Hey, welcome back. This chapter takes place after "The Deserter" when the group stopped to bed down for the night.

Main Pairing: Sokka and Zuko, slight mention of past Jet/Sokka, light Sokka + Suki, very light Sokkaxmultiple characters throughout the first season, very light Aang + Katara, Zhao + Zuko

Warnings: yaoi/slash main pairing, adult sexual themes and contexts I don't want to give away specific spoilers. (If you are not of legal age or don't like yaoi/slash than please don't read.), sexual harassment, puberty related talk O.o'

Disclaimer: "Avatar the Last Airbender" is a property of Nickelodeon studios, and I claim no ownership or rights towards the story or its characters.

All questions, comments, and critiques are welcomed and appreciated.

Oh, by the way, all the 8's you keep seeing are the page dividers because keeps editing out my symbol page dividers. 

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The Trouble In Being Zuko or Sokka

Chapter 5 "Relieving Tension"

(Season 1) Location: …Somewhere in the Earth Kingdom woods…

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Zuko smirked smugly and looked deep into Sokka's glaring eyes. The boomerang guy glared back and struggled against the bonds holding him tied tight to the tree. The prince was an excellent knot tier as the tribal warrior suspected he would be. These ropes would be very difficult to escape.

"Sokka, tell me where the Avatar is or else."

The proud Water Tribe warrior shook his head and eyed his boomerang over by a nearby tree.

"I'd sooner die than give Aang over to you, Prince Zuko. Do your worst."

The pale Fire Nation prince's smirk grew. "I was hoping you'd say that, Sokka."

Sokka kept his glare firmly in place, determined to show no fear to the strong prince, but he hadn't been expecting what happened next.

Zuko abruptly leaned forward and pressed a deep hot kiss to the bound boy's soft lips. The wolf-tailed teen kissed back ferociously, but then bit Zuko's lip as he returned to his senses.

The prince smirked and licked the little trickle of blood from his own lip before he reached down to delicately smack the brave warrior on his bottom. Sokka gasped, and the prince smiled wildly as he slowly moved his hand around to Sokka's front and slid it down the excited boy's pants.

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Sokka delicately tiptoed to the lake as quickly as he could. He hadn't been traveling with his sister and the Avatar for more than a couple of months, but every single thing just seemed to lead him into more trouble and more humiliation. These late night sneaks to whatever lake or river was around were a more common occurrence than he'd like to admit. This had been happening to him, well… since before they'd even left on this crazy trip, but at least at home Sokka had his own private igloo that he'd demanded for such issues. He convinced Katara and his Gran-Gran that he needed his own guy place because he was a guy and guys need their own private spaces. The transition was a hard one for Sokka at first as he jumped at every noise and almost ran back to his family igloo multiple times, but he forced himself to be brave, and the payoff was the fact that he had a whole lot less worries about being caught cleaning up his blankets and bedding when something humiliating like tonight happened. He was sure that his sister would just assume that he had wet his bed like he did when he was little, but that prospect didn't sound that much less humiliating than the idea of her realizing what type of bed wetting he'd actually done.

The stressed boy kept trying to mentally distract himself from his eerily erotic dream as he cleaned himself off in the cold lake water. Since the incident with Jet the teenaged warrior forced himself not to think about, Sokka started to have these dreams about practically everyone they met. Well, everyone was a bit of a stretch, but he had even had a dream about him and Haru, and once he'd had a dream about that guy who foamed at the mouth every time he saw "The Avatar". The dreams were completely disturbing, humiliating, and unnerving to say the least.

Sokka shivered as he washed and willed himself not to get the flu again. He wondered if his illness before had actually been linked to one of these late night cleanup incidents in what had been one of the coldest rivers they had camped near. As a form of distraction, the freezing teen thought back to what his dad told him, before he left for war, about these types of "accidents" being a common thing for teenaged boys and not to worry about them if they came up. The adolescent hadn't really understood what his father meant at the time, but he felt very grateful for their talk as he aged a bit and this eventually did become a problem.

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Iroh watched as his nephew clinched his fists at his sides and paced the room like a caged lion-tiger, "Zuko, you need to try and relax. You should spend some guy time by yourself to relieve… tension."

"I don't need to relieve tension, Uncle. I need to find the Avatar."

The wise old firebender let out a breath, "Maybe what you could use is a date. You do know that most boys your age…"

"I don't have time for crazy girls, uncle! I need to focus on regaining my honor," Zuko couldn't believe his uncle would even suggest such a waste of time. They were so busy looking for the Avatar that Zuko hadn't even noticed any girls. The uneasy prince did notice when his uncle wasted time hitting on the agitating bounty hunter girl, but he simply didn't understand what purpose such a poor use of his time would serve.

"Zuko, sometimes a man must take time to rest and explore…" his uncle began.

"I can rest after I capture the Avatar," Zuko continued to pace, now even more upset.

Iroh just sighed once more. Perhaps Zuko was just a late bloomer. He had been worried that a birds and hornet-bees talk was long overdue, but the prince's behavior told him otherwise. A small part of him wondered if his nephew even liked girls.

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Sokka finished with his bathing and quickly got out of the cold water as he trembled. He tugged on his wet tunic for the time being and picked up his sheets and blankets to go wash them next. The chilled teen hoped they would dry by morning and he could just use Appa for warmth until then, since Aang and Katara sent his extra sleeping supplies down the river with their stupid bending practice.

That's when 'that' feeling hit the hormonal Water Tribe teen and he let out a frustrated sigh. There was no point in washing anything else if he didn't take care of this problem first or the whole thing would just happen all over again. He quickly looked to the left and right, not that he suspected anyone was around since he had already been doing something quite private, but the paranoid guy wanted to just make sure.

Once he was good and certain the coast was clear the half nude teen made his way over to a nearby bush that looked promising and tossed his bedding inside. He peeled his tunic back off after he checked around again and climbed into the bundle in the bush. The freezing tribal teen had no qualms about doing this in the safe hidden warmth of his blankets since he was going to have to wash them anyway.

This wasn't that bad, Sokka thought to himself. Truth be told, the warrior had this happen in much worse places with much poorer timing. One of the most memorable times for the awkward teen happened after he was in the spirit world for an entire day with Aang's bear spirit buddy. The confused guy couldn't remember what happened to himself while he was in the spirit world, but when he looked down after arriving out of the crazed place he found a big… problem in his pants. The skilled strategist was lucky he was good at thinking on his feet as he covered his pant's tent pole with his hands, claimed he needed to use the bathroom, and ran off.

Once the chilled warrior was good and secure in his new temporary hiding place the time for musing was over. He bit his lip and looked down at his swollen erection as he rubbed his hands together to warm them with friction. As soon as he was content he wouldn't freeze one of his favorite, though most frustrating, body parts off, the wolf-tailed boy slowly wrapped his fingers around his throbbing penis. A soft moaned squeak escaped the aroused guy's lips and his eyes rolled back into his head as he gradually began to rub. A very uncontrollable and perverse spot in the Water Tribe warrior's brain wondered what the subject of his latest dream was doing right now. His best guesses were sleeping or tracking Aang down at this very moment, but his twisted thoughts kept making up other stories involving the prince mimicking his own little interlude.

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Sokka's best guesses were far closer to the truth about Zuko than he could realize. The angsty obsessive prince was, in fact, stalking towards his bed chamber as he ran over the newest coordinates the Avatar was spotted in. He figured that maybe his uncle was right. Maybe this would be a good time to catch up on a little sleep before they once again caught up to the Avatar. Of course, Zuko hadn't realized what his uncle had actually been trying to get at. The tense warrior mistook the word 'rest' for simply meaning sleep, and he just frustratedly disrobed and threw his clothes all about the place; he knew the servants would clean them up for him when they got him dressed in the morning. Once he was just in his pants Zuko climbed into the bed. Had he been in the palace, servants would be in to bring and dress him in clean silk sleeping robes, but Zuko found going through so much to be troublesome when they would just have to redress him in the morning anyway. As a result the prince refused to tell the servants when he was ready for bed, and they knew not to disturb him if his door was closed unless they had found the Avatar.

Zuko just lay in his bed and stared at the fine silk Fire Nation banner as he told himself again and again that he would find the Avatar, capture him, and restore his own honor as well as his right to the throne. Really, all the prince cared about, all the prince could see in his mind was the ashamed turned back of his own father who had even refused to see him off to make sure he had survived. He wasn't even sure if his father would recognize him now. Zuko wondered how his uncle could expect him to chase after girls when he couldn't even gain the caring or approval of his own father. The anguished warrior forced his eyes shut tight and willed himself to sleep. He hated being in bed and trying to rest. When he was alone in his room all the banished prince could think about were all his failures. He would often stalk about the ship for multiple days and train without sleep so that by the time he went to his room he fell right to sleep from exhaustion.

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The Water Tribe teen tried hard not to think of the strong warrior prince and his dream as he rubbed himself, but every time he pushed Zuko's face out of his thoughts Jet's face would replace it. Sokka was pretty sure he must be sick in the head as he finally just gave in to thinking about Jet above thinking of Zuko and began to mimic the techniques the insane forest dweller used on him. He had gotten used to touching himself from both sides very gradually from time to time now as he usually used cum as an added lubrication, and although he often willed himself not to, he would sporadically give in to temptation.

The hidden guy's thoughts went wild as he pictured the insane dark skinned rogue's touches, and the things he'd done to gain reactions from the young warrior's body. Sokka's voice came out in frantic squeaks, moans, and pants as his movements quickened in pace and his teeth bit at his lip. Finally, the teen saw a moment of white as pleasure wracked its way through his body and cum shot out to splatter him and the blankets. The spent teen just lay back in the bush and panted as his heart thumped in his chest. He lazily brought a hand up to wipe at his sweat beaded brow and licked the sweat beads from his upper lip as he tried to regain his will to get up and finish cleaning. The idle warrior mused about how surprisingly comfortable the bush was and how cold the world outside of his bedding was as he finally reluctantly forced himself to crawl out before he started thinking about just what he'd been thinking about and how screwed up it was.

The repressed guy was beginning to figure that maybe Katara was right about him needing to just kiss a girl, or maybe he needed a girlfriend. A girlfriend would give him someone… appropriate to focus his alone time mental attentions on. A girlfriend would be cute and sweet and… Suki… he wished he had more time with that Kyoshi girl. He wondered if she actually liked him as he reminded himself that he had told himself he would think of her the next time he did this which just hadn't happened once again. As a result of that thought the foiled schemer smacked himself in the forehead with his wrist like he often did when he was bothered. Fortunately on normal days he didn't usually have semen all over the hand he used to smack himself with.

Sokka made a semi loud "Argh!" as he realized his foolish mistake and made his way back to the water with his blankets in tow to wash up once again. The half frozen teen left his blankets on the bank and jumped into the freezing water as he wished he would have taken care of all of this before his last icy bath.

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Zuko couldn't sleep. He felt stiff and sore all over as he turned his head away from his nation's banner to glare at his dueling swords. A little voice in the prince's head told him there would be a major price to pay for his past activity as The Blue Spirit, but he shook it off. The worrisome prince told himself that no one had seen him aside from the Avatar; and who would he tell? There was no chance or reason for the Avatar to tell anyone in the fire nation what he'd done, and even if he did, who in the fire nation would trust the words of the Avatar?

The restless prince was suddenly disturbed as a member of his ship pounded on the door.

"This had better be about the Avatar!" Zuko spat out.

"S-Sir, Admiral Zhao is here to see you."

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Katara awoke from a frightful dream about Aang and Sokka being kidnapped by the Fire Nation to find her brother (along with his bedding) disturbingly missing. At first glance the motherly Water Tribe girl was terrified. She almost woke up Aang, but after she thought about the situation she realized that no fire nation troops would kidnap only her brother and leave the Avatar. Plus, why would they bother to kidnap her brother's bedding as well? No, something else was going on, and she became determined to get to the bottom of it.

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As the Water Tribe teen became clean he reached out of the water to grab his disgusting bedding. He frowned at the mess. This was going to take quite a while to get out, the chilled boy imagined, especially with the Earth Kingdom soaps. He missed the blubber soaps he and his Gran-Gran would make back home. They were much more effective for such things, but Aang used the last of Sokka's soap to give Appa a bath.

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The furious prince jumped up out of bed swiftly and grabbed his robe which he tied shut as he made his way to the door. What could Zhao want at this hour? He probably just stopped by at the most inconvenient time to further show what a big jerk he was. As the prince flung open the door, he didn't get the chance to go down the hall to greet his rival, because there the arrogant recently promoted admiral was.

Zuko half recoil flinched as Zhao brought up a hand to shove him into the room.

"Good evening prince. I hope I didn't wake you. Your men say that you wander the ship at all hours so I was certain this would be a fine time to stop by," Zhao's voice was beyond smug as he looked the shocked prince up and down and let his hand linger on Zuko's chest a moment too long.

Zuko's eyes narrowed to golden slits and he shoved his face into the admiral's to answer his intimidation tactics with intimidation of his own.

"What the hell do you want?!"

This reaction only fueled the admiral's smug smile as he reached back to shut the door behind them. He then made his way to the dueling swords crossed on the prince's wall so that he could pointedly gaze upon them.

The proud prince refused to let himself be intimidated for even a moment.

"I said tell me what you…"

Zhao whipped around without warning and wrapped an arm around the prince's midsection to tug him close and gawk conceitedly into his eyes as it was now his turn to invade the other man's territory.

"I want your loyalty."

The well trained but somewhat socially clueless prince grasped to figure out why Zhao was now holding him so close. He could only guess the admiral was still trying to be menacing. Zuko wasn't about to be outdone by his rival so he forced himself even closer to Zhao as he brought a hand up to fist at the man's tunic in front of his chest and slightly lift him. He was now so close he was almost touching noses with Zhao.

"Get off of my ship!" the prince daringly spat out at his most loathsome enemy.

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As Katara approached the water she could hear her brother's familiar voice muttering something to himself about "crappy Earth Kingdom soaps" and the sounds of something being scrubbed. As she moved closer she could see him leaning over the water in a soaking wet tunic so he could scrub at what appeared to be his blankets. As the waterbender rustled around, her brother's head shot up and his big blue eyes seemed to grow three sizes.

"K-Katara, what are you?!"

"Sokka, don't you 'Katara' me! You shouldn't be out here in the middle of the night in the cold water in wet clothes! I know you probably think wetting the bed at your age is embarrassing, but that's no excuse to be out here soaking wet in the middle of the night when we just recently got over being sick!" the waterbender punctuated her words with a shake of her finger. When the motherly girl finished talking she quickly bended all of the frigid water out of the warrior's tunic he was wearing along with his hanging clothes.

"Katara, this isn't what it looks like," Sokka protested.

The worried girl sighed, "Sokka, it doesn't matter what it is. I'm worried about you making yourself sick."

The protective sister shook her head as she continued to worry about her brother. She didn't know he'd still been wetting the bed. It wasn't something that her big brother had even started to do until they found her mother after the fire nation attack. She never ever made fun of Sokka for it, not even once, because she knew the cause, but she hadn't known it was still a problem. To Katara's knowledge Sokka's last time wetting the bed was a few weeks after their dad left for war. She wondered why he was doing it now. Was her brother that worried when he found her tied to a tree? Her eyes began to water as she thought of her poor brother always glossing over everything that upset him with sarcastic complaints and bad jokes.

"Katara, stop looking at me like that! I-It's really not what you think!" Sokka briefly wondered if it was more humiliating to let his sister go on thinking he'd wet the bed at his age or if explaining about being a teenage boy would be worse, but he hated the look he was seeing in her eyes.

Katara looked down and shook her head, "It doesn't matter, Sokka. Don't worry, I won't say anything to Aan…"

"Katara, I didn't pee the bed!"

"Sokka, stop yelling. You're going to wake up Aang, and you know how hard he is to get back to sleep."

"Katara, stop rationalizing and listen to me. I didn't pee in my bed."

"Then what are you doing out here soaking wet in the middle of the night washing your blankets? Sokka, it's ok. It's not a big deal."

"It is a big deal, Katara."

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Zhao sneered wickedly and leaned in without warning as he brought a hand up to gently cup at the prince's balls, which he seemed to have a lot of.

Zuko recoiled and delivered a fiery punch to Zhao's gut as the admiral's lips barely brushed his. How dare the general touch him in such a way?! The sheltered prince hadn't even suspected for a moment that such a thing could be Zhao's intent.

"How dare you attempt to defile royalty! Wait until my father hears about this!"

Zhao retreated back a bit as he gasped for air and struggled to keep composure. The prince's blow had been hard and very hot. He could feel slight burns forming under his armor.

"Ha! Your father won't even see you, banished prince, and I will see too it that he never talks to you again when I capture the Avatar. Then the both of you shall be mine! The Avatar will bring me prestige, and you will bring me something much more amusing," Zhao's smug smirk was already back in place as he spoke.

The furious prince wasn't completely sure what Zhao was talking about, and he wasn't sure he entirely wanted to know. The essential thing was that he caught the part about Zhao capturing the Avatar. Zhao couldn't capture the Avatar. The Avatar was Zuko's to capture, not some aspiring general or admiral's! How dare Zhao try and capture the Avatar!

The admiral took a step closer to the prince as he got his wind back.

"You are in no position to go making any sort of threats considering what a traitor you are to the fire nation."

"I am no traitor," Zuko spat out.

"Oh?" Zhao mock questioned. "Because from where I'm standing the Blue Spirit is a huge traitor who kidnapped the Avatar from the Fire Nation."

Zuko's eyes visibly widened as his pupils dilated in complete realization. There was no chance now that Zhao didn't know it was him.

"Wh-What does that have to do with me?" the prince demanded as he tried hard to keep what little ounce of composure he had left.

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"I haven't wet the bed since I was nine, Katara."

"But Sokka, what about that time when you were thirteen?"

The shaken warrior sharply inhaled a breath, "Katara, remember when dad and Gran-Gran talked to us about growing up and what that meant about us… changing?"

"Ewww Sokka!" Katara wrinkled her nose at her brother's suddenly distasteful change of subject.

"No, Katara, I'm serious. Eh… I remember dad and Gran-Gran took us to separate places and talked to us. He told me a little bit about what he told you so I'm guessing she might have told you about what he talked to me about." Sokka's head now resembled a tomato-plum it was so red. He really didn't want to talk about something like this with his sister of all people. It was hard enough trying to work through these things on his own.

"Sokka, where are you going with this?"

"…I didn't pee my bed, Katara. I didn't pee my bed when I was thirteen either… I… I had a …dream." The young warrior let out a sigh and tugged his bedding out of the lake to hang over a tree. This was a good excuse not to look his sister in the face as he spoke.

The waterbender's eyelids slid wide open as realization seemed to finally dawn on her, and a blush tinted her cheeks. She began to realize how completely humiliating this must be for her brother, and she suddenly felt even worse than she had when she thought that she'd caught him peeing his bed. The motherly girl knew if Sokka caught her washing out one of her 'womanly problems' she would just die; not that Katara had any of those sorts of problems yet, but she lived in fear of the day such a thing would become an issue, and she suspected it could be any day now.

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"Don't be coy with me prince. I know all about your secret activities as The Blue Spirit," Zhao decided to play his trump card.

"How dare you accuse me! Get off of my ship right now!" The prince's face was crimson with anger and humiliation at Zhao's earlier boldness. He had never been treated in such a way by anyone during the course of his short life, and he was still questioning exactly what type of threat the admiral attempted to deliver with such brazen crude actions. It wasn't like anyone in the Fire Nation to touch each other in any way shape or form that he'd seen unless it was his uncle trying to calm him or someone trying to post a threat.

Zhao all but laughed, "Cocky little prince, do you really think you're going to get away with your treasonous actions?!" He took another step closer to Zuko and grabbed for his shoulder.

Zuko shifted backwards away from Zhao's attempted grasp and almost fell back on the bed. He took a deep breath and reminded himself to keep a strong stance like his uncle had taught him. He would not let himself be taken down by the self indulgent admiral. There had to be a way out of this mess.

Zhao smirked and shoved at the prince's chest in attempt to shove him on to the bed, but the tenacious warrior would not budge. He shoved the admiral right back and a lot harder.

"Perhaps you are so old you can no longer hear well. I said to get the hell off of my ship right now!"

The admiral's smile only brightened at the feisty prince's insults. He reached up without warning and wrapped his fingers around the prince's ponytail. The amused older man tugged hard as he kicked at the prince's now disrupted stance while the angry teen struggled to get his hair free.

Zuko tumbled back on the bed as Zhao held tight to his ponytail and landed heavily atop him. He had no idea what the hell the admiral was thinking with this move, but he was more than indignant at the violation of his long hair that was a symbol of his royal heritage. Just as he was about to shout further protests and strike back at his attacker his uncle opened the door and pulled Zhao off of him.

All Iroh knew was he had been trying to sleep peacefully when he heard the shouting in the next room. He had no idea Zhao was on board until he opened the door. The old ex-general had suspected that the admiral had eyes for his nephew, but he never mentioned it and hoped the issue would never arise. That is why he was so horrified and shocked to open the door to his nephew pinned to the bed with Zhao atop him in a very compromising position. The prince's uncle tugged him off immediately.

"What are you doing, Zhao?"

Zhao struggled in Iroh's grasp and made his way to the door.

"Watch your back, traitorous prince."

Zuko just looked up at his uncle with raised eyebrows from his position laying back shirtless with his legs apart on the bed.

"I think he's trying to start another fight with me. I'll beat him again if I have to."

Iroh sighed, worried by the naivety of his nephew, "Prince Zuko, I'm not sure it's a fight that Zhao wants…"

Zuko shrugged, "Whatever he wants, he's not going to get it… especially not the Avatar."

The exhausted general just gave another sigh and headed back to bed. Perhaps he could try to talk to his nephew about this in the morning, although he wouldn't get the chance as Zhao would be back to claim their men which would ruin any decent time to bring the incident or any further chat on a related subject up.

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Katara bended the water from her brother's bedding as she looked away in shame.

"…We'll get you some extra bedding at our next stop so you don't get a cold again. Just take better care of yourself." With that she turned and made her way back to the camp as she tried hard not to think about their conversation and felt guilty for putting her brother through such humiliation. She would not go looking for him in the middle of the night if his bedroll was missing again, and she hoped he would do the same for her if the time ever came.

Sokka let out a deep sigh of relief as his sister seemed to understand and just let the whole thing go. He doubted he'd ever feel turned on again after talking with his sister about such a thing and for that he couldn't help but feel a little grateful.

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TBC…

By the way, I have some fanart of some of the pairings in this fic on my deviant art account: .com if anyone wants to take a look. I will probably post more some time soon.

plude