summary: aang comes home after a bad council meeting. you help him relieve that stress.
"You're in a bad mood," is what you're planning to say when Aang comes home because he is in a bad mood. It's all over his face—his usual sunny disposition has been replaced with a bone-deep tiredness and frustration. A side of him that only appears when his Avatar duties weigh heavily on his shoulders, reminding him that humans can be relentlessly unreasonable.
You want to comfort him; that's your immediate reaction to whenever Aang's feeling anything other than happy. You want to draw him into your arms and hold your ridiculously large husband until he's at ease once more. In fact, you're about to pull him in from the doorway to do just that but Aang takes you by surprise.
His lips slam onto yours, causing you to squeak as he leads you back into the entryway. You faintly hear the door being kicked shut and feel your back hitting the wall, knocking a bit of air from your lungs. Your mouth opens in a gasp, Aang taking the opportunity to lick into it and trace the rows of your teeth with his tongue. The sensation has you shivering, a whimper sounding from your throat as Aang kisses you hard—unforgiving.
You're panting when Aang frees your mouth and begins a journey down your neck, his teeth nipping at the skin to bring forth bruising marks. His hands grip at your hips, squeezing once before he's lifting up the skirts of your dress. He feels the plush of your thighs, itching up towards where it's warmest and your hips jolt at the brush of his knuckles against your covered clit.
"Aang," you gasp, eyes closing tightly as pleasure carves down your spine. "Aa—oh." Your legs part for his hand, back arching when his large palm cups your cunt that steadily grows slick. "Is, ah, everything okay?"
Aang hums, the vibration a spark against your sensitive skin. "Council meeting went badly," he murmurs, licking a line down your neck. "Stupid council elders think they know better but they don't." The palm he has over your cunt squeezes and you bite your bottom lip to suppress a mewl. "Was so angry that I almost—" He stops himself and takes a deep breath, exhaling slowly. "I need you. Please, let me have you."
The desperation seeps through, pierces through the frustrations that drove him home and into your waiting arms. The frustrations that immediately made him think of you because he's always said you're his calming balm. That you soothe his soul whenever it becomes too chaotic and overwhelmed, to the point that meditation can't help. He wants you, needs you and you're never one to reject your darling husband anything. Especially if it's yourself.
"You can have me," you tell him softly, allowing him to have you openly, wholly. "You always have me."
A deep groan sounds from Aang's chest, his body bent down so his head is on the swell of your breasts. He breathes in deeply, nods once before his hands are coming to your thighs. You yelp when he lifts you up but wrap your legs around his waist, falling into his kiss that makes you breathless.
With his tongue in your mouth, one of his hands push down his trousers and undergarments to free his aching cock. Then he's pushing the thin strip of your underwear to the side to access your dripping cunt, just enough to sink his way into your warmth.
You tremble at the first press of his tip, eyes fluttering when he begins to push in. He stretches you wide, he always does, but you never get used to the feeling. The heavy weight that has your toes curling, cunt pulsing and thighs tensing in a pleasure that's core deep.
Aang pants quietly, hiding in the crook of your neck as he continues to sink in until his hips are flush against the curve of your ass. He's so deep it shakes you, has you whining when he shifts his hips and the large vein on his cock rubs sweetly against that spot. Your vision blurs slightly, chest heaving and you desperately want him to move because he's so deep and it feels so good.
"Ca–can I?" Aang chokes out, the sweet clench of your cunt quickly becoming his undoing. You nod eagerly, your hands cradling the back of his head as Aang shudders.
"You can," You say shakily, desperately. "Please—"
Aang drives into you sharply, the tip of his cock kissing your cervix and you cry out, back arching. He continues to thrust into you, his pace mean as his hips punch moans out of your throat. He fucks you swiftly, harshly, like he's trying to draw something sweet out of you—no, like he's trying to bury himself inside of you and it renders you incapable of higher thought.
Depraved noises echo throughout the entryway, a symphony of filth that would have you ashamed if it didn't feel so good. Aang pushes you further into the wall, his hands grasping your hips to angle them upwards so he can sink in somehow deeper and—
"Oh!" You moan, eyes rolling back because it's like he's in your throat. "It—you're too—ah!"
"Spirits, I know," Aang groans, having leaned back a little so he can take you in. His grey eyes completely dark from his arousal and his gaze soul deep and piercing. It makes you feel wonderfully exposed, all your nerves bared for his addicting touch. "You're perfect, ngh, just what I needed, what I always need—"
It could be called romantic, how that confession is what ends you. What releases the tight coil in your lower stomach and drags your orgasm out with a loud cry that hits. It rips through you, has you pushing against Aang because he doesn't stop fucking you as he knows you love it when it's drawn out. Until you're sobbing, shaking violently in his arms as another crest slams into you mercilessly.
Your end always brings about his, has him pulsing deep within you as he paints your walls white. It shatters him into pieces, his own low cry a tempting sound against your ear that has you milking his cock for everything it has. He shudders against you, his fingers surely leaving bruises on your hips—bruises that you'll trace when they appear tomorrow morning.
Heavy breathing fills the air, both of you pulling in air as pleasure still thrums through your bodies. Aang leans into you, finding his home in your neck as your arms wrap around him weakly, greedily taking in the mere feel of him.
Then softly, you ask:
"Feeling better?"
Aang nods, breathing in deep the scent of you, finally at ease.
Aang glances down at you, the smile fading into a look of concern. He gently cups your face, and you blink your dazed, glazed eyes at him. "Hey." you murmur, smiling up at the monk. He smiled back, nuzzling your nose with his. "There you are. Don't float away from me now-and here I thought I was the last Airbender...if I'd known you were a bender, I'd have taken you gliding much sooner-"
You shoot the Nomad a deadpan look and wiggle out from under him; not forgetting to give him a light shove causing him to fall onto his side giggling like a boy. You glare at him, as the memory comes forth to your mind, unbidden, but it lacks any true malice. It had been a fun adventure, and the view from the top of the world was something you'd never forget. You roll your eyes and snark "oh very funny, fly boy."
Aang takes a deep breath to try and steady his breathing, clutching his stomach with the hand that isn't bracing himself up on the bed, legs folded under the sheets. You raise an eyebrow at his antics. Master of all the elements taken out by spirits forsaken giggles, you think, trying not to laugh with him. But something in the air shifts the minute he raises his head.
That. smug. airhead! You think, gaping at the man who, just moments ago, had been between your thighs, getting you to such a high it left you in a daze...is now looking at you like the crococat that got the cream. Chin slightly raised, stormy gray eyes gleaming with amusement before he closes them with his nose in the air.
Absolutely preening.
"I'm glad you think so-oof!"
You had tackled the Nomad to the bed, and he went smoothly back to the sheets, bracing his upper body up on his forearms. He blinks up at you owlishly, causing you to laugh as well, bracing yourself on his chest and straddling his waist. Getting comfortable.
"Look at my big bad Avatar now." you tease, eyes glittering. Aang lets his head fall back to the bed, a fond look on his face as he lets out a huff. He lightly grips your waist with one hand, as if attempting to ground himself. Rubbing circles into your skin. The pad of his thumb calloused from years of gripping either the reins to Appa, or his staff. A constant reminder of his heritage as an Airbender.
Minutes seemed to pass. Or hours. You wouldn't have been able to tell otherwise, time seems to have stilled, though the air around you has not. With Aang it never really does. You sigh as you realize you can feel a nice warm breeze stir the sheets, muscles relaxing under Aang's touch and his bending.
The minute you relax Aang moves; pushing himself up with a grunt, caging you in his arms, wrapping them around your shoulder blades, forehead pressed against your own. His eyes bore into yours, swirling with silvers, slate and iron shifting through like light through mist, and you feel as though you could stare into them for days and never tire of the swirling depths of mountain and sky meeting together in harmony.
"Your Avatar, huh?" he murmurs, voice low. "I think I like the sound of that..." he pauses, pressing his lips to your neck, humming, seemingly almost nervous. You tilt your head back with a sigh, as he continues to press kisses to your neck. He sighs, as if committing to something. No matter what you might say in response. He slowly removes himself from your neck to look at you, his eyes shining, like you're his sanctuary. His peace, his serenity in a world filled with chaos, even after the war.
"My oasis."
You let out a little murmur, cheeks red, burying your head in the Avatar's neck. Causing him to let out a low chuckle in your ear.
Well, you think hiding a smile in your monk's neck as he nudges you with the side of his head, bringing you both down to the bed again, I guess that explains why he said that I'm his favorite place to be when we were first dating...
Honestly… you knew that the second the words left your mouth.
Aang had been lying on his back in the temple room, one arm behind his head, relaxed for once—finally not the Avatar, not the world’s responsibility...just yours.
So naturally… you straddled him.
Grinning.
Hands braced on his chest.
“We need more Airbenders,” you said lightly. “You know… repopulate the Air Nomads.”
Aang laughed.
A soft, easy laugh, the kind you loved most.
“Yeah?” he teased, eyes warm. “That your grand plan?”
You nodded, leaning down just a little. “I’m very committed to the cause.”
That’s when it changed, it was subtle at first and then the laugh faded.
His hands resting casually at your hips tightened as his eyes darkened, not angry… but focused.
“You don’t joke about that,” he said quietly.
Your smile softened immediately.You leaned down further, your nose brushing his.
“I wasn’t joking.”
Aang moved.
Fast.
One second you were on top of him, the next you were on your back, breath catching as he rolled you beneath him in one smooth motion, his body pressing you into the mat on the ground.
“Aang—”
His hand came up to your cheek, gentle, grounding.
“Say it again,” he murmured, pleading.
Your heart stuttered.“What?”
“What you meant.” His voice wasn’t teasing anymore.
You swallowed, then lifted your hand to his jaw, thumb brushing his cheek softly.
“I want a future with you,” you said quietly. “Not just saving the world. Not just being the Avatar.”
Your fingers slid up his neck instantly, pulling him closer as his weight settled fully over you. His knee shifted between your thighs, spreading them apart as your bodies aligned.
You felt him then.
Hard.
Pressing against you through the thin layers between you.
Your breath hitched.
“Aang…”
He kissed your jaw, your throat, your collarbone as his lips trailed down like he needed to memorize you.
“I’ve wanted that too,” he admitted softly against your skin. “For so long.”
Your hands slid down his back, pulling at his robes.
“Then stop talking.”
Aang laughed under his breath. “Yes, ma’am.”
The sound barely faded before his mouth was on you again, kissing deeper, hungrier as his hands moved lifting your top, pushing it aside until your chest was bare beneath him.
His breath stuttered.
“Spirits…”
His hands were warm as they cupped your breasts, thumbs brushing over your nipples in slow circles that made your back arch into him.
“You’re beautiful,” he murmured, like it was something sacred.
You didn’t let him linger too long.Your hands tugged at his pants impatiently. “Aang—”
“I know,” he said quickly, a little breathless now.
He shifted just enough to free himself, his cock springing against his stomach, hard and ready.
You stared for half a second, then grinned. "Well, that’s promising.”
Aang flushed slightly. “You’re not helping.”
“I'm allowed to appreciate how good my husband looks .”
He huffed a quiet laugh, then lined himself up between your thighs, his hand sliding down to guide himself against your soaked pussy.
He froze.
“…you’re already wet.”
You smirked.
“Maybe I’ve been planning this longer than you thought.”
Aang groaned. "Okay!! okay, no more talking.”He pushed in slowly as both of you gasped.
Your hands flew to his shoulders, gripping tight as he stretched you open, inch by inch, his breath coming out uneven against your cheek.
“Relax,” he murmured. “I’ve got you.”
You nodded, breath shaky. “Keep going.”
He did.
Slowly.
Deep and oh so careful.
Until he was fully inside you, both of you completely still for a moment, just feeling it.
Aang pressed his forehead to yours.“Spirits… you feel—”
“Move,” you whispered.
Aang swallowed thickly as his hips rolled forward slowly, pulling a soft sound from your throat. Then again, deeper this time, more confident.
Your legs wrapped around his waist, pulling him closer. “That’s it,” you breathed.
His rhythm built steady at first, then stronger as your body responded to him, your pussy tightening around his cock with every thrust.
“Aang—”
He kissed you again, swallowing the sound as his pace quickened, breath uneven now, control slipping. “I’m trying...” he gasped, “.....to go slow—”
“Don’t.”
His hips snapped forward harder, deeper, your body jolting beneath him as pleasure spiked sharp and fast.
“Oh—!”
Aang groaned into your neck, his hands gripping your thighs as he drove into you again and again, your bodies moving together in a rhythm that felt less like sex and more like something meant.
“Say it again,” he whispered, voice breaking. “Say you want this....with me—”
“I do!!” you gasped, “....I want you—”
Your nails dragged down his back as your orgasm hit suddenly, your pussy clenching tight around his cock.
Aang broke right after.
He buried himself deep inside you with a sharp groan, his entire body tensing as he came, holding you tightly as the wave hit him, his tattoo's glowing faintly.
For a long moment, neither of you moved, your breaths slowly returning to normal as Aang pressed a soft kiss to your shoulder.
“…we’re really doing this,” he murmured.
You smiled, still catching your breath. “Yeah.”
He laughed quietly, nuzzling closer. “…we might need a lot more practice.”
You grinned. “Good thing I’m committed to the cause.”
Aang laughed again.
The air hadn’t quite settled after the last time.
You could still feel it, faint currents brushing your skin, like Aang’s power hadn’t fully let go of you yet.
He was trying.
Trying to breathe.
Trying to center himself.
Trying to go back to that calm, balanced state he lived in.
You weren’t helping.
You never did.
You shifted beneath him slightly, your hands sliding up his chest, feeling the warmth of his skin, the faint pulse where his tattoos had just stopped glowing.
Aang’s breath hitched. “…don’t.”
You tilted your head, smiling softly. “Don’t what?”
His hands tightened at your hips. “Don’t start again.”
You leaned up, lips brushing his jaw. "But I like you like this.”
That did something, you felt it immediately. The ground beneath you gave a faint, almost imperceptible shift.
Aang inhaled sharply. “…you need to stop.”
You didn’t. Instead, you dragged your fingers lightly down his chest, over the faint lines of his tattoos.
“They glow when you lose control,” you murmured. “I like it when your tattoos glow.”
His eyes snapped to yours.
“It’s hot.”
That was it.The stone floor beneath you moved.
Not violently.
Not dangerously.
But deliberately.
Earth rose slightly at your sides, forming a subtle hold, firm enough to keep your hips from shifting, to keep your body exactly where it was beneath him.
Your breath caught. “Oh—”
Aang’s expression had changed.
Still him.
Still gentle.
But something deeper now, something claiming.
“You don’t get to move,” he said quietly.
Your pulse spiked. “You’re using earthbending now?”
His voice dropped lower. “You keep pushing me.”
His hand slid between your thighs, spreading you open again.
“And I keep telling you to stop.”
His fingers brushed your pussy, still warm, still sensitive, still full and you gasped.
“Aang—”
“Too late.”
He shifted his hips, lining himself up again.You tried to move instinctively but the stone held you in place.
Your thighs stayed open.Exactly where he wanted you.Your breath stuttered. “You’re not letting me move—”
“I’m not letting you tease me and then pretend you don’t want this.”
He pushed inside you in one smooth, deep motion.
You cried out, hips raised. “Aang—!”
His hands locked onto your hips, fingers digging into your skin as he held you there, his cock buried deep inside your pussy.
The earth kept you open.
The air stirred again.
And Aang.....Aang lost control.
His hips moved immediately, thrusting into you with a rhythm that was stronger, deeper, less restrained than before.
“You like this,” he murmured, voice rough. “You like pushing me until I snap.”
You moaned, head falling back. “Yes—”
His tattoos flickered.
A faint glow.
His breath caught.
“Don’t say that—”
“Why?” you whispered, breathless. “It’s true.”
His thrusts grew harder.
The stone beneath you held firm, keeping your body exactly where he wanted it as he drove into you again and again.
“You’re mine,” he said, voice low, shaking slightly. “You don’t get to pretend you’re not.”
Your legs trembled against the stone’s hold. “I’m not pretending—”
His hand slid up your body, gripping your waist, pulling you into each thrust.
“Good.”
His forehead pressed to yours.
“Because I’m not stopping this time.”
Your nails dragged down his back as your body tightened around him again, pleasure building too fast, too strong. “Aang—!”
His tattoos glowed brighter. The air around you swirled, lifting your hair slightly as his control slipped further. “You did this,” he muttered. “You said you liked it—”
“I do—!”
That was all it took.
His hips slammed forward, deeper, harder.
Your orgasm hit, your body clenching tight around his cock as you cried out.
Aang followed immediately, groaning as he buried himself fully inside you, his entire body tensing as he came.
The stone released you.
The air stilled.
The glow faded.
Aang froze.
Breathing hard.
“…I didn't hurt you did I?.”
You laughed weakly beneath him. “No....you did not hurt me Aang.”
He looked down at you, still hovering close, still inside you, expression softening again.
“…good...good.”
You smiled.
"Still the sweet husband I married." Your hand cupped his cheek.
Aang would underestimate his size sooo much! Like you would be struggling to take him and he’ll be confused cause he thought he was average
note: OMFGG he would, I love this idea so much- I feel like it'd be so like him to be genuinely clueless about it too. This gives me the opportunity to write some older Aang stuff too bc oh my gggGOD he's fine
Big guy [Aang x Reader]
Aang doesn't understand how big he is just yet ...
Warnings: NSFW MDNI (18+), afab reader, size difference if you squint
"Baby, w-wait-" you stammer out the words weakly, a hand placed firmly on the avatar's lower abdomen in an attempting to bring him to a halt. The firm hands placed upon your outer thighs lightly loosen their grip as he snaps out of his trance, his expression quickly shifts from one of focus to slight concern.
"Ah–...Are you alright?" His hips had come to a complete pause before he spoke- postponing his effort to work his rather sizeable friend downstairs into you, now more worried with making sure that you aren't hurt.
The tip of his cock had just barely made it inside you...though even that feat came with a few tries of pressing himself against your entrance. Each of them ending with his shaft gliding back up through your folds, and causing him to stubbornly reach back down and realign himself with you again.
Despite the struggle, it still felt really good when he finally made his way inside, your walls stretching so nicely to accommodate for his girth as he pushed himself forward. I don't think he realized how much that alone was doing to you, though–And the more of him that slipped inside of you, the more you felt like he was going to split you apart. You would be okay of course...he just had to slow down a bit.
"I-I'm okay, I promise. You're just, really big, Aang..."
"I...Am?" He seems almost taken aback at the statement, his face now riddled with confusion. He hadn't really thought himself to be that large, even in spite of the aforementioned struggle.
"V-very," you affirm in a breathy tone–this causes him to redirect his attention downwards, eyes widening slightly as he realized just how stuffed he had you already...he wasn't even close to bottoming out yet-in spite of this, he could see the outline of himself forming around your lower stomach. He may have been so focused on trying to get inside you that he had subconsciously blocked that part out.
"I-its alright, just...take your time, okay?" You reassure him gently, a hand reaching up to cup the side of his face.
He nods warmly, leaning in to press his forehead against your own as you feel him begin to make work of what he already had inside. His hips began to stagger forward, his shallow thrusts somehow still striking your most sensitive areas, and your back arches from the pleasure, giving him leeway and more confidence to push into you even deeper...
"S-So tight," he huffs out, finally reached the end of his length as he positions himself upright, a lustful chuckle leaving him as he holds your legs close to his chest. "I guess I am bigger than I thought, huh...?"
Human x aonung "Would you love me if I was a worm" sjhsususushsgs, hope you're doing better! 🤍🥹
Would you love me if i was a worm? 𓏲ּ𝄢
Pairing: Female!human Reader x Aonung
Warnings:none, just pure fluff.
Words: about 900
A/n: i had some fun with it
You were currently sprawled out on the woven floor of Aonung’s family marui, comfortably tucked between the young warrior's legs. His massive, teal hands were gently .. a bit clumsily attempting to braid a section of your hair. For a fierce warrior and future Olo'eyktan, his touch was incredibly soft, treating your fragile human self like a rare shell he’d found on the reef.
It was peaceful and romantic. It was the perfect moment to completely ruin the mood with your human nonsense .
You tilted your head back, resting it against his chest.
"Aonung?" you asked, your voice muffled slightly by the plastic of your breathing gear.
"Yes, little human?" he hummed, his ears flicked forward.
"I have a very serious question for you."
Aonung immediately stopped braiding. His turquoise eyes widened, and his tail gave an anxious thump against the mats. "Are you unwell? Is your air machine broken? Did Lo'ak teade you again, because I swear to Eywa I will drown that forest boy-"
"No, no! I'm fine, and the exopack is fine” you laughed, patting his thigh to soothe him. "It's a... hypothetical question , a little experiment."
He relaxed, though his ears remained tipped forward in curiosity “Speak."
You took a deep breath, trying to keep a straight face,”Would you still love me if I was a worm?"
Silence..
Aonung stared down at you. He blinked once,Twice,His tail swished slowly behind him. "A... worm?" he repeated, pronouncing the word slowly.
"Yeah, a worm."
"What is a worm?" he asked, genuine confusion knitting his brow,”Is it like an ilu? Or a skimwing?"
"Oh, no,not even close." You rolled over, propping yourself up on his chest so you could use your hands to explain. "On Earth, a worm is a tiny animal,It's about this big," you held your fingers a few inches apart. "It has no arms, no legs, no bones, no eyes, and no ears. It's basically just a squishy, fleshy tube."
Aonung looked horrified. He leaned back, his nose scrunching up in disgust “A fleshy tube?"
"Yes”
"With no eyes?"
"Correct”
"Then how does it hunt?" he asked, looking at you as if you had lost your mind.
"It doesn't! It lives in the dirt. It literally eats dirt and just wriggles around all day," you explained, biting your lip to keep from bursting into laughter at his appalled expression.
Aonung sat in stunned silence, trying to process this information. He looked at your face, then down at your hands, and then back up to your eyes.
"Why would Eywa do such a cruel thing to you?" he whispered, genuinely stressed. "Did you anger the Great Mother? Why would you become a dirt-tube?"
"I didn't anger anyone, Aonung! It's just a 'what if' question. What if, by some crazy magic, i woke up tomorrow and i was a worm. Would you still love me?"
Aonung crossed his arms over his chest, his brow furrowing as he fell into deep thought . He was actually agonizing over it.
"If you have no arms," he began slowly, "you cannot hold onto me when we ride the water."
"True."
"And if you live in the dirt... you cannot swim,you would drown."
"Also true”
He let out a frustrated hiss, his tail lashing behind him,”This is a terrible creature, ma yawne. You would be completely defenseless! You are already tiny and fragile as a human, but as a... a worm, Rotxo might step on you by accident!“
"So... is that a no?" you teased, trying to look heartbroken. "You wouldn't love me as a worm? Wow okay,i see how it is."
"I did not say that!" Aonung gasped, quickly scooping you up into his arms and pulling you against his chest in a hug. "Do not put words in my mouth, crazy human! I am trying to figure out how to keep you alive!"
You burst into laughter, wrapping your arms around his neck "Aonung, it's just a joke!"
"It is not a joke! It is serious!" he scolded, though a small smile was finally tugging on his mouth.
"If you were a fleshy dirt-tube”he murmured, his voice soft "I would still love you. Because your spirit would still be yours."
"Aww, Aonung-"
"I would weave a very small pouch," he continued, completely serious . "I would wear it around my neck. You would stay in the pouch, and I would carry you everywhere so you do not get stepped on ."
Your heart melted into a puddle. "You'd make me a necklace pouch?"
"Yes," he said proudly. "And I would travel to the forest with the Omaticaya just to find the best, most delicious dirt for you to eat. You would be a spoiled dirt-tube."
You were laughing so hard your exopack struggled to keep up with your breathing, tears pricking the corners of your eyes. "You are the best boyfriend in the universe, you know that?"
Aonung smirked, clearly pleased with himself for solving the great human riddle. He brushed strand of hair behind your ear.
"I know”he bragged softly. "But please, ma yawne... stay a human. You are much prettier this way, and I prefer kissing you to kissing a squishy noodle."
"Deal” you giggled, leaning up to press your mask affectionately against his cheek.
Hi cherry glad you're doing better! How about human reader x neteyam where he's actively courting her but she has no clue and has been unknowingly rejecting him lmao. Please take care of yourself! 🫶
Oblivious 𓏲ּ𝄢
Pairing: Female!human!reader x Neteyam Sully
Words: 1.8k
Warnings: nothing ,just fluff and reader is painfully oblivious
A/n: I don’t know too much about Na’vi courting ,so i made some things up for the plot.
Surviving on a planet that actively wanted to kill you took up most of your mental energy. And Trying to differece na’vi courting culture to human wasn’t even on your radar.
Especially when one of those 8 foot tall na’vi had been shadowing you lately.
Neteyam, the eldest son of Toruk Makto, the golden boy of the sully family and most importantly your best friend was currently staring at you as if you had just grown a second head.
"You... want me to put it in the communal rations pile” he repeated slowly. His ears, usually perked high, were pressed backward in disbelief.
He stood before you holding a massive, purple fruit that smelled very sweet. His chest was heaving slightly, his skin glistening with sweat. He had a few new scratches on his shoulders, which meant that getting this fruit had not been a peaceful work..
"Yeah!" you smiled warmly, adjusting the strap of your exopack "Norm was just complaining about it. You’re such a team player ‘Teyam."You reached up, patting his massive bicep affectionately before taking the heavy fruit from his hands.
Neteyam blinked, his jaw clenching. Behind him, resting upside down on a thick tree branch, Lo'ak let out a sound that was half-snort, half-choke.
"A team player” Lo'ak wheezed, his tail flicking wildly as he tried to contain his laughter, “Wow, bro the ancestors are really singing your praises today."
Neteyam shot his younger brother a glare , then he turned back to you, opening his mouth to speak, but you were already jogging away humming happily.
Neteyam closed his eyes and let out a long, suffering sigh.
If you had taken a class on Omatikaya culture, you might have known that climbing the perilous, jagged cliffs of the Hallelujah Mountains to retrieve a rare fruit was a traditional first step in a Na'vi courting ritual. It was meant to demonstrate a hunter's capability to provide for a mate.
But you hadn't taken the class. You were just a human tagalong, adopted into the Sully family by virtue of being useful with tech and good at keeping Sully kids out of trouble.
…
Neteyam’s second attempt happened three days later.
You were sitting by the edge of a cliff, legs dangling ,watching the ikrans dive and swoop in the distance. Neteyam approached quietly, sitting beside you his massive frame dwarfing yours completely.
"I made this” he murmured softly.He held out his hand, and resting in his palm was a delicate, woven hands band. It was made of iridescent blue threads, interwoven with tiny seeds and a single, stunningly bright feather from his ikran. In Na'vi tradition, hand woven jewelry ,was another way of courting. It meant - I see you and I want you to see me.
"Neteyam, this is beautiful”you gasped, reaching out to touch shiny seeds.
"It is for you” he said softly, his golden eyes searching your face for the spark of realization. His fingers trembled slightly as he reached out, gently taking your small wrist and tying the band around it. His rough blue skin against yours sent a sudden jolt of electricity up your arm.
You beamed up at him, admiring the bracelet “This is so cute! Spider and Kiri were just talking about trading friendship bracelets, we should all make matching ones!"
Neteyam froze. His hands hovered over your wrist. The soft, romantic atmosphere shattered like fragile glass.
"Friendship... bracelets” he repeated, the words tasting like ash in his mouth.
"Yeah! To show we're a squad, you are the best best friend a girl could ask for."
Neteyam stared at you, his golden eyes wide,his tail dropped, laying limp against the grass.
"Right” he rasped, his voice tight”A squad."
He stood up so fast he nearly knocked you over, muttered something about needing to clean his bow, and practically sprinted back toward the camp. You watched him go, completely oblivious . Na'vi mood swings were wild.
…
The final straw broke a week later under the bioluminescent canopy of the forest.
Neteyam had cornered you near the comms tent earlier that afternoon. He had been unusually serious as He leaned down, his face so close to yours that you could count the glowing freckles across his nose.
"Meet me by the glowing pools at eclipse” he had whispered, his voice deep,"Alone."
So, naturally when eclipse fell and the forest burst into a blinding, beautiful display of neon purples and blues, you hiked out to the pools.
Neteyam was already there, He was sitting on a massive, glowing root, the bioluminescence reflected in his golden eyes, softening his sharp features.
He looked up as he heard you approach, a hopeful, breathtakingly tender smile gracing his lips.
"You came” he breathed, standing up.
"Of course I did!" you chirped, stepping into the clearing,”And look who I found on the way!"
You stepped aside, revealing Tuk, who was practically vibrating with excitement, and Kiri, who looked like she wanted the earth to swallow her whole.
"Tuk really wanted to see the glowing fish” you explained cheerfully “And it's not safe to walk alone at night, right?“
Neteyam froze,
The silence that followed was so heavy it felt suffocating. Kiri physically buried her face in her hands, groaning loudly. Tuk, oblivious to the tension, ran past you both and splashed into the shallow end of the glowing pool.
Neteyam stared at you, his jaw was clenched so tightly you could hear his teeth grinding. His chest rose and fell with angry pants, and his tail was lashing the air behind him like a whip.
"Right” Neteyam said, his voice calm “The fish."
He turned on his heel and walked straight into the jungle, disappearing into the shadows.
"Uh” you blinked, pointing a thumb over your shoulder “Is he mad at me? What did i do?”
Kiri dropped her hands from her face, looking at you with a mixture of pity and sheer exasperation. "You are arguably the smartest human in this camp, and yet you are the absolute dumbest person I have ever met."
"Excuse me?"
"He's trying to mate with you, you idiot!"Kiri yelled, throwing her arms up.
Your brain completely flatlined,
"He's... what?"
"He brought fruit!" Kiri counted on her fingers,”he wove you a bracelet! He asked you to meet him at the pools at night! He is courting you. In front of the entire clan! And you just called him your best friend and brought his baby sister to his romantic night!"
The blood drained from your face,the memories flashed before your eyes, You had friend-zoned the future Olo'eyktan of the Omatikaya.Multiple times.
"Kiri, look after Tuk and go back to camp!" you yelled, already turning and sprinting into the jungle .
"Neteyam!" you screamed, pushing through massive, glowing ferns. You weren't exactly built for forest, and your human lungs burned inside your exopack, but you pushed on. "Neteyam, wait!"
You burst into a small clearing and immediately collided with what felt like a solid wall of muscle. You bounced off his chest with a yelp, stumbling backward, but two massive hands shot out, catching your waist to keep you from falling.
You looked up, breathless. Neteyam was staring down at you. He looked feral. His ears were pinned flat against his head, his teeth bared in a frustrated snarl, and his golden eyes were blazing with an intensity that made your knees weak.
"Do you enjoy this?" he demanded, his voice a low. He didn't let go of your waist as he took a step forward, forcing you to step back until your spine hit the bark of a massive tree.
"Enjoy what?" you gasped, feeling incredibly small trapped between him and the wood.
"Making me look like a fool” he hissed, leaning down until his face was inches from your mask. His tail whipped around, wrapping around your calf "I bring you a hunt, you give it to the scientists. I make you a mating band, you call me your 'friend'. I ask you to join me alone under Eywa’s light, and you bring my sisters ."
He pressed a hand to the tree trunk right beside your head, caging you in completely. "Are humans truly this blind?" he asked, his voice cracking slightly with raw frustration. "Or do you just not want me?"
"Neteyam no!" you yelled, reaching up to grab his wrists."No, I swear to god, I am just an idiot!"
He paused, his ears twitching forward slightly ”What?"
"I didn't know!" you babbled, your face burning"I'm human! we ask people to coffee, or we send a text message! we don't climb mountains to get fruit! I thought you were just being really, really nice. Kiri literally just had to spell it out for me."
Neteyam stared at you for a long, quiet moment. When he realized you were telling the absolute, embarrassing truth, the anger disappeared from his body.
A slow, disbelieving laugh bubbled up from his chest. He rested his forehead against the trunk of the tree above your head, his shoulders shaking with breathless laughter.
"I have been fighting for my life for a month”he muttered "and you thought I wanted to be in a 'squad'."
"I'm so sorry” you whispered, though a small smile was tugging at your lips too. You reached up trailing your fingers up his arm to cup his cheek.
He stopped laughing, his breath hitching as your hand settled on his face. He leaned heavily into your touch, his eyes fluttering shut.
"You did not answer my second question”he murmured, his voice dropping to intimate whisper. He opened his eyes, the golden irises locking onto yours"Do you want me?"
Your heart did a violent flip in your chest. Looking up at him ,this gorgeous, fierce, incredibly patient warrior who had endured your absolute cluelessness because he cared for you that much and the answer was the easiest thing in the world.
"Yes”you breathed “ Yes, Neteyam. Of course i want you."
A low, purr started deep in his chest.
He leaned down, his massive hands gently cupping the sides of your face, his thumbs resting gently against the edges of your exopack mask. He was so incredibly careful with you, treating you like you were fragile.
Because of the mask, a proper human kiss was impossible, but he didn't need one. He tilted his head, pressing his forehead against yours. You closed your eyes, wrapping your arms around his neck, sliding your hands in his braids. He let out a shaky breath, his nose brushing against the clear plastic of your mask, right over your lips.
"You are mine now” he whispered, his grip tightening on your waist. "Understood?"
"Understood”you laughed breathlessly, opening your eyes to smile up at him.
He smiled back, a devastatingly handsome, arrogant smirk that told you he had finally won. He stepped back, lacing his fingers through your smaller ones.
"Come” he said, tugging you gently back toward the glowing pools. "I have a sudden urge to swim in the pool."
let me go back to my roots of angst bc in this house, it rules supreme!!!
hurt no comfort so’lek x reader, unrequited feelings as you watch him fall in love with tamtey realizing you will never be what he wants, needs, cares for.
you are an avatar. flesh born of chemicals and incubated in a false womb that gave you false life. he hates your kind. a hatred that is so deep, it’s what guides his path.
he does not care for you, not in the slightest. if you are here to help the resistance then so be it, pull your weight and stay out of the way. other wise he sees no use for you and will not tolerate anything more.
you came here to find a new purpose. do something meaningful, and you’re starting to realize perhaps it isn’t the place for you. there’s no warmth, not like you felt with the omatikaya. no love.
tamtey is easy to love, you know. and you can’t blame so’lek for the way he is with her. eyes shining and so young, so much of the world blooming at her fingers. not like you, hardened by the years as your avatar body lives beyond what it was made to do. your back is really starting to tense up as of late.
when you were wounded in the battle at the hallelujah mountains, you had no other choice then to say good bye to your human body. the rda shot at the mobile link station and carpet bombed them. there was no other way. but you remain human. that is a fact you will never let anyone forget, your humanity is no curse it is your greatest blessing. so’lek hates this most about you. how dare you find pride humanity.
being human is what makes you, you. it’s feeling the sprinklers under the hot august sun as you play on the blacktop as a child.
it’s the days in the winter bundled up and braving the cold to play with the snow, falling thick as it sticks to your eye lashes. laughing as you chase your friends with snow balls. snow angels lined up neatly side by side as your frozen laugh echoed.
it’s people of every walk of life joining in celebration, in unity. because it is humanity that binds you all together in a connection so ancient and enduring you feel it in every breath you take.
its creation, the never ending search for more. wanting to be better every single day as you race one another to be the best. competition fueling innovation.
all of these are truths that can not be shaken out of you even in this avatar body you have come to call home. not even when your human body was mangled and destroyed in the war that plagues your nightmares.
you fought in the same war that shaped so’lek, and he does not care less.
you’ve tried, really. getting gentle pats on the back from alma as she assures you “he’s like that with everyone. “
everyone but tamtey.
you’ve tried being nice, helping him organize his things and he only hisses. when you bring him fresh meat and he sets it aside, only to find it in the same spot the next day. offering to patrol with him in the dead of night when you know damn well no one else will, and he still declines.
“she smells wretched.” you over hear him say one night. back from your own solo patrol that stretched far too late into the night. you pause before the corner, hunching yourself over to listen better.
you hear snickers, it’s nor, teylan, tamtey.
“i do not think she is bad.” teylan tries.
“they are all bad.” nor scoffs.
you hear so’lek hum. “the stench of their false kind is enough for me. but she holds pride for the sky people.”
“she is one of them.” tamtey pipes in. “she can not change this. “
“there is no need to constantly remind us. we know“ nor agrees.
“if i were a dream walker i would forget my life before“ tamtey chirps. as if forgetting is easy as breathing.
could tamtey be able to forget watching your mother say goodbye as you set course to pandora? of the last transmissions you sent and received from your family? knowing you would never hear from them again?
oh yes, she would so forget the whole entire life you lived on a whole other planet before this mess. what the fuck are you even doing with your life.
yes tamtey has lost her people, a history stolen and burnt. kept from its rightful inheritors. this does not give her to right to dictate how you grieve your self.
the conversations shifts to other topics. the rain, the forest etc etc. you’ve heard enough, for this night and any other to come. heading on your heel to your room to collect your things and get the hell out.
you pack up and leave the same night, before anyone can catch you take off into the night. back to the omatikaya you go. you can not stay a second longer in the frontiers.
You've spent years grieving a body that wouldn't cooperate and a dream that kept shrinking. Now you have an avatar, a working womb, and one very willing best friend. The arrangement is simple: Neteyam needs to give you his sperm. Except Neteyam hasn't been simple about anything involving you in a very long time—and you're a woman who has grieved infertility so long she's forgotten she's allowed to want love too, and Neteyam's a man who loves you so much he'll degrade himself just to have a fraction of himself be yours.
Warning- masturbation, infertility, alcoholism, talks of insemination, unrequited feelings, aged!up Neteyam, f!Reader, human-to-avatar-reader, childhood friends to lovers, slight!angst
A/N- In honor of all my followers and readers who are always so patient and so loving. Please enjoy!
Part Two Coming Soon
There was something particularly cruel about Pandora—a reminder of all the life the Great Mother provided. The smaller betrayals. The way moss threaded through steel, reclaiming what humanity had stolen. The way life erupted from every crack and crevice, lush and green, as if Eywa herself were showing off. Eywa, mother to all.
Eywa, fertility. An endless, mocking well of it.
And you couldn't get a single fucking sperm to take.
"I'm sorry, Y/n."
Norm had a look. The kind reserved for delivering bad news, and for you, he wore it often enough that you'd memorized the exact angle of his brows, the way his mouth thinned.
He was in his human form—thank Christ, because you couldn't look at him otherwise. Not in his avatar body, not with his two children running around blue and beautiful and perfect.
Jealousy would seethe beyond words. You knew it would show in your face. You knew it already did, and that made it worse.
"We tried everything," he added, softer now. His hands fidgeted with a data slate that showed infertile, infertile, infertile, infertile, infertile, in—
“Thank you.” You swallowed something bitter, and turned, fingers finding the knuckles of your opposite hand. Standing felt like an admission of defeat, but sitting felt worse, so you stood and walked and—when did you reach your room?
You weren’t sure, just that… well—
The dream was dead.
That's what you told yourself, anyway. Repeated it like as you walked back to your closet, as you lay in bed staring at the ceiling, as days bled into weeks. The dream is dead. Move on.
It was something you'd grown to be fine with, in theory. Something you could walk through and exist despite, the way you existed despite a hundred other losses.
Orphans existed, after all. Sweet girls and boys who needed homes. The dream didn't need to die, just expand. Shift sideways into something different but still good.
Except finding an orphan was a lot harder than you'd initially thought.
Most from the initial wave were like you and Spider—fathers and mothers who'd fought and died during the Battle of the Hallelujah Mountains. By the time you were grown enough to handle a kid or two, most orphans had already been absorbed. Family-friends. Extended clan. A real community, the kind that didn't leave cracks for someone like you to slip through.
Spider would scold you for the phrasing, remind you the Na'vi way was better, that their systems of kinship were what you should aspire to. Easy for him to say. He'd been the outcome of that specifically, gotten folded in despite what he thought.
The Na'vi thought so too.
Any Na'vi orphans were immediately relocated to another clan. Not that you blamed them. What could you offer a child who'd grow tall enough to look down at you by age eight? How could you strip away their heritage, their language, their birthright?
So maybe the dream expanded more and more, stretching farther and farther until you were left with crumbs.
An insect. Macy.
That was the best you could get.
Six-legged. Beautiful in the way only a mother could see—which was to say, objectively ugly. She had the temperament of a career criminal and the loyalty of a feral cat.
She was your baby.
You'd fashioned her a little habitat from spare parts and mesh netting. Fed her by hand. Whispered to her at night when the lab got too quiet, and made her toys from whatever you could find.
Yeah, okay… so the dream fell apart.
But Neteyam was always sweet about it, at least. He'd crouched beside the terrarium, those golden eyes patient and warm, and asked what she ate. He just smiled that gentle, knowing smile and let you have it.
So, so sweet.
You heard a gentle knocking against the door.
The tweezers trembled in your grip as you lowered the live-feed into the tank. Your tongue pushed past your lips in concentration. Macy surfaced with that familiar urgency, her whiskers twitching as she nibbled. Then—and this was new—she patted the metal with one webbed paw.
“Oh, you’re learning manners! Good Macy!”
Another knock.
Harder this time.
"Y/n."
Your pulse stumbled. You pressed your palms together, fingers lacing tight. Please. You crossed your fingers against your thigh where he couldn't see. Please, please, please.
You crossed the room in three uneven strides and wrenched the door open.
Blue.
That was your first thought—just blue, filling your vision. Neteyam stood hunched in the doorway, his height forced into something smaller by the frame. His braids fell forward, obscuring half his face, and you caught the familiar beads and bone wrapped around each one.
Behind his back, one hand cradled something small. You caught the edge of it: pale petals, the faint glow that meant munx, the flower you'd asked for. The one that might—might—tip the odds in your favor.
He'd found it. He'd actually—
But then your gaze lifted.
His face.
His ears lay flat. His mouth worked soundlessly for a breath before he managed, "I…" A shake of his head, slow and defeated. "I'm sorry, Y/n." He brought his hand forward, presenting the box you'd given him days ago—the one meant to carry the sample.
You took it. The weight felt wrong. Too light, or maybe too heavy; you couldn't tell anymore. Defeat was already seeping in, familiar as old bruises. "What happened to it?" Your voice came out steady, you’d learned not to show it in your face.
Neteyam's jaw worked. He shook his head again, ears twitching in that particular way that meant frustration directed inward. "I don't know, Y/n." His gaze dropped to the box, then away. "During the delivery it…"
He trailed off.
You didn't wait. Your thumbs found the lip of the container, prying it open with a soft click that sounded too loud in the space between you. You looked down.
That cheeky little shit.
Your breath caught. You stared, then looked up sharply, eyes wide and wild.
Not one sample.
Several.
You jumped onto him.
It was girlish, sweet. Your arms wrapping around him until your face pressed full against his stomach. Then, with the softest sound he laughed. "O-Oh!" His hands fumbled, one settling atop your head in a clumsy pat. "Is this enough?"
"More than enough!"
You tilted your head back, eyes wide and shining, and pretty in the way that made his heart stutter and trip over itself. His smile too—what a shy thing it had been—melted into something softer and harder. An ache, he’d describe it as.
His thumb grazed your skull. He just looked at you, drinking in every fleck of color in your eyes.
Say something. Tell her.
"I wanted to—"
"How did you find so many anyway? I thought these were rare!"
You let go. His hand hovered where you'd been, still outstretched. He didn't blink for a long time, eyes gone wide, mouth fallen into an unmistakable pout. "Oh… uh…" His fingers curled inward, dropping to fidget at his sides as he shifted closer.
"I heard Norm mention these only grow in the Hallelujah Mountains, where the—" The words tumbled out as you turned away, already carrying the case to your workbench. You extracted each blossom with the carefulness suited towards something less botanical and something more divine. All the same to you—gods and plants. You always managed to pray for fertility with either, anyway.
You didn't see the way Neteyam's shoulders fell. Didn't quite catch the soft sigh that escaped him either.
"Well," he said at last. He smiled when you shot him a playful glare. "they are hard to find—for humans. But a Na'vi knows." He tapped his temple, took a pull from his oxygen mask, and settled into a crouch beside you.
He wouldn't tell you it had taken three days nor would he mention the way his calves had burned climbing ridge after ridge, or how the wind had nearly swept him off a floating peak twice. Wouldn't say that rare was an understatement.
"You sound smug," you murmured, not looking up. Your fingers worked the seal on the container, careful.
"I am smug. I did something impossible for you." He controlled the twitch of his ear. He hoped to hear you laugh, or see a smile. This push and pull. Ache. It ached.
"Impossible?" You scoffed, but there was warmth in it. "You just said a Na'vi knows."
"A skilled Na'vi."
"So humble."
"It is a burden I carry." He pressed a hand to his chest, solemn. Then ruined it by grinning when you finally looked at him.
Your laugh was quiet. But it was there—and Eywa, he wanted to bottle that sound. Keep it somewhere safe where nothing could touch it, maybe put—
You stopped.
“What…?” He caught himself before his tail could wag, dimming the eager glow of his freckles before they could betray him more.
You looked away, fingers brushing the edge of the sealed case. "Thank you, Neteyam." Your voice was quieter now, and you set the container somewhere dry and safe. "For doing this, I mean. I just hope that this time…"
The sentence died.
He already knew.
His ears flattened against his skull. He watched you—the line of your shoulders, the way you wouldn't meet his eyes. "It will," he murmured. "The Great Mother provides."
And there it was.
That wall between you. Eywa. Always Eywa.
You believed in her the way his people did—the way he was supposed to. With your whole chest, your whole heart. You prayed, and you waited, and you hoped that this time the flower would heal whatever was broken. That this time the sperm would stick to your stupid eggs. That this time—
This time.
"Yeah," you said
You knew better than to question Eywa in front of a na’vi. Barren, but not dumb.
.
.
.
The seeds didn't fix anything.
They wouldn't. You'd known that, really—known it deep down in that intuitive thought that gnawed until reality and truth came. But hope was a stupid, stubborn thing. It rooted itself close to your heart anyway. Until that too withered and died.
Apathy came for you after that. It crept along the edges of who you were, taking pieces you didn't notice were missing until you reached for them and found nothing.
It found your words first, turned them flat and distant in your mouth. Then your vision, dulling the bioluminescence you'd once found so beautiful. Astigmatism, you called it. The blurring of the lights till they became muddy. y. Even your tears dried up eventually, and those had been the last honest thing you had left.
That, and of course, your empty womb.
You swore you wouldn’t think about it, but your palm always pressed against your belly. There sometimes, pressing for the possibility that you were Mary carrying Jesus.
I’d be your Mary, Eywa. You’d think. But she had already chosen her Mary. She’d chosen Dr. Grace Augustine—returned her through Kiri, blessed her with a daughter who was beautiful and perfect.
And in the worst moments, you wondered if this was punishment. If you’d been cursed for simply being human and wrong in a world that demanded balance. Was this the great mother, picking and choosing who could be part of it?
Had Eywa looked at you and decided: No.
Not you. You imagined Her saying. Not the ugly little thing you are, with your five fingers and your extra hair and your demon blood. Several is enough. You are one too many.
How these thoughts spiraled.
"Eywa will see it through," Spider said once, his hand on your shoulder, his voice doing that thing where it tried to sound certain. "You'll see."
But his eyes wore the same dressing of apology. Him, Neteyam, Kiri too when she thought you weren’t looking. It sat in their eyes so clearly, you wondered if they did it on purpose, at times.
Or maybe they practice it? Standing in front of mirrors, rehearsing the right amount of softness.
You'd stopped responding
Pity. Apathy. Disillusionment. You half-expected to find those things growing inside you instead of a baby. At least then you'd be full of something.
Neteyam was sweet—of course he was. Infertility was rare among his kind, but he researched it anyway. Brought you herbs wrapped in careful bundles, explained each one to you. Talked to his grandmother until she mixed pastes that might just help a human as it did a na’vi.
"This one," he'd say, holding up a root that looked like gnarled fingers, "Grandmother Tsahìk says it strengthens the womb. Encourages life."
You’d taken one only, you didn’t have the heart to take the rest.
He offered what he could after, companionship mostly. A place to cry, to rant, to talk through desperate solutions that never went anywhere. He listened. Cried with you sometimes, his face pressed into your hair. Held you after in a bed too small for his frame, his knees bent awkward, his tail curled against the wall.
You started to drink, badly, if you were being honest.
You didn't have a problem—or at least that's what you told yourself when Neteyam's brows pinched together, or when Norms mouth thinned into a flat line.
But the alcohol filled you in ways nothing else could, and you cared less and less about your stupid health. What did it matter anyway? You felt useless as a woman. Work became your only other anchor. Work or drinking. Those were your options now.
Five bottles in the morning, the small ones with the screw caps that fit in your jacket pocket. Ten by afternoon, nursing them between sample analysis and data entry. Twenty by evening, when the lab emptied out and you had the place to yourself.
You were drunk more often than you were sober, and the distinction between the two had begun to blur.
Some science guy—Stevens? Stevenson?—did the math once. Pulled up your consumption logs from the inventory and laughed. Actually laughed in your face.
"Jesus Christ," he wheezed, wiping his eyes. "You need help. Like, clinical intervention level help."
But again, it was dressed with laughter and so you found no reason to take him seriously.
Neteyam did, though.
"Y/N."
His voice came from somewhere far away.
You groaned, face pressed against something cold and hard. The floor, most likely. You couldn’t remember landing on something soft. Really, you didn’t remember anything from last night at all.
"Y/N." Neteyam's palm connected softly with your cheek, his body too close, his worry too obvious. You groaned and pushed his face away.
You forced your eyes open, and you sat up.
You felt bottles clink around you, some empty, some still half-full. One had tipped over near your hip, leaking amber liquid against the floor and soaking yesterdays jeans.
Neteyam crouched beside you, his face creased.
"Jesus," you muttered. Your skull protested immediately, a sharp spike of pain that made you wince. "What time is it?"
Neteyam's frown deepened, lips pressed thin. He glanced toward the small window. "Second eclipse," he whispered, then shuffled back to give you space as you rose.
You rubbed at your face with both hands, trying to scrub away the fog. Your mouth tasted sour. Your skin felt sticky.
Headaches. You always had headaches now.
You knew how to fix that.
Your hand was already reaching—fingers closing around the neck of a half-empty bottle before Neteyam could say a word.
Neteyam's hand caught your wrist mid-reach.
"Stop that."
The smack came quick and you jerked back with a hiss, cradling your hand like he'd actually hurt you. He hadn't. But the principle—
Your eyes narrowed as you tracked the bottle he'd kicked just out of range, watching it roll pathetically across the floor before settling near the wall.
"The hell, Neteyam… come on." You reached again, fingers stretching. This time his foot swept the bottle away entirely, skittering it across the floor into a pile of its siblings.
You froze, gaze lifting slowly to meet his. "The fuck is your problem?" The words came out rough. You’d never spoken to Neteyam like that and he visibly paused, eyes turning watery. But you were in too deep now. "I was drinking that."
"Yes. I can see."
He rose to his full height—all of it, shoulders back, spine straight, tail swaying in that particular way that meant he was trying very hard not to grab you by the scruff of your neck. As if size alone could shame you into submission.
I don’t have shame anymore, doesn’t he know that?
"Just as I can see the fifty other bottles littered around your room." He looked so clean. So together. It made you want to throw something at him.
The number wasn't exact. You'd counted. Sixty-three, if you included the one under the cot.
…You didn’t correct him.
He huffed, eyes never leaving your face as you frowned. "What about Macy?"
"Dead."
You shoved past him, shoulder catching his ribs. It was like shouldering into a wall. Your head throbbed like a damned thing, and you pressed the heel of your palm against your temple as though pressure could drown it.
"Her species lasts months. She was already old when I got her." You shrugged. "I'll get a Macy Jr. or something."
"A Macy Jr.," he repeated, flat. "You will replace her."
"Why not?" You didn't look at him. "Everything else is replaceable."
You immediately felt the weight shift from your head to your stomach, where that stupid nervous system got all tangled up and wired. You knew you said the wrong thing, but pride was a terrible thing.
Even if Neteyam looked damn close to crying. Am I replaceable? You saw it spelled out in his mind.
No. You’d tell him. But pride—terrible pride.
You collapsed into the chair by the kitchen table—if you could call it that. More like a metal slab bolted to the wall. Recycled RDA shit. Everything here was recycled RDA shit. You tapped against the metal, an erratic rhythm that matched nothing, then rested your head against the palm of your hand. The coolness of your skin felt good against the heat behind your eyes.
Neteyam watched. His ears flattened. He viewed your defeat as his—the Na'vi were empathetic in that way. Couldn't help but absorb the misery of everyone around them like emotional sponges.
It was exhausting just thinking about it.
“Y/n,” He said softly. He lowered himself, knees folding until he was eye-level, and suddenly you were staring at him whether you wanted to or not. You could smell the forest on him.
It smelled really comforting.
You dug your face against your palm some more. His head tilted, chasing your gaze when you turned away. "Stop this madness. This self-destruction. What purpose does it serve?"
What purpose?
You had nothing, but your jaw tensed. You turned further away. If you couldn't see him, he wasn't real, simple logic.
"Just go, Neteyam. I—"
"N-No." His ears flickered back, you saw that much at least. "No," he repeated, firmer now. "I came because Norm needs you."
You rolled your eyes so hard it made your headache worse. "Don't be dumb."
"I am not being dumb." He sounded genuinely insulted. "Norm asked for you specifically. There is work—important work—and he believes you are the one to do it."
"Then Norm's drunk too."
"He is not."
"Should be." You waved a hand vaguely. "Makes everything easier."
Neteyam's tongue clicked against his teeth, that tsk he picked up from his mother. He stared. His yellow eyes traced the slope of your hunched shoulders, the tremor in your hands, the bottles. He measured you against some internal scale of moraling and found you tipping.
One moment you were seated. The next, the world flipped.
"Hey—wait!"
His shoulder drove into your stomach, forcing the air from your lungs in a graceless oof, and suddenly you were up, dangling, the floor swinging past in nauseating arcs. His hand settled firm against your thigh, fingers splayed wide to keep you steady.
Your arms dangled uselessly, fingertips brushing his lower back, and your legs kicked before you realized how pointless it was.
You weighed nothing to him. Less than nothing. Tuk-weight. Baby-weight.
"You will not listen. You act like a baby, I'll treat you like a baby."
"Neteyam—"
He adjusted his grip, hoisting you higher, and the movement sent the room spinning. Your stomach lurched. Oh, god. You were going to throw up. You were going to throw up all over his back and he'd probably deserve it but you'd never hear the end of it from Kiri—
He ignored you. His stride was even, unbothered, carrying you through the narrow corridor as though this were the most natural thing in the world.
Faces turned—humans pausing mid-step, expressions caught between concern and poorly hidden amusement. Someone whistled. You wanted to die.
You whined. Squirmed. Hissed through your teeth.
Crack.
Did he just—?
He did.
The slap landed right on your ass—three fingers and a wide palm, the sting blooming instant and mortifying. You froze, a strangled squeak escaping before you could stop it.
"Quit moving," he hissed, ducking smoothly beneath a low doorway.
Your shorts did nothing. Might as well have been naked for all the protection they offered. Three fingers. One wide palm. The print of him burned into your skin, no doubt blazing red, no doubt visible to anyone who—
Embarrassing.
You pressed your face against his back and tried very hard to disappear.
"Where are you even taking me?"
"The lab."
"I don't want to go to the lab."
"I don't care."
His tail swished, the tip brushing against your dangling hand, and you grabbed it without thinking—yanked hard enough to make him stumble slightly. Sweet, petty victory—
Crack.
Harder this time.
"Ow—!"
"Do not touch my tail."
You released it immediately, hands flying up in surrender. "Okay! Okay—jesus—fine."
You heard the swish of the doors opening and shifted, hips squirming to rest your elbow against his shoulder, gaze drifting lazily toward the hall that retreated behind you. "So why does Norm need me?" You stared at those who stared back, though your head bobbed with Neteyam’s slow walking speed.
Not that you could do much about it—Neteyam had a death grip on you.
"You'll see."
Your eyes narrowed.
The corridor stretched longer than it should've. Or maybe time just moved differently when you were being carried like this. When he sat you down, it was right in front of the doors.
Your reflection ghosted across the metal paneling, and Neteyam's golden eyes caught yours in the warped surface. Something soft moved behind them, it didn’t looked bad from what you could gather.
You glanced offhandly at the stamped on poster. Na’vi and Drivers only. Piloting currently in session.
So thats where he took you. The drive room. You'd never been here. Couldn't without permission. The equipment was old, and for someone like Norm who relied on the technology to stay with his family, precious.
Neteyam's palm pressed between your shoulder blades. "Go on. Go."
You shot him a look before pushing the door.
"Norm?" The door gave under your hand. "Neteyam, the asshole, said—"
The words died.
Norm stood grinning—nervous as hell. Max beside him, patchy labcoat rumpled, glasses slipping down his nose.
Behind them—
Behind them—
An avatar.
Suspended in the amnio tank, an avatar with your face stretched across Na'vi features.
You.
Not you. You told yourself.
But yes, you.
"Surprise...?" Norm's voice was unsteady like the rest of him. Blue limbs postured awkwardly, and Max fumbled with his glasses, shoving them up only for them to slip right back down. "So... er... we didn't ask, uh—you know. Permission. For the whole avatar thing. Just... with your fertility problems and you know, overall not being able to—" He gestured vaguely at your body, your human body, the one that failed you in every way that mattered on this moon. "—we thought maybe—god, this is kinda weird, right? Not asking permission? We swear we took every other ethical question into account before cloning you with the—I mean, we had meetings. So many meetings. Jake was there for some of them, and Neytiri, and—"
Norm rambled.
A lot.
And you stood dumbfounded, staring at yourself floating in sterile fluid.
"...How?" Your throat felt dry. "Avatars take six years to..."
Neteyam moved to your periphery. Close enough to reach if this went sideways, if you felt any sort of violation. Far enough to give you space if you needed it. He knew you.
"Max made a breakthrough." Norm's grin widened as he clapped Max's shoulder. Max stumbled forward from the unexpected force.
"Hey, man!" Max huffed, adjusting his glasses.
"Sorry..."
Max rolled his eyes, but his smile came easier now. Dimmer. He stepped aside, gesturing to the tank. To her. To you. "We can grow them in half the time now. Had this one cooking for two years. Still needs a few more months until she's ready—see the queue? Still growing."
The queue. Right. Last thing to develop in Na'vi. Most complex part of them.
You pressed your forehead against the glass, and you stood there, watching it twitch before slowly lifting your gaze to meet theirs. "...I'm going to pilot an avatar?"
They grinned, hope naked in their eyes, and nodded in unison. "Are you, uh... angry?"
You snorted. "Angry?"
Tears blurred your vision as you pulled them both into an embrace—awkward because Max was shorter than you and Norm was taller, because your human arms barely stretched around them both.
"How could I be angry?" The words scraped out, rough and small. "Thank you."
There it was, that cruel seed. The hope blossomed again so easily, watered by the devotion of friends.
What a terrible thing it'd be, if the avatar failed. If by some accident, something happened. If you linked and couldn't make the connection. If your body rejected the neural interface. If, if, if.
Those thoughts came aplenty too, naturally. You were used to bad luck by now. Too familiar with disappointment to ever get too comfortable with joy.
Your knees buckled. You sank. They followed, lowering themselves to hold you.
Max was sniffling. Norm's laugh was watery. "You baby."
And Neteyam watched, smiling softly before turning his gaze back at the avatar.
Pretty.
They'd made you perfect.
His eyes traced the shape of you—blue and striped, tall enough now to meet his gaze without that familiar tilt of your chin. Close enough that he wouldn't have to bend so far to meet your eyes.
But some things hadn't changed, which he thanked Eywa for. The hair along your brows, the four fingers. Your— His gaze dropped before he could stop it—a habit, muscle memory, whatever the hell you wanted to call it when a man looked at a woman and couldn't help himself.
Your breasts.
The People did not mark flesh with shame the way sky-people did, wrapping themselves in layers even under the sun's full weight. Nudity was breath, was movement, was simply being.
But he found himself wondering. Would they still carry that peculiar softness he'd felt through your shirt that one time?
He'd seen human women move, that bounce from when they ran or laughed.
His throat worked around a swallow.
His eyes drifted lower still. To your belly.
It was flatter than your human form, still not fed any solids. But he was sure that would change once you started piloting. And it was capable of something else now, wasn't it?
Capable of swelling.
That eager cunt between your legs, it could hold a baby now.
It'll be mine.
A voice said. His, undoubtedly. His tail cracked.
Mine. The thought was peaceful to him.
.
.
.
Day broke beneath the canopy.
It came slow, lazy—filtered through leaves that turned the light green and gold. The heat followed, thick and wet, the kind that clung to your skin and refused to let go. You understood now why the Na'vi wore so little.
"It's not easy!" You huffed, breath catching. Your tail whipped sideways and cracked against Neteyam's hip. Heat flooded your face.
He was kind enough not to stare. Cruel enough, though, to catch the thing mid-swing and tug.
"Ah—!"
"Sure, it is." Neteyam sighed, and his voice dropped to that cooing tone when he thought he was right. “You simply refuse to listen." He pressed you to his chest, his lips near your flickering ears. "What did I tell you about the hands? Balance comes from the tail. Not hips, not arms, not those ridiculous toes of yours, sky-woman."
He let go and patted your bottom. "Go on, try again."
You whipped around, mouth open, ready to tell him exactly where he could shove his try again, but he was already leaning back against a boulder with his arms crossed, waiting.
Training.
You'd thought Neteyam would go easy on you. He had not. He was just as strict as his father—maybe worse, because Jake at least had the decency to look apologetic when he pushed you past your limits.
Neteyam just watched with those big golden eyes, and demanded perfection from his students.
Morning drills were the worst part. He woke you before dawn, dragged you out of your kelku while the village still slept, and put you through exercises that left your muscles screaming.
"You're not technically my teacher," you liked to remind him. The distinction mattered to you. It didn't matter to him.
"No," he'd said once, not even looking up from where he was checking your foot placement. "I am worse. Teachers have students who want to learn."
You rolled your eyes, stalking forward before slowly approaching the tree. Bark rough under your palms, grooves deep enough to catch your toes if you were careful.
"This is stupid,"
You lifted one foot over the other, toes finding grooves. He'd mocked you for wearing shoes last time, lectured you about feeling the tree, about connection. If you did it again, you'd never hear the end of it.
"I'm not Na'vi."
"You are an avatar."
Neteyam's voice came from behind you, lazy and unbothered. You were sure he was assessing your form, and you could feel him counting every mistake that shifted with the wobble of a food, or wrong shift of weight.
"If you plan to have a child—"
Your foot slipped.
"—they must know the ways of their ancestors."
You caught yourself, fingers digging into bark hard enough that splinters bit into your palms. Your heart hammered. Below, the ground looked very far away.
"Which also includes humans," you shot back, breathless.
You struggled upward, arms burning. Another handhold. Another foothold. Your breathing came ragged now, and you were sure he noted that too. Added it to his mental list of things to fix.
"And humans do not climb trees."
You reached a low branch and settled onto it, mimicking his stance. Arms crossed, one leg dangling. You looked smug.
"That is not—" He shifted, pausing when he caught you. "Hey!"
You stuck your tongue out. Neteyam's hairless brow arched.
"Impossible woman," He laughed like you'd stolen it from him. It softened his whole face, made him look younger. Less like the future olo'eyktan and more like the boy you’d grown up with.
Then he glanced back toward the village, ears swiveling.
Truthfully, he'd picked mornings for a reason: Fewer eyes. Fewer men to gawk at the sky-woman in her strange new body. Fewer whispers about clan taboos and what it meant that Neteyam te Suli Tsyeyk'itan spent so much time with you.
Fewer interruptions.
Which meant he could hold you as long as he liked without someone in his ear reminding him of propriety.
"Yoo hoo!"
Fuck.
Movement in his peripheral. Anok—one of the more experienced hunters in his father's group—seemed to be holding something. “There you are!”
Anok's eyes found you.
Found you sitting on that branch with your legs dangling, chest still heaving from exertion, skin flushed. His gaze lingered a beat too long on the curve of your waist, the beaded top you wore.
Neteyam stepped between you and Anok's line of sight, a simple adjusting of his stance, all casual-like.
He glanced back at you. "I'm needed. Continue. I expect to see you in the top branches when I return."
You glanced down at him, pouting. “You’re leaving…?”
Something about the way you said it—or rather, the way you looked saying it—Your lower lip jutted forward, eyes going soft and wide…It made his legs refuse to move. He turned back. His tail stilled against his conscious will.
"Do you want me to watch when you reach it?" he said softly, almost teasingly.
Your ears flattened.
"...No." You turned back to the tree, fingers searching bark. "Just go."
He turned back toward Anok, then stopped. He forced himself to smile instead of doing what he wanted, which was climb up there and kiss that pout off your mouth.
“Hm. Just wait for me, then.” He whispered. You began climbing again. He chuckled.
You could be cute.
He walked through knee-high grass, boots ghosting over bent stalks, before coming to attention beside Anok. The older man studied Neteyam with something between amusement and knowing—a faint smile that would never quite reach words.
"What is it, Anok?"
"Nothing dire." Anok extended what Neteyam recognized as paper—that fragile Earth-thing, thin as shed skin. It trembled slightly in his grip. "Your father wants this delivered to Y/n."
Neteyam frowned at the delicate sheet. "And this is…?"
A shrug. "Names, I think. A list. What for—" Anok's gaze drifted past Neteyam's shoulder, tracking something in the clearing beyond. "—I couldn't say for certain."
A pause.
Then, quieter: "Though I have my suspicions."
Neteyam turned.
You were on the trampled practice ground, cross-legged in the dirt, a child suspended above your head. Your arms held steady as you bubbled your lips against the child's round stomach. The sound was wet and silly—and the child shrieked. Pure joy. You brought them down to your hip, reaching for another, and cupping pudgy cheeks between your palms.
"Again!" the first child demanded, bouncing. "Again, again!"
They were screaming now. Happy screaming. The kind that split the air and made hunters across the clearing wince and shoot you irritated looks. They ran in circles around you, tripping over their own feet, dizzy with it, grabbing at your arms and tail and hair.
Neteyam's heart did something gentle. Something dangerous.
His eyes went hazy, unfocused, seeing you but also not—seeing something further. A future, maybe. You, heavy with child. You, singing lullabies in that broken Na'vi you were learning. You, looking at him the way you looked at those children now.
Good mother, his mind whispered.
His children.
A sharp clap landed on his shoulder.
Neteyam jolted, blinking fast, head whipping back. "Hm? Sorry, what?"
Anok's laugh was low, knowing, unbearably smug. He shook his head. "Nothing, young one." A pause. His grin widened. "Go on. Go."
Neteyam stumbled half a step before steadying himself. He rolled his shoulders, deepened his voice, crossed his arms as he approached. "What did I tell you?" The growl didn't quite land; his smile betrayed him.
The children shrieked and scattered like prey, diving behind your legs, your hips, your thighs. Little faces peeking out, wide-eyed and grinning.
"Muptx," Neteyam sighed with false severity. "These are training grounds."
They giggled. You lifted one—the pudgy one with the huge, gap-toothed smile—and cradled them against your chest. Then you looked up at Neteyam. Puppy eyes. Full pout.
"Are you really mad at us, karyu?"
Neteyam stopped.
His ears snapped forward, desperate to catch the word again, to hold it, to keep it. "Karyu?" His voice cracked. Just barely. He stepped closer, head tilting, gaze locked on your mouth like he could pull the word back out if he stared hard enough. "Teacher?"
"Who's been teaching you Na'vi? I never—"
"No one," you said, far too innocent.
He pressed his lips together, gaze fixed on yours, and dragged his tongue across his bottom lip. Heat crept up his neck. "Mm." A cough. He turned to the children, voice gentler now. "Go play elsewhere. I need to speak with Y/n."
You set the child down. They scattered immediately, descending on another unsuspecting hunter across the field. Both of you watched them go, quiet laughter shared between you.
Then your attention snapped to the paper in his hand. "What's that?"
Neteyam blinked down at it as if he'd forgotten. "I'm not sure. My father wanted you to have it." He glanced back toward where Anok had been standing, handing out the paper.
Anok had already left, it seemed.
You snatched it from his hand,
He blinked. Tilted his head.
You were reading now. Fast. Eyes darting across the foreign symbols. Your lips moved silently, forming shapes he couldn't parse.
Then you sighed.
"Dammit."
Neteyam tried leaning over your shoulder, squinting at the figures that made no sense to him, so he settled for watching your face instead—which was, truthfully, what he'd intended to do anyway.
“What is it?”
"Insemination," you said, half to yourself. "But the options are slim. Norm, Gander, Henderson, Michael, Ergie…" More names. A litany of men based to genetic potential. Even Jake had offered—Neytiri gave her blessing, which while kind somehow felt strange.
He’s like my dad…
You dropped into the grass, legs crossed, page bent between your thumbs. Neteyam lowered himself beside you. Close enough that if he shifted his knee just slightly, it would brush yours.
The problem was simple: you had options. Technically. Most avatars came from older bodies, older men. Worn hands, tired eyes, decent enough people who'd given decades to this moon and its science. Norm especially—you liked Norm. His nervous laugh, how he'd let you borrow his books without asking for them back.
But the thought of carrying his child, of a baby with his narrow shoulders and that apologetic smile…
Ugh. Your stomach turned just imagining it.
Spoiled, you thought. Picky and spoiled.
A year ago you would've jumped at any option. But now that you had a body that worked, a womb that could hold life, it felt wasteful to settle for just anyone.
Neteyam's frown deepened. "So you will wait? Until the next generation of avatar drivers arrive?"
You shrugged, setting the page aside. "Maybe. Probably. Two, three years at most. I can wait that long."
You couldn't. You'd waited long enough already. But you didn't tell him that.
"I could read baby books or something. Get prepared." You tipped your head back, staring at the canopy before flopping onto your back. "...Or maybe I should ask the People?"
Neteyam went still. His eyes widened, thumb twitching against his thigh. He looked down at you—at the slow rise and fall of your chest—then lower, before dragging his gaze away and swallowing hard. "...Na'vi?"
"Yeah." You squinted at the sky, frowning through the thought. "I mean… I don't know. You think any would be willing to…?" Another shrug, smaller this time.
I would, Neteyam thought.
If you let me, I'd be the father of your child and your mate equally. I'd do it properly—before Eywa, with witnesses, your name woven into my songcord. Look at me. Choose me, Y/n. Please.
"I—" He fumbled, fingers finding the edge of his loincloth, twisting. His gaze dropped. “Well, most likely," he managed. "People enjoy you. They know you would make a wonderful mother, but—"
"But what?" You sat up now, and his eyes softened. He ducked his head.
"My people don't believe in human technology, Y/n. And you'd raise the child alone. Purely human teaching. It's…" He swallowed again. "Taboo. To partner with a human. To father a child with one. Even my mother gets comments—jabs—and my father is Toruk Makto." Bitterness bled into his tone. "Most Na'vi wouldn't accept it. Despite their acceptance of you."
You paused. Your lips pressed into a thin line before you nodded.
"Alright then. Three years of waiting it is." The smile you offered was small, and it looked suspiciously like the ones you’d give in response to pitying faces.
“Good.” He whispered.
Not good. Ask me. Please ask me.
“Good.” You said back.
But you had never been a patient person, and you were far too close to stop now.
Which is why, three months later, you found yourself seeking Neteyam out. Any longer and you could see yourself tracking down the nearest viable sperm donor and just doing it—consequences be damned.
Desperation, tangled with need, led you to him.
Neteyam should have known something was wrong when you came in sporting your shy and expectant smile.
He'd been mending a fishing net in the family hut, alone, fingers working the familiar rhythm of loop and pull when your footsteps announced you. Too heavy, always too heavy, even after all this time. Once you'd blamed Earth's gravity—twenty percent stronger, you'd said—until he'd reminded you that you'd never even been to Earth.
"Thumper," he'd called you then.
Today he chose kindness. "Y/n?"
He turned just enough to catch you in his periphery, his smile coming easy, his tail betraying him with a slow, pleased sway. You didn't visit often—not in his space. In this hut that smelled of woven grass and old leather and him. You belonged to other places: the compound's corridors, the forest groves where the People gathered fruits. But never here, where everything carried his mark.
But now you were here, and the wrongness of it—how right you smelled against the backdrop of his things—made his chest tighten.
"I heard you were looking for me. Did you need something?" His voice came rougher than intended. He cleared his throat, ducking his head back to his work. His fingers fumbled with the spider-thread. Looping, threading. Adding small beads for Kiri who sometimes wore his nets as jewelry.
Silence, you watched him.
“I…” You stepped forward and swallowed thickly. His ears caught the brief sound of it. “I need to ask you something.”
"Of course. Whatever you need, I will—"
"I want a baby."
His hands stopped.
The net hung suspended between his fingers, forgotten. His ears swiveled back, then forward, as if trying to confirm what they'd just heard, and you realized how stupid it sounded. Of course you wanted a baby, everyone and their mothers knew you wanted a baby.
You made a small, strangled sound. "I—I mean—" Your palms flew to your face, muffling the rest. "God, that's not—what I mean is—goddammit." You peeked at him through your fingers, and the words came out in a mortified rush. "Your sperm. I need your sperm."
Heat lanced through him. Blood rushed south and his cock twitched traitorously against his loincloth. He bit down on a groan.
"Y/n." Her name left him soft. He turned slowly, the net sliding from his lap to the floor.
But you were already spiraling. "I'm asking if you'd consider it. Being the father. I know it's taboo, I know your family would—and the clan—" The words tumbled faster, tripping. "But you wouldn't have to be involved if you didn't want to. I wouldn't tell anyone. It could just be like donating blood, right? Except it's not blood, it's—" You gestured vaguely at his groin. "—that."
"Stop."
You did. Immediately. Your ears folded flat, your tail tucking in tight against your leg. You looked up—and up—and the eight inches of height difference became the full eight feet of him looming. Your ears folded flat. Tail tucked against your thigh. His chest cracked.
"You want my baby."
Your uncertainty bloomed when his voice gentled. When he reached for your wrists, slow enough to be a question, and bent until his face hovered above yours. Amber eyes searched your expression for the joke, the lie, the panic. He found none.
"Yes."
His smile widened, just a fraction. He stepped closer, closing the distance until he could tug you forward, bending until his half-lidded amber eyes were in direct opposition to yours.
A low, shaky breath escaped him.
"Yawne," and the endearment hurt to say. "You know what this means to my people. The joining is sacred. A gift from Eywa. It is not a… a transaction." His jaw worked. "I told you this. No na'vi would accept it."
His chin settled atop your head. His hands spread across your back, fingers splaying wide, and he pulled you closer. Tighter. Too tight, maybe, but he couldn't seem to help himself. You fit so perfectly against him. Your head barely reached his chest, and he could feel every curve of you pressed into the hard planes of his body. His eyes squeezed shut.
"I am… glad I can give you this."
The embrace lingered past what friends might share. But you didn't seem to notice. You never did.
Then you were stepping back, and the air between you cooled. Your eyes were already chasing the doorway behind him.
But Neteyams hand never did trail off. One hand rose, hovering above the soft dip of your navel before his fingertips made contact—warm where your womb rested beneath skin and muscle. He traced upward, then down, feeling the gentle curve of you.
You squirmed.
"Any na'vi, sure. But it's you, Neteyam." Your voice cracked open. "Please… I tried to wait but three more years, then another nine just to—" You shook your head, gaze dropping to where his palm burned against your stomach. "We wouldn't have to… you know. Touch. It'd just be a p-pump." The word came out bitter. "It won't be weird, I promise."
A pump?
He stopped.
The softness that had been in his eyes—the heat that had been building there, coiling low in his belly—all of it burned away.
He retracted, blinking as if clarity was just a wink away.
"A… pump." He repeated.
You nodded quickly. "Yeah. Like—like artificial insemination. The scientists do it all the time with the—"
"I know what it is."
The first thought was shameful—you, round with his baby, belly swollen and full, breasts heavy with milk. He'd take care of you. Hunt for you. The second thought followed: his mother's disappointment, the scandal, whispers behind hands. Neteyam te Suli Tsyeyk'itan, lying with a demon. Spilling his seed in a cup like some—
But beneath it all, sharper than any blade, was the realization that gutted him most.
You wanted the material.
Not him.
Not him.
A rough sound escaped. He pressed his forehead to yours. His breath ghosted across your lips. His eyes were completely shut, dark lashes wisping against his cheeks. "You have no idea, do you? What you are asking of me."
He'd do anything for you. Didn't you know that? How could he possibly deny you anything?
"I would give you anything." The confession tore out of him. "Anything, Y/n. My breath. My blood. My life if you demanded it." His hands cupped your face, thumbs stroking the ridiculous softness of your cheeks. "But you ask for this. For nothing of me except what you can put in a container."
Your eyes widened. "That's not—I didn't mean—"
"I told you, I told you." His voice was raw now. "When a man wants a woman, he courts her. Brings her gifts. Proves himself worthy." His thumb traced your lower lip. "He braids her hair. Learns her favorite foods. Makes her laugh."
You were trembling now.
"And when she finally says yes—when she chooses him—they go before Eywa. They bond. They make tsaheylu and they are never alone again." His eyes opened, molten gold and devastating. "That is how life begins for us. In love, with connection."
"Neteyam..." Your voice was barely a whisper.
"You want my child." He said it slowly. “But you do not want me."
"That's not true!"
"No?" He pulled back, just enough to see you clearly. "Then tell me, yawne. If I said yes—if I agreed to your... pump—would you let me court you after? Would you braid my hair and wear my colors and let the clan know you carried my child with pride?"
You opened your mouth, then closed it. Ge was Neteyam, childhood friend Neteyam who ate dirt with you and sometimes stole cookies from Norm’s jar. That Neteyam, who was confessing that he wanted to be with you.
Nothing came out.
And that—that—was answer enough.
He released you and stepped back. "I thought so."
"Wait—no, you don't understand—" You reached for him, but he sidestepped, graceful and practiced like all that he was. He refused to look at you, and that hurt. "It's not that I don't want you, it's just—complicated. The clan, your family, your are—"
"So you would have me in secret. Hidden away like something shameful."
"That's not what I meant!"
"Then what did you mean, Y/n?" He rounded on you, and there was something wild in his eyes now. "Because from where I stand, it sounds like you want me to father your child and then... what? Disappear? Pretend it never happened?"
"I want—" You faltered. What did you want? A baby, yes. But also... "I want you to be happy. I want—I don't want to trap you in something you don't want."
"You think I don't want you?"
The question hung in the air, and you realized like the slow idiot you were.
God… Neteyam loves you.
Neteyam withdrew, and his eyes went flat.
And to think they'd been warm moments before. Amber catching firelight, soft at the edges where they creased when he smiled.
"You want me to…" His jaw worked. Tendons surfaced along his neck like taut rigging. "In a room. Alone. With a machine. So the scientists can have what they need."
He paused.
"And you would have a child. My child." His head tilted—just enough to show you his profile, the angle of his cheekbone catching faint bioluminescence. "But not me."
"Neteyam—"
"Did you think of me at all when you made this plan? Or only of what I could provide?"
You stayed silent. What answer existed that wouldn't flay you both? The quiet between you thickened, pressing against your ribs until breathing felt like labor.
"Why?"
His eyes pinned you there, and the air turned viscous, hard to pull into your lungs.
"Why me, Y/n?" His voice dropped lower. "There are many hunters. Strong warriors. Men with…" His jaw locked. He stopped himself. You saw his throat work around whatever words he'd swallowed back down.
His hand rose—hesitant, trembling at the edge of restraint—and this time his knuckles brushed your cheek.
You stepped aside.
The loss of contact felt mutual. "Because you are my friend. There is no one else I trust more than you."
Somehow deep down you knew that was wrong answer.
His ears collapsed. He took a step back. His tail curled loosely around his own ankle—a self-soothing gesture you'd seen only once before, when his father had dressed him down publicly for a mistake Lo'ak had made. The memory of it then had broken something in your chest. Seeing it now presented by you, because you decided to put this space between.
"Of course."
His voice became polite. Formal in the way he'd speak to visiting elders or Tarsem when his father watched. All the warmth scraped out and replaced with something that looked like respect.
"I am honored you would consider me. Your trust means a great deal."
Stop. Stop talking like that.
He turned halfway, hands finding a basket that sat fine where it was, but adjusted it anyway.
"If this is what you need from me, I will give it. I told you, I would do anything for you. I meant it."
He stood there, his hands hung loose at his sides. His ears were still drooped, his tail still limp. "Before you go." His adam's apple bobbed. "I need you to understand something."
Three strides. That's all it took to close the distance. This close, you could smell him—rain on leaves, something warm beneath and masculine from him.
His hand rose and cupped your face with devastating gentleness.
"I would have given you a child the old way," he whispered. "The sacred way. If you had only asked."
His thumb brushed your lower lip.
"But you did not ask. So I will not… I will not burden you with what I feel."
You eyed him in several quick successions. First his eyes before landing to the ground. Your smile came crooked, wrong. You turned before it could betray more. “If… well, if the insemination doesn’t work…” You whispered. You awkwardly stood there, he could see you just beyond his point of vision.
You didn’t add more to the conversation, those words seemed to be enough for you, and so you left.
Just like that.
Neteyam’s arm dropped.
He turned away from the entrance, moving deeper into the hut. His foot caught the edge of the fishing net he'd abandoned earlier, and he kicked it aside with uncharacteristic violence. It skittered across the floor, tangling against a storage basket.
His chest heaved.
"Skxawng," he hissed at himself. He began hitting himself with the flat part of his hand. "Stupid. Stupid."
He pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes until colors burst behind his lids.
She hadn't known. All this time—the gifts, the hunts, the jewelry he'd woven with her in mind, the way he'd maneuvered to be assigned as her teacher—she hadn't known.
Well…now she did.
A sound escaped him.
"If the insemination doesn't work…"
His hands fell away from his face. He stared at the ceiling, at the patterns woven there, and something dark and hungry unfurled in his chest. He felt it within his blood, pumping through the tight muscle of his heart. A steady beat of pumping blood, disgusting, vile. His thoughts were vile.
Perhaps the scientist's machine would fail. Perhaps Eywa would see fit to intervene. Perhaps the foreign sky-people medicine would prove incompatible with Na'vi biology, and the procedure would collapse before it began, and she would turn to him with those wide eyes and say—
He cut the thought off before it could fully form. Shame burned unsteady.
But his hands were still shaking when he finally lowered himself onto his sleeping mat, and sleep did not come for a very long time.
.
.
.
The next day, Neteyam went to the compound in High Camp.
High Camp's research wing sprawled around the cliffside—away from most omatikaya structures. Here they did the real expirimentations, at least that is what he could gather from you, once upon a time.
Lets get this over with. Do what needs doing, then leave.
Neteyam snapped a mask, taking a breath. He moved like he was heading into battle and not into some sterile human box to jerk off into a cup, shoulders angled to avoid eye contact with the few scientists still hunched over their workstations.
He didn't want to prolong the suffering. Just do what needed doing and let you have the life you always wanted—the one with an infant at your breast and all the small violences of motherhood.
He could be generous. Play the part of friend. Provide the seed so some part-him, part-you creature could exist in the world, claim no responsibility, and slip back into the role of noble, prodigal son.
He could give you that, be the generous donor and watch from a careful distance while some part of him grew up calling someone else father.
Easy. Except—
I don't want that.
The admission was childish. He wanted to be constant into your life, not edited out of it. He wanted—Great Mother forgive him—he wanted the insemination to fail. Just so the two of you might—
"There you are!"
Neteyam had turned his head, frowning softly. He felt exposed. Ridiculous. A hunter of the Omatikaya, standing in a narrow corridor while Norm eagerly ran up to him.
Norm clapped his back hard enough to make him stumble. "You're good for doing this, man. Really. We already knew it was a long shot Y/n would accept me as a donor. I mean—" He laughed, sucking his teeth. "Mutxuk told me only a fool like herself would have my kids." Norms tail wagged.
It always did when anyone—anyone—mentioned his mate.
"Yes," Neteyam said carefully. "So I am here for the—"
"The insemination!"
Much too loud.
Heads turned. A pair of techs at a nearby console glanced over. Neteyam felt his skin prickle, every instinct screaming to bolt.
"—really remarkable, actually," Norm was saying, oblivious. His hands moved as he talked, gesturing wildly. "The Na'vi reproductive system has some fascinating differences from human biology. The volume alone is—"
"The room." His voice stayed polite. "Where is it?"
Norm blinked, seeming to remember himself.
"Right! Right, of course. This way."
Norm led him down another corridor—identical to the last, all gray panels and humming machinery—before stopping at a nondescript door. Norm's gloved hand pressed against a panel, and it slid open with a mechanical hiss.
Neteyam peered inside.
Small. Too small for someone of his height. A padded bench barely long enough for his frame. Harsh overhead lighting. And there, on a sterile metal tray beside the bench—
The pump.
It was… clinical. Plastic and tubing and a collection vessel that seemed almost insultingly small.
His jaw tightened.
"There are, uh... materials," Norm said, gesturing vaguely toward a screen mounted on the wall. "Visual aids. If you need them. Some of our avatar drivers mentioned that it helps with the, uh—" He cleared his throat. "—process."
"I do not need them."
The words came out edged, sharper than he meant. Neteyam forced his shoulders down, forced the mask of pleasant neutrality back into place even as something ugly coiled in his chest.
"Thank you, Norm. I will… manage."
"Take your time! No pressure. Just, uh—" Norm tapped the panel beside the door. "Just press the call button when you're done and I'll come collect the sample. Easy peasy.!"
The door hissed shut.
Neteyam stood alone in the too-bright room, staring at the pump on its sterile tray.
His tail curled tight around his own thigh.
It felt so unnatural, embarrassing. He looked at the pump, grabbed it, and felt dirty. His mother would kill him if she knew, and she'd know. Know he'd debased himself in a human facility, alone, for—
For what?
For you.
He clicked something. The pump jolted to life and suddenly it made a sound, vibrating and making a sucking motion.
It looked obscene. A mouth, almost. Soft ridges inside that he could see through the translucent material, designed to... to...
His ears flattened so hard against his skull they ached.
A wet, rhythmic squelching sound filled the room now—schluck—echoing off the walls and crawling into his ears and making a home there. The vibration traveled up his arm, settled into his bones. His hand jerked and he nearly dropped it.
He moved to turn it off instead. His thumb slipped on the button and it took three tries before the awful sound stopped and the silence rushed back in.
The sound continued. Schluck-schluck-schluck.
"Turn off, you—" His voice cracked. "Please, please—"
Fourth try. The button clicked. The awful sucking stopped.
His breath came faster now.
He looked down at himself. At the loincloth he'd have to remove. At the clinical collection vessel waiting on its tray like a hungry mouth.
His stomach turned.
For Y/n. This was for Y/n.
He repeated it like a mantra as he reached for the ties at his hip. His fingers fumbled—Neteyam, who could string a bow blindfolded, whose hands never shook, couldn't manage a simple knot.
The loincloth fell away.
He sat on the padded bench, and his knees nearly touched his chest. Too small. Everything in the human world was too small. The padding was cold against his bare ass, and he shivered despite the regulated temperature that kept this place at a constant seventy-two degrees.
He looked at the pump again. Then at the screen on the wall—dark, mercifully, but he knew what could show.
"Pornography," Lo'ak had said once, years ago, when they'd slipped into an abandoned storage unit and found a dusty disk case. The label was faded but readable: Barely Legal Beauties Vol. 3. "Heard it's like… humans mating. But, like, on purpose. For watching."
Neteyam had wrinkled his nose. "That's disgusting. And private, no? Who would film such a thing?"
Lo'ak had only shrugged, wiggling the disk between two fingers. "I dunno. Want to see?"
"No!"
But they'd both gathered at the screen anyway. Watched with wide eyes and burning faces as pale bodies writhed and moaned, as the woman's voice pitched higher and higher in sounds that seemed exaggerated, performative. Too mortified to speak of it after, though Lo'ak had made a joke three days later that earned him a punch to the shoulder.
And now—now it was being offered, and he felt sick.
I can do this myself, he thought, pride flaring stubborn and sharp. I don't need to watch demons mate.
His hand drifted down. He wrapped around himself with the kind of practiced familiarity that any man would know. He closed his eyes. Tried to summon something—anything—that might make this easier. The curve of a hip. The arch of a back. Soft sounds in the dark, breathy and wanting. Generic shapes. Anonymous bodies. Anything.
His cock remained soft.
"Come on," he muttered. His jaw clenched. His hand tightened, stroked faster, rougher—maybe friction would trick his body into cooperation.
Still nothing.
Panic crept higher. What if he couldn't? What if he went back out there empty-handed, the vessel as sterile and unused as when he'd entered? What would he tell them? Tell you?
Sorry, I couldn't even manage fucking my hand.
He tried again, fisting himself while his chest huffed. Two swallows, then one. Another when he traced the head of his cock and looked at the foreskin slowly slipping up and down, skin bunching up.
He thought of your face.
Your face when he'd touched your cheek in his hut. The way your expression had shifted from fear to confusion to realization. The step backward you'd taken, putting distance between his hand and your skin.
Friend.
His hand stilled.
“Fuck.”
He almost wanted to cry.
He couldn't go beyond half-hard.
Neteyam’s cock sat heavy against his thigh, half-swollen and useless. He stared at it, jaw tight, ears flat against his skull. His hand reached for the pump before he could think better of it.
He turned it on, almost turned it off, before slowly pressing it. And then-
The suction hit him all at once—warm, wet, alive—and his breath punched out of his lungs in a shocked gasp. His head snapped back against the padded bench, braids scattering across the surface.
"Ah—fuck—"
The suction pulled a sound from him that would've gotten him exiled from the clan. A high, needy whine that cracked at the edges. His head snapped back, braids swinging, and his free hand scrabbled against the padding beneath him for something—anything—to anchor to.
It was warm.
Body temperature. Soft silicone that yielded and gripped and pulled with a relentless rhythm that made his thighs shake. When he sank deeper into it, the wet heat of it—Great Mother, it felt like—it felt like—
His hips jerked, chasing the sensation with a desperation that would've humiliated him if he could think past the pleasure sparking up his spine.
Ancestors forgive me.
The pump didn't care about his shame. It continued its mechanical rhythm—suck, release, suck, release—with a consistency no living thing could match.
His thighs trembled. His tail thrashed against the bench, the tuft at its end brushing the sterile floor with each desperate sweep. The bioluminescent freckles scattered across his chest and shoulders began to glow brighter, pulsing in time with his racing heartbeat.
"Ah—" He bit down on his lower lip hard enough to taste copper. "Eywa—"
His eyes squeezed shut tighter. He needed to focus. Needed to think of something, someone—
Y/n.
The image came unbidden. Not the clinical Y/n who'd explained insemination cycles like she was reading from a datapad. The other one. The one who'd hugged him so tightly he could feel every curve pressed against him. The one whose head barely reached his chest. Whose waist was so small his thumbs would touch if he held her.
His grip on the pump tightened.
He imagined it was her mouth instead.
Warm and wet and eager. Those pretty human eyes looking up at him while she swallowed him down, while she choked on him, while tears streamed down her flushed cheeks and she took it anyway because she wanted to, because she—
A broken moan tore from his throat.
The suction increased—he must've hit a setting—and suddenly it was pulling at him, milking him, and he couldn't—
His hips bucked harder now, chasing something building low in his belly.
"Y/n!"
Your name slipped out before he could stop it.
His free hand fisted in his own hair, tugging hard, and he pictured you beneath him instead. Small and soft and finally, finally his.
"I love you—"
The words tumbled out, slurred and wanting. His hips bucked harder, faster, chasing the build in his belly. The pump squelched around him, slick and hot and relentless, and he pictured your face. The way you'd blush. The way you'd gasp when he pushed inside—
"I love you, I love you, I love you.”
He pictured you underneath him. Those thick thighs he'd glimpsed once (just once, when you'd bent to pick something up) spread wide. That soft belly he wanted to bite. The way you'd sound—would you whimper? Would you beg? Would you say his name in that breathy little gasp you used when surprised?
The pump made an obscene schlick-schlick-schlick sound as he fucked into it.
His tail lashed so hard it knocked over a tray of instruments. The clatter barely registered.
"Please—" To who? To what? "Please, please, Y/n—"
He was close. So close. The pressure built low in his belly, coiling tighter and tighter, and he could feel his balls drawing up, could feel the way his cock swelled even thicker in the pump's grip, could feel—
you. Under him. Around him. Squeezing him. Milking him. Taking everything he had to give and begging for more.
"Y/n!"
Your name ripped from his throat as he came.
The first thick rope of cum shot into the collection vessel with enough force to splatter. Then another. And another. More than any human could produce—more than he'd ever produced before—hot and endless, pumping out of him in waves that seemed to go on forever while he gasped and shook and whined through it.
He sat there, chest heaving like he'd run a mile, sweat cooling too fast in the sterile hum of climate control. The pump released him with a sound that shouldn't have been so loud. Wet. Obscene. The kind of noise that made his ears pin flat against his skull.
His cock slipped free—oversensitive, twitching, already softening.
The collection vessel sat on its tray, full.
He stared at it. At the evidence of what he'd just done. Thick and pearlescent, still warm, destined for a freezer somewhere in this sterile compound. To be thawed when needed. Inserted into you by clinical hands and instruments that had no right to touch you at all.
His child. Made like this.
Something wet slid down his cheek. He didn't recognize it at first—the salt, the heat. Then his hand moved, rough, angry, swiping it away and stood on legs that didn't quite feel like his own. His loincloth lay crumpled on the floor, and he retrieved it with stilted movements—tie here, adjust there—until he looked almost normal again.
His reflection stared back from a darkened monitor. Wild-eyed. Wrecked. The bioluminescent freckles scattered across his shoulders still glowed too bright—dying embers that refused to go out.
He looked away.
The call button sat beside the door. One press and Norm would come. Would collect what he'd left behind. What he'd given.
He pressed it.
Norm arrived smiling—awkward, a little too cheerful, like humor could smooth over what they both knew. Human shame. Neteyam wished he carried some of it. Just enough to make this hurt less.
"Kinda hard to focus, yeah?" Norm's laugh came out strained, forced. "It's supposed to be effective and quick, so—" He shrugged, pulling on gloves with practiced snaps. His gaze skittered away, then back, never quite landing. "You did good."
Did good. Like he'd passed some test.
Norm was already moving, gloved hands efficient. He took the pump, placed it in some bin with a hollow thunk. Then his attention shifted to the container. "Good amount, though." A pause. His smile softened into something almost kind. "Hopefully you're fertile!"
"How long?" Neteyam's voice came out rougher than intended.
Norm blinked. "Until we know if it takes?"
"Until she..." He couldn't finish. The image lodged in his throat—you, legs spread in this same clinical horror, while human hands inserted what should have been given in darkness and warmth and something resembling love.
"Oh." Norm's expression shuttered. Professional mask sliding back into place. "We'll prep her for insemination within the next few hours. The sample's viability window is optimal in the first six hours, but we've got extenders that'll keep it good for up to forty-eight if needed." He was already sealing the container, labeling it with quick, efficient movements.
The words barely registered.
Neteyam moved through the corridor like something half-dead, his bare feet silent against the cold metal flooring. Norm's voice buzzed somewhere behind him.
"Pretty fertile."
His stomach turned.
"Right," he managed, the word hollow.
He didn't look back. Couldn't. If he saw the collection vessel one more time—saw what he'd produced while crying into a machine, he might do something shameful. Might grab it and run. Might smash it against the sterile floor.
Might beg them to let him try again.
And he did.
Not out loud, never that honest, but the way he'd shown up yesterday—and the day before—After the first time, it became impossible not to want it again. It was easy. Accessible. A locked room where he could moan your name and no one would hear. No one would know. He could pretend his hand was yours, that the cold clinical touch of the apparatus was your heat, your softness, your—
Three times now. He'd done this three times in as many days.
Norm hadn't questioned it. Why would he? Wider sample. Just in case. The words had slipped out so easily, and Neteyam's ears had barely drooped at all.
But Norm caught on. The bastard.
"I'm gonna have to stop you now, kid."
Neteyam froze. His tail went rigid.
Norm shifted his weight, one hand coming up to rub the back of his neck. "We have enough. Er—more than enough. A goddamn sperm bank at this point." A sigh, almost apologetic. "If we need any more, we'll ask."
"No more?"
Norm's eyebrows rose behind his breathing apparatus. A flicker of something passed across the human's face—concern, maybe, or the beginning of uncomfortable understanding. The kind that made Neteyam's skin crawl because it meant Norm saw.
"Y/n only needs one baby," Norm said slowly, carefully. "Maybe two if she wants another later. You've been…" A nervous laugh that didn't land. "Very thorough."
Neteyam's jaw worked, tongue pressed hard against his teeth. Thorough. Such a clean word for what he'd been doing.
"If we need any more, we'll ask."
They did not ask again.
So Neteyam stole it.
A/N- Please remember to reblog or like! Much appreciated!!!
Warnings: angst, little to no comfort, interspecies relationships, mentions of lovemaking, mentions heartbreak.
A/n: Hi my loves. It’s kinda proofread but also not really so for that i apologize, i hope you enjoy this. I had to get this written the idea was just stuck in my head. I do have my wips and asks written out they just need to be finished and uploaded..
Btw this song is what for the idea stuck in my head..
➳༻❀✿❀༺➳ ༻❀✿❀༺➳ ༻❀✿❀༺ ➳
You heard him before you even had to lift your eyes to look up at him. Just for a brief moment you froze, your mind halting all functions before finally kick starting.
“Y/n.” So’lek called, his voice still caused your heart to flutter. You set down the book in your hand and let your eyes finally find his face. “It is still not safe for you to be here. You have no weapons, and you certainly are not in the correct body.” He reprimanded.
Your brows furrowed and you couldn’t help the small laugh that slipped past your lips. “So’lek I am right next to the base so if anything happens I can run inside or yell for help..”
He said nothing as he crouched in front of you simply observing. You were doing the same watching him, memorizing him, taking in every little detail of him that you could. Your eyes dropped down to the dirt beneath your feet the ground holding you together as you both took a moment to bask in the moment of familiarity.
The quiet wasn’t unnerving on the contrary it was very peaceful, despite the circumstances you still felt it all. Felt like you still belonged.
You remembered a time before the Sarentu came. A time when you both were inseparable, the oddest pair of lovers. Given So’leks distaste for the sky people he was fond of you and your ways to fit into his world even with all that you lacked. You were a breath of fresh air for him, the sun on a rainy day, you made everything seem okay.
Your back was pressed against his abdomen as he focused on his task at hand. You watched the way his hands move with such precision and ease carving into the wood for a new heavy bow.
Your fingers absentmindedly drawing soothing patterns into his skin, your mind drifting to the other night when you both lay in his makeshift home near the base making love until the early hours of sunrise. “If you do not stop I will have to make you.” So’leks deep voice cut through the haze of your thoughts, the sound had your fingers freezing mid stroke as your brows shot up in confusion.
“I can smell you as I try to work, it is distracting. I need to focus.” He mutters once again focused on the carving, never once did he look down at you but you felt the subtle shift of his body behind you. The way he shifted as if trying to adjust himself, the action caused you to laugh before once again relaxing into him as you watched him work.
It did not feel strange to sit here next to the male you love with your entire heart, even if he no longer felt the same for you. Your mind once again drifting to another memory.
So’lek held your body gently against his, his fingers running through your unruly hair. The soothing sensation of his fingers luring you into a trance like state. You both cuddled up, basking in the quietness that blanketed you both through the night.
In moments like these words never needed to be spoken, just being near each other in such a way was enough. A soft sigh slipped past your lips as you felt his nose brushing against your neck, inhaling the unique scent that your human body carried. In one of the rare moment his body would let him relax, when his thoughts were calm and not solely focused on getting revenge for those who stole everything he knew from him.
His lips pressed against yours gently before applying pressure. Pulling your body closer so that there was no space left between the two of you. The kiss left you breathless once you pulled away, your eyes finding each other, the love you both shared shown in the sweet moment between you both.
The serene moment bringing the ghost of a smile to your lips So’lek in his relaxed position beside you. His face a change from his usual scowl. A look that you have only known once before.
“What do you mean So’lek? Why can’t you look at me?” You whispered voice quivering as you held back sobs.
He avoided your gaze yet his hand rested so gently against the back of your head. He was level with you in the moment but still could not look at you.
“I’m sorry little one. It is in my path, my will from Eywa herself.” Such finality, no room for argument in his tone.
“You have mated with them?” You choke out, the anticipation of his answer already gripping at your heart.
“No, no I haven’t not mated with them. I..” he was at a loss for words, still unable to look at you. Yet his grip grew tighter as if he were scared of your reaction, you were so small so tiny, what could you do besides self- destruct and maybe that’s why he held you so gently. “I can’t help but be drawn to their presence, their scent calls for me. They are mine.”
“But what about me? I was yours..” you held back the sob as you spoke. After a moment So’lek let your words settle, his ears down as he readied himself to respond. “But I was not yours to keep little one.” His yellow eyes found your tear filled ones as everything in that moment broke between the two of you.
The memory still caused your heart to ache, as if it were such a fresh wound that hadn’t healed. Your eyes cut to So’lek as he began to stand, an unspoken rule between the two of you. Something soft, subtle, a little acknowledgment that no matter what has changed you both would still be there for the other. You watched as he made his way over to his mate, the Sarentu was everything that he needed, everything that you were and weren’t all in one.
You smiled faintly, ignoring the small ache in your chest. You were happy for him, happy that he had been given a home with the Sarentu, he had been given a second chance to have a home, a mate that wasn’t human, someone who could bless him with children. Someone that Eywa herself could accept for him.
The love you held for him didn’t seem to fade, it didn’t even feel like it had been wasted because it was a special kind of love. Something shared, and even though it’s over you let yourself have a couple minutes where you both were able to ignore everything around you before returning back to reality.
During a brutal RDA raid on Pandora’s eastern seas, a human medic—trained as both nurse and soldier—finally seizes the chance she has planned for in silence. Haunted by years of complicity, she flees the chaos with only her medical kit and her guilt, diving into the ocean with no clear destination—only instinct.
What she finds is a dying Na’vi warrior bleeding out on a rock, abandoned by circumstance but not by fate.
As gunfire echoes and the sea runs red, she makes a choice that will brand her a traitor to her own kind: she saves him.
When his family returns, weapons drawn and grief-stricken, her presence ignites tension, fear, and fury—but her work speaks louder than her species. In the midst of explosions and impossible decisions, the wounded warrior refuses to let her go, binding their fates together.
notes: guys i've been dreaming about this idea for days and i couldn't find a fic like my imagination ˙◠˙ so i wrote this during the hours of midnight in a literal daze, i rlly hope its ok. I want to continue but i genuinely don't know how i would finish the story - idk i guess i'll see how it plays out in my dreams HAHAH
(๑ > ᴗ < ๑) ᡣ𐭩
𓂃 ོ☼𓂃 𓇼𓏲*ੈ✩‧₊˚
The water feels wrong.
Neteyam notices it before the pain—before the weight in his chest, before the way his limbs suddenly refuse to answer him with the same sharp precision they always have. The ocean closes over his head as he dives, powerful stroke after powerful stroke, chasing the silhouettes of his siblings toward safety.
The reef blurs past him, light bending and warping through salt and motion. He kicks harder, muscles burning, lungs screaming—but then—
His strength falters.
It’s subtle at first. A drag. Like the sea has hooked its fingers into him and decided he should stay.
Neteyam frowns, confusion flickering through him. He adjusts his stroke, tries to correct, but his body lags behind his intent. The water presses heavier against his side, each movement suddenly costing more than it should.
He reaches the rock outcropping on instinct alone.
His hand scrapes stone, fingers slipping before finding purpose. He hauls himself halfway out of the water, breath stuttering—sharp, shallow, wrong. The sounds of the battle crash around him now, no longer distant: engines, shouting, the crack of gunfire echoing across the open sea.
He looks down.
Red.
Not the soft glow of reef light or the shimmer of bioluminescence clinging to coral. Something darker, blooming outward in lazy clouds beneath the surface, curling around his thigh and drifting away with the current.
His ears flatten.
He presses a hand to his side and feels warmth.
Too much warmth.
“Oh,” he breathes, barely audible over the crash of waves. Not fear—realization. “No…”
His knees buckle.
Lo’ak is there instantly.
Neteyam barely registers the impact as his brother grabs him, shouting his name, eyes wide and wild. The world tilts as Lo’ak pulls him upright, panic bleeding through every sharp movement.
“I’m shot,” Neteyam manages, the words tearing out of him like they cost something vital.
Lo’ak’s face crumples.
“No—no, no—” he says, voice cracking as he swings Neteyam onto his back. “Stay with me. Stay awake. I’ve got you.”
They plunge back into the water.
Neteyam clings loosely to his brother’s shoulders as they move, each second stretching thin. The pressure of the sea is unbearable now, his vision dimming at the edges, sounds muffled as if he’s sinking deeper than he is.
By the time Lo’ak reaches the rock outcropping again, Neteyam is barely conscious.
Lo’ak drags him up, hands shaking as he presses hard against the wound, blood slicking his fingers no matter how hard he tries to stop it.
“I’ll get Dad,” Lo’ak says desperately, voice breaking. “I’ll get Mom. Just—just stay here, okay?”
Neteyam doesn’t answer.
Lo’ak hesitates only a second longer before diving away, fear driving him faster than exhaustion ever could. Tuk’s small form follows, her cries swallowed by the sea.
The rock grows quiet.
Neteyam lies half-submerged, chest rising faintly, blood continuing to leak from beneath his ribs and slide into the water.
𓂃 ོ☼𓂃 𓇼𓏲*ੈ✩‧₊˚
You have been waiting for this moment longer than you care to admit.
Not this—not the RDA shooting against a few boys —but the distraction. The fracture. The second where the RDA’s attention splinters just enough for someone small, quiet, and expendable to disappear.
You move through the flooded wreckage like a ghost.
The raid has fractured the ocean into chaos—noise above, silence below—but beneath it all, the water speaks. It always has. You’ve learned to listen to it the same way you listen to a pulse or a breath.
Your waterproof pack is tight against your back, weight familiar and reassuring. Inside: compressed rations, emergency meds, suture kit, antiseptic foam, sealant patches, two spare breathing masks. You packed light on purpose. Everything else waits for you—hidden deep in the mountains, far from sea lanes and patrols. Your avatar body. Your exit.
You slip from the sinking structure without hesitation. The mask seals with a soft hiss as you dive, breath evening out as the sea closes around you.
The water is cold as it envelops you, pressure squeezing your ribs as you kick downward, mask sealing with a soft hiss as it engages. You’ve done this before—escaped patrols, sunk into shadows, stayed unseen.
For years, you’ve walked the edge of this war—patching wounds, issuing orders, following protocols that kept your hands busy and your conscience quiet. You stayed detached because you had to. Because speaking up meant disappearing in a way no one would ever question.
You tell yourself to focus.
Then you see it.
Blood drifts past your visor in slow, terrible ribbons.
Thin at first. Then thicker. Dark, unmistakable.
Your chest tightens.
This was supposed to be clean.
You were supposed to disappear.
You slow instinctively, adjusting your course, following the trail without thinking. You don’t tell yourself why. You don’t justify it. You just move.
The blood leads you to a rock formation breaking the surface.
There—someone lies sprawled across it, massive body barely moving, skin marked with streaks of red that the sea keeps trying to claim. No one else is there. No weapons. No guards.
Just a Na’vi male, young, badly wounded.
You hover at a distance, heart pounding.
This is not your fight.
Surfacing here means risk—cameras, patrols, witnesses. Everything you’ve planned could unravel in seconds.
But you’ve watched too many bodies sink quietly into water like this.
You surface.
The air hits your lungs as you pull yourself onto the rock, movements careful, deliberate. You stay low, scanning the horizon once before crawling closer.
The Na’vi male stirs faintly.
His eyes flutter open, unfocused, catching on your shape. A human. Small. Close. His fingers twitch weakly against the stone, confusion and pain etched into every shallow breath.
You lift your hands slowly.
“It’s okay,” you say softly, even though you know he won’t understand the words. “I’m a medic.”
You kneel beside him, hands already working, pack open, supplies laid out with practiced efficiency. The wound is severe—but not beyond saving. Not yet.
As you press gauze to his side, his breath hitches.
He watches you dimly, vision slipping, but something in your touch steadies him. Your hands are sure. Your movements confident.
For the first time in years, you stop waiting for someone else to do something.
You choose.
And you don’t stop.
𓂃 ོ☼𓂃 𓇼𓏲*ੈ✩‧₊˚
Your hands don’t shake.
Not now.
They used to, years ago, when you were still just a nurse moving through bombed-out clinics and half-lit tents, learning how to keep your voice calm while the world came apart around you. They trained that out of you eventually—first through repetition, then through necessity, then through war.
You push fear down where it belongs and let instinct take over.
“Okay,” you murmur, more for yourself than him. “Let’s see what we’re working with.”
You start at his shoulders, palms firm and efficient as you sweep down his torso, checking fast for additional wounds. Entry wounds hide. Exit wounds kill. You’ve learned never to assume there’s only one.
Your fingers slide over smooth, warm skin, then around his back, careful but thorough. Blood slicks your gloves, saltwater diluting it just enough to mask how much he’s lost.
“One,” you breathe quietly. “Just one.”
Relief flickers through you, sharp and fleeting. You don’t let yourself linger on it.
You press gauze to his side again, harder this time, and his breath stutters in response. His chest rises shallowly beneath your hand—too shallow, but present. Still fighting.
“That’s it,” you say softly. “Stay with me.”
He doesn’t answer.
But his eyes don’t leave you.
They’re glassy, unfocused at the edges, but locked on your face with a quiet intensity that makes your throat tighten. You’ve seen this look before—patients anchoring themselves to a single sensation because everything else hurts too much to hold.
You keep talking.
It doesn’t matter that he can’t understand the words. Tone has always mattered more than language.
“You’re doing really well,” you tell him, voice low and steady as you cut away the damaged edge of his armor. The material is intricate—layered, etched with patterns you’ve seen on warriors before but never this close. “This is beautiful craftsmanship,” you add, deliberately conversational. “Someone put a lot of care into this.”
His ears twitch faintly.
Good. He’s still responding.
You peel the armor back just enough to expose the wound properly. It’s ugly—ragged at the edges, still oozing—but clean enough to work with. You irrigate quickly, antiseptic hissing softly as it hits raw tissue.
His jaw tightens.
“I know,” you murmur immediately. “I know it hurts. You’re okay. Breathe with me.”
You exaggerate your own breathing, slow and deliberate, letting him follow the rise and fall of your shoulders. His chest mirrors it, unevenly, but enough.
Shock is the bigger threat now.
You keep him talking—asking gentle, meaningless questions he can’t answer, filling the space so he doesn’t slip too far inward. You tell him about nothing. About the sea. About how the light looks different under water. About how his armor caught the sun when you first saw him.
Your hands move with ruthless efficiency.
Packing the wound. Sealing it. Needle out. Thread through.
You stitch fast but careful, fingers sure despite the blood and the risk and the pounding of your heart. Every second feels stolen. Every sound from the distance makes your spine go tight with the fear of being seen—of being labeled what you already know you are choosing to be.
A traitor.
Like Jake Sully.
The thought flashes through you, cold and sharp, but you don’t let it slow you down.
You’ve lived too long doing nothing.
Neteyam barely registers the pain anymore.
It’s distant, like thunder heard from deep underwater. His body feels heavy, unresponsive, but the pressure on his side lessens slowly, gradually, in a way that tells him something important is happening.
He focuses on you.
On your voice—soft, steady, grounding. On the warmth of your hands as they move over him, purposeful and kind. On the way your fingers trail along his skin as you work, not hesitant, not afraid of him.
He doesn’t know who you are.
Only that you are here.
His breathing stays faint but constant, each inhale an effort, each exhale shallow. His eyes never leave your face, even when they sting, even when the edges of the world blur.
When you near the end, his fingers twitch.
They lift weakly, drifting until they brush your arm.
Just barely.
You still.
You look down at his hand where it rests against you, blue fingers trembling with exhaustion. A tear slips free from the corner of his eye, tracking slowly along the curve of his ear.
Without thinking, you reach up.
Your thumb is gentle as it wipes the tear away.
“It’s okay,” you whisper. “I’ve got you.”
He tries to smile.
It’s small. Crooked. Barely there—but it’s everything he has left to give. Gratitude floods his chest, heavy and warm, even as his body fails him. He wants to thank you. To speak. To offer something—anything.
Instead, he holds your gaze.
Eywa, he thinks dimly. Thank you.
Thank you for sending her.
And then his eyes flutter, his grip loosening, breath still there—still fighting—as the world finally, mercifully, slows.
𓂃 ོ☼𓂃 𓇼𓏲*ੈ✩‧₊˚
You don’t hear them.
Not the rush of wings overhead. Not the heavy, rhythmic flapping as skimwings circle low, nor the frantic splashes as bodies break the surface and scramble onto the rock.
Your entire world has narrowed to the rise and fall of his chest.
To the faint warmth still present beneath your palm. To the steady—miraculous—fact that he is breathing.
You’re adjusting the final dressing, fingers already moving to secure it when the shadow falls over you. Then another. Then several.
A sharp intake of breath cuts through the air.
You look up.
They are there—suddenly, impossibly close.
Na’vi warriors crowd the rock, wet and wild-eyed, weapons half-raised on instinct alone. Their grief is raw, barely contained, and when their eyes land on you—
A human.
Small. Unarmed. Kneeling beside their son.
Neytiri moves first.
A sound tears from her throat, sharp and broken, and she lunges forward with lethal speed, blade flashing in her hand. Her face is contorted with fury and terror, grief so sharp it borders on violence.
“Get away from him!”
You freeze.
Not because you don’t understand her—but because you do.
You know enough Na’vi to catch the edge of it. The command. The mother’s scream beneath the words. You’ve studied the language in secret for years now, late at night, hunched over stolen files and recordings, telling yourself it was only practical. That if you were going to disappear into Pandora one day, you couldn’t afford to be ignorant.
You had thought knowing the language might help you stay invisible.
It doesn’t help now.
Before Neytiri can reach you, a voice cuts through the chaos.
“Wait—!”
Lo’ak.
He stares at the scene in front of him, eyes darting wildly. His gaze drops to Neteyam’s chest.
To the bandages.
To the stitching.
To the fact that his brother’s chest is rising.
“He’s—” Lo’ak chokes. “He’s breathing.”
That stops everything.
Neytiri falters mid-step, eyes snapping down to her son. She drops to her knees beside him, hands shaking as she presses her ear to his chest, one hand cradling his face.
A sob rips free from her, unrestrained and devastating.
“Oh, my son,” she whispers, voice breaking completely. “My son…”
You understand that too.
Enough that your throat tightens painfully as she clutches him, forehead pressed to his, trembling with the aftershock of a grief she had already begun to accept. Her hands roam him desperately, checking for wounds, for warmth, for proof that he is still here.
Jake is there too—immediately, solid and steady despite the way his jaw tightens as he takes everything in. He helps turn Neteyam carefully, eyes narrowing as he inspects the wound.
It’s clean.
Stitched.
Packed properly.
Jake looks up at you.
Really looks at you.
Recognition hits you like a blow.
You know him.
Everyone does.
Jake Sully. The name whispered through RDA halls like a warning. The human who crossed a line that couldn’t be uncrossed. The example they used when they wanted to scare you straight.
This is what happens when you forget your place.
You meet his gaze without flinching.
“I’m a medic,” you say, voice hoarse but steady. “He had a single entry wound. No exit. Blood loss was bad, but I caught it in time.”
Jake studies you, eyes sharp, guarded. You can see the calculation happening—threat assessment, intent, risk.
“You RDA?” he asks quietly. English, clipped.
“Yes.”
Neytiri stiffens at the word.
You swallow. “Not for much longer.”
Jake’s brow furrows.
“I’ve been waiting for a chance to leave,” you continue, the words spilling out now that they’ve started. “I couldn’t keep pretending anymore. I—” Your voice catches. “I couldn’t keep watching.”
Silence stretches.
Then Jake nods once.
“Thank you,” he says simply. “We’ll take it from here.”
That’s your cue.
You shift back, slowly rising to your feet, suddenly very aware of how small you are among them. You hesitate, eyes drifting back to the Na’vi warrior still lying between his parents—still alive because you chose not to look away.
You kneel again.
Just for a moment.
You reach out, resting your hand gently on his shoulder. His skin is warm beneath your fingers.
“You’re going to be okay,” you whisper—instinctively, softly—using the few Na’vi words you trust yourself not to break. Not enough to draw attention. Just enough to mean something.
You start to pull your hand away.
You don’t get far.
His fingers close around yours.
Weak—but deliberate.
The grip isn’t strong, but it’s enough. Enough to stop you. Enough to tell you that somewhere beneath the haze and pain and exhaustion, he knows.
Lo’ak notices.
So does Jake.
You look down at him, breath catching as his hand tightens just a fraction more, like you’re the only solid thing left in the world.
You squeeze back—just once.
Then, gently, you try to pull away again.
He doesn’t let go.
And for the first time since you dove into the water, fear gives way to something else entirely.
Connection.
𓂃 ོ☼𓂃 𓇼𓏲*ੈ✩‧₊˚
His fingers don’t loosen.
They tighten.
The pressure is shocking—sharp enough that it steals the air from your lungs for a split second. You glance down instinctively, disbelief flickering through you. He has been shot. He has lost blood. You stitched him together with shaking hands and hope.
And yet he holds you like this—like letting go would cost him something vital.
The others notice.
Lo’ak’s eyes widen first. Neytiri stills completely, her gaze snapping from your hand to her son’s face. Even Jake hesitates, registering the way Neteyam’s grip curls around your wrist, knuckles pale, stubbornly alive.
Another explosion tears through the air.
Closer this time.
The rock shudders beneath your feet, spray erupting around its base. Gunfire cracks in jagged bursts, echoing off the water.
Jake straightens instantly.
“We need to move,” he barks, voice cutting clean through the chaos. Commanding. Absolute. The kind of voice that doesn’t ask—it directs. You see it then, fully: not just a father, but a leader forged in war.
“Now!”
The family springs into motion.
Jake crouches beside Neteyam, already positioning himself to lift him. “I’ve got him,” he says, decisive. “We fly.”
But when Jake reaches for his son, Neteyam doesn’t respond the way they expect.
He doesn’t release you.
Jake pauses, eyes narrowing. He follows the line of Neteyam’s arm. Sees the way his son’s fingers are wrapped around your wrist—not frantic, not confused.
Intentional.
Jake looks at you.
Then at the sky, where tracer fire lights up the clouds.
A decision is made in a heartbeat.
“She comes,” Jake says.
Neytiri whirls on him. “Jake—”
Another blast detonates somewhere too close for comfort, the shockwave rattling your bones. Neytiri flinches, eyes snapping back toward the horizon, calculating the danger with a warrior’s instinct.
She looks at Neteyam again.
At the steady rise and fall of his chest.
At the way his hand still clings to you.
Her jaw tightens.
“Fine,” she snaps. “Move.”
They lift Neteyam carefully, Jake shifting him onto his back with practiced ease. You’re pulled along with them, swept into motion before you can even process what’s happening.
Only then—only when you’re moving, when the decision is no longer theoretical—does Neteyam’s grip finally loosen.
His fingers slip from your wrist.
You feel the absence immediately.
His eyes are closed now. His breathing is stronger than before—still weak, but steady enough that relief floods through you in a dizzying rush. You don’t know if he’s conscious, but something in your chest tells you he is.
That he chose this.
Gratitude wells up unexpectedly, fierce and aching. Toward him. Toward fate. Toward the impossible mercy of timing.
You mount behind Neytiri, hands gripping tight as the skimwing launches into the air. The force of it punches a breath from your lungs.
And then—
You are flying.
The world opens beneath you in a way no sim, no cockpit, no briefing ever prepared you for. The eastern sea stretches endlessly below, a living mosaic of color and light. Coral reefs bloom beneath the surface like constellations—turquoise, gold, burning pink—threaded together by currents that glow faintly in the fading light.
You gasp, unable to stop it.
The wind roars past your ears, warm and salt-heavy. You glimpse the others flying ahead—Jake steady and sure despite the weight on his back, Lo’ak flanking him protectively, the family moving as one.
Ahead, the water shifts.
Structures rise organically from the shallows—woven marui homes nestled within the roots of colossal mangrove-like trees. Their trunks arch outward and upward, forming a living cradle above the waterline, shielded from the open ocean by a natural, ring-shaped seawall of coral and stone.
It’s not built against the sea.
It’s built with it.
Your breath catches.
This—this—is what they were destroying.
As Neytiri guides the skimwing lower, banking toward the village, something settles inside you. Not peace. Not yet.
But certainty.
You didn’t just save a life.
You crossed a line you could never uncross.
And as Pandora rises to meet you, glowing and alive beneath the sinking sun, you know—without doubt—that you are not going back.
Lmao "do you even like me" reminded of "Would you love me if I was a worm" and I couldn't stop giggling imagining ao'nung reaction to that question
No literally, he'd be so gobsmacked like wtaf. And I'm also crying thinking about this because my korean mum literally could not say worm for the first years of her speaking english and she could only say 'warm' so I'm rolling at the idea of him not even knowing how to pronounce it either 😭.
"Would you love me if I was a worm?"
"A what?" Aonung lifts his head from your stomach, blinking tiredly and struggling to pull himself from sleep.
"A worm," you repeat.
"Again, what the hell is that?"
You laugh lightly, continuing the soft run of your fingers through his loose curls.
"It's like... a tiny little wriggly thing that's this big. And it's kind of sticky or wet or something. And pinkish brown."
"Why would you be a... a warm?"
"A worm," you can't help laughing at the wrinkled disgust on his face. "And it's just a hypothetical. Like... would you still find me pretty?"
"If this is your way of asking if I'd love you unconditionally," he mumbles, settling back into your belly for more sleep, "you know the answer is already yes."
“he’s mean to you because he likes you!” (ao’nung x reader)
warnings: female! reader, story hinged on the whole “he’s mean to you because he likes you” concept, suggestive at times (barely, SFW), reader’s appearance is meant to be completely ambiguous bc i don’t play about that, you’re implied to be metkayina but it’s not important tbh, author hasn’t posted fanfic since she was 17 #scared
synopsis: you assume ao’nung is mean to you because he’s just that - mean. when you lie that one of his friends asked you out in an attempt to garner some respect in his eyes, he - to your utter confusion - fights the guy.
word count: ~5k
You’re not nervous to debut your new top. Not initially. It’s a rope-heavy piece that drapes across your shoulders, shells embroidered into it.
Tsireya wore something similar once - and when you saw her emerge from the water like some oceanic princess, wet curls cascading down her back, water dripping off the shells in a hypnotizing descent - well. You were inspired!
It’s weighing you down as you tread in the shallow end of the beach. The water sinks into the small ropes, making it heavy. The shells scratch a bit against your chest. But you feel cute, and that’s what matters.
“Aww, look, she changed her style.”
Well, that was what mattered.
You hear Ao’nung before you see him, that heavy voice weighing down your morale - low, and lazy. There is something distinctly attractive about how low his voice is, sure, how deep it goes - but you began suppressing that observation years ago.
Rolling your eyes, you glance at him from the corner of your eye. He’s on the shore barely a meter away, waves licking his feet, his little gaggle of friends by his side.
You swish in the water to turn the exact opposite direction he’s facing. If he’s this verbal about the back of your top, you don’t want to give him a look at the front as well lest he find more ammo to tease you with.
The world spins around in a sunny haze when he spins you to face him. A part of you would marvel how he moves through water so quietly and efficiently, if your head wasn’t preoccupied with the situation at hand.
“Let me see,” he chuckles, meanly, and your hands come up over your chest. It’s not even that there is something embarrassing about your top - but if he was making fun of it, by Eywa you weren’t going to give him free material.
“What, you embarrassed?” His hands grip your wrists and lift them up individually, feeling like a spring-lock which pins your fists on either sides of yourself as he roves his eyes over your chest.
His chest rumbles as he finds something hilarious about your new little fashion statement. “Pfft, what is this?” His eyes sparkle with a patronizing glee, his words ridiculing and dismantling any confidence you’d had in your top in an instant.
“It’s a top,” you spit, struggling out of his grip. Well, that’s not quite true - his lock on your wrists released willingly - and that’s how you squirmed away. His hand caresses your side in a happy little accident as his fingers feel about the fabric of your top, scrutinizing.
He hums in a rare, calm moment of acknowledgment. “This looks like Tsireya’s-“ something lights up in his eyes, fireworks exploding in those cerulean hues, as he realizes something. “Oh my Eywa, you copied her?” He can’t get it out without chuckling.
Another fit of laughter absolutely seizes him - your shirt should make a living off of doing stand-up comedy if how funny he finds it is any indication. Shame makes itself known deep in your belly - you’re already painfully aware of how it doesn’t fit you the way it fits her.
“What happened to your other one? I prefer it.”
“Like I care what you think.” Regrettably, you do - it’s hard not to; you care what everyone thinks. After this, you’re thinking of dumping your top in the sea for good.
His lip twitches. “Yeah, I think you do.”
“Right. Knowing you don’t like this makes me wanna wear it more,” you lie, confidence crushed. His stare observes over your whole body, taking in the top and every inch of skin it covers, every inch it exposes.
Ao’nung’s gaze catches on something, somewhere around your chest area - you can see his pupils do a double take. Any pretenses drop for a second, he’s unaware of his expression for once as his tongue darts out to the side of his lip and he breathes hard. It only lasts a second, you can see the mischief flood his brain as he snaps back into the moment.
“Trust me, I’ll live.”
You aren’t sure what that means - but you’re sure it’s some kind of diss, knowing him. “Whatever.”
—
Eywa, you don’t know why you’re always assigned to do this. It’s like his parents are unaware of the nature of your relationship. Or perhaps they’re hyper-aware, and them shoving the two of you together to go off on different tasks together is some attempt to foster friendship between you and him. You don’t know their reasoning, but you find yourself constantly whisked away with Ao’nung these days to do something or another.
When the Olo’eyktan tells you to go and bring back sweet fruit from where the forest creeps onto the beach with his son, it’s hard to refuse. You’re told to be quick, it’s almost dinner - meaning the food is expected soon, and so is nightfall.
Your eyes warily scan the trees, searching for fruit and for creatures hiding in bushes as you set out. Ao’nung’s feet crush the twigs beneath him, pushing a branch recklessly out of his way as he follows.
“You changed your top.” He observes, allowing for not even a minute of silence before filling the air with that grating, demeaning voice.
“Yep.”
“That’s sad, it was cute. You should wear it again.”
“It was cute - you, specifically, will never see it again.” You pull a branch out of your way, and leave it winding so that it’ll hopefully snap him in the face.
He catches it in his palm on instinct. “Come on, you can’t deprive me of seeing it, that is unfair.”
“Sorry, there’s nothing I can do. Just has to be that way. I’ll wear it, just not around you.” Your voice raises a pitch, haughty.
He laughs. “How exactly will you avoid me? I am everywhere.”
You hate how true that is. He’s absolutely inescapable. He may as well be sniffing you out like a hound-dog from how frequently you two clash despite how intentionally you try to avoid him.
He’s unusually quiet behind you, and you pause in your tracks to glance over your shoulder. Swinging vines hang lazily over trees, tall, brown trunks explode from their roots towards the sky, and there’s a blue, bioluminescent glow to the plants as evening begins to set over the sky.
But there’s no Ao’nung.
“Ao’nung?” You call anyways, and a bug chirps, but there’s no sign of him.
It really is beginning to get dark - your heart begins to sink down in your chest. You didn’t realize how much security his presence brought until you were without it. The forest indifferently surrounds you, a bush rustling in the wind making your body jolt.
You find yourself missing his presence - his larger frame, those broad shoulders, that head-strong, arrogant attitude that he backed up with actual physical prowess and capability. Fuck, you could barely spear a fish, he was honestly helping you out that one time he stole your prey!
“This isn’t funny,” your voice echoes, alone. Idly, a bug lands on a glowing blue leaf the size of your head. The forest goes quiet, like it’s preparing for something, whe-
“Boo.”
“AH!” Your hands jump to your chest, like cradling them close would’ve saved you from any imminent danger. Ao’nung’s face springs into your vision, a braid swinging loose out of his bun, hands all up in your personal space for emphasis on the scaring-you factor.
When your heart stops drilling against your chest, you shoot him a glare. He struggles to speak over his fit of laughter.
“Oh, eywa, that - that was good,” he wipes a stray tear from the corner of his eye. “You looked so scared!”
He’s doubling over at this point, and your hands clench into fists before you start to furiously walk away. His hands stop you, clamping down on your shoulders and forcibly pulling you into him - like he’s offering you some sort of comforting embrace.
“There, there,” his voice goes higher, “it’s okay.”
You thrash against him, ruefully wondering why his touch has to feel so nice - until his hands release you, and he throws them up in mock surrender. “Okay, okay, sorry.”
Honestly, you’re actually contemplating forgiving him. Not verbally, of course - but you’ll spare him any accosting comments and continue on your merry way for some fruit Ronal was craving until you find it and can kiss his ass goodbye for tonight. But then, his hand plants itself on your shoulder, and he leans in like he’s about to say something important.
“Sorry you’re such a scaredy-cat.”
His hand slips off when you violently turn on your heel, plagued by the sound of him pleased with himself, laughing.
“Ugh! Eywa, I’m going that way.” Your feet stomp against the ground, as you head in the direction Ao’nung is not near. The vegetation and fallen branches beneath him snap and crunch as he tails you.
“Uh, no you will not. That’s the opposite of the beach.” He says it matter-of-factly, like he thinks you wouldn’t know that.
“It’s also opposite of you.”
“Look around you, it is night.” His voice lowers an octave, his usually playful tone slowly moving out of the way for an emotion you’re unable to decipher. Perhaps concern, perhaps he’s peeved you’re not bending to his will.
“And?”
“And,” he releases, like the word has to be pulled out of him, “if you go that way, you will get lost from me.” He throws a vine out of his way rather than ducking, and it slams against the trunk of a tree.
“If it’s anywhere away from you, I’m not lost; I’m exactly where I want to be.”
You’re not able to see how his lips quirk up at the ends at your comment. For a brief moment, something entertained flashes in his eye, his mouth parting to partake in your usual light-hearted banter. But then there’s a scratching sound in a bush a few meters away, and he notices how he can begin to see the stars and the solar system in the sky above you, and his lips fall into a scowl.
A fake laugh escapes his chest. “Hah, funny.” A part of you thinks he really did find it, at least a little bit, funny, “but I would rather not have to search for you and then return past dinner.”
“Why search for me? You can just leave me here.” You let your feet continue on their relentless path forward, shrugging off his concern.
It’s not like he’s never abandoned you before. Even as kids, he’d lead you to this forest and then you’d turn to find him gone. Sure, he was usually making his presence invisible behind a tree around you - but why not just take it a step further and head on back to the clan? You wouldn’t put it past him. Hell, he recently left that Omatikaya boy out in the ocean for hours past dark!
“Because,” he says strongly, something annoyed making up the undercurrent of his voice, like a tightly-wound emotion in him was beginning to fray, “as I have stressed, it is night.”
Ao’nung’s teeth unknowingly grind against each other. Night-bugs are buzzing their song in the trees and lush plants surrounding you, blue and purple lights illuminating your trail.
“It was night when Lo’ak got lost out at sea, I didn’t see you busting tail to get there.” You retort.
“That’s different.”
“How is it different?”
“He is not you,” he blinks in surprise after he says it, the words slipping out too quickly, sneaking past his lips like it was the first thought he had and he let it slip out. You miss the way he eyes your form from behind, warily - like he’s afraid he’s just revealed a secret to you.
“Meaning?”
“Because,” he starts again, but his mind stalls, trying to generate an answer that isn’t the truth he so carefully hides from you, “you are far less competent than him.”
“Oh, yeah right! You know, Ao’nung, you - you’d offer me to a Thanator if you could, don’t go playing this high horse, protector bullshit. You just wanna control me right now.”
Rustle
Pointed leaves in a bush sway, like there’s some agent inside moving them. You’ve never seen Ao’nung so tense, never so keenly aware of how far his shoulders extended themselves as they rose up to his jaw.
“It is night, and we’re going back. I’m not asking, I’m telling.” He punctuates it with the wrapping of his fingers around your arm, and a squeeze. Little force is required on his end to tug you closer into him, which he does.
It’s suddenly obvious he’s the Olo’eyktan’s son. His voice automates in your voice as a command, not a suggestion. Chest high, body looking over yours, there’s something starkly authoritarian to him right now. He’d do good commanding a fleet of some sort, you idly think.
You swallow the instinct to do as he says. How is it that he can act maliciously to you, and then tell you what to do? You’d almost think he’s suggesting you both leave early because he’s trying to protect you. Ha, what a thought!
“Well, tell me something I actually wanna hear!” You shout.
His hand slaps over your lips, eyes surveying the area like some underground beast might emerge at the call of your voice.
“Quiet.”
“Or wha-“
SLAM!
It’s not the whizzing of an animal making a beeline towards you that makes you cognizant of it. No, it’s when Ao’nung’s fist snatches it in the air, and hurls it into the tree besides him - the thing going splat!
How he managed to see it is your second best question - the first being how he was able to snag it before it could pierce you, and throw it at the rough wood, despite its imperceptible speed.
Upon closer inspection, you determine it’s a Sya’vii - like an insect, but larger, size-wise more reminiscent of a large rodent.
Your jaw has to pick itself up from the floor. Silently, you both just stare at where the animal’s remains are stuck to the tree where he’d slammed it into. It’s as though someone took blue paint and just tossed it on there. There’s something impressive to note at how his strength was able to reduce it to liquid waste, you resent how you swallow at the thought.
His chest rises high and low as he heaves, adrenaline making the veins in his arms and wrists protrude out his skin. The pupils in his eyes are large, unfocused - like he’d shifted into the mental space of a predator, attention undivided on his kill.
When he turns to look at you, that look hasn’t disappeared - and there’s a stern curve to his mouth. It sends something flipping in your stomach.
“Are you happy now?
You cast a more mournful glance to the creature, now dead. His brow twitches, like he’s unhappy with what he’s done as well - and you’re not ignorant to the sanctity of life, how large a role it plays in your culture, the avoidance of needless killing.
“Let’s just go,” you hang your head low with a frown. When you turn, or try to, you’re stopped, and familiarly manhandled until your face is angled towards his and he’s searching your expression, deciphering.
His eyes take in your lidded ones, the fall of your lips and frankly dull shine in your stare. It snaps that previous expression off of him - that unusually serious, nearly scolding countenance. He breathes in and out, like he’s releasing something, and a spark you’ve seen before returns to his gaze.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” He asks in a hushed tone so as not to attract any more predators, though there’s a recognizable smugness in his tone. He lets you go with a little push, and you feel the coarse oak against your back. You’d assumed it was something teasing - there were only so many solid places to throw you into this forest, and he chose this tree. But he curls his body over yours just so, squares his shoulder and flexes his back, keeps his eyes on you and an awareness of his peripheral simultaneously.
It doesn’t rise to the forefront of your consciousness, but your shoulders release as your body feels the slightest bit safer than before.
“Thank you,” you try to say earnestly - and quietly, you’ve learned your lesson - but it has to escape through gritted teeth. He’s right, but you still don’t like the guy.
“Aht, not that.” His head shakes ‘no’.
You blink. “Then… what?”
“You forgot to tell me you’re sorry.”
You scoff, “sorry for what?”
“Not listening to me?” Navy lips, full and mischievous, curl into their signature, mean smile.
You snort out of your nose. “Oh, I’m never sorry for that.”
“I’m not going until you say it.” He shrugs, like he’s got alllll the time in the world to wait.
“Then I’ll go without you.”
“Like you know the way.”
Shit, how did he know you didn’t? You go silent, biting your lip as you search for a rebuttal. He laughs.
“Hah, I’m right! How do you not know the way?!”
Damn! He tricked you.
“Oh, whatever! Why does it even matter to you?”
“It’s just important.”
“Why?”
“Cuz it is.”
“Fine. Sorry.” Your face winces, like it’s physically hard to utter the words. His eyes aren’t on yours, they find something interesting on your lips. He thinks for a moment, before humming in disagreement.
“Better than that. Sound a little more, you know, actually apologetic.”
“Sorry.”
His eyes narrow in thought. Fingers come to his chin to pinch it like he’s some philosopher debating the necessity of how sincere you have to sound in an apology for it to be worth a damn. He nods, approvingly, before raising a finger.
“Better. Now do a higher voice, and add my name at the end, and say I’m before you say sorry. Oh, and don’t forget to look really sad and pouty. The-“
You decide you’re done listening, and turn to leave. You can tell you’re going the right direction because he silently follows close behind, chastising you every time you make a wrong turn, until you arrive back at the beach.
—
You’re fucking around in the shallow end of the water, alone as you usually are - when a rare shell washes up. A Vey’sa. You’re enjoying it on your own, watching how its blue and purple exterior catches the light of the sun, when one of Ao’nung’s friends, Mo’kai, comes up to you.
“Oh shit, is that a Vey’sa?” He asks, glancing down at what’s in your hands.
“Yeah!”
“Yoo, where’d you find it?”
“Honestly I was just messing around and it kinda just… washed up.” You shrug, and he shuffles closer.
“Cool, can I see?”
“Of course,” you gesture to show him. He nods.
“Nice.”
And that’s about it. Conversations with other Metkayina not already familiar with you were painfully short - whether you just consistently fumbled the social bag or Ao’nung was sticking some poisonous leaf on your back to ward off others and you’ve never realized, you didn’t know.
It did make your hairless brow raise at how friendly his friends were. Ao’nung, that is. Despite his endless torment, days of cutting you in line for food, stealing a fish you clearly aimed your spear at, tugs at your tail when you were unaware - his friends never participated. In fact, they were dutifully respectful to you - sometimes as though they feared what would happen if they weren’t.
Your parents and family were nowhere near any sort of important lineage, though - and shit, the son of the Olo’eyktan found it fit to dub you his special person to pick on, so it was certainly mystifying that his friends never did the same. One laughed too hard at a joke Ao’nung had made about the size of your chest, once - and then clamped his mouth shut and gulped, eyes darting to Ao’nung as if to assess whether or not he’d seen him laugh.
It’s not like it’s a crime to have laughed, you think to yourself. Ao’nung has clearly set a precedent that picking on *me* is fine. At least, it seemed that way. You’re so close to forming a critical thought, when two blue pairs of feet obstruct your vision of the sand floating in the waves.
“Someone’s enjoying herself.” A familiar, deep tone vibrates out of a familiar, sturdy and muscled - but annoying - chest.
His comment makes you realize you’re still smiling from your conversation about the Vey’sa. You let your lips remain curled up - hoping to prove something to him. Despite all his comments and teasing, other people did, in fact, like you - and even engage in good conversation with you!
“Yep. I just got out of a good conversation.”
His retort comes quick, easy. You hate how hot it is that his mind works so quickly. “I saw. We converse - why don’t you ever smile that hard once I’m done talking to you?”
Your smile twitched. “‘Cuz the conversation I just had was actually good.”
“Oh, yeah?” Dripping with condescension, he bats his eyes at you in a mocking gesture to go on - as though he’s just buzzing to hear what the two of you talked about. You can’t stand how above you he feels.
Like, literally - his shadow is casting itself over your body as you speak. But also, metaphorically.
“I’ll have you know the conversation pertained to something… romantic,” you blurt out, lying through your damn teeth. Something about a layer of romance adds something to your desirability. Not only did that guy talk to me, Ao’nung, he wanted me! It feels like some fort of gotcha!
That’s not to say you don’t immediately regret it as soon as you say it, though, ‘cuz one fact check with Mr. Mo’kai over there and you’re done.
His eyes widen before he squints at you, seemingly shocked. You’re too busy eating up the fact that for once, Ao’nung is the one who’s irked, not you, to dig deeper into his expression.
Something dims his gold eyes darker, and his jaw locks. Amber hues scan you up and down critically - like he’s trying to gauge how much you know of something. “Did it now.”
“Mhm, yep.” No it absolutely did not.
“And what did he say?” His cheek pokes out when his tongue soothes against it, a look of indignant disbelief across his face. The sense that he’s worried you know something you’re not meant to, something incriminating against him, settles itself in your brain.
He’s glaring at a spot of sand like it owes him money, and your ears twitch when he huffs something under his breath that you can’t quite catch. -old him not to tell, or something like that, you pay it no mind.
“He said,” your mouth starts, but your brain has no idea where your lips are going with this, “that we should go out sometime.”
Confusion flickers across his eyes. Between his brows, the skin pinches itself together - but he decides to clarify to make sure what you’re saying is clear to him before settling on what emotion to feel. “Like, you and me?”
Ao’nung’s voice is scarily neutral as he asks - for once, you can’t pick up how he feels. Whether the suggestion of you and him going out enrages him, or if he’s totally indifferent. His hands gesture back and forth to you and him, deceptively casually.
You nod your head no.
“Me and him.”
His lip twitches. Something dark flickers in his eyes, you try to catch it but he tempers it down far too quick, and adopts a stoic face - that teasing smile eternally curling his lips is nonexistent for once.
“Okay, okay, I see.” He nods his head with a vengeful flicker in his glare, though he’s not looking at you. And honestly, it feels like he isn’t talking to you, either. Something about his words feels directed to a third party. Like he’s passive-aggressively saying oh, alright, I see how it is then.
It reminds you of when guys are all, ‘oh, if that’s how you wanna play it’, rather than just saying outright what you did pissed me off and I don’t want you to do it again.
But, as usual, you don’t put too much thought into it. The high off of knowing Ao’nung is upset at something has gone to your head and shut down the critical thinking department. The observation department also suffered a few budget cuts.
His presence doesn’t linger. For once, your lips fall apart when Ao’nung, shoulders high and tense, turns and just walks off. No verbally detailed insults or frankly clever disses. He just leaves, like there’s something he’s set off to do.
There’s a weird, empty feeling in your chest at the sight. Rejected by the bully. Your fingers grasp at moving pieces of sand, and you resume your lonesome watching of how the waves lap at the shore lazily.
—
You don’t know what happened, and you don’t want to. Well, not entirely true - there’s an inner gossip within you that would love to know the details. More like, you’re glad you’re not involved.
Ao’nung, for whatever reason, got into some scuffle with one of his friends. Not even some distant acquaintance - it happened to be Mo’kai, and you know the two are close.
And calling it a ‘scuffle’ is putting it lightly. Very, very lightly - you could see the small crowd of young Metkayina gathered around something earlier, that you now know was them rolling out hits. And when you two locked eyes as his father dragged him by the arm off of Mo’kai, you could see a deep, purple bruise swelling along his brow line - close to a black eye.
You can’t fathom what could ever cause Ao’nung to turn on one of his own friends like that.
Something about how the sharp way he looked at you made your body shiver, like somehow, you were the catalyst for everything bad that had happened that night.
But you know you weren’t. This has nothing to do with you, nope, this was Ao’nung’s problem - and you enjoy your drama-free (albeit lonely) life as you finish up your dinner, somewhere far off on the beach - alone.
“Hey.”
Not so alone anymore.
Your eyes snap up to an approaching figure. It’s the usual suspect, the man of the day, Ao’nung - and he’s walking quickly towards you with a vengeance, tense, like he’s been hunting you down.
You don’t even get to open your lips to respond before he cuts you off.
“You lied.” He says lowly, and you get the feeling you should tread lightly lest his temper snap.
“And you are gonna have to be more specific.” You retort with faux confidence, something dreadful sinking in your stomach because, well, you did lie, and you know exactly what he’s referring to. And something about how he approaches you, fists clenched, makes you feel like somehow, the injury above his eye is your fault.
“Mo’kai asked you out on a date?” He snaps. “Seriously?”
The blood drains from your face, heat warming your cheeks with something shameful. “Okay, you’re right. That wasn’t true. But you lie all the time, I don’t get why you’re so-“
You pause to sneak a glance at his face. The bruise blooms down to his eyelid, his jaw is clenched, and he’s sharpened his glare into a weapon against you. You can’t help the gulp that goes down your throat.
“-so upset.”
“You don’t understand why I’m upset?” He asks, lowly, voice rising steadily. “Do you not see this bruise on my face? We fought.” Your name falls past his lips like an accusation. “If I am this bad, imagine the state he is in!”
You blink, mind turning at the insinuation this is your fault.
Your mind also turns down an improper, scandalous road, at the mention of how if he is this beat up, imagine the other guy. Eywa, it’s not right - he’s clearly wracked with guilt that he injured his friend. But unconsciously, your eyes take in how his arms stand strongly at his sides, well-defined even when relaxed. You can’t stop thinking about how objectively he said it - like he knows you’re aware of how strong he is. How badly he could hurt someone. Something warm and uncomfortable tingles in your lower belly.
Why is it kind of hot?
“Why?”
You blink out of your unholy thoughts. “Hm?”
“Why say it?”
“I dunno. Because?”
“You wanted me to hit him? ‘S that it?” He laughs stingily, like he can’t believe you’d ever stoop so low. “You know he couldn’t win. That’s just cruel.”
“Why fight?!” Whatever patience you expressed this far snaps. “What about me lying about him liking me means you two had to fight each other? I didn’t say it thinking you’d hit him, I said it thinking-“
“Thinking what?”
You pause, and bite on your lip.“Just - nothing. Isn’t it past your bedtime?”
“No,” he doesn’t seem the slightest bit amused at your insults for once, “I want answers.”
“Well I don’t have them!”
“You wanted me to be jealous.” He narrows his eyes at you, and you feel pinned in place beneath them.
“Jealous of what?”
“Quit pretending you don’t know.”
“Well maybe I really just don’t freaking know!”
“Then think.”
A silence hits.
It’s unbearable, and you pull at the sand beneath you for some sort of reprieve. There’s only one thing he could possibly be suggesting - but how could you bring yourself to say it?
“You’re, what, trying to imply you like me or something?”
He remains quiet.
“You know, I’m- I’m scared to even suggest that, Ao’nung, ‘cuz I feel like you’ll just tease me about it for days! Fuck, the only reason I lied was so you’d stop teasing me if you thought someone was actually interested in me. You’re acting all, all frustrated at me, like you don’t know how scary it is just to talk to you!”
He flinches a bit, “scary?”
“Yes. Scary! You - you tease me, you make fun of everything I do, you laugh at what I say and then you - you let me insinuate you like me and you don’t deny it, I- am I supposed to believe that?”
“I don’t laugh at everything you do.”
“Uh, yeah, you do! You’re not nice!”
“I saved you from that Sya’vii.”
“Uh, yeah, ‘cuz you had to.”
“I don’t have to do anything.” His voice drops an octave.
“Oh, anyone would have done that. Don’t act special.”
“Would anyone accompany you to the reef, every time you decide to go? Does just everyone stop others from messing with you? Would just anyone fight their own friend, because you told them he wanted you?”
Your throat tightens around itself painfully. “So, I- what, you like me?”
He sounds solemn for once, as he says, “yes.”
Something stings at your eyes. “I just - I’ve thought you hated me, this whole time! You’re just so mean, all of the time, I thought you thought I was just some loser, some nobody.”
His jaw grinds against itself as he watches your expression flicker to something sad. “I’m sorry.” A beat passes, “I’m sorry, okay? I thought we were both just playing with each other.” His hands extend at his sides, like he’s saying come on, you must understand.
You want to be mad. Really, you do. When you glance up at him, it’s to angrily interrogate him, maybe accost him for burdening you with this revelation - but your eye catches on the bruise. “You really fought Mo’kai, because of…?”
“You told me he wanted you. I didn’t have a choice.”
“Eywa,” you sigh out. “I hate how that’s weirdly flattering.”
The tension in his shoulders dissipates. Sand crunches beneath him as he crouches down beside you - like you perceiving it as a compliment has somehow snapped the tension, and somehow served as an invitation for him to come closer. He slides to your side like he’s trying to seize this moment, spin it in his favor before it slips away.
“I can be very flattering.” He says it like he’s trying to sell you something. Give me a chance and I’ll show you, his voice says. Like he’s trying to convince you there’s a side of him that can please you if the whole, I’m mean to you because I thought it was romantic banter shtick was not up your alley. Which, clearly, it was not.
“Really? Like, when you mocked my new top?”
He snorts. “That’s on you for taking me at face value. It looked good, very…” he looks up like he’s trying to find a more tasteful word, before he realizes he doesn’t really care, “sexy.”
“Ew!” You laugh, though the pleasant sensation tugging at your core indicates his comment was not ew.
“‘S not my fault - it showed a lot! I’m only a man.” He pleads his case, and you playfully hit his arm.
You tell him that makes you want to wear it less, biting down that fluttering feeling you get when his eyes rove over your chest as if he’s trying to remember how it looked in the revealing shell-piece, and the two of you you fall into a banter throughout the night that’s uncomfortably familiar.
THIS WAS SOOOO GOOD!!! I am loving the Aonung love lately, so glad everyone’s finally hopping on the train because this man is fine asf and you did him delicious, incredible justice
