jake sully.

stupid, jake sully.

you observed him carefully from your seat in the plush, lush forest illuminated by the glittering night sky above you, along with the golden flames in front of you. the affectionately crowned toruk makto was chasing around neytiri, as he was wont to do-you were convinced he was vehemently enamored with her. neytiri on the other hand, was adeptly avoiding his efforts to yank her tail with a feline-like grace, and an effervescent, opaline smile exposing sharp canines. you found it hard to blame him, however. she possessed both the deft and couth you were certain you lacked. she made everything look perfect, and it didn’t help that she was beautiful, either. one look into her scintillating eyes could enrapture you, especially during this oppressive, sultry summer weather. the sweltering heat had persuaded you into thinking she was an angel one too many times. but you guessed in his world, she was.

it was stupid.

he was stupid.

“fuck,” you brought your hand up to the newfound throbbing pressure on your mouth, painting slender fingers with a rich, sanguine color: blood. you had bitten through the roast you were eating and into your poor, faultless lip. “i was thinking way too hard.”

“ponder less over jake sully, and more about how our great mother has let you live another day,” tsu’tey smacked you upside the head playfully, taking a bite out of his sturmbeast steak. you couldn’t help but smile a little-you found comfort in him as the brother you never had. when you had arrived on pandora, you were met with cynic skepticism from him, but you had proven yourself to him eventually. your friendship allowed him to lighten up and be more lively, too. “i am pleasantly surprised a skxawng like you has lived this long, y/n.”

“you literally suck,” you feigned lamentation by placing one hand on your chest, and using the other to wipe intangible tears from the unwarranted libel. it earned you a hearty laugh from tsu’tey, followed by a small fit of coughs. “you’re coughing like an old man. slow down, grandpa. easy on the chuckle.”

“now you suck,” he pushed your shoulder lightly, before panning his head over to jake and neytiri, who were now much farther away. jake’s face looked amorphous in the distance, but tsu’tey could see strong brows furrowed in the haze. he began to wonder if he needed what humans called “glasses”. neytiri clasped jake’s forearm before tugging at him to go further into the thicket, turning their backs on you. he fixed his gaze on you now, rubbing his temples.

“...shit, well, that’s fucking fantastic. your ‘fiancee’ ran away into the woods with the fucking idiot. whatever,” you waved a hand to the distance with a heavy sigh, raising the roast to your mouth. you added with a somber mumble, “this was not how it was supposed to go.”

this was seriously not how it was supposed to go.

it wasn’t-neytiri was promised to tsu’tey, and you…what were you to jake?

you were supposed to explore this world and your new bodies together, and you did, at first. attached at the hip, confused and frightened (although, jake would only say ‘slightly’ for his pride) of the wondrous expanse around you. you would lay in your shared, flimsy little cot as you watched the sable dusk melt into an ethereal aurora, talking about everything and anything. what your lives were like on earth, what you wanted to do when you came back-your own personal bucket lists, intrusive thoughts, your worst jokes, your favorite fruits-everything. you both confessed things you had never even said.

enter neytiri, stage left.

she tried to kill you both. she almost succeeded after jake pushed you out of the way to take the blow for you, but you throwing a water canteen at her alerted her that you were not a threat-you weren’t armed with anything to attack her with, and you certainly couldn’t kill her if you tried with those reflexes. she told you this later and it offended you, but the offense disappeared as you realized you were just happy that you were alive. you were happy that jake was alive. he didn’t have to try and save you.

‘of course i did. i don’t know what i’d do without you,’ was all he said in response, with a soft, darkly warm tone that made something burn low in your chest. it was a memory etched in your mind that never failed to make your limbs deliquesce, turning you into a shallow pool of ardor and elation. only for a brief moment, as your puddle would turn into hoarfrost and coat the ground of your empty heart. it seemed like after that day, that was when you truly watched him fade away.

he stopped sleeping in the cot with you, so you had no one for consolation on gelid nights. he’d take neytiri and tsu’tey on raids and hunts, getting frustrated when you’d ask to accompany them. and when neytiri had explained their rituals and the inner workings of mating that came with it, he started to ignore your entirety, without a single explanation why. it must’ve been her.

it had to be her, right?

“fuck it,” you jolted up switfly, dragging tsu’tey by his arm. “get your ass up and let’s go find them.”

“you are just going to find something you do not want to see,” he planted his feet on the ground firmly, rigid and unmoving to your touch. you turned to look at him, as he furrowed one of his brows. “are you a lecher, y/n? is that what this is?”

“first of all, ew. absolutely not. second of all, are you dumb? if they successfully get down and dirty, she’s no longer promised to you, right?” his ears flicked at your response, finally relenting to your touch. “now let’s go.”

you followed their scent, navigating the underbrush with tsu’tey, who was regretting his decision to come with you. you were supposed to be moving cautiously and quietly, yet you kept walking into leaves and suppressing meltdowns over previously uncovered bugs. he was busy thinking of ways to cover up your pursuit when you stopped suddenly, murmuring in the distance.

“...and i love…so, i don’t…” you could make out bits and pieces of a husky voice’s speech through the trees. the mention of love made your heart beat to an unspoken cadence.

“...then tell…keep waiting…unfair…” the second voice spoke with a higher pitch, but a louder tone, the words poisoned with blatant vexation. you contorted your face and looked to tsu’tey, his visage equally scrunched and perplexed. you ventured further into the thicket, until you could make a slight outline of two bodies through thick blades of green.

“she already hates me, neytiri. it’s not worth it,” the lower voice, now discernable completely as jake, slapped his hands to sides and fidgeted through the leaves. he was painfully nervous-he wasn’t the type of person who froze when he was scared. he dawdled around aimlessly. like an idiot, you added a note to your mental observations. a lying, stupid idiot.

“she is going to hate you more if you do not get it together,” a seethe, accompanied by the flattening of ears and a slap to jake’s head. “you will lose her completely. tell y/n.”

“i can’t.”

“it appears you have no choice. y/n,” neytiri swiftly moved through the grass to reveal your hiding spot, tsu’tey’s mouth pursed and yours agape. the edges of her lips curled up into a demure smile. “i had faith that you would come after us. i did not expect you, however. come with me.”

her tone was that of a mother scolding her child, leading tsu’tey back to camp by his small, tender ear. her chides in na’vi as she stomped would’ve made you giggle if it were not for the looming dread in your sternum, turning towards jake and his solemn, downturned ears.

his stupid ears.

his stupid nose.

his lying mouth.

“i know,” to your short response his eyes widened, cheeks donning an uncharacteristic tint.

“i’m so sorry. i know it’s fucked up of me, but i didn’t know how to-”

“-it’s okay. you don’t need my blessing to mate with neytiri, right? i just would’ve preferred you told me sooner. i knew you liked her, it just sucked. to be left in the dust. i really liked you, you know,” you crossed your arms and pressed them close to your chest, trying to ignore the saline tears welling in your eyes. and then, he laughed.

how could he laugh at a time like this?

he really didn’t care, did he?

jake sully.

stupid, lying jake sully.

“fuck you,” you bursted out, teardrops scalding your cheeks in their wake as you turned to leave.

“wait, i’m not laughing for the reasons you think i am-okay, wait. wait, let me explain,” his fingers brushed your wrist, reaching a little too late. “y/n! let me explain.”

“i literally cannot think of a way you can explain this without looking like a total cunt-ow! let go of me, jake! what the h-” your scorning monologue was brief, as jake pulled you off balance by your tail. you fell back first into the tall grass, head braced by jake’s hand underneath it. his hips pinned you to the ground by your own, one leg in between your own. broad shoulders loomed over you and cut out of your peripheral. you felt so…small, underneath him. it increased the growing ache in your lower abdomen, fueled by neither hurt, nor fear. you tried to squeeze your legs together to negate the pooling sensation-you shouldn’t have felt like this. this was a bad idea.

“so, uh, as i was saying…” he trailed off as you rolled your head to the side, refusing to look at him. “can you just look at me?”

“no.”

“fine,” he shook his head slightly with a tsk sound, assessing your body and the way it seemed to be engulfed by his own-even as a na’vi, you were so tiny in comparison to him. just as he seemed to be lost enough in his own thoughts for you to make your escape, he shifted your position abruptly. whipping your head towards him, it felt like all of his weight was on you: his nails dug into your thighs as he pulled them apart and past his torso-now, he was directly in between your legs. jake leaned forward onto his forearms, your lips millimeters apart from one another. you had no choice but to look into rich, amber eyes. either that, or focus on the way his hips were pistoned deeper into yours, fabric unwilling to spare you the feeling of his length rubbing against your clothed sex.

“as you were saying,” you cleared your throat, scratching an itch on the top of your head. he smirked, pleased with his ability to make you yield. his smirk quickly faded, replaced by a more stoic expression.

“remember the day we almost died?”

“you mean, one of the last days you pretended that you knew me?” you scoffed, and he narrowed his eyes at you for a split moment. “yeah, i remember.”

“i didn’t care if i died, but,” he began to fidget nervously, involuntarily exacerbating the wanton throb. yet, you were too focused on his words to notice. “i cared if you died, and i cared a lot, a lot more than i was supposed to. and that started fucking with me.”

you tilted your head with a doe-eyed expression that made jake tense up with a potent, unsolicited salacity. his ensnarement tactic was working painfully against him. his loincloth was growing increasingly more soiled in a messy, debauched ring.

“so i, uh…i ran, like an idiot,” jake’s breath hiked to a dry growl, shifting weight between legs. “i didn’t want to get you hurt. because if i did let myself and i let something happen to you, not only would i lose you, i would lose myself. i would lose everything i believe in. so, i tried to stay away from you.”

“well, i mean. you did just regain the ability to walk again. i’d wanna run, too,” you snickered in attempt to lighten the mood, unable to handle the sonorous tone of his words. jake rolled his eyes, holding back a smile. he thought that shouldn’t have been as funny to him as it was. “i’m so funny.”

“yeah, whatever. anyways,” he took a deep breath, knowing damn well you were right. “as we settled into omatikayan land, neytiri told us about customs, and picking a mate. how i would eventually claim a woman. i started avoiding you right around ‘mating’ season, so it was hard.”

“...okay? what does this have to do with me?” there was too much emotional clamor inhabiting your brain to properly absorb what he was saying. “ohhh…so you claimed neytiri right after ignoring my existence, and now you want to rub salt in the wound because you’re a dickhead-i’m so smart.”

“no-you have got to be dumber than me, holy shit,” he bit his lip in discontempt. either you genuinely were painfully oblivious to the situation, or you wanted him to spell it out for you. he had a notion that it was a reasonable mixture of both. “you literally just disregarded the last few things i’ve said. if it’s time for me to claim a woman, why would i claim neytiri? why would it be hard to stop talking to you?”

“chill out bitch, damn. i’m not the one who pretended someone didn’t exist for several months, watch your mouth. i’m listening though,” you weren’t really. “you’d claim her because you fell in love with her, and then maybe, i don’t know-your conscience thought it was a little weird to completely drop person and cling onto the next? surprised you have one. we’re running in circles.”

“but i wouldn’t claim a woman i didn’t want. i don’t want neytiri.”

“cool…? i don’t know what to say to you.”

“you just want me to say it outright for you, don’t you?”

“that would be particularly helpful, yes. i think if we did this from the beginning it would’ve helped.”

“if i was around you, i would’ve gone against my better judgment and claimed you in a heartbeat. to be blunt, i wanted to fuck you really bad.”

“wow! that seriously took a hard turn,” that was not the most appropriate reaction, but it was all you could utter.

was this how it was supposed to go?

your lips parted slightly, and jake immediately fixated on them. while he was noticing how roseate and plush they looked, you were having an internal dilemma at lightspeed. you thought this man hated you, and this whole time it was the stark opposite? were you the stupid one? were you the idiot? no, you couldn’t be. when you came down from your catatonic spell-well, it was more like you hit the ground violently, you minded jake’s position in between your legs. you also minded the soaked, wet state of your loincloth. “you wanted me like that?”

“yes, i did. but seeing you was a reminder that i couldn’t have you, and i wanted you so bad,” you watched jake’s adam’s apple bob as he swallowed and nodded, looking down at you with a darker stare. it was one you had never seen from him. a more predatory gaze. “i shouldn’t have wanted you, and i wanted you so bad. it’s only gotten worse.”

you assessed his gaze. it was as if he was ready to ravage you and everything that you were in that moment, right there. perhaps that gave you the courage to push his limits-how depraved was he, truly? how much restraint did he have, when it came to you?

“and all this time i’ve been sucking on a bottle of pink whitney, wishing it was you,” you ran your hands over the grooves in his arms, separating each mammoth, rigid muscle. you took one of his hands in both of yours, running his calloused finger over your inner thigh slightly-enough to pick up the sticky substance that threatened to gush out of you. “but now, we’re here. you’ve starved me as much as you’ve starved yourself. so, what are you going to do? what you should do, or what you want to?”

he growled just above a dull roar, trying to battle his ache and the dilemma of forbidden pining. god, how he wanted you. he ached for you, with such an illicit thirst-to devour you, one kiss at a time. your fingers skimmed the pressed outline of his aching tip through his loincloth, which elicited a frantic, breathy gasp from jake. “you can be gentle, or you can be rough. you don’t have to think about anything. actually, i’m pretty sure you’ve been thinking way too much.”

“you don’t know what you’re doing to me,” it came out as more of a dark, tenebrous moan that made you giggle. he stared down at your slick, tempting essence. he wanted to indulge in you, the delicacy that you were to him. yet a quick taste would never be just that-he’d want all of you. he looked back up at you, with the same predatory leer. you brought jake’s hand up to his mouth, feeling the ache worsen as he licked them clean with a groan.

“or, maybe i do.”

his hands worked their way up your thighs. your breath shortened as you let your eyes graze his hands-large, azure, and veiny. the position jake’s hands on your legs seemed natural, as if they were right where they belonged. he gripped your thighs, massaging the innermost part with his thumbs. his lips chose to travel to your collarbone and continue their conquest upwards, leaving carmine bruises, love bites, and tender kisses in their wake. he stopped when he was positioned face-to-face. your heart beat out of your chest as you felt lustrous yellow eyes linger on your own, and then your lips. he brushed them against yours.

“i’ve waited for this forever, you know,” he caressed your cheeks with his thumbs. “you’re so beautiful. as humans, or big blue people. whatever we are, and wherever we are, you’ve always stunned me. every rational thought i have blurs when i look at you, it’s like you put a spell on me. you’re enchanting, and it’s unreal.”

“you think so?” your ears perked up coyly as you felt your lips curve into a smile. that was probably the nicest thing anyone had said to you in awhile, or the history of ever, even. your honeyed reaction made his tail flick around in back of him, enamored by your visage. it continued to swish, curling prettily.

“oh, honey. i know you are. my pretty, pretty baby,” he kissed your nose, giving you a grin. his tongue ran over your bottom lip with a soft bite, before intertwining his lips with yours.

suddenly the air was thick and hot; infernal. you weren’t the worst kisser, but god, you felt like you paled in comparison to jake fucking sully. his tongue spoke to you a simple, yet tantalizing and tantric mantra that mesmerized you. veiny hands danced a viennese waltz against soft skin, retracing the path that led to your lips. he let his hands trail back down to your thighs, fingers grazing your sodden, clothed clit.

“you wanted me so bad, huh? all wet for me?” you nodded as he played with the string on your loincloth, before pulling it off and to the side.

“well, i fucking needed you, oh,” he let out a husky moan and ran his fingers over your lips, before parting them. “look at you-what a perfect pussy. i’m going to fucking ruin you.”

he thumbed your engorged, tender clit with one hand, while sliding in the middle & ring finger of the other into your warm, messy cunt. it was all so overwhelming-your faint titillated whimpers and whines, paired with the sound of fingers enveloped in slick folds. your voice was muted and low in an attempt to preserve the sanity and sleep of those in the relatively adjacent camp. but in the stillness of the night, the hot cacophony of your saccharine sweet voice and his frenetic movements that produced such wet, obscene noises, were resound upon jake’s ears. he thought it was akin to that of a siren’s beguiling melody.

“i want…w-want…mm,” you babbled, jake looking at you, yet unrelenting in his pace. the way he pumped his fingers was heavenly, but you needed more. “…you. inside me, please.”

“don’t worry. i’ll fuck that pretty pussy soon. but first…” he unclasped your chest piece with one hand, throwing it to the side while he kneaded one of your boobs. he flicked your nipple with his tongue before swirling it around the sensitive nub, latching onto it. he drove his fingers in and out of your squelching cunt with the occasional curl. two fingers alone already made you feel so full, sucking them in as you pulsed around them.

“i fucking love your tits. you’re latching onto my fingers,” it was like he could read your mind. smirking at your rampant, tiny mewls, he switched breasts, continuing the onslaught on your throbbing pussy. “let me focus on this boob, though. she needs love, too.”

“sisters, not twins, yeah? something like that,” he rasped through his teeth, lapping and sucking. your vision began to get hazy overcome by the torturous intoxication his touch brought, “you know what? doesn’t matter. your tits are gorgeous.”

he released his hold with a pop, leaning back to look at your disheveled countenance, exhaling raggedly. he placed his fingers in his mouth to relish in your sapid taste once more, while his eyes traced every inch of your body. your mouth hung in an O shape, lips plump and glossy. your eyes glossed over. your hair was frizzy and unkempt. you were nothing akin to the meticulously crafted countenance you slaved away for every day. he created a breathtaking mess out of you, which made him wretch with such a frenetic, venereal hunger.

he needed to fuck you stupid.

he needed to tear you apart.

“so pretty,” you murmured as he untied his loincloth, unsheathing his length in its entirety. the shaft same color as the rest of his body, a mixture of azure and sapphire stripes. it was unreasonably thick and lengthy, and had two veins leading to his blushing indigo tip. it throbbed as precum dripped down its side, and onto big balls. it was practically begging for solace in the form of your tongue swirling around it and hollowing your cheeks. “i want a taste.”

“you’re so sweet babydoll. but no,” his denial of your request was met with a disappointed whine and pouty lips. “i really should fuck that mouth of yours for all the shit you talk, but it can wait another day. i need to be inside you right now.”

his breath hitched as he watched his length disappear inside of you with a slicked sound.

“holy shit. you’re so fucking tight, jesus fucking christ,” jake seethed between breaths, panting. he dug his nails into your hips, writhing five hot points of pressure with his grip. his thrusts were slow but with intention, stretching your walls and hitting your core. you stared down at the way his thigh muscles tensed while he snapped his hips. you bit back a moan, your vision blurring slightly from the jolting motion, and your legs threatening to buckle. “dear god-fuck. oh, fuck. fuck, baby.”

“you feel so fucking good, and you’re taking my cock so fucking well,” he let one hand go and trailed it slow up your torso and stopped at your shoulders, quickening his strokes and making your eyes roll back. his fingers ghosted your neck with a dark laugh and a groan, “oh, fuck-what a good fucking girl. you like that, sweet thing?”

“jake,” you pleaded as he rutted into you, raking your nails across his back. you wrapped your legs around him, desperate for release. “this feels so good. oh, jake, ’m gonna…”

“oh god, i fucking love the way you say my name. go ahead and come for me, baby,” he buried his head into the crook of your neck, pumping deeper into you at an unadulterated and alacritous pace. jake pressed kisses to your neck while he felt you squirm and twitch on his length, muffling whines and moans. your glistening cunt tightened around him, like it was luring his cock further into you. he didn’t know how much further it could go. “make a mess all over my cock. it’s all yours, sweet thing. always has been. now use it like it is.”

it was hard for you to give any sort of intelligible vocalization (unlike pussydrunk jake, who seemed to be a little too loud, groaning fuck and i wanna cum over and over) while your eyelids fluttered and blood roared in your ears. you were having a sensory overload, and couldn’t help but drown in the pleasure. from the hickeys he pressed lightly over your taut collarbone with wet lips and the way his cock hit your g-spot, to all the husked whimpers jake let out while throwing his head back and the sound of skin hitting skin, you were in bliss. he was able to quell and rouse the insatiable ache that pooled low inside you, all at once. you were arched and unraveling with a splintering rapture, your own juices mixing with the warm, creamy seed that painted even the innermost corners of your walls.

“wow,” he looked down at your angelic, supine image through long eyelashes, panting. you relaxed your spine, coaxing his cock out of you gently. he was so desperate and unprincipled when it came to you that he probably would’ve stayed inside you the whole night. and you were far too exhausted for that.

“you sure as hell can have a taste of me now, holy shit,” his eyes were glued to your puffy cunt, watching his cum veneer it with a milky white. he swiped his finger in a swipe up your lips, holding his findings to your mouth. you licked it with a small mewl before contorting your face, bleating out a blegh.

“salty?” broad shoulders rose to the rhythm of a hearty laugh as you nodded, pushing the hair out of your face. “it’s cum, baby. i eat like a starved dog. don’t expect much next time.”

“that’s so tragic for me.”

“yeah, yeah. are you okay, though? do you need anything, sweet thing?”

“i need a hug,” you pulled him back towards you, and splayed your hands on his back. with a soft laugh, you traced the welts from your scratches before playing with his tousled mess of hair. the smell of sweat and a rich, earthy scent pervaded your senses as you meticulously picked out the stray blades of grass from each strand. “i’m sorry for fucking up your back.”

“what, are you kiddin’ me? don’t apologize. i’m gonna wear this shit like a medal. tell everybody my pretty girl gave ‘em to me.”

“you say that like you’re not gonna go back to your regularly scheduled ignoring y/n routine. i know you’ll leave eventually,” you huffed, slapping a hand on the newly damp grass to search for your chestpiece. he brought your hand back to his hair, kissing your forehead.

“and you say that like everything hasn’t changed. what’s the point of this if we part?”

“an extra notch under your belt, or something? i have not a clue, toruk makto. oh, congratulations on that, by the way,” you turned your head away from him to spare your tears. for some reason, it suddenly hurt to look at him. the last thing you wanted him to see was your hysterical sobs, after you just bore every other part of yourself to him. you’d have nothing else when he’d go.

he wasn’t really going to stay, was he? no one ever stayed for long. and it would be rather bold to think jake sully out of all people would stay for long, too.

you swallowed, clearing your throat. “i don't expect you to stay. i know i made a big deal about it, but...it really would make a lot more sense to marry neytiri.”

“oh, shut the fuck up," a playful eye roll. "i already told you, silly. i don’t want neytiri. i want you.”

“here-we can get up, and pretend that this didn’t happen, okay? we’ll say you got beat the fuck up by an animal, or something-”

“y/n,” he tilted you gently by your jaw, forcing you to face him. “i want you.”

“-and we can say you were brave and fought him because you’re the hero,” you choked out a sob. “you’re the hero, and i was just there as a witness. the nobody to scoff at; the outsider. i’m nothing to those people. i’m nothing compared to you.”

you were scared. truly, you did not want to see him go, but if you trusted him and loved him with your entirety, and one day he would no longer be there, it would break your heart into pieces. and your heart had already been broken quite enough. ah. so this was jake’s reasoning.

maybe you were the stupid one.

maybe you were both stupid.

yeah, definitely the latter.

“hey, hey, hey. enough of that bullshit. take a deep breath,” jake scooped you up slowly, repositioning you to cuddle in his lap. he tipped your head to lay a kiss against your lips, before pressing your head against his chest. you tried to sync your breathing to the cadence of his own chest rising and falling. he placed a caressing hand on the small of your back, rocking slowly. “i’m not scared anymore, and i’m going anywhere. i love you, y/n. you could never be nothing to me.”

you looked up at him, eyes widening. ‘i love you, y/n.’

there was something about the way he said it, paired with his fluttering, onyx eyelashes adorning gorgeously deep amber eyes. it was like a profound nocturne he sang just for you. there was something about the way he complimented you in a warm, sheltered whisper that tasted like a dulcet dream. it was a sonnet he read just for you. like a poet who lived and died for you.

just for you.

yet, foolishly-for moons, and moons, the poet restrained himself from telling you that your visage was his muse, due to his own trepidation. all he needed to do was trust in you, and let go.

maybe you did, too.

“you promise?” a gentle plead was all you could get out as he wiped your tears.

“i promise. and i’ll seal it with a kiss. or maybe a couple,” he brought your hand up to his mouth, kissing it gingerly. “you are my everything. and that is nothing to scoff at.”

home was not a city, or a state. home was not even a planet, like earth or pandora.

home was jake.

home was jake sully.

stupid, jake sully.

there was no reason for kiri sully to feel such ardor towards you. absolutely none. yet, she couldn’t help but be entranced by the way you moved through the waves.

you were just gliding through cerulean waters with lo’ak, neteyam, tsireya, ao’nung, and roxto. jake had introduced you all to the human custom of ‘marco polo’ when you were young, and it seemed you had never grown out of it. kiri had been thrown out of the game, looking over tuk’tirey for her father while she made a sandcastle. tuk was especially displeased with this, as she thought she could beat you all flawlessly in marco polo. but alas, she was not allowed to wade out that far.

watching your every move from afar, kiri surmised that you were not very good at this game. every single person who was marco before had gotten you immediately, no matter how far away you started. probably because you would start splashing and kicking every time they got close, through a fit of feverish giggles. especially when lo’ak was marco-he’d ignore everyone else just to get to you. then, it became the coquettish game of ‘how fast can [name] swim to escape impending doom?’

“this sucks,” she caviled and clutched a stick limply, etching your name in the warm, manila sand.

“you would feel better if you built a sandcastle,” tuk hummed with an expectant lilt, looking at kiri.

“i would feel better if i was lo’ak.”

“would you really? he kinda smells.”

“true,” kiri tilted her head with a nod, scribbling out your name. “[name] doesn’t seem to care, though.”

“oh, blegh,” tuk’tirey stuck her tongue out, swatting at kiri. “stop that.”

“jeez, jeez-” kiri raised her hands in defense of tuk’s minacious and staunch (endearing and incredibly light) pummels. “tuk, i’m not even doing anything!”

“you’re doing that thing that daddy does when mommy looks at tonowari for more than like, two seconds. you’re being all,” tuk did a sashay back to her sandcastle before turning around and putting her hands on her hips, “j-e-l-u-s. jealous.”

“hello? it’s j-e-a-l-o-u-s. you literally cannot spell.”

“i’m literally seven and i’m trying my best.”

“fair enough. but i’m not jealo-” she was cut off by tuk ‘kikiki’-ing at her with an outstretched finger. “you know what? fine. maybe i am a little bit jealous. but it’s not like it matters, anyways.”

kiri threw her head back, falling into the sand. she stared up at the calm azure heavens adorned with ivory, velvet clouds. the image paired perfectly with what kiri called the polyphonic melody of unrequited love: her pining heartbeat reverberating through her spine, your distant, cherubic laughter, and the sound of the waves skimming across the shore, before melting back slowly into the sea. as far as kiri was aware, you only knew her as one of two of neteyam’s (your neighbor) siblings your age. not the goofy, obnoxious younger brother with unkempt braids and winsome dimples, but the brooding basketcase of a sister. the looming, deviant character who thought she could feel the heartbeat of the empyrean, the atlantis, and the motherlands. she was certain that to you, she faded miserably in comparison to the awkwardly-charming foreigner and prodigal eldest son that newly inhabited awa’atlu. she could tell from the way you hung on every honey-coated word that was uttered from neteyam’s lips-big, sparkly doe eyes complete with dilated pupils completely enraptured by him. kiri could tell from the way those roseate, glacé lips of yours curved into an intoxicating smile that she simply couldn’t get enough of, everytime lo’ak unleashed his ‘comedic brilliance’. she was certain she wouldn’t ever exist to you-at least, not in the way that she wanted to. “yeah, this seriously sucks.”

“why don’t you just ask if she likes you?” a query from tuk that made kiri jolt up, turning her head to tuk’tirey in bewilderment.

“absolutely flabbergasting. that you just told me, to do that.”

“why? whenever i have a question, i ask it.”

“but this is different, tuk,” kiri exhaled deeply, bringing her knees to her chest. she ran her hands through her hair, before scratching the top of her head. “she’s a girl, and i’m not a boy.”

“so? i don’t see a problem,” tuk contorted her face in confusion, before shrugging and kicking her meticulously crafted sand fortress-she was getting bored. she sat down crisscrossed in front of kiri, tapping her nose. “girls like girls, like boys do. nothing new.”

 tuk’s idea was not entirely inane as kiri’s riposte made it out to be. it was getting harder to mask her tempestuous affinity for you, with each passing moment. you merely being around her made her heart beat at such a frenetic pace in her sternum. your scent permeated her senses, suffusing her cheeks a feverish and tender sanguine-you smelled as saccharine as the candied simpers you gave her, with light floral notes and a hint of ocean’s brine. and your visage-oh, your countenance as a whole-remained steadfast as the most ravishingly beauteous thing she had ever seen. you were like a painting to her: every curve and every color was painted by eywa’s pedantic hand.

“so if i were to…” kiri closed her eyes with a sharp, delayed sigh, shaking her head. “...confess, when would i? or-how would i?”

tuk’s mouth curved into a smile laced with playful, youthful malign.

kiri was going to have her hands full, wasn’t she?