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shu-box-puns

Apr 7

The Sea Gives (Part 4)

Tsu'tey x Gender-Neutral!Reader

Part 3 <- You are here -> Part 5

Masterlist: here!

If you prefer to read on Ao3, you can find it here!

Word count: 11,212

Summary: Beginning to See one another a bit clearer.

Human!Reader uses they/them pronouns.

“Your aim is poor.” The comment, unwarranted and unappreciated, went ignored. You’d been half expecting it at this point, considering how the morning had progressed thus far.

Ankle-deep in the shallows, your prickly companion continued scanning the ripples for prey as if he hadn’t uttered a word.

You trained your eyes back on the shadows of the rock you were perched on, eyes peeled for the glint of sunlight on scales or bubbles that broke the rhythm of low tide. Today, you’d opted for the security of boots and a decent vantage point from which to carry out your hunt. There was no chance you would willingly endure the same humiliation if you could help it.

You’d returned to your feet the morning you could bear weight again, much to your infuriating companion’s audible confusion and annoyance. Whatever was in that paste he kept chewing and applying to your wound, left the skin soothed and numb. Conditions that were more than suitable to be productive in. Which meant that the moment you could put your shoe on and not immediately recoil at pressure on the inflamed bite mark, you were right back in the shallows, stick in hand, and a new shadow - easily twice your height with a newfound well of insults just waiting to be unleashed - following in your every footstep.

You fell back into your cobbled-together routine, and Tsu’tey developed a new one. Where you had expected to go back to being ignored, instead, it was as if a cord had been neatly snipped with metaphorical scissors, and now he simply couldn’t help but make his thoughts known. Perhaps it was a Na’vi thing. A consequence of their close-knit communities, or simply an expectation of clan life. Not that you could compare him to any prior experience, since he was the first of the Na’vi you’d actually come face to face with. For all you knew, he was just an asshole. Plain and simple.

“You move too much,” he added, seemingly intent on winding you up. You were fairly certain he hadn’t even bothered to look up from his task. Content to throw out whatever comment sprung to mind. “You are scaring the fish with your wiggling.” A beat. “Or perhaps, simply with your face.” That last part was added with no less volume. He’d wanted you to hear him.

“Speaking from experience?” You asked him innocently, the words pricking enough that you couldn’t help but respond. His tail swayed above the water’s surface. A wiggle of victory, you decided.

“From observation,” he returned without missing a beat. “My friend’s mate is offensively ugly.”

“That so?”

“Unfortunately. His eyes are too small for his skull, and his tswin is wrongly placed on his head.”

“Damn, you could stand to sound a little less pleased about it.”

“It is simply fact,” Tsu’tey reassured, still sounding smug. Then added more sternly, “straighten your arm, you can spear nothing with poor power behind your strike.”

After a morning of comments of a similar fashion, you finally reached the end of your patience. “I’m sorry. Is this our spear, or my spear?”

He shot you a look that clearly informed you that he thought you an idiot. “It is a wonder you have managed to keep all your charges alive with your,” he paused, searching for the word, “unique fishing technique.”

“Right! I’m going to spear you if you don’t watch your own fish,” you testily replied.

An infuriating scoff was your initial response. “You would miss,” he said matter-of-factly. As if it were inevitable simply because he said so. It made you want to throw the spear at him, just to be petty.

To ward off temptation, you clenched your knuckles around the uneven wood instead. Slowly, you turned your head. “Would I?” You asked plainly. Expression kept painfully neutral.

He studied you right back, sensing a challenge in your tone. The shallows lapped at his ankles, makeshift spear in hand, and an unimpressed frown tugging down the corner of his lips. The slow, predatory flick of his tail skimming the back of the waves was your only indication that he’d heard you.

It turned out, he was gruff and hurried in almost everything he did, with an unnerving efficiency that was something to be wary of but also admired. Although injured, he was a competent hunter, and you had no doubt that wherever he had come from, he had been fierce. Anyone less would never have survived the wounds he clearly had.

You looked away first, firmly reassuring yourself that it wasn’t defeat. Eyes back on the shadows where the fish idled, you spotted an unsuspecting prize. Pulling your stick back over your shoulder, you stretched out your other hand, as you’d seen it portrayed on TV. Supposedly it would help you aim.

Your disproportionate shadow loomed off to your right, finally falling motionless in your periphery. Whether or not he had eyes on his own quarry or was simply judging your poor posture, you were not sure, and made a point not to check.

The world seemed to hang on the precipice as you lined up your shot. Your prize swam too close. Your body tense with overeagerness, the tip of your makeshift swaying from the minute tensing of anticipating muscles. Then you struck. The fish flailed on the end of the stick, speared through the back and yet still attempted to wiggle free. Dropping down into a kneel, you leaned out with a straining hand to grab the end of your spear and haul the catch in. The fish continued to kick on the end of the stick, its eyes bugged out of its skull as it audibly gnashed its teeth. Just the sight made you shudder, and you grabbed a fin and dragged it off the tip. It joined the other dead ones littered across the rockface.

In your periphery, your companion shook his head.

Indignation curdled your belly. “And how many have you caught again?” You childishly snapped.

“Enough,” he replied testily. “Considering I am still recovering, I must admit that usually I am more efficient.”

“As am I.”

He shook his head. “If you insist you can hunt, then you are not allowed to complain. It is unbecoming.”

“Then you should be concentrating on your own fish, rather than what I’m doing.”

“How else am I to ensure you don’t get attacked by the very prey you claim to hunt?”

“You said you’d stop bringing that up!”

The outburst seemed to put him on the back foot. His gaze was calculating when you dared to check if you had unintentionally caused offense, but he was just watching you, his eyes narrowed, his own spear seemingly forgotten. When he stepped in your direction, your body stiffened, and then internally began to panic as he just kept coming. Wading closer at a pace that was both commanding and effortlessly powerful. Every stride calculated and even.

“You are a capable hunter, even if largely inefficient.” He said matter-of-factly, in a tone that made it hard to decipher whether or not he was scolding or complimenting you.

His shadow falling over you was your only warning before the light pressure of an enormous hand pressing into the small of your back made you startle. His ears flattened on what appeared to be reflex. “Staighten,” he commanded. You arched a brow at him, which seemed to swivel his ears into what people back home sometimes referred to as ‘airplane mode’ on their cats. The appendages turned down and back, the ends flared out away from his head. A challenge perhaps?

His tail slapped once against the surface of the water, before his lower torso straightened. Tightening the muscles to keep his tail from giving him away?

With a huff, you complied. Pushing your shoulders back and rolling your pelvis forward until your knees were neutral rather than bent all the way back. His ears sprang back into their neutral rotation. Surprised that you’d complied?

“Good.” He licked his lower lip and withdrew his hand, eyes raking across your stance as he slowly orbited the rock, stepping in front of you rather than disappearing into your blind spot as you had suspected. “Bear your weapon.” You were quicker to comply, more interested in the unique dance of his ears than the improvements to your form.

Within the span of two minutes, your throwing arm was pushed and twisted into a position that pulled less on your shoulder and offered more stability to your hold. Your good foot was tapped on the inside of the ankle until you widened your stance, and your empty hand was twisted at the wrist, its fingers closed and straight. “Level it on the fish you plan to spear. Look from here,” he tapped your forefinger. “It will guide.”

Seemingly appeased, he retreated once more. “Try.”

“Do you think people are looking for you?”

The question was an unexpected one. Thrown out into the air between them and just to swiftly swept away on the evening breeze. The sentiment behind them lingered, and although the Demon kept their attention stoically forward and their steps perfectly in time to their personal rhythm, Tsu’tey knew they were curious for an answer.

He chewed on the burrage of responses that sprung to mind. Dozens of deflections, half truths, and lies, all neatly rolled up into a jumble of knots on his tongue. He swallowed them back and reconsidered.

It seemed like a reasonable question. Safe. But the RDA's faded logo embroidered into the sleeve of the bicep facing him gave him pause. All his previous observations have led him to believe that he and the Demon were on closer sides of the war than he had originally anticipated. But circumstances were often vulnerable to change, and he had little control over what information the Demon would willingly or unwillingly give the RDA in the event of their capture.

“My absence will certainly have been noticed.” The truth. If Norm had made it through the storm in time to get to Kiri - which he had, Tsu’tey refused to believe anything else - then word of his disappearance would have certainly spread. With luck he hadn't drifted too far from the border of Mektayina territory, and would be found before long.

The Demon hummed, seemingly appeased by this answer.

For every one of Tsu’tey’s slow steps, their shorter legs hungrily ate up three strides of distance. Their status as a soldier, and days spent doing hard labour, meant that they easily kept up with him. They seemed almost relaxed, despite his unintentionally punishing pace and the additional weight of their rifle cradled between their hands adding further burden.

“Do you live near here?”

“No,” he replied evenly, shooting them a stern look that more or less told them to knock off the interrogation. They either ignored him or struggled to read his expression in the growing darkness of dusk. The time of day when the world was at its darkest. The sky ablaze with hues of scarlet and pink, whilst the undergrowth was awash with half-shadows not yet strong enough for the plants to glow.

“Then why are you out here?”

“So curious tonight.”

“Wrong. I'm always curious. You were just dumb enough to let me realize that you could understand me.”

“An oversight on my part.”

“You’re dodging the question.”

“I am not dodging anything. I am walking in a straight line.”

“Look, despite the stereotypes, I'm not an idiot. I paid attention in the briefings, and I know for a fact you're supposed to be a forest dweller. And if that was ever in doubt, I've witnessed your painful attempts at swimming.”

Tsu’tey couldn't help but wince at the memory. The rivers that wandered into his home territory had been reliable. Swift and deadly whilst approaching the waterfalls, but slow and kind further west. By season, he could predict the water’s temperament and plan accordingly. In stark contrast, the sea was cold and relentless. Unpredictable in her currents and harsh with her relentless thrashing.

The incident the Demon referred to, had been a morning of rinsing his braids of built-up sand and sweat. The wave that had been his downfall had been unexpected, and the unflattering scramble for dry land afterwards had lingered in the Demon’s memory, whilst the refreshing squawk of their unrestrained laughter had persisted in his.

“How observant of you,” he praised dryly, the echo of that carefree laughter replaying in the back of his mind.

“No need to be an ass,” the Demon chastised him, bridging the gap between their bodies to jab him in the hip with a prodding finger he hardly felt. “Just answer the question. Why are you all the way out here, Tsu’tey?”

The earnestness in their tone gave him pause, even as his strides refused to falter. It was not as if the demon recognised him, he rationalized. They had no clue of his status, nor clan, let alone had reason to suspect his ties to Jake. Perhaps a little truth would not hurt. It might even lift some of the weight off of his shoulders. He realised after the fact that that last part was no doubt left over from Mo’at’s teachings rather than being a thought of his own.

“A question for a question,” he proposed. A middle ground he could live with.

The Demon pursed their lips in thought, unexpectedly rigid in the face of being dragged into the firing line. “One veto each,” they added. only to add at his confused grunt, “you get one chance to not answer, no questions asked. We just breeze on past like nothing happened.”

“These terms are acceptable.”

“Then answer the sodding question!” They pressed with a laugh. “God, you're slipperier than a guilty Private.”

“I was traveling to see my family,” Tsu’tey finally said, the Demon audibly tripping over their feet at the abrupt honesty. “They moved out here recently, to avoid the war.”

“When we say ‘family’, are we talking like Mum and Dad? Or spouse and child?”

Tsu’tey shot them a look. “What difference does that make?”

“Not a whole lot, but we are trying to get to know each other, aren't we? It seems important to clarify.”

He said and relented; “I have no children,” he said flatly. “Nor mate.”

“Shit? Really? Pretty fucker like you?”

“I am kept very busy,” he said. “And I am choosing to take that response as a compliment.”

“Oh, it certainly was.” There was a breathless quality to their voice now, something like exertion. Perhaps his pace was finally wearing on them.

“And what of you?” He asked, “do you have a mate or child watching for your own return. You do appear to be one of the more attractive demons I have had the misfortune of coming across. Although the dirt and near destroyed clothes do your appearance few favors.”

They laughed again. High-pitched and sharp. “I'm getting beauty advice from an alien.” They wheezed under their breath, no doubt words not meant for his ears. Louder, they replied, “yep, no, on both fronts. Kind of hard to start a relationship, let alone maintain one, when you are both aware that this kind of mission is no doubt one-way.”

“A shame.”

They chuckled, “careful, big guy, or I’ll mistake your observations for compliments.”

“If I were to compliment you, Demon, you would know about it.”

“Ah, phew, he’s back.” Childishly, he swatted at the back of their head with his tail for the snippy comment, but they hardly seemed to notice.

“Ask me something else,” he insisted, eager to move the conversation along from such topics.

“Alright. Alright. Ugh, where did you learn English?”

“Vea-toe.”

“So close, but heard. Um, what’s your favourite colour?”

“What use is a question like that?”

“I don’t know, you vetoed my good one. Now answer.”

“Red.”

They hummed in affirmation. He glanced down at them. They were already examining him. The scarlet beads woven into his fringe braids, to his worn loincloth, to the accents in his left armband, a gift from his late father for passing his rite.

“I’m almost disappointed that that didn’t occur to me,” they admitted. “All right, your turn.”

The sun had almost entirely slipped behind the moon by now, allowing Tsu’tey’s spots to fully awaken. To their left, the sea churned and crashed, trying to claw its way up the beach with little success.

Tsu’tey hadn’t been conscious the entire time he’d been overwhelmed in its embrace after the crash. He recalled the sparks of pain in the bond when his Brother collided with the stone pillar. He shivered at the memory of his back striking the unwelcoming waves, and grimaced at the instinctive gasp the impact had forced from him, allowing the water to sweep in. Realistically, he shouldn’t have survived. And if by some miracle, Eywa herself had guided his body to the shore, he would not have lasted, not as well as he had, and not with his arm intact. It pained him to admit it, but he owed the Demon. And unnervingly, he did not see the entire picture of why they had bothered.

“Why did you pull me from the sea?” A good question. Not one that would raise the little thing’s hackles, but certainly one that would help him better understand his companion.

“That’s your question?”

“It is my turn,” he reminded them. “My previous interactions with your kind have been violent. Your warriors are taught to shoot first and inspect later. To hide behind your weapons and destroy anything unfamiliar to you. And yet, you dragged me to safety instead, when it would have been far easier to allow the current to reclaim me. Why? You are a strange demon, acting unlike that of your kind, and I do not enjoy not understanding.”

A beat of silence interrupted only by the waves and their combined footsteps. “You know, I think that is the most words you’ve ever said to me.”

“Veto or answer,” he insisted, refusing to allow them to hide behind humour. “I am not willing to entertain deflection.”

“Geez, tough crowd. Fine, I- hold on, how could you possibly know all of that? You were unconscious.” They shot him a look, “unless…” Their brows furrowed behind their acrylic mask, the confusion painfully evidence. “Unless you were fucking with me then too! What else are you going to play fucking ignorant too, you ass-”

“I did not deceive you-”

“Hard to believe when we both know you did! For all you should know, you just washed up here-”

“Not for this. My Brother showed me.” He insisted.

They reeled back, that infuriating little eyebrow arched all over again. Their steps slowed, and eventually stopped as they mentally examined his words, forcing Tsu’tey to pause if he didn’t want to end up continuing the round alone.

“Are you telling me that you weren’t just semi-conscious, and instead that your bird told you?” They repeated back to him. “Do you really think I’m stupid enough to believe that?”

He turned in place, the growing darkness and the reflection of the plants on the Demon’s mask made it difficult for him to make out their expression. “Yes, because it is the truth. And he is an ikran.”

“How?” They demanded sceptically.

He rolled his eyes. “Tsaheylu” That earned him a quizzical head tilt, which fair, it had already been established that the little thing was ignorant to anything that wasn’t killing or spoken in English. “The bond” He elaborated. Nothing, not even a hum of acknowledgement, let alone understanding. “This?” He pulled his kuru over his shoulder and practically waved it at them. “You know what this is, yes?”

“Your…hair…?” He scowled, they grimaced. “I’m really not following, big guy.”

He huffed in exasperation. “Do they teach you nothing before sending you to infest our soil?”

“They teach the lab coats about the actual planet. They teach my lot, how not to die on it. My job is to defend and conquer, with basic field first aid knowledge sprinkled in, so that they can preserve as many soldiers for as long as possible. The most I know about you and your people is what it takes to kill you.”

The bluntness of the last part raised his hackles and contorted his face into a comfortable scowl. “And yet, I still breathe. You are poor at your assigned job.”

“Oh, don’t I know it,” they agreed humourlessly, their head turned towards the sea for a handful of seconds, as if contemplating escaping from the conversation by charging off into the surf. To his surprise, they shook themself out of their thoughts on their own this time. “So, agree to disagree, your bird somehow told you with this bond thing? That about right?” They prompted, the reflective surface of the mask glinting in his direction once more, even as their features remained obscured by shadow. He hadn't noticed how unnerving the lack of glowing stars on their skin was before, but he was certainly noticing now.

Shoving his useless unease aside, he closed the distance between them instead, mind made up. With practised ease, he upturned the end of his kuru to reveal the pale tendrils previously concealed by the hair. They glowed faintly like the rest of him.

“Huh,” the Demon breathed in an unreadable way, their body tense as they leant towards the writhing tendrils. Tsu’tey’s tail swayed at the closing distance, but stood his ground, even as he displayed the most vulnerable part of himself for the Demon’s inspection. “I’ll be honest,” they said, “that’s freaking me out a little. Do you control how they move?”

“When I wish to bond, yes.”

“And how do those things help you bond exactly?”

“They intertwined with the kuru of another to form a connection.” Eywa, it was like he was back babysitting Spider all over again. Only the demon standing before him did not have the blessed excuse of youth as an acceptable reason for their ignorance.

“Huh, so you can hook up to one another? Share memories and shit?” At his nod, they audibly shuddered. “Weird.”

He scoffed in open offense, at which the Demon was quick to backtrack. “No offense! In your eyes I must be weird not having tendrils.”

“You’re right. You are,” he conceded, “and you have evaded my question. Why did you pull me from the sea? I was dying. You could have left me there.”

They glanced away again, back out to sea. One of their too-many fingers drumming against the grip of their rifle. He waited. The Demon visibly warred with itself, and dread curdled like bad meat in the pit of his stomach. Why stall? What reason could possibly be so incriminating that they clearly didn’t want to tell him?

“I was going to kill you,” they finally admitted in a rush, and then tensed up again, as if preparing for an explosive form of retaliation for the honesty. When it didn’t come, they pressed forward. “I pulled you out because of your fucking bird.”

“My ikran?”

“Yes, your ikran!” They butchered the pronunciation, but Tsu’tey allowed it to slide as the words continued to spill from them. “He just sounded so ducking sad. Nuzzling you and shit, trying to wake you up. And there I was, lining up a shot to put you out of your misery, and I just felt like a monster.”

“But that is what your warriors are taught to do,” Tsu’tey insisted. “It cannot have been only that, you must have wanted something from me.”

The Demon reared back, the words having struck a nerve. “I felt bad and I didn’t shoot. Is that so unbelievable?” They demanded, the emotion slipping from their words in a startling way. Replaced with cold authority. Tsu’tey was not cowed.

“Over the distress of my mount and nothing else? Yes, a little.”

They sucked in an audible breath. Deep and heavy. And when they spat out, “look,” he felt the sheer weight of the rage that fueled the word. “I’m a shitty soldier. We’ve established this. You don’t need to rub salt in the wound.”

“What salt-?,” he demanded, only to abruptly get cut off.

“It’s a fucking expression!” The force of the snarl dragged him out of the anger, back to the moment at hand. To the sea, and the wind. To the twisted features of the only other speaking creature on this island, that he might have accidentally offended beyond repair.

It took effort, but he managed to unhunch his posture. To pull his shoulders back down from his ears and lower the latter to half-mast. “I apologise for causing offense, but I find it hard to believe-”

“What? Need to hook up to me and peer into my mind with your freaky little tentacles to see if I’m lying? Is that it?”

He recoiled as if slapped. “That is not done!” He snapped a little too loudly. The Demon startled, biting off their next sentence of sharp accusations. Tsu’tey swallowed, his ears entirely lowered and his weight shifted onto his back foot to force more distance between them. He licked his lower lip before continuing, trying his best to smooth out his tone, when every instinct made him want to verbally swing back.

“The bond,” he said steadily, “is intimate. Shared between those you trust. Mates, mounts, and clan. It is not something for interrogation, or to be shared between-” he gestured between them, not entirely sure how best to categorise what he and the Demon were to one another. They were no longer enemies, but they were not exactly friends either. Perhaps allies, or even comrades.

“Sorry.”

A peace offering. Given easily and awkwardly. Thrown almost carelessly his way as the Demon abruptly started walking again, giving him a wide berth and resuming the patrol.

There was a stiffness to their shoulders now, and an unnecessary haste to their strides, as if a part of the conversation had stung them deeper than they let on and they wanted to put distance between them before he noticed. Not that he knew what part of the exchange could have created such a reaction.

“I am sorry to,” he offered. If they heard him, they gave no indication and continued on their path. Tsu’tey let out a long breath, listening to the Demon march away, one foot in front of the other in a weird, measured beat. Once his heart had stilled, he turned and followed.

The tentative questions grew into something of a game. A means of passing the time in company. A way of livening up an otherwise dull task, or to pull each other away from dark thoughts on otherwise lonely nights. He hated to admit it, but Tsu’tey found that it helped. At the very least, it took his mind off of the world continuing without him, and the state of his clan without their Olo’eyktan in a time of war (again). He trusted Mo’at would have it well in hand regardless.

Gradually, the Demon began to pick up on Tsu’tey’s tells. Launching into abrupt and sometimes unsettling questions to shock him out of whatever thought path he’d begun to get lost in. And in turn, Tsu’tey began to notice when the Demon required the presence of another talking person when the stillness of the island began to get to them.

Tonight, they were restless. Muttering scathingly about changing patrol patterns whilst they drew complex diagrams into the sand outside the shack and eclipse made it more and more tedious.

“There should’ve been another.”

“Of what?”

“Scorpions. They sweep the area once every three weeks.” Three weeks? It had been that long already? “The last one was bang on time. But this week, they’re already two weeks late.”

“What does that mean?”

“Something’s happened, or changed, or-” they trailed off, their non-dominant hand creeping up to their sternum, where the thin material of their shirt framed the imprint of their dogtags. The tags clicked mutedly against one another, and the Demon hurriedly dropped their hand. “No fire or lamp past eclipse.” They said, “if we can’t predict when they’ll show, then we’ve got to be careful not to give them a beacon.”

“That won’t be a problem,” he reassured. “It is your poor eyesight that worries me.”

“What do you have against my eyes, asshole? I’ve been led to believe that they suit me.”

He rolled his eyes at the strange statement. “They are not wrong, so much as they are inefficient.”

“Is this your roundabout way of volunteering to be my eyes?”

“Why would I do such a thing, you strange creature? No one can teach you to See.”

“Admit it, I’ve grown on you. That’s why you’re always hovering.”

“I do not hover,” he stated decidedly, shifting his weight and crossing his arms with a sense of finality.

Sat in the sand, the Demon leaned back on their hands and rolled their head back far enough to shoot him a look he could only describe as challenging, even if they lacked the mobile ears and tail to properly convey such a thing.

“Then sit,” they invited, making a show of patting the damp sand next to them. He hesitated. Of course he did. They were playing with him somehow. “Scared I’ll bite, big guy?”

“If you were not forced to wear that mask to survive, you would. And I would not put it past you to try, whilst it was on.”

He sat. With a huff and a flicking tail, but he did sit. An arm’s lengths away, his leg crossed and his hands planted on his knees with a straightened spine. Something about his posture made the Demon snort.

“Damn, didn’t even need to turn the gun on you this time. You’re going soft.” He shot them a glare that they deflected with a disarming smile.

He focused his eyes forward once again, his tail thumping against the sand as his attention rolled down the beach towards the waves. Beside him, his companion let out a long breath and audibly relaxed. He allowed the moment to drag out. Waiting for them to break the lul of the waves with their voice.

Nothing.

“What now?” He prompted, refusing to look at them, his tone verging on petulant. “What is the purpose of getting sand in uncomfortable places?”

“Well, now we get to stargaze obviously.”

He frowned. “But the stars are as they always are.”

“Maybe for you. This is a whole new angle of the galaxy for me.” With that, they turned their attention skywards.

With a huff, Tsu’tey looked too. It was a peaceful night. The waves calm and the winds refreshing despite being tinged with the acidic bite of healthy wood burning. Tail flicking, Tsu’tey scanned the horizon for the source, but saw only stars and impressions of clouds.

“You know, we can’t see the stars back home anymore,” the Demon broke the silence with. Voice scarcely above a whisper and verging on melancholic. “Can hardly see them in Bridgehead either, since the stupid General set up a fuck tonne of searchlights to ward off arial attacks, even though the thermal sensors work much more effectively.”

“What do you see instead?”

“Nothing.” The Demon responded after a beat. “It’s like there was never anything there to begin with.”

The long breath they let out after drew his attention. They wore a jacket over their shirt tonight, a ratty, worn thing in desperate need of a needle and thread. Bare toes played with the damp sand, whilst the stars reflected off of the acrylic of their mask, the serene expression beneath only just visible. He found himself momentarily lost in their alien features. The starlight accentuating the unnatural darkness of their form, illuminating dirty skin flecked with faded and fresh bruises alike. His attention trailed down their silhouette, catching on the raised bump of the dogtags, down to their ragged camouflage trousers - damp along the hem from fishing - rolled up to the bend of their knees. The bite carved into the arch of their foot was healing well, the wound scabbed and on the mend.

He did not notice when the Demon caught him staring until their hand slid into his line of sight, the nails long and uneven from breaks and nervous biting. With an extended finger, they tapped the pale line of a scar above their ankle, “scooter to the ankle,” they unhelpfully informed him. “Was trying to learn a trick and didn’t jump in time.”

Which commenced the next hour of conversation Tsu’tey had not been expecting. Perhaps it was the result of a filling meal, or the calmness of the ocean, or even just the presence of the stars, but once the Demon began to speak, they seemed reluctant to stop.

They began to pull aside clothing and point out various imperfections in their skin to him. When they’d fallen off their bike - whatever that was - as a child. A battle wound from some creature called a ‘cat’ back on their home planet. Various puckered bullet wounds from missions, and slashed from practising knife flips during team bonding time, and a fishing hook to the finger. They slid the jacket from their shoulders, and showed him the somewhat healed, but angry burns twisting the skin from their right shoulder and upper back from the plane crash.

“The flames were so hot, the seat melted and fused to me. Had to rip myself free or burn to death,” they explained in an unsettlingly cheery voice. Tsu’tey swallowed around a tight throat. “Cool, right?” Horrifying, was a more accurate descriptor, he privately corrected.

Pulling the collar of their shirt closer to their shoulder, they revealed a set of teeth marks next. “Blue’s first love bite,” they proudly dubbed it.

Tsu’tey grimaced. “It looks like a killing strike.”

“Na, barely broke the skin.”

It looked like the kind of bite where the animal had twisted their head to ensure the bite tore upon releasing their hold. The fangs of the ikran sinking deep enough to shred muscle and no doubt dent their fragile skeleton. It was a miracle they had walked away with the arm still attached, let alone still been able to use it.

“What about you, any fun ones?”

The peculiarly chipper question caught him off guard enough to make him smile. As if any of his hard won battles had been ‘fun’, let alone the tedious recovery times.

Considering how open and honest the Demon had been when displaying their weak points, Tsu’tey felt it was only polite to reciprocate. He told them of the time he had tumbled from his ikran in his youth in front of his entire hunting parting. Showed them the remains of a poison stinger to the calf, the arrow he’d taken to the forearm. The time Lo’ak had stabbed him in the bicep when he’d tried to rouse the boy from a nightmare. The perfect hole in his ear from a broadly glossed over retelling of the school shooting of his youth. And finally the starburst cluster across his chest from the War. All of which had healed well, thanks to Mo’at’s intense care and remedies.

The Demon listened with rapt attention. Gasping and laughing at the right time, asking for clarification when he slipped into Na’vi, and insisting he delve into deeper detail regarding the extent of his more severe injuries.

“You did not mention your leg,” he prompted when he’d run out of stories.

The Demon’s grin widened unusually, a change Tsu’tey wouldn’t have picked up on, had he not been watching them so intently. “I already told you about the bike-”

“Not that,” he interrupted. “Your leg. The one that makes you limp, but only sometimes. Which injury caused it?”

“What are you talking about?” They deflected, looking at his ear instead of his eyes. “My leg is fine.”

His ears lowered. “It is not.”

“No, it quite literally is.”

“There is no need to lie. Had I wanted you dead, I would have followed through on that first night.” The bluntness of the statement startled a strangled little laugh out of them.

“Alright, but you’re not allowed to call me any form of ‘odd’, not about this.”

“Then I shall refrain. This time.”

“It’s psychosomatic,” they told him, to which he pulled a face. They smiled, and shook their head at him. “Which is a fancy medical term to say it’s all in my head and I should get over it already.”

He took a moment to internalise the explanation before pressing for more. ”Was it always in your head?” He asked reasonably.

“No. It was an accident with some machinery in the warehouse, some,” they huffed, eyes distant and flicking back and forth as if reading, “what was it? Seventeen - might have been eighteen years, and that includes the cryo trips?” They frowned before shaking the dates away. “Doesn’t matter. The point is, I was in an accident. My leg was fucked. The suits cut my contract, rotated me back, and they fixed me.”

As they offered the suddenly biting explanation, they rolled up their trouser leg further to reveal… a perfectly normal leg. “This is the bad one,” they informed him testily before mirroring the action with the second leg. “And this is my trust, good one,” they added with evident fondness.

The ‘good’ leg was visibly more worn with age, and was littered with the scars that Tsu’tey now knew the origins of, including the fish bite. The ‘bag’ leg looked perfectly fine, although it seemed to have been excluded from the test of time and didn’t grow hair like the other.

“Why so bare?”

They shrugged. “Some weird beauty standard or side effect, I have no idea. They just told me they’d make me look normal again, and this is what they did.”

The roar of the latest patrol’s engine grew louder, not quieter.

Head pressed into his pillow, Tsu’tey’s ear rotated with the rumbling sound, tracking its approach towards the island. Eyes open and unfocused, he glared across the shack towards the oblivious Demon’s nest of blankets. His grip flexed around his drawn knife, having made the decision not to crawl out of bed for anything less than the noisy landing of the enemy vessel.

His heart picked up in pace as the rumble grew closer and closer, growing into a roar as the craft passed directly overhead. Then it circled. Searching for a landing strip, Tsu’tey realised, having witnessed the scientists’ clumsy flight procedures enough times to understand what each change in tone meant. Which meant he could pretend to ignore it no longer.

With purpose, he rose from his resting spot. He slept in fits and starts so lacked the usual grogginess that the Demon did when they awoke from their own deep slumber. On quiet feet, he crossed the shack to their bed and prodded at their lower back with his foot. With enough close calls that had almost resulted in him having one less eye, he’d begun to stop assuming the little thing was oblivious. They may sleep deeply and without fear of being eaten in the night, but they woke unnervingly quickly, lunging blade-first and waking up fully in seconds.

As predicted, the Demon’s arm covered by their blanket swatted at his retreating foot, the tip of their knife tearing through the material from the swiftness of the movement. “What?” They snapped, eyes still closed as they hauled their body upwards.

“An enemy ship has landed.” Tsu’tey informed them swiftly. “Ready yourself.”

Their eyes snapped open. “The RDA are here?”

“Yes.”

“Fuck.” A perfect summary of the situation really.

They exploded out of bed. The repetitive puff of their exopack gave away their elevated breathing as they shoved their feet into sand-encrusted boots, and yanked their jacket off of one of the nearby boxes. They knocked over their rifle in their haste to shove aside a stack of plastic storage containers to unearth the lowest one, where they yanked out a bullet-proof vest visibly newer than the avatar-sized one Jake favoured. Their dogtags clicked against one another as they wiggled into it, and fastened it snug over their torso.

Tsu’tey cast his eyes around for a weapon more fitting than only his knife, only to realise there was nothing he could comfortably use.

“My bow, where is my bow?” He demanded.

“Do you see a bow stashed around here?” The Demon bit back, attention on their rifle, as they clicked open one of the panels to check the bullets stock. They cursed quietly as they slammed it closed once more. “You didn’t wash up with one, you idiot!”

Tsu’tey shot them a sharp look in retaliation and they visibly recoiled, head ducked as if his glare were a physical blow. “Sorry, I’m freaking out a little.”

“A little?”

“Oh fuck off into the trees or something. I’ve got work to do.” They returned, swinging the rifle strap over their shoulder, and returning to their bed to pull an uncomfortable number of blades from its depths.

“You plan to fight them?” Tsu’tey demanded, his eyes catching on the breast of their bullet-proof vest as they straightened and turned back to him. A patch of the material was visible cleaner in a perfect square, a couple of snapped thread seams still poking out around the edge, as if there had been a patch there once. All of the RDA’s soldiers wore their ranks stitched into their uniform, names and symbols that determined how powerful a single soldier was. Or at least, that was how Jake had explained it the one time Tsu’tey had been bored enough to ask.

“I plan to win and take their scorpion.” His Demon promised in a tone that left no room for another outcome.

The fire in their eyes unexpectedly made his stomach twist. With no one else on the island but one another, his opinion and trust in his companion had only grown during their forced time together. But with this new variable introduced into the mix, with unknown alliances that had otherwise been cut off, Tsu’tey wasn’t sure-footed on where they stood with one another anymore.

“To what end?” He foolishly asked.

“Uh, to get off the island, obviously.”

“To accomplish what goal?” He pressed, “will you return to your people?”

“The RDA?” They provided, eyes narrowed. “Are you asking me if I’m going to crawl back to them? Are you even hearing yourself right now?”

“Well, your people are skilled liars.” Tsu’tey helpfully pointed out, to which his Demon recoiled as if he’d swung at them rather than simply spoken the truth.

“Do you seriously believe I’d be shitting myself if those were my allies out there?”

“I do not think we know each other well enough to tell.” He said reasonably.

“So you don’t trust me? After all we have been through?”

“I trust you not to kill me. I do not trust you to keep others of your kind from killing me.”

A beat of silence. Then they turned their back on him. “Well, thank you for letting me know of your incredibly high opinion regarding my sense of loyalty.” They said evenly. If the words had hurt, they didn’t give him the opportunity to see. “And since you’ve been blunt, I’ll return the favour. Stay out of my fucking way.” It was said calmly, but pushed through bared teeth and a firmly set expression. “I don’t have enough bullets to cover you.”

“I do not need your assistance.” Tsu’tey reassured, feeling guilty for some reason.

“Fine, just don’t stab me because you mistook me for the enemy.”

“If I were to stab you, little thing, it would not be an accident.”

“Kinky.” They returned reflexively, and Tsu’tey pointedly kept his expression blank as they strode past him for the shack entrance. Soundlessly - at least by their standards - they slipped out onto the sand and headed straight for the trees. After a moment of quiet reflection, Tsu’tey followed, catching up quickly and guiding the small thing in the direction he could hear the enemy talking to one another.

They paused once within the soft glow of the treeline. The moon was strong tonight, meaning the bioluminescents glowed duller than they would on a cloudy night, but their darkened silhouette still stuck out obviously amongst the swaying lights.

“I need to set up somewhere for a clear view.” The Demon whispered to him, peering through the undergrowth towards the headlights of the landed scorpion. “Don’t die.” Then they slipped off in a seemingly random direction, circling the parked machine, rather than heading straight for it.

Tsu’tey held his ground, listening to the echo of soldiers barking orders back and forth, and the crunch of careful, slow footsteps growing gradually more distant.

His eyes found a clear view of the beach through a parting in the leaves. The headlamps of the landed scorpion illuminated the stretch of sand to his left, whilst three figures climbed out of a sliding, side door. Decked out in full camouflage gear, exomasks with built in helmets and enough weapons to kill even a Na’vi, they moved with deserved confidence.

“This cannot be the right island, Sergeant.” One of the soldiers complained, loudly enough that no doubt Tsu’tey’s Demon could hear them. “There’s no machine signals or nothing for miles. For all we know, this fucker died on impact.”

“Did you not read the mission report, Private?” The Sergeant snapped back, “A rogue scorpion passed through on this flight path weeks ago. Ardmore wants us to check all of the islands in this archipelago. Leave no stretch of land unchecked in case we find the traitor or Sully’s location.” Tsu’tey’s tail thrashed at the passing mention of his clan mate, his family, who were hiding only a handful of islands away amongst the Metkayina.

“And if either somehow found a fucking clan to hide amongst? What are the four of us going to do against hundreds of those big, blue fucks?”

“You questioning me boy-”

“N-no, sir, I-”

The crack of a gunshot split the conversation in two.

In synchronised panic, all three figures hit the ground. They threw themselves down, belly first, practically falling on top of their respective guns, and burying their heads in the sand in their haste to get out of the sightline of the enemy scope.

The sound of the scorpion’s windshield shattering had all three helmeted heads snapping back up again. The roar of the aircraft's engine continued to rumble, even as the silhouette of the pilot writhed against the straps of their seatbelts. Gloved hands clumsily grabbed at their chest, their body heaving. Shot, Tsu’tey deduced. A lesser gun would never have penetrated the glass, arrows scarcely scratched it after all.

“SAMSON!” The Demon seemingly in charge of the small patrol bellowed, rising to his elbows and then to his knees.

“Pilot down, sir.” One of his subordinates unhelpfully reported.

“I CAN FUCKING SEE THAT! GET TO COVER!”

The snap of a twig had all three heads spinning to Tsu’tey’s left, in the direction his Demon had disappeared in. The breathy, “shit” that followed the sound all but confirmed it.

“On me.” The Sergeant commanded, eyes on the treeline, although his weariness persisted.

Sensing where the situation was headed, Tsu’tey shifted his foot through the decomposing undergrowth, upsetting dead leaves and rustling a nearby bush. Once more, the soldiers froze. The Sergeant swung his head between the two sources of sound, debating. Behind his mask, he licked his lips before issuing fresh orders. His underlings to check the source of the gunshot, himself to investigate the fresh sound,

Tsu’tey kept upsetting the undergrowth to keep the leader’s attention. A light brush of the bushes with his tail, a stick thrown further from his position. With every soft disturbance, the Sergeant grew tenser, all but hiding behind his gun. A similar make to the one Tsu’tey’s Demon hauled around. Although he seemed to have forgotten to wrap the safety strap around his person. It would be easy for the Na’vi to grab the weapon by the sights, crush the metal between his fingertips and rip the entire thing from between the Demon’s weak hands. The Demon carried a second gun strapped to his leg, but it would take him too much time to draw it, time within which Tsu’tey could easily snap his neck.

The Demon was close enough to grab now. So close that if he simply looked up than at his natural height, he would make eye contact with Tsu’tey standing frozen at his elbow, his knife in hand. The Demon’s eyesight was so poor in the half light, and Tsu’tey’s camouflage so good, that he didn’t even detect the superior predator practically on top of him.

“Get off me! Fuckers!” Came an explosive bellow from closer to the beach. Both Na’vi and the soldier turned towards the sound of a scuffle disturbing the underbush.

“SERGEANT!” One of the Demon’s underlings bellowed, the equivalent of a small child calling on their parent. The Sergeant huffed a tired sigh, and withdrew.

Panic widened Tsu’tey’s eyes as he soundlessly lunged after him. His fingers barely skimmed the back of the man’s uniform as he retreated back towards the beach faster than he had infiltrated the forest. The Na’vi quietly snapped his teeth at the lost opening.

Out on the beach, his Demon was kicked in the back of the knee and all but thrown down onto the sand. They landed in a painful looking kneel, arms twisted behind their back by one of the enemy soldiers, even as they wiggled and spat curses. Their rifle still hung on its strap against their back, the soldiers not bothering to risk their hold to wrestle it off of them.

His Demon stilled all movement at the sight of the man in charge striding towards them. Their expression twisted up into something that might have resembled a familiar smile, but was just a touch too wide. “Williams, long time no see.”

The man in charge scarcely slowed his pace, barking at the soldier not holding Tsu’tey’s Demon to check the rest of the island. The man nodded neatly and strode away from the scorpion and the trio concealed within the machine’s shadow.

“Sergeant.” The man in charge greeted Tsu’tey’s Demon with a sneer. The man flicked his wrist, and the marine holding them still abruptly adjusted his hold. His Demon tried to use the opportunity to twist free, only to freeze at the cold bite of a rifle nozzle being shoved between the straps of their exomask.

A low rumble grew in the base of Tsu’tey’s throat at the sight. His eyes darted from the cluster of shadows to the last one striding away from the group, back towards the trees. He held position until that one had disappeared into the glow of the plants, before he began to close in.

Williams, as his Demon had referred to him, continued to speak, “I can’t believe I’m the lucky sod who gets to turn you in.”

“Oh I believe it.” His Demon grumbled tightly, “you’ve always been a persistent dog. Tell me, what are the suits going to reward you for this? An extra meal token? Clean socks?”

“Even better.” The glee in the man’s voice was evident. “If I bring back your head, I get promoted.”

“Well, lucky you. More responsibilities and even worse pay.” His Demonly dryly congratulated the man. “Maybe don’t? I really don’t want to have to sit through Ardmore’s welcome lecture.”

“I don’t have authorisation to kill you,” Williams acknowledged. “Not even for old time’s sake.”

Tsu’tey knew that he would lose his advantage, exposed on the sand, but without a bow, he had little choice. These men were hunting his family. Hopping from island to island, hoping to find and kill his nieces and nephews. And now they were here, contemplating on whether or not to kill his demon right in front of him. The nerve.

“You’re a right bastard, you know that Williams?”

The enemy Sergeant studied them, long and hard. Then dropped his chin to his chest as far as his mask would allow and chuckled to himself. “Glad to see the wilderness hasn’t changed you, Sergeant.” Williams stated, his tone almost nostalgic. “It’s a shame you brought into that tree-hugger nonsense. You were one of the best.”

“You mean, it’s a shame I opened my eyes?”

The words stalled Williams’ response, his back was to Tsu’tey, tense with shallow, uneven breaths. Whatever conclusion he came to, was lost with his next exhale as Tsu’tey punched his knife straight through his tactical vest, and drove it into his lung. The man went rigid, as Tsu’tey clamped a hand over his shoulder to keep him from sliding off the blade, the force behind the hilt enough to have him rocking up onto his toes. The Na’vi felt when the sharp edge cut through the other side, and heard it in the wounded sound the man’s subordinate let out, as well as his Demon’s appreciative whistled.

“A bit clean, but it’ll do.” They congratulated him breezily, the amusement refusing to seep from their expression, even as the Na’vi scraped the man off his blade and let his body crumble in a heap at his feet.

<”Are you criticising me right now?”> He fired back on reflex, <”after I just saved your ungrateful skin?”>

“HOSTILE!” The man holding his Demon captive bellowed, the shout echoing out across the waves as he swung his gun up to aim at Tsu’tey.

Tsu’tey tensed. Bloodied knife swinging up to finish the job it began, only for his Demon to neatly spin on their knees and all but tackle the new threat straight off of his feet. Despite their stay on the island, cut off from external resources and a safe place to rest, the drive to survive had kept his Demon strong. It looked almost effortless as they wrestled the enemy soldier down onto his back, repeatedly knocking his rifle off course when he tried to aim it back at Tsu’tey, who circled the fight in the sand with a thrashing tail.

His Demon was clearly winning. Perched on the enemy’s lower abdomen, despite how the man bucked and writhed under their weight. Their upper lip peeled back in an expression of unfiltered determination. In an act of pure instinct, they fumbled for a visible knife on the enemy soldier’s body, ripped it free of its sheath, and used his own blade to cut the breathing tube of his exomask. The soldier immediately choked, his struggle forgotten and his gun left to drop into the sand in his haste to stem the leak in his breathing equipment. He was given little time to suffocate, as his Demon made to slit his throat next, only for the appearance of the last soldier to stay their hand.

The man burst from the undergrowth in a blur of movement, disturbing the sand in a fluid arch as he slid to a halt a healthy distance away. He reached for his rifle first. Squeezing the trigger, and letting free a spray of bullets that Tsu’tey neatly dodged. Then he cursed, and the sound of a pin being pulled made Tsu’tey’s ears prick.

“GRENADE!” His Demon bellowed in warning, enough panic in their tone to make Tsu’tey move. They were already scrambling off the dying body, when Tsu’tey grabbed them by the back of their uniform and ripped them clean off the ground. They let out a shout, tiny nails digging into his forearm as he fled, only for the explosion to catch them regardless.

The force threw both Na’vi and his companion off their feet. Obliterating the sand where it landed, and immediately engulfing the fallen soldier and the body of his leader in a burst of incinerating flames. The heat licked Tsu'tey's back, but was thankfully far enough away not to burn.

His Demon hit the sand hard a short way away from him, letting out a yelp and a gasp, even as they immediately tried to command shaking limbs into getting back to their feet.

Tsu’tey fared little better, his sensitive ears ringing as he spat out sand, grains of it ground between his teeth as he lifted his head and tried to rise back to his forearms. His tail writhed against his back as the world swayed. His eyes caught on his knife stabbed blade down in the sand just out of reach, in its reflection, a humanoid silhouette approached his turned back, backlit by a column of orange flames. The ringing masked the soldier’s footsteps, but the press of cold steel digging into the skin between Tsu’tey’s ear and eye was unmistakable. He wanted to snarl, to throw out an arm and take out the infuriating thing’s knees, but the promise of the pain a simple finger pull would provide stayed his hand.

His hesitation did him little good when the soldier pulled the trigger with a deafening click.

Nothing happened.

“Shit.” The man cursed, “not the fucking time to stall!”

“OI!”

Both the enemy soldier and Na’vi snapped their gazes over to the Demon still sprawled in the sand a short distance away. They’d rolled onto their back, booted feet planted heel deep into the sand as the barrel of their own rifle aimed down between their spread legs. Their grin was all flashing teeth set ablaze by the fire when they pulled the trigger, nailing the enemy soldier through his exomask and killing him instantly. The figure tipped backwards, onto the balls of his heels, and slumped limply in a pile of camouflage gear and broken machinery.

Tsu’tey exhaled explosively, ears flattened as his gaze darted from the cooling corpse to the gun that would’ve otherwise been his end still clutched loosely in its fingers.

The groans and grunts of his Demon clambering back to their feet forced him not to dwell on what could’ve been. “Alright, big guy?” They asked, breath coming sharp and fast.

He swallowed, yanking his eyes off of the corpse. “Yes.” He replied, his throat still uncomfortably dry. “Thank you.”

The Demon stilled momentarily, apparently caught off guard by his manners before smoothly bending at the waist to pluck his blade from the sand. It was easily the length of their forearm, as they held it by the blade, still sticky with fresh blood, but now with sand clinging to it, to offer him the hilt.

“Not bad for a demon you can’t trust, eh?” There was no bite to their words, no trap, just the relief of having survived.

Slowly, Tsu’tey pushed himself off of his belly to his knees, and took the offered weapon. The Demon smiled down at him, going so far as to pat him on the shoulder as they rounded his form towards the scorpion. It was a comforting gesture, one from a comrade, or commonly seen exchanged between hunters on even footing as opposed to an act of condescension. The disarming kindness had his ears pricking halfway, as his eyes widened and watched their side-profile for signs of mockery.

There was nothing but exhaustion. Or at least there was, until they turned their head and the reflection of the fire danced across the screen of their exomask. The fire that was currently consuming the hull of their precious escape plan.

“The scorpion.” They breathed in disbelief, and Tsu’tey followed their stricken expression to where the grenade had landed. Where the explosion had tipped the entire aircraft onto its side, had blown out the glass of its windows and obliterated half of its belly.

“Perhaps she’s still worthy of low altitudes,” the Demon bargained, more to themselves than Tsu’tey. A note of desperation creeping into the edges of their voice, the first hint of true panic he’d witnessed from them since this entire altercation in the sand had begun. “Maybe if we get some water, I can-”

The sentence was barely half formed when the flames seemed to find the fuel tank. With little warning, the machine exploded, belching shards of half melted shrapnel across the beach.

Tsu’tey ducked and threw his arms up over his ears, whilst his Demon instinctively dropped to the sand, hands over theirs. The pair held the position as the fire continued to pop and fizz, smaller explosions driving forth the idea that the aircraft could not in fact be salvaged.

Slowly, his Demon uncurled, and began shaking their head. “No.” Barely the whisper of a word. Then the rage began to catch alight behind their words. “No, no, no, nononononONO!”

The mournful note in their voice pulled at something Tsu’tey chest. “It is alright,” he tried to soothe, they were too far to put a hand on, but he hoped his words provided the semblance of comfort. “We can still-”

“NO!” And they spun and spat the word at him, eyes wild and shiny. The fury building within them was undeniable.

Tsu’tey’s next words got caught in his throat.

The Demon continued to fume. “NO, it is not and will not be okay! That was my last fucking chance at getting off this stupid fucking island!” They bellowed at him. And it was the tone of defeat. Tsu’tey had heard it echo within the wails of his people since the Demons first came; had become intimately acquainted with its ache.

“My scorpion is wrecked. I can’t get Blue to trust me, so that’s a bust. Your ikran will be healed soon, and then you’ll go off on your merry way. This was supposed to be my chance! This was my OUT! After three months of PURE SHIT, this was my ticket off this FUCK ASS ISLAND!” Their head turned to glare at the burning husk of their only escape. As if it were the turned back of a god, rather than simply a machine. “And now this has blown up in my face too.”

Piece said aloud, they seemed to lose their fury. Bit by bit, it trickled out of them, and their attention dropped down to the rifle still hanging on its strap and now rested against their outer thigh.

Logically, Tsu’tey knew it had no more bullets to give. That the weapon had been reduced to its metallic shell and nothing else, but a tiny part of him still expected the demon to turn it on themselves. He felt almost relieved when they instead ripped the strap up and over their head and launched the thing towards the burning debris. Its fall was muffled by the sand and the crash of the waves. Despite all that had occurred, the tide still continued to draw back towards the ocean and the wind continued to blow the acidic scent of burnt flesh and melting metal across the beach.

The Demon’s body slumped to its knees and crumbled in on itself. Their spine bowed and curved, their legs drawing in tight to their body, as they began to sob. Deep, heaving shudders that rocked their entire body.

Horror crashed through Tsu’tey in an entirely fresh way. He was Olo’eyktan, yes, pillar for his people, but he was also just a man. A very awkward man at his core who could hardly stomach the tears of his nieces or nephews when they’d disagreed on the possession of a toy in their youth. This, the pain here was so much more than that, and he had no idea how to handle it, let alone if his presence was a welcome one.

He could retreat into the forest and offer them privacy. He could remain quiet and allow them to compose themself, to bury all the hurt down deep and pull themselves back together like the soldiers of their people were trained to. But he realised he didn’t want to run. Not from something as vulnerable and honest as this display.

So instead, he shuffled closer. The Demon ignored him, or didn’t notice him, until he was sat crisscrossed at their side and had pressed the length of his outer thigh against their own. His hand had itched to fall on their spasming back, to ease the jerks with the rasp of his thumb against the harsh material of their bullet proof vest, but his hand hovered above them instead. Uncertain whether to make contact, and unable to simply drop the arm back to his side with how closely he’d sat himself down beside them.

Slowly, they lifted their head. He was almost certain they couldn’t see him, between the flood of tears making their eyes shine and the reflections of their acrylic mask, but they tried to glare at him regardless, although it severely lacked the heat and compulsion from earlier.

“The fuck are you still here for?” They spat, voice heavy with melancholy. If their ears had the ability to move, Tsu’tey could just picture them pinned tight against either side of their skull. “Don’t you have a family to get back to?”

It was meant to anger him, he knew. To bait him into storming off in a huff. Jake was notorious for doing it when he didn’t want anyone to see him breakdown. Tsu’tey refused to take the bait then, and he refused to be shoved away so easily now, not when the Demon’s posture had loosened at the promise of his presence.

“They will wait for me,” he said quietly.

“Must be fucking nice,” they retorted bitterly, head bowed, body curled up impossibly tighter. It was a pathetic display. One that tugged sharply at the strings of Tsu’tey’s conscience. His eyes flicked from the burning wreckage of the Demon’s escape plan, to the slumped corpse of the marine they had shot to save him. A man they seemed to have known in some capacity. He read the exhaustion in their shoulders, saw the shake in their trembling fingertips.

“I may not have Seen you before, but I See you now.” Their names rolled off his tongue, stilted and awkward. “I will not abandon you, over a tantrum of all things.”

Carefully, he lowered his hovering hand and allowed it to rest lightly between their shoulderblades. They let loose a long, suffering breath at the touch, but didn’t try to buck him off or escape. If anything, they seemed to press up into the contact. “Your rage is not my doing, and it is justified.” He finished.

“Fuck off.” They tossed his way in response, although it was certainly half-hearted.

Part 3 <- You are here -> Part 5

Masterlist: here!

#tsu'tey #tsu'tey x reader #avatar #tsu'tey te rongloa ateyitan #atwow #gender neutral reader

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