***TW for mentions of suicidal thoughts ****

In this chapter, I touch on Jake's time as a marine. I am by no means an expert on the mindset of those who have been in the military or have seen combat. I drew my inspiration for Jake's feelings and experiences from stories my father has told me about his time as a marine and in the way I have seen how these experiences have affected him.

They didn't speak, no one did, even as they touched down after hours of flying, even as they set up camp for the night. It wasn't until a fire was crackling between all of them that anyone found the nerve to say anything.

"Jake-Sully," Neytiri said, her voice sounding impossibly loud after such a long stretch of silence, "allow me to look at your wound."

Jake wanted to wave her away, to tell her he was fine, but he couldn't quite ignore the way the cut on his neck still oozed blood, should he move too quickly.

His silence was apparently all the permission she needed as she knelt in front of him, hooking a finger beneath his chin to gingerly lift his head.

"It is a rather deep cut," she said, almost absentmindedly as she wetted a strip of fabric to press against tender flesh, "it seems to have missed anything important, but it will leave a scar."

Any other day, Jake might have made a joke about scars being hot, would have nudged at Tsu'tey until he agreed. Now, however, he couldn't help but take in the other man's ducked head out of the corner of his eye, knowing he was still staring at his hands, staring at the blood splattered across his fingers, just as he had the entire flight since they left the Tayrangi Hometree.

Once Neytiri had dressed the wound as best she could, Jake gestured towards the bladder of water she held. It was handed over without a word before she moved away to tend to the wounds of some of the other warriors.

Jake gripped the bladder in his hands as he shifted to sit on his knees in front of the other man.

"Tsu'tey," Jake said softly when he did not acknowledge him. Still Tsu'tey stared down at his hands, deaf to the world around him.

Jake sighed before reaching out and taking the appendages in his own hands.

Tsu'tey only seemed to break out of his trance after Jake poured a bit of water over his fingers and began scrubbing away the blood dried to his skin.

The other man's mouth opened, as though to protest, as though he wanted to keep it there as a reminder of what he had almost done.

"It's okay," Jake whispered in the space between them. He would have preferred to do this in private, but he couldn't stand to see his mate looking so lost, "it's okay."

"It is not," Tsu'tey voice broke at the words, "I am... I am so sorry," he spoke loud enough for the entire party to hear, "it is my fault everything devolved into violence."

Jake shook his head, ready to argue, but Eytukan beat him to it.

"No," the Olo'eyktan's voice was clear, if not slightly thick with emotions Jake could not begin to guess at, "it was Ikeyni who incited violence. No one blames you for your actions, Tsu'tey. Were it not for you, Jake-Sully would not be sitting with us now."

Jake's finger's tightened around Tsu'tey's hands, which were beginning to tremble, until Tsu'tey's entire body was shaking. Tears began rolling down his sharp cheeks, whether they were from guilt or shock or anger, Jake could not begin to guess.

"I wanted to kill her," Tsu'tey spoke through clenched teeth, "I wanted to... I would have beat her head against the ground until there was nothing left."

Everyone was silent for a moment, Tsu'tey's quiet sobs, and the drip of water as Jake continued to wash away the evidence of the day's events, the only sounds that filled the air.

"Ikeyni had already decided what she was going to do the moment we stepped foot in their territory," Eytukan said, his eyes narrowed in anger, "we had no chance of success."

"It's my fault," Jake said, his voice quiet as he stared up at Tsu'tey's eyes, screwed shut, tears still spilling out, "it's my fault we failed... I knew there would be tribes that would lose all trust and respect in us as soon as they saw me... I... I shouldn't have gone, I shouldn't have gone on any of these..."

Neytiri started to argue, but Jake pressed on, focusing in on Tsu'tey's hands, held tightly within his own, as though it was the only thing holding him together, "almost every single clan we've gone to, their problem was me. Twice we were able to talk our way out of it, endear them to our cause... but now, now I've gained us another enemy."

"You did nothing wrong, my Jake," Tsu'tey cut off anything else he may have intended to say, his voice still thick from tears, "you had as much right to be there as any of us. It was I who... I who attempted to murder their Olo'eyktan, who acted in a way that could only be a declaration of war."

"It is neither of your faults," Eytukan said, his voice loud and final, causing both men's jaws to close with a snap, "Ikeyni's behavior was reprehensible, she attempted to take the life of Jake-Sully based off her own bias. We gave her a chance to listen and to understand, but she was blind to reason. She declared war the moment she drew her blade."

Eytukan pauses for a moment, long enough for them to think he might be done speaking on the subject. He continued, however, after the stretch of silence, there was a steal to his voice.

"Jake-Sully, there will be those in this life who will not understand who you are, who will refuse to see you. This is not your fault and you cannot allow their misconception of you to alter how you see yourself.

"Tsu'tey, the life of your mate was in danger. You were not acting out of fear towards a threat, you acted in retaliation of an actual attempt on Jake-Sully's life. This is not the first time in your young life that you have had to face the idea of losing someone close to you at the hands of an enemy.

"There was nothing you could do the last time you were faced with such a reality, but this time there was. You acted out of, not only anger, but preservation of your mate's life—perhaps under normal circumstances, such a display of emotion would be inappropriate for a man who holds the title and responsibility you do, but these were not normal circumstances.

"You learned something today, something about yourself. You learned the lengths you will go to protect your mate, how you respond to them being in immediate danger. You must live with this information, you must acknowledge this part of yourself, so that the next time something like this occurs, you are better prepared to either control those impulses or give in to them."

Eytukan was standing by the time the last words fell from his lips, his chest heaving. After a stretch of silence, the Olo'eyktan seemed to collect himself, settling back down with a slight clearing of his throat.

"I will hear no more of this claiming of responsibility over what occurred today from either of you, I trust this will not be a problem."

"No, Eytukan," Jake said, willing his voice not to tremble, while Tsu'tey could only muster a shake of his head in response.

"Good," Eytukan released a breath, a weight seeming to leave his shoulders, "no lives were lost today, on either side. We may not have gained an ally, but I do not believe the Tayrangi clan will pursue any further conflict with us... nor will we seek out conflict with them," his eyes swept across the circle of Na'vi, searching for any objections to that statement, only continuing once he was satisfied no one held such convictions, "we will continue on, we will not allow this set back to distract us from our goal. If anything, this has shown us how strong we are, how capable we are even when we are caught unawares.

"Do not be discouraged, my brothers and sisters, my children," his eyes softened for just a moment as he focused in on Neytiri, still moving from warrior to warrior, assessing whatever damage they had sustained, to Jake and Tsu'tey, Jake still kneeling before Tsu'tey, heads ducked and hands clasped tightly, "we have survived to fight another day, and fight we shall. To protect our land, to protect our people, to protect the ones we love, we shall fight on."

His words were met with cheers from the guards, though the trio stayed silent. Jake wanted, more than anything, for the words to stir him, to light a fire in his belly. Right then, however, knees digging into the soft dirt, Tsu'tey's tears still falling between them, the blood of Ikeyni caked beneath his finger nails where he had scrubbed it from Tsu'tey's skin—the words did nothing to lift the weight in his chest, dense and empty as a dying star.

-x-

When they eventually retired for the night, they found themselves seated on a high cliff, the ocean stretching out before them, what could only be a few miles from where their bodies slept.

Jake said nothing as Tsu'tey reeled forward on his knees. He simply held back his long braids and rubbed soothing circles across his back as Tsu'tey emptied the contents of his stomach over the cliff's edge.

His retching shifted into dry heaving before the other man finally calmed enough to fall back into a sitting position, Jake's hand still rubbing against the small of his back. Only then did Jake notice the bladder of water attached at his hip.

He still said nothing as he offered the water to the other man. It wasn't until Tsu'tey had washed out the taste of acid bile from his mouth, his breathing finally slowing into something resembling a normal level, that Jake finally found the will to speak.

He didn't talk about what had happened just a few hours previously. He didn't try and convince Tsu'tey that it was okay and that he shouldn't feel badly.

Instead, he sat back, his hands braced against the grass, and told Tsu'tey stories he already knew. He told him about joining the marines because he was young and needed something, something to make him feel useful, something that wouldn't make him sit still. He told him about how much he'd enjoyed it at the beginning, during basic, when everything was hard and loud, when they pushed him until his body ached and he was finally able to feel something in the waking world that filled that hole in his chest.

He told him about how he had stopped enjoying it once he was deployed, when that first bullet rang past his ear, the first time he'd heard an explosion far in the distance and knew there would be a few less occupied bunks that night.

He told Tsu'tey about how it no longer mattered why he was there, what had brought him there, what choices high above him had lead him to be out where he was and who hoped to gain from him being there. The only thing that mattered, the only reason to keep going, was to protect the men and women beside him, not for any country, not out of patriotism or loyalty, but because he had made the choice to be there, because of the foolhardy, selfish desires of someone barely older than a child, because he didn't know what to do other than to keep going.

He told him about the first time a bullet from his gun found a body, about how his bunk mate had clapped him on the back and Jake had smiled through it until he could steal behind the barracks and vomit into the sand until he felt so cold and empty and dark that he thought he'd shatter.

Jake knew Tsu'tey was aware of all of this already, knew he'd watched it all over his shoulder, and he squashed down the shame that knowledge brought with it, because that wasn't what this was about.

He wasn't telling him all of this to comfort him, because there was no comfort to be found when you are facing a part of yourself you didn't know existed before—a violent piece of yourself, that can hurt, that can kill.

Maybe a part of him was just trying to share that pain with the man beside him. Maybe he was trying to assure him that Tsu'tey was a better man than him, that Tsu'tey's reasons had been so much better, so much more justified, and that Tsu'tey, unlike Jake, hadn't actually taken a life.

Whatever the reason, it seemed to put Tsu'tey at some ease. Jake's stories falling off into a silence that felt reassuring and comfortable as they stared at the horizon, where the ocean seemed to go on forever.

"When you were shot," Tsu'tey said after a while, his voice only slightly strained, thick with disuse, "when you slipped into unconsciousness and I thought you were gone... I wanted to die with you," there was another stretch of silence, Jake not daring to say a word as Tsu'tey collected his thoughts, "you did not see me those days, you did not see how low I became at the idea of you being lost to me..." Tsu'tey let out a breath, "I grieved for you and... that pain... it was too much for me to bear. It was only by Neytiri's interference, her perceptiveness in regards to my mental state and my intentions, that she convinced me to hold off, to wait and give you time, to see if you were truly gone."

Jake opened his mouth as though to say something, but he could find no words, and Tsu'tey continued before any came to him.

"To live in a world without you... that would be... that would be impossible," Tsu'tey's jaw was set as he spoke, his eyes still trained on the horizon, "it was impossible, when we had never met, when we were separated by galaxies. My Jake..." Tsu'tey finally shifted his gaze over to the other man, whose heart clenched at the wetness barely contained behind those large eyes, "now that I have you, now that you are here beside me, with me... I hesitate to divulge the lengths I would go for you, to keep you safe, to keep you mine. I would die for you, I would kill for you, would kill anyone who sought to harm you. Should anyone wish to hurt you, Eywa forbid anyone take your life, I now know, as I had suspected before, that I would not hesitate to take their life in retaliation."

Jake felt the earnestness of those words, felt the weight of them—simultaneously unbearably heavy and endlessly comforting. Jake stared into the eyes of the man he had loved since before he knew what love was, and felt as though his chest had been cracked open, as though some great beast had punched through his sternum and left him vulnerable and bleeding.

"Do my words frighten you, my Jake?"

The question had barely left Tsu'tey's lips before the 'no' was falling from Jake's.

"No," he repeated, because it was true. And maybe it should have frightened him, maybe he should have been concerned at the lengths this man was willing to go for his sake. He wasn't though, he couldn't be, because, in his mind's eye, if he thought back, put himself in Tsu'tey's place, if he had been held down and forced to watch as a blade was dragged across the other man's throat... there was no doubt in his mind that he wouldn't have reacted any differently that Tsu'tey had.

"I thought I was going to watch you die that day, in the fire, you know?" Jake said, his eyes never leaving Tsu'tey's gaze, "it felt like my world was ending. If you had... if you had died that day, I still would have come here. I would have gotten on that shuttle for the sole purpose of burning the RDA to the ground."

Tsu'tey made a noise that sounded like understanding.

"There's nothing for me without you," Jake said, the words hanging heavy between them, "there's no point in anything if you're not with me, in one way or another. I don't want to... I couldn't... live without you. And maybe," his voice grew thick, the corners of his eyes burned, and he wasn't sure if it was from the idea of being without the other man or if it was from the weight of the truth behind the words, "maybe that's not healthy, to be so dependent, to need someone so much. But... you, you're a part of me, I have every moment of your life right here in my head, right beside mine. I've never not had you, I don't know how you made it those six years I was hurdling through space-"

"It was like a piece of my soul had been ripped away," Tsu'tey cut him off, voice equally as thick, answering the question, though it didn't require one, "it was like an open, bleeding wound that drained me of every good and happy thing. Life without you was... it was agony, and I am not strong enough to live like that again."

Jake nodded, because he understood—nodded because it didn't matter if it wasn't normal or healthy.

Jake had been with other people, normal healthy people, people who were nice and perfectly pleasant. Jake had known, even then, even when he wasn't sure if the man whose life he shared was real, that he wasn't capable of loving anyone else, no matter how nice and safe and comfortable they might be.

Tsu'tey wasn't any of those things, he wasn't soft like the accountant from Delaware, endlessly kind like the waitress from Spain, simple like his bunk mate. No, Tsu'tey was something else entirely, with a dagger strapped to his thigh, all sharp edges and sharper teeth, and wide, wild eyes.

There was nothing safe and normal with Tsu'tey, but safe and normal wasn't what Jake was after when he'd sent himself careening across galaxies. He wasn't after something soft and easy and nice, he was after that thing that filled the void in his chest, the thing he'd only been able to fill with fear and pain and need.

Because Tsu'tey, Tsu'tey was everything to him, always had been. Tsu'tey was strong, stronger than Jake, he thrummed with energy like a live wire. When Tsu'tey fought, it was with everything he had, when he snapped and barred his teeth, it's because he meant it.

It had to be Tsu'tey, had always been Tsu'tey, because no one else felt real to Jake. No one else held him with calloused hands like he was delicate and powerful all at once. Tsu'tey held him like he was the most precious thing in the world, but also like he was the only thing that could possibly hold him together.

"I love you," he said even though the words didn't feel like enough.

When Tsu'tey returned the sentiment, he didn't quite smile, but his shoulders had lost their tension, and he allowed himself to sink into Jake's side, drawing in the comfort he knew he could always find there.