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neytiris-3rd-finger · 2 years ago

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— 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘦 [𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘦 𝘯𝘰 𝘮𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦]

the lowdown — the one where neteyam is too blinded by duty to realize what he has right in front of him.

the who — neteyam x fem omatikaya!reader

the word count — 5.6k (this isn't even a drabble anymore).

the tags & warnings — language, more emotional constipation, mentions of blood & injury, childhood friends(?)2l, unrequited love, angst w a semi-happy / openish ending.

the notes — based off of this request & this one ! let’s pretend the trees of souls didn’t get burned down in the first movie :)

masterlist

You were an odd thing, curious, maybe a little strange, but like learning anything, everyone had grown accustomed to your weird little habits. Everyone except for Neteyam, the clan leader’s son. And the weird habit in question was poorly-expressed words of adoration that seemed to meld into unconventional confessions as you got older.

It started when you two were eight, perhaps nine. The two of you were in a village elder’s tent, learning the best ways to debone fish to prepare for meals when she’d ducked out for a moment and left the two of you in a cloud of uncomfortable silence.

Neteyam’s fingers were nimble, swift, while you lagged behind, eyes fluttering to the way he seemed to grasp the elder’s instruction with more ease than you.

“We should always be together,” you’d said absently, still fiddling with the same fish while Neteyam moved onto the next. “I will be useless to our family without you.”

Neteyam’s spine had gone rigid, gaze wide as he side-eyed you from his seat.

“Huh?” He’d clearly been caught off guard, ministrations on the catch frozen as his eyebrows furrowed.

“When we are married,” you’d said, holding the bone structure of your first fish triumphantly.

“Married?” he parroted shrilly, fully turning to face you.

You looked up from your task, nodding like it was the most common of knowledge.

“Yes, Neteyam,” you affirmed, chuffing a small laugh. “In the future, when we are married.”

Neteyam wouldn’t have been so off put had the comment been a one time thing, but they were frequent, spoken both in the quiet of much-dreaded time alone with you and hushed whispers in the midst of the other villagers your age.

It wasn’t any help that his parents seemed to always set the two of you up in many endeavors over the course of your adolescence. And he’d tried, tried so hard to shake you over the years, but you were glued to his hip.

You look handsome today, you’d say often, regardless. Training is paying off, whispered in his ear as your fingertips smoothe over the skin of his biceps. I hope the little ones grow to be as mighty as you are, spoken after sessions in the archery circle. The comments are all fleeting, mentioned in passing like a casual word, but they make Neteyam warm, make his cheeks heat when he searches your face for any betrayal of emotion.

But all he’s met with is an expression that borders smug, one that makes him wonder why, out of all of the boys growing into fine young men over the course of your adolescence, had you picked him to be the object of your affections.

Try as he might, to be short-tempered, callous, you were always there. He sought the attention of other women, tried to put as many bodies between the two of you, but you were relentless, smiled gently when you’d catch his wandering hands against the skin of another, would turn a blind eye when his lips brushed too intimately over eager ears.

At first he figured that maybe it was because he was the first boy you’d encountered and it’d just been the way the cards were dealt. At times he thought you were messing with him, a long-running joke between you and some unknown entities to fuck around with his feelings. His current theory, however, is one that he sits more confidently on when he begins observing you.

You spend an awful amount of time not only tailing him, but tailing his family, pestering Kiri and Lo’ak about god knows what, spending many afternoons schmoozing with his parents, seeking guidance from Mo’at.

He comes to the conclusion, after some time, that you’re trying to solidify your place within his family, trying to secure your role next to him as the future leader of the clan. This much is confirmed when his parents bring up the sore topic of you one night once everyone has turned in after the evening meal.

“The time for your selection feast is arriving,” Neytiri says hesitantly, like she’s treading on thin ice.

Neteyam has an inkling where this conversation will go when Jake shifts to sit next to his partner, the perfect picture of what a love that transcends all should look like. But he doesn’t know love, just knows preparing for his future and what ruling the clan will look like.

“Yeah,” Neteyam agrees.

“Do you have someone in mind?” Jake prods, busying himself by toying with his songchord.

To his dismay, you briefly eclipse his mind, the annoyingly beautiful girl he’d grown up with but, even a decade later, still can’t seem to get a good read on.

“No,” he answers slowly.

His parents seem to chew on this for a moment, glancing at each other momentarily before Neytiri draws in a deep breath and focuses her attention on her oldest son all over again.

“Well…your father and I believe that perhaps ________ could be a good choice.”

It’s like a bomb detonates, but the aftershocks are only seen in the way Neteyam’s lips purse and his brows furrow.

He’s not one to go against his parents, but he’ll be damned if he has to spend forever with you.

“No,” he repeats, but with time with vindication.

Jake looks stunned, back straightening as he takes his son in with wary eyes.

“No?”

“No,” Neteyam reiterates. “I would rather spend my life alone than spend it with her.”

“Neteyam,” Neytiri sighs.

“I’m sorry, Mom, I won’t,” he says firmly, swallowing down the lump in his throat as he glances between both of his parents, hoping, wishing that maybe they’ll see that this isn’t a good idea.

“Maitan, you don’t understand,” Neytiri says softly. “When you and ________ were born, Ewya gave us a sign.”

Neteyam’s blood runs cold.

“So this has already been decided?” he asks, voice eerily steady.

“Not necessarily,” Jake interjects. “We didn’t want you two to feel like you were being forced to be together so we hoped that encouraging you both to spend time together would allow something to develop…”

“But they haven’t, so now it’s a not-so-silent push,” he says shortly.

His parents share another look and he feels annoyance beginning to form in his gut.

“We wouldn’t say that there aren’t any feelings there,” Neytiri says.

Neteyam breathes a humorless laugh as he shakes his head in disbelief.

“I don’t feel anything for her,” he says with finality. “Nothing about a union with her piques my interest. We’ve been in close proximity since birth but my heart feels more for the trees in the forest than it ever will for ________.”

Jake squeezes his eyes shut.

“Have you thought about giving her a chance?” he pushes. “She’s a lovely girl, really likes you.”

That draws another huff of humorless laughter from Neteyam.

“The only thing she’s interested in is status and being tsahik,” Neteyam scoffs. “There is nothing there.”

Neytiri opens her mouth to say something, but Neteyam has mustered up as polite an excuse as he can as he stands to his feet and bows his head to his parents.

When he ducks from the tent, he doesn’t expect to see you lingering outside of the exit.

His face morphs as the quiet words leave your lips.

“You doubt my affections for you.” It’s a statement and a question wrapped in one, but you’re resigned, like always, and Neteyam can’t seem to grasp what you’re trying to get at clinging to him, to whatever this dynamic is.

“What’s this game you’re playing?” he accuses, eyes narrowed.

“What game?” you ask, gaze unfaltering as you stare up at him with those round golden eyes.

He lets out a frustrated sigh.

“Our entire lives, from being kids to now, you’ve toyed with me,” he says fiercely. “With this idea of us. Why? I’ve given you no reasons to be fond of me, yet you’re always here, there, everywhere.”

“I have much to be fond of,” is your simple answer and Neteyam could groan in frustration.

“Like what? Being the olo’eyktan’s son? Holding the future of this clan in my hands?” he asks sharply.

“I would love you, circumstances withstanding,” you respond. “You don’t have to be afraid.”

Love.

What an odd concept, weird. One that Neteyam can’t seem to wrap his mind around when it comes to you. Doesn’t think he ever will.

“Afraid of what?” he bites.

“Of loving me back,” you say.

He grimaces like the very thought disgusts him, like you’re an aversion he desperately wants to rid of. And perhaps you are, you realize, seeing years of pent up frustration and anger culminating into one big wound ready to rupture.

“You think I love you?” he asks incredulously.

He doesn’t miss the way you shrink, blinking quickly.

“If you gave us a chance, maybe,” you whisper.

It sounds like the conversation with his parents all over again and realization seems to shutter across his features as he looks down at you.

“How long have you known?”

“Known what?” you ask quietly.

“How long have you known that they’re trying to force us to be together?” he asks.

You’re silent for a moment before muttering something under your breath.

“What?” he snaps.

“They aren’t forcing us,” you clear your throat. “Not me, at least.”

He scoffs.

“Of course,” he mocks. “Because it only matters what you want out of this. Not that for the last decade I’ve been trying to get you to back off, trying to get you to understand that I don’t want this. I don’t want us, and if it means forfeiting my responsibilities, then so be it.”

It’s a lofty statement, one that seals the last nail on your coffin.

You’d loved Neteyam for as long as you can remember, have probably liked him for longer. When your parents told you early on that Eywa had given both of your families a sign that you and Neteyam were meant for one another, you’d embraced the idea wholeheartedly. Loved the idea of loving him even through moments when he’d try to drive a wedge between the two of you.

Give him time, your parents had said to you. Jake and Neytiri want his feelings to develop naturally.

And you waited. God, you waited, for so long. Waited for him to come around, to realize the things he did to you. Perhaps you had been too presumptuous, thinking that he’d be able to read you behind such a stoic facade, afraid that if you revealed too much of your wanting, you’d turn him off from the idea of being with you.

But as you stand here before him, small under such a burning gaze, you realize that it’d been wishful thinking. Choosing him meant nothing if he didn’t choose you back.

“I see…” you trail off quietly.

“Do you?” he asks, tone facetious.

You nod once, unable to meet his gaze. Unable to see that his expression twitches the tiniest amount when he clocks the way your body seems to deflate.

“Yeah,” you whisper. “I do.”

His following days are quiet, filled with personal duties and commitments to the clan. He’d expected you to sleep off the night’s confrontation, he certainly had, a twinge of guilt searing his gut.

But you’re good at hiding, good at masking your feelings, good at disappearing. It doesn’t bother him at the beginning, figuring that you need your space, but then it’s a dull ache that ebbs into a grating gnaw as his every other thought flits to you and what you could be doing now that you’ve settled such a wide distance between himself and his family.

“You are injured a lot more these days,” Mo’at observes, slathering the viscous mixture over a cut between his shoulder blades.

He remains silent, doesn’t know how to admit that he’d been far more reckless these past few days in the hopes that he’d run into you in his grandmother’s quarters. A silent yearn to feel your skilled fingers work over his wounds, tender as you try to pry your way into his heart.

Mo’at had been the one you spent the most time with, diligently training in the chance that Neteyam would finally see you, would make you his. But right now, you’re nowhere to be found and all he’s rewarded with is his grandmother’s rough hands and inquisitive gaze.

“She made this salve,” Mo’at says, filling the silence with idle talk. “Found a recipe that speeds healing and softens the skin.”

“Did she?” Neteyam responds absently, imagining you picking and pruning the herbs yourself, frame languid as you move through the brush.

“Said she didn’t want her lover to have such tough skin.”

There’s laughter in his grandmother’s voice, but he can’t find it in himself to see the humor in the situation. Not when he’s beginning to see that maybe he’s not just another rung in the ladder for you, that duty is the most miniscule drop in your bucket.

“Where’s ________?” he asks after a moment, hissing through his teeth when his grandmother’s fingers prod the wound.

“Taking a break from her studies to assist Ama with the children,” she answers, and he misses the knowing look in her eyes. She pats his shoulder when she’s done patching him up. “She’s a fine young woman, Neteyam. Many of the villagers do not turn a blind eye to that fact. If she is not the one that your heart desires, give her the opportunity to align with one that does.”

It makes something ugly, green, roil in the pit of his stomach at the idea of you being the subject of houndish eyes. You’re too reserved, too sweet, too devoted to be anyone else’s.

And the thought floors him, makes the knot growing obnoxiously in his throat choke the air from his lungs.

“Yeah,” he agrees in a whisper.

And he knows that his grandmother is right. Knows that he shouldn’t be asking about you, doesn’t have the right to hold you hostage if the union is something that truly unsettles him. But the thought of letting go of whatever the two of you have is surprisingly indigestible.

Neteyam is frustrated, thoroughly disoriented now that all he can think of is you. He’d tried everything under the sun to shake you, to get you to throw your cards in first, but now that you have, it’s like you tug on a string tethered to his hellish heart.

He stands to his feet and turns to face Mo’at, giving a respectful nod before exiting the tent.

It’s wrong, he knows it, seeking you out after burning every bridge between the two of you, but he can’t help it. Can’t help but enter the clearing in the forest carved through with a stream that the little ones play in.

You’re exactly where his grandmother had said you were, sitting near the edge of the bubbling waters with Ama, a girl a few years your senior. The children are giggling, laughing as they splash each other, splash you. The expression on your face falters a little, stern as you adjust the netting strapped to your chest.

The air is trapped in his lungs as he realizes. Sees the little head that peeks from the top of the fabric, ear pressed to your heart as you cover the baby’s head from the children’s gleeful laughter.

“That’s not very nice,” you say gently. “Your little sister is trying to sleep.”

Your voice makes the hairs on the back of his neck prick, a soft rasp that’s haunted him for the last few sleepless nights. It’s odd, seeing you in this light, relaxed from your lack of duties. You’re in your element like this, smiling and coddling the children of the clan as they climb over you and poke and prod.

“Teyam!” One of them clocks him before he can retreat and his spine is going stiff, stomach turning when he sees the way your expression melts.

“Hi,” he greets simply, unable to form anything more solid in the fears that he’ll spook you.

The kids start emerging from the stream one by one, surrounding him as he takes a few tentative steps into the clearing.

“Neteyam,” Ama greets cordially, eyes flitting between the two of you as you busy yourself with the little one strapped to your chest.

Neteyam, on the other hand, can’t keep his eyes off of you. He’s silently pleading with Eywa, with whatever other force lies out of reach that you’ll just look at him. But you’re locked up tighter than a vault, obviously still reeling from the confrontation all those days ago.

He hums your name, gentle like a prayer. Your eyes are hesitant, watching the snoozing baby in your arms before glancing at the remaining children in the stream before finally meeting his longing gaze.

“Can we talk?” he asks you, flashing one of the curious kids a brief smile when they tug on the hem of his loincloth.

Your response is far more blunt than he’d expected, taken aback when you murmur a firm, “No.”

He supposes that he deserves that, has earned the warmth that eclipses over his cheeks as the children watch the exchange with inquisitive eyes. And the way you stand to your feet to wrangle the village’s little ones is merited, telling them that playtime is over.

But as Ama helps you gather their things, sensing the obvious tension between you and the olo’eyktan’s son, he realizes that he can’t just let this go. He won’t. Not without making things right, without telling you that loving you isn’t the hard part, it could never be.

But agency is something his parents have withheld from him his entire life, molded him into being the perfect son that bends to the clan’s every beck and call. Loving you was just another thing to add to the list of things he did for everyone else’s sake but his own.

He sees now, though, sees that loving you, being in love with you isn’t a difficult feat. Not when he’s been given the smallest glance into what having a future could be like with you. Especially not when he’s learned so many things about you in the moments where you’re a fleeting plume of smoke that surrounds and chokes him all the same.

He calls your name again, firm this time around. There’s a stutter in your step, he sees the way your shoulders draw taut with a labored sigh.

You murmur something to Ama, undoing the ties to the netting that carries the dozing infant. Neteyam watches as you shush the kids, reminding them to be good to their tsmuke on their journey through the forest.

Your fingers are gentle as you tie the last knot, brushing Ama’s shoulders lightly as you tell her you’ll catch up with her shortly.

When they’re out of earshot, clambering back into the village circle, you turn on your heel, standing on the opposite side of the embankment. The glittering waters gurgle between the two of you as you wait patiently for Neteyam to muster his courage.

“About our union,” he starts. “I–”

“I’ve told my parents to forgo the preparations,” you say softly, seemingly unbothered as you pay more attention to the blades of grass that tickle your ankles.

Neteyam’s spine stiffens.

“Why would you…”

“You don’t want this,” you repeat his words from the fall out. “You don’t want us. We’ll both be unhappy.”

It makes his heart squeeze.

“You would be so unhappy in our union?” he scoffs, like he’s cracked the code.

He doesn’t expect the humorless laugh that spills past your lips, obviously laden with tears when he focuses hard enough.

“Of course I would, Neteyam,” you say fiercely, quietly. “I have spent so much of my life being so disgustingly in love with you when all you’ve wanted was me gone. Do you really think I’d let myself suffer at the expense of someone who would rather be alone than be forced to spend time with the likes of me.”

You make it sound horrible. And perhaps it was, being so taken by someone who’s life mission was to sever every carefully stitched tie.

He doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know how to tell you that he’s coming to terms with the fact that maybe he’s been gravely mistaken this entire time.

“So have your freedom,” you say chillingly. “I surrender.”

He’s closing the distance between the two of you, splashing through the shallow river to root you to place, fingers wrapped tightly around your elbow.

You snatch away from his grasp, turning so sharply, he stumbles back. The pad of your finger pokes harshly into his chest, tear-filled eyes brimming as your gaze searches his face.

“Don’t be heartless,” you hiss. “If there is one thing I will ask of you it is to leave me alone.”

The distance between the two of you widens as you pluck your bow and quiver nearby and rush off into the brush, leaving Neteyam in the quieting clearing to allow the weight of your words sink to his bones.

He doesn’t know how long he stands there, watching the same spot you’d disappeared past, but the forest is beginning to glow and he should be home soon.

The entire encounter puts him on edge as he climbs through the foliage, moving over fallen logs and blooming flora. His muscles are taut, shoulders tight as he maps the long route back home.

It’s only when a sudden crack in the distance sounds that he becomes aware of how still the forest seems around him, like there are eyes and ears watching his every move.

A look in the sky reveals a darkening swathe of midnight, leaves gleaming from outstretched branches. As he surveys his surroundings, his ears prick, picking up the most minute of sounds, rhythmic against the dense grass.

His hand is on his dagger in an instant, eyes wild as he holds his breath. The pulse is nearing, almost insignificant against the backdrop of nature’s call, but something isn’t right and it makes nausea stir in his stomach.

He blinks once, twice, before something closes over his mouth and a body seems to fuse against his back.

“It’s me.” Your voice is ragged, hushed against the shell of his ear, and he nearly melts, fingers loosening from around the hilt of his knife.

“I–”

“Don’t speak,” you warn. “They are near.”

He tenses again as you move your bodies behind a curtain of green, off the trodden path.

“There are five of them,” you whisper and he shivers something fierce. “Two down, three on foot.”

After years of training from his father, he knows who they are.

“How did you…why do you–”

“You didn’t return to the village,” you hiss.

His heart skips a beat, thrumming because even if you’d been angry at him, you’d noticed his absence. Had gone looking for him, even. He turns to face you, wants to tell you that he’d do anything to make things right, but he realizes that now’s not a good time.

You’re pale, gravely so, a feral look in your eyes as you grasp at your left side.

Blood. You’re bleeding.

“What the fuck?”

“Stop,” you breathe shakily. “Not now.”

“________, you’re wounded!” he protests.

You slap a hand over his mouth, golden eyes widening as you press closer to him.

He takes the opportunity to peer over your shoulder in pursuit of an exit wound and sighs when he finds the skin still intact.

“You’re hurt,” he tries again, grabbing the wrist clutching your side.

You shake your head vehemently.

“Stop it, Neteyam,” you plead hoarsely. “We need to get rid of them before they find the village.”

You’re right, he realizes, swallowing down the lump in his throat as he notes the tremble of your lip and the furrow between your brows.

“Okay,” he swallows, nodding hesitantly. “Okay.”

“Near the Tree of Souls,” you tell him, knees shaky as you draw an arrow and load your bow.

You creep forward slowly, willowy frame shielding Neteyam as you move through the forest.

He barely notices, only sees it when you pause a moment too long, body twitching as the bow quivers in your loosening grasp.

“________?” Neteyam’s voice is testing, closing the berth.

Your bow lowers, fingers brushing over the wound once again. When you assess the wetness of the pads of your fingers, Neteyam’s able to get a good look at the damage.

His eyes widen, grabbing your shoulders tightly when he sees that your eyes are drooping.

“Wait,” he says sharply. “Don’t—”

Your bloody hand brushes his chin.

“Make sure…make sure they are…”

“She must rest.”

“It will only be for a moment.”

The words slur together, distant and muddy as your eyes flicker open to assess your surroundings.

“Maite, you are awake.” Your mother kneels next to you, expression a picture of harrowing concern. “Oh, Eywa, I’m glad you are awake.”

It returns in waves, like the ebb and flow of water dousing you. The enemy, in bodies like your own, ruthless to creatures both gentle and roaring. Clothed like humans with gear so imposing, you nearly shrunk with such a small bow and only enough arrows to make each shot count.

You’d taken out two of them with shaky hands before their hailing bullets pierced the trunks of trees and left gaping holes in the leaves. One had landed, lodged its way right above the left side of your pelvis.

It aches as you sit up, seeing the aftermath of what must have been a grisly extraction.

“Stop, stop,” your mother says quickly, hands on your shoulders to guide you back. “You will disturb Mo’at’s work.”

“There are more of them,” you rush. “They are–”

“Shh, my child,” she coaxes. “They are gone.”

It had been a horrific sight, seeing Neteyam carrying you back to the village, limp and listless, covered in the blood of multiple parties with a nearly animalistic look in his eye.

“Where is Neteyam?” you whisper, lashes wet.

The look on your mother’s face softens with pity, knowing, as she sees it written all over your face.

She’d known it before and she’d known it after you approached her and your father with the request to call off the union.

I don’t love him, you’d said, unable to meet their eyes as you confessed. Eywa’s made a mistake with us. I want to be with someone that I love.

You’d been embarrassed, wanted to save face. You didn’t want them to know that the only man you’d ever known from adolescence to young adulthood hadn’t wanted a thing to do with you.

“I’m here.”

Neteyam’s entering the tent with your father hot on his heels, obviously defying his wishes to leave you be.

His forearm is wrapped in medicinal leaves, tied off with thin vine. A cut slices his brow bone, the wound still red and raw.

“I told you–”

Your mother shoots your father a contemptuous look before turning to you to smooth some of the hair away from your face.

“Eywa makes no mistakes, Maite,” she whispers, gaze pleading.

She’s on her feet, crossing the tent to meet Neteyam half way. With a comforting squeeze to his shoulder, she pushes your protesting father through the hide and suddenly the air is shrouded in silence save for your labored breathing and the weight of the eldest Sully’s gaze.

“I thought I lost you,” Neteyam says, the tiniest inflection of trembling pricking your ears.

You blink, watching as he stands at the end of the mat. He’s fidgeting but his eyes are searing, shaking with tears as he stares at you unblinking—like you’ll disappear between the shutter of his heavy eyelids.

You don’t know what to say, the lump lodged in your throat far too thick for you to form coherent words around.

Neteyam continues for the both of you.

“I thought that I wouldn’t…that I…”

You watch as he crumbles.

“Wouldn’t what?” you finally ask, voice dry.

“I thought that I wouldn’t be able to give us a chance.”

Your jaw tenses, breaking eye contact first as you shake your head in defeat.

“There isn’t an us,” you sigh shakily. “Said so yourself.”

“Oh, come on,” Neteyam scoffs, voice thick with tears. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?” you argue, clutching your injured side as it pulses with every beat of your thundering heart.

“Don’t—don’t give up on me yet,” he whispers. “Please.”

Your expression crumples and his face falls as you knuckle your tears away angrily.

“You’re cruel, Neteyam. So so cruel,” you murmur. “I am ashamed that you have my heart.”

The words are spoken with a quiet vindication that makes Neteyam feel like his nerve endings are fraying. A singular tear arcs over the swell of your cheek and an ache roots in his gut.

“Don’t say that,” he says, throat bobbing as he swallows the emotion threatening to bubble over. “I–”

“Neteyam.” Your father’s voice is stern, the flap of the tent flipping as he reenters.

Neteyam bites the inside of his lip as he spares you one last glance and your resolve dissipates when the broad expanse of his back faces you.

You’d expected Neteyam taking his leave to be some semblance of closure for the two of you, as clean of a break as you could come to terms with now that any precarious ties that bound the two of you were severed. But you hadn’t anticipated the singular ember inside of Neteyam fanning to be engulfing and all-consuming.

“I know you’re there,” you say simply, plucking the petals and leaves from the flora to tuck into the small pouch strung across your chest.

He’d been following you all afternoon, lingering a safe distance away, but his eyes haven’t left your healing frame and what had initially been confusion began to bleed into annoyance.

“Pay me no mind,” he says simply, emerging from the brush with a bow and quiver.

It’s been over a week since the sky people had infiltrated your corner of the forest and Neteyam hasn’t let you leave his sight once.

From the morning eclipse to the evening’s, Neteyam’s doted on you; shearing chunks of fruit, grinding down your herbs for your treatments, rewrapping your wound under Mo’at’s careful supervision.

You’d asked him to give you a moment of peace in the forest alone, but it wasn’t long before you scented him, heard his labored breathing as he tried to keep up with you.

You heed his word, stonewalling his presence like he’s nothing but another leaf stretching from the trees. And for a while, a long stretch of silence surrounds the two of you as you venture deeper and deeper into the forest.

But before you know it, each one of your steps is exchanged like for like, his looming and muscular frame eclipsing you like a shadow as you try to ignore the fact that he’s drawing nearer.

You turn on your heel to face him just as he settles a pace away, eyes clear and golden.

“What?” you snip, taking a step back.

He takes a step forward.

“You should not overexert yourself,” he replies simply.

“And what happened to paying you no mind?”

His fingers brush your sore wound and your gaze flits to the way his fingertips ghost over the dressing wrapped around the expanse of your lower abdomen.

The grin he gives you has many layers. You immediately decipher something sly, coy, as he searches your face.

“I’ve changed my mind,” he says quietly. “I want you to pay me all the mind.”

Your expression is dry, eyes rolling as you step away from him. You’re swatting his palm away and shaking your head like a final warning.

“You don’t get to flirt with me after all this time,” you say, blanketing the semi-tense air with a cover of finality. “And you shouldn’t. There is no longer an obligation for us to be within vicinity of each other.”

You sound so cold, like you hadn’t spent the past decade pining after him in your own weird way. Like you hadn’t turned a blind eye when he found comfort in hopeful women despite wearing your heart on your oddly-stitched sleeve. Hadn’t been so willing to spend forever with him.

“You cannot dictate the turn of my heart,” Neteyam argues.

The look you give him could instill fear in even the most intimidating predators.

“You’d go to great lengths to quell a guilty conscience?” you ask. “Do not forget that forever is a long time. If nothing about our union piques your interest now, do not count on anything in the future.”

You’re feeling for buttons to push, tender spots that will make him let up, but Neteyam isn’t easily swayed. He doesn’t know if he loves you now, but the last few weeks make certain that he will. He isn’t ashamed to admit that he’s falling fast and hard.

“You’re not gonna get rid of me that easily, yawne.”

The nickname makes you freeze, makes your eyes narrow as you glare up at the future olo’eyktan.

“Don’t be insufferable, Neteyam.”

“Duties be damned, I’ll spend every remaining moment doing right by you,” he says, fingers threading through yours so that he can bring your knuckles to his lips.

Your heart wavers and he sees the way the curtain falls, eyes a fraction softer.

He grins, tugging you closer. Moves your hair over your shoulder then skims his fingers along the sharpness of your jaw.

It draws a shiver from you as you shift nervously, gaze fluttering from his eyes to the plush of his mouth.

“Stop,” you whisper meekly. “We–”

“You’re mine, you hear me?” His voice is raw, edge melting away. “Union or no union. It’s always going to be you and me.”

taglist: @nao-cchi , @jkiminpark , @philiasoul , @amart-e , @s-u-t , @netesbby , @tayswiftlovebot , @dumb-fawkin-bitch , @ewackmn , @fanboyluvr , @mazemymirror , @itssiaaax , @girlpostingsposts, @athenachu , @hiya-itsamber , @morks-watermelon

#i'm so in love with your writing 😩#it's honestly addictive atp #he's such a dummy but he's so...#ahhh #gosh i love this fool sm 🥺#i wanna strangle him and kiss him at the same damn time 🥺#neteyam x reader

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