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Zhao’s life is essentially over. The big, prestigious job is gone, and while Ozai has been so gracious not to call the authorities regarding all the money that has disappeared from his department’s budget over the years, he has spread just enough of this scandal amongst industry leaders to ensure Zhao never has a chance of earning a six-figure salary again. Companies get a whiff of what he’s been let go for (really, taken the fall for - it’s not like he acted alone), and his resume gets treated like it’s inked in baby blood.
It’s not fair. Twenty-five years of loyalty, and this is how he’s repaid? It’s not like he hasn’t shredded countless documents on Ozai’s behalf. He thought they were a team . Now he’s been set adrift for the crime of being too devoted to his job. (And also, he guesses, embezzlement.) If Ozai’s going to be so callous, then fine - Zhao won’t warn him about the fact that his precious little princess has been gathering up board members in preparation for a full-on coup. Let him get blindsided by Azula’s takeover. Then he’ll know how it feels.
Since Zhao’s financial strategy has never been more complicated than “make as much money as possible,” he finds himself missing payments on - well - everything, so in addition to losing the job, he no longer has either of his luxury cars, or the collection of priceless Fire Nation army memorabilia, or the twenty-something Water Tribe boyfriend. That last one hurts the most; even though they weren’t particularly in love (he’s ninety-percent sure Hahn had taken to calling him “daddy” to disguise the fact he couldn’t remember his name), there’s just something so much more fucked up about the fact he has to face the worst period of his life black-balled and blue-balled. Sadly their entire “relationship” had been held together by Zhao buying Hahn things, so without the constant bribery, Hahn is no longer terribly interested in lounging around his house in various states of undress.
He didn’t say that was why he was leaving, of course; it was all, “You’re so full of negative energy, lately, and I just feel like I can’t have that toxicity in my life right now.” To which Zhao responded with a barely concealed rage that he had a right to be negative when he’d lost literally everything, to which Hahn said to stop yelling at him, and Zhao yelled that he wasn’t yelling, and it had all devolved into Hahn slamming a door in his face one last time.
To be truthful, Zhao doesn’t know where to go from here. He’s too over-qualified and too proud to apply for anything below vice president; even a title like “Regional Manager” makes his lip curl from the sheer poverty of it. He hasn’t lost the house, yet, but it’s disturbingly empty, just white walls covered in the hooks of hastily under-sold and repossessed art pieces he’d purchased less for aesthetic and more for the boastable price tags. He considers making a living in blackmail; he has enough dirt on the working force of Agni Kai to fuel him for life, so long as the company doesn’t go bankrupt in the next six months.
While Zhao was the first body flung overboard, Agni Kai is a quickly sinking ship. He’s not even sure if his gossip is totally up-to-date at this point - would anyone care that Ukano has been writing off bonuses for all his closest friends as “necessary operating costs” for years? Is Qin even still fucking that woman in Accounting, totally unbeknownst to his wife? If Zhao is going to live on extortion, he’s going to need a bigger fish. Particularly because he needs to feed his fish. That’s the thing about money poured into major renovations like a one thousand gallon koi pond - they can’t really be repossessed. What, were men just supposed to come here with shovels and dig his backyard up? Zhao finds himself outside most days, glaring furiously into the water, wishing he’d been able to keep the cars instead. The sheer cost of the koi’s food is enough to make him consider just letting them starve to death, but a part of him thinks it’d be more satisfying to kill them with his bare hands. He mostly resists this urge, knowing that if he gives in he might hurtle into a full-on mental breakdown, but every once in a while the koi surface in the water just to stare back at him, and he swears the looks on their faces are smug.
Anyway. Unemployed and newly single, Zhao’s been spending the majority of his time on the internet, dejectedly watching porn. At first he was worried he was going to learn some unsavory new things about his kinks, maybe beat himself numb, but the experience so far has been one of a vaguely horny boredom. He can’t really stay hard long enough to get off - something about earth-shattering despair isn’t great for the libido. Most days he finds himself scrolling porn sites the way he would social media, with a detached, barely-conscious acknowledgement of each debauched entry before he goes hopping to the next. When he closes his eyes at night, he just sees a blur of video thumbnails promising deepthroats and creampies and bukkakes, the rehearsed smiles of every twink who stars in them starting to look more like strained grimaces.
He even starts reading the comments on videos. That , more than anything, is how he knows he’s hit rock bottom.
thinkofausername1223: sexey… the best
6969holes: show h ole plz im begging and crying
xxxxfnatastix: This video is REPOSTED WITHOUT PERMISSION and i have reported it!! as long as sites like these steal content from cam workers you are PROFTING off unpaid labor!!!
Zhao rolls his eyes. Has anyone informed this person of the lawlessness of the internet? Especially porn? He skims the thread immediately beneath it, snorting to himself at the long line of comments expressing agreement.
horndoggggggg8: omg shut up
xinfu1992: who care
firenation4eva: sjw alert!
0jeewhiz: Ok but have you guys ever paid for a camboy…… literally you would not be bitching about fantastix’s comment if you had experienced that shit. it is LIFE CHANGEING
pill0wpr1nce: yaaas ~appreciate the ppl who make ur porn~!
0jeewhiz: yes!! I have a whole recommendation list!!
0jeewhiz: Let’s start a thread of our favorites and show them a little love (and the insides of our wallets)
It seems a little stupid to post links to paid content when you were just decrying how easily it gets stolen and reposted, but whatever. Zhao skims the list. It’s not overly descriptive, just names and links.
horndoggggggg8: wtffffff blue spirit is ugly as shit
0jeewhiz: Are you fucking insane???? he is SO HOT, literally my favorite camboy of all time
horndoggggggg8: who the hell has half their freaking face burned off and thinks there cut out for a job in porn?
It’s not the novelty of an imperfect cam boy that makes Zhao stop scrolling. There are entire genres of porn devoted to the fetishization of disfigurement and disability, which isn’t really his cup of tea, but that’s also not what’s bothering him about it.
Ozai’s betrayal is already on his mind 24/7, so it isn’t a very long leap to get to his children. With a lurch, Zhao thinks about how much time he used to spend at Ozai’s near-palatial estate in Caldera. Sure, they’d spent half of it on their phones, screaming orders over bluetooth headsets, but the other half they’d actually enjoyed each other’s company. That was back when Ozai’s kids still lived with him. Zhao had known Azula before she graduated college and made her “unprecedented” (read: nepotistic) rise to CFO at the age of 23. Even as a teenager she had a piercing gaze and a talent for identifying a person’s weaknesses with a single glance.
But Azula wasn’t Ozai’s only child. There’d also been Zuko, the exact opposite of his sister in every conceivable way. Where Azula was an honors student with dozens of accolades, Zuko was barely scraping by. Where she was always immaculately coiffed and made up, he wore the same ratty black sweatshirt every day with the hood up to hide his rarely-washed hair. Where she stood with the confidence of a young woman who knew she was interesting and gorgeous and the natural center of anyone’s attention, he was a miserable pile of insecurities, slouching and stomping from room to room like the possibility he’d catch someone’s attention could kill him on the spot. He’d also had a hair-trigger temper; Zhao remembers him being obscenely fun to tease, easy to set off with even the smallest of comments. Looking back, it’s weird how much he was allowed to bully a kid that wasn’t even his, but Ozai never seemed to mind. If anything, he enabled it, laughing along with Zhao.
The reason Zhao is thinking about Zuko is because half his face was marred by a vicious, twisting burn scar. So really, the kid had every right to be as insecure as he was. Zhao can’t recollect the origin of the scar; he thinks he remembers Ozai muttering something about a house fire, which may have also claimed the life of his late wife. (As a rule, they didn’t talk about their personal lives, which is probably what had allowed them to be friends in the first place. Zhao wasn’t the most sympathetic person to confide in, having little patience for sob stories, whereas Ozai wasn’t exactly a star ally of the LGBT community, and probably would have had a meltdown if Zhao had ever let on about his string of way-too-young boyfriends.)
Back in the present, Zhao knows it’s stupid to assume he knows who these strangers on Pornhub are talking about. In the entire world wide web, there has to be someone else with a burn scar like that. But his curiosity gets the best of him, so he clicks the link.
The first thing that loads is a photo of a young man in lingerie. The image is cropped so Zhao can’t see the face, and the hips are coyly twisted away from the camera, thighs squeezed together to tease the bulge pressing up against the red lace panties. The lighting is too shitty to make out much, but that seems to be deliberate. Below the image is a short description: From Friday’s stream :) You can see more of me in these (and out of these) at my onlyfans!
Crossdressing has never really been Zhao’s thing, but the next photo makes his throat tighten: it’s the same person laid out on his back in a pair of tight boxers, his legs pulled back, the camera angle simulating the experience of having him stretched out right underneath you. This time it’s easier to make out the definition in his stomach, which is surprisingly toned for how lean he is. His thighs in particular are fucking perfect , exactly to Zhao’s liking, and he can’t help but imagine hooking his hands under those knees and squeezing them in a bruising grip. Still no face, but the camera is low enough to catch a lip worried between teeth. Is that chin familiar? He can’t really tell.
The site is littered with looping animations (er, “GIFs?” Hahn would know what they’re called). There’s a few of this kid palming himself through his underwear, leaving the tiniest wet mark on the fabric, and a few of him slipping a finger or two into his mouth to suck - Zhao sees the hint of a scar, but he still can’t tell if he’s got the right person. It seems like the racier stuff is hidden behind a paywall, so this site and all its photos serve to entice visitors into becoming paying clientele.
Finally, there’s a picture of the kid’s face. A head of long, black hair falls seductively over his shoulders as he looks at the viewer, his good eye framed by thick lashes. His lips are stretched over a red ball gag, and there is a leather collar strapped around his delicate throat. Zhao recognizes Zuko not just by the scar, but because he bears a striking resemblance to a young Ozai. Zhao can’t decide if the idea of Ozai in a sexual context is erotic or disturbing - he won’t pretend he hasn’t entertained the thought at least once in their long and storied friendship, but he’s heard enough of Ozai’s homophobic tirades to be turned off by the thought.
Speaking of which. Wouldn’t this just be the perfect blackmail material? Conservative Ozai, obsessed with self-image, has a son who touches himself to the delight of strange men on the internet. Even if Agni Kai goes under, Ozai has a trust fund and dozens of offshore accounts to make the loss negligible. If Zhao plays this out right, this material could keep him fed for years .
Zhao refreshes the page, and now there’s a new post at the top of the site. Instead of a photo of Zuko’s body in some sultry pose, there’s an assortment of objects laid over a dark blue bedspread: a bottle of lube, some kind of looped cord, and a dildo the size of Zhao’s forearm.
Stream starts at 9:30! See you there :) Then a link. Zhao glances at the time in the upper-right of his laptop. That’s thirty minutes from now. Dare he check it out?
...Well. He can’t comfortably blackmail Ozai with this unless he gets the full picture of what’s going on, right?
He clicks the link and discovers that he can’t watch the stream without an account, and that he can’t make an account without a credit card number. He battles with himself for a long time before he decides that this opportunity is too good to pass up, and it’ll just be the one time , besides. As he’s plugging his information in, he’s being presented with all these explanations about - tokens? It seems like the site has some sort of virtual stripclub system, where viewers drop tips in the form of tokens throughout the stream as a reward for different acts. So Zhao won’t just be a silent observer; there’s at least some back and forth required.
He almost doesn’t click that last “submit payment” button. Then he remembers an incident at Caldera, the lot of them relaxing by the pool. There’d been a petty argument that culminated in Zhao throwing a fully-clothed Zuko into the deep end, to Azula and Ozai’s utter delight. He can still remember the fury on Zuko’s face as he crashed to the surface, soaking wet and sputtering with impotent rage. He’s pretty sure he water-logged the kid’s iPod nano.
Reparations , Zhao thinks, before adding a few hundred dollars worth of tokens to his account. Then he lays back on the couch, his laptop on his chest, and he waits.
At 9:30 exactly Zuko appears on the screen, still clothed, and greets them with an easy smile. He looks more relaxed than Zhao’s ever seen him, like he’s about to have a normal Facetime conversation, not perform lewd acts on camera. He’s kneeling on his bed, a starry-patterned tapestry hung on the wall behind him. (Ah, the tapestry - preferred decoration of college students and recent grads with neither taste nor money to spare for anything else. Zhao is certain Hahn had a similar one in his apartment.)
“Happy Friday, everyone,” Zuko says. “I’m going to wait for a few more people to enter the chat to really get going. In the meantime, let’s get comfortable.”
Free of the prison of adolescence, Zuko’s voice doesn’t break as it would when Zhao teased him into an angry frenzy all those years ago; instead, every word passes over his lips in a throaty rasp, almost seductive in quality.
“I see we have some new names with us today,” says Zuko, startling Zhao as he reads out his username. “Welcome, BigFish47! I hope I can make this a memorable experience for you.”
Zuko starts unbuttoning his shirt, eyes low, biting his lip as he goes. There are only a few other guys in the chat off to the right, but Zhao sees they’re already losing their minds, showering Zuko with compliments. Someone writes, “ Your collarbone!! *swoons*. ” Zhao chuckles to himself. Quite the devoted following. He’ll be more impressed when the kid’s actually naked.
As Zuko undresses, he talks to them. “I’ve been waiting all day for this. It was a little hard to concentrate at my dayjob because I kept thinking about all the things I wanted to do for you all later.” A coy little toss of the head. “I have to admit, I got a little too excited, thinking about it. But you really deserve the best, so I decided I’d need a little extra help forcing myself to be patient for you.”
The shirt is off, revealing the lean, muscular chest. His body seems to arch almost imperceptibly to show it off as while reaches down to unbuckle his jeans. As he slips them off his waist, he says, voice breathy and low, “I’ve been dying to show this to you guys.”
Based on the sheer number of images on his blog where he was teasing himself through his underwear, Zhao was expecting Zuko to do just that, really make a show of that last article of clothing before taking it off. But he either isn’t wearing any underwear, or removes them in one fell swoop with his jeans, because now Zuko is kneeling on the bed in front of the camera, completely naked. Zuko takes his cock in hand, smile almost bashful as he lifts it to show them what he’s talking about.
There’s a thin black cord fastened around the base of the shaft, another loop constricting his testicles. Zuko’s knees slide apart to better display the set of cock ropes, no doubt set just tight enough to stave off his orgasm. He’s already so, so hard. Zhao’s mouth falls open at the sight.
“Do you like it?” Zuko asks. “I was so excited to get this. I know one of you bought it off my wishlist for me, so I thought you should get to see me in it as soon as possible.”
The responsible party outs himself in the chat with a series of lewd capslock exclamations. Zuko’s eyes scan the screen, then he laughs and blushes as if what this stranger is saying to him is your run-of-the-mill flattery. The sound is genuine and affectionate.
“I don’t want to come too soon - not until you let me.” Zuko’s smile goes cheeky. “We could make it into a contest. Whoever tips the highest in the next two minutes gets to decide when I’m allowed to come.”
There is an immediate flurry of token notifications in the chat. Zhao drops a few, then balks at the competition; some of these men are already spending obscene amounts of money. As they wait for the two minutes to pass, Zuko talks idly about his day, slowly raking his nails up and down his thighs. His hips shift, embodying his anticipation as his hands get closer and closer to his groin, before skating away again. At the end of the two minutes, he joyfully announces that “0jeewhiz” - who Zhao recognizes from the comments section of Pornhub, earlier - will be awarded full control of Zuko’s orgasm.
A spark of recognition lights in Zuko’s eyes. “Oh, I have one more thing to show you.” He turns with his back to the camera and squats, spreading his cheeks with both hands to reveal the base of a plug. “I’ve had this in all day - the weight feels so good, I can tell I’m going to be nice and loose for you…”
Before Zhao can even lift a finger, someone else in the chat has issued the command on the tip of his tongue: Tease yourself with it.
When Zuko turns back around and sees the message, his gaze goes heady. “Sure, I think we have enough people here with us now that we can really get started.”
Zhao had been worried about encountering the usual monotone porn star moans, but the kid emits a sound that is utterly helpless, like it’s just slipped out of him. “You have no idea how badly I wanted to play with this,” Zuko says, and he turns back around and bends over to do just that. He gets his fingers around the base of the plug and pulls, Zhao watching how his hole hugs the smooth rubber surface, sucking it greedily back inside as he fucks himself slowly with it. The sounds that come out of his mouth are deadly, and Zhao genuinely believes Zuko when he says he’s been on the verge of orgasm all day.
At this point, Zhao’s own erection is struggling against the front of his jeans like a wild animal trapped. He snakes a hand down to unzip his slacks, palming himself through his boxers as he thinks how surreal this whole thing is. He’s having a hard time reconciling the image on his screen with the greasy-haired teenager he used to know. Like, it’s clearly Zuko, but who would’ve thought the kid would grow up to be this... passable? Even with the huge scar, his features are delicately defined - one could even say he’s pretty. Zhao’s shocked by how little the scar is making an impression on him, ignoring it in the larger performance Zuko puts on.
Despite all the blushing and the way he looks at the camera through his lashes with his head lowered, Zhao would say the kid seems a thousand times more confident than when they last saw each other. Then again, his current body language isn’t insecure: it’s coy, a sensual shyness that compliments him greatly. The transformation is uncanny. Maybe all Zuko needed to improve his self esteem was the adoration of disgusting old perverts on the internet.
When Zuko’s satisfied fucking himself with the plug, he pulls it free, then spreads himself on camera so they can see how his hole has swollen from the attention. Zhao rubs himself a little harder at the sight of it clenching and unclenching from the loss.
“I have a few toys we can try today - what would you like to see me use?” Then, when the chat goes wild, “Hold on, guys - I can make a poll.”
He clicks a few buttons and said poll appears in the chat. In the meantime, he lays the options out on his bed for them to see: a purple prostate vibrator (why is that the default sex toy color?), a glass dildo of moderate size, and the enormous flesh-toned dildo from the picture, earlier. It’s lined with hyper-realistic veins in a way that is simultaneously very hot and very unsettling. Can he even fit that thing inside himself?
The chat seems determined to find out. The glass dildo puts up a valiant fight, but when the poll closes, the behemoth wins out. Zuko laughs and says, “Guess I should’ve known when I teased this one earlier that it’d win. Since it’s only a few votes off, I’ll tell you what - I need to prep myself a little more, so I’ll use the glass one first, just for a few. Then we’ll get onto the main course.”
He raises the glass dildo to his face. “Of course, I can’t just take this thing dry,” he says, before licking a stripe up the side. Zhao watches with fascination as Zuko fellates the toy, tongue swirling over the tip as if teasing the sensitive head of a flesh-and-blood cock. When he’s gotten the toy properly slick with saliva, he bends over on his knees at an angle, looking over his shoulder at the camera so they can see the good half of his face as he presses the toy inside. Already stretched from the plug, the dildo slides into his hole easily.
“I always feel so self-conscious with the glass ones because you can practically see inside me, but I guess that’s the point,” Zuko rasps. Despite his words, he eagerly rocks back onto the smooth glass surface, mouth falling open in a moan. With a muffled noise of frustration, Zhao holds his hands on his lap, away from his cock - he needs a quick pause from touching himself, or else he might blow too soon. He wants to see where this is going.
“Do you feel like you’re fucking me from behind?” Zuko asks, voice breathy. “I love doggy - I always feel like I - ah - I always feel like I’m being claimed, just mounted and taken-” He bites his lip to stifle a moan as he rubs the toy deep, a circular little motion that has Zhao wondering if he’s found his prostate yet. “There’s just something about being on your hands and knees, a firm hand tangled in your hair - aah - I love that domination. I’d submit if just about anybody did that to me.”
The filth that keeps coming out of this kid’s mouth is unbelievable - who taught him to talk like that? Zuko moves his hips in time with the thrusts of the toy, and god, his ass is perfect, shaking with every movement. It’s toned like the rest of him, but looks just plush enough that Zhao wants to grab it as he drives into that tight heat. He’s been mostly quiet in the chat, dropping tokens when he sees something he likes, but he can’t hold back on the urge that drives him to type the next words.
Call me daddy
(Okay, so he really misses Hahn. Sue him.)
It’s a minute or two before Zuko reads the chat, too busy teasing himself with the glass toy to take a look. When he finally does, his expression goes hard - there’s a flash of that familiar temper, gold eyes flaring, mouth set in a line and his body rigid.
“Read the rules,” Zuko snaps. Zhao frowns at the screen, then notices a tab above the chat. When he opens it, there’s a little profile on it with a list of do’s and don'ts. Most of Zuko’s don'ts are understandable (dirty talk is okay so long as there are no anti-gay slurs, no requests for watersports or scat, no references whatsoever to the scar), but the “no daddy kink” surprises him. Ozai wasn’t exactly father of the year, and Zhao was under the impression that daddy issues naturally spawned daddy kinks, but…Well, he supposes stereotypes aren’t necessarily based on truth.
He types a response in the chat. Sorry. New to this. Won’t happen again.
This is, ironically, the first time he has ever apologized to Zuko, despite torturing the hell out of him as a teenager. It seems to mollify the kid; he starts to ease back into the rhythm of things, and pretty soon it’s like Zhao’s faux pas never even happened.
After a few more minutes of teasing punctuated by little gasps and moans, Zuko pulls the toy free, and spreads his spit-slick and gaping hole for them to see. His face is red as he pants, expression blissful; this is not the look of a person who’s been coerced into a life of sex work, but of someone who has found his calling. Fuck - now Zhao’s really regretting how he neglected his friendship with Ozai over the years. Maybe he’d have gotten first dibs on Zuko when he finally bloomed into the kinky slut currently gracing his screen.
Zuko turns to face the camera and sits back on his heels, giving them a better view of his cock straining desperately against its bindings. He’s still hard, and now there’s a dribble of precum slicking over the tip. Zuko resists the begging of several members of the chat to grind it into the head with his thumb. “Sorry, guys. Jee won the contest earlier. I’m not touching my dick unless he says it’s okay.”
There’s a pause, but then comes the verdict: Zuko is not allowed to touch himself. He scoffs, but rather than genuinely annoyed, the sound is flirtatious. “You’re so cruel ,” Zuko says, with a masochistic glee that makes Zhao furious at himself for not tipping higher earlier. He’s not even sure he would’ve demanded differently, but just knowing it was him calling the shots would’ve made the whole scenario hotter.
Now it’s time for the behemoth. Zuko can’t really fit this one into his mouth to wet it, so he makes a show of squirting lube onto the massive dildo and spreading it with his fist, squirming and biting his lip in anticipation as he goes. Zhao pulls his dick free and idly plays with himself as he watches, somewhat turned on, somewhat alarmed. The toy is fucking huge: Zuko can barely get both hands around it. Zhao will be impressed if he can actually get it inside him.
When the behemoth is glistening with lube, Zuko yanks a few pillows over with wet hands so that he can lean back against them, a faux-missionary experience for the viewer. He spreads his legs, jutting his hips forward so hey can better see his cock bobbing between his legs. “Are you ready?” Zuko asks. “I want this so fucking bad.”
Slowly, carefully, he begins to press the head of the toy against his opening. He lets out a short whine as it breeches the sensitive muscle. “Fuck - it’s so big .”
Awestruck, Zhao watches as Zuko stuffs himself full, asshole stretched to obscene lengths around the sheer girth of the toy. He swears he can see it twitch and spasm as Zuko works the toy inside himself, gasping with the effort of it.
When he’s got it halfway inside him, Zuko stops to preen with triumph, a glimmer of sweat on his brow and a blurry, giddy look in his eyes. Then he gets a firm grip around the shaft and begins to thrust the toy inside himself.
“It’s filling me up so good,” Zuko pants. “You all totally made the right choice. This is - ah - incredible .”
He picks up the pace, thrusting in and out of himself. It takes both hands for him to maintain a steady grip, leaving his cock shamefully untouched between his legs. There’s a litany of frenzied messages in the chat describing what each of these men would like to do to it - lick it, squeeze it, torture it further. Fully aware of the dozens of unseen gazes on his body, Zuko stretches himself out seductively, freely vocalizing his pleasure.
Zhao starts to stroke himself in earnest as it all unfolds, eyes fixed on where the toy continues to disappear inside Zuko. The kid’s thighs are fucking shaking from the effort, and he’s starting to beg.
“I want to come so bad,” Zuko says. “Can I please come? I’ll be so good, please, I feel like I’m going crazy, let me come.”
No, says the chat. Zuko moans in frustration, legs sliding apart even further as he fucks himself. There’s a twist to Zhao’s wrist as he jerks off, trying to match the rhythm of Zuko’s thrusts.
“Please,” Zuko begs, and this time there’s wetness in his eyes. There’s something terribly entrancing about this desperate side of Zuko; he’s flirted with a certain deferential submission for the entirety of the stream, but now he’s positively lost in the pleasure of it all. Or if he’s acting, he deserves a fucking Oscar.
Whoever the hell 0jeewhiz is, he’s a brilliant bastard; he finally relents and says Zuko can come, but he has to thank him for the privilege.
The whine Zuko releases when he sees the request is slutty and desperate - the words rush out of him in a single breath, “Thankyouforlettingmecome,” fingers frantically pulling on the binds of the cock ropes so that they loosen. Zhao expects him to wrap a hand around his newly freed erection and pump himself over the edge, but instead his hands return to the base of the behemoth so he can slam it deeper, fucking himself with a renewed fervor into a prostate orgasm.
When Zuko comes, it is a full-body experience; his toes curl, his back arches, and those pretty golden eyes flutter helplessly shut. With a languid moan, cum spills from the swollen head of his dick and paints his tensing stomach in small white droplets. He stops thrusting, giving himself a moment to catch his breath, body lax except for the occasional twitch as aftershocks of pleasure lap across him like waves.
Eventually he pulls the behemoth free, fingers dropping to idly play with his loose hole. He shivers from the over-stimulation. The chat begs him to scoop some of the sticky mess off his stomach and lick it from his fingers, and he does so with his free hand, smiling lazily all the while. Zhao comes somewhere in the middle of this spectacle, so powerfully that his vision whites out for full second. He hasn’t had an orgasm like that since - well. Since before the cataclysm of miserable events that has befallen him lately.
The stream wraps up, Zuko returning to an impressive sobriety as he reminds them where his paid content lives, his stream schedule, how to organize a private room. This last one sparks Zhao’s interest: a chance to talk to Zuko, alone. He wonders whether he’d come clean about who he is, or just revel in the secrecy of the act. In any case, he’s definitely going to see what this “onlyfans” business is, since Zuko apparently did a little photo shoot with the cock ropes before coming onto the stream today, and his promise of “creative angles” is just too good to pass up.
It’s hours later, sitting at the kitchen island with a meager cup ramen, that Zhao remembers the whole blackmail thing. The prospect exhausts him in an unexpected way. Like, what if Ozai finds out, and instead of paying Zhao to keep quiet, he just forces Zuko to take everything down? Then a bright young man would be left without a regular income, and Zhao just wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if he cut such a successful career short.
(Also, earlier in the night, Zuko posted a poll asking what toys people wanted to see him use next week. The last Zhao looked, it seemed like the leather collar and anal beads were winning. There is no way he is missing that.)
In any case, looking over his bank account, he’s starting to rethink the whole “Regional Manager” thing. It’d be degrading, but it’d also be something to hold him over until he finds his next big break. When you add up the monthly costs, Zuko’s premium content is pretty expensive. He’ll need a source of income.
Four weeks later, Hahn shows up on his doorstep in tears, begging to take him back. It takes some needling, but there is no secret punchline - no hilariously failed attempts to court another sugar daddy laying him low, no unforeseen eviction putting him in need of a place to stay, no rock bottom he’s hit to send him crawling back. Hahn just missed him.
“How do I know you’re serious about this?” Zhao asks, cautious. Zuko’s been keeping him entertained in the meantime, but virtual sex can only do so much.
“I’m super serious!” Hahn flings his arms around Zhao’s shoulders, lips fixed into a sultry pout. “I know I really hurt your feelings with the whole name thing, so I got a tattoo! That way I’ll never forget it ever again.” He brings himself flush against the older man, biting his lip. “It’s kinda like I belong to you now, isn’t it?”
It’s an exceedingly stupid gesture, but Zhao is nonetheless moved. “What, really? Show it to me.”
“Well, I can’t do that out here ,” Hahn teases. “Invite me inside?”
Something about this BigFish47 dude gives Zuko the creeps. He hasn’t broken the rules since that first stream, but Zuko gets the impression that he’s hiding something. Not in the normal way; he’s used to his customers being cagey, most of them married or closeted, but this guy feels different. Their few private sessions have left him feeling unsettled - he swears this guy has remembered details from Zuko’s life that he’s never mentioned on streams, but he also tends to ramble, so maybe he’s just misremembering whether he told that story about getting thrown in the pool by his father’s douchebag friend?
His boyfriend thinks there’s an easy solution. “Block him.”
“But Sokka, he’s a paying customer…”
His boyfriend shrugs. “Your sense of safety is more important than anything. Even if this dude is super vital to your income, we’ll make it work - I just want you to feel safe.”
“Aw, babe. You’d take care of me?” Zuko curls up in Sokka’s lap, planting kisses on the side of his jaw. “It’s a nice thought, but I don’t need you to - he’s a fairly new customer, and I was making rent fine without him.”
Sokka grins, wrapping his arms protectively around Zuko. “Then it’s decided! Block his ass.”
So Zuko does. It’s an immediate weight off his shoulders.
When he sees it, Zhao's resulting scream is loud enough to scare the koi outside, sending them into the deepest recesses of the pond to hide.
“Who the fuck is Chan?! ” he exclaims, pointing at the letters inked onto Hahn’s upper-thigh.
“That’s you!” A confused pause. “Isn’t it?”
Zhao can’t even verbalize his exasperation. Hahn watches him sputter with head cocked, expression vaguely guilty.
“Would it make it up to you if I let you, like, come on my face?”
It does, actually.