sun lily — jake sully . . .ᐟ
human/avatar!jake sully x fem!human/avatar!reader . . .ᐟ
jake sully loves nothing more than to rage bait you, and being in a 9 ft alien body just makes it better.
⁺˖ ⸝⸝ warnings/tags: human!jake (he needs a tag for himself), annoying jake sully, fluff, flirting, suggestiveness, pining, i use lot of dog metaphors idk why??, walk him like a dog reader ig, puppy love (see? i like dogs ok), little shit jake sully, he's obsessed w you. always 18+ only.
⁺˖ ⸝⸝ wc: 4.6k
divider credit: @uzmacchiato
⁺˖ ⸝⸝ masterlist.
jake sully was a menace. you were almost certain the purpose of his sole existence was to irritate and rage bait you.
most days it was before you even linked up into your avatars.
you always woke up first, heading to the lab to get some research done, writing down what pandoran flora you were out to look for today. usually norm and grace would slowly pile into the room, one or the other forced to wake up jake by the time it was almost nine. lately, however, jake took it upon himself to set his alarm for six thirty; a solid thirty minutes after you woke up, and thirty minutes before grace and norm trudged out. prime bothering you time. he’d prefer longer, but couldn’t bring himself to get out of bed and match your absurdity.
the low whine of his wheelchair along the floor of the biolab corridor never failed to alert his presence. he never announced himself like a normal person would, at least audibly. it was always you standing in front of your desk and the sudden thunk thunk of the front of his wheelchair kissing your ankles. once, twice, maybe three times if you didn’t fall on your ass or screech with a glare over your shoulder.
it was usually a fall on your ass type of situation. that was jake’s favorite.
“ouch! move, dickhead!” you hissed from the floor, arm swinging out to hit whatever you could find in the plummet, failing to enact revenge.
jake only looked down from above, a cheshire grin, a quick ‘ah!’ as he dodged your hit between joyous laughter that didn’t belong at six in the morning.
“mornin’ doc.” he smugly spoke, proud of himself. a quick turn around in his wheelchair and he was off to grab coffee and whatever else he could bug you with.
pulling yourself up from the ground, you grumbled and tried your hardest to stay annoyed while you watched him roll to the other side of the room. but truthfully, you’d been glancing at the clock and waiting eagerly for his arrival. it was impossible to admit that to yourself, though.
usually, with anyone else, jake would feel at least a twinge of guilt at kicking their feet out from under them. but anyone else looked at him like a poor cripple who needed his hand held. you didn’t.
it was refreshing the way you took one look at him the first day—at his eyes, not just fleetingly over his legs—and threw a crumbled up paper at the side of his head, making grace and himself swivel to look over at you. there you were, hands flat and leaning forward on a desk, beaming with the prettiest smile he’d ever seen; like a lighthouse beacon, and he was the one out at sea, following the rays to get to shore. “jake, right? your avatar’s better lookin’ than you!” you’d shouted.
the smile on his face was instant, a quick ‘oh yeah?’ and even quicker retort. “you one of the scientists that play in the dirt with worms?” he’d shout over, and you threw your head back laughing, earning an eye roll from norm.
so, he decided you could handle it. he roughed you up the same way you gave him shit. gently, of course; he knew you’d get up and brush it off, the same way you knew he didn’t need help climbing out of the pod, or an extra hand when his wheel caught and he tipped over (you did try once and he swore at you, which tickled you enough to dissolve all concern and laugh at him). in the back of his mind, it was like a reminder to you that he could still be rowdy, that you didn’t have to look at him as a scarred vet. you could just see him as jake, who held his own and sized up against you, even if he was a few heads below. he had to reaffirm his independence if he wanted to shoot his shot, too.
although, the first time he knocked your ankles was an accident and he thought about it all day, face in a pathetic frown every time you looked over. it took reassurance from you that you didn’t care, your ass was firm enough to cushion your landing, you’d said. he snorted and accepted it, and the sleazy part of him risked a glance to make sure you were accurate in that statement when you walked away—and then he felt bad again, but still struggled to tear his eyes away from your ass. fortunately you were right.
things fell into a rhythm almost instantly. jake teasing you around every corner, you swatting his head and giving it right back. leaning on each other in the unique way of poking and prodding was a comfort. you learned early that threatening to run his chair battery down to zero only spurred whatever daredevil he had inside him. it would earn you a mischievous grin, like being stranded at your mercy was a gift and not a punishment. a constant in the state of chaos that was this new alien world of pandora.
jake wasn’t all roughhousing though. some days he’d greet you nice, like he’d woken up to flower petals and candles leading straight to you, and you were on a bed in the middle of rose petals shaped into a heart. except the bed was your desk and you were nose deep in a book.
in suave jake fashion, he’d roll up to the high partition, resting his forearms casually on the top edge. “morning sunshine. what’s the plan for today?” his words always biting in the perfect way, underlined with some fraction of truth. it was also an ode to how he saw you, so elevated that he considered you the one to run the show—or at least the jake show—as if grace’s say so wasn’t what lead his decisions for the day, but rather you. would he follow you into the forest as you and the other two scanned plants? would he trail after you during strength training? or would he have to bare the cold, hard world of pandora alone without his leash attached to your grip?
you didn’t need to glance up to know he was grinning, but you did anyways to make your day worse. his smile was wide and boyish, eyes crinkling, lopsided; far too ecstatic like he was genuinely excited to be in your orbit. it clenched at your stomach, and it almost pained you that you didn’t have him—it was unknown to you that if you said just that, he’d be yours in a second. the frown on your face was accidental.
“c’mon, you still acting like you hate having me around?” jake pressed a bit, arms flexing as he rested his chin on them. one reached out, patronizingly taking the fat of your cheek between his thumb and forefinger, pinching it. “pitiful.” he teased, emphasizing it with a gentle shake.
you didn’t slap his hand away, and it allowed him far more time than usual to linger. it was only a couple seconds, but he took the chance to do damage. jake’s thumb traced up your cheekbone, heel of his palm sliding along your skin as he reached for a new destination. his fingers ducked under the drape of your hair, gently pinching and tugging at your earlobe, something annoying and intimate and surprising he could do.
“i’m tying you to a log and frying you on a fire, that’s the plan.” you grumbled. finally, you slapped his hand away, and jake beamed.
“oh yeah? tying people up, huh? knew you were mean, but that’s a new low. that something you partake in on your free time—?” jake’s endless quips faded as you got up to walk across the room.
“no, just your annoying ass.” you cut him off, looking back at him flatly.
“ah, so i’m special? or it’s because i’m in a wheelchair!” he shouted, brows raised in challenge, going on and on. as soon as you spoke a word to him it was like a dog who got a bone, gnawing and chewing it as fast and hard as he could.
then you’d link up, and he’d go rabid.
jake’s personality was big to make up for whatever he thought he lacked, which in your professional opinion wasn’t much—maybe a haircut and an attitude adjustment. but once he was in his avatar, the body matched the aforementioned attitude. he became nine feet of lean muscle and lithe limbs, broad shoulders that filled out the whatever shirt he was forced to squeeze into, a stride that ate up the ground like he was meant to. whatever confidence he had before was amped up tenfold, but jake was still humble enough that it seemed like maybe this was how he was meant to be all along.
when jake first linked up it was like everything finally made sense to him. the body he was in was foreign, sure, but it never felt more his. that was clear as day to you when you first saw him in his avatar.
you’d heard a new avatar escaped from the medical center, running ramped and unable to be reeled in. you also knew jake and norm were two of the new ones linking up today, and the last time you saw norm break the rules was when he stole a pen, guiltily replacing it with four more—so it must’ve been jake.
you spotted him in the clearing, still clad in his hospital gown and looking around like he was in disbelief. he was huge, and not just na’vi huge, but genetic anomaly in a tube huge. most likely a fair foot half foot above an oma’ticayan. you knew he’d get a kick out of that when he saw you—him nine foot five, you eight eleven.
the irony of jake being in a new body was that he looked… right. it wasn’t because he was different now—no, jake was perfect as he was brought to you in the space craft, and it didn’t matter if he was leaning close over a desk or standing tall in a blue body. you didn’t see a change in human jake and avatar jake, not really. he was still the man who kicked your ankles for attention. it’s just that… his muscles were more relaxed than you’d ever seen them, his chin was held high and his eyes were closed in reverence like he was feeling the breeze for the first time. you realized then how much more comfortable he must have been in regaining his legs, but there was something else entirely too.
it was like the man inside hell’s gate, sitting in the pod, had been a glitch, and this was the real jake sully.
then he saw you. approaching him from the trees where you’d been digging around for worms, or so he called it. for one heartbeat, the cocky marine vanished. his eyes widened, golden irises dilating, and his breath caught audibly in his chest. you were tall, almost as tall as him but not quite, the same shade of blue, shorts and a tank top showing off your striped stomach, and your tail—a tail—was whipping behind you in amusement.
jake stared like you were the first living thing he’d ever truly seen. the way your hair was half up and pinned back by a flower species he’d never seen, the subtle shift of muscle in your strong legs as you walked, the quiet confidence like you’d always been in this body. you still had your core features in some way, structure mostly the same, high cheekbones, a bit more feline, and oddly enough the same eyes, even if they were a different color. this was still you, just you in blue, and it was merely a second skin to call your own; and you looked just as destined to be planted here as he was.
something raw had flickered across his face, wonder, gratitude, a flicker of thank fuck i get to see this. it hit him all at once, standing almost eye to eye with you now as you finally approached, that this random scientist girl he happened to be stuck on an alien planet with was worth every shitty day back on earth.
then he blinked when he realized you’d said something and shook his head, snapping himself out of it.
“you escaped.” you said simply, easy smile adorning your face—that smile, you still had it in this new body.
jake took a beat to find his words, glancing around as a violet blush creeped up his cheeks. in order to converse with you jake had to physically dip his chin down just a tad, barely, but it was something he hadn’t done in a while since he had his legs on earth. he decided he liked being bigger than you, even if it meant both of you had to be eight to nine feet tall.
“well, i had to find you, even if it meant being an escaped patient.” he managed to muster up a coherent sentence. it was a joke, but the way he looked at you made it seem like there was no humor behind it.
a soft giggle left you and jake beamed, like you recharged his battery, his usual wolfish grin now having canines. “but i do have to say,” he began, the lilt of smugness in his voice making you see the human version of himself as he looked you up and down, “damn, doc. you clean up nice.”
it was almost comical, the ogling and exaggerated words, but if any other jarhead on the base spoke to you like that you’d punch them. you didn’t think too hard about what that meant. “oh, how charming.” monotonously you spoke and rolled your now golden eyes. long arms crossed and your hip subtly stuck out at the new distribution of weight, and jake’s eyes followed.
“no, seriously,” he began, walking around you in a slow circle, and it was your turn to blush. “this is unfair.” he gestured vaguely to all of you, grin widening. “how am i supposed to go on missions when you’re looking like that?”
now you wanted to slap him a bit, his cocky side rearing its head. it was hard to not like his eyes on you though, and you’d internally just checked him out nearly the same way; jake was just stupid enough to do it audibly.
you swatted at his arm that reached out to curiously swirl a lock of your hair around his finger. “focus on not tripping over your giant feet.”
jake laughed, bright and unrestrained, and caught your wrist mid swat, not rough, just firm enough to hold you there for a second while his thumb thoughtfully ran along your wrist. his new reflexes surprised you both, but he didn’t falter. your gaze flicked between him and his hold on you, lips parting in bashfulness.
“you’re the same as me. admit it,” he spoke, releasing your hand, “you like being big ‘n tall. gives you ideas, huh? bossing me around.” jake finished, bent to the side a bit in his swagger, unused to the new stature. his words came off as banter, ever the pro at masking what was underneath. his tongue poked his cheek as he assed the damage you could do—the damage he’d let you do. jake was still bigger, he reveled.
“i already boss you around,” you said matter of factly, stepping closer. it was your turn to touch, picking up his arm in the air and letting it fall like a fish, slapping his side. “and i could probably beat you up too if you don’t put on some muscle, so watch your mouth.”
comments like that lit a fire in jake, your mean teasing pushing him to poke the bear even more. cheeks flaring in that violet blush, he didn’t dare look away. it was like he wanted you to see, to notice how much fun he was having, how you could still bounce back and forth even in these bodies.
with the attention span of a toddler, jake moved on quick. his eyes spotted the flower in the back of your hair as you looked over your shoulder, hearing two other avatar’s playing basketball at the court nearby.
“what’s that flower?” he asked, reaching up to stroke a petal. his hand fell when you turned back with your brows lifted cutely. “in your hair,” he mimicked, finger pointing at his own head. “never seen it before.”
“oh!” you reached back and pulled it out of your hair. holding it between you, jake watched you swirl it back and forth by the stem between your blue fingers. it had five petals, a deep mix of blue and purple with a bright pink outline along the ridged edges of each one. “it’s a juvenile tsawksyul. i wouldn’t have taken it if it wasn’t already fallen on the ground and off the vine.” you explained as if you, the sweet, funny girl with the big heart, would ever hurt a living creature; as if jake could ever even think that. additionally, you spoke the na’vi words cleanly like it was your first language, and jake felt the urge to hold you.
as you reached up to do something—jake didn’t really care what, because you were suddenly leaning closer and his heart was racing—you spoke, “but we call it a sun lily.” your words were punctuated with the feeling of the stem being placed behind his ear.
you had just put a sun lily behind jake sully’s ear and now he had a new favorite flower, one he didn’t even know existed five minutes ago.
the beaming smile you gave him while you drank in the image of the dork in front of you was heartbreaking in the best way. he looked dumb, eyes wide and mouth open in silence, bright blueish purple flower hooked behind his ear.
“you look too cute, jake sully.” you decided teasingly. a soft hum from jake, his lips pressing together, and his eyes softening visibly. gaze flicking all across your face, he looked like he was thinking too hard, or maybe not at all. maybe just trying to remember the moment.
before he could respond, grace appeared behind you from some kind of bungalow, something in hand. “think fast, marine!” she shouted as she chucked it.
unceremoniously, it hit your arm and you bent over in pain, whatever nicety you exchanged with him disappearing like smoke. “owww!” you shouted. it didn’t take long for jake to realize you weren’t really hurt and start cackling like a hyena.
behind you, grace cringed and shouted apologies, laughter floating from her too. jake leaned down to pick up what turned out to be a fruit—a super hard fruit that had you clutching your shoulder. “dumbass.” he snickered, rubbing the blossoming violet skin for you as he straightened.
things fell into place more solidly after that. the constant push and pull was a fun game, and being in new bodies didn’t hinder that in the slightest.
with jake now being so tall when in his avatar, it was sweet how he didn’t let his step falter beside you. long blue legs matched your pace,. your own identical ones were just a couple inches shorter, but that combined with jake buzzing with enthusiasm to just walk again should’ve had him sprinting down the corridor, but he didn’t.
he never sprinted ahead or left you trailing him. even when his longer legs outdistanced you in three strides, he’d halt immediately when he didn’t feel your presence beside him, waiting with his ears pricked up until you were right next to him once more, and then he picked up where he left off like a pause in a sentence. being able to keep up with you, following on the same path with the same stride, was a gift he didn’t intend on wasting.
you caught him glancing sideways sometimes. there wasn’t the usual smirk or teasing quip, but sneaky little side glances like he was a boy trying not to get caught. watching the way your tail moved back and forth, your pointed ears flickering at every sound, and each time his eyes were soft or wide with wonder. like he couldn’t believe he got to be next to you in a body that actually worked.
however, jake sully didn’t go a over couple hours without pestering you.
finding any excuse to be in your space was easy. reaching for a scanner he didn’t need that happened to require him leaning right in your bubble, chest brushing your shoulder. sometimes he shoulder checked you by “accident, doc” when passing you in the wild while on different missions for the day; like he had to let you get it even inbetween working. let you know that he saw you, cutely bent over or squatting next to a too tall tree to scan a new plant as he learned how to carry a gun in these new hands, even if you were all the way across the field.
once he actually got to stick his head in the forest with you as your bodyguard, that’s when he decided pulling your hair was his favorite.
with all the beautiful alien flora and fauna surrounding you, jake’s eyes only zeroed in on the flowing hair cascading down your shoulders. it was long, longer than your human hair, and scattered with a few braids, one long one holding your queue in the back. jake still didn’t fully understand what the hell that thing did, either. another question to pester you with during na’vi lessons he’d begged you to give him.
jake waited until you squatted to scan another plant before he casually hooked two fingers in one of your braids and gave it a firm tug. it was like you were kids on a playground and he was six years old tugging your pigtails because he didn’t know how to say look at me.
you whipped around, ears flat as you looked up at him. the bright sun flared behind him like a halo, and you squinted, hand covering your eyes. “sully.” you hissed in warning.
if your tail wasn’t lashing, he wasn’t pleased, and it wasn’t, so he tugged again. he was looking straight down in your eyes as he did it, until you stood fast, face to face. as usual, jake was already grinning, his canines showing, but his cheeks were violet in a blush. he never ducked his head to hide it, nor look away to save his pride. eagerly he stared back, proud and hot faced, as if you making him blush just from your attention was a badge of honor, and being caught with it saturated on his cheeks made this whole thing more fun.
“problem?” he drawled. the lock of hair was still between his fingers, and he feigned inspecting it like it was fine silk upon his head, so it was his right to do so. you smacked his hand away, hard.
“ah!” surprised, he shook his head hand out and laughed boisterously. “fuck! you hit like you mean it.”
“because i do mean it,” you inched closer, pointing your scanner at him like it was a weapon. the strength in your avatar was ten times the one in your human form, and despite his new growing muscles from training, it was your chance to beat jake up since his skin was as solid as yours.
gold eyes flicked between the scanner, your glaring face, and your swishing tail. jake didn’t flinch nor step back, but leaned into the scanner with his chest puffed. “go on then, hit me with it, make me behave.” he grinned, words getting under your skin easy.
instead, your hands hit his solid chest and you pushed him, and he let you, rocking back willingly. if he really wanted to, jake could’ve stood there like nothing happened, but he liked making you think you had a chance.
another laugh, never ending it seemed, and he steadied with his eyes never leaving you. “careful, doc. you keep pushin’ and i might think you like havin’ your hands on me.” his words were too casual, speech almost accented with the lack of ‘g’s as they got slurred together. a push was enough to make him dizzy, and it had nothing to do with balance.
“sully, i swear—“
“what?” innocent as anything, he crowded your space again. another slip of his fingers into your hair, this time the unbraided pieces, and he watched the black cascade between blue digits swimming in it. “it’s distracting. all this hair swishin’ around while you’re trying to be all serious and scientific. how am i supposed to concentrate?”
“you’re not, you’re supposed to shut up and guard.” you huffed but didn’t slap his arm away for once, letting him do as he pleased. jake sensed it and took advantage of it, finding the thick braid that held your queue and sliding it through his palm, bringing it over your shoulder. in an attempt to hide your shiver, you backed up a step, and his brows raised. jake needed to ask about that. maybe this kuru thing was interesting after all.
the braid slowly slid out of his hand as you backed up, and he savored each second it was in his palm. “yeah, well, guarding you means keepin’ an eye on everything. including you.” he raised a brow now pointedly.
a soft laugh from you, realization as you kept backing up. “you know,” you mused, hand sliding over a giant leaf in thought, “i almost forgot you were a trained marine with a big gun strapped to your back.”
like a dog to a treat—always a dog, somehow—jake followed you slowly, smile devastatingly bright. eyes trained on you as he watched the green forest swallow you up, jake noticed that the sun bouncing off of the canopy’s above made your usual deep blue skin twinge cyan. for a second it felt like he was being lured by a siren and not a heartbreakingly beautiful scientist that was telling him to get lost.
remembering you just spoke to him, jake’s brows shot up, feet carrying him forward. “need me to remind you?” he teased, no actual threat in the slightest.
you laughed with a shake of your head, and suddenly your fingers dragged upon a plant beside you and it popped and shrank. a sharp squeak and you jumped, and jake had half a mind to reach for his gun if he wasn’t already watching every inch of you. assessing danger with his honed hearing while admiring you was an easy task to juggle in this new body. he was still alert—couldn’t let you get hurt, after all.
still smiling, jake caught up with you. “alright, enough fun. stay close.” despite him always starting it, jake would quickly cut the fun just as fast if it compromised you. he shoved his body between you and the weird plant.
“ooh! wait but-“ you gripped his firm bicep, tip toes to look over his broad shoulder. “that’s a helicordian!” you gasped and gently pushed past him.
jake shook his head fondly, watching you kneel and pull out your scanner. “it’s neuromuscular system makes it super hard to classify but by its coiling up and retracting, i suspect it’s exactly that!” you babbled on.
it seemed as if he wasn’t listening by the ‘mhm’s and ‘oh yeah?’s but it was quite the opposite. jake sully hung onto every word you ever spoke.
the worst part about all this, was behind the ankle kicks, the hair pulling, and the blatant attempt to flirt by bothering you, jake thought you hung the two moons in the sky. in fact, as far as he was concerned, you did. you arrived before him after all.
