Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The storms during that period were increasingly restless, vibrant, angry, and shattering, and so was Sully's anger since his half-breed had been killed.

Everything fell on Quaritch's shoulders. The only one left of all his men after Sully and his bitch killed them all. The only one left standing, day after day thinking about all the mistakes he had made, how he could have avoided them, what his life would look like from now on.

The general had been clear when her tongue split an ultimatum in front of him, the anger of all humanity emanating behind her cold stare. No more mistakes.

But mistakes in a world like theirs are inevitable, and he's left with only the hope that this time he can fix them, deal with them. Sully knew that world better than any of them, and those storms were the perfect cover for his surprise attacks, leaving their base on constant system failures.

The storm howls beyond the reinforced glass panels of the facility. Rain lashes the exterior in relentless waves, lightning briefly illuminating the darkened forest outside. Inside, the biolab is eerily quiet, humming only with the minimal emergency power. Red lights flicker in rhythm across the chamber of RECOM PODS, large, translucent chambers filled with bioluminescent fluid. Monitors blink erratically. Some flatline. A siren whines softly in the background, muffled by the bulkheads.

But Quaritch's concern is for the only remaining life. The system has collapsed, they cannot re-stabilize the gravity system. If the pod opens, the life within it will come into brutal contact with the cold surface of the floor. The pod struggles under the red lights.

RECOMBINANT PROJECT: JAKE SULLY – GEN PHASE IV

GENETIC MATURATION: 84% – AGE CALIBRATION: 17 YRS

STATUS: STABILIZATION ERROR

They send him in, as he was the only one able to reach the mechanism, to shut it all down if necessarily. But he isn’t ready to give up, not again. His hands scramble to reach the pod’s lowering lever. He reaches it after he jumps towards it, sweat gathering at his temples from the panic of failure, yet the lever doesn’t move, stuck in place like it was made of marble. The voice over the intercom shouts above all the alarms in the lab.

“Pod Three is failing! Power flux destabilized the neural imprint— if the body is thrown out now, it could cause total cerebral collapse!”

“Don’t shut it down. Let it finish.” Quaritch growls in frustration.

“It’s not finished, Colonel—he’s seventeen! We’ll lose the full imprint. He’s not ready!”

Quaritch steps back, the pod hatch directly above him. The red emergency light flashes, a final struggle.

“Neither was I.”

He looks up and the monster — the boy inside — is twitching now, fingers and tail spasming.

And then —

A power surge sparks overhead. There’s darkness for a second, two, three. Then the emergency lights flicker back on, the light stinging his eyesight. He reaches his arms outwards. Screams echo through the comms as other systems fry, but Pod Three hisses. Seams split. Fluid gushes onto the floor. The boy convulses and collapses forward, spilling out like a newborn, blue-skinned slick with amniotic gel. He catches the body just in time.

The weight of him nearly knocks the wind from Quaritch’s lungs. He stumbles backward, boots splashing through the puddle of fluid slicking the cold steel. The boy is heavier than expected, not fully grown, but dense with the promise of what he was meant to become. Warm and limp in Quaritch’s arms, his skin glows faintly in the red strobe of the emergency lights. Unmistakably Na’vi. Unmistakably Sully.

His enemy. The man he dreamed of killing with his own hands countless times, the one who haunted his dreams and wouldn't give him peace of mind even for a second since he woke up in that cursed body.

Quaritch sinks to one knee with him, cradling him carefully, even as his pulse pounds like war drums in his ears. He can’t hear the scientists yelling anymore. All he can hear is the breath that isn’t coming from the boy’s slack mouth. His chest, still. Too still.

Not breathing.

His throat clenches. Sully's life is in his hands, defenseless, fragile. He could do it, let him suffocate in his own fluid from which he was born, or squeeze the last bit of life out of him until the skin around his neck turns purple. A sign of dominance, of ownership. But he can’t, not yet. He had made promises over the lifeless bodies of his comrades. Their deaths could not be in vain. The mission cannot fail again. He cannot fail again.

“C’mon,” he growls. “Breathe.”

Nothing.

His hands tremble with the pressure building in his skull. He leans over him, face close to the boy’s. “You hear me? Breathe, you little bastard.”

No response.

Something in him cracks—tight, deep, unseen. He slaps him. Not hard, not to hurt, just to wake. One palm, then the other across the boy’s cheeks. “C’mon,” he whispers, more desperate now. “C’mon, Sully.”

Still nothing.

Another slap. “Jake.” And then—

A convulsion. A gasp. The boy arches against him with a choking lurch, coughs up fluid, and air finally, finally rushes into his lungs. The noise he makes it’s a broken inhale, like the world just punched breath into him. His fingers clench into Quaritch’s vest, gripping hard, shaking.

His eyes open. Gold. Bright and wild and disoriented, like twin suns rising behind storm clouds. They lock with his and Quaritch freezes. That face. That goddamn face. He’d seen it through crosshairs. He’d seen it laughing, bleeding, snarling at him in the shadow of the Tree of Souls. He’d seen it behind every mistake, every failure, every body that fell in the mud while Sully kept slipping away. He’d seen it after he lost everything.

But this wasn’t him. No war paint. No snarl. Just wide, frightened eyes searching his face. And something inside Quaritch quivers. Something he cannot understand. The storm outside screams against the reinforced walls of the facility—wind howling like wolves, thunder cracking the air open. It should be the perfect music for his revenge.

But all Quaritch hears is the boy’s soft breathing. Shallow. Alive. His grip tightens just slightly. The boy doesn’t resist. Doesn’t even know how.

He feels a shiver down his spine when the boy’s tail wraps around his own and he uses everything within him to not react, to not throw him off on the floor and put a bullet between that sea of gold that won’t stop staring at him.

The boy was trembling now—violent, uneven shivers racking his frame as if the world were shaking itself loose inside his bones. His breath came in tiny, sharp pulls. Eyes wide. Pupils dilated. Like a baby animal tasting the air for the first time. The boy blinks hard. Swallows.

“…where…” A voice like gravel pulled from the sea.

Quaritch barely hears it over the wail of the sirens, over the drumming of rain against steel. Jake’s mouth opened again.

“…where am I?”

That voice. It sounds younger, fragile, but it is Sully’s all the same.

Quaritch leans in slightly, just enough that their foreheads nearly touched. He isn’t sure why. Some part of him needed to be close, to make sure nothing escapes him this time.

“You’re safe,” he says. His own voice sounds alien in his throat.

Jake blinks again. His hands had bunched into fists at Quaritch’s chest, anchoring like a kid that needed help understanding his feelings.

“I can’t—” He gasps, looking down at his own arms, the length of his fingers, his faintly glowing blue skin. “What the hell?”

“It’s okay,” Quaritch says, even though it isn’t. Even though nothing about this is okay. Jake’s body jerks once, violently. Then his gaze snaps up to Quaritch’s, panic rising.

“What happened to me? Why am I—” He looks at his hand again, then Quaritch’s—five fingers mirroring five fingers.

And then the boy whispers, “Is this a dream?”

There was a long pause before Quaritch answers. He doesn’t know what honesty would cost. But he gives it anyway.

“No.”

Jake flinches, eyes darting in all directions. “Then why do I feel like I’m not real?”

He shouldn't even answer him, he should let go of his body, let him suffer and lose his mind, alone, naked, frozen. But all he says is, “You are real.”

The boy’s eyes searches his face like it holds the truth.

“Who are you?”

Quaritch looks at him for a long, long time before he speaks, the words thundering in his head.

“Miles Quaritch —Colonel… your superior, and you are my soldier, my weapon.”

Jake blinks at that. Something in the way he repeats the name—“Miles”—feels like it belongs in his mouth already, like some phantom echo. It burns like the last feeling he had when the arrow split his heart open.

The boy leans forward suddenly, curling in on himself. Not in fear, but like the pain of being had just settled in. Quaritch shifts with him, adjusting the weight, keeping him upright.

“You’re okay, kid. You’re gonna be okay,” he murmurs. “As long as you do exactly what I say.”

He feels the boy nod faintly into his chest, shivering. Quaritch doesn’t understand why his heart was hammering. Or why he didn’t let go yet.

He rises slowly, arms locking beneath Jake’s legs and back. The boy doesn’t resist. His head droops against Quaritch’s shoulder, breath soft and ragged against the side of his neck. He’s still trembling, still slick with birth fluid, still trying to make sense of the world that’s claimed him.

Quaritch adjusts his hold and turns toward the doors. They hiss open. The corridor beyond is bathed in dim, pulsing red, the emergency lights rhythmically strobing across the steel walls. Figures gather near the edges. Medics. Scientists. Officers. All frozen in place, faces pale and murmuring as they take in the sight: Quaritch—big and unyielding—and in his arms, a living ghost.

They whisper. Some flinch. Some gape. But no one moves. No one steps in his path. Quaritch doesn’t acknowledge them. Doesn’t slow down. His boots leave wet prints in the hallway as he walks straight past the cluster of human stares. Sully stirs against his chest, barely lifting his head. His voice is hoarse and childlike.

“…where are we going?”

Quaritch lowers his voice. “Home.”

He feels the boy relaxing in his arms, soothed by the simple words he is offering him. And Quaritch keeps walking towards his private quarters.

He ignores the static in his comms, the calls for reports, the escalating alerts echoing from the control wing. None of it matters. He’s already calculating. Already planning.

The old Sully had fire in him, had betrayal soaked into his bones. But this one? This one is still soft. New. Half-formed. And Quaritch can make something out of that. Mold him, shape him, burn away every trace of rebellion until the only thing the boy sees when he opens his eyes is him.

The perfect soldier. A shadow. A weapon crafted by his hands alone.

He won’t just follow orders.

He’ll belong to him and him only.

Jake’s fingers twitch slightly, curling into the fabric of Quaritch’s shirt. And Quaritch lets them stay there.

The kid passes out and comes back to his senses a few times, as expected from what he himself has experienced when he was awakened for his second life. It provides enough times for Quaritch to clean him with a cloth and dress him. The anger is still there as he imagines all the things he could do to the spitting image of his worst nightmare.

He dresses the boy in his clothes, a simple navy T-shirt and a pair of shorts, all hanging loosely on his slim, fragile frame. His skin is still glowing in the darkness of the room, but there’s something about it that gets on his nerves. His skin is too clean, too unmarked. He hovers above Sully’s body, watching the way his chest rises and falls with each breath, and something from within him makes him act, like an animalistic instinct, something foreign guiding his body.

Sully’s neck is exposed, drops of sweat glistening in the light provided by his skin, and Quaritch nuzzles his face in there, sniffing at the sweet scent hanging in the air. Then, without thinking, his tongue leaves a long streak along the boy’s jugular, marking. He gets back to his senses only after he feels iron on his tongue, his fangs buried deep in Sully’s shoulder, and he jolts back up, terrified. He doesn’t even look back at him, he rushes to the bathroom, short of breath, and catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror. There’s blood on his lips, his pupils are blown out. He looks feral, like on of them.

“You’re not a Na’vi.” He snarls back at the reflection in the mirror. His punch stops right before it makes contact with the glass. What the hell is wrong with him? He hears the boy crying on the other side and that makes him move.

He finds Sully pressing the blanket on his shoulder, big eyes tearing, lips pressed into a thin line.

“What happened,” he asks with a broken voice. Quaritch gulps, unable to take his eyes away from where the stain of blood is forming on the blanket. He comes closer, grabs Sully’s hands and examines the wound, a jolt of excitement rushing through his body at the sight of the two holes he punctured into the boy’s flesh. They would scar. That’s his mark.

“You hit yourself when you fell from the pod.” He doesn’t wait to see if the boy believes him. “It’s barely a scratch. You’re a Marine, you’re better than that.”

He watches as the boy comes to terms with he’s being told, the gears turning in that little head of his. There’s a pause, followed by surprise written all over his face, until he turns his whole body towards Quaritch with some sort of excitement.

“I remember. I volunteered to be here. I’m working with Doctor Grace Augustine in exchange…” His eyes darkened. “I replaced my twin brother.”

A hundred emotions flash across the boy's face, and Quaritch watches him carefully, ready to catch any sign of rebellion from him. The truth is, he can't remember the day when Sully uploaded his memories into the program, if it was after he met the bitch or after. Their eyes meet again, Sully frowning.

“I know you, Sir.” He says all of a sudden and his eyes downcast, shame plastered all over his face. “Did— did I die in battle, Sir?”

He wishes he could get into the boy's mind, see exactly what and how much he knows, to realize where their relationship had come to when they made him agree to be brought back to life. Quaritch sits at the edge of the bed.

“The other… failed his mission.” Quaritch confesses and watches as the boy frown deepens. “But he’s not dead.”

“Then how come-” The question dies in the boys throat as Quaritch puts his hand on the back of his neck, squeezing it tightly.

“This isn’t a game, soldier.” Quaritch says, voice low but steel-edged. “Out there, hesitation gets you killed. And in here—” he taps a finger lightly against Jake’s temple “—doubt’s the same thing.”

The kid swallows, biting down on his lower lip. “So I need to know something.” Quaritch leans in until they share breath. “I need to know I can count on you. When I give an order… you follow. No second guesses. No resistance. You don’t ask why, you move. Got it?”

Sully nods, quick.

“Use your words, boy,” Quaritch presses.

“Whatever you say… goes. Sir.”

“Good. Good.” He lets go and he can swear Sully leans in to follows his touch.

A thought crosses his mind and he wonders how much he can already take advantage of his condition, of the insecurity in his naive gaze. How soon he can shape him so that his world consists only of serving and obeying. He tests the limits just to see what he works with.

A snap of the fingers is all it takes for Sully to keep his focus on him.

“I’ll get someone from Med Bay to check up on you, but before that…” Quaritch says as he stands up, towering over the boy. “We need to establish some ground rules.” He wonders how much is too much. He wonders what Sully would do to him if the roles were reversed, if he were to wake up in the forest, to be left at Sully and his family’s mercy.

“You never set foot outside of this facility without me or my permission. You don’t speak with anyone else but me or the general Ardmore. Once the Doc gives you the green light, you’re training, morning and afternoon. I want to know about your whereabouts at all times,” he growls the last part, piercing Sully’s gaze with a cold stare, but he doesn’t seem to mind.

“I don’t care if you have to take a piss or jerk off,” he says just to watch him flinch, just to test him more. “You’re not moving without me knowing. And you’re sleeping in here.” He lets that one sink in, but he doesn’t get much of a reaction, the boy simply flicks the tip of his tail, ears lowered down just like his face.

“Any questions?” He doesn’t get a response so he strides forward and grabs Sully’s chin into a painful grip, lifting his head. “I said, any questions,” he asks again more demanding. Sully stares back, but his eyes are shiny and it looks just like — like his pleading face on the ship, begging for those children of his to be released— a distraction in his mind.

“What did I do?”

Quaritch freezes.

A simple question but it guts him, it washes over him like a tidal wave. His hand lingers a moment longer before he releases Sully’s chin, and just as he does so, a tear falls down the boy’s face.

“You were mine,” Quaritch says quietly. “And you forgot.”

Then he turns, jaw tight, and stalks toward the door before he can do something he’ll regret, before he can lean back down and bite Sully’s other shoulder, before he breaks the boy’s bones apart, before he strangles the life out of him and places him at his feet, before—

He doesn’t stop walking until the door hisses shut behind him and the hallway folds around him in that familiar sterile silence. The hum of the base, the rhythm of his boots on the floor — it should pull him out of that storm inside his head. It doesn’t. A thunder echoes closely.

He flexes his fingers. They still remember the heat of the boy’s jaw. The way Sully looked at him like a lost pup. Quaritch breathes through his nose and tells himself to get a grip.

He should focus. The kid is a mission. An asset. A way to finally even the odds. They’d built him in a lab and uploaded memories like software. A clone with Sully’s blood and Quaritch’s leash. That was the deal years ago when Sully rebelled.

You were mine. And you forgot.

He hadn’t meant to say it like that. But it had spilled out, fast and low, the truth vibrating between his ribs like a drumbeat. He cannot take it back now, so he has to live with that confession. Was it a confession or a self-made lie? Should he still feel the pain of his human predecessor?

He wipes a hand down his face. Feels the dried blood still crusted at the corner of his mouth. He hasn’t even cleaned it off. He can’t even piece together where that came from.

Goddamn.

He promises himself that he’ll see the mission through. No more delays. No more mistakes. He will become Sully’s worst nightmare as well as his saving grace. He will build a world so small for the boy that he will not want to leave it, he will not even know how. He will keep the boy small and terrified, he’ll beat the submission into him if he has to. He will do everything possible to make sure this Jake Sully never gets the idea of betraying him again.

Even if it’s the last thing that he does.

Chapter Text

A clone. That's what scientists told him he was. A copy of the original, a sad attempt to ensure that the best soldiers are not lost even when death comes to take them. Or at least, that was what he was supposed to be, but his rebirth failed and now they’re poking needles in both his arms, running tests to make sure their millions of dollars project isn’t wasted. No one comments on his shoulder wound, but they throw him disgusted looks, as if he asked for it.

They should have woken him up when he turned twenty one. Now he regrets signing that contract so quickly. They are owning him, his mind, his memories, his life.

The doctor’s voice is a dull drone in the background. The man is older, RDA patch on the sleeve, voice clipped and cold. He’s reading from a tablet that lists Jake like an inventory item.

“Cognitive imprint appears intact within acceptable error margin, some personality drift to be expected.”

Jake’s ears twitch with every syllable, drawing back tight against his skull without his will. His tail almost smacks one of the scientists in the face. His mouth opens, but nothing comes out at first. He sees the words on the tablet, the medical notes describing him like he’s nothing more than a product, a test case.

“A clone.” He repeats just as coldly, not fully grasping the true meaning of what that entails. The doctor doesn’t even look up.

“Yes.”

He stares at his hands, turning them over. Long fingers, tipped with claws that could rip apart anyone in that room. Pale stripes running across the blue skin like ghostly fingerprints. He flexes them, watching them move around his muscles. He feels power at the tip of his fingers, but then he remembers how scrawny his body looks compared to the Colonel’s.

His stomach lurches.

“Any pain so far?”

He shakes his head.

“Good. You’re cleared.”

They then read him a long, boring list, full of scientific terms, about what it means to be Na’vi, what to expect from his new body. He hears bits and pieces, but he doesn’t have time to focus on the words because the only thing he’s thinking about is that he’ll never be human again. He hears a bit of the end, only because one of the women tugs on his braid to get his attention, and tells him not to play with it or there could be irreversible consequences. He doesn’t care. All he wants to do is get out of there as quickly as possible.

The Colonel is waiting for him on the other side of the door, his face expressionless and his body stiff, and Jake feels the change in the air like a taste settling on the tip of his tongue. He doesn't comment, he just follows the Colonel back.

Outside, the storm is still as relentless as ever, the roar of the wind hitting the building like an animal, sending shivers down his spine. He is startled by the Colonel's voice after so much silence, but he follows through without thinking when he is told to undress. They are both in their underwear when they sit on the bed, which suddenly seems much too small. Jake tries to squeeze himself as close to the edge of the bed as he can, twisting his tail around his body so he wouldn't accidentally touch the Colonel. There is a tension in the air, and Jake feels like he can’t breathe. He has so many unanswered questions, but he hopes they would diminish with time.

—

Morning comes far too early, and he is dragged by Quaritch to a private area of ​​the base where they have a quick meal. When they get outside, the morning light is still obscured by the imposing buildings. The air is chilly, and he and Quaritch are wearing only shorts and a tank top.

The base is quiet except for the hum of generators and the distant clank of machinery. It’s almost peaceful. He thinks that he should be grateful after all. He’s alive. He’s breathing fresh, clean air. He feels the ground beneath his feet. And that it’s a miracle in itself, as he never imagined that he’ll walk again.

The Colonel drags his voice.

“Ten laps. Now.”

Jake stares at him for a moment, quickly taking in the side of the housing zone.

“Around the whole compound?” He hears himself asking and he bites his tongue when he sees the glare Quaritch throws him.

He nods once, resigned, and then he starts running. He’s unsteady at first, still not used to these legs, the way his feet hit the ground with a heavy thud after each step. His tail flails behind him for balance. He tries to keep a steady rhythm but by the second lap, he’s panting. By the fifth, he’s stumbling.

The soldiers at the checkpoint towers watch him go by with the riffles pointing in his direction. He swallows the hard knot formed in his throat. His heart hammers inside of his chest from both exhaustion and fear. A few mutter as he passes. He faintly hears traitor in the wind.

He keeps running.

On the ninth lap he falls hard on his hands and knees, sand and concrete scrape his skin raw. Quaritch is watching him. From that distance, the only thing clear is the Colonel’s tail snapping from side to side, and Jake reads that anger with ease. He pushes himself up, biting back a snarl of frustration, and keeps going.

When he finishes, he’s bent double, drool and sweat dripping to the dirt. His clothes cling to his body, and he feels like air isn’t entering his lungs. He chokes on his own spit. He looks up when he notices the Colonel’s boots right next to him, and he waits for something, for some sort of approval, for the Colonel to acknowledge him in some way. He gets nothing, just a mask carved in stone.

“Stand straight.” Jake forces himself up, legs shaking. He can’t stop panting like a wounded animal. "Get your rifle.”

He stumbles to the weapons rack and picks one up. It’s almost too big for his still-slim arms. The grip is slick with sweat.

“Target practice,” Quaritch growls, then sets the holographic targets downrange with a flick of his wrist. All the targets look Na’vi. “I expect only headshots.”

Jake tries to lift the rifle. It wavers wildly in his grasp. He doesn’t understand why he feels so terrified. He had done thousands of drills, he had practiced enough to consider a gun or a rifle as an extension of his arm. But now, in that body, with Quaritch’s judgmental eyes on him, he feels like he’s holding a weapon for the first time.

He takes aim and fires.

Miss. It hits a leg.

He huffs, annoyed at himself. He repositions his body, holds the rifle in a firmer grip. Another shot.

Miss. It hits a shoulder.

He growls and tries again.

Miss. The bullet flies past the hologram.

Before he knows it, the Colonel moves behind him, and Jake jumps when he feels his tail caught between rough fingers at the base. He doesn't have time to take a breath in when Quaritch yanks on it hard, and Jake bits down on his lower lip to stop the whimper escaping his mouth.

“Focus, Sully,” Quaritch snarls into his ear. Jake’s ears flatten. His chest heaves. He feels shame creeping up his spine. He tries to steady the rifle. It fires.

Another miss.

Another sharp tug on his tail, harder this time and he yelps, the base of his tail burning with pain.

“You’re not even fucking trying.”

Jake hisses. An actual hiss. He stands as tall as possible, fangs in view to make himself intimidating and he catches the second his spit hits the Colonel’s face.

“I am trying!”

Quaritch hisses back at him, softer than Jake did it, and it’s all it takes for Jake to fold back into himself with his tail tucked between his legs.

“Then try harder.”

He tries several times with the same result. He just can’t hit a headshot no matter what he does, and each failure results with his tail being yanked, until he wonders if there is one still attached to his body. The sting makes his eyes water.

He wipes the tears and sweat from his eyes and takes another shot.

Miss.

Another tug.

“Again.”

Miss.

“Again.”

Miss.

“Again.”

Frustration grows so much within him that he feels like throwing the rifle away to sink his fangs into something. Another hard yank sends him to the ground sobbing, face covered in sand and dirt.

“Get it together,” Quaritch growls, his voice thundering in Jake’s ears. “If this was a fight, you’d be dead ten times over. You think those savages will wait for you to take the perfect aim? You’d have dozens of arrows piercing your throat in seconds!”

“I’m trying,” he mutters, struggling to get up.

“Not hard enough.”

Quaritch grabs him by the front of the tank top and hoists him back on his feet.

“Last chance. If you miss, I’ll have you running ‘till you drop dead.”

Jake’s arms tremble so badly he can barely level the scope. His breath comes in ragged gasps. His mind is all over the place. He’s aware of every ache in his body, every bruise. His tail curls around one leg defensively, the base throbbing from the punishment it’s taken. He squints down the sights. The holographic Na’vi figure wavers like a ghost.

He can do it. He’s done it a thousand times before. That’s what he trained for, that’s why they picked him and nobody else.

He fires.

He hits the throat.

It’s not a headshot. It’s not a headshot. It’s not—

He fights tears, a single one trails down the side of his nose. Quaritch notices and grabs his chin in a painful grip, wiping tears and dirt with the back of his hand.

“A Marine doesn’t cry, only bitches do. Do you want me to see you as my equal or as my bitch, boy?” Jake doesn’t answer. Doesn’t dare. “Out there, only death awaits us. Without me, you’d be nothing more than those monkey’s dinner. I don’t wanna have to clean your guts off my boots.”

He doesn’t register what happened at first, but he wakes up kissing the ground, skin teared on his forehead. He feels it, the heat and burn of half his face. He tastes blood.

“Manhandled by a slap… You’re fucking pathetic. Get up! You’re giving me ten more of those laps.”

He lies on the ground, too tired to try to get up. He doesn’t understand why the Colonel acts this way. He was kind when Jake first opened his eyes, there was some sort of sympathy in his eyes, his touch was gentle and welcoming. The kick in his ribs makes him scream.

“Get up!” He’s put onto his hands and knees as his tail gets dragged upwards. “If I have to tell you one more time…”

He uses all the effort left in him to stand. He needs distance from whatever this tension was between him and the Colonel. He jogs along the wall for a bit until he gets his footing, then, without looking back, he starts running and it feels worse than being pulled by the tail.

He’s already dying inside from the first lap. Every footfall sends pain radiating through his spine. He tells himself, Just one more. Just one more. Over and over, teeth gritted so hard he thinks they’ll crack. He can’t hear anything except his own pulse. Quaritch’s voice slices through occasionally, barking Faster, or Pick up the fucking speed, but even that starts to fade behind the sound of blood rushing in his ears.

By the fourth lap, Jake’s vision swims. He’s stumbling. Falling to his knees and forcing himself up again before the Colonel can say anything. He tries to steady his breathing, to remember anything about how he used to run, how it used to be second nature, but that body is long gone.

He’s stuck in this one. This body that doesn’t even feel like his.

He trips, goes sprawling in the dust. He claws his way back up. Runs anyway. He hears laugh above him and when he lifts his gaze, he notices the guards mocking him. Run ‘till you die, traitor.

Fifth lap. He can’t see the ground properly. Sixth. He’s sobbing, though he doesn’t realize it at first. His legs are shaking so badly he’s not even sure they’re obeying him anymore. He shouldn't have reacted like this, he was a soldier, he had been made to endure much worse.

On the seventh lap he feels the ground flee from under his feet and he suddenly falls backwards, gaze darkening at the corners.

“Get up, Sully.”

“I can’t,” he whispers. “I can’t.”

He cries out again when he feels something crushing the tip of his tail. He looks down and sees Quaritch’s boot pressing down on it with the heel.

“Up. Now.” Jake gives him a low, strangled hiss that falls on deaf ears. “You’re not eating today if you don’t get up in the next five seconds.”

“I told you, I can’t.”

He doesn’t make a sound when he’s being tagged along by the hair even though it hurts, but when he falls back to his knees, Quaritch digs his claws into his scalp.

“Why are you like this?” Jake asks desperately.

Quaritch's expression turns into something unreadable. He bends down to be at the same level with Jake’s gaze, his hand resting on Jake's neck, where the wound was. A sea of gold, but the waters are poisonous.

“Do you hate me?” Quaritch asks in return. Jake thinks about it and he comes to the conclusion that there was no reason for hate until now, because he remembered the way Quaritch treated him, back when they were both humans, and he received nothing but respect from the older man. He was there for Jake, he made sure no one made fun of his disability, he saw him as any other soldier under his command. He saw him as more than that.

“I don’t.”

Quaritch’s hand lowers from Jake’s hair, a finger tracing down the side of his face, stopping below his chin, and Jake shudders at the touch.

“Good. Because I’m the only thing keeping you alive on this cursed, floating rock. No one else besides me gives a fucking damn ‘bout you, boy. They think I should’ve let you die in that pod.” The man tucks away a strand of hair stuck by sweat on his forehead behind his ear. For some reason, Jake can’t take his gaze away from Quaritch. “But here we are.” That small amount of tenderness calms the storm inside Jake. “So you’re gonna do what I say, you’re gonna finish your run, so we can hit the showers and have a little break. Alright?”

Was he still breathing? Was he dead already? He feels dazed.

“Yessir.”

He manages to get up on his own by some fucking miracle. And he runs. He runs like his life depends on it, like it’s the only thing he has left.

That’s how his mornings and evening go for the next week. Constant training, constant pain, constant search of approval that doesn’t come. Except for a few words here and there, Quaritch ignores him like he’s not even there. Jake wants to rationalize it; the man has his duties and obligations, neither of them are there to entertain the other or to make friends. Sure as hell the Colonel ain’t there to babysit him, but there’s so much loneliness around him that he prays for a few more minutes of conversation, for an accidental touch, a whisper, a shout, some sort of contact. Anything.

He gets his wish fulfilled the day Quaritch changes their routine. After running, exercising and shooting all evening, he gets dragged in the middle of the yard.

“I wanna see how you fight, boy. Hand to hand. Don’t hold your punches.”

It looks like the beginning of a bad joke when you put them side by side, Quaritch being twice Jake's size, but he has to do what he’s told. Cold raindrops drip onto his hot skin. The constant rain these days makes him feel more tired than he already is. A flash of lightning in the distance gives him enough courage to feel ready.

He drops the training rifle with a dull clatter.

“Wasn’t planning to,” he croaks, voice gone rough from barking out counts and grunts all day. He swallows, glaring up at the Colonel’s looming form. “Sir.”

Quaritch’s mouth twists into something ugly. Not quite a smile. Not quite a snarl.

“Good,” the man says, cracking his knuckles. “Come at me.”

Jake knows it’s insane, knows it’s humiliating, but there’s a hateful little ember in his chest that burns brighter than the fear. He doesn’t even think, just lunges, filled with rage.

He gets in one good hit, knuckles slamming into Quaritch’s ribs. The sound is satisfying, but it’s the last clean shot he lands. Quaritch doesn’t even flinch and that’s when it hits for him that he’s gonna get fucked up. He grabs Jake’s wrist and twists. Hard. Jake yelps, dropping to a knee with the pain, but a boot to the gut sends him sprawling onto his back in the dust.

“That’s all you’ve got?” Quaritch growls.

Jake coughs, spits out dirt, forces himself up. He charges, but Quaritch is way faster, and he gets a fist in the side of his face for his trouble. He sees stars, but forces himself to stand on his feet.

Have they been here before? It seems too familiar, it seems like something they’ve done before, like something that’s theirs.  

He keeps going anyway. He claws, he bites, he uses all the dirty tricks to even the fight. He lands a swipe across Quaritch’s cheek with his claws. That earns him a shove so hard he rolls twice across the dirt.

Quaritch doesn’t wait for him to recover. He’s there in a second, boot pressing down on Jake’s chest. Jake grabs at the boot, pushing at it weakly, hissing like an animal.

“Where’s that spirit when you’re shooting?” Quaritch asks coldly. “Where’s all that snarling when you’re supposed to hit something important?”

Jake grabs his wrist and pulls him down, then sinks his fangs into the colonel's hand until his mouth fills with blood. He expects anything after that, another slap, a hit, a punch, but he doesn’t expect the laugh above him, and definitely not the pity look Quaritch throws him.

“So eager to mark me, aren’t you, boy?”

Quaritch leans down, grip closing around Jake’s throat—not enough to choke yet, just enough to remind him who’s stronger. Who’s in charge.

“My son lands better punches and he’s human.”

His words hurt just as much as all the bruises and wounds. They go straight to Jake’s head. His tail curls up over his stomach like a shield. Quaritch snorts in disgust and releases him, stepping back.

“Get up and fight me like a man.”

Jake sucks in air, shaking so badly he can barely stand. But he does. He wipes blood off his nose with the back of his shaking hand. He stumbles forward and raises his fist, but his efforts are for nothing. Quaritch moves like a goddamn machine. A knee to the ribs, another slam of the heel to the tail. Jake howls in pain as he collapses.

He doesn’t get back up this time. He curls on his side, wheezing. The rain is the only thing soothing his pain.

“You’re not even worth killing yet,” Quaritch mutters above him. That one lands harder than any punch. He flinches when Quaritch moves, mentally preparing another blow. Instead, there’s a hand in his hair, slowly massaging his scalp.

“Pathetic little thing,” Quaritch mutters, but there’s no heat in it. “To think that I was scared of you…” Jake hates how the words make his chest ache, how the touch burns through him like lightning. He hates how he wishes for more. “C’mon. Come here.”

He clings to Quaritch as he picks him up and carries him back to base. He catches the venomous glances of the people around him, hears the whispers around them. Criminal. Traitor. He deserves worse. Why is he still alive?

Why am I alive?

—

He shuffles down the corridor to the mess hall, but the noise inside makes his stomach turn. Laughter and chatter that silences when he steps in the doorway. A hush like someone hit a switch. He doesn’t even try today. He pivots away before he hears any more of their whispers. His new body feels too big, too exposed, too blue. He hates that he cannot hide.

The fact that he knows that he has no one else drives a knife deeper in his chest. He had no one of important back on Earth. He found out about Grace’s death in one of his daily checkups from one of the scientists. He remembered there were more people he befriended there. Trudy was dead. Norm and Max were dead. The other soldiers, all of Quaritch’s squad, dead. He indeed only had Quaritch left and he doesn’t know how to truly feel about it.

He presses a hand to his chest and wonders if the other Sully was ever this alone. If the other one ever felt like each step was borrowed. Every breath was a lie. He doesn’t even realize he’s limping until the ache in his hip is too sharp to ignore. He glances down and sees the bruises turning a sickly purple-blue across his ribs, down his thighs, all gifts from Quaritch’s training. But even that pain feels like it has more purpose than this emptiness. At least the pain means he’s real.

He goes outside without planning to, just finds himself pushing open the door that leads to the rain-slicked yard, the air biting cold as it soaks into his clothes. His boots slap through puddles as he heads to the far edge of the wall. He passes the perimeter lights and the watchtowers without anyone stopping him. Nobody even cares if he leaves. Maybe they want him to.

He finds the old maintenance pole he’d noticed during one of the endless laps Quaritch made him run and hauls himself up with raw, scraped palms, muscles screaming. He doesn’t stop until he’s perched on the edge of the wall itself. Wind whips water into his face, plastering hair to his forehead. The base lights behind him make his shadow stretch long and imposing across the wall top.

He sits down, knees drawn to his chest, shivering, like a gargoyle carved in blue, watching the forest beyond the wall sway in the storm. The massive, dark canopy seems endless, full of secrets. He tries to picture himself there, barefoot in the mud, with the rain washing him clean of the past of his other self. His fingers dig into his arms so hard it hurts.

Why am I here? he whispers to the wind.

Lightning flashes in the distance, illuminating the leaves in ghostly blue light. He thinks it’s beautiful in the way things that will kill you are beautiful. He wonders what did the other Jake saw in this world that made him run away from everything he knew.

He tilts his head back, eyes closed, letting the rain soak every inch of him. The cold helps. It cuts through the fog in his head.

He stays there until the wind nearly knocks him sideways, until his teeth chatter, until the base alarms wail faintly in the distance. And still, he doesn’t climb down. There is nothing left for him.

He doesn't react when he hears someone's heavy footsteps behind him, he doesn't have to. The rain intensifies Quaritch's scent, and Jake can't say when that scent became so familiar.

“Let’s get back inside.”

Jake says nothing. The wind and rain swallow the words anyway.

“Now, Sully.”

A hand clamps around his shoulder—not yanking, just holding, heavy and possessive. The touch makes him want to flinch so badly that his claws scrape the concrete edge of the wall.

“You listening?”

“Fuck off,” he mutters. “Leave me alone.”

“Repeat that.” The thunder and Quaritch’s voice are one and the same. But the storm is full of bark and no bite.

“You heard me.”

The grip on his shoulder tightens once, enough to sting, then it releases.

“Look at me,” Quaritch orders.

When he doesn't, Quaritch sits next to him, taking his chin between his fingers. The cap on his head almost obscures his vision, the soaked hoodie clings to his body from the rain. Jake stares at him without meaning to.

“What the fuck are you doing up here?”

Jake huffs out a humorless laugh. It breaks in the middle. “What do you think?”

Quaritch doesn’t answer.

“Get inside.”

“No.” The word comes out flat. Dead.

Quaritch’s jaw ticks. “You’re disobeying direct orders?”

“Respectfully, Sir, fuck off.”

A muscle jumps in Quaritch’s cheek. Jake doesn’t know why it feels so good to see it. The Colonel sighs through his nose, exasperated, but there’s something else there. Something Jake refuses to look at. When Quaritch speaks again, the voice is softer than ever before.

“Why are you being like this?”

Jake’s laugh this time is uglier, wet and broken.

“You don’t get to ask me that,” he spits. “Not you.”

He pushes Quaritch’s hand away and rubs the spot like it dirtied his skin. Quaritch scuffs.

“Teenagers and their fucking mood swings… Alright. What do you want?”

Jake’s throat burns. He wants to understand, to stop feeling the pain in his chest, to run beyond the walls, to stop feeling fear in his bones. He wants the Colonel to look at him like the day he opened his eyes in this strange body. He wants to scream, but the sound dies before it can leave. Instead he whispers, hoarse and shaking:

“What did he do?”

Quaritch stares right ahead, his hands fidget in his lap.

“What did the other Jake do?” he demands. “Why does everyone here look at me like they want me dead?”

He waits and waits and waits and he gets nothing in return and he fights the urge to punch the answer out of the man in front of him.

“Why do you look at me like that too? Huh?”

Jake steps off the edge of the wall to stand in front of him, squaring his shoulders, even though it hurts, even though he’s entire body burns from pain so badly he can barely stay upright. There’s something else under his skin too, something he can’t name, like an itch he cannot scratch.

“Tell me,” he says. It comes out cracked and pleading at the same time. “Tell me what he did.”

Quaritch’s mouth opens. Closes. The muscle in his jaw jumps again.

“Did he do something to you?”

Quaritch remains silent, avoiding Jake’s gaze at all costs, and that’s all Jake needs to know he has his answer, but it doesn’t feel enough. He needs to know.

“What did I do,” he asks and hopes that he sounds like the one who apparently brought all this misery around everyone there.

Quaritch’s eyes flick back to him as he stands up. “You-…” There is something furious and raw and hurt seething behind them. “You-… You choose them instead of us,” he says as he gestures to the forest. “…instead of me.”

All that rain made it look like he was crying, but Jake knows the Colonel is too proud for that, yet he likes to pretend that those eyes are really telling a painful truth.

“I’m sorry.”

There’s a certain tension, like the one when they’re fighting, a bit tamer. They’re so close —too close— and Jake can feel the heat radiating from Quaritch’s body. The sea of gold turns into a black hole. Their faces are inches away from touching.

“I’m sorry he made you feel so… so… betrayed.”

Quaritch opens his mouth to say something but nothing comes out. There’s something electrical pulling Jake in even more, and one second later, he surges forward. There’s a jerk of surprise when their lips crash together, followed by desperation and hunger.

Jake grabs two fistfuls of Quaritch’s soaked hoodie, pulling him even closer, and he feels claws dug into his biceps until they break skin.

They kiss again. And again. Stopping for only small breaths. Teeth clash. Fangs scrape lips. Jake makes a low, desperate noise in his throat. Quaritch growls against his mouth, pulling him tighter until their chests press together. He bits down on Quaritch’s lip, drawing blood, and he savors it like a delicacy.

Quaritch groans. “Fuck, Sully.”

Jake pulls back just enough to whisper, “Don’t call me that. I’m not him.”

They crash together again, Jake moans into the kiss, his claws dig into Quaritch’s back. Quaritch’s hand fists in his hair, pulling his head to the perfect angle to stop for a moment and leave hot trails of kisses just above Jake’s wound.

Everything ends when a big, bright light blinds both of them. They distance themselves immediately.

“Colonel, is everything alright?” One of the guards asks without taking the light away from Jake. He sees Quaritch wiping his mouth quickly.

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“It looked like-… I thought he was gonna push you off the wall, Sir. I almost shot.”

Jake notices it late, but he does, the rapid heartbeat of the soldier. It was faint from the noise of the rain, but it was beating way too rapidly. He was lying. He saw them.

“We’re fine. Go back to your post!”

There was no more room for comment, the soldier raising his rifle in the air, retreating with alert steps. Quaritch didn't move, as if stuck in time, and Jake waits for him with a naive hope that they can pick it up from where they left off. It’s a crazy thought. The simple fact that the Colonel accepted and didn't bite his head off with his teeth at such a bold gesture should have been more than enough for Jake. But it isn’t. The itch under his skin grows the longer he stays by his side.

“We’re going back,” he says, and just like the soldier, Jake doesn’t say anything back. He follows Quaritch, almost hip to hip, on the same path he took to get there.

Whatever moment they had atop of the wall, whatever spark made them both lose their minds, it vanishes as soon as they walk past the threshold. Or so it does for Quaritch, as he’s back at being his cold self.

Jake, on the other hand, can’t shake the feeling of Quaritch’s lips on his, the way he tasted, how intoxicating the man made him feel. He almost walks into a door, too caught up in his head.

Back in the Colonel's bedroom, they both strip down of their wet clothes, but Quaritch quickly changes back into a pair of fatigues and a T-shirt, starting to leave the room. Jake stops him, his hand trembling on Quaritch's.

“Can we talk, Sir?”

“Talk. Fast.” There’s so much bite in his voice. Jake lowers his head.

“Look, Sir, about the kiss-”

“It never happened,” Quaritch snaps and Jake wants to throw up. He takes his hand away, stepping back, too aware of how naked he is. He covers himself with his tail. “Go to sleep, boy. I have work to do.”

And just like that he’s gone and he takes with him Jake’s power to understand what the hell is happening. 

He doesn’t move for a long time after the door closes. He just stands there dripping, breath stuttering in and out of his chest, Quaritch’s last words echoing around in the dark like gunshots in a cave.

It never happened.

The hurt is instant, hot and nauseating, like poison in his blood. He turns away from the door, blinking hard, but the tears come anyway. He wipes at them furiously with the back of his hand, hating how shaky he is. He hates himself. He’s an idiot, a gullible idiot.

He slumps onto the edge of the bed. Rainwater drips from his hair onto the floor, forming little dark circles on the gray carpet. He can still taste Quaritch’s blood on his tongue, can still feel the way the man had grabbed him, held him. How the cold bastard had shivered when Jake bit him, as if they were both losing control at once.

Go to sleep, boy.

He lets out a raw noise, halfway between a laugh and a sob. Boy. That’s what he is to him. That’s all there is.

He remembers the soldier’s flashlight on them, the way Quaritch wiped his mouth like he was cleaning dirt off his boot, the rage on his face when he ordered the guard away. Jake’s fingers dig into his scalp hard enough to hurt. What did you think would happen? That he’d hold you all night? Tell you you're not him, not the other Sully, not a traitor? That he’d kiss you again when the lights went out?

He squeezes his eyes shut, tries to shove the memories back. But they’re right there—the heat of Quaritch’s mouth, the low growl against his lips, the claws biting into his arms. He shivers at the memory, at the ghost of pain that feels almost good now.

It did happen, Jake thinks furiously. He liked it just as much as I did.

He bends over to pick up Quaritch’s hoodie from the floor and buries his nose into the wet material. An idea pops in his head, wrong, powerful, half-wild. It gives him a twisted kind of energy, like poison being turned into fuel.

He wipes at his eyes again, straightens, and forces himself to lie down on the messy bed, curling himself into the blankets. They scratch his bruised back. His heart is still racing. He turns on Quaritch’s side, suffocating on the man’s pillow as the itch boils harder and harder, threatening to burst out from under his skin.

Outside, the rain is finally starting to let up. In his mind, the storm is just beginning.

Chapter Text

One thing was for sure, the other Jake loved to attack in the middle of the night. They had barely fallen asleep when sirens blared all over the perimeter, making them jump out of bed. There was nothing they could do, the General wouldn't let them. They couldn’t lose their biggest asset. Jake could see how frustrating this was for Quaritch, but orders were orders.

And if the constant, angry noise of the sirens wasn't enough, now they were standing in the crimson red light of the emergency generator. Perfect mixture for their tired eyes and ears. Something flies above them, the room shakes, plaster dust flows off and falls on Jake's bare chest.

Jake turns on his side to Quaritch, who was lying with his eyes closed, one arm under his head, his face as expressionless as it had been in the last agonizing weeks.

"Do you realize that if he were to raise an army, one with dozens of others like him, we wouldn't stand a chance?"

"What a way to make my night better, Sully..."

"Don't call me that," Jake spits as he glares from under his lashes, but the bastard doesn't pay any mind to him. "And just admit it, we would lose."

"We have guns and weapons of mass destruction. Those lunatics have bows and arrows, and they pray to a made up deity that lives in a fucking tree. I say we have all the advantages."

Jake scoffs at that. Under those red lights, the shining dots on their skin are glowing in orange tones. He traces them with his eyes on Quaritch arms, until they are hidden by the hem of his T-shirt. He moves his finger closer. Closer. Closer, and then he touches one.

"You told me he stole supplies and weapons. He knows our strategies. We’re on the losing side." 

The sound of an explosion in the distance makes the room shake harder, but it doesn’t compare to the anger that lies behind Quaritch’s eyes when he opens them, that makes Jake shake in fear.

“Say stuff like that again and I’ll kill you myself.”

Jake doesn’t flinch this time, but he believes every word. Deep down he knows the Colonel's words hold truth. His fingers stay pressed to that glowing dot on Quaritch’s arm.

“Yeah? Maybe I want you to do it,” he whispers. His voice is hollow, scraped raw by sleepless nights and a truth neither of them can outrun.

Quaritch grabs his wrist, hard enough that the bones creak. He glares with all the hate he can muster. But he doesn’t twist, doesn’t break it. He shoves Jake’s hand away and throws his legs over the side of the bed, scrubbing a palm over his face. All that red makes him look like he just came in from the slaughter. 

The sirens finally cut out. For a second the silence is worse than the noise.

“I have no one and you-… You don’t talk to me, you don’t look at me… One moment you act like you are my fr- mentor, and in the next, like I’m your worst nightmare. You might as well just end this.” 

Quaritch seems to be thinking as his hand slides to the waistband of his pants where he usually has the gun. Jake watches his movements, but he doesn’t feel threatened, not in that very moment. When Quaritch stands, Jake is ready for anything.

“Fuck it. Come on,” he says as he jerks his head at the door.

Jake squints at him. “What?”

“You heard me. Let’s go.”

“Where?”

Quaritch doesn’t answer, just storms out barefoot leaving Jake scrambling to catch up with him.

The attack had left the corridors empty. Quaritch drags him into areas he had never been able to enter before, even with the Colonel. They stop at a secure door and Quaritch leaves him to wait outside. Jake focuses on the sounds around him, he hears soldiers screaming, he hears gunfire and words he doesn't recognize, he hears battle cries.

Quaritch comes out with two bottles of whiskey held between his fingers; with his other hand he grabs Jake's wrist and continues his way until he is pushed into a room he has never been in before.

An interrogation room, one for humans most likely. The space is far too small for them to stand up straight. Jake wonders if someone is watching them from the other side of the mirrored wall. Quaritch motions for him to sit on the table.

“Nice place to grab a drink,” Jake mutters as he sits down.

“You don’t like it, than get the fuck back to sleep.” Quaritch’s voice is full of acid. He opens one of the bottles and drinks straight from it.

“I didn’t say that.” Jake watches him in silence, expecting his turn, but Quaritch keeps the bottles to himself. “Are you gonna share?”

Quaritch throws him a look as if he forgot for a moment that Jake was sitting next to him. He takes one good look at Jake, then at the bottle, then back at Jake before he extends his hand quickly, some drops spilling over onto Jake’s shorts. Jake tips it back, hissing as the alcohol burns down. He coughs once, then wipes his mouth with his wrist. Another rumble from outside shakes the walls.

They take turns, passing the bottle back and forth in silence while the explosions outside fade into distant thunder.

“It’s not fair that she won’t let us fight. Why do you even train me for?”

“If we go outside and we die, they might not get another twenty years to redo all this. It also costs. A lot.”

“So we are just gonna hide? Like cowards?”

“We are choosing when to strike. He-… They probably think I’m dead after our last mission. Better to keep the element of surprise.” 

They are one bottle down already. Jake’s head feels dizzy, the room spins a little, but that feeling is better than the loneliness he can’t escape. He touches Quaritch’s knee with his.

“I don’t care if I die out there. I have no one.” 

He prays in his mind that the Colonel would correct him, that he would give him the tiniest hint of hope that there’s more under that cold demeanor. The ground shakes. He takes another mouthful from the second bottle. 

“What do you want from me,” he asks Quaritch in an attempt to make the man talk to him.

“I want your loyalty, kid.” 

Jake exhales, short and humorless. “Yeah. I figured that much.”

Quaritch’s fingers wrap around Jake’s knee. “I’m serious, boy. I need you to be loyal. I need you on my side.”

Jake snorts, blinking slowly at him with bloodshot eyes. He’s exhausted, but not so far gone he can’t bite.

“‘Need,’ huh? That’s a strong word for you.”

Quaritch growls low in his chest, his other hand curling into a fist on the table. But he doesn’t pull away. Jake watches him carefully, ears flicking. The silence seems to stretch and tighten around them like a noose. Quaritch drinks and Jake fears he will lose the comforting touch.

“You want my loyalty? Fine. I’ll give it.” Quaritch’s eyes narrow, searching his face for mockery. Jake’s lips curl just a little. “But what do I get in return?”

“You get to live, boy. That’s a big reward for someone like you.”

“It means nothing for a man with a death wish.” Quaritch tries to take his hand away but Jake stops him.

“What do you want, Jake? I’m not in the mood for games.”

Jake thinks about it. No, that is a lie. He has been thinking about it ever since their kiss, ever since Quaritch’s touch lingered in the morning when he thought Jake was still asleep, ever since he caught him looking more than necessarily at him when he took a shower, ever since he heard the Colonel murmuring his name in his sleep. At first, Jake was sure he was imagining things, but as the weeks went on, he could tell Quaritch was holding back something from him. 

“I want you to be honest. For once. I want to know what I am to you when no one else is watching.”

Quaritch rips his hand away then, standing up, pacing the room like a caged animal.

“You are nothing more than a weapon. I told you that ever since you opened your eyes in my arms.”

It hurts, deep, deeper than he expected it. He cursed himself for embracing that pain, for not knowing how to turn it away.

“And him? The other me? What was he to you?”

Quaritch comes closer, hands in fists and Jake awaits the punch that never comes. He watches as the second bottle is being half-emptied. The gold in the other man’s eyes gets dimmer.

“You don’t know how lucky you are for me to allow you to speak like that, you insolent brat.”

“Loyalty is earned, Colonel,” he said, spitting the words out. “Fucking earn mine.”

For a second, Quaritch looks ready to argue, but then he stops. He takes another sip of alcohol, then hands the bottle to Jake. Jake takes it with shaking hands, their fingers quickly touching, then he knocks the bottle over his head.

It burns all the way down into his stomach. It’s nothing compared to the burning he’s feeling next to Quaritch. They lock eyes and the itch comes back, rushing from the top of his head, down toward the little tendrils of his kuru. It burns his veins, burns his senses. Everything in him screams to get as close as possible to the other man.

“I’m still waiting, Sir. What am I to you?”

Quaritch doesn't move, he stands with his hands on his hips and a look that seems lost in some memory. When Jake thinks he sees Quaritch's eyes moisten, the lights turn into a sea of red again.

“You-… You, brat… You are my biggest mistake.”

He surges forward, crashing his lips into Jake. Quaritch grips Jake’s jaw like he might snap it, like this kiss is a punishment, but Jake answers back just as hard, hands curling into the front of Quaritch’s T-shirt, dragging him closer. There are touches on his bare chest and Jake lets out moans that take him by surprise. Quaritch feels ruthless against his lips, tasting like smoke and whiskey, truths and regrets.

He’s being lifted and thrown on the table, his shoulder bumping the empty bottle, glass shattering all around them, but they can’t care less. Although the alcohol clouds his mind, Jake is determined to see his plan through. This time he won't let Quaritch get away so easily. He groans loudly as Quaritch kisses the scar on his shoulder, then pulls him closer until their hips collide, a wave of euphoria breaking through his body.

He can feel the Colonel through his shorts, as they both rut into the other. He grabs the hem of Quaritch’s T-shirt and lifts it above his head, throwing the fabric far away into the room. They clash, fight for power, bite, moan, as their minds get foggier and foggier.

“You know what else I need beside your loyalty,” Quaritch asks as he bites Jake’s neck above his jaw. Jake doesn’t have time to respond. He gets pushed down on his knees by the rough hold of his hair, right in between the Colonel’s legs. A smile and thirst settles on his lips, the gold in his eyes glowing from desire. “I need your respect,” he says as he lowers his shorts. 

Jake’s mouth water involuntarily, but holds himself back.

“Tell me what he did for you to hate him this much and I might consider it.” 

“Don’t push your luck, boy,” he growls, his patience wearing thin.

Jake licks his lips, throws his head back a little to fully look into the Colonel’s sea of gold. “If he was standing right here, in my place-,” the room shakes, the thunders roar. “If you could say it to his face, that thing you hate the most, what would it be?” He’s aware he’s playing with fire, but the look on Quaritch’s face make it all worth it.

Quaritch’s pupils flare to slits in the crimson emergency light. His fingers tighten in Jake’s hair until it stings, and for a moment Jake truly wonders if he’ll be punched instead of answered. He can feel the other man’s body shaking with rage. Finally, through his teeth, Quaritch spits:

“I’m dead because of you.” The words echo off the metal walls, louder than any gunshot. Jake blinks. It’s like the air itself thins out. He opens his mouth but nothing comes at first. He wasn’t expecting that, not death. Not this raw, ragged confession in the dark.

Quaritch’s breathing is harsh, his chest rising and falling in angry gulps. He looks like he’s about to pace, to bolt, to punch the wall until his fists split open. But he doesn’t move. He keeps his hand buried in Jake’s hair, trembling.

“You hear me?” Quaritch snarls, voice cracking. “You fucking killed me. You killed my squad. I woke up on a table with a goddamn video telling me I was nothing but a fucking backup. My son was left without his father. I’m dead, Sully. I lost everything because of you!”

Jake doesn’t know when his hands reach up, fingers curling around Quaritch’s wrists.

“Thank God I’m not him though.” He tags at the hand in his hair but it doesn’t budge. “I’m not him.” He repeats and he fucking starts to regret drinking so much. He wants to say more but the words in his head are just a whirlpool of gibberish.

“No, you’re not.” Quaritch says almost disappointed. “But you’re the next best thing.” He takes his cock out and Jake tears up at the pressure in his hair to be dragged closer. But Quaritch stops, breathing through his mouth, waiting, leaving Jake the choice. He ain’t someone to back up from a challenge. 

Only now he feels how cold the floor is against him, hard enough to make his knees ache. He doesn’t care. He grabs at Quaritch’s hips for balance, fingers digging into warm flesh. He presses his cheek there first, feeling the heat of him, the taut muscles quivering like a cornered animal. He can’t remember when he’s done something like this the last time. Definitely some years ago, behind some bar, with a guy he never saw again.

Quaritch hisses out a curse, both his hands dropped to fist in Jake’s hair.

“Look at you,” he growls, voice wrecked. “If only the other one was as willing as you…”

Jake doesn’t answer but it angers him. He wants Quaritch to only think of him, not the other Sully. He was here now, he was taking the pain from the Colonel, he was seeking his attention. 

He breathes in deep, inhaling sweat, sweetness, whiskey, him. The world above them is chaos—sirens still screaming in the distance, the base still shaking from distant gunfire. But here, in this dark little room, it’s all so quiet except for them.

Jake kisses his way up the line of Quaritch’s hip, slow, reverent, dragging his lips across sensitive skin. He can feel the tremor in Miles’s legs, the way his breath stutters. He wants to burn this moment into memory.

He drags his fangs down towards the base of the cock, painfully slow, huffing out hot air, and the way Quaritch’s cock jumps in response, makes his own twitch in the confinement of his shorts.

When he takes him into his mouth, it’s with all the obedience and defiance that defines him. He goes slow at first, drawing it out, letting the muffled sounds above them dissolve into something low and desperate in Quaritch’s throat.

“I won’t beg, you little brat.” 

Quaritch’s fingers tighten painfully in his hair, trying to control the pace. Jake resists a moment, earning a frustrated snarl. But then he gives in, taking him deeper.

He works him with his mouth, with his tongue, eyes fluttering shut as the taste floods him, head bobbing with messy, hungry devotion. His jaw aches but he doesn’t stop. He takes it all the way in, until it hits the back of his throat and he’s choking on it. He’s kept there, with his nose flat on the smooth pelvis.

He can hear Quaritch’s breathing fall apart, the cursing dissolving into broken fragments.

“Fuck… Jake—”

The name tears out of him like a confession. 

Jake’s own eyes burn. He grips Quaritch’s hips tighter, nails digging in, holding on like he’ll be ripped away if he doesn’t. He’s aware of everything: the way Quaritch shakes, the heat in his own stomach, the dizzying sense of power in submission. 

He’s so far gone that he just can’t help rutting on the man’s leg like a dog in heat, chasing his own release as he lets Quaritch use his mouth as he pleases.

He moans around him when he feels the tip of a boot pressing into his cock, and it’s enough to push Quaritch over the edge.

Quaritch’s whole body seizes. He lets out a strangled sound that’s almost a sob, fingers wrenching Jake’s hair so hard that his scalp burns. Jake swallows it all, tears staining the sides of his face.

He lets out a broken sob when he’s released from the painful grip, because he wants the feeling back, wants to be filled again by something that would cease the emptiness inside him.

“Good boy.”

The praise goes straight to his cock and he shudders when Quaritch picks him up in his arms and places him in his lap. He kisses the side of Jake’s neck while palming his soaked shorts.  

“Please, Sir. Please.” He doesn’t know what he’s begging for. 

“You’re sure you want me,” Quaritch asks as his hand slips in Jake’s shorts, a single finger teasing the head of his cock. Jake can’t stop squirming in the man’s lap, desperate for more.

“Yeah. Yeah, just, please…”

Quaritch strokes him through the thin fabric, slow and deliberate, making Jake twitch and gasp. His thumb rubs over Jake in slow, cruel circles. Jake buries his face in Quaritch’s neck, muffling broken sounds against his skin.

The red lights stutter with another distant explosion. The base feels like it’s falling apart around them, just like how Jake’s mind is falling apart for the man that holds all the power over him.

Quaritch frees him from his shorts with rough, uncoordinated hands. Jake’s breath catches, body arching.

“Miles… Please!”

The name is a prayer, a curse. His salvation. His doom.

Quaritch starts moving his hand in earnest. He knows exactly what he’s doing, every twist of his wrist, every squeeze making Jake sob softly. Jake clings to him like he’ll fall apart without him.

“Let’s see if they were right,” he hears the Colonel mumbling as his finger lowers pass Jake’s cock to his hole. Jake freezes when that finger touches something wet that’s leaking out between his ass checks. The room spins like crazy, he barely registers the voice near him. He spreads his legs further when the finger enters him with complete ease. Any slight movement rips out louder and louder moans from him. 

“Look at you,” Quaritch growls against his ear. “Fucking mess for me.” It echoes in his mind. Time becomes blurry.

Fucking mess

So tight

Want me

Jake

He looks down and sees his shorts around his ankles, Quaritch’s fingers between his legs, his fingers —three of them— glistening in the red light with each thrust. He whimpers, nails scraping down Quaritch’s thigh.

“Please,” Jake gasps. “Please don’t stop—don’t—”

“Shh. I’ve got you.” Claws scrap his insides, he shivers from the scorching fire in his belly.  

Got you

Do it for me

Right there

Jake

Jake

“Jake.”

The fluorescent light blinds him as he opens his eyes. His head and back ache, and he quickly notices that they are still in the interrogation room, half-naked. His back is warm. Quaritch is behind him, one arm slung lazily over Jake’s stomach, the heavy weight of it anchoring him in place.

“You passed out on me, boy.” He laid there still, frozen for just a second, before it all crashes back down on him—the touches, the heat, the roughness of it, the way he had melted into it all. For a moment last night was nothing but a distant memory.

Not now. Now it’s time for his plan.

He rolls out from under Quaritch’s arm with a speed that startled even himself, his bare feet crunching slightly over some unseen shard of glass. Quaritch stirs, confused.

“Jake?”

Jake’s already pulling his pants up. Hands trembling, his mind clawing for clarity through the fog.

“What are you doing?” Quaritch’s voice is groggy, deep, confused— vulnerable. He almost feels pity for what he’s about to do.

“I need to leave,” Jake says quickly, refusing to look at him.

Jake bolts down the hallway.

“Jake, wait—goddamn it!” Quaritch’s boots thunder behind him.

He keeps moving, fast, focused. He doesn’t look back until the hallway narrows and he’s nearly at the cross that leads back to Quaritch’s room. A hand catches his arm and spins him around.

“Would you stop for one second and listen to me!” Quaritch growls, face wild with something between fury and disbelief.

Jake doesn’t flinch. He rips his arm away and stares at him like a stranger. “There’s nothing to talk about. Nothing happened. Right?” he throws the words like a knife. “Nothing ever happens between us.”

Quaritch stiffens, jaw clenching. “Don’t twist my words.”

“I’m just repeating them.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Then what do you mean?” Jake challenges, eyes narrowed. The Colonel opens his mouth but nothing comes out. “The kiss never happened. Last night sure as hell never happened. Isn’t this what you want?.” 

Jake turns again, and that’s what breaks him.

“You’re not walking away from me!” Quaritch snaps.

“Tell me I’m wrong,” Jake demands, still standing with his back at Quaritch. But he doesn’t get a response, so he keeps on walking. 

No one follows him. 

—

After the night of drinking, Jake did his best to stay away from the Colonel. It didn't prove too difficult considering how stubborn Quaritch was. In the mornings, he made sure to wake up first, leaving the room quietly, eating his breakfast in the corridors or outside by the hangars.

During practice, he stayed as far away from Quaritch as possible, avoiding any physical contact. He could see on Quaritch's face that the rejection was affecting him.

And then there were the little signs. The way he woke up at night with Quaritch wrapped around his body, the way he made up stupid excuses like saving resources to shower together. Worst of all, Quaritch had limited his access card to the base, forcing Jake to look for him every time he wanted to go anywhere other than the bedroom or the mess hall.

He didn't have much to do but train. He wakes up with the idea of running. Quaritch was also awake, his right hand buried in Jake's thigh, but Jake pushes him away and gets out of bed, looking for something clean to put on. The first thing he sees is a T-shirt that doesn't belong to him. He makes a big show of getting dressed. Out of the corner of his eye, he clearly sees the Colonel's erection. He has him on the net. The only thing missing is for Quaritch to give up the facade that there’s nothing going on between them.

Outside is still dark, the eclipse engulfing everything in a blue hue, but there are always guards posted on the upper catwalks of the west wall. Jake’s not surprised when he hears the soft click of a rifle as he passes beneath them.

He keeps running.

“Hey, Sully,” one of them calls out. The nickname snaps against his back like a whip. “Where you off to? Don’t need to run—we’ll carry your traitorous ass to the grave just fine.”

Laughter.

Jake slows. Something in his chest snaps. He turns, squinting up at the wall.

There’s three of them. Rifles slung lazily, eyes sharp. He recognizes one of them. It’s the same guard that saw them kissing on the wall.

“You got something to say?” he calls, keeping his voice steady despite the simmer in his veins. He knows he’s not allowed to start fights, but enough is enough with these rats that keep on mocking him.

The tallest of the three steps forward, boots heavy on the grated platform. “We all do, Sully. You just pretend not to hear it.”

Jake’s fists clench. 

“You think we forgot how many of us are dead because of what you’ve done? You think we don’t see the way Quaritch treats you? Like you’re his pet Na’vi project—his little blue lapdog? You betrayed us for a bitch and this time you turned into one.”

“Fuck off,” Jake snarls through gritted teeth. “I haven’t killed anyone.”

“I suppose you’re right,” the soldier replies, looking bored, “you’re worse. At least the real Sully fought for something. You? You’re just a ghost in a freak’s skin. The Colonel’s cum-dump.”

His blood’s boiling. He barely keeps it together. 

“Keep talking,” he says, taking a step forward. “I fucking dare you.”

“You want a real fight, traitor?” the soldier asks, lifting his rifle. “Let’s make it fair then.”

The man raises the barrel. The safety clicks off.

He reacts to it too slow, doesn’t even have time to duck down before he hits the ground in pain. He looks down where there’s a hole inside his T-shirt, blood darkening the material around it. It hits right above his hip. He screams when he puts pressure on it.

One of the soldiers hops down from the wall. The other two are behind him, approaching like vultures. 

Jake tries to crawl backward, fingers slipping in blood.

“You shouldn’t be here,” one mutters. “You shouldn’t even be alive.” He pulls out a knife and Jake stumbles backwards. The blade is at his throat before he can blink. They force his hands above his head, tying them with plastic cuffs that bite into his skin like blades. 

He cries out when one of them presses his foot on the wound, blood spurting out. He tries to bite them, to get them off him, but all he manages to do is get hit in the mouth with the rifle, the impact making him bite his tongue. Another knife is stuck in the wound, the bullet is moved and embedded in the wound and he can't stop his screams and tears.

They stab his tail, stab his legs, kick him with their boots in the ribs. He fights against the restrains, the flesh around his wrists breaking open. The soldier that shot him straddles him and sits down on his neck, crushing his throat with their boots weight. The knife dances in front of his face, too close to his eyes. The tip of it slashes the bridge of his nose.

“You should burn in hell, you sonovabitch.”

The plastic breaks and the rage inside him turns crimson red. He grabs the man by the head, engulfing him in his fist and throws him off on the wall with all his force. The crack of bones is music to his ears. The body leaves an imprint of blood in the concrete. He smirks.

“Drop your weapons! Now!” He hears above him. The voice cuts like a blade through the air, cold and commanding.

The soldiers freeze, rifles halfway raised, blood on their hands. One looks down at the body slumped against the wall—the one Jake flung like a rag-doll. It twitches once, then stills completely. Blood pours from his nose and ears. No one moves.

I killed a man. It leaves him feeling nothing.

When Quaritch appears above him, Jake instinctively crawls closer. One look at him is all it takes for Quaritch's eyes to darken.

“What the fuck did you do?”

One of the soldiers begins to stammer, “Sir, he- he provoked us- he snapped- he-” Quaritch grabs him by the vest and throws him at the wall with less force than Jake did.

“He’s my responsibility! My soldier! You don’t lay a finger on him unless I give the order!”

Then he’s at Jake’s side, picking him up and rushing towards the med bay. They leave a trail of blood behind them.

Doctors and scientists surround them as soon as they enter the room. Gloves, white coats, scalpels, bandages. Panic seizes him and takes his breath away, he clutches Quaritch's shoulders with his claws. The Colonel lays him down on the table and clamps an oxygen mask over his face. 

“Don't leave me,” Jake begs. Quaritch pulls up a chair next to him and takes his hand in his.

“I’m not going anywhere.” 

He's never been one to be afraid of a little blood, but for some reason he can't bear to look at what the doctors are doing, so he keeps his gaze fixed on the golden eyes. He hisses in pain as they put alcohol on his wounds. Quaritch squeezes him tighter.

He feels tweezers going in to pull out the bullet. He cries, tears blurring his vision.

“I’m sorry,” he rasps out. “I caused this.”

Quaritch shushes him. “They’ll pay for this. They laid their hands on a minor. They’re done. I’ll see it through personally.”

“I’m a Na’vi. I’m not- not a kid.”

“I don’t care what you are. You’re seventeen. They shot you, hurt you… I’ll do much worse.”

“No, please. They hate me already … Agh!” He takes a deep breath as they start sewing him up.

They treat and bandage his wrists, his tail. Quaritch doesn’t take his eyes away from him, not even for a second. 

It’s agonizing and they move torturously slow, but it gets done. 

—

Despite the advanced medicine and treatments he receives, it takes Jake a full week to recover to be able to walk around on his own. The other wounds healed perfectly, but the bullet left a scar, round, light blue. His skin is still sensitive around the area. 

The shower he took by himself felt like a small victory. He wipes the steaming mirror with his arm, the face in the reflection looking foreign to him. If he concentrated, he could see the other Jake in his features, the mature version of him. But most of the time he saw what Quaritch saw. A teenager.

He fears for his future, an uncertain one, dictated by all the other people more powerful than him. The confrontation between him and the soldiers had reached the General's ears. Everyone had learned that a man had died because of him. Ardmore personally threatened him that his mission—his life—would be over if such a mistake were to happen again. They threatened to lock him up for a month in one of the basement cells. Quaritch fought for him and was left with two weeks in which he was not allowed to leave Quaritch's quarters.

He’s afraid of the other soldiers. They all know. They all hold grudges against him, old and new. Quaritch assured him that they won’t try something like that again, but now he fears sleeping at night, even though no one else gets access to their bedroom. He fears drinking water and eating the rations Quaritch brings from the cafeteria, even though the Colonel eats the exact same thing. He fears the doctors when they check his bandages, fears the syringes full of substances that could just as well be poison.

He fears for his life with all he has. His only salvation is the man that he had been avoiding like the plague.

He breaks down crying, barely holding himself up by the edges of the sink. He doesn’t want this life, doesn’t want to be a clone. He just wants to be himself. He presses his forehead harder against the cool glass of the mirror, arms wrapped around himself as if he could hold together the pieces of his own fractured self. The mirror fogs with the heat of the shower still clinging to the room, distorting his reflection into a trembling silhouette. He can’t stop the tears. The warmth from the body pressed to his back eases his mind for a tiny bit, until the cascade of tears fall down without his consent.

“It hurts,” he whispers. “It hurts so much.” 

He closes his eyes and leans back against Quaritch’s chest, forehead still pressed to the mirror but now cushioned by the Colonel’s warm flesh. The sobs come harder, and Quaritch holds him closer, one arm wrapped securely around his waist, the other cradling Jake’s hand against his own heart.

After a long moment, Jake’s tears slow, his breath evening out. He lifts his head slightly and meets his own eyes in the glass—eyes rimmed red, hair plastered to his scalp, blue skin pale where the bandages have come off. And behind him, reflected in the same glass, stands Quaritch: bags under his eyes, concerned, yet unwavering. Standing guard.

Quaritch brushes a stray curl away from Jake’s forehead and presses a soft kiss there, gentle, like nothing Jake felt before. “I’m right here.”

Jake swallows, voice raw. “I’m scared. Everyone hates me, everyone wants me dead.”

“No one’s gonna hurt you. I won’t allow it,” Quaritch replies, guiding Jake away from the sink and toward their shared bed. The sheets are cool and crisp. Quaritch helps Jake lie down, easing him onto his good side so his injured one isn’t bearing weight. Jake stiffens at the movement, the scar across his hip throbbing in protest.

Without breaking eye contact, Quaritch gently massages the muscles around the scar, careful to avoid the stitch line but firm enough to ease the tension. Jake’s breath hitches, pain mixing with the unexpected tenderness. When the Colonel’s fingers brush over the light blue circle, Jake closes his eyes and allows himself to lean into the touch.

Quaritch shifts so that he’s curled behind Jake, one arm tucked under the younger man’s shoulder, the other trailing down to hold Jake’s hand. Fingers intertwine, and for the first time in days, Jake feels anchored. The hope in Quaritch’s steady heartbeat beneath his palm is a promise—a promise that the threats of Ardmore and the embittered soldiers can’t reach here.

“It still hurts.” His voice sounds so small, so fragile.

“Where?”

Jake presses their intertwined hands closer to his heart. A shiver runs down his spine as Quaritch grabs his braid, toying with the end of it between his fingers.

“There’s something we can do that might help you.”

Quaritch leans back, his kuru slowly uncoiling from the base of his neck. “Tsaheylu.” Jake freezes. “Did they tell you what that is?”

Jake nods his head. “Yeah. A bond that cannot be broken.”

“This pain of yours..,” Quaritch trails off. “If we bond… I can take it. Some of it, maybe all. I’ve read about it. Learned things… when I was out there.”

Jake pushes up on his elbow, too scared to fall on false hopes. “You… you’d do that? With me?”

“We’re stuck together anyway. There’s no one out there like us, no one that would accept the things that we’ve become.”

Jake stares at him for a long moment, lips parted. The ache in his body is only half of it—the other half is the ache in his mind, his soul, his fractured sense of self. He doesn’t answer aloud, but after a breath, he shifts up with a bit of help onto his knees and reaches slowly for his braid from Quaritch’s hand.

Their kurus extend at the same time, swaying like threads in water. They hover—an inch apart—waiting.

“Did- did the other one do this?” Jake whispers.

“I’m certain he did. He used it to betray us. We’re gonna use it to be stronger, better, indestructible. ”

The kurus connect.

There is no delay. No gradual build. It hits, like an explosion of light inside Jake’s skull. He falls. But not physically—he falls into Quaritch. The room is gone. The pain is gone. He is everywhere.

His breath catches in his throat as a tidal wave of sensation floods through him, heat, affection, protection, guilt, love. It pours into his bones like liquid starlight. His heartbeat becomes Quaritch’s heartbeat. He feels the Colonel’s arms before they move, feels the steady thunder of concern in the man’s chest. Every bruise Jake carries is mirrored in Quaritch now. His pain siphons away like it’s being drawn out gently, replaced by warmth.

Jake gasps, eyes wide and wet.

Through Quaritch’s mind, Jake sees himself. Not as a burden. Not as a child. But as firelight in the dark. Beautiful. Fragile. Brave. A miracle, shaped by scars.

“He’s so much better,” Quaritch’s thought hums like a whisper against his heart.

Jake trembles, his breath shallow, as the memories come one by one like they are his. Quaritch’s first breath in his Avatar body, the rush, the fear, the disorientation. His first glimpse of Jake across a forest, surrounded by small Na’vi, alive and wild. The sharp stab of betrayal, and the haunting years of not knowing why. The fight on a sinking sheep, a tension like no other, rage and lust, a life on the brink of death. And then… Jake. A new Jake. Stubborn. Playful. Determined. His.

Jake sees them all and sobs, clutching at Quaritch’s shirt now, unable to separate himself from the flood of emotions.

“Colonel,” he breathes.

“Don’t call me that,” Quaritch whispers into his hair. “When it’s just the two of us, I’m Miles.”

Jake nods shakily, presses his forehead against Quaritch’s chest. He realizes he’s not even breathing anymore, as Quaritch does it for both of them. “Did you feel my pain, Jake? Have you seen what y- he has done to me?”

“I’ve seen it all.”

Jake takes a moment to breathe on his own, to think for himself.

That’s when unwanted images pop back into his head. He sees himself in the wheelchair and he feels Quaritch’s curiosity, the care, the desire to be near. He sees the older Jake and he feels the betrayal, the hurt, the want to harm and take revenge. But then he sees the Jake from the ship again and he feels Quaritch’s eyes on both of them at the same time, one filled with want, with desire.

Jake’s stomach twists.

He pulls back slightly. Not all the way, but enough that Quaritch’s arms drop to his sides.

“Am I just… a way to get that back?” Jake asks, heart thudding. “Some twisted second chance to have him back for yourself?”

“No,” Quaritch says, quick, too quick. “You told me yourself several times. You’re not him.”

Jake’s eyes burn. “But I look like him. I sound like him. I feel like him—don’t I?”

Quaritch grabs his hand again, tighter. “I wouldn’t know. I never kissed him, never touched him. You’re the first to have that privilege.”

Jake opens his mouth to speak—but then, just for a split second, he hears a thought that wasn’t meant to come through.

“But I can have you in all the ways I want. His perfect split image.”

Jake goes still. Ice in his veins. He pulls his hand away. They break the bond, but some pieces don’t go quiet. Not yet.

“I’m so tired,” Jake mutters, turning onto his uninjured side. His head is pulled back gently by the braid, lips stolen into a long kiss. He kisses back despite the pain coming back to his chest. When Quaritch lets go, Jake stares at the wall, wide-eyed. He doesn’t cry. Doesn’t speak. Just lies there, the warmth from the bond fading, and a cold seed of doubt blooming where it used to be.

He doesn’t know if what they shared was real—or just a ghost reaching for another ghost. Maybe they were both long gone, unable to be saved from their past. Maybe what Quaritch was offering was the best outcome for people like them. Maybe he shouldn’t have said yes so quickly. Maybe they were both going insane.

Maybe, one day, your heart will be filled with love for me.

Chapter Text

Prove yourself

Prove yourself

Prove yourself

That's what he hears anytime he closes his eyes lately, the bit of aftermath from his and Quaritch's bonding sessions. 

Something had changed between them since the day they made tsaheylu—something too deep for Jake to put into words. He even felt different, as if a part of his psyche had stayed behind with Quaritch. But a part of his world felt like it belonged to the Colonel from the moment he took his first breath and locked eyes, like a child, to the man that haunted his every thought.

Most of the time, he still felt like he had a noose around his neck, choked daily by the looks and words of those around him. Ardmore would’ve shot him if she could, and he’d tear her apart if the cost didn’t outweigh the satisfaction.

Blood. It was a new, strange craving of his. The doctors told him it was because he’d lost a lot of iron when he was shot. Quaritch often said that was just his nature as a Marine, always thirsty for the liquor of life.

A whimper pulls him out of his thoughts, but the sound dies as the blade he stole from Quaritch sinks through muscle and bone. His skin is soaked in blood from head to toe, his hair stuck to his scalp, blood seeping under his claws, running down his face, into his mouth. For a split second, he catches his reflection in a puddle and nearly fires a bullet at it. Nearly. Blue skin erased by red. Only red and a touch of shimmery gold. Maybe that was his real color all along.

—

The jungle does not let go easily.

It clings to Jake like a second skin, leaf rot and florescent marrow stitched into the seams of his pores. His hands turned black, webbed with dried blood like old paint on canvas that stretches all the way to his shoulders, trembling from the effort to get there. Each step across the metallic causeway leading back into Bridgehead rings out like a challenge, a wet slap of bare foot against iron, one after another, unyielding. To be locked up again behind concrete and stillness when the outside world gives him the sweet taste of recklessness, a sense of achievement, a reward in the kills he made, feels like a cruel punishment.

Behind him, the body he’s been carrying for four days drags like dead weight through a waking dream. The avatar corpse leaves a long sickly dark color across the floor, its arm twisted in Jake’s grip like a leash. The creature once had a name, a heartbeat, but now it’s nothing more than Jake’s offering. His proof. His price of entry.

A dozen soldiers stand on the catwalks above. Rifles lowered. Mouths slightly open. No one moves.

The alarm hasn’t even finished cycling through its warning when someone shouts, “He’s ours! Let him in!” But the gate is already opening, creaking like some ancient beast stirring from sleep, floodlights stabbing through the darkness to illuminate the horror they’re letting in.

Jake steps through the threshold with his head held high.

His bare skin shivers from a gust of wind, the remains of his torn cargo pants doing too little to protect him. His tail drags the ground behind him, twitching sporadically. There’s too much blood to tell where his wounds end and the others begin. A red river marks his trail, from the cut an arrow left above his calf. Pandora has swallowed him whole and spit him back out wearing her warpaint.

He smiles out of instinct, a feral baring of teeth. An echo of the creature he’s become. The way the humans look at him now, with a mix of revulsion and awe, it makes something hot flicker in his chest. Fear. Respect. That’s what Quaritch always wanted him to earn. Isn’t it?

He passes soldiers who step aside from his way, watching the corpse bump down the stairs behind him, head lolling loosely, yellow eyes glassy, wide and lifeless. The kuru—perfectly cut with Quaritch’s blade—wraps around Jake’s neck like a prize medal, smeared in gore.

And then comes the screech.

It tears through the sky, pumping Jake’s blood in his veins. Quaritch’s ikran devours the knight sky, a massive beast, circling once before landing hard atop a cargo container stacked high near the main square. The beast puffs its chest, flaring wings like a warning. But Jake doesn’t flinch. It was a magnificent creature, and yet Quaritch had never let him touch it, never even let him imagine flying one even though he begged for the chance. But Jake had felt it through tsaheylu, how Quaritch was terrified that one day he might run, might begin to resemble the Na’vi again, might leave him behind. He cranes his neck up, eyes narrowing at the figure crouched high above.

The Colonel stands there, mounted on the ikran, like a statue carved in marble. A shadow chiseled out of steel and rage. He looks just as bad as Jake, dirty with sweat and mud, tired, his body marked by bruises that Jake doesn’t recognize.

Jake’s pace slows. The heat of a thousand stares burns across his skin, but he only has eyes for one man. One bastard god. One predator in the shape of a man who built him from another man’s sins.

He reaches the bottom of the container and drops the body at its base with a dull, wet thud. "Colonel,” Jake rasps, lowering his head in submission.

No answer.

He takes a step closer, neck tilted up. “I brought you proof of where my loyalty stands.”

Still, no movement. No words.

“I picked a side,” Jake growls, louder now, for everyone to hear. “Your side!”

Quaritch doesn’t even blink.

Jake’s knees buckle, but he doesn’t fall. His body is too full of stubborn rot to allow that. He steps back and shoves the corpse with the toe of his foot, making it roll halfway onto its back. The face tilts toward the light, young, blue-skinned, mangled but unmistakable. A warrior of both worlds. Jake’s voice drops to a whisper, so low only the wind and Quaritch can hear.

“I did what you taught me. What he wouldn’t.”

That last word hangs in the air like smoke. The original. The ghost. The real Jake Sully. The man who lives in the marrow of every movement he makes. Jake doesn’t know where he ends and that traitorous man begins. He only knows he won’t repeat his mistakes.

The lights buzz inside his skull. The base watches. Quaritch finally moves. He jumps from the ikran. A sound like a bomb goes off as he lands in front of Jake, boots slamming the metal beneath them. The ikran screams behind him, tail lashing, sensing the shift. Fight or flight. Jake barely breathes now, the sense of pride gone as fear creeps in. Golden eyes burn through him.

“Do you have the slightest idea of what the fuck you caused?” Quaritch’s hands find him by the throat before he can breathe properly. The wind is knocked from his chest, his spine slammed against a pillar, metal biting into bone. He barely touches the ground with the tip of his foot. “I had six search parties looking for you. We lost time and resources. You ran away from me!”

Jake doesn’t answer, can’t really with the pressure on his throat. His head lolls a little to the side, eyes wild and filled with fear, chocking on his own spit.

“Say something!”

“I-… did this… for you.”

Quaritch’s grip tightens. Jake hears a high, bright ringing in his ears, like a wire snapping in slow motion. The world sways sideways. Pressure builds behind his eyes until they water. His body spasms once, but he makes no move to break free. He only lets his arms dangle at his sides, slack and defeated.

Quaritch leans in. His breath is warm and on Jake’s cold skin. Despite the pain, Jake thinks of the man’s lips, of his touch, of how much he missed him.

“You disappear for thirteen days,” the Colonel growls, “then drag this mess back here like a mutt with a bone, and think that’s proof?”

Jake doesn’t try to speak again. His tongue is heavy. Useless. But his eyes—those traitorous mirrors of a past self, pleading things—search Quaritch’s face with all the softness he can muster. He hopes it’s stronger than words, strong enough for the grip on his throat to loosen.

Instead, Quaritch slams him harder against the pillar. Jake grunts with the little breath left in him, the metal digs into his spine like a knife.

“You don’t get to choose when to act like a soldier,” Quaritch spits. “You follow my orders, or you’re nothing.”

Jake forces his throat to work. He grits his teeth and struggles to breathe through his nose until the fire in his chest cools enough to shape words again.

“I am nothing,” he rasps. “Nothing… but what you made me... Miles.”

That does it.

Quaritch jerks back, releasing him. Jake drops like a stone, the world tilting on its axis, stars bursting in his vision. The moment his knees hit the steel, he coughs in spurts, throat burning, the familiar taste of copper back on his tongue.

But still, he doesn’t look away. His head snaps up. He wipes his mouth on the back of his hand, smearing a bruise across his jaw. There’s something feral behind his eyes now, something cracked open.

“You said I was a weapon,” Jake says, voice hoarse but steady. “So why won’t you use me?”

The wind rolls over them in waves, dragging the jungle’s breath through the open yard, filled with the scent of moss, rot, oil, death. Then, Quaritch crouches, slow, until he’s at the same level with him. He grabs Jake’s jaw, fingers digging into a cut, the wound re-opening, more blood blooming under Quaritch’s touch.

“If you run away from me again…” The threat it’s left there in the air, without the need to be spelled out loud. “Get up and follow me.” The world goes back to spinning around them. “One of you, get rid of this damn body!”

He follows Quaritch silently, holding himself up by clinging with his shaking fingers on the Colonel’s belt. They don’t get far before Ardmore makes an entrance, fuming with too much rage for that tiny body of hers.

“Colonel, a word.” Quaritch nods and starts walking towards her, but Jake doesn’t let go of him. “Alone,” she continues and turns her back on them. Quaritch sighs, rubbing his forehead between his long fingers.

“Go hit the shower. You reek of death. I’ll find you afterwards.”

Follow orders and obey

Follow orders and obey

Follow orders and obey

The water isn’t hot. It slaps against his skin in heavy sheets, cold as steel, twice as punishing. No steam, no comfort. Just pressure. Just noise. He stands there under the torrent, body half-hunched, arms braced against the stained tile wall. His head hangs low, the hair that braids his kuru hangs loose like roots on his chest. The blood doesn’t come off easy. Some of it flakes off like rust. Some of it sticks and stains, and he has to scrub until his knuckles shine raw, until the jungle’s fingerprints are erased from the lines of his hands.

His body feels foreign yet again. He feels like a machine with chipped paint and a cracked frame, still running because someone forgot to turn it off.

Water runs in all shades of red for a long time. He watches all the grime swirl to the drain, but he still feels dirty. It doesn’t take long after for his mind to catch up with what he actually did these past days. It sickens him. He fights the urge to throw up.

He straightens slowly, neck aching, tail twitching with phantom pain. The bruises bloom more vivid now that they’re clean, purple, blue, the soft green of decay. He exhales, running his fingers around his throat, on the sensitive spots where he knows Quaritch left deep bruises.

What did I become?

He sees the faces of all the Na’vi he killed, sees the eyes of the first life he took. A boy that didn’t look much older than he was. He came running towards Jake, calling him by a name he didn’t recognize in that strange language of theirs, and it looked like the boy knew him, or heard of him. He shot him without hesitation, bullet nested perfectly between the boy’s brows. And that’s what gets him now, that he didn’t pause, that he didn’t think for one second. He just acted.

His fingers flex against the wall, nails scraping at the grout like he could dig something out, that part of him that used to stop and ask. Ask who was right. Ask what it cost.

“I’ve got you.” Hands wrap around his chest, scrubbing gently on the last remains of dirt and he leans back towards the heat of the Colonel’s body. The shower is stopped and suddenly they’re left in too much silence.

“How much trouble am I in with Ardmore?”

“None, for now. I lied to her that I sent you there and lost you. She wanted to make sure that won’t happen again anytime soon, but she demands a report on what you witnessed out there.”

“Can it wait ‘til morning?”

“It can.”

Quaritch turns him around, his anger gone. His fingers run over Jake’s bruises, they coil back around his throat.

“I’m sorry…but you twisted my hand.”

“I know. I’m sorry too, Sir. But… you wouldn’t have let me go otherwise.”

“Damn right,” Quaritch scuffs as his hands travel further down.

“I survived,” Jake whispers. “To everyone’s disappointment. It wasn’t that bad after all.” The hands stop on his hips, drawing circles around his hip bones. His tail coils around Quaritch’s leg, his heart calms down knowing he’s back in a safe place.

“How did you do it?”

“Like you taught me. I kept a low profile, hide my tracks and my scent. I haunted, ate the food raw most of the time to avoid fires. The first time I lit one was when one of them found me... my first kill. He called me by a strange name, Toruk-something.”

“Toruk Makto.” Quaritch whispers it, using that accent of theirs and Jake runs the words over and over again in his head. He almost misses the lost look in Quaritch’s eyes.

“What does it mean?”

“It means ‘Toruk’s rider’. That’s a bigger ikran, a titan of this floating rock. It’s at least three times bigger than my own.”

“And I rode that,” Jake asks a bit too enthusiastically, until Quaritch gives him a look. “Right, the other one did.”

“What else did you do?”

“I killed.” For you.

Quaritch moves closer, their faces inches apart. Jake hesitates to touch Quaritch for fear of further damaging what's between them, but Quaritch does it for both of them. His lips touch Jake's cheek, leaving small kisses that reach behind his ear. “It didn’t scare me. I felt nothing.”

“As you should.”

A leg slips between Jake's, and he is pushed gently into the cold, damp wall. Quaritch grabs his wrists in one hand and holds them above his head. Kisses flow down Jake's neck.

“I wish you were there with me to see it. I missed you.”

“Hmm,” Quaritch murmurs in his hair. “Maybe, next time, don’t run from me, kid.” He bits down on Jake’s shoulder, on the same goddamn spot he did all those weeks ago. Jake knew it was him. It stings and he leans more into the wall to get away from the fangs, but Quaritch’s hold on him leaves little space to move. The pain, the closeness, the words, they all go to his cock. He moans as he rubs himself against the man’s leg, while Quaritch licks away his new wound.

But then he stops. He stops everything. He lets go of Jake and steps back, admiring the state he’s left in. And just like that, he turns on his hills and walks out the bathroom. Jake is left dumbfounded.

“Where the fuck are you going?” He shouts after him, standing in the same spot.

“Punishment, kid,” Quaritch shouts back, half-laughing.

Whatever rage is left in him, comes out bubbling like lava from a volcano. He didn't do all this for nothing. He didn't throw himself into danger, he didn't take lives, and he didn't come back with scars and flesh between his teeth so he wouldn't get what he wants now.

He storms into the bedroom and basically jumps on Quaritch’s back, dragging him towards the bed.

“I fucking want you!” He leaves wet kisses on every bit of skin that comes his way, but it’s short-lived as Quaritch grabs him by the kuru and shoves him off on the floor.

“I almost find you adorable when you’re desperate.” There’s still that bit of laughter behind his voice. “But I think it’s better if you sit a while with what you did while I-”

“I left to find Sully.”

 That stops Quaritch mid-step, the darkness in the sea of gold expending as the seconds passed.

“You what?”

“I left to find him… try and bring him to you. Stupid, I know, you don’t have to say it. But I thought that if I do it… you’d-… I’d be the only one on your mind.”

“Jake-”

“I wanted-… I-”

Lips pressed to silence his thoughts, stealing his breath. Jake clings to Quaritch’s neck like a lifeline, the rope pulling him out of the endless pit he’s been trapped in. Their tongues twist hungrily, claws digging into his back in a desperate need to be close. Jake tears the clothes from Quaritch—too many, all in his way.

Frustration and anger surface in small bites, teeth dragging over sensitive spots, the thread of both their lives held in each other’s hands. He wants to scream in the Colonel’s face that he’s tired of the pampering, of being careful, of acting like there’s any morals left in either of them. He wants it quick, brutal, but he doesn’t find the words. And he can see the restraint that still lingers in Quaritch, the walls he kept building like it would make any difference.

“Do I have to beg,” Jake asks as he punches Quaritch in the chest.

“If you give me this, I won’t let you give it to anyone else, Jake. Ever. You understand that?”

“I don’t care. Fucking take it. Take whatever you want, just… just do something.”

His mind betrays him. He wonders if Sully ever wished to get this close, to be under so much power, to share it, to cherish it. Patience runs thin. He grabs Quaritch’s hand and shoves it between his legs. “Just do it. Do it. Come on.” Take from me what you couldn’t take from him. Take it all and leave me with nothing.

Fingers split him open on the floor, he dugs his claws in the bare steel, slick drips from his entrance.  Golden sea meets golden sea, turning into oceans. He screams out his name as Quaritch fucks him with three fingers, deep and fast… deeper until they have nowhere to go, yet it still doesn’t feel enough. Jake cries out, tears building up in the corner of his eyes from the stimulation, fire burning in the pits of his stomach. Quaritch grabs his hands to stop him from moving. Their grunts sound feral, ripped open from all the impatience built up.

Then he feels the man’s cock smearing itself in the pool of slick gathered between his legs. He bits down on his lower lip, preparing itself.

“Tell me you want me,” Quaritch demands.

“I want you,” Jake lets out between tiny sobs.

“Look me in the eyes when you say it.”

It’s all too intimate out of nowhere, souls out and bared, but Jake gives him what he wants, what he truly wants, even though it hurts like nothing else he lived. He looks at Quaritch with the face of what should’ve been a dead man. “I want you.” His voice doesn’t shake when he says it, doesn’t falter.

He’s folded in half without a warning, thighs up against his body, as Quaritch starts pushing into him. He is glad his hands are holding in place when Quaritch bottoms out, because he’s sure he would have hit him. He doesn’t know what feeling comes first, the pain or the pleasure, or both, but it’s a cocktail to his mind. His body spasms as his prostate gets hit. He hisses from overstimulation as Quaritch starts fucking him fast, but a stronger hiss and fangs buried under skin put him in his place. Jake clenches around him, hole dripping out slick to the floor with every thrust. All his hisses turn into moans that grow louder and louder.

“Fuck,” he gasps as he looks down at his cock, fully hard, tip purple, precum sticking to his stomach. That’s also when he sees it, the fucking outline of Quaritch’s cock as it rails deep inside him, and he shudders, eyes starting to get blurry.

Quaritch leans down to kiss him and that’s when their eyes meet again, both filled with an uncontainable lust.

“Jake,” he moans his name like a prayer.

A hard slam makes Jake arch his back in a desperate attempt to get even more of that feeling. His moan gets swallowed up by Quaritch mouth, tongues fighting for control, spit drips down his chin as he kisses him back guided by fire.

He squeezes his body around Quaritch when he feels himself being lifted in the air. Quaritch moves them on the bed, cock still buried deep in Jake’s hungry hole. They find back the rhythm, the room is filled with their sounds, skin slapping skin, and it’s not enough. He begs for Quaritch’s touch, for hands on his ass, around his throat, for fingers reaching deep and chocking him until there’s nothing else left but the feeling of Quaritch surrounding him.

“Wait… fuck, wait- I don’t wanna come yet.” He begs, barely aware of what he’s saying, but Quaritch slows down for him. “Can we…,” he asks as he lifts up his kuru. Quaritch looks like he’s about to say no. “I don’t care what I find in there. Please.”

Quaritch lifts him and pulls Jake’s body into his chest as the fragile tendrils unite. Jake is taken out of his body, colors linger at the edges of his sight. It feels heavenly, borderline insane. He can’t get enough of it.

The slick covers Quaritch’s balls and thighs, and when he fully sinks down on it, Jake swears he sees sparkles blinding his vision. They’re turned into one. Images pop in his head, but he doesn’t fight them. Sully slips in Quaritch’s thoughts, just as Jake expected it, but he gets the small mercy of seeing Sully in his human body, not blue, not Na’vi, not how Jake was looking right now.

“I’m gonna-…mhm fuck, Miles!”

Jake comes screaming the only name important to him. He cries as the orgasm rushes through him, getting drunk on the pleasure. Quaritch ruts into him, frantically chasing his own orgasm, sweat dripping down his face. He lowers them back on the mattress. His fists grab onto Jake’s unbraided hair, fangs pulling on Jake’s lip, forehead to forehead, breath to breath. Fuck me to death. A loud groan, and then his cock fills Jake’s insides, pulsing with each sprout of cum. Jake feels his own cock twitching at the feeling of being full and warm.

He falls over Jake, pressing him down into the mattress, chest heaving with each breath he takes. Jake can feel Quaritch’s heart hammering against his own, beating in the same rhythm.

“Fuck,” Quaritch mutters, his voice barely above a whisper as he tries to pull out, but Jake grabs his hips, holding him there for just another second. Jake eventually lets go and he is taken by surprise by the emptiness he feels afterwards, cum and slick sliding out of his hole. When they separate from both mind and body Jake gets startled, a whiplash of emotion consuming him.

But the afterglow washes over him like a blanket. It drains him in the best way possible. He turns on his side, cuddling closer to Quaritch in an attempt to hug him. He manages to rest an arm and leg over him, his face nuzzling in the man’s chest.

Jake breaks their sacred silence. “It felt amazing.” Quaritch lifts a finger to his lips.

“Not now, kid.” He’s still breathing deeply, his skin shining from the tiny beads of sweat under the fluorescent lights.

The air is filled with something heavy and Jake can’t put his finger on it. He traces Quaritch’s skin with the tip of his fingers, leaving goosebumps on his chest. He then reaches for the man’s lips, a small kiss planted there— a thank you, an apology. An — I’m sorry you want him, but you’re only left with me— that he chooses not to voice, because it will ruin everything. It’s better to live in the illusion.

“You alright? Did- did I do something wrong?” Quaritch runs his hands over his face, hiding behind them. Something breaks inside Jake. “Would you like me to do something in particular?”

“Nah, you’re good.” Whatever was on Quaritch’s mind vanishes when he turns over to face Jake, holding his face in his big palms. He traces Jake’s split lip with care, slipping the tip of his finger in to part his lips. “Did you like it enough to let me do it again?”

“Are you really asking me that?”

“I am,” Quaritch says, then bites on Jake’s lip, skin breaking, and they share a common taste. “So?”

“Yeah, I want it again. And again. And again.”

“Even if I hurt you?”

He tries to think about what this could mean, but the thought dies before it can take shape—because he’s already seen it, the hunger for pain simmering in Quaritch’s mind.

A hunt. The clash of bodies, fists slamming, nails raking, teeth sinking in, threats whispered through clenched jaws. He dreamed of Sully beneath him, broken, drained, stripped of all strength. Prey, easy to claim. Something he could dominate at will, wring out his suffering and confusion through the enemy’s tears, through the sound of his voice breaking.

And Jake wonders if he could ever give him that?

Maybe he does. Maybe he can be foolish enough to feed into that fantasy just to gain a little bit of affection back.

At the same time, he wants to scream at Quaritch, to tear the words out of his chest and throw them in his face. To tell him he will never be the old Miles Quaritch, just as Jake will never be the old Jake Sully. That yes, they carry their memories, but inside them beat different hearts that carry different souls, harboring their own desires, their own griefs, their own longings.

He wants to tell him they are more than the army’s echo, more than its weapons; that they are alive, and that life is worth claiming for themselves.

But he says none of this.

Only a simple “yes”, carrying all his hope that the man before him will be able to read beyond that empty word.

—

Please him

Please him

Please him

In the mornings, he’s usually waked up by the cock buried deep inside of him. Getting fucked turns into their ‘good morning’, hard and urgent, before training until Jake collapses, wrung out and breathless. It’s a new ritual, one that fits too easily into their days. But the afternoons belong to Jake alone.

Quaritch vanishes on his ikran without a word, returning in the dead of night, chest heaving like he’s run for miles, his hair heavy with the smell of saltwater and smoke. Jake never questions him and Quaritch never explains himself. Then—without preamble—he shoves Jake onto his stomach and takes him with the same force he leaves with, fucking him until he’s shaking, tears burning tracks down his face. No words between them. That’s how they fall sleep and the silence feels almost like peace, two bodies locked together, as if that’s enough. Sometimes, when Jake stirs, he hears his own name whispered into the dark.

Curiosity pulls him closer in those unguarded moments, his braid reaching for Quaritch’s. Tsaheylu opens the door, and Jake often cries happily against the Colonel’s shoulder, because in his dreams, Quaritch is thinking about him. Not the ghost of the man he used to know.

His small joy is short-lived. One evening, Quaritch returns just as disheveled, but something else is different. There are scratches on his face, bruises on his thighs and tail, and his scent—the one Jake has come to know better than his own—carries a new note, something bitter. He smells like one of the ones Jake killed. Like the dead avatar he’d dragged back.

Jake wants to ask, “Where were you? With who?” But he doesn’t. He knows he has no right to that question, knows he should remember his place. Whatever this is between him and the Colonel, it isn’t a relationship. So he awkwardly strips, sitting at the edge of the bed, waiting for the man’s touch, forcing himself to look as eager as he does every other night.

Quaritch doesn’t touch him and it comes like a shock to his core. For the first time since they started sleeping together, Quaritch tells him to get dressed instead, sinking into his desk chair, losing himself in maps and reports.

“Not in the mood for me?” Jake asks playfully, arching his back to give Quaritch the perfect view between his legs that he knows he likes.

“I’m tired,” Quaritch answers flatly.

Jake doesn’t back down. He pads across the floor with the slow, silent grace of a predator, slipping in behind Quaritch. His arms loop loosely around the Colonel’s neck, his chest pressing into the broad back beneath him.

“I’m not,” he murmurs near his ear. “Let’s do something fun.”

“At this hour? We’ve got briefings in the morning, protocol to follow—”

“Protocol…” Jake drawls, mimicking his tone with a smirk Quaritch can’t see but can surely hear. “What’s life if you don’t break a few rules? Come on, let’s go for a swim. We can jump off the ship platforms.”

“You’re losing it, kid.”

“Please,” Jake breathes, his voice dropping into a teasing whine. “Just tonight. Do it for me.”

He feels the faint shift in Quaritch’s shoulders, the reluctant pause in his pen. And then, with a low exhale and a roll of his eyes, the Colonel shoves his chair back.

“All right,” he mutters, standing.

Jake grins, already backing toward the door, the thrill of victory curling in his chest as Quaritch follows him out into the night.

The ocean is as cold and as thrilling as the warm blood splashed from those who stand in their way.

Stars scatter across the sky, but Jake sees only the glowing constellations painted on Quaritch’s skin, alive and pulsing with light, as the Colonel strips, letting his clothes fall on the platform at Jake’s feet.

Lust crashes through Jake like a tidal wave, immense, chaotic, and unrelenting. He bends to pick up Quaritch’s clothes but freezes, heart pounding, at the stiff, dark stain of cum inside the fabric.

The smell hits him, sharp and sour, soaked in Quaritch’s scent and the foreign one, a betrayal that slashes deeper than any wound so far. Rage blooms inside his bones, fueled by the same fire as his lust.

He launches into the water like a storm unleashed, claws digging into Quaritch’s shoulders, dragging him beneath the waves. His teeth clamp down on an ear, claws rip flesh from the man’s back, a savage symphony of violence and hunger as bubbles spiral upward to the sky. Quaritch claws back, forcing them to the surface, gasping for air, muscles trembling with the fight to stay afloat.

Jake’s fists hammer at ribs and skull, his voice breaks the night in half. “I hate you! I fucking hate you!” Quaritch seizes Jake’s tail, yanking him close with a brutal strength that borders on desperate. Jake slips free, plunging back into darkness, but the same rough hand catches him by the hair, hauling him up with a growl.

“That’s it, Jake. There you are.”

They fight like two beasts, fists and kicks, lungs burning with saltwater, eyes stinging, pain unspoken but written all over their bodies.

A punch to his scar makes Jake whimper sharply, pain ripping through him, and Quaritch seizes the moment—slipping behind him, his arm curling tightly around Jake’s neck, cutting off his air. The struggle drains from Jake as the chokehold tightens; his kicks in the water become weaker, barely enough to keep them afloat.

Quaritch’s grip loosens slightly when Jake stops fighting. With his free hand, he trails a sharp claw down Jake’s belly, the threat of torn skin electric in the air. He stops at the base of Jake’s cock and wraps his fingers around it like a prize.

“This time, I win,” Quaritch whispers into Jake’s ear, his voice low and dangerous as he quickens the rhythm of his touch.

“I hate you,” Jake breathes back. Then suddenly, the sharp sting of the cock entering him escapes his lips in a strained moan. It’s brutal and painful, but it feels so much better from the friction of water.

“You sure you’ve got nothing else to say to me?” Quaritch taunts, burning deeper inside him. The fire of pain melts into something darker, more consuming, that crashes in through every vein of Jake’s body. “Think carefully.”

“Miles!” Jake tries to cling to whatever he can find, but there’s nothing under him. Shivers roll down his spine with every hit to his prostate. Teeth sink into Quaritch’s arm, an anchor in the storm. “It hurts,” Jake confesses, saltwater washing away the coppery tang from his mouth.

“What hurts? This?” Quaritch thrusts harder, deeper, until Jake’s scattered thoughts dissolve like foam crashing on the shore.

“No… ah fuck… where have you been?” Jake gasps as Quaritch pulls his head back, kissing the sensitive skin behind his ear.

“That’s none of your business.”

“Have you been with him?”

Before Jake can answer, his head is slammed underwater. Quaritch pounds into him with brutal force beneath the surface. Jake matches the intensity, meeting every thrust, gripping whatever strength he has left, then he breaks the surface gasping for air.

“No,” Quaritch replies flatly, voice as cold and hard as steel. “You’re paranoid, boy.”

They both dragged underwater by a wave as Quaritch releases himself inside Jake, cum seemingly endless, warm, fierce contrast to the cold ocean. Some spill out.

“But you’re mine… only mine.”

His cock withdraws, replaced by fingers pumping deep inside him, hitting in their way his sweet spot, the heat spreading through Jake in an overwhelming fullness. Tears mix with salty drops that touch his skin.

Quaritch wraps Jake’s cock with the other hand, moans filling the still night air. With a gasp, Jake spill into Quaritch’s fist, the ocean mercilessly washing away every trace of their contact.

They float on their backs, or rather, Jake floats on Quaritch’s broad chest, his gaze lost beyond the stars, beyond time, drifting through memories that aren’t really his.

“Where do you keep running away, Miles?”

“I need moments for myself, like this one,” he says calmly, tightening his hold on Jake.

“You keep fucking with me… and I let you, like a fucking idiot. You don’t give a shit ‘bout me.”

“Don’t say that,” Quaritch says as he places his palm over Jake’s heart.

“Then why are you still so cruel to me? What do I have to do for you to be different?” Jake’s voice breaks.

“Cruel?” Quaritch replies, a dark smile shadowing his cold lips. “You think a cruel man would have given you what I have? If you’d met me the day they brought me back to life, I’d have slit your throat without blinking. Instead…”

They look at each other, two endless beginnings, two wounded souls still learning how to recognize one another. The stars shine above, reflected in the little sea of gold, flickering on their wet skin. Jake feels that if he blinks, he’ll lose everything. Quaritch grabs him firmly by the nape, their lips brushing so softly, guided by the movement of the waves.

“I see you,” he whispers to Jake, and in that look, a whole world gathers.

I see you, maJake