Uhh HI

sharpen your knives

watering mouths

clean your plates for some tender i

───────

miles falls. 

and falls. and falls.

stones and burning wreckage rush past him, wind screaming in his ears, the sky stretching impossibly wide above him, bruised in streaks of black and purple.

the world breaks into fragments of motion and fire as his body forgets if its even falling or flying. 

somewhere between the last floating rock and the open mouth of that fiery abyss yawning beneath him, miles closes his eyes. 

lets the dark take him. 

for one brief moment, he almost accepts it: the idea that this is how he dies, swallowed by pandora’s fury and erased. this time, there would be no body to drag him back in, no arrows in his chest.

thank god.

miles wonders if that’s what acceptance feels like. knowing that the fall doesn’t stop, but neither does he. 

then something hits him. 

claws bite down into his arms and shoulders, his skin burning where the talons dig in. he’s jerked into a brutal stop, and he gasps, choking, his eyes snapping open as the world lurches violently upward. 

an ikran. 

its wings beat the air intensely, sound crashing like thunder in miles’s eardrums. fire and debris spiral past them as it hauls him up and away from the vortex, soaring up into the depthless sky. miles clenches his teeth, breathing in short, ragged gasps. he barely has time to register the pain before instincts kick in.

who—

the thought doesn’t form quick enough as he’s already craning his neck to look up and get a better view of the rider. 

jake. 

perched atop his ikran, leaning forward on its neck and clutching the reins tight, his forearms taut with strain and his jaw locked—jake looks at him, his eyes burning with something furious.

and miles has never seen anything more beautiful or more unfair in his entire goddamn life.

jake holds his gaze a second longer than necessary, then he inhales, his shoulders rolling back. he murmurs something low in na’vi, and the ikran responds immediately. 

jake sends them forth, not back to that rock, to his people, to spider, but forth and away—away from the vortex, the arrows, the pain. 

the ikran surges forward, banking hard, carrying them beyond the reach of the vortex’s pull. the fire thins, the air cooling as they cut toward the darker edge of the forest. below them, pandora stretches out battered and scarred, just black sand and twisted metal, fire fading across the dark of the water. 

miles stares at the ground, dazed.

he thinks his body should be down there, flattened against the stone. gone. it’s simple enough: he jumped, and the fall should have finished the job. that’s how this ends. 

only, it’s not. instead—he’s here, dangling in the ikran’s iron grip, alive, because jake sully, apparently, hated him so much he decided against it.

they fly like that for a while.

the adrenaline fades, leaving behind a hollow ache in miles’s arms and a ringing in his ears. jake steers the ikran closer to the lushery of the trees, its wings beating a steady, powerful rhythm as they glide over the canopy. miles sways in the creature’s talons, left with nothing but the existential weight of his own thoughts. 

eventually, they land in a secluded clearing. the ikran flares its wings and releases its grip; miles drops the last few feet, hitting the soft forest floor with a grunt. he has to give the beast credit where its due—it doesn’t even hurt that much. 

he lies there for a second, stunned. then he snorts.

maybe it was an accident, maybe the ikran just let go. or maybe jake told it go easy on him, drop him gently instead of slamming him into the ground. 

the thought makes him outright laugh, full-bodied and breathless, sprawled on his back in the moss and surrounded by some weird-looking mushrooms that glow in the dark and pulse faintly in irritation. 

what an absurd notion to have, considering he nearly killed himself less than ten minutes ago.

a shadow falls over him. 

jake steps into the view, looming above him and looking very much unimpressed. 

“you think this is funny?” 

“nah,” miles says, still grinning up at the sky. “just thought of something.”

his eyes flick toward jake. the man’s jaw is set hard in place, his mouth a thin line, his gaze searching.

miles tilts his head. “what’s the matter, sully? hate me so much you can’t live without me?”

jake answers without missing a beat. “something like that.”

the honesty of it, or maybe just his sheer willingness to play along—catches miles off guard. and then jake is extending a hand, offering it to miles. as simple as that. 

miles stares at it. 

thinks he should want to rip it off, tear jake apart, feed him to his own ikran. then march straight back to the base and report in. 

the ikran screeches from somewhere behind jake. 

miles stares at the outstretched hand and thinks they should strip him of his rank, because he’s no better than a mere renegade.

he takes the hand.

jake hauls him to his feet with a sharp tug, then immediately steps back, evidently still cautious. 

good. better that way. 

miles shakes himself out of habit, rolling his shoulders back, shedding the loose moss and grit, and suddenly they’re just… standing there, facing each other. not fighting, not running away. and judging by jake’s expression, he doesn’t know what to do with that either. 

miles clears his throat. 

“well,” he says, forcing the words out, “now what? why’d you bring me all the way out here?” 

“to talk.”

“oh? got something you wanna say to my face before you finish me off yourself, is that it?”

“no, i—” jake’s tail flicks behind him in one uneasy motion, and he exhales hard through his nose, because miles keeps actively testing his patience. “listen—“

“could’ve just let me die, corporal,” miles cuts in, voice low and almost careful. “why didn’t you?”

jake freezes.

his eyes sharpen, jaw setting, ears angling halfway back. his chest rises and falls a little too fast, nostrils flaring with each breath.

for a second, miles thinks he’s misjudged it. thinks jake is about to change his mind, reach for the dagger at his chest and stab him with it through the heart. end everything cleanly, like how toruk makto would. 

for a second, jake closes his eyes and just breathes.

when he opens them again, somehow, the anger seems to drain right out of him, leaving something else in its place. his muscles loosen like they’re spent. and miles realizes, jake is just exhausted. 

there’s a heaviness in his gaze that wasn’t there before. not two weeks ago and not fifteen years ago. there’s a heaviness in his gaze that miles has put there, changed jake’s life beyond recognition. whatever jake used to be, whatever peace he clawed out of the years after the war, miles has reached back in time and cracked it raw open again.

“could’ve finished me off on that blasted rock,” miles continues, though quieter now. “could’ve done it a long time ago. could do it right now, jake.”

jake has every right to kill him for that heaviness alone. 

and yet, here they are—standing in a forest clearing that smells like damp earth and surrounded by glowing fucking fungi. apparently, brought here not for execution but for a chat. what now? a heart-to-heart? a screaming match? a pinky promise to play nice and never shoot at each other again? and after, do they skip off into the goddamn sunset together?

the sheer absurdity of it all. miles is seconds away from laughing in jake’s face and turning away when the man finally speaks. 

“what does it matter?” jake says quietly. “there’s no use in killing you. you keep coming back anyway.”

and miles stills. 

that— 

that’s not what he expected to hear. 

the words feel strange. jake sounds almost resigned, like he somehow came to terms with it.  

and it’s true, isn’t it?

he’s like some kind of bad dream you can’t wake up from. some kind of disease that keeps on mutating. a tumor you cut out only to find it growing somewhere else. spreading more and more into jake’s life, like mold, taking root and contaminating everything with its presence.

the thought makes his stomach twist. he looks away, jaw clenching hard enough to hurt. 

who was he if not his mission?

he was built for one purpose only, reconstructed for it. find the leader of the na’vi insurgency, drag jake sully back for judgement, or put him down where he stood if the extraction failed. clean, efficient and familiar. sop. 

so why isn’t he—?

he hears jake shift, bare feet pressing into the moss, weight rolling uncertainly from one to the other. 

“let’s just…” jake starts, and then trails off, like he’s not even sure what he wants to say. 

miles waits.

“you can go.” a pause. “if you want to.”

miles looks up sharply, his eyes wide. 

go?

miles freezes, certain he’s misheard. or that this is some kind of test, some elaborate trick he doesn’t understand yet. how could jake just… let him go? no. no. surely there must be—

“you can go find that ash woman and…” jake swallows, his ears twitching. “…do whatever it is that you do.” 

the last words come out too rough, jake almost flinching as he says them, and that alone keeps miles quiet. 

“i won’t chase after you, won’t follow you,” jake continues, steadying himself through sheer force of will, “but if you ever come back to threaten my family again—“ his eyes harden as his voice almost turns into a growl. “i will hunt you down to the ends of this moon and kill you a second time.”

miles doesn’t answer. 

he just stands there, staring at jake, trying to piece together what the fuck kind of reality he’s just stepped into. jake doesn’t look away, doesn’t even blink. if this is a bluff, it’s the most convincing one miles has ever seen. 

he’s free. 

he could find varang. he could disappear into the ash lands. he could try to live in peace. he could grab his knife right now and stick it right into jake’s—

“and you can also stay.”

jake adds, much quieter. then looks away, just slightly, expression shuttering into something miles can’t read.  

“stay?” miles echoes faintly, his own voice sounding as if it’s coming from underwater. 

jake draws in a breath and exhales loudly. “yeah, stay. stay with my people, with my clan. try and find a place here.” he pauses. “can’t promise they won’t hate you, but with my word, they won’t try to kill you. at least.”

his gaze lifts, finding miles again. miles’s eyebrows inch higher with every word he hears. 

stay.

the idea is absurd. he’s never been given space to even consider it. stay and what—learn their customs? sleep in forest groves and woven shelters? pretend like he belongs among the people whose world he’s helped to set on fire? even jumping into the vortex feels like the more reasonable option now. 

this time he does laugh and turns away, disbelieving.

jake’s voice cuts through the noise. 

“for spider.”

miles’s head snaps back around.

and suddenly, there is no sound at all. 

there’s only jake, standing across from him, amber eyes never leaving miles. only the dull rush of his own heartbeat, thunderous in his ears. and those words.

for spider.

those words, hanging in the space between them, reverberating through the air, through the forest, through every bone in miles’s body. 

the world stops spinning. just like it always does when he thinks of the boy. of his son. 

miles’s throat constricts, and he squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, as if that might ever be enough to keep the pain away. 

he thinks of spider’s glare, filled with disdain, every time miles gets too close. of how the boy never takes what he offers, not food, not protection, not words—nothing at all. he thinks of spider dragging him out of the water. of how his face lit up when they pulled him free from the mangkwan, of the bright smile he gave jake, the one that miles has never once earned. 

he thinks there will never be enough.

never enough time, never enough atonement in the whole world. never enough to make spider look at him without hate. to accept him. 

he thinks of how futile any attempt would be. of how he crossed the point of no return long time ago and never looked back even once.

“you still have a choice, miles,” jake says quietly. “i’m still giving you one.” 

and all at once, the world comes rushing back.

leaves rustle overheard, insects buzzing and chirring around them as the wind breathes life into the clearing again, awake but indifferent. miles blinks hard, ignoring the stinging behind his eyes.

“just can’t seem to shake you off, can i?” he mutters, voice rough and meant for no one in particular.

it comes out too honest, too raw, and jake doesn’t say anything to that. maybe he doesn’t hear it over the wind, or maybe he chooses not to. 

jake watches him closely, body tense as if expecting miles to jump him again, bracing himself for the violence, for the answer. miles notices his stance falter only slightly, pain flickering through muscles of his face, blood darkening the thigh where he’s still slowly bleeding out. notices, too, the seeping warmth on his own shoulder, the ache from the wound refusing to be ignored any longer. 

they’re both losing blood, both exhausted; neither of them in any shape to keep fighting. and miles realizes, for the first time—he doesn’t want to. 

can’t even pinpoint the moment it happened. maybe he never wanted it to begin with. 

jake waits for the answer.

miles doesn’t have one. 

but jake is bleeding out, and miles is too. and seconds stretch, long enough for the scent of blood to travel, for something hungry to come prowling. and they should probably vacate this clearing, and fast.

he just doesn’t.

but jake’s patience is also running out, and sooner or later he’ll turn around, climb onto his ikran and fly away, leave miles standing here like a fucking idiot.

and sure enough, jake does. he exhales sharply, frustration clear in his eyes, and shakes his head once. then he turns away without another word and strides toward his ikran, toward his family, toward a life miles will never be a part of.

miles watches the blue of jake’s back retreat into the luminescent haze, further and further away from him, before a rush of cold adrenaline hits him again. before he realizes with a jolt that this is it. jake really is leaving him here to rot, taking the only bridge to spider with him, the only way for miles to ever see his kid again, see jake—

“wait.”

jake stops.

miles drags in a breath, eyes falling shut. 

“if i go with you,” he says, all the sneer washed away. “what happens to me?”

he is nothing but a ghost in a borrowed body. 

jake turns then, eyes wide, disbelief written across his face, his mouth opens and closes again. he doesn’t speak right away, just studies miles like he’s afraid this is a trick—yet choosing his words carefully anyway. 

miles fidgets under the weight of that gaze.

“you won’t be shackled, if that’s what you’re asking,” jake finally says, and his shoulders drop, losing their defensive edge. “you’ll walk freely among the people—as much as they’ll allow. you’ll fight for us, you’ll earn your place. you’ll learn our ways.”

jake searches his face for a long second.

“i’ll teach you,” he adds, softer. “and you’ll see spider. every day.”

miles listens. nods once, then again, thoughtful and slow. it’s… not terrible. insane, maybe, and definitely dangerous. but not terrible. 

there are holes, though. big ones. 

“and you honestly think your people will just accept that?” miles asks, taking a cautious step forward, feet sinking into the moss. “after everything i’ve done?”

jake looks away, jaw tightening as he considers it. 

“it won’t be easy,” he admits. “but they’ll listen to me. i’ll make them.”

miles snorts and takes another step.

“and your wife?” he presses. “you planning on making her listen, too?” 

jake’s gaze snaps back, and he eyes him coolly. “let me worry about my wife,” he says. “you worry about yourself first.”

miles huffs out a laugh, shaking his head ruefully—because worrying about himself very much includes worrying about whether neytiri will put an arrow through his skull the moment he lets his guard down.

they’re standing before one another now, and miles can count on one hand the number of times they’ve been like this, in these bodies, face to face, without trying to kill each other.

suddenly, he remembers jake on the day they saved the kids together, breathing heavy and saying he’d run out of arrows. 

miles blinks, a smile touching his face weakly, because jake doesn’t use arrows. at least, not when they fight. 

you’ve been trying to tell me, miles realizes. for weeks now.

since that day.

the thought makes miles shudder. he pushes past it. 

how long have you been waiting for me to see you? how long have you been standing there alone?

“when do we start?” is all he asks.

jake gives him a once-over, eyes sizing miles up from head to toe.

“we start by washing that shit off your body.”

miles smirks, feeling something lighter settle in his chest. 

“lead the way, corporal.”

───────

we push the boundaries

so the rules are bent

so it's give and take

───────

over the next few weeks, miles tries to adjust.

it does not come easily. 

not when he is reminded, every hour of every day, that he does not fit—by spider, by jake’s family, by the rest of the people. the hostility in their eyes is open, raw; jake’s words the only thing keeping them at bay. jake’s gentle commands. jake’s authority. 

surprisingly, they listen.

they don’t attack; they only hiss when he passes, and spit words at his back. sometimes they stare at him across the river. and miles grins back, thin and careful, stripped of bite, stripped of teeth. no challenge. he keeps his distance as he goes, he keeps his movements cautious. he doesn’t anger them without reason, he doesn’t linger where he’s scorned. 

miles knows where he stands now and knows to lay low. 

a traitor to both sides, somehow. 

how the hell did he get here? how will he ever get out?

does he still want to?

he stays close to the ends of the village, or just beyond, where forests thicken and trees swallow the shore. he makes himself useful, takes whatever work jake throws his way without complaint. 

there’s plenty—cleaning up his own damn mistakes. seems like that’s all the ever does. 

they clear the wreckage along the coast together at first, remnants of the ships, of the war; splintered, rotting in saltwater. and the sea, too. after a while, miles starts going in alone. day, night—whenever the tide allows. 

anything to keep him busy. anything to empty his head. 

he dives deep—stretching lungs, aching ribs; holding his breath for minutes on end. just like jake showed him. 

jake had pressed a hand to his chest and guided his breathing. firm, steady. then slid it lower, to his stomach, encouraging the rhythm going. miles’s heart had jumped violently under the palm as his eyes snapped up only to find jake already watching him through heavy eyes, unreadable. 

jake had withdrawn first, dropped his gaze, dropped his hand. stepped back. miles had stayed exactly where he was, forgetting how to breathe at all.

now he sinks beneath the surface and retrieves the rusted steel, the crusted rifles from the seafloor, the shattered gear of human greed. he drags up the remnants of humanity and lays them in piles along the shore. 

before humanity comes back for them, that is. 

he has no idea what they’re supposed to do with it all. how they ever plan on getting rid of it. metal doesn’t burn—isn’t easily defeated. and miles is pretty sure the tribes still don't have the means to just destroy it. so it gathers into growing mound, a mountain of piled metal, jagged and ugly, like a scar that doesn’t heal. shameful. hidden away. 

few days later, he returns to find vines creeping over it, flora claiming it already, overgrowing, spreading root, and thinks, huh, would you look at that?

and also, earth is dying.

earth is dying. 

but what the hell does that even mean to him now?

not like he’ll ever be able to go back. like hell they’d let him, even if it wasn’t. 

besides—didn’t he say goodbye to the last of his past self the day he crushed his own fractured skull in his hand? the sound of it. the dust. the dry, white ghost. 

it had felt like dying. and then like being born again. 

upon the very soil where miles quartich drew his final breath. 

poetic.

not like miles isn’t grateful for the choice jake gave him. he knows he should be. he just has no fucking idea what to do with it. 

that’s why he works. 

sometimes through the night, hauling metal from the sea until his muscles ache, until his vision blurs. he pushes himself to the point of exhaustion so complete it wipes his mind clean. to the point of oblivion. and that’s the goal.

only, the harder he tries not to think, the more he can’t escape it.

he works so much that—one time, he nearly drowns. 

salt floods his throat, his lungs giving up halfway, and his body refuses to cooperate. the surface feels too far away. and then—

jake’s there somehow. at his side in an instant. 

hands under his arms, dragging him upward, hauling him out of the water and onto the shore, and miles wakes coughing. he doesn’t remember much, only that half-formed question on his lips—how did you find me?—but one he never got to ask. only jake’s face above him, and that raw look of fear in his eyes; hands gripping miles’s cheeks, hot, ragged breathing on his skin. 

it was almost like—jake cared. and for a second it felt good. 

miles doesn’t dive alone after that. and never after sunset. 

jake keeps him close. because what else are you supposed to do? 

because you become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. or something like that. and jake pretty much did—tame him, that is. 

well. almost. 

not like miles will ever wear a leash. 

but jake keeps him within sight, and maybe that makes sense. jake is the one who offered him the choice in the first place, who dragged them both into this new, fragile arrangement. into this mess. 

not like miles had any real options.

not like he wasn’t curious, too. 

the first time they hunt together, miles scares off everything within a hundred yards.

jake just closes his eyes, breathes out through his nose, and doesn’t say anything. 

it’s the bow, miles tells himself. he’s not used to the weapon, its weight, its way. the balance is wrong, the memory of arrows biting into flesh still too fresh.

so maybe he’d rather stay away, keep his hands off them entirely. 

but jake doesn’t allow it, insists that he should learn. adjusts his stance over and over, flicking elbows into place, correcting angles of his shoulders. hovering too close; heat weaving through the thin space between them, pressing incessantly behind as jake guides his arm forward. 

miles clenches his jaw so hard it starts to ache. then blames the wind for missing every time. because he can’t very well blame jake’s breath against the back of his neck.

he feels like a child, like fledgling, a monkey let loose. rough and too heavy, too clumsy and graceless. jake moves with the forest, with rivers and trees, quiet and fluid. like gliding through wind. feline. miles stumbles behind him, tripping on roots, failing the rhythm and falling in blind.

but jake always waits. jake’s always around, eyes patient and trusting in ways with no names. hopeful, like he actually has faith in miles. 

semper fidelis, miles thinks as he holds jake’s gaze. and something inside him lurches away. the memory, turning on him with a painful sneer.

the marine can’t be defeated. we’ll just regroup in hell, he hears his own voice echoing in his head. 

hell.

is this it, then? did he die when he jumped? because that’s what it feels like. 

jake’s kindness is killing him slowly. he offers miles patience, offers him space. it’s worse—so much worse than if jake simply loathed him. the way that he should have. the way that he had. 

but jake is above it. or miles is beneath him. he can’t tell which one.

it's probably both.

jake’s kindness has no place inside miles quaritch’s mangled heart. it has no place in a world this hostile and harsh, packed with arrows and fangs and creatures large enough to swallow you whole. yet without all reason, it persists—and then remains. 

like it’s just as desperate to survive. 

as much as miles tries to treat jake’s careful words and voice, his open glances and his touch as poison—it does not work. miles simply can’t. it seeps in, wriggling and aggressive through him, thrashing and lunging at his insides. out to get him, try and break him, wearing him down grain by grain. he tries to veer away—jake doesn’t let him.

jake stays gentle when miles wants him to crack, lose his patience, drop the act. jake reaches a hand out when miles would rather get a punch in the face. jake keeps his voice low when miles needs him to shout, shout so loud it breaks the spell and wakes them up. 

it doesn’t happen.

because it’s not an act. because jake is that patient. because he really did mean it that day in the clearing. because the past is the past. over and done. 

so that should’ve stayed in the past as well. 

but miles keeps coming back to jake—and him. back then. so different, yet so unnervingly familiar. still human, still fighters—but not fighting yet. not yet filled with disdain for each other, not hollowed by it. filled with something else instead—curiosity, hunger, and heat. 

miles remembers being captured by the blue-eyed marine. remembers a warm body under him, pliant and eager, bent over the edge of the bunk, metal frame creaking softly with every rhythmic thrust. remembers trying to convince himself it was nothing but a quick fuck. just stress relief, just a distraction—a way to kill the long pandoran hours. the few times that it happened. 

he had jake until he hadn’t. until that na’vi bitch. 

until neytiri, he corrects himself now.

until the betrayal, until the boy opened his eyes and figured out miles was not what he needed, not what he deserved. 

and then—the hatred came fast and ferocious—and twisted all the good he felt for jake, and taken every mote of light with it. turned it into an obsession, a pursuit. 

and then he died. pierced through the heart by her poisonous arrow.

he remembers the yellow of her frenzied glare as the last thing he saw, and how it hit him, mockingly, that he must have looked exactly the same. and he remembers wishing, stupidly, that it had been jake’s sky-blue gaze instead. 

what a pathetic fucking ending for colonel miles quaritch. 

if someone had told him that’s how he would die, he might have put a bullet in his own skull years sooner. surely would’ve been more dignified. 

why is he even thinking about this now? 

not like it matters anymore. none of it. old ghosts, not more than that. jake’s got a new life now, the one that he fought for. and miles— 

miles will just have to make do with what he’s got. 

which leaves him where, exactly? all he ever had was the mission. and then there was jake. and now there is neither. 

well—no.

not really.

jake laughs at something he says, and for a second miles sees bright blue and pale pink—short brown hair, flushed cheeks, that sharp, lopsided grin. and for a second miles can’t breathe. can’t take his eyes off the residue, the human in the outline. caught mid two tides he can’t abide. 

jake turns his head—and it is gone, replaced by amber and cyan. miles blinks once, slowly.

jake smiles. miles almost does. 

he sees them fight one night. he doesn’t see a wave of shame that comes right after. 

he watches from the shade of heavy leaves, two glowing silhouettes through weave of the marui. their voices loud; their words are not. he hears neytiri hiss, and birds go silent. jake’s posture is an open palm-shaped plea, and her a bowstring. he thinks he tastes the air thin out. 

he’s an intruder in a holy place. 

when jake storms out, he leaves dust following behind, his shadow slicing through the reeds. neytiri steps out after him and lingers, glaring in his wake. then turns—and sees him. and she stops. 

she doesn’t hiss; she doesn’t move. her eyes lock onto his, and it’s a predator’s instinct—sharp, golden, cold, like arrow notched but not released. 

it pins miles to the spot. he feels entirely exposed—like stupid deer caught in the headlights. she looks through him as if she sees a ghost. 

she doesn’t know, he thinks. she doesn’t know about before. 

he thinks of bunks, of the recycled air, and how jake tasted on his tongue, like salty sweat and warmth. and right.    

she doesn’t know he was already—

miles dares not close his eyes under that woman’s gaze. he dares not even blink. 

the thought is bitter, but it’s losing its teeth. now, watching them, he just feels empty. tired. he doesn’t want to be the other one. he doesn’t want to fight a war that ended fifteen years ago. 

she snaps her jaw and flicks her tail, throws one last scowl his way—then disappears into the soft glow of the marui, and leaves him standing in the cold. 

she doesn’t know.

because if she did—then nothing would’ve saved him. 

the guilt comes later. merciless. he is the wedge, the crack, the fracture. the reason jake is bleeding dry while fighting on two fronts. the silent instigator of a war—involuntary, accidental. 

he stares at the marui’s glow and knows jake pays the price twice over. jake’s always tried to play both sides, because he simply cares too much. too much for those who don’t deserve it, anyway. 

miles turns away and sinks into the dark. he never asked to drag him out the burning building. 

that night, he goes to sea. does not return until the sun rises again. 

sometimes, miles catches flashes of her blue between the arching fronds. 

he stops mid-stride and doesn’t tarry—bolts. he all but flees into the trees, beneath the massive roots above, and watches as she passes through the ferns. he stays until her scent fades wholly. like woodsmoke, faint. he waits and tells himself that he’s not hiding. 

and if he is—he’s doing it for both of them. 

days bleed into a blur of sunlight, sweat and salt. a rhythmic labor of his hands, a slow abrasion of his soul. he navigates the village in the shade, moving through blind spots of the people and keeping to the edges. he thinks he’s staying out the way. he thinks he’s being useful. 

he treats learning like a mission, the language like some kind of code, the bow another weapon he must master. he endures the grueling hunts, the hours spent submerged in water, his body screaming at the pressure of the sea-hauls. 

he can withstand a lot, but there are limits. 

when jake mentions weaving, gesturing toward the intricate, sturdy baskets they use for harvest, miles looks down at his own scarred, calloused hands and feels a flare of something old and stubborn. he’ll climb the floating mountains and he’ll bleed for the people if he has to, but he’ll be damned if he ever sits cross-legged in a circle weaving a goddamn basket. that’s where he draws the line in the sand.

so he sticks to what he knows. he sticks to steel.

miles watches jake teach spider and the others how to fletch their arrows, showing them how to bind the feathers so they’ll catch the wind just right. 

miles watches jake with the kids, and something in him tightens and releases back and forth, like waves dragging him under in painful gentleness, like saltwater rubbing into open wounds.

it’s theft. another moment he shouldn’t be allowed to witness. 

and it’s an agonizing sight.

jake doesn’t bother to hide his softness, and miles knows how to take a blow, but he’s not ready for this kind of violence. it’s a paradox that makes him ache, because the softer jake becomes—the deeper it slips under his skin and tears through his barricades, better than any blade ever could. 

spider thaws like a glacier—meaning almost not at all. the change is excruciatingly slow, almost non-existent, perpetuated only by the obsessive tally miles keeps in his head: one less glare from yesterday, two more words than before. all of it caused only by miles’s own stubborn presence, caught only because he’s finally learned to notice. 

miles realizes telling selfridge about spider was the worst mistake he’s ever made. because now the hunt will never end. the hunt for one thing he wants to protect.

and he’s the one who started it, he’s the one who handed over the intel. the one who turned his own son into the highest-value target on the moon. 

the guilt rolls through him like a tide of shame, thick and suffocating, and this time he can’t step around it. can’t ignore it any longer. miles is the reason everything reduces to ash.

he’s always been that reason.  

spider glances over his shoulder as if on cue—maybe to check if miles's still there, and their eyes meet. something passes through the boy’s expression, but he keeps it neutral, like a sigh he tries to suppress. 

jake looks too—toward the fallen log where miles sits sharpening his knife—and miles’s hands stutter. the edge of the blade catches on the sandstone with a harsh scrape that grates against his ears, making them flick back in irritation as his mouth pulls in a tight line. 

jake claps spider on the back and rises, leaving the kids to finish binding arrows on their own. he crosses the clearing and sits beside miles on the log, but keeps his distance. a careful span of space between them, always. 

they sit like that for a while. watch the kids laugh and trade jokes as they work together; the rasp of steel against the stone the only rhythm in the quiet. 

then, so low miles almost misses it, jake speaks. 

“i almost killed him once, you know.” 

miles’s hands still. 

he searches for something to say. finds nothing that could possibly carry the right weight. thinks he and jake are threading through the same dark water. 

“yeah,” he finally says, the hands resuming their slow motions. “we both did.” 

jake turns his head. 

“no.”

his voice is even lower now. 

“that day when we escaped…” he trails off, and miles hears the sharp intake of breath. “i took him deeper into the forest and i tried to—“

his voice breaks. 

miles’s grip tightens around the handle until his knuckles go white. he tries to breathe through his clenched teeth, jaw locked so hard it starts to ache. 

jake doesn’t finish the sentence, but miles still hears it echo in his head. 

i tried to take his life.

i tried to kill him.  

i almost did. 

miles lifts his gaze from the blade and looks at spider again.

the boy sits in the tall grass, his back to them, the crown of his head still visible above the green. talking quietly with the others as he works. smiling. whole. 

jake stays silent long enough that miles thinks he won’t speak again. 

then—

“i couldn’t do it.”

miles turns fully toward him. 

jake’s eyes are fixed on him, full-hearted and somber. they shine like burnished gold lost at the bottom of the sea, honest and heavy enough to hurt; impossible to look away from.

the ultimate prize miles is drowning himself for. 

how long until his oxygen runs out?

the knife nearly slips from his hand as his grip slackens. his throat works as he asks the only question that matters.

“why?” 

jake looks away, gaze drifting back to spider’s laughter echoing across the glade. his mouth twitches, his face easing into something miles can’t even begin to categorize. 

“because i’m not who i used to be,” he says simply. “i don’t want to choose violence every time. i can’t.” 

the softness of it devastates him. 

miles closes his eyes for a second. 

he knows—he knows—that had jake chosen violence that day, miles would not be sitting here now. would not be anywhere, really. if spider was dead, so was he.

miles doesn’t even want to imagine what that life would be like. there would be no path forward. there would be nothing without spider. no reason. his own life only has meaning because it’s tethered to the boy. without him, miles is just a ghost in a dark, empty world. 

when he opens his eyes again, jake is watching him. 

miles blinks, swallows.

“thank you,” he says quietly. “for telling me.”

for sparing him. 

“and for… you know.”

for sparing me, too. 

jake nods once, slowly. 

they hold each other’s gaze. the blade has long since have gone silent. the world shrinks down to just the two of them. 

jake looks tired. half-lidded eyes glide over him as if to study or to search. his shoulders low, his posture loose, his neck is slightly bare and open… trusting. 

no—not tired.

jake looks… at peace. 

in miles’s presence. 

it hits him like a slap to the face, eyes widening and knuckles going white again.

the corner of jake’s mouth lifts slowly. his eyes turn warm as smile spreads through his face and lights it up. 

miles simply watches as that blaze dismantles something in him fully. it makes him shudder, makes him recoil; his jaw grows tight, his chest jumps frantic, and he is left one thought only:

god. jake is lethal like that.

there is a sudden urge inside to drop the stone, along with the knife, and all the care in the world they’re not alone—and lunge the distance, close the space. pin jake against the rough bark of the log and capture that smile with his teeth, bruise it, claim the peace jake offers him so casually, kiss it off—

miles is a hair’s breadth away from shattering everything. from letting the predator inside him win.

the impulse screams in his blood and nearly snaps what’s little left of his restraint. but the air in his lungs is gone, the pressure in his chest reaching its breaking point. 

miles releases it; exhales. inhales the air that feels like glass. unwinds his jaw, uncoils his knuckles. he lets the violence run dry—and then recede. lets himself feel what replaces it. some terrifying warmth. he yields.

miles smiles back. 

and feels something change between them forever. 

───────

why couldn’t he decide? 

it’s simple. 

do or don’t. kill or be killed. 

he’s a marine. a man of few words. a man of one, undying loyalty. 

but which one is it? 

to the government that would’ve put him down the moment he stopped being useful? 

if they found out what he is doing here—

on some level, miles knows he is disposable. just maybe doesn’t know it all the way. 

or to the man that gave him life? 

a month ago, miles didn’t know. 

and now..?

───────

come wallow in my sorrow

breathe your air into my lungs

tell me how the story ends now

───────

the dinner had been held in a wide circle beneath the woven canopy of trees, much like the gatherings he’d seen before. food passed from hand to hand, wrapped neatly in broad, glossy leaves still warm from flaring coals. inside were strips of roasted meat, dark, tender, fragrant with the smoke and forest herbs. 

sturmbeest. 

a fresh bull from the neighboring marsh where forest thinned toward the sea; he and jake had tracked it together at dawn, and miles had loosed the arrow, had delivered the final blow. clean, straight through the spiracles. 

he spoke the prayer jake had taught him before he drew the blade. the words felt foreign, bitter when he practiced them at first—but today he found in them strange comfort as they flowed steady off his tongue. he closed his eyes and finished it. 

the animal had fallen peacefully. 

jake looked at him for long and lasting moment afterward, his eyes unreadable—too still, too distant, almost absent. then jake had cleared his throat, clapped miles on the shoulder once—and said, “good shot.”

they skinned the young talioang in near silence. miles tried a joke; jake didn’t bite. just worked efficiently and calmly by his side. 

tonight, they let him in the circle. 

still at the edge, with jake close by, with space around him. and spider, from where he sat with other kids, had turned his head and looked at miles for what had felt like a full minute. with no spite in his eyes, with no suspicion. he looked—and miles felt so goddamn seen. 

he didn’t know where to put it. something warm and almost proud had flourished through his chest. someone else—one of the elders—gave him a small nod as the leaf-wrapped meat was passed his way. 

how wondrous. he really felt like he was one of them. 

no. of course he didn’t. 

but maybe for a little while he could at least pretend. 

there was a ceremony after dinner. some of the younger warriors had drifted off for weapons practice. but miles and jake hadn’t joined them. 

miles, for obvious reasons. jake—for less obvious ones. 

instead, jake lingered at his side and said that he needed to check on warning lines and trip-vines along their inland boundary. had asked if miles wanted to walk with him. 

and for a moment, miles had thought that’s it. 

jake’s had enough. 

jake’s silence through the dinner had just been his decision forming; this walk just an excuse to take him far into the forest and cleanly fix all his mistakes—jake’s finally made up his mind that this, in fact, had been a very bad idea. 

and miles agrees. it was a bad idea. 

because he didn’t know where he belonged before, and now it is impossible to understand. there is no explanation. no bridge from one side to the other, because he simply doesn’t have one. he doesn’t know why he doesn’t reach for violence anymore—

only that he doesn’t.

only that before, when jake told him to open his eyes, miles would have shut them tighter out of spite. and now he has no reason to be told. 

only that he stopped wearing boots long before he even came here, and threw out the remainder of his human-issued gear a week after arriving. 

only that he used to answer exclusively to blue one, and now he’s running when jake calls. 

only that the time he’s spent here felt seismic, flood-like at first. and with every day he stays, it calms a little more.

and that look jake sometimes gets, like miles is something worth keeping his eyes on. like he must force himself to tear his gaze away. 

and that feeling every single time when jake’s hands land on him, how everything inside drops straight down to his feet, and he has to make himself go very still. and not react, not move. 

not grab those wrists and turn them both toward the nearest surface and press his body into—

and those thoughts that always break before they end. that want that doesn’t quit. just sits there, dense and dormant, and forces him to grind his jaw and breathe through it instead.

and sometimes there’s that sharp and strangling clarity with which—he knows.

jake knows it too. 

but no—how can he? it’s not true. jake doesn’t know, he simply can’t. jake is… a lot of things. but he knows who he is. he’d never—

miles looks at him as they thread through the trees. 

jake’s sanhì shimmer faintly beneath the pale light of the stars, like hundreds endless galaxies mapped, carved onto his skin, and then set free across the cyan sea, alive. he makes almost no sound at all and moves with grace that seems to just come effortlessly. miles wonders, briefly, if jake’s even aware of it. if anyone has ever told him. 

maybe he should. 

but jake won’t even look at him. 

jake keeps his gaze fixed straight ahead as they move through the mangroves, resetting lines and testing traps. 

which leaves miles free to look all that he wants. 

he’s beautiful.

not that jake doesn’t know he’s staring. 

miles stares so hard he hopes to bore a hole right through him, just so jake finally reacts—says something. but jake endures it stoically and leaves him simmering in silence on his own.

miles exhales audibly and looks away. 

his gaze skims over giant leaves and countless tree trunks, over the bright glow of the spiral fungi, over the faint pulse of the moss that’s breathing light into the undergrowth. each living thing around them hums in cheery luminescence—alert, inviting and accusing. 

and it reminds him, with a sudden ache, of that one cursed night now months ago. when jake had dragged them both into the glade that glowed just like this. but everything had been so different back then. 

back then. 

miles cannot help the laugh that it breaks out of him. it sounds more as a brittle, mirthless scoff, but it comes loud enough to make jake’s head turn at the noise. miles only catches it because he never truly pulled his gaze away.

and for a second, jake looks like he might speak—but then he turns away again. 

miles swears under his breath. 

“this quiet act is getting old,” he says, shaking his head. “how long you gonna sulk, sully?” 

jake huffs and rolls his eyes. 

“i don’t sulk,” he replies, the words a bit too stiff. 

a slow smirk tugs at miles’s mouth. “well, i’ll be damned. he speaks!”

jake doesn’t answer. he just keeps walking straight ahead, with miles right at his shoulder.

miles stares at him. 

“what’d i even do?” he asks, voice lower now, and nudges a loose pebble with his foot. “finally decide to take the old dog out, corporal?”

it sounds half as a joke; half-not. 

why bring him out here just to freeze him out? maybe jake’s scoping out a final landing zone. he must have murder on his mind tonight. what else? 

miles stares into the distance as he says it—which is exactly why he walks straight into jake as jake abruptly halts. he nearly loses all his balance, hands lashing out for purchase, scrambling at jake for grip. jake’s turned away, head low. miles finds his footing and lets go, then takes a few respectable steps back. 

“...jake?”

jake’s voice is so terribly quiet miles has to strain his ears to hear the words.  

“why would i do that?” 

it almost sounds like jake is wondering to himself, like he’s forgotten miles is even there. like, maybe for a moment, jake had been somewhere far away.

then, slowly, he turns.

his eyes look nothing like what miles was readying himself for. they’re wide and pained and raw with haunting honesty that makes miles’s breathing stumble in his chest. 

“i mean—“ jake’s throat catches, the sound dry. “that you’ve been… different and—and spider sees it too. he talks about you every day. asks about you every day.” 

miles bites the inside of his lip and looks down at the softly glowing earth. 

“yeah,” he says, voice hoarse. “he’s a good kid. i just try to keep up with him.” his tail flicks once before he adds, “don’t think I’m doing a very convincing job of it.” 

there’s a pause, then jake steps closer. 

“well, you’ve been doing good enough to sell me, colonel—”

miles’s head snaps up, a low sound rumbling in his throat.

“don’t call me that.” 

jake stills, his ears flat back. and for a moment he just watches him, eyes hard and searching.

“don’t call me corporal,” he shoots back. 

miles can’t. 

can’t do it. not like this.

not when jake’s voice goes soft—that soft around the edges. not when his eyes are steady, patient, warm and almost smiling—

miles parts his lips as if to answer, his canines glinting in the light—but all that leaves him is a sigh—his eyebrows knit, his tail flicks to the side; his eyes fixate on jake’s, darting between them, back and forth. 

jake gives a quiet, breathy laugh, shaking his head, small, disbelieving. and takes another step. 

they’re standing far too close now.

“how should i call you then?” jake pauses, and then breathes:

“miles?”

his heart thrusts violently and skips a beat. the sound of his name on jake’s lips sends shivers down his spine. 

there’s something in the way jake says it. his head tilts slightly, his mouth parts, his body open and so—close. the tip of his tail sways slow and almost… playful. he looks at miles as if there’s something that he’s missing. 

but what could he be possibly—

jake’s gaze drops, tracing the line of miles’s throat, before it lifts back up.

the air in his lungs feels suddenly too hot.

miles’s brows lift, ears flicking forward, breath catching in his throat. he stands there, stunned beneath jake’s gaze, because the only thing that matters is—

jake’s flirting. 

he’s almost painfully aware of it. he’s almost certain. desperate for it to be real. 

jake’s mouth curves, eyes lighting up with warm amusement.

“look, i—“

“say it again,” miles cuts him off. 

jake looks at him, words dying on his tongue. then he exhales, stepping into his space until barely an inch is left between them—and whispers it directly in his face, breath ghosting over miles’s lips.

“miles.” 

it breaks him.

he moves so fast he nearly knocks them off their feet. jake’s back gets pushed against the nearest tree, miles crowding him—palms frame jake’s face, thumbs pressing on his cheeks as their eyes lock and breathing tangles. 

jake’s arms slide up around him and he shudders—and that is really all miles needs.

miles kisses him. jake surges up to meet him halfway. 

it’s perfect, is all he can think as their mouths meet again, again—their noses brushing and teeth grazing, hungry, starved. he’s starved, all right. he has been starved since—

hell. it feels like his entire life. 

miles finds jake’s wrists and lifts them high above, presses into the bark until it scratches skin, and interlocks their fingers tight. jake gives a breathless moan as miles drags his mouth down his throat, teeth biting at the skin and tasting salt and heat. miles will leave marks, he knows he will; he doesn’t care—

jake is his.

jake always has been his. 

jake curses softly in na’vi, then moans his name again. his head tips back against the tree, his fingers locking into miles’s grip, and miles almost loses it. 

he breaks away enough to see jake’s eyes—and oh, they are alight. half-lidded, heavy and so clear. clear with desire drowning them, with want. with so much need it looks like agony and rapture both. 

it’s the most naked invitation miles has ever seen.

he kisses jake again like something has possessed him—deep, flooding and devouring, tongues sliding hot and slick. jake arches off the bark to meet him; low, broken sound vibrating into miles’s mouth. their hips brush, and the contact sets off sparks singing through his blood. jake’s hard. jake’s hard, and miles needs— 

miles fucking needs to handle it. 

his hands release.

“miles—“

the things jake makes him do. 

miles drops down to his knees. 

his hands glide down jake’s sides, nails catching lightly on blue skin and settling on narrow hips. jake’s loincloth is already straining, and miles can see the heavy outline of him beneath the thin fabric. he noses at the crease where thigh meets groin and inhales. 

jake’s musk, arousal, forest—

jake.

the scent is slightly different than before, and for a second miles wonders how is it possible he still remembers the before so well. it hits him like a drug, makes his cock throb painfully against the fabric of his loincloth, untouched and screaming for attention. 

he doesn’t care. he doesn’t even think about it. it does not matter. 

what matters now—is jake. jake only. 

jake’s fingers find his face, cradle his jaw, slide up his temples; tremble a little. or a lot. 

“miles, you don’t have to—“

“don’t,” miles rasps, his voice sounds ruined. “just let me.” 

he hears—no, feels jake exhale sharply, his body shaking under miles’s hands, pressed up against the tree. a thumb brushes miles’s cheekbone. permission. he rests his forehead briefly to jake’s stomach and plants a kiss on the soft skin of his belly. his tail lies still behind him. 

the forest fades. there’s only jake. 

miles hooks his fingers in the knot and tugs it free. jake’s cock springs out, long, ridged along the underside, flushed deeper violet at the tip. just like his own. already leaking pearlescent precum that’s glowing faintly in the dark. and miles groans lowly at the sight, no better than an animal. 

he has no patience left for teasing now. he never had it to begin with. 

he takes jake in one slow, swallowing pull, lips stretching wide around the girth of him, tongue flattening to drag along the ridges. jake’s hips jerk forward on instinct, miles pins them back, holds him in place, hums low around the length filling his mouth. 

“fuck—miles—“

jake trembles in his grip. the sound of his name muffled like that sends fire spreading through his body that settles heavy in his belly. he ignores it. ignores everything but jake. 

miles works him deeper. he takes and takes until he cannot breathe, until he feels it hit his throat, pushing the tip as far as it will go. then, finally—his throat relaxes, yields, from what can only be old muscle memory. 

those human bunks, those quick and urgent fucks. he takes jake fully in his mouth, nose nuzzling into the hair, and hollows out his cheeks with raw, wet noise. he locks eyes with the soldier, throat full and overworked, and sees jake’s face distort so beautifully—so much emotion running through—jaw slack and eyebrows drawn, eyes filled with pleasure, blazed with heat. miles will stay buried in his hair and will himself not choke too soon.

it’s so much different now. but still the same. 

he savors all the spicy sweetness that leaks out of jake, thick and intoxicating. he bobs his head, curling his tongue around the head on every upstroke before plunging back down, nose brushing skin once more. 

jake’s scent is everywhere—it floods him, the warmth coating his tongue. it’s salty, sweet, addictive. and miles could starve on it. 

jake’s fingers tighten in his hair, his tail lashes, wraps in rings around miles’s bicep. the patterns on his skin flare up in luminescence with every twitching of his cock on miles’s tongue. 

the sounds jake makes, the heat, the feeling of his body against miles—it all warps into past too much. too much and not enough at once. it makes miles thirst, sends shivers racing down his spine and to his own neglected cock. he holds it back, pushes it down. defies every demand his body screams about. 

he pulls away enough to speak, lips brushing the slick tip.

“look at me.”

jake’s breathing hard, his chest rises and falls in deep and ragged gulps; his head tipped back against the tree, eyes closed. one last exhale and he obeys, eyes snapping open, finding miles—blown wide and laden, the amber nearly gone, undone by miles alone. so beautiful, so right.

miles dives back down, much faster, hungrier, throat working as he holds that gaze. one hand cups jake’s balls and rolls them slowly in his palm, thumb digging firm against the skin, sensitive and thin. jake’s moan cracks through the night air, hips stuttering in miles’s grip. 

“miles… fuck, so close. i can’t—i’m gonna—“ 

but miles keeps going, doesn’t slow. he wants it, needs to see jake come apart because of him. to taste it, swallow every drop, keep it inside like proof that he can still give something good. 

jake’s tail around him clinches tighter, his fingers grinding hard into miles’s scalp. jake’s other hand fists in his hair, hips thrusting shallow now, erratic, losing control. he’s fucking into miles’s mouth with restraint shattering by the second.

miles lets him, takes it, takes it all. takes everything, spreads wider.

when jake comes, it’s with another na’vi curse and miles’s name on broken gasp. 

hot, thick release floods miles’s throat; he swallows greedily and gratefully, milking him down to the last drop, tongue lapping long enough to leave jake shaking, trying to push him off, too sensitive. 

miles keeps him in his mouth a moment longer, warm and soft, and suckles gently through the aftershocks until jake whimpers, tugging insistent, almost pleading. it’s only then that he pulls back, lips swollen and chin wet. he looks up. 

jake’s staring down at him like miles is something holy. 

his thumb brushes miles’s lips, smearing what’s left. 

“you…” jake’s voice is wrecked. “you didn’t—“

“i’m fine,” miles shakes his head and means it.

his own cock is still painfully hard under the loincloth, untouched and leaking. 

he doesn’t reach for it. it’s not about him. not right now, not tonight. fuck—maybe never. if that’s what jake will want.

jake exhales shakily and strokes a hand through miles’s hair. 

“come here.”

miles doesn’t argue. he wipes his chin and rises slowly, until he’s pressed into jake’s heat again, their bodies slotting like two pieces of a puzzle. chests flush, arms wrapping tight around each other’s backs, tails sliding, clinging to familiar skin.

the forest seeps back in. the distant fauna calls, the wind in leaves. the steady rhythmic breath against his neck. 

miles tucks his face in jake’s soft hair and draws him in. it lingers still—arousal, but something’s different now. it’s fainter, mellowed, not as sharp. the scent he’s learned to recognize among the countless others, committed to his memory like something pure and sacred.

jake’s voice comes low and rough in miles’s ear. 

“i missed you.” 

miles stills. then pulls back just enough to search jake’s face.

the warmth blooms through his chest, and it is easy to forget the years, the war, how changed they are. it’s easy to just cup jake’s face and press his nose into his cheek, and murmur in soft skin. 

“oh, baby—jake,” miles breathes against his jaw. ”i missed you too.” 

it’s easy to just tell the truth. the one that used to hurt like hell.  

jake swallows; his eyes brimming with something painful, too close to sorrow. it twists miles’s stomach into knots.

“i mourned you,” he says quietly, “after you died—“

his voice cracks on the words, breaks off like it was choked. his fingers clutch at miles’s back.

“i know i had no right, but i still did.” 

tears well up fast in jake’s eyes, too sudden, raw and honest. one traces down his cheek and faintly glows before it sinks into the moss below. miles sees it fall as if it’s happening in slow motion. 

he can’t breathe, he can’t move. can’t look away, can’t hide from this no longer. 

there’s no space to withdraw to. 

and for one wild instant, the instinct screams at him to run. shove jake away and bolt into the dark, pretend this never happened. but jake’s arms are secure around him, tail coiled tight against his thigh—and miles can’t make himself pull free. 

his heart jolts painfully, once. 

“i’m sorry,” he chokes out. “i’m sorry, jake—i’m—“

he doesn’t even know what he’s apologizing for. the words flow out of him like breaking dam.

he feels his fingers tremble as they hold jake’s face. “i’m sorry,” he repeats, and presses frantic kisses to jake’s temple, his cheekbone, the corner of his eye where another tear forms.

“i’m sorry that i left you like that. i’m sorry i came back so wrong. i’m sorry that you had to mourn. i’m sorry, i’m so fucking—“

he can’t stop. 

every word that spills like blood from wounds reopened is punctuated by another kiss—his jaw, his throat, the tender skin behind jake’s ear. his arms lock tighter, pull jake in until there is no space between them. their tails find each other and entwine, like knots.

jake listens, doesn’t interrupt. he just holds on and lets the flood crash over him. his hands grip miles’s shoulders, neck, his body’s shaking, his chest's heaving; tears mingling with miles’s desperate marks. 

miles talks until his voice turns hoarse. and finally, jake shudders out a long exhale, his fingers reaching up to brush the base of miles’s queue. it calms the storm in him, at last. 

“it’s not—it’s not your fault,” jake whispers. “i just wish... it could be different.”

the words turn bittersweet. the grieving doesn’t vanish, but it loosens its grip.

miles presses a slow kiss to jake’s mouth. it’s soft and long and tender, tasting of salt; forgiveness on his tongue. 

“i know,” miles murmurs, smiles. it’s small and broken. “me too.” 

jake’s breathing warms his face like sunlight. 

he doesn’t speak about neytiri. he doesn’t want to hurt jake any more. 

they stay like that for minutes, maybe longer. jake’s fingers trace his queue, come back, then slide down lower, rubbing slow circles on his back. his own hands wander too, thumbs mapping cheekbones, jawline, the column of jake’s neck, the arches of his body, like learning him anew.  

miles feels his own arousal dulling, reduced down to a heavy, throbbing ache. he grunts low in his throat and shifts his hips to ease the pressure. he doesn’t touch himself.

not now—but maybe later. 

maybe he’ll jerk off to the memories in his tent tonight. maybe he won’t. maybe he needs that pain. 

he huffs a quiet laugh just to distract himself from the sensations. then smiles—light, knowing, recalling what jake recently let slip. 

“so… sounds like my baby boy has missed me, huh?” 

jake’s eyes flick up, a soft smile tugging at his mouth. his fingers hook into miles’s braid and pull it gently back, tilting his head until miles’s chin lifts and their gazes lock. 

“only i’m older than you now,” jake says, voice teasing, warm. “think that makes you my baby boy.” 

miles grins—sharp, fond, teeth glinting. “i’ll always be older than you, jake.” 

jake’s tail flicks with amusement. 

“you’ve slept through fifteen years. i’ve caught up to you, old man.” 

miles laughs. it’s quiet, rough and genuine. he leans back in, pressing their foreheads together.

“maybe for you—it was fifteen.” his voice drops, softer now. “for me… it was like yesterday.” 

he says the words and pauses, waiting for them to hit the way they used to. but they don’t. they’re raw and sore—but lightweight as they fall. jake’s thumb brushes along his jaw, eyes crinkling with something tender. 

“fifteen years,” miles murmurs, leaning closer. “and you still get so fucking hard for me, baby.” 

he catches jake’s nose with his teeth. 

jake’s smile falters. his eyes close, mouth opens. his head falls back, throat working as he speaks. 

“back then… i didn’t feel it.” 

miles blinks, his eyebrows knitting. 

“what?” 

jake’s eyes fly open, pupils wide. “i couldn’t feel below the waist,” he says, voice fracturing. “i could get hard, could even come sometimes. but… that’s not why—” 

he trails off, drawing a sharp breath.

“you looked at me like none of that had mattered. like i was whole enough to want. like i was still myself. and that’s—“ his throat bobs hard. “and that’s what got me off. you wanting me."

jake's fingers curl against the nape of miles's neck.

“just you.”

the revelation smashes through him like ice water. 

those nights spent in crumped bunks, jake arching under him, eyes wide and starving, his breathing hitching even when his hips had barely moved—miles read it all as pleasure. had chased those sounds, those looks, thought he was treating jake so good, proud of the way he made him feel.

but jake felt nothing physical.

he’d only wanted miles. 

his hunger, his attention, his desire—he wanted to be chosen, to be seen. jake wanted him so badly it was enough to make his body answer. 

jake wanted him for him.

miles’s throat closes. his vision blurs, something inside him titling.

it’s like a switch gets flipped. it settles deep—goes deeper than the guilt, sinks lower than obsession. it’s not—

it’s something final, irreversible. something that clicks right into place, like long lost missing piece. and locks. it does him in. it’s absolute. 

well—

he is fucked. completely. 

the thought consumes him whole. it isn’t new; not really. 

it’s something that was always there, locked away—but now the hinges are all shattered, and there’s no sealing it back up. 

jake’s everything. 

there’s no retreat from that. there’s no undoing this—he can’t un-know it. the truth cements inside his heart, and miles is done pretending like there was ever anywhere to go. 

he’s jake’s. forever jake’s. 

whatever that now means. 

miles presses their foreheads together again and squeezes his eyes shut. half-laugh, half-sob escapes his lips. it sounds much like surrender.

there’s cruel irony in it, some twisted kind of justice in the fact that he is left unsatisfied tonight. the thought is foolish and self-flagellating—and yet he wonders anyway—how many times will he deny himself to make them even? how many nights will he choose ache over relief? how much he wants to—needs to give jake the release now; atonement for not asking even once.

jake’s hands lift up and touch his face, pulling him out of his head. 

“miles, i never wanted you to stop,” he whispers into narrow space between them. 

miles huffs, but quieter this time. he doesn’t know what he’d have done if he had known back then. probably the same damn thing. 

because jake wanted him. just him. the hunger in those eyes was real, and it had never been about what miles was doing to his body—but who was doing it instead. 

something ignites in him again.

his hands move on their own accord, before his mind can even understand.

one slides between them, wraps around jake’s cock, still slick from his mouth and still warm. he gives it one slow stroke, thumb sweeping over the sensitive head. then another, and another. coaxing it back to hardness in mere seconds. 

jake’s breath catches immediately, his hips bucking into the touch.

“miles—“

“shh.” his voice drops, almost reverent. “i’ll make you feel it now. for every second you couldn’t before.” 

it spreads like fire on dry wood. 

his hand works harder, twists at the head on every stroke the way he knows jake likes now that jake actually feels it. his other hand drifts lower, slipping behind, his fingers tracing down the curve of jake’s ass until they find the tight, warm entrance. there’s slick already gathered there—not much, but enough to ease the way in. miles circles once around it, teasing, then presses in one finger slowly, carefully. 

it makes jake’s body jolt and tears a jagged gasp from him. his fingers dig in miles’s shoulders, nails sinking deep to make him feel it. miles hisses at the pain but doesn’t stop. 

it burns, oh god—it burns. 

miles eases in a second finger, curls, stretches him, while other hand keeps stroking in relentless rhythm. jake’s face collapses, eyes screwed shut, mouth open in a silent scream that turns into a loud, wrecked moan. agony and ecstasy blend seamlessly together, and it’s impossible to tell where one begins and other ends. his hips lose all their rhythm—he’s thrusting forward into miles’s fist, then shoving back onto his fingers like he’s beyond deciding what he needs. 

miles presses in with his full weight, pinning jake hard against the bark. his own cock grinds against jake’s hip in calculated rolls.

not for himself. never for himself tonight.

to give jake more—more heat, more pressure, more of everything. the friction drags a broken whine from jake’s throat. 

“all those times,” miles growls against jake’s mouth, not slowing down either hand, “you let me take you all those times…  just so i’d look at you like this. just so i’d want you.” his teeth catch jake’s lower lip before he soothes it with his tongue. “never again, you hear me, baby? never fucking again.”

it makes him crave for the inferno to consume him wholly. 

jake’s nails rake down his back, painful and sharp. his tail coils tight around miles’s waist, dragging him closer still. miles can feel every tremor, every flutter, every throb—every shudder that racks through jake’s frame. miles feels it all. 

he aches—oh, how he aches—to just turn jake around, replace his fingers with his cock, to sink in deep and feel that clench for real, to fuck him until neither one can think. 

but not tonight. tonight is for devotion. 

miles crashes their mouths together, hard, claiming, wet, and full. tongues clash, teeth knock, no softness left. he drags jake’s lower lip again, then breaks away, buries his face into jake’s hair, inhaling deep and chanting low and urgent in his ear.

“jake… jake… jake…”

jake makes a loud, keening sound and clings to miles’s back like drowning man to driftwood. miles keeps moving, grinding forward, pinning jake to the tree with every thrusting of his hips, hand stroking faster, fingers curling—and it unravels jake completely. 

jake comes a second time with violent, strangled cry of miles’s name, cock pulsing hot in miles’s fist, ass clenching tight around the fingers buried deep. miles works him through every last wave until jake’s oversensitive again, quivering and mewling into the crook of miles’s neck.

miles slows, then stills entirely. his fingers ease out gently, hands loosening but not releasing—just cradling instead, thumbs stroking lazily over the swollen head while jake pants in his shoulder. 

he’s still rock-hard, throbbing so deep it’s torture. he grinds once more against jake’s thigh on pure necessity alone, then forces himself still with a pained grunt. 

jake’s hand drifts down weakly, brushing the rigid line of miles’s cock beneath the loincloth—offering again. 

miles catches his wrist gently, lifts it up, kisses the palm. 

not tonight. 

he tries to say it with his eyes alone.

we’ve got time. we’ve got fifteen years to make up for.

jake’s smile is slow, blissed-out and so fucking fond it hurts.

he pulls miles down until they’re pressed again, heart slam together as their tails knot, and exhales long and slow into miles’s hair. 

miles stays hard—aching, leaking,