#I'm not articulate enough sorry | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

neteyamsilly · 2 years ago

Text

i will soften every edge, hold the world to its best | 4

summary ;; A father protects, that's what gives him meaning. Jake Sully has failed. PART 3 | PART 5 pairings ;; dad!jake sully x reader, mom!neytiri x reader, sully family x reader genre ;; pure angst and family feels notes / explanations ;; PLEASE READ AUTHOR NOTES. I explicitly said in the previous chapter I would NO LONGER BE TAKING TAG REQUESTS. You're just going to have to check my profile every now and then. I also will not be re-tagging the peeps I did in the last chapter’s replies, it’s just a lot 😭 I'm sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for your understanding! Now I present you, the long awaited angst and groveling of Jake. Enjoy! Please excuse my mistakes if you see any. Thank you so much for the lovely comments and support, I hope the angst hits the way you wanted it / was expecting HHHHH

It’ll shine better, Jake mused to himself, rotating the lumpy amber around in his fingers to better reflect the sunlight streaming in thin rays from the hands of the dense flora above, once I dip this in that polish oil. It’s not entirely unsalvageable.

At least he hadn’t scraped too much in attempts to give it a rounder shape, the bug at its core you were gushing about to the point of waking him up at zero dark thirty was still intact. He had been summoned from his dreams to look at a cool rock.

Jake couldn’t not gift it to you as something to be permanently worn after that.

The problem? He was ass at this. Always had been. No drop of craftsmanship in his bloodstream at all when the Na’vi were particularly fond of their ornaments and accessories, making it themselves, in fact.

Songcords were put together from beads, bones and stones, virtuosity was a must intrinsically woven into everyday life, methodized and irreplaceable since it wasn’t as if mass production could ever be a thing in Pandora. Everything was handmade.

Jake’s worst enemy beadwork was in their clothing, for example, even in braids — his maladroit at it may or may not be why he wore his hair in plain dreads now.

He wasn’t an artist or a creator, his hands were more comfortable being fit around a gun or a knife than slipping effortlessly in the rhythm of weaving or the act of making. All his end results were dreadful enough to be bullied relentlessly by his kids — except for you, that is. You absolutely loved them for reasons your mother or none of your siblings could understand.

Jake’s blundering conscience would melt at the sight of your eyes shining and the biggest smile almost splitting your head in half as if he had just handed you the world every single time he gifted you the newest of his clunky handiwork. He didn’t know why that made you the happiest. You’d been that way ever since you saw him carving and personally adding a bead to his songcord about how he got his firstborn daughter to utter her first word: dada.

It was important to him, so, down it had gone into Jake’s life story; putting official significance to the moment he never wanted to forget in the same thread that carried the story of him becoming Toruk Makto, just beside Neteyam’s first word, which was also dadada. (Neytiri had Lo’ak’s mam, and Kiri’s perfectly articulated mommy.)

Ever since that day, you had made grabby hands at the bead all the time when he picked you up, teethed at it like a puppy trying to grab a toy, tried to rip it off to make it yours — anything, until Neytiri made you one, but no, you wanted it from dada.

So dada started making you little trinkets.

He didn’t know if it was a good or a bad thing you never grew out of receiving gifts from your dad he himself cringed at. Jake wasn’t one to complain, not when someone in this life would feel such enough joy to purify thousands of blighted souls upon receiving his ugly personal work. It made him happy, stroked his ego to high heavens that his sweetheart was doting on dada to see the imperfect as the most fascinating.

That’s why he had taken on the daunting task of making a bead for you out of the amber you’d fixated on, rasp in one hand, sitting on a thick log that cut into the little stream he and his family were spending leisurely time that day, one leg pulled to himself and one feet in the water up to his ankle. Even though he had half an ear on his four children playing around in the shallow water of the creek, all the screams and squeals of joy felt weak compared to the contained huff of amusement that escaped from his mate who had come up to Jake while he was way too engrossed in his task.

His eyes shifted to Neytiri, watching her hop on to the log in one agile move. “Don’t laugh.”

“I am not laughing,” Neytiri said, crouching to sit, her mouth twitched upwards as she looked at the amber in his hand.

“I have eyes, Neytiri, I literally see you laughing.” His face used to burn at her openly teasing about beadmaking, but his oldest daughter’s attentions had restored his bruised confidence over the years. The slander wasn’t taken lightly these days as Jake had proudly relabeled the odd shapes of his work as a creative choice. “Right to my face.”

“You’re mistaken.”

Jake made his jaw drop, overacting his bafflement. “Wow, gaslighting? Really?”

Neytiri hit his arm lightly. In her terms, it was light, at least. “I don’t know what that is.”

“It’s something you shouldn’t do to your mate.” He turned his back to her, giving a look over his shoulder. “You’re abusing me. I’m being abused.”

“Baby.”

“No amount of pet names are gonna fix my broken heart.”

“No. You are a baby. I’m insulting you.” Neytiri hadn’t even laughed, but the uplifted timbre of that sentence sure did make Jake snicker in disbelief. “If you can’t take it, maybe you should leave beading to me.”

“I would say they are fashionably off,” he defended. You carried them with delight, so why shouldn’t Jake take more pride in his work? “And you said practice makes perfect years ago, I remember the exact words—”

“Years ago. You still haven’t gotten any better at it.” Neytiri was his biggest supporter and criticizer at the same time. “And you became a part of the clan back in the day in three months Jake. Never a more unbelievable thing to me than this.”

“I’m trying alright?” He turned back to the bead, or, vaguely bead-shaped amber, if technical terms were involved. It still had a whole adventure to embark on until it could receive the noble title of a bead. “She likes what I make, at least.”

��It’s because she’s your daughter and anything you do is out of this world. Beauty in the most unlikely places. A child’s love is pure that way.” The unexpected hypnotism of poetry in that sentence alone pulled Jake’s gaze to Neytiri’s, and for a moment, he could physically feel his heart within his ribcage being squeezed, tethering on painful, but with a joyful tinge. “She doesn’t have standards yet.”

Well, that hurt. “Damn.”

“Damm!” A pair of small and branch-thin arms wrapped around his neck from behind, and something, or rather, someone, latched onto his back. “Rahh!”

Jake should have been suspicious of how silent it had gotten halfway into his talk with Neytiri. Turns out, you had swam underneath the log to get out of his line of sight, climbing with the stealth of a bug to come up undetected.

Well, mark Jake down as impressed, you weren’t able to do that without being spotted until today, this was another wonderful milestone for you — you had learned impressively, taking advantage of his distraction, avoiding making noise and using water to your advantage. Neytiri must have given you some pointers.

And now he was wondering if his mate was in on this all along, purposefully disturbing his peace so their kids could see an opening to pounce on him.

“Oof!” Your hold on him was something he could break out of any minute with how adorably strong you were exerting yourself to make it, but he wanted to play along more than anything. Jake was acting panicked, swinging his body left and right from the waist, but really, it was just a light warm-up exercise with the easiest deadlift possible. “I’m being ambushed!”

“I got you now, Toruk Makto!” You wrapped your legs around his torso, and he felt like this was just a piggyback ride with extra steps. “Watch this, mom!”

Oh, it’s on.

Discreetly handing Neytiri the amber, Jake stood up, bringing you up with him and fighting a smile at your clipped squeak as the height became too much too quick, causing you to cling onto him stronger. He reached behind, and within seconds, he had you in his hands, holding you from the armpits and dangling you above the stream, your kicking legs beating the air, and he cackled like a villain threatening to fling the hero from atop of a skyscraper.

“You got me? Please.” He loosened his grip the slightest amount to give you the illusion he would let go, and you stopped struggling to scream, catching his forearms. “A measly thing like you? Conquering me? I’ll show you why I’m the king of the skies! Here I come!”

Making sure you wouldn’t get hurt, Jake threw you into the water as gently as possible, but made the angle entertaining enough so you would go flying. He wasn’t sure who’d screeched the highest, your three siblings who had you spearheading this little operation with full trust in your capabilities, or you reacting like you were falling down from an ikran midair. Either way, he was enjoying bullying his kid a bit too much.

Emerging from the stream and shaking the water off too akin to a wet dog, your first action was to shield your siblings, open arms and whole body and all. “Nete, run! Protect Lovak and Kiri, I’ll save you!”

Jake’s evil smile looming on his kids wavered at that.

You had problems with some letters even at the big age of eight, two vowels next to each other in one word was one of them, along with the confusion of “f” and “b”, and sometimes “p” — it made for hilarious misunderstandings Jake had to fight to be a parent about instead of busting a lung from laughing.

One of the many unforgettable events was deemed “The Fish Incident” between Jake, Max and Norm. He had been recording Neteyam’s first catch on his own to add it to the cute memory pile he and his mate would watch in the future after all their children eventually moved out to pursue their paths. You happened to be present that time, watching intently as your big brother shot a particularly giant yellow fish, eagerly jumping down to the pond to get it and showing it to the camera with a shy, yet proud grin on his face.

“Good job, boy!” Jake had cheered. “Say I got that fish!”

Out of the camera’s frame and making little jumps on your toes, you’d blithely yelled. “Yeah, you got that bish!”

The rest of the footage was shaky and out of focus, the microphone hadn’t picked up any sound but Jake’s uncontrollable laughter, kicked off by an exploding snort of shock.

You and Neteyam had no idea why, but after he’d stopped recording with tears streaming down his face, wheezing because he couldn’t stop laughing, you’d joined to laugh and play with him regardless, mirroring his excitement.

Later though, Jake had to actively make it so you wouldn’t have to say the words kitchen and pitch (and obviously, fish) out loud, at least, in front of Neytiri. He didn’t want to abstain from having a little fun himself, so under no circumstance was she allowed to find out and correct you. And he had it going strong for a while until it slipped when he was talking about a scientist friend over at Hell’s Gate called Richard and you repeated it as “Bitchard”. The word had somehow weaseled into your English lexicon as well, and Neytiri wasn’t illiterate enough to be oblivious to what you’d merrily blurted.

Good old days. Jake sometimes missed hearing you curse innocently. Neytiri had to take that source of joy away from him. Discouragement and warnings would be given to his kids if they knowingly cussed, of course, Kiri calling Lo’ak penis face was something he’d immediately shot down, but this was harmless, he thought. He could have let you be blissfully unaware until the day you learned the meaning of the words, or gain consciousness of the articulation errors as you grew up and naturally fix it yourself. It was only a natural part of a child’s growth.

But he had other entertainment. The obligatory consonant you had to sometimes add to two different neighboring vowels if it was too difficult for you to pronounce, for example. Your little brother was a victim to this. Thankfully, Lo’ak wasn’t bothered to be called Lovak by his older sister, somehow thinking of it as a nickname, but Jake could bet his ass the boy would use this as infinite ammo against you once both of you were older. He would of course forget how you always protected him in play fighting like right now, of course, maybe you would remember enough to accuse him of ungratefulness, and perhaps Lo’ak would declare he didn’t recall anything such as that.

How bittersweet of a thing it was to drift into imaginations of how his kids would be like when they grew up. Like the stinging ache Jake always got when he was confronted with the sadness of losing his children forever one day — the need to put every minute with them in a bottle, and the feeling of time slipping through his fingers, the same old melancholy each time: when it first dawned on Jake that you’d successfully sneaked up on him just now, when Neteyam had captured his first fish all on his own without assistance, when Lo’ak showed him the knife he had successfully carved by himself to get his approval, and when Kiri had tended to a scratch wound of his better than her grandmother did with precocious wisdom on her face.

Jake was making every moment count. Just like this one.

“Nobody is safe from me, I’ll huff and I’ll puff and blow your house in!” He jumped down from the log with the grace and intimidation of a leopard who had been disturbed while eating up the tree he’d dragged his meal on, splashing water everywhere. “What will you do, o’ mighty hunter?”

You loved being called mighty hunter by him, he saw the sparkle in your eyes.

“Noooo!” Kiri cried, pulling on both Lo’ak and Neteyam’s arms huddled behind you. “He’ll get us!”

Your thought process, completely spooked by Jake, was painfully visible. But surprisingly, you yelled, “Scatter!” with the experience of a rave addict who would take a forty and smash it on the ground as the police closed in on the party grounds. And his kids ran in different directions, like a group of cockroaches when someone approached them, they all ran in different directions.

Sloshing water all around to make it more terrifying, he got Kiri first, hauled her right over his shoulder when she made for Neytiri, thinking her mother could protect her, but no. Jake was inevitable. Lo’ak gave him a weak challenge trying to step around him, getting Jake to confuse his steps as if they were playing basketball, but this was his dad he was facing and not Spider, these tricks didn’t work on veterans, so now he was flush to Jake’s side, tail facing forward, carried like some strapless bag, it didn’t even put any strain on the man’s bicep. Neteyam was the last, hiding beneath the water level and holding his breath, but the little nose peeking out for air gave him away, and Jake had him up the other shoulder in seconds, the boy didn’t have enough time to run away even though he’d spied from underwater that Jake was coming for him.

Three out of four. That left only his eldest daughter.

You were nowhere to be seen. The delighted and struggling giggle-cries of the three kids in his arms and shoulders didn’t help at all to Jake taking his surroundings in with a keen ear, all senses attuned to spotting the stray.

A rustle from above.

“Attack him!”

He didn’t have enough time to see just which branch of the trees cocooning the creek you had climbed on before all three in his arms turned on him, flailing around together in unison to get Jake to fall down and kneel, and it surprisingly worked, he couldn’t even recover between the blink of a time between them getting off the way and you jumping down on him. The height at which you did that knocked all air off his ribcage for a second as he tried to retain balance, and you took that chance to sit on his shoulders, your legs dangling from each one, grabbing onto two dreads on his head as if they were the tails of Toruk he once had held onto like leashes.

Jake had to give this one to you, damn. When had you become a student of the art of strategizing?

But, defeat was defeat. He had to play his part. “This can’t be!” He opened his arms, making it seem cartoonishly like he had been incapacitated. “I’ve been… bested?”

“That’s right!” The cockiness was dripping from you as you pulled on his dreads. “I’m Toruk Makto Makto now. The first of my name!”

Your siblings started cheering battle cries, repeating the word.

Don’t laugh, he ordered himself. Toruk Makto Makto, what a title, oh Jesus Christ.

“Alright, alright, you got me, mighty hunter.”

“So I win?”

“Yes, you win.”

He was going to have two less dreads on his head if you kept pulling on them like this. “Hell yeah!”

After hearing the declaration, his other children also joined in on the ‘Hell yeah!’ train. Jake supposed he could let this slide for now, you guys were too happy, he wouldn’t sully it.

“You’re gonna rip my hair off, get down now.” You understood play time was over from his tone, and obeyed, hopping down his shoulders when he lowered you into the water, immediately attempting to rush to your siblings’ side to be celebrated, but Jake had something else in mind. “C’mere for a sec.”

He pulled you to the edge of the stream where water met grassy land, dipping his hand into the wet soil under your confused gaze and bringing his fingers up to trace a pattern on your face.

The reaction was instantaneous. You pulled back. “Ew, mud!”

“Hold on,” he gently warned, or rather, encouraged.

You let him continue whatever he was doing then, albeit not losing the laughable concern along the way. “What’s this?”

“Well, you’ve tamed Toruk Makto before an ikran. My mighty hunter should be painted accordingly, no?”

He pointed down and you followed it with your eyes. Seeing your reflection and the ‘V’ shape with a dot on your face in the water, you stopped yourself from touching it with the impulse control that kicked in at the last second, looking up at Jake, jumping up and down, unable to contain the energy, knowing exactly what he did just now. He’d recognized you as a prospective hunter candidate. “Thank you, dad!”

Jake could swear his insides liquidized at that. “Always, sweetheart.”

“Will you paint me like this when I finally get an ikran, too?”

“Of course I will.” He actually wanted to cup your cheeks and plant a little kiss at the adorable flat of your nose but the mud would be ruined, so he pet your braids instead. “As will your mother. It’s what family does.”

At the time, Jake didn’t have the slightest inkling that the paint would end up being your own blood.

Neytiri’s bloody hands — your blood, his child, his child, his baby Jake’s entire day would stop at seeing one tear on her face — had been stroking your face, trying to hold on to you anywhere she could to soothe your flaming pain as you were squirming like a dying animal fighting for the next breath. His heart beating right behind his eyes in a massive pulsating headache, Jake was too desperate fighting his swelling panic with each noise that ripped from you to notice they had left the vague pattern of Iknimaya paint pattern in their wake.

She did.

And her following anguished, gasping shudder as her shaking hands hovered above your contorted face, tracing the air along the lines the blood had left on your face ended up hitting him right in the gut. He couldn’t dwell on it. He couldn’t let this random twisted sign sweep him into the roaring waterfall of torment, your life was on the line.

Jake didn’t have any coherent memory of running back to the mouth of the cave from the family tent. One moment, he was back with his brain fried from thinking about Quaritch in the aftermath of an hour that had just taken twenty years from his lifespan, avoiding the inquisitive silence of his kids who hadn’t gone back to bed yet; and the other, Neytiri was screaming in the distance with terror worse than the anguish he’d heard her go through upon losing her father and her home. Jake had all but flown there, mind blank in swirling, spasming panic.

Neytiri had told him he had a strong heart the first time they’d met. No fear. Even though Jake was aware he was being disliked strongly, this quality of his she had remarked on, honest to her soul.

But she was wrong.

That fearless fortress heart of his had begun to crumble the moment he learned of Neteyam’s existence. And with each and every new addition to their family, Jake had been rehabilitated on what fear truly was, like a baby learning a language.

Losing. It was all about losing.

He would wake up from terrorizing, choking nightmares with the sensation of his family being violently taken away from him when his children were in his arms, sleeping peacefully all along. He couldn’t stop it. It had spiraled out of control after the sky people came back, turning him into a paranoid, angry man who was ruled by fear. He worried for the safety of his family every day, obsessed over it — beneath the impenetrable iron mask of a leader his whole clan was leaning on, Jake was nothing more than a weak, emotionally crippled father who would lose it the more his children grew up to take reckless actions he made worse by the inability to govern his fear-curbed anger. He called it tough love.

That tough love had resulted in this. Loss. Loss. Loss he had tried his damnedest to prevent. It was blood slipping through his fingers from a wound he had no way of stitching back together.

The more he pushed to block the bullet entrance point, the more you fought Jake, making feral yowls that weakened into animalistic whimpers and throaty whines that all but ripped his heart off muscle by muscle, your hits and scratches didn’t faze him, but the noises. Eywa, the noises. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I know you’re in pain, I know, I know, I’ll make it go away, please hold on, c’mon.” The droplets of sweat that had formed in the matter of seconds rolled down his face. You had begun to hyperventilate from the accelerating pain because of his efforts. “C’mon sweetheart. Breathe for me, breathe for dad, okay? You gotta breathe. Breathe!”

You were unhearing, lost in the overwhelming, blinding, deafening agony he couldn’t anchor or shield you from. The grunt of desperation that escaped his sore throat rattled his carbon fiber infused bones.

Jake didn’t have time to think. His reason had flown out the mountains to be able to force one single word to form in his mindscape. He just knew he had to stop the bleeding, propelled by concentrated instinct. You were struggling too much for him to have a solid hold on you. Everything, too slippery. Too much blood. Too fucking much. The sickening smell of iron bit at his senses.

(Was it the liver? The spleen? Pancreas? One of the major arteries? But Na’vi biology wasn’t the same as humans. Fuck.)

Then, you were being restrained by a third party, Neytiri was too devastated to make that reasonable decision, and in his peripheral vision, he saw it was Neteyam who had sat down on your legs, restricting your movements with incredible strength. Jake couldn’t even bark at him to go away with how much Neteyam looked in control, a rock he and Neytiri both could draw strength from. Behind him, Lo’ak was a stone statue just standing there, frozen, his eyes not leaving your bloody abdomen.

When you let out a yelp his heart could no longer stand, he yelled, “Bring a stretcher!” to nobody in particular, out of his goddamn mind. Lo’ak jumped at it, coming back to his senses, hesitating what to do for a second before he was off to god knows where. He had to take you to Norm’s, and then a doctor—

A tiny, trembling voice he couldn’t recognize as Neteyam’s reached his ears. “Dad…”

The boy was looking at you, blown eyes shining with unshed tears, upper set of teeth sinking in his shaky bottom lip.

You had gone slack in his arms.

He hadn’t even seen the moment, didn’t stop putting pressure on the wound as the dread assaulted his body. And a biting shiver went down his spine before Jake also looked down on his eldest daughter. Your eyes weren’t closed all the way, halted gaze focused on something to the side, one tear rolling down your temple.

“Don’t do this to me.” Jake couldn’t breathe as he shook his head, he was about to lose it, about to tumble down the edge he could never climb his way up from. In denial, he didn’t lift his hands, losing all strength in his upper body and gradually collapsing forward as his forehead found yours. “Don’t do this to me, sweetheart, not like this. Please, not like this.”

The last thing you were looking at was the ikran you’d gotten.

Jake didn’t feel that very ikran making its way to their side, flapping its wings, didn’t feel anything to react when a snoot reached down and ever-so-gently nudged you, like you were asleep and it was given the duty to wake you up in the morning that day.

Your ikran nudged you once. Twice. Thrice. Each push was harsher than the other.

You didn’t wake up. Your eyes didn’t get their light back.

A paralyzing numbness took over Jake’s body, all his neuron ends stunted. The moon stopped spinning, time stopped moving, he ceased existing, all at the same time.

A piercing ringing stabbed his ears, took away his hearing. He didn’t hear Neytiri scream louder than the ikran, you were ripped from his arms, and he couldn’t move to do anything about it, just staring into the distance, at nothing, bloodied palms facing upwards in his lap.

It was Neteyam who tried to stop his wailing mother from going mad with grief, trying to get her to set down your body from her crushing embrace even though he couldn’t take his misty eyes off your body. It was Lo’ak, frantic in his run even though his panic-frozen face gave away nothing, who had rushed back with Mo’at and Kiri. It was Tuk who had thrown herself into his arms for a hug Jake wasn’t in his body to reciprocate, his seven year old child, in tears, comforting him when Jake, as the adult and the father, should have had his shit together and be the provider of comfort.

Instead, all he could feel was the blood on his hands, one small part in his mind making him focus on that one amber with a bug inside he’d carved for you, years ago, now in your hair.

The tears didn’t come. His world was shattering all around him, but not one tear made it to the surface.

Someone was talking to him, but Jake wasn’t there, experiencing the moment behind a thick veil of silencing glass.

“Open her mouth, Jakesuli.”

He looked at the source of the muffled sound breaching the ringing in his ears, painfully empty and unfeeling. It was Mo’at. In her hand, a woodsprite gently floated in the air and landed before it repeated the motion again. It was as if his brains had been emptied from his skull. He didn’t understand. He didn’t see. Tuk was clinging to him, Neytiri doubled down in waves of cries in Neteyam’s arms. Jake wasn’t there.

“Open her mouth so I can keep her spirit here longer,” Mo’at said. “Do it now. We do not have much time.”

And Jake could breathe again, his soul slinged back into his body, feeling returning to the tips of his fingers, kicking into action.

He cradled your body from the cold ground you were lying on, bringing his shaky hand to your tightly shut jaw. Your body couldn’t have been experiencing rigor mortis, so you must have been clenching your teeth to the point of your jaw locking to fight the pain, and he was nearly blinded from the sheer strength with which he had to hold back from hugging you. But he eventually opened your jaw with a sickening pop that made him visibly grimace, and Mo’at guided the woodsprite to slip inside the cavity of your mouth.

The bioluminescent dots on your body began to flicker the moment your mouth was closed again. Jake gave a shuddering breath at the sign of life, hands unsure if he should continue to cover the wound again.

“Eywa has allowed her to remain. For a while.”

“Oh Great Mother, thank you!” Neytiri took one of your hands, pressing it against her cheek and kissing it over and over again. “Thank you, thank you.”

“Bring her to my tent,” the Tsahik simply stated, and Jake didn’t even stop to consider how he should be taking you to the science guys, how they were probably going to say you needed a blood transfusion and surgery right after they got the necessary tests such as MRI and blood analysis out of the way. Kiri, sniffling weakly, took the crying Tuk away so Jake could carry you. He couldn’t comfort his girls the way he wanted to, couldn’t attend to Neytiri as their sons consoled her and got consoled in return in a tight hug together; he was on the move, heart about to beat out of his chest.

He took you in his arms and clutched your unconscious and ashen blue body tightly to his chest, your head lolling in the crook of his arm, arriving to Mo’at’s tent faster than she did — and oh, how small you were compared to him, how fragile and vulnerable. The attitude made you appear bigger than you actually were, and Jake was reminded how you were still a child from how light his daughter was, like a fleeting bird. He’d forgotten. It had been forever since he last held you like this that he couldn’t bear to lay you down on the mat. If only he could hide you away within his ribcage, away from the pain and the suffering, forever.

“Everything in this world is borrowed,” she told him, an incense was burned, salves were prepared, tools he had no idea on what they were used were brought out. Plants, herbs. Jake stood there, helpless. “Even this child, Eywa has lent to you. She is borrowed from the bosom of our Great Mother, entrusted to you. Entrusted.” Your freckles were still flickering, and Tsahik’s tone, clipped. “I will converse with her. Ask if she plans to call her daughter back home today.”

Ice washed over Jake. “No, you gotta heal her, Mo’at, I can't lose m—”

“Everything in this world is borrowed. Each breath. Each heartbeat. All children. All gifts from Eywa.” Her eyes bore into him. “I can only ask.”

Neytiri pounced on him as soon as he stumbled out of the tent, beaten and spent despite not having one scratch on his body, upon Kiri’s entrance to assist her grandmother in tending to you.

“Your fault!” He was violently pushed back, only able to take in the woman’s bloodied, wrathful face, tear tracks freshened with saltwater she couldn’t stop shedding. “This is your fault! I told you! I told you to fix this!”

Jake was aware other clan members were watching even if they weren’t out of their homes, he was Olo’eyktan, their leader, his pride would have taken this to their own tent had this been any other debate, but now, he couldn’t give a flying fuck. Bruising his back was the weight of a failed father instead of the ornamental piece of the clan leader, it was unbearable enough. She was right. There was nothing else to be said. His mate was right.

“Mother, please,” Neteyam was right beside them in a flash, holding Neytiri back and shielding his father from her. His sunken eyes found Lo’ak and Tuk crouching at the edge of the tent, huddled together, the youngest having the crying hiccups as her older brother had an arm around her, himself looking traumatized enough.

“Don’t, boy.” Jake put a hand on his stone-hard shoulder, moving him aside. Neteyam took one hard look at Neytiri half-circling his father in long strides, and decided it was best if he took care of his siblings instead even if he wasn’t told outright. He ushered Tuk and Lo’ak up and away, to the other side of the tent where they wouldn’t disturb their parents by staying in the field of vision.

Jake should have been the one to take control, but Neteyam had stepped up for it — he was a kid, too, eldest child or not. What the fuck am I doing?

In his tumultuous sorrow, every piece of the fortress Jake had put together was coming down, every decision re-evaluated, emotion overtaking what he once thought as logic. His fault. His fault. He had ruined his children, all of them. He had thought embracing the iron will of a war chief would allow him to be a strong father figure, but it had only alienated his family.

You had died in his arms.

Jake contained every storm in a box inside his body, Neytiri lived those storms, she was strong that way. He would take it. Her eyes were only seeing red at the moment, the grief and wrath of a wronged mother. “Yeah, it’s my fault,” he told her, something between a whisper and a sigh. His kids deserved to hear it. “I know.”

“She is dying because of you!” Jake couldn’t escape the truth by closing his eyes, but he did anyway, like an automatic body reflex against detecting something would be hitting him. He swallowed, his mouth was drier than a desert, no relief was found in the action. “My daughter! My child! Your child!” She pushed him again, hissing. Jake didn’t do anything to stop it. “All because you told her to go today—everything, everything… All because you didn’t reach out to her. She hid that.” A shiver shook her voice. “That… because of you. You! She thought you would be angry!”

Violent horror seized his heart, ears pinning back on his head, knuckles clenching so light blue they were almost white. “I would… I would never—how could I ever—?”

But it was in character, wasn’t it? Jake always getting angry over worry for his children. Going crazy because they could have gotten hurt. Fear grows into anger, worm eating away the bark of a tree into poisonous snake. The realization hit him like a ton of bricks, chest rising and falling in big breaths, there was no air.

“She said you hated her. Over and over again, she said you hated her. Not to call you because you would hate her for it, Jake!”

Bitter guilt and glacial shock rose from his stomach, choking him, his eyes looking at anywhere but Neytiri’s blazing golden eyes, to his children who sat together seemingly away from them but blatantly listening, to the tent flames were barely illuminating the shadows inside. His legs were weak. All that he had been breaching behind a wall to prioritize your safety flooded rancid to his mind.

Jake got angry at you all the time that you’d expected it at your most vulnerable. That he would blame you, reprimand you for his enemy’s actions.

His memories were attacked by all sides. That you had gone off on your own for the Iknimaya everybody should have been there for, he should have painted your face personally for. That you have been hiding the bleeding out from the moment Jake had found you pinned down by the dead body of an avatar, from the moment you’d answered positively to the question of if you were hurt or not, with that rifle he’d thought you didn’t let go because of how the events had shaken you. He opened his mouth, a gaping fish, but no words came out, mute and voiceless.

Hate you? Hate you? Hate his own child he would burn the whole world for?

His child. Suffering in silence when her nature was anything but silent. Afraid of her father when she was the most fearless of his kids when facing him.

You thought you weren’t loved.

“What have you done to our children? What has this family become? What are we if our children are too afraid to come to us in their darkest hours?” Neytiri was snarling, both fury and grief battling inside her, teeth gnashing so hard they could sharpen a knife. “What child does not seek her parents when she is hurt?”

Unseeing, Jake couldn’t stand anymore, staggering towards a particularly large rock and sitting on it, he raised his hands to rub his face but stopped when he saw the blood.

All yours. All his daughter’s who he had failed. Who had died in his arms thinking she was hated because Jake was a shit excuse of a father you couldn’t trust to say you were hurt that you would take the risk of dying so he wouldn’t find out.

His daughter’s blood, on his hands.

He put his elbows to his legs, crossing his wrists to lean his forehead on, yet unable to hide his shaking hands even if he managed to hide his face. Jake couldn’t comprehend any of this, crushed beneath the skyful of burning hot shame and the guilt dwarfing him — tears he couldn’t seem to shed found life in his eyes at him trying to blink away the memory of you clinging to your ikran at the flight home. You had been suffering the whole time and all he could think about was Quaritch when he should have been thinking of you.

“What child would rather hide her injury than let her father know?” It shocked his spine like lightning, and Jake visibly flinched, fists clenching and unclenching. “Explain this to me!”

Shame. Shame. Shame. Jake was about to throw up, rocking back and forth.

He had nothing to say. Nothing could ever excuse this. He couldn’t wash away all your moments from this night, all a cursed film strip haunting his every breath accompanied by thorns that ripped apart his insides.

“If she lives,” Neytiri said, pointing a curled hand at him, slowly, scarily calm, but shaking with mastered rage. If she lives destroyed Jake. “We would be lucky if my mother doesn’t decide to perform Stxel’eveng as Tsahik!”

Jake’s head shot up at the word, his arms dropping altogether and meeting his mate’s tortured stare. As Olo’eyktan, he had to be taught the traditions and ceremonies to the point of talking in his sleep from overlearning — this one was a long lost one the clan hadn’t performed for a long time, as the Omatikayan were faithful and loyal to Eywa and her teachings.

Stxel’eveng was the shortened word for ‘Gifting of a Child’ — an adoption ceremony within Na’vi that didn’t even have the word ‘adopt’ in their vocabulary, simply because it was almost non-existent, most Na’vi didn’t even know the existence of such a tradition. If the parents were unable to care and provide for their child, mistreated on purpose or neglected them to the point of no return, they were to be publicly dishonored by the gifting of said child to another willing family. A knot would be formed between the three, one thread bound around the waist of the mother signifying the womb, one thread fastened to the queue of the father, and the final thread to the wrists of the child as if they were captive. The knot, then, would be severed by Tsahik to symbolize the dissolvement of the familial relations in Eywa’s eyes.

The biggest shame a Na’vi could bring upon their name.

“No,” Jake muttered, his mind going blank yet again. Fuck the shame. Damn his name. He couldn’t lose you. It’s a stone in his throat he can’t swallow, whales on his tongue he can’t speak to save himself.

“Pray to Eywa it doesn’t happen. Because if I was Tsahik, I would do it.” Neytiri turned away from him, pushing the heel of her hands on her damp eyes. “I cannot bear this shame, Jake. I can barely breathe.”

He quivered like a baby leaf caught in a storm, a couple more tears rolling down his cheeks. “Neytiri…”

“I lost my daughter today. She slipped from my fingers. I watched her die.” He lowered his head at her grief, vision swimming. “How am I a mother when I can't feel her pain? How am I worthy of being her mother when I saw my child’s pain and just sat there helpless? Why would the Great Mother ever want to send her back?” She just kept going, not having any mercy on Jake’s soul. “Where was I when she won against her ikran? Where was I when she had her first flight? Where was I to protect her from those demons?”

A father protects, that’s what gives him meaning.

Who was Jake Sully?

“Lo’ak, come back here!”

Both of them turned just in time to see their youngest son running away from the back of the tent they’d been hiding, Neteyam following a couple steps before he stopped to look back, probably at his sister.

“I’ll get him,” Jake said, soulless and absentminded. Neytiri didn’t respond, stalking back to Mo’at’s tent, just kneeling in front of the entrance, wrapping her hands and tail around her knees. Tuk turned the corner, scampering towards her and finding refuge in Neytiri immediately wrapping around her protectively.

Jake wasn’t allowed to comfort his mate.

But he could get to his children who needed it. Trust, Neytiri had said. Honesty.

Walking up to Neteyam, he put a warm hand behind his rigid back, and felt the taut muscles relax underneath his touch, another wave of shame hitting at the inability to recall just when he had last comforted his boy.

“Get Tuk. Go home. Rest.”

Neteyam turned to him, scandalized. “We will stay.”

“Neteyam—”

“Dad—sir, please. I can’t leave my sister.”

That sir was a splash of acid on his already weeping heart.

It dawned on Jake that Neteyam was the one witnessing your moment of death. Death. A surge of nausea shot up from his esophagus, and he didn’t stop himself from hooking an arm around the boy, careful of using his hands not to get blood on the eldest, pulling him into a much awaited embrace. He hadn’t allowed him to be a kid.

“It’s okay, Neteyam,” he croaked. “She’ll be okay. We’ll be okay.”

Neteyam’s arms didn’t wrap around him, unfamiliar to the gesture — crumbling Jake’s already broken heart into dust, but he did shiver, fighting the tremble. He simply said, “I pray so.”

He was still trying to hold it together — for everybody’s sake.

Jake felt the boy’s tears on his skin, and didn’t let him go when he tried to step back to wipe them, letting Neteyam cry silently as much as he wanted. He owed the boy that much, as his father. It was the least he could do.

Jake would stitch this family back together. He had to.

Washing the blood off his hands had taken a while. Jake wasn’t let off easy, cursed by the remaining line of bloodied dirt in his nails.

He found Lo’ak at where it all began. The mouth of the cave where your ikran was disturbing the other ones with restless chittering, reminding Jake of a wolf howling all night at the full moon.

His youngest son was transfixed by the blood staining the ground. Just standing there, looking at it. Jake couldn’t protect him from the sight. Not anymore. He himself could barely stomach it.

“Is sister going to be taken away?” was the first thing he asked Jake, not looking at him still.

Jake didn’t know if he meant death, or Stxel’eveng.

“I pray not,” he told Lo’ak, honest for once.

And like him, the boy wasn’t sentimental or emotional enough to bear his wounds to another, even to a family member, and fell silent. “It has Toruk’s colors,” he said instead, referring to your ikran’s red, orange, yellow and black patterns. Looking at the creature, Jake tried his hardest to stand up straight when he discerned all the blood coating its neck and back from the natural red color disguising it. “I wanted to fly with her.”

Pulling him into a side-hug, “I’m sorry, Lo’ak,” Jake admitted, causing him to finally break the trance he had on the blood. Speechless at his father, proud and strong, admitting he was wrong out loud and that he was being hugged when it wasn’t like his father at all to show them casual physical affection. Jake knew what must be going through his head, he would be thinking the same if his own father had ever taken responsibility for wrongdoings, as well. “It’s my fault you didn’t get to.”

Lo’ak’s mouth was hanging low. “Dad…”

“But you will,” he said, determined and full of hope. He had to be. For his children.

“You think so?”

“I pray so,” he quoted Neteyam. “Your sister is stubborn. She will pull through. Don’t lose faith in her.”

Lo’ak’s grip on his forearm was painful.

“That ikran’s lost the half of its tail fins,” the boy sniffled, thickening his voice to hide the tears. “How did it get all the way here?”

It stung in Jake’s chest. The same way you’d hidden that injury. Your ikran was fueled only by the desire to get its rider to safety, it seemed.

It would never fly again.

Jake looked down at Lo’ak, only to be met with him avoiding his look, still concerned with hiding the tears. “Loyalty,” he said. “Devotion. Sometimes you don’t want to lose the things you love no matter what, that desperation gives you enough strength to push through any trial by fire. You would do anything. Anything.”

And sometimes it was fear that did it, but he didn’t mention that to Lo’ak to not put salt on their family’s injury. Jake didn’t want to think about how terrified you must have been, or he would actually go insane. He didn’t want to think about the possibility of you not making it in the end. He had to keep going. He had to push forward. Be the father this family needed him to be.

“Come on, boy,” he pulled Lo’ak gently. “Let’s go back.”

Your ikran whined at this pitifully. Jake tried not to think. He tried not to imagine what your reaction would be upon learning you would never fly together again, and had to put down this ikran that had been devoted endlessly to you if you wanted to get a new one.

Jake didn’t think. Because if he did, he would actually go insane from the pain.

Mo’at and Kiri emerged from the tent only in the morning, by which the whole family was cocooned in Jake’s embrace for the first time in years before the sky people had come back. They all had scrambled to get up, waiting with bated breath for one syllable of good news as Kiri slipped into Jake’s arms, one wink from falling asleep while standing. He kissed the girl’s head, soothing her, hoping this could be you eventually. He had been praying for it like a madman.

“Eywa has accepted to bestow your daughter back to you, Jakesuli,” was the only answer Mo’at had for them, no word about your physical wellbeing. “But only if she accepts as well.”

“I don’t understand.”

“You must go speak with her. At the Tree of Souls.”

taglist: @ihonestlydontknowwhattonamethis@alohastitch0626 @jackiehollanderr @lucciera @qvrcll @iloveavatar @velvtcherie @ssc7514 @goldenmoonbeam @neteyamforlife @itsluludoll @jakesullys-bitch @blubrryy @sully-stick-together @arminsgfloll @alice121804 @noname2246 @justthingzsblog @eywamygoddess @m-1234 @ellabellabus07 @hellok1ttycake @dakotali @bluefire12348 @abbersreads @yellooaaa @aimsro @octavias-next-meat-bite @nikqdn @nao-cchi @spicycloudsalad @yeosxxx @heybiatchz @winxschester @elegantkidfansoul @eichenhouseproperty @kakimakiloh @dueiosy @liyahsocorro @dimplesxx @tigresslily@n8ivatar @strnqer @lillybbyy @jakesullyssluttt @r3dc4ndy @myheartfollower @gcldtom @bunnyrose01 @aceofheartzzz @ghoulbli @slasherfcker505 @ducks118 @megsthings @graykageyama @gwolf92

@thotd-f1 @httpjiikook @nipoxe @fussel9913 @gloryekaterina @nxptury @thesheelfsworld @heyyitsmaiaa @anyasullyyy @rey26 @in-luvais @em-100 @n7cje @kpopslur @holysaladapricothero @dedicateeverythingtomilkshake @maviee @grxcisxhy-wp @me-marilm @n39ro-chann

#dad!jake x daughter!reader #dad!jake sully x reader #jake sully x reader #jake sully x daughter!reader #dad!jake sully x daughter!reader #sully family x reader #mom!neytiri x reader #neteyam x sister!reader #neytiri x daughter!reader #lo'ak x sister!reader #kiri x sister!reader

4K notes · View notes