Author's Note: Nothing much, just a oneshot. Accompanying my fic "Kansas."
Warnings: Established marriage, age gap, complete canon deviation, entry level fandom knowledge, a whole lot of made up futuristic tech, pro-human, Miles lives, my first official stab at Miles, Lord help us.
wild ones
"...you can hear me? Ruthaynne—Miss Carthier, you able to hear alright?"
Waking from neural connection, usually, happens in a whirlwind—one of two ways, really. Many drivers reported a slow haze, akin to swimming. Time spinning backward as the crush of water rushes to fight you under, pulling at what feels to be your bones as you grapple for air, choking on hope and the claw for the surface. Smothering and slow. Others reported the whiplash of being launched into a world of spinning color, cloud nine sounds, exaggerated tastes—acidic, sacchrine, umami in ways to make the head spin. The crash of a heartbeat, the lightning quick crash of senses coming online like from a coma.
Lungs rise and fall rapidly, sucking in stale and thin air. Twice the size of what the human cavity would remember, not a stone's throw from her alternate shell, locked away in some coffin box costing more than anything NASA would ever touch in three decades. Blood, rich with properties Earth could never fathom, rips through her veins—carrying foreign oxygens, CO2s cocktails to organs pushing hard, pistoning for life. Pores open and close like one never would think to acknowledge, hair stands up on end as the cool rush of conditioned air sets in. Her hearing is the last to balance, deep and slow tones of the living settling into the brain like ripping off a wet, suffocating blanket.
The weight of the sun may as well be resting on her chest—everything burns. Hot, like someone's struck a flickering match beneath the epidermis that's lit her up. Snapping and crackling in her blood, licking up whatever air is pummeling down her windpipe. Hunger claws somewhere in the depth of her core, starving and rapid with cold attention and steel tenacity that demands. She'd kill for a steak, or carbs—something savory, something salty.
Synopses in her brain curl and flex her toes towards the floor. Muscles in her calves pull, twitch. Contract. They're defined in ways Ruthie Carthier, her human body, would never feel; strong. Adept. Otherworldly, godlike. Adonis, reaching for the sun —flying too close to a feeling of power, of capability. It was never how man was supposed to feel. Forever the creation, the taste of creator was never meant to flow through veins incapable of justice, purity.
And this must be what Goliath felt like, high on adrenaline, drunk on power and iron strength able to bend hearts backwards. I Am help us, it was incredible. Magnificent in a twisting, serpentine way. Like a chilled, feverish sweat—cooling for the moment, but not everyday. Not stationary, not normal. Not organic.
A snap of cold chases down the muscles in her back, the discs of her spine—chasing the heat crashing through her blood. And as her palms skip over whatever surface is beneath her, she knows why. It's smooth, otherworldly smooth. Skipping through her fingers, she realizes it's the medical berth. The labs.
"...heart level's looking fantastic, o-sat is nearly perfect. Good respirations," two heads suddenly appear above, looking down through rebreathers. They're smiling, the wrinkles at their eyes and the sparkle of light are tells that not even a trained liar could hide. "Hey there. Doing okay?"
Color fights for daylight from beneath the milkwhite collar of the woman's labcoat—purple. It's a purple something trying to hide, but it may as well be flashing neon on the Vegas strip—and it's beautiful. The only scrap of living color, in the otherwise industrial steels and sterile whites of the ceiling and walls. Unable to look away from the rich promise of plumb for a few more heartbeats, movement flicks her eyes up to consider the light now passing in front of her eyes.
"Excellent tracking response," she chuckles. "Got some mighty blue eyes there, Mrs. Carthier—you're clear to sit up, nice 'n easy." Stepping back from the table, the woman disappears from flat-back view and the beep of a monitor, the electrical whir of a correcting machine is the only noise. "You might be a bit disoriented, it'll pass."
What once was the tech's floating head becomes a pair of shoulders and a body as she works into a sitting position. The room spins, and it takes a squeeze of strong hands on the edge of the table to anchor the world, back as it was. Scribbling violently with a pen over a data screen, the tech's eyes track the change; data hits the mainframe almost at the speed of light. Flicking between her patient and the screen, her smile is wire thin. She folds the plex over her chest, spinning the pen through her fingers.
"Better?" Tapping the pen against her teeth, her head tips to the side. A nod satisfies her. "Figured. Takes a few seconds for all the neural pathways to wake up, the sleepy bastards." The curse is short off a snort and foul, and Ruthie's nose wrinkles in agitated disgust. Shooting her a sidelong frown, the tech has the nerve to roll her eyes. "My bad, Jesu—jeez. If we're good here, you can stand up when you're ready, hon."
For a second, Ruthie thinks she can feel the reinforcement in her bones as she slips off the berth. Bare fit hit the cold floor and she winces, recoiling as the heightened senses rush through her frame. Lifting her hands, she moves her finger, transfixed at the shallow bones flexing beneath her pale skin. Corner of her mouth ticking up in a small smile, she watches the back of her hands as she makes a fist, releases. Ball up, release, don't tuck your thumb.
Flexing a hand, she dips fast into low, and two sharp jabs feel like nothing, upsetting the air. She's quick. Faster, maybe, than data suggested.
Na'vi inspired carbon fiber marrows, mingling with red blood cells and whatever else I Am intended for the skeletal system. Giving her the strength, suddenly, of five men—and it's remarkable. Beautiful, even. Reaching to card fingers through her hair, she glances over her shoulder to the tech. Even across the room, heightened eyesight makes out the small stitching of her name on her coat.
Berg, J. The stitches are midnight black, a stain on the otherwise precise snow. Turning, a sweeping glance confirms it—she's new. Ruthie's never met her before, even before her other runs in the Eve program. Swallowing a breath of what's beginning to taste like rancid air, she blinks and looks to the leads snaking along the berth, pumping fluids into the IV in her hand.
"Miss Carthier—"
"Quaritch, actually. Ruthaynne Quaritch, at your service," unable to identify if the woman is a titled doctor or even military, she resorts to not identifying her at all. Basic manners, if you could say you needed them in Bridgehead. "But you can call me Ruthie, most people do." Extended hand hanging there in thin air for a moment, unwelcomed, she finally just moves to brush the front of the medical gown.
Berg's raised brow of confusion matches the yeah, right practically tattooed in her expression. And Ruthie would be more surprised at her lack of recognition, maybe, until she realizes after several seconds of trying to place her—she's never made this woman's acquaintance. Which isn't unusual, new people float in and out of programs all the time as teams ship out, rotate. Eve was no different. Avatar Project attracted newbies like bears to honey.
On cue, Berg's attention trips to the monitor. Carthier, R. It blinks in solid, picked-by-some-underpaid-executive RDA standard font. Pen poised, she looks back to her patient, then to her plex—she swipes through screens, eyes scanning records. The transparent glass flashes Emergency Contacts, and Ruthie's top teeth set to gnawing her bottom lip, waiting.
A second, maybe, before the woman's brows shoot almost right off her face. They would've hit the ceiling at almost the same pace as the color bleeding out of her face, if she didn't drop her writing device from stupefied fingers. It hits the floor with a crack, Berg practically diving to retrieve it like she's at Mach 10. And the way she fumbles through "Oh shit, oh fuck, how the hell—" Ruthie can't help her snort of amusement.
There it is, "I—oh shit—ma'am. My apologies. I didn't—" This wasn't the first time she'd been misidentified. Improperly ID'd. And it wouldn't, certainly, be the last.
A peacock of embarrassed heat fans up Ruthie's neck and across her nose, a light shrug slipping from her shoulders in an attempt to shake some of the tension out of the air, "And you wouldn't, Miss Berg—never bothered to update the mainframe," a chuckle drops her gaze to the berth laid out before her like a tomb, "Paperwork, you know how it goes. Only thing that moves slower around here than molasses at Christmas." Fingers pressing into the cool berth, she leans over the table a little to scrunch her nose, teasingly. "I won't tell if you won't," waving between the two of them, she winks lightly, "Our secret. Scouts honor."
Berg's mouth, hanging open on what could well become a swinging hinge of her jaw, snaps closed at the dismissal. "Oh. Well, uh—thank you, ma'am?" The look on her face matches the phrasing of a question, and the technician sits like that, staring. For moments longer than one or two. Until the monitor blips sharply, Ruthie turning her hand over to work at the IV stinging in the back of her hand. "Shit, shit shit—you shouldn't—"
"I feel fine," Ruthie inserts softly with a crooked grin, "But you should probably let them know that." Thumbing towards the one-way glass, her head gestures in that direction as she drops the IV to the berth, reaching for the monitor now screaming out an orchestra of alarms, chirps, and klaxons. "I'll sit tight, you go do…whatever it is you techs do, hon." A wave of her hand sends Berg hustling out of the room like a linebacker, Ruthie busying herself with quieting the monitor.
Alone in the space, silence bleeds from the walls like sterile blood. Clinically white and oppressively bright, her eyes make out the room and its contents briefly, with disinterest. Another empty berth not but a few feet from her own, rolling trays of surgical utensils. Locked boxes and cupboards of what could only be medical goodies. The label beside the door reads Surgical Suite , 12B along with escape routes. Fire protocols. Emergency contacts and dial outs.
Pristine, overwhelmingly clean, it doesn't even look like anyone's been in here—aside from her discarded IV, dripping saline and minerals to the permastone floor. Picking it up, she drapes it over one of the arms of the monitor stand, fingertip lightly skipping over the surgical grade steel blade. Blowing aside a fallen curl from her face, she catches the movement of her arm in the reflection of the one-way, pausing.
Smiling crookedly at the reflection, she chuckles and tucks a short set of curls behind her ear. It's not the first time she's actually seen her own avatar, but it's the first time it's been officially sanctioned. Since Eve's kickoff, anyway. Avatar's had been a regular faction of RDA for decades, even before the war and Sully's insurrections. Augustine's studies, and the data she herself had collected from the planet had given them more than enough edge to make perfections—and perfections, they were.
Any avatar that could function at the same capacity as Na'vi without looking native and tapping into the demonic energy of the people was a step in the right direction. Direction that RDA, that humanity needed to successfully colonize. Establish roots that would outlast them all, give them hope. Second chances were rarely afforded, but this place—Pandora—was divine granted. Inspired, even. A second chance to course correct in a way the people of Earth never would. Hope in the high places, amongst the stars.
And Eve afforded them all the luxuries navigation of a foreign, hostile world required. Na'vi avatars—the Adams—had been revolutionary at the time of the Great War; but nearly two decades later, nearly archaic. Prototypes for the big RDA push of the century, humanoid avatars. Avatars that looked like drivers, but functioned as natives. Extraordinary devices no longer reliant on the energy connection to the planet and its sentient tyranny; precious luxuries afforded not everyone that passed through the RDA machine. Save a chosen few, soldiers and frontiersmen and pioneers of the sciences and human settlement efforts. Riches from amongst the ashes of the lost, the reaping of the war.
Sweet fruit, indeed—at a million and a half a pop. Hers had been the first of Eve, the first humanoid avatar analyzed and genetically coded to her own DNA. One per driver, ever, and irreversible. Adam avatars, too, were permanent fixtures to the DNA of their drivers—Weinfleet, Mansk, all the drivers of the original Na'vi avatars were tethered to their Deja Blues, irreversible and for the long haul. A necessary evil, for without those Adams, those original prototypes, avatars like hers wouldn't exist—fully human, fully native. The first step towards integration.
Humanity would thrive on Pandora. It was in the numbers, the cards—a promise. Not so much a hope, these days. A decade ago they'd dreamed of merely settling outposts here. Breathing stale, purified air and never touching sunlight the way I Am intended. Crowded by steel and fortressed walls. But now, with the Eves—it was a step closer. A link to making humans fully hospitable on Pandora.
Tipping her head to the side, Ruthie studied the perfections of the avatar not afforded her I Am-given body. Glassy skin, perfectly hydrated and patterned corkscrew curls; alive and quick eyes that sparkled even brighter than her organic glacier-blues could. Breathing deeply, her hands brushed over the definition in her arms—the veins and perfect fat-to-muscle ratio for her body type. BMI didn't exist in avatars, something she was sorely thankful for. She wasn't thin in her organic body, her skin wasn't glass and glistening. She could've been ripped off the cover of a Vogue magazine, if Vogue was into hiring eight foot tall super soldiers.
The iteration felt stronger, more alive than those before—more proteins, cleaner neural pathways. Faster reaction time. Clean cut emotions, quick synapses. No wonder the price of these steadily clawed higher and higher, they improved with nearly every quarter—-her bright smile, revealing sparkling albeit still-pesky pointed canines made her shoulders dipped forward. Couldn't have it all, not even at a million and a half.
Raking her close-cropped curls from her forehead, she turned to seat on the berth she'd risen from. Easily able to pull into a cross legged position, she rolled her shoulders forward. Back. Neck side to side, pushing her shoulder blades back to feel the tug of muscle, the shift and burn of activation. Wriggling her toes beneath her, she chuckled at how miraculously easy it was to lean forward. Abs she'd only ever dreamed of engaged, stabilizing her as reached her arms forward, palms skipping along the cool steel.
Closing her eyes with a smile, her fingers easily slipped through her curls, pulling pleasurably at her scalp. Mind clear for the first time in minutes, head dropping back with a sigh that curled her toes, she relished in the avatar's strength. Its body, perfect and attuned to genetics she'd only wished I Am had granted in her own self. It felt so good. Vibrant, storybook. Like this was a dream.
And it was, in one sense or another. GI Jane can kiss my backsid—
"Well well, look at that—buttercup's up and at'em," the familiar drawl snapped her attention to the door, bolting her upright. Heart racehorsing against her ribs for a second, it takes only lightspeed to realize it's Lyle kicked back in the suite's doorway. Lounging like he owns the place, and in a way, he does—at nearly ten feet tall, Adam avatars pretty much have say of clearances and classifieds. "Get some rack, Sleeping Beauty?"
"Lyle," she acknowledges with a nod, lithely moving from the berth to cross over to him, cool smile taking him in. Crossed arms, RDA fatigues, Oakleys and all. "I'm not sure you can consider genetic connection as rack time, but to answer the question, sure. I'm okay." Rolling a shoulder, "Feels good, feels right."
"No shit," his nod matches the genuine smile he offers, before pushing out of the doorway to glance at her over the Oakleys, "Doc Berg says you're good to go, figured you'd want some of these." Stepping beyond the door, he twists to pluck a backpack up from the floor, tossing it forward with a flick of his wrist. "Colonel wanted to be here, but the General's got his ass in a scouting debrief, like usual."
And that tracked—the only thing Ardmore did better than push papers was run debriefings, which on any given day, were excruciating. A gauntlet of sterile numbers and eye-crossing data, they were less informational as they were formal, for the books. Padded her numbers and her calendar for the eyes back home. But, she was meticulous, organized—on a horse higher than than hell, too. The only thing tighter than her regulations was her backside, head shoved so far up the execs of RDA's asses that she may as well be bought and paid for.
Less a soldier and more a RDA performing monkey, she did run a tight outfit. Play by the rules or die was the motto, non negotiable. And if there was one thing about Miles that she knew and knew well was that he played by rules nobody had even heard of. He was wild like that, but disciplined. A lifetime of jarhead responsibilities and blood on the hands did that, sometimes.
Blowing out a breath, "Sounds fun," the only thing more sarcastic than her tone was Ruthie's eyeroll, which broke Weinfleet into a toothy smile. Automatically her gaze drops to her wrist, which is bare—no watch. Reaching for Lyle's wrist, she glances at the time. "Two hours? I've been out for two hours?" The jump of alarm in her gut is abrupt, and she drops Weinfleet's arm a little roughly. "Good lord. What did they do, open brain surgery or something?"
Lyle snorts, nudges her forward with a gentle push to her shoulder. "Don't look at me, buttercup—I just work here," his tongue flicks over a sharp canine smoothly, before he thumbs over his shoulder. "'S'posed to get you those," gesturing to the bag with both index fingers, he slides the Oakleys up his blue dome, "but gotta haul ass back to the DB. You good?" Anything less would have Lyle's backside in a sling with Miles, and that was unacceptable—even present company accounted for, she knew.
Nodding, she waves him off with a flappable hand, "Squared away, thank you very much. Get lost, smurfy." With a teasing face, Lyle turned sharply on his heel and jogged off, down the corridor until his sapphire frame was swallowed from view, into the twisting darks of industrial grays and steels. Huffing a breath, Ruthie reached for the badge clipped to a strap of the PHNX pack, unsnapping it with smooth hands. Carding it through her fingers, one glance down to the surgical gown sets her jaw sharply.
"Frickin' doctors," her huff is exasperated, pulling at the gown's flimsy material. "Gross."
. . .
It's not hard to tag a Quaritch anywhere in Bridgehead City, if one knew where to look. At any given time Miles was, mostly, in one of three places—or two, if he was driving, but that was just icing on the proverbial cake. Gym, war room, weapons R&D when he was on duty. Home, mess, gym when he was off the clock. Which, like it or not, was close to never. Marriage taught you a few things about your other half, but it hadn't quite managed to zero in on whereabouts. Yet, anyway.
Rolling up to the officer sector at eight feet tall was comedic, at best. Frustrating, at worst. Ducking through the door after scanning her badge into the domicile, it never ceased to remind as to why no driver ever squatted home. Vaulted ceilings, sure, but the space was hardly designed with eight feet tall natives in mind—and neither was the furniture. The couch, Ruthie figured every time she dropped home, would splinter if either of them even dared look that direction. And the rack? Forget it. Showers were out of the question.
There were alternative lodgings available in the barracks, but the idea of putting up with general population bit like a mother. Dropping her pack beside the door, she emptied its contents and dressed quickly—her favorite specially manufactured Levi cutoffs, a sports bra, boots and socks, a favorite of her, again, special ordered shirts—a linen safari button down in off-white. Clothing options for avatars were few and far between, and Miles knew she'd never be caught dead in RDA fatigues outside of in-unit ops.
Wetting her hair with a quick rake of her fingers and a splash of water to her face was enough to freshen up what, technically, didn't even need freshening. Checking her appearance with a quick glance, she breezed out of the domicile, snatching her IDs and plex while dipping out the door. Flipping through the plex; no email, no texts, nowhere to be, technically, pointed her feet in the direction of the war room.
It was a quick and effortless march to the sector, avatar legs carrying her faster and farther with less effort that was a breeze. Every time connecting back felt like the first time, at least for a while, until the creeping looks of raised brows and uncertainty spearheaded from the general public. Not everyone interacted with avatars often—the Eves, less so. They were new, they were unusual, they were expensive and highly classified—seeing a Na'vi avatar was more common and less unsettling than seeing an Eve.
Especially one so highly cleared and….rumored.
Crossing her arms over the plex against her chest, it wasn't long until she found herself at the war room, Ardmore's favorite place to host eternity-defying debriefings. Corridor quiet, the room indicator was solid scarlet—high level occupied, clearance required. As always. Brushing curls behind her ear, Ruthie shifted her hip for the badge to scan across the indicator, and immediately if flashed—first with her clearance levels, then with green. Granted, thank you very much, Carthier, R.
Satisfied, she slipped through the door on light feet—only to find the entire space had, apparently, flatlined. Standing a head and shoulders taller than most in the room was a piece of cake compared to whatever the heck this BS was.
Pulselessly still, she could've cut the wire of the room with a paperclip. Her gut jumped to play chicken with her ribs, eyes tracking around the space for familiar bodies. Nearly every corporate RDA goon eyeballed her like she'd been dropped from the heavens wearing blinking neon. She clocked Lyle first, at the back of the room doing his best impression of coughing a grin into his fist; Mansk second, who looked amused while oh-so-masculine manspreading in his comically undersized chair.
White-noise from the holomap smack in the center of the room the only audible sound to the heightened ear, its images did little to hide Ardmore's face from beyond. Just her luck. Expression pulled into an unreadable look of stone so blank that, for the first time in a hot minute, Ruthaynne actually felt embarrassed heat light up her face like a jetwash. Heart jackhammering behind her ribs, certainly loud enough to hear for anyone who cared to listen, it took a few seconds to remember exactly where she was—and who, exactly, she was.
Ardmore beat her to it, the bitc—"Miss Quaritch," the formality of her tone almost stung. Muscle in Ruthie's jaw pulled a little tighter than she appreciated, "Avatar's up and about, seems like. Outstanding you could join us,"
She doesn't mean it. But her nod, professional more than acknowledging, accompanies her hand fanning Ruthie forward, to the inner circle.
Putting up a hand, her return nod is polite. Over my dead body, Ardie, "Thanks, General. Please, continue."
And just like that, the room snaps back into business. Data and coordinates, strategy and all the war talk that usually applies to these debriefs. Ardmore brings up footage from a vest cam, walking the group through the sit rep, and the occupants in the space breathe—bodies shift in seats, sway back and forth on their feet. The rustle of shifting posture, the soft hum of plex's as assistants and the more-interested access data. Across the room, Mansk bounces his leg, whether in agitation or concentration, one can never tell. Lyle, plucking his knife and flicking the tip with his nail. Boys.
The plex under her arm chimes, and a quick glance shows it's an airdrop from one of the assistants. A faceless name, but one that's been in her inbox before. Accessing the data, Ruthie begins the download. Flips through some of the radar images, head tilted to the side in concentration. Sully's forces, bolder than before—four dead on an expedition to a science outpost. Images captured young Na'vi, no more than 12 or 13, armed and painted in various war paints and tribal colors—-
QUARITCH, MILES
9 o'clock, cupcake ;)
The message takes precedence, dismissing the briefing intel and snapping her attention up, around the room. It's odd, looking down and about the space from eight feet tall with perfect eyesight her organic body doesn't know— it's beautiful, really. Bottom lip rolling beneath her top teeth, she flinches a little as the pointed canines bite a little sharply into her flesh. Hissing, her tongue lathes over the spot, quickly skipping over her back teeth. Darkening the plex's screen, her eyes cut sharply to her 9 o'clock—and sure enough.
Gotcha. Almost ten foot frame hovering at the back of the space, the good Colonel sees her make him with a lift of his chin. A slow smile puts sparkling white teeth on display, so at odds against sapphire skin and glowing green eyes unlike anything she's ever seen. Smiling back at him, he dips his head ever so slightly, crooking a lithe finger for her to come. Attention ever on the General, should prying eyes dare to drift.
And good I Am, he's as delicious as he ever has been, damned Na'vi genetics aside. Heart thudding a little harder against her ribs, moisture at the back of her throat vanishes, and suddenly it's warmer in here than she remembers as his smile softens into a little smirk, probably clocking her shift of posture. Shoulders falling back subconsciously, her chin levels with the floor and nods to him once, him settling back into his akimbo stance.
It's not unusual for Quartich to drive his avatar, especially on days field ops are likely. And with Sully on the move, bolder and badder than ever, those days are less few and far between. It's mandatory to have 24 out hours after every 36 driving, and Miles had just gone in before she had. They'd said their "see you laters" over coffee at mess this AM, him kissing her temple chastely before hustling out to head a safety meeting.
And while driving avatars was business as usual for both of them, there never ceased to be a little leap of excitement, seeing him bold and all big boy blue. Knowing it was him, actually Miles, only added to the little swirl of thrill chasing her gut down the length of her spine.
Melding across the room behind backs of the tuned-in, Miles' low hand guides her to his side at elbow, her feet one-over-the-other without much conscious effort. Brushing against his side, he plucks the plex from her fingers and sets it aside, on the chair behind him, on top of his own. Out of sight, out of mind. Nobody moves to notice her relocation, his large hand resting firmly at the low of her back while his other grabs her wrist, guiding her to stand in front of him.
Shoulders pressing against the warmth of his chest, one of his arms slipped around her middle, locking in close. His other hand moves to rub one of her curls between his long fingers, knuckles brushing against the back of her neck. He's warm, almost too warm—-his hand wrapping around the back of her neck, kneading muscles slowly and with care, triggers a glance over her shoulder to him.
"You're up," The slow drawl in his voice is unnecessarily low, deliberate. "Wanted to be there, darlin', really did—we got hit, lost a few of the lab coats," the empathy in his voice is hardly there, Miles was never one to dwell on losses. Easier that way, from a certain standpoint. "You feelin' all there?"
Nodding, she shuffled back against his chest a little more, boots catching on the floor. Head dropping to rest against his pec, Ruthie focuses her attention on Ardmore's holo readouts—or, rather, attempts. HIs fingers rubbing the hem of her shirt are distracting, rough knuckles warm against her abdomen in ways that distract more than just her attention. Hand moving from the back of her neck to rest atop his other at her middle, he angles his head to brush his nose along the shell of her ear, softly. In a rare public display of affection, attachment.
Stomach jumping up what feels like the length of her spine, his chortle is nearly undetectable. She only feels it against her back, deep in his chest—his breath over her ear is laced with the clear, brisk mint he always seems to manage from that gum he likes so much. His head turns to rest against hers, and he takes a long breath of her hair, the slow crest of his chest almost dizzying.
"Avatar looks good'nuff to eat, darlin'," she can hear the smile before she feels it, one of his hands easily slipping beneath the hem of her shirt to brush a nail over the button of her shorts, "Weinfleet told me you looked good. Little shit—lookin' at another man's things," the thought of being a possession should be offputting, should make nip at the veins of her pride, but it does the opposite—it sparks satisfaction, low and deep, at the base of her spine, the cradle of her hips.
The smirk in his tone deepens, if that's possible. And it is, she knows that. Experience, logged time.
"Gotta give him credit, though—man knows a good thing when he sees it."
Lower lip rolling inward, Ruthie shifts a little on her feet, rocking back on her heels in an attempt to move away from his hands, teasing and probing the waist of her shorts, which are suddenly too stifling, but somehow not enough all at the same time. Even after a decade of being together, of racking together and exchanging vows—he's still all the cocksure ego she remembers of him when he'd first pursued. He still can reduce her to a gelatinous mass, little more cohesive than a brainless bimbo. Then, at the beginning, she'd been brash and all bravado and untamed. A wild thing, chasing stars and hope. Indestructible.
Now—older, wilder, wholly ruinable. Drunk on him. On avatars, on promise of what Pandora could be. On the future and Project Eve and the inevitable tumble of Jake Sully's abominable destruction of a dream. And Miles knows it, always has, just like he knows exactly how to piston her mind away from a scouting debrief with little more than touch and the right smile. And I Am, what she wouldn't give for a quiet space, time alone—time alone that seems nonexistent, almost unreal.
Eyes skate across the room, looking for any wandering attention. Nobody seems to have noticed them in the back of the room, which isn't the usual. Most of the time Miles is front and center, the flagship of Ardmore's efforts. The pillar everyone can count on. But today, he's a man of the shadows, a man of the native world hidden away from the everyday. And she couldn't be more thankful, because the way his hand grazes her shiny new abs just the right way has, she's sure, unraveled her face into a Ardmore-show stopping expression. Hand pressing against the sculpted muscle of her middle, he sucks in a chortling breath a little too suggestively.
"Oh? What's this?" His fingers curl lightly into her abdomen, and she sucks in a breath that feels louder than it actually is, "Well, look at that—these are new," he chuckles, amused, before his hand lifts to brush curls away from her ear. "Life's a bitch, ain't it? Takes half a life and rights to your firstborn to get 'em real time, but just a nap and a few test tubes and, just like that," softly imitating a snap of his fingers, Miles pulls her closer, if possible. Brushes aside the collar of her shirt to press chapped lips against her collarbone. "Makes you wonder what else these things are capable of, hm?"
Oh god, "You're not paying attention, Colonel," angling her head back against his chest, her fingers curl around the collar of his RDA issued shirt, pulling sharply. "The good General is trying to get you up to speed for your next hop, sir." And with that, she firmly stabs her elbow into his abdomen, satisfied with the little huff he manages.
"...and what makes you think I don't already gotta handle on this intel, ma'am?"
And that could be a point of contention, if she'd been an underprepared participant in his little game of cat and mouse. "Well, Quaritch," it simmers low at the base of her chest, teasing and dark, "you know what they about assuming." Biting the corner of her lip, Ruthie grabbed his wrist and pulled it back, sharply enough to earn another huff of surprise. "Be a good boy at work, Colonel, and I might just have a surprise for you when you get home."
Reaching around behind him for his braid, Ruthie feels it snake around her arm loosely, before taking a handful and giving a ruff tug. Off his game, the good Colonel stepped back sharply, allowing her just enough leverage to skirt from his reach. Slipping behind him, she nabbed the plex from his chair, tucked it under her arm, and pulled lightly on his braid again.
Quaritch's head snapped back just enough for her to gently nudge the shell of his ear. "Stand at attention, Marine. That's an order." And she's sure he can clock the smile in her voice, releasing the Na'vi braid with a smirk. Obedient, the curve of his back straightened just so, making her grin. Sidling up to his right, she raised on toes to press a soft kiss to the corner of his mouth. "Very good, Colonel. I'm impressed." Clapping a hand against his abs, she went to step back, brows wagging juvenilely.
"Not so fast," and it's louder than it should be. Loud enough that a few uniforms look over their shoulders, intrigued. Miles, ever the pillar of strength and unashamed bravado he so exudes, frowns at them before his sharp green eyes lid, tail flicking a little aggressively. "Eyes forward, gentlemen. When there's something to see back here, I'll tell you to grow eyes."
Horrified, her mouth drops open before she swats at his shoulder, hissing darkly. "Miles!" Eyes darting between the backs of the uniforms he's just startled and his lidded look of superiority, her stomach pitches with embarrassed somersaults as heat chases up the length of her neck. And before she can lose her composure and giggle at the wag of his suggestive brow, she frowns at him. "You're such a prick," it's not entirely unserious, but the smile behind his eyes tells her it's only fueled the innuendo of the moment.
"Yeah? That may be," his brows lift before his lower lip rolls beneath his top teeth, canines practically glinting in whatever low light the back of the room would offer, "but I think you like it, ain't that so? Darlin' little wife." And with that, he steps up into her personal space, towering even her full eight feet—sharp eyes alive, wandering. Lustful, possessive. Hungry.
No—starving. Frickin' Na'vi DNA, packed with hormones not fully explored by the human psyche.
Slipping beyond the snatching reach of his hand with a teasing smile and a roll of her eyes, Ruthie hushedly excuses herself from amidst the uniforms dotted around the back of the room. Without drawing Ardmore's attention, she scans from the room, dipping low under the door and out into the corridor. Where the air is cool, there isn't a thousand and one attentions keyed into the cat and mouse games of her husband, where she can breathe.
She doesn't make it five strides from the sealed door before it slips open with a mechanical whine, Ardmore's droning audible for only a second before it bangs back into place, flashing a secure scarlet for high clearance access. But the door is barely noticeable, not from beyond the full nearly nine feet of Miles Quaritch's Na'vi, staring hard and long, thumbs hooked through the loops of his cargoes.
"And what are you doing?" Brow furrowed, she looks beyond him, to the door. "Miles. Get your ass back in that meeting," all teasing gone, his exit from Ardmore's briefing is the biggest of offenses—a slap in the face, defiance to not only Ardmore, RDA, but his men. He knows better. And for a second, Ruthie wonders if maybe she's crossed a line—but if a decade together has told her anything, it's not that.
No, Quaritch is not the man that abandons his men to have it out with his wife in the corridor. Not in the long game. It's something else, a thing she can't quite put a finger on. She doesn't know this face, his Na'vi well enough to read anything that resembles his usual, and she isn't sure if it's terrifying or thrilled butterflies that threaten her spine like a tarmac.
Mouth opening to further her protest, he's to her in one stride, dangerous hands on either side of her face enough to cut any word she could think of forming off at the throat. And before she can even breathe, his mouth is on hers—hungry, ravenous, compelling. The force of it sends her backwards enough that she loses her feet, but he's faster, arm catching her around the middle and pulling her forward, close. Close enough to feel the steady drum of his heart behind carbon-enforced ribs, The pull of muscle engage, as he tips her forward, against his chest.
The world beyond—Pandora, Ardmore, RDA, Bridgehead—fades into black and whites not wholly unlike an ancient film, the only thing living color and wild him, right here, beneath her touch and coaxing her lips apart with his. Mint, sweat, the taste of whatever he's eaten is rich, so there and alive with every gentle pull and push of his jaw, every bite and nip of his teeth against her lips. It's determined, possessive, demanding, pulling a pathetic little mewl from the back of her throat she doesn't remember since the beginning of him, the beginning of this.
And if her hands were large, his were larger, his thumb running up and down her jaw, applying pressure to adjust the angle, the tilt of where he wants her, how deeply he needs this. Noses bump, brush, and one inhale of the way he smells—strong, powerful, of a musk unexplainable to humanity—sends her mind spinning, her heart cascading like a falling star between her ribs. His kiss is powerful, it demands. Touch me, feel me–ever only me in a way that sends bolts of electricity to every heightened nerve in her body. It sets leads, it guides—it sets the pace, it rescues everything and anything that could be set wrong.
His thick fingers through her hair, tugging at her scalp triggers her teeth at his bottom lip, canines pulling sharply enough to elicit a groan from somewhere in his chest she can't even fathom. All the years of this, of him, and it's never once failed to feel new, like the first time—Miles kisses her and the world unfolds, like fiction. Like something anyone ever said couldn't be real. Fingers tugging at her hair drags a punched out little whine from the back of her throat, which he swallows with a groan.
Head spinning and chest burning, the need for air claws like a demon. Breaking apart, her head falls back to suck in air, chest rising and falling shallowly as she attempts to blink away the rabid color the world has suddenly become. Eyes closed, Miles lazily nips at her bottom lip, pulling just a little as his hand gently cradles the side of her face, the heat that's blushed her cheeks to a hot, thrilling pink.
Her head rights, and he lowers his to rest his forehead against hers, breath fanning across her face in low, hardly controlled breaths. It's so unlike him, to be so unraveled. Uncomposed. Hair clings to the tacky sweat that's pearled across her forehead, and his nose brushes the tip of hers, lovingly. Tenderly. Taking his hand, she gently guides it beneath her left breast, to cover the racing pulse in her chest.
"I miss you," is all he breathes, and it's strange—strange because he hasn't been gone, she's always been here. And it hangs there for a few heartbeats, until it makes sense. He misses her. Miles. Not the Na'vi shell of the man she's known for a decade, what feels like half her lifetime—Miles, somewhere in an avatar lab, somewhere that's not here.
Swallowing each of her breaths, which have started leveling, he kisses her again, softly. Aftercare, the intimacy he so rarely offers outside the confining fortress of marriage. "I'll see ya later, yeah?" It's rough, low. Growling, tainted with his drawl that has become like home.
A soft nod breaks them apart, kiss swollen lips stinging as he steps back towards the door, creating distance. And the corner of his mouth ticks up in a pleased little smirk as she rubs her jaw, fresh red marks from his possessive hands warm to the touch. More than visible.
"I'd imagine so," her smile is purposefully resigned. Floored, he grins. Tongue skating over too-sharp teeth. His nod is concrete, firm as he passes his badge in front of the security system, flashing his credentials before a bright, clearance green.
And he does come home. Again, and again.