot Ice)

[Past]

Kya was in a state of shock and horror as her hand covered her open mouth as drunken giggles refused to be quelled. A furious blush spread across her face from a mix of alcohol and embarrassment from what she had just admitted to her husband. Hakoda laughed and held her tightly in response, kissing the side of her face to let her know he wasn't mad at the drunken admission. He was certain that any other man would have been jealous if his wife had spoken that way about another man, but not Hakoda. Maybe it was because she had spoken about Bato specifically that Hakoda didn't feel the need to confront her. Nothing would ever happen between the two. Bato was completely uninterested in women, never had been, and Hakoda knew deep down to his very core that Bato never would be.

"That came out wrong!" Kya tried to deny but her tense posture quickly relaxed as she melted into Hakoda's embrace.

"Oh, really," Hakoda smirked and teased, "and would you care to tell me what you meant by how hot you think kissing Bato would be?"

Kya groaned and buried her face in his neck.

"Come now, Kya, tell me your secrets," Hakoda continued to tease as he deepened his voice to rumble against her ear. He knew she liked it when he did that, and the wiggle of her hips and her dilated eyes told him it still worked. When Kya didn't say anything for a while he toned it down and decided to reassure her instead. He wanted to know her likes, her fantasies, he wanted to drive her wild, but he didn't want to make her uncomfortable. "Kya, I know Bato would never come between us."

Kya looked up at him, blush somehow becoming more prominent as she finally told him, "Maybe that's exactly what I was fantasizing about." Her heated gaze followed the shape of his mouth, tongue sneaking out to wet her lips as she was lost in whatever thought she had.

It took a moment for Hakoda to realize the implication of what Kya said, and, strangely, it sparked something he couldn't name. It wasn't interest, but it wasn't disgust either. He brushed it off in favor of leaning down to kiss her, and what started as a chaste peck on the lips grew more and more passionate as they couldn't get enough of each other.

[Present]

Hakoda woke up to a set of thick arms and legs wrapped around him like jelly-squid from the man behind him while he held onto their slim lover. It was a common occurrence for Hakoda to wake up in between the two as Jee preferred the side closest to the door, and Bato was a fussy sleeper who would kick in his sleep if he couldn't sprawl. Hakoda didn't mind the extra warmth from being in the middle, especially during the colder nights. Jee was a personalized furnace and Bato blocked any cool breeze that drifted in.

It was pitch black, and Hakoda wanted to stay in bed and bask in the comfort of his lovers, but his internal clock was telling him it was time to get up. He gave a small stretch between the two men, wanting to wake his muscles but not willing to disturb Jee. The other man looked like he could use all the sleep he could get before the elder came to bang on their door to demand Jee's services at the medicine hut.

Hakoda then recalled the dream he had of his late wife and smiled at the warmth it brought. It was a good memory, but he remembered a time when those same memories were things that used to cause him to wake up miserable and alone. Each time he had dreamed about Kya, he had woken up worse off than before he'd gone to sleep, knowing he had failed her, that he hadn't protected her. Bato had always been there to remind him about the silly things Kya had done during the times that he missed her so much he could barely function. No one else could have done that. Those who had tried had gotten shut out as he had begun shutting down, but Bato was different from everyone else. The three of them grew up together. Bato had known Kya almost as well as Hakoda had. There had been a few times Hakoda had tried to shut Bato out, but Bato had persisted in taking care of him as well as his children. Bato had laid with him at night, holding one-sided conversations about Kya, slowly turning those memories back to the calm love that they should have been all along until one morning Hakoda had woken up to a memory of Kya and him whispering under the covers about whose responsibility it was to go out in the cold and take the kids to school.

Hakoda still missed her. He would always keep the love he had for his wife close to his heart. He didn't think he'd ever move on from Kya and in many ways he hadn't, but there he was with not just one but two people sharing his bed.

He wondered what she would think about his choice in lovers. If she were still alive, she'd laugh at how long it had taken Bato and him to get their acts together and would probably, most definitely, want to watch them make out, but he had no idea how she'd feel about Jee. He used to think he knew her inside and out as they had spoken openly about anything that crossed their minds, but discussing the possibility of having a Fire Nation lover had never been a topic. Even a friendship with one was simply unfathomable at the time. They rarely ever discussed the Fire Nation, and when they did it had only been about what to do should the village ever be attacked. He'd come to realize he didn't know what she would say to this, didn't know what her opinion would be about his relationship with Jee. It was Kya, who died during a Fire Nation raid, murdered by a soldier, burned by a firebender, whose approval Hakoda yearned for. He needed her to accept this particular firebender encased in his arms, the soldier he invited into his home, the Fire Nation he'd invited into his village with open arms. He wanted her to tell him that it was ok to be with a man who could have, in all likelihood, been there during the attack on their tribe. He never asked Jee about it because in the beginning of their friendship he had fooled himself into believing that it didn't matter. If Jee had been there, then he would have been a soldier forced to follow the orders of a tyrant. By the time Hakoda realized he'd developed feelings he'd become too scared to ask, fearing the answer.

Regardless, Hakoda knew what he desperately wanted her to say: "Hakoda, I know Jee isn't like the rest of them" or "You deserve to move on, and he's sweet for a Fire Nation soldier", but none of those words resonated. Nothing he came up with felt like something she'd say. He didn't even know if she would have ever accepted Jee when he first arrived as a visitor. What would Hakoda have done if Kya came through the door right now and demand that Jee leave?

Hakoda squeezed Jee in response, not wanting to let him go, trying to ground himself from the intrusive thoughts as he realized they were pouring in and instead focused on watching Jee sleep. Hakoda wondered when the firebender would wake up. Jee had come home with dark circles under his eyes and fell asleep as soon as his head landed on the pillow. Jee was usually a light sleeper, had been during the entire journey here and throughout the summer, but all of Jee's energy drained as soon as the polar winter came in and brought with it the 30 days of night. It was strange how much the sun affected Jee. Jee could do two jobs of strenuous labor if the sun was up, but during the month when the sun never breached the horizon, Jee could barely get the energy to get out of bed. Both Hakoda and Bato, realizing that other nations do not experience polar winters or summers, had been wise enough to warn Jee of what to expect. Everything had been fine until it wasn't, and neither Hakoda nor Bato had realized Jee had been struggling because Jee had been too proud to admit it. By the time they realized there was a problem, Jee had come close to dying, and only then did he admit to not fully understanding the toll it would have on him as a firebender. Jee hadn't expected the constant unconscious draining his firebending was using to keep himself warm, or that the sun wasn't coming back up to replenish his energy. Hakoda grimaced, the first year was especially tough on Jee but they adapted, and the polar winter after that had been much better.

Jee's hair was getting longer again and the feeling of it differed to what he was used to. Hakoda brushed his fingers through the locks and briefly wondered if he was the only one who noticed the difference, and he didn't even realize there was a difference in hair until now. The silky strands glided through his fingers and fell across Jee's face. The sight reminded Hakoda of the images of male leads that appeared on the front covers of romance novels, but Hakoda knew Jee well enough to know that he preferred to keep it shorter than its current state. Hakoda and Bato had offered to help trim it, but Jee was adamant about doing it himself. It took a lot of time and effort to cut one's own hair and make it look nice, so Jee didn't do it often. Hakoda and Bato had gotten used to Jee's hair constantly going from long to short over the years they had been together.

Hakoda's eyes went down to the laugh lines that traveled to thin clover lips surrounded by a circle of salt and pepper hair. Jee's beard didn't come in full like his and Bato's could, instead it framed his mouth and ran along his lower jawline. Jee used to keep it shaved when he first arrived at the South Pole, but he learned the hard way not to shave in the morning before going outside as it caused his skin to be overly sensitive. Hakoda mentioned that Jee could always shave it down at night, but Jee refused. The man believed that if he couldn't do it in the morning then it wouldn't be done at all. Hakoda smiled at the memory of his stubborn soldier and kissed the back of his neck. Jee had some quirks that confused Hakoda and Bato, but they let him do as he pleased to help him balance out all the other changes that Jee went through to be accepted into their culture.

And let's not forget the clothing incident when Jee almost ripped off the top layer of his own skin because he forgot to let his clothing defrost before attempting to remove his baklava. Hakoda was thankful that he and Bato had been home early for that to stop him.

Hakoda's fingers brushed down Jee's well-defined chest to his hips. Although Jee had put on some weight after staying with them, he was still the smallest man in the South Pole. The change in diet had helped Jee gain thicker muscle, but not much else. He was incredibly active during the summer, keeping himself busy by helping the fishers and smiths. The winters softened him up as his skills were needed inside. He would be in the medicine huts for days on end, only coming back home to sleep and re-energize, before going back out to do it all over again. Hakoda's hand went to the winter pudge on Jee's belly that somehow pleased Hakoda's caveman brain, and he glided his hand lower to graze the soft trail going down, hidden by his too-big underclothes that tantalized Hakoda with a want to see more. Hakoda suddenly hated sleepwear, even though the ones Jee used were Hakoda's and Bato was the only one of the three to sleep naked.

Unable to stop himself, Hakoda tightened his embrace, pressed his nose against Jee's nape, and breathed deep. Jee let out a soft sigh, though Hakoda didn't know if it meant he was waking up. The warm spice scent was unique to Jee, and it was mixed with the tea that had suddenly become stocked in their home a few months after Jee moved in. It didn't take long for Hakoda to associate the smell of tea with feeling calm, as Jee was calm by nature and would prepare it as soon as they got out of the cold.

Behind him, Bato's hips not so subtly ground into his ass while his arms and legs began loosening around Hakoda in favor of rubbing across his skin, signaling that Bato was slowly waking up and wouldn't let them leave the bed if he had his way. Jee remained in a deep slumber even with all the extra movement Bato was making, and as much as Jee was hard working for 11 months out of the year, history with a lethargic Jee was enough evidence that Hakoda was going to need to be the one that would drag them out of bed to be functioning members of society.

Bato maneuvered Hakoda onto his stomach as he somehow slid his shorts down far enough to put but his member between his thighs, and Hakoda felt a thick cock rub the cleft of his ass and behind his balls.

"Oh, fuck," was his only response as Bato's weight bared down and the slow grind caused Hakoda to push back in reflex. His hands were tight in the sheets and he felt butterfly kisses along his shoulders and arms. He gave a moan that he meant to keep quiet, but as soon as he opened his eyes he saw that Jee was awake and looking at them, eyes dilated and tongue sneaking out to lick his lips, and Hakoda realized maybe he hadn't been as quiet as he thought.

But that was ok.

Maybe 30 more minutes in bed wouldn't hurt.

AN: Thank you for reading. There is no plot in this, just story and word porn, which there is going to be more to the story and porn. If you can't tell, there were a lot of things that were left open that Hakoda needs to deal with.

Please comment if you like!