Author's Note: I'm so sorry about the wait! I kept trying to work this chapter and I think I found a way to make it the way I wanted. It's not completely there, but I ended up not hating it, so there's that. Not much to this chapter, unfortunately but a bit of suffering for our baby boy. But I thank you all for your kind words and I hope that you enjoy!

A tunnel of bright flashing colors nearly blind Jake, so that when he comes to, he's blinking furious spots from his eyes.

"Jake!" Tommy's voice sounds muffled, like Jake's head is under water. "Oh, thank God! Jake, what happened?"

Jake rubs at his forehead, it feels like the space between his ears in full of cotton. There is a miniscule throbbing, like the beginning of a headache. He blinks a few times before turning to the face next to his. His eyes widen in surprise for a second, taking in Tommy's features on an unfamiliar face. He recoils for a second, just staring at the trepidation written all over the familiar but strange face of his brother.

Or, his brother's avatar.

The gold eyes. The flat bridge of his nose. His face slimmer but longer. The blue skin. Light blue markings and white freckles. Two elongated fangs that give his jovial brother's face a more feral look. He can see his brother's features beneath, but only kind of. It takes time for his brain to register that he's looking at his brother, but also not looking at his brother.

He can see Tommy, but he can also see the things that are unfamiliar. The parts of Tommy's DNA mixed with that of a Na'vi. Tommy's appearance gives Jake a good idea of what his own avatar looks like. He knows they looked at them through the glass, but honestly, Jake's mind was elsewhere. He was trying to think of any other way he could convince Grace to either let him stay behind at the base or at least do anything else that has nothing to do with the school and the Na'vi.

He would like to think that she would be all for not having a screw up around her pet project, but just in case he somehow - which for how convincing he is, it's fair to assume - failed, he needs to come up with another plan. He really doesn't want to be the reason that things go sour around here. He would rather just fall into the background and disappear forever. Hell, maybe Tommy can use both avatars if something were to happen to his.

Wait, is that weird? Jake has no idea.

"Huh? Tommy?" Jake rasps pulling back from his thoughts, coughing a little before slowly moving to sit up.

"Woah, slow it down there, tiger!" One of the medical technicians says, waving his hands around wildly. "Lay down!"

"Jake, you need to lay back down for a second!" A woman shouts, her tiny hand resting on his arm, causing a strange jolt of sensation up his arm. Jake looks down at it, momentarily freaked out by the blue thing attached to his sense of self - his avatar. Other little hands reach out and touch him, applying enough pressure for him to get the point. They don't want him going anywhere.

Slowly, he lowers back down, not wanting anyone to yell at him anymore, and definitely not wanting their hands on him a moment longer. He glances over at Tommy's avatar to see the look of fear written across his face and Jake feels tension coil in his gut.

"What's wrong? What happened?" Jake asks, wondering what he could do to ease that look from his brother's face.

"We could ask you the same thing," Max's voice comes over a speaker. Jake looks up to see the observation room overlooking them. From this distance, Max looks so small. He has a tablet in his hand and he's leaning against the glass, looking down at them. From here, Jake can even see his face twisted into a mixture of worry and relief.

"What do you mean?" He asks, relieved when all the little hands - except for the ones attached to Tommy's avatar, which comparatively weren't so little - are removed from him. He looks over to the being wearing his brother's face. "What's going on?"

"Jake, what happened? Where did you go?" Tommy asks, his entire face pinched in terror as he lowers to his knees next to Jake's bed. The length of a limb that Jake doesn't comprehend right away swinging behind him for a tech to dodge out of the way of. It takes Jake a second to realize that it's a tail.

Jake shakes his head, still utterly confused as he pulls his eyes back to the avatar of his brother. "What are you talking about, Tommy?"

Glistening golden eyes stare through him. "You were gone for almost an hour. You weren't responding to anything yet there was major brain activity. What happened? You weren't in your body, and you weren't in the avatar. It's like you were lost in between." Tommy's avatar's chin is trembling, and Jake feels horrible for worrying him.

"I'm sorry," Jake says, quietly. "Nothing happened. At least, I don't think so. I just... closed my eyes and woke up here."

Tommy's avatar takes a shaky breath, looking over at a very large avatar woman walking into the room. It takes a second of furious blinking for Jake to realize that the face staring back at him was an avatar version of Grace.

As she walks over, hands on slender hips, Max, from above, asks, "Are you sure there was nothing else? You were out for a while. I didn't want to risk pulling you out of the link, because you weren't in distress, but we were talking about it. I'm glad your back but I've never had someone take that long to get from themselves into their avatar. Are you sure you're okay?"

Jake thinks back. He thinks about the lid of the machine closing on him. Him just lying in that darkness, waiting. And then nothing, just a flash of bright, blinding array of colorful lights, before he opened his eyes. It felt like only a few seconds passed him by. It doesn't feel like any time has really passed, yet they said it's been an hour? That doesn't seem right. But Tommy seems shaken, worried. And he wouldn't be without reason. Something must have happened, but Jake certainly doesn't remember any of it.

The doctors in the room manage to check Jake over to ensure he's okay - bright lights in his eyes, snapping in his ears - and it all felt a thousand times more intense than his own body. Colors are sharper, sounds are crisper. Jake half listens as Tommy, seemingly reading his mind, rambles on about how Na'vi have more cones that allow them to see more color and in sharper detail and a heightened sense of hearing because of the shape of their ears and a gland or something in their skull.

Well, he lost him there.

Jake just stares quietly at the ceiling listening to everyone talk around him. At some point, either Tommy realized that Jake wasn't really listening or didn't care that he wasn't anymore and was just talking at him while obeying whatever the doctors are asking of him. Jake has to be told multiple times to do things as he too is barely listening, lost to the wonders of what he can comprehend.

Mostly what he can get from his senses. He listens to their hushed voices, even if he isn't listening to the words. He watches a bug zipping around the room, eyes able to track the movement much easier than his human eyes would be able to and feelings across his skin felt... sharper. Sensation was a lot crisper than he feels like it was as a human. Even his sense of smell was heightened. He could smell odors coming from the people around him - not necessarily a stink, just something odd.

His brain not able to interpret it but after wrinkling his nose a few times, Grace, who was talking in hushed tones with Max, who came down to see them, made mention that the Na'vi use a lot of their senses to help them interpret information. Much more than humans do. Their sense of smell being one of the major ones. Jake rubs at his nose, sniffling as the doctors - care techs, as Max called them - place nods on his temples, looking at a screen monitoring his brain activity.

Jake glances at the wall of mirrors in the room one single time, catching all the strange features he saw in Tommy now in himself. The blue skin. The flat bridge of the nose. The white markings and freckles - they glow, Tommy had giggled, excited. And the increased height compared to the humans tending to them. Jake and Tommy's avatars, expectedly, looked completely identical. Even their hair was styled the same - in the sense that it wasn't. It was just all pulled back into one long braid that reached their butts with stray shorter strands around their faces - same as Norm.

The only difference between Jake and Tommy, that Jake was able to notice, was when he ran his tongue over his teeth, shivering at the sensation but noting that instead of the single set of fangs like Tommy, Norm and even Grace had, Jake appeared to have two identical sets on his upper jaw - which was weird. Why have literally everything else be the same, but that?

Not that anyone asked to see his teeth so he doubted anyone would notice. He just barely did.

And then Jake looked away from the mirror and never looked back other than to look at the people instead of himself.

They had Jake run through all sorts of tests - as well as Tommy and Norm, who was on the other side of the room, watching - to ensure that their avatars were okay and operating as they should, such as wiggling his extremities and performing all sorts of motor functions. Touching the tips of his fingers together, wiggling his toes, swiveling his ears - which was weird.

Oh, and smacking the ever-loving shit out of Tommy with his tail was probably the highlight of this entire experiment. He hadn't even realized that he had one, so when they finally deemed him well enough to sit up, Tommy had been walking back and forth, practicing his balance when Jake's tail lashed out trying to help his own balance as he sat up and cracked like a whip against Tommy's thigh, making everyone in the room jump at the sound.

Jake grits his teeth in pain as it radiates against the strange limb up his spine, making his body tingle. He feels extremely sensitive. He noticed it when he first woke up, but now he's much more cognoscente of it. He glances over at Tommy, who was glaring daggers at him, hand over the spot on his leg.

"Ow," Tommy says bitterly.

Jake's ears flatten tightly against his skull as he stares over his shoulder at his brother. Shame and anger at himself, pooling in his gut. "I'm... I'm sorry."

Tommy rubs at the spot before offering a playful grin, reaching out to pat Jake's shoulder, eyes glittering in excitement. "I'm just playing, bro. I barely felt it. It sounded louder than it was. Or, felt, I guess. Just be careful with that thing. It's dangerous."

Jake nods, mutely, shame pulling his shoulders together as he turns away. His body is still shivering a bit from the feeling of the hit rolling up his spine. Holy cow, the Na'vi are extremely sensitive. He feels like even the air pumping in from the vents above make his skin tingle. It doesn't hurt or anything, but he feels so much stimulation just from sitting in a room, he can't imagine being out in the world. How do they operate feeling like this?

Unless... maybe this is one of the symptoms that Max was talking about?

Jake glances over at the man, staring up at Grace, holding his tablet out for her large avatar to study from where she's standing, slightly hunched over in a red 'Stanford' shirt that looks more like a crop top due to her size. Is this one of those things that he's supposed to tell them about? He's not sure. What if this is just normal for the Na'vi and their avatars by extension and it was mentioned in the manual that he didn't really read? While Grace can no doubt guess that he has no idea what he's doing, it doesn't mean he has to confirm it by asking a stupid question.

She's annoyed enough with them being there as it is, the last thing he wants to do is make it worse.

One of the care tech's runs a machine down the underside of his arm toward his wrist. Once it gets close, he jerks back at the sensation, ears pulling together at her startled look up at him. He moves his arm back in place for her, lowering his chin to his chest in a silent apology, sorry for startling her.

She casts him a curious look, asking, "Are you okay, Jake? Did that hurt?" She steps closer, placing her hand on his wrist instead.

"No, ma'am," he says softly, looking at the ground.

She tilts her head, blue eyes gazing up at him through the mask protecting her from deadly air of Pandora. She stares for a long moment before gently probing, "Are you sure? If something doesn't feel right, we need to know. It could be a problem."

"It didn't hurt," he insists slowly.

"But..?"

Jake's ears flatten more, which draws her eyes up to them. Embarrassed, Jake brings one hand up to cover one side, already hating these ears. He needs a hat or something to cover them up. He can't live with people just staring at his ears like that. It's embarrassing. He can swivel them around at will, but they also appear to be very keyed into his feelings and he hates just about everything that has to do with that.

"I'm just... sensitive," Jake mumbles, reluctantly.

She perks at that. "Like your skin hurts?"

Jake shakes his head, the cotton that seemed to fill the space between his ears has been breaking up more and more as time goes by, which is a relief. "No, it doesn't hurt. It's just sensitive."

The woman looks down at his hand, head still tilted slightly. She runs her hand down his palm, his fingers twitching. She presses harder and his hand spasms slightly. She looks up at Jake, contemplatively, before heading over to Grace to speak to her. Jake frowns at that, wondering if it was something weird. It was just a side effect of the transference into this avatar body, right? Max did say something about this happening.

Maybe not this specifically, but still. Jake supposes that they have to make note of all of those things.

While the woman is talking to Grace and Max, both of them turn to look at him. Jake's ears press against his skull. He reaches up once more to cover them. He really hated this. He needs a hat. He can't deal with people looking at him like that, reading him like that. The power someone has when they know how you're feeling with just a glance. Jake has worked his whole life to control his expression. He's had to.

He's not going to let being big and blue change what he knows. He knows how to keep himself alive, becoming an avatar doesn't change that.

Unlike Norm and Tommy, who both got to leave the observation room, Jake was stuck there for the rest of the session. While the two of them got to go outside, stretch their legs and feel Pandora with their new avatars. Jake got to stay inside while people fuss and fawn over him.

Which, of course, is Jake's favorite thing ever.

Jake didn't mind staying inside, especially since the cotton between his ears finally faded enough that he could just hear things in excruciating clarity. His hearing so sensitive, he could hear the faint sound of gushing water, so long as it was quiet enough and people were close enough to him. It took him a good thirty minutes of quietly listening, trying to comprehend what he was hearing from the man right in front of him before he realized what it was.

He was hearing the blood rushing through the man's system in front of him. And it freaked him out so much he had no words for it. Was this really how good of hearing that the Na'vi had? No wonder Quaritch gave them an hour-long briefing of just how dangerous this place was. How was anyone ever supposed to hide from something like that? Something that, in a space quiet enough, they could literally hear the blood flowing through someone's veins.

That's insane.

And smell was their strongest sense?

Okay, maybe he needs to actually read that manual.

But while he didn't mind having to sit inside all day just following someone's orders. He's used to that. He spent his entire life doing that. He did mind having to sit there while the care techs poked and prodded at him per Grace's orders. He knows it's not possible for them to study him and ignore him all at the same time, but he felt so... exposed. They just kept looking at him. Talking to him. Touching him. It was wearing him thin. Plus, with how sensitive his skin was, despite them being gentle - ish - with him, it was still grating at the nerves.

He really, really doesn't like this.

Thankfully they got him some clothes - fatigues, but he didn't care about that, as it's no different from what his actual body is wearing - and when he quietly asked for a hat, the nice care tech woman from before nodded and vanished for a while, but she managed to return with one. A simple, black cap with bold white NYC embroidered across the front. It was big enough to cover his big head, hiding his ears from sight, which made him feel a tiny bit better and less exposed.

He sat on the bed or walked around the room at their request, speaking only when spoken to, doing everything they said. He's relieved that other than initial curiosity, there didn't appear to be anything weird about his sensitive skin. They think it's just another side effect that they hadn't seen yet. So, it gets to go down on the list of side effects that happen to people during their first transfer. The thing that still interested them was why it took so long for his mind to jump from his human body to his avatar one.

And, well, Jake was absolutely no help in that as it felt like only seconds had passed for him.

Grace was less than pleased with how unhelpful he is. Max dutifully defended him with the sound argument of, "We are still learning all the ins and out of the transference into the avatars, Grace. There is still so much for us to learn about how different people react to it."

Grace huffs, shaking her head but thankfully doesn't argue the point of contention. Max also brings up a good point that there is a chance that Jake's mind tried to jump into Tommy's avatar and got lost for a little while. Once again, they never had two identical avatars together - twins - so it's impossible to know if that somehow had something to do with there being a lag in Jake's jump as opposed to Tommy's jump, who went first.

Shortly after, she left to see to Norm and Tommy to help them ensure that they were learning about their avatar bodies properly under the guidance of the care techs with them. A small part of Jake was relieved for her to go. She had been staring at him with these eyes. These keen, all-seeing eyes that makes him uncomfortable. This whole situation already made him uncomfortable, and this just added to it, pushing him all the way to the edge.

He really, really doesn't like this.

Jake likes his hat, though. He can pull it down enough to shadow his eyes. Helps when he doesn't want to make eye contact with anyone. Thankfully nobody seems to care about whether or not Jake is looking at them, so long as he's doing what they're saying. Answering their questions.

Grace doesn't seem to like the hat, though.

The care tech, Molly, was nice enough to insist that he keep it. To take it with him when they get done for the day. "You listened to everything we asked without complaint," she had said. "I wish my son had been that good when he was your age."

Flushed, but happy that those expressive ears were hidden, Jake simply nodded and thanked her.

After hours of them running all sorts of tests on him, they deemed him well enough to finally leave and head toward the avatar bunk where his avatar can safely rest, safe from the elements and with all the other avatars. Jake made the short walk across the path, next to tennis and basketball courts and a large garden that Jake was able to partially see from his room.

It's getting dark out now, and Jake can see glowing freckles along his arms, that fascinate him. He stops in the middle of the path to stare at them, thinking about the sparkling lights on the bulbus thing that keeps coming to see him. While those twinkle and fluctuate in brightness, the freckles on his arms do not. They stay one stagnant brightness. He just thinks it's weird that they would just... glow in the dark. What alpha predator, or alpha species would glow in the dark? Doesn't that make it harder for them to hunt?

Then again, they can apparently hear blood rushing through people's veins so maybe that's not a problem for them.

Jake has to wrap his arms around himself as the gentle breeze brushing his skin is enough to set his body aflame. Like every inch of his body is being pressed on. It doesn't hurt but it is horrendously uncomfortable. His clothing is only offering him a tiny bit of reprieve from the feeling, but he was excited to finally get out of this body and away from this feeling.

Tommy and Norm, dressed in civilian clothes - khakis and t-shirts - were already inside the bunk with a bunch of other avatars by the time he arrived, the former jumping to his feet when Jake walked in while Norm turns toward him from his bunk on the other side of the younger Sully sibling.

"Hey!" Tommy says, walking over to him. He takes Jake's arm and leads him over to the bed next to his. "How are you feeling now?"

Jake shrugs his shoulders, lowering to the bed. "I'm okay. How about you? Is this everything you ever wanted? Are you having fun?"

Tommy's face nearly splits in two with his excitement, lowering next to Jake, his right-side brushing against Jake's left, making his already hypersensitive skin tingle even more. Static. That's the feeling. Like when a limb falls asleep, and someone touches it and that tingling sensation that isn't exactly pain, but it doesn't feel great either. He's ready to get back to his real body and away from that feeling.

Jake tries not to flinch as the sensation works its way through his body. But he doesn't pull away from Tommy, just glad to see how excited and happy he is. It's been a long time since Jake has just been able to enjoy Tommy's happiness. He just wants to sit and soak in it for as long as he can. So long as Tommy is happy, Jake is happy too. As the rest of the avatars wind down for sleep, Jake quietly listens to Tommy and Norm go on and on about all the things they did today and what they were looking forward to doing tomorrow.

"Maybe they will let you come out with us tomorrow, since your second jump should be better," Tommy was saying, patting Jake's leg. Jake sighs, tensing slightly but not enough for his brother to notice, thankfully.

"Alright boys and girls, everyone who isn't an avatar, get out," Grace says easily, walking through the bunk, shooing away the care techs, making sure they were all out before locking the door for the night before heading over to her own bed and lowering to a sit. "Alright everyone else, I'll see you in the labs. Good job today." With that she lowers onto her back and closes her eyes. The rest of the avatars start to follow suit.

"I better go," Tommy says, jumping up and heading over to his own bed, lowering down onto it. "See you in the lab, bro."

Jake nods mutely as Tommy and Norm both lean onto their backs, closing their eyes before silence. Jake stares around the bunk as all the avatars fall into an unnerving stillness. They are breathing, twitching, but no big shifts. Not like someone in their sleep. Just... twitches. Legs and arms and tails. But that's it. Jake looks around the room for a long moment, dreading laying down and feeling the sheets against his skin, but he had to. It's not like he could stay like this. His skin just doesn't feel right. He hates it.

Jake lays down, grunting at the pressure of something pressing into his back. He pulls the long braid down his back over his shoulder, glaring at the blast of sensation down his spine and into his skull just from laying on it. Sighing, he pushes it to the side so that he doesn't lay on it again before adjusting tentatively. Why does it feel like he's getting more sensitive instead of less, unlike the cotton dissolving in between his ears? That got better the longer he was in the avatar body, this doesn't seem to be.

Jake pulls the bill of his hat down more over his face to shield his eyes before carefully turning onto his side and curling up into as little of a ball as he can and closing his eyes, willing his mind to clear. It takes a few minutes, but eventually his mind clears enough for him to feel this strange tug on his mind and he's falling through a vortex of colors bright enough to hurt once more.

He's squinting when the top of the pod opens up and Max is leaning over him, eyebrows pulled together in worry.

"It didn't take another hour again, did it?" Jake asks, rubbing the spots from his eyes. His body... feels horrible. Like he just ran a marathon. Like he hasn't had a good night's rest in years.

It's been weeks, but this feels so much worse than when he went in. He feels this exhaustion beyond bone deep. Like it's centered somewhere in his soul rather than in his body. He feels horrible.

"No, thankfully," Max says, smiling faintly. "It just took a couple minutes. Are you okay?"

"Oh," Jake says as the mechanism placed over his chest is removed and he sits up slowly. "Yeah, I was just looking around the bunk. I'm good."

Max's relief is palpable. He reaches out to pat at Jake's shoulder before pulling away.

Jake feels himself slump tiredly. He rubs roughly at his eyes and bites back a groan as he slowly swings his legs over the side of the bed. Tommy and Norm are already up and chatting excitedly to one another. Jake begrudgingly figures that the process of jumping between his body and the avatar created for him has nothing to do with his exhaustion and no doubt everything to do with that fucking six-year cryo sleep. What an entire mess.

Jake rubs at his neck and shoulders, wanting nothing more than to go back to his room and get some sleep. He has another long day of work tomorrow and he's just praying that he has exhausted himself enough that he'll be able to finally get a few hours of sleep tonight. If transferring back and forth from his body into the avatar is going to drain him even more of all of his energy, there is no way that he's going to be able to do this.

"Are we done for the day?" Jake asks, moving to stand, feeling dizzy enough to close his eyes to steady himself.

"We have to do a video log and then we'll be done," Norm says, nodding when Jake opened his eyes toward a section of computers already set up and empty with a few feet between them, enough for everyone to have a bit of privacy. The other avatar drivers are walking over to them and hopping on.

Jake's shoulders drop as he glances forlornly at the door. "What are we supposed to talk about?"

"Anything, it's a video log about your time as an avatar driver. It's mostly for you to keep track of everything that's going on," Norm says easily. He gives Jake a friendly smile before his face faulters. "Are you okay, Jake?"

Tommy glances over at him, expression worried. "Are you sick? You're looking a little... like shit."

"Tired," Jake mumbles, lumbering over to the computer. "I've had a long day."

"Are you sure?" Tommy asks, following after.

Jake nods, practically dropping into the nearest seat, letting out a sigh. There is a sticky note with instructions on how to get into the computer and where to set up their own file logs. Jake, sighing, makes a folder following instructions on the desktop under the name Sully, J. Thankfully the recording program was already pulled up and ready for the next person to use, so Jake just moved over to it and started recording before he hesitates once more.

"Anything?" He asks again, looking at Norm.

Norm glances over the top of his computer, nodding. "Yep. Talk about your thoughts and feelings. Talk about your experiences. It's your log, Jake. Talk about whatever you want to talk about."

Jake looks at the recording of himself, seeing Tommy in the background a few computers away, animatedly talking about his experience. Jake looks at his pale face, dark circles under his eyes and the slow blinking expression staring back at him, little red light blinking in the corner.

After about ten seconds of that, Jake finally says, "I'm Jake Sully. Um, brand new Avatar Driver. Um, I had my first jump today. It was fine. It apparently took me forever to get there, but I made it. Um, it's strange to be big and blue. I..." Jake hesitates, rubbing at the back of his neck, feeling like an idiot. What was he supposed to say? A video log? For himself? What was he supposed to get from this? No doubt this wasn't really for him. It was for people like Grace to study later or something, right? Or the higher ups?

Jake doesn't know. And he also doesn't care.

"I don't like it," Jake says quietly, leaning forward with his forehead on his hand. "I don't like when they poke and prod at me. My skin hurts, I don't know how to use a tail, and everyone keeps looking at me. I don't like being an avatar driver. I hope Doctor Augustine will just let me help out around the base or something. What she's doing is probably a really good thing and I know I'm not built for that sort of life."

Jake rubs at his eyes, sighing in exhaustion. He looks at the image of himself, hating those dull eyes staring back at him. "I don't know what I'm supposed to say. I guess tomorrow is supposed to be better. But isn't it always? That's it. Jake Sully, signing off."

Jake cut off the recording, saved the file under the date, per the instructions on the sticky note, and saved it into his brand-new folder before standing up and heading out. It was almost eight-thirty, and he was already too exhausted to think of anything other than his bed. He felt Tommy's eyes following after him, but he didn't stop. He just didn't have it in him to be part of whatever was happening behind him.

He just needed sleep. Hopefully tomorrow would be better.

Tonight, though, he just wanted to sleep.