Chapter Text
Loud, angry voices are muffled behind big hydraulic doors. The box in your arms feels heavier and heavier the longer you stand there. Snippets of heated conversation fill your ears as you lurk awkwardly in the sterile hallway. You’ve been reassigned. Plucked from your comfortable lab and plopped in the midst of blood hungry wolves who’d love nothing more than to rip you limb from limb.
Okay, maybe that was dramatic. But still! The anxiety was all the same.
“Do you really think your opinion has any weight here, Colonel? This is out of your hands now. Especially after that stunt you pulled. You’re still grounded, you know that right?”
Was that Ardmore?
You hear someone say something back. Sounds like Quaritch.You’re not new to the air of his wrath. It almost crushed you years ago when he first awakened in his new body. Yeah, not pretty. Seeing him thrash and punch people was definitely the stuff of nightmares in your book. Your grip tightens on the box with your entire life inside.
The Resistance was overcome, Jake Sully and all other defectors were dead. What now, right? Effective immediately, Project Phoenix was to be dissolved, and the First Recom Unit transformed to assist in other areas in which RDA saw fit.
Apparently, not everyone was happy to hear this.
Especially not Miles Quaritch.
You see it in his face when he comes bursting through the large, misted double doors. His eyes narrow and ears flick when he looks down and sees you standing there like a lost puppy.
‘Displeasure,’ is the first emotion you see on his blue face and note down mentally. You swallow thickly and avert your gaze. He stops just short of collision range– close enough that you feel the heat rolling off him, close enough that the box digs harder into your ribs because your arms tense without permission. He looks you over like inventory that arrived damaged. Civilian. Human. In the way. You smell the gunpowder on him, smell the sweat. It makes your head swim.
“What’s this?” he snaps, voice still rough from shouting. “Hallway decorations?”
You part your lips around a rebuttal. Nothing comes. You curse internally.
His fair eyes flick to the box. Then back to your face. A sneer pulls at his mouth, sharp and humourless.
“Let me make sumin’ real clear, Doc,” he says, leaning down. You still have to tilt your head up though. Miles laughs at you for this. “You, or any of your friends get in my unit’s way, trip over your own stupid feet– and you will trip,” he lets his voice drop, “--I’ll have you all shipped back to Earth in a tiny, pathetic coffin.”
The words land heavy. A threat. You knew he wasn’t above threatening you. He wasn’t above threatening anyone. It still makes your skin crawl though. Sweat pricks across your hairline and under your armpits. Your fingers ache around the box, your knuckles whitening.
Behind you, boots click. Authoritative and unimpressed. “That’s enough.” You don’t see her. Can’t even turn around. You’re frozen solid to where you stand. You know she’s got her arms folded. You know she isn’t even looking at you. She plants herself squarely in Mile’s line of sight. “You don’t threaten RDA personnel,” she says, “especially not ones I reassign. And definitely not right in front of me.”
Through your lashes, you see Quaritch straighten and bristle.
Uh oh.
His tail lashes once behind him, sharp, seemingly cutting through the air, “With all due respect, General, my unit ain’t a daycare. I don’t babysit lab rats.”
Ardmore snorts, “Then adapt. Or screw off to whatever corner you want to sulk in. You’re not running a personal vendetta here. Not anymore.”
The change in expression in his face is no less than beautiful. His jaw tightens. You can see it working, muscle jumping beneath blue skin. His long nose wrinkles with frustration. You watch the bulge of his biceps squeeze into the air. For a split second, you think he’s going to say something that gets him demoted on the spot. He glances at you instead– slow, deliberate. Like he’s filing you away. Cataloging you.
“Fine,” he says at last, flat as a blade. “But if she can’t keep up, that’s on you.”
Ardmore smiles, but it’s without warmth. You can hear it in her voice. “No. That’ll be on you, Colonel. Congratulations. You’ve got a scientist.” She moves to stand beside you, her voice doesn’t soften for you. “You’re assigned to First Recom– resource escort detail. You’ll find the debrief packet in your quarters.”
Quaritch lets out a low, disbelieving huff into the air. “You’ve gotta be shitting me.”
She turns her attention back to him, voice dropping just enough to sting. “You’re grounded times two, you’re reassigned, as are the other meat heads in this damn unit. You don’t get a vote. Deal with it.” She pivots on her heel and walks away, already done with the conversation.
Silence stretches. Quaritch looks down at you again. Not angry now. Worse– calculating. “You hear all that?” he asks. You muster a glare back up at him and a nod. “Good,” he mutters. His eyes are still on you, watching you like an annoying petulant mosquito. You feel yourself grow hot and uncomfortable under the scrutiny, shifting from one foot to the other. “Then don’t give me a reason to make good on my promise.” He turns and stalks away down the corridor.
You let out a huff, your shoulders finally relaxing. “Asshat…” you mutter to yourself. You readjust the box in your hands, trying to keep it from slipping. Now alone, you let yourself take in your surroundings. This side of the base isn’t that much different to yours. Ceilings higher, doors larger, corridors longer. You weren’t all that worried about the change in scenery though. It was the dynamic shift that made your skin prickle and your head swim in irritation. Where you came from, the science geeks were RDA’s very own Gods, right after the Recoms themselves, that is. Without your research, without your work, none of this would be possible. But here.
Here.
You were nothing more than a lab rat. That’s what got under your skin the most. You made these freaks and a lab rat was all they thought you were. You scoff in disbelief.
Your feet begin to carry you to your quarters, the journey taking around 8 minutes because of how long the corridors are. The room you were assigned was small. Smaller than your old one, that's for sure. A standard twin sized bed in the corner, a modest desk with an empty pencil holder. You notice a second door in the room. ‘Must be the bathroom. Sweet,’ you think to yourself. You wouldn’t have to share the communal ones with anyone else.
You spend the bulk of that night going back and forth between your old quarters and new one moving your things. As you do, you catalogue your observations like a habit. This place isn’t like the science wing– no soft lighting optimal for concentration, no controlled quiet, no gentle hum of servers. The newly formed unit operates on bootsteps and barked orders, on metal doors slamming shut and weapons being checked twice. Everything is so much louder. It’s a little overwhelming at first, but you feel yourself adapting slowly. You don’t hate it here. You shouldn’t. You know that if they feel your discomfort they’ll circle you like sharks do injured sea lions. You realised this in the way Quaritch had sized you up earlier. You watch this wing continue loudly, fiercely. Physical training outside, gun range drills inside. It’s hell in a different kind of way. Even the air feels different, thinner somehow, like you’re constantly borrowing it.
When all is done, it’s only nineteen thirty-four. You return to your room for the final time, and close the door behind you. You flick the overhead light on, and wince at how bright it is. The way it flickers quickly makes your eyes burn and water behind your glasses. You promptly flick it off, opting to turn your desk lamp on instead. Its warm light does its best to fill your room, relaxing your nerves only slightly. You’re sighing tiredly, your joints burning and muscles cramping after the hours of back and forth, carrying clothes and books and such. You hold one final box with decor for your room. It isn’t much, but enough to make the place feel less like a hospital room and more like a home. A beautiful Pandoran plant to sit on your bedside table, your sketch book on your desk and a few scented candles here and there. The empty box sits folded under your bed. You step back and look over your work.
You’re not tired yet. You decide you’re going to wash up and go unpack your new lab. You push into your ensuite bathroom and quickly undress.
You’re standing in the middle of the shower, your head bowed under the showerhead. A shiver racks through your body at the hot water running down your skin. You scrub yourself down, “science puke,” you grumble lowly, huffing. “Can’t fucking believe the gall. His audacity. His stupid, stinkin’ attitude. Can’t believe how fucking good he looked all pissed off at me for something I can’t even fucking control. I made him… Made those arms… Fuck, those arms,” you continue to ramble, growing more and more irritated. Even as your hand slips down your chest, over the slight swell of your stomach and between your legs.
You breathe out an annoyed huff, even as your fingers slide between your soapy, slick folds. Your other hand feels like fire when it slithers back up your chest and squeezes around your breast.
“Fuck me… Oh God.”
You’re groaning, turning so your face and chest are pelted by the hot running water. Your fingers dig deeper into the warm pink canal inside of you as your back arches off the tiled wall. You can’t help but imagine Quaritch wrapping one unfairly large hand around your middle to pull you against him. Can’t help but imagine the hot water dragging down his big, blue, naked body, crawling into all those delicious little crevices you just ached to get your lips on. You can’t help but imagine him hauling you up against the wall, and kissing you angrily. Brutally. Like everything he hates in the world manifests itself in the form of your body, and the only thing to do to destroy it is kissing you like he hates you.
Your thoughts are mercilessly interrupted when you choke on the water splashing your face.
The intrusion makes your throat and eyes burn and you hackle a few coughs into the steamy air. With that, any hope of an orgasm washes down the drain. You moan out of pure frustration, and turn off the water.
By the time night cycles over the compound, the noise levels drop into something like habit. It’s not silence– never that– but the steady hum of machinery, distant laughter, the rhythmic thud of boots on metal walkways. The unit is still moving the way it always has, even if the purpose underneath it has shifted. Your lab is wedged into what used to be a forward planning room. The walls still bear the scars of it– magnetic maps stripped bare, hook mounts where rifles once hung, faint outlines where mission boards used to be scrubbed down every night. Someone has hastily installed workbenches and lighting that’s too white, too sterile, like the room hasn’t decided what it wants to be yet. You’d have to fix the lighting later.
You’re setting the box down and flexing your fingers, feeling the throb come back into them. Unpacking takes longer than it should. Not because it’s difficult, but because you keep pausing– listening. Laughter echos down the corridor. You hear someone say something crude, someone else bark a reply that earns a round of hoots and jeers. A familiar cadence of rough camaraderie, untouched by the day’s announcements. They move past your open doorway without slowing, boots heavy, tails and ears flicking.
You’re not ignored. You’re just… not included. It stings in a way you hate. They’re like… a river that doesn’t bother changing course for a rock it knows it can just flow around. You tie your hair up and begin to line your equipment anyway. Sample vials into their rack. You reregister your samples into a terminal that auto-logs everything as combat equipment. You rub your temples in irritation, the familiar sensation of a migraine beginning to crawl up your spine and into your brain. Another thing to fix. Field scanners are thankfully already fitted into your work bench charging in neat rows. Notes slotted into a drawer that still smells faintly of gun oil. The contrast makes your stomach twist slightly– precision instruments where ammunition and violence once lived.
Down the hall, someone shouts, “Loser has to pay for more beer!”
“Bullshit!” comes the reply, loud and cheerful, “I ain’ spending my credits on a cheater.”
The hair on the back of your neck stands up. Sounds like Quaritch again. The difference in the way he spoke to you earlier versus his demeanour with his companions is incredible. He sounds more relaxed. You feel yourself turning green with envy. It’s an ugly emotion. You don’t feel envy. It’s an irrational emotion that clouds judgement. You swallow it down.
A thud. Laughter spikes again. The unit is still a unit. Still sharp-edged, still loud, still dangerous in that relaxed way that only comes with achieving greatness and surviving together. Something you’d never know. Whatever Project Phoenix was– whatever hunts they ran, whatever ghosts they chased– it’s baked into them now. Muscle memory. Ritual.
And then there’s you. You realise it when one of them pauses in your doorway. A tall recom you don’t recognise, leaning one shoulder against the frame, casual. He glances at your workbench, the data scrolling across your monitor. The beakers replacing their weapons, the microscopes filling the place where their maps used to be.
“Huh,” he says. Not rude. Just… observant. “So this is the brain box now?”
You offer a small, awkward nod. Honestly, talking to someone almost two times your size, after all these years, still makes you sweat under your clothes a little. It’s weird, isn’t it? Frankenstein afraid of his own monster.
He seemingly senses your anxiety, and offers his hand with a toothy grin. “Wainfleet, Lyle,” he says, trying to be friendly. You stare at his hand for a beat. Another weird thing. All the illustrations and pictures you’d seen of the Na’vi people, their hands, their feet. Four phalanges was standard. These weren’t. Human DNA made sure of it.
After a beat, you extend your hand upward and he takes it into his. It’s warm and rough. You don’t have much time to enjoy the feeling of it for long though, because Lyle pulls his hand back after shaking it firmly.
“It’s something, I guess.”
He hums, considering that, then jerks his chin down the hall. “Mess hall’s that way. Food’s edible if you don’t ask what it used to be,” he says with a small chuckle.
You don’t smile back. “Thanks.” Wainfleet lingers a second longer, like he’s waiting for something else to happen. When it doesn’t he shrugs and moves on, rejoining the flow of the unit without another word. You wordlessly go back to your unpacking.
Hours pass like that. The night deepens. The activity outside your door ebbs and surges– gear being dropped, weapons being cleaned even though they’re not needed the same way anymore, voices rising and falling in familiar rhythms. At some point, you hear the laughter quiet. Lights dim at twenty-two hundred. The unit settles. You catch glimpses of what it used to be in the margins. A scratched tally carved into a support beam. A helmet tucked onto a shelf like it belongs there. Well, it does. You don’t. You feel that in the air. Your fingers run over a faded slogan stenciled half-painted over, the letters still readable if you know where to look.
They were hunters.
Now they’re… something else. Something feeling unfinished.
You finish aligning your last tray of samples and step back, arms folded loosely over your chest. The lab hums softly around you, alive in a way that the rest of the compound isn’t. It feels like a slight respite from the unfamiliar world outside. You step back and look over your work, a small, proud smile coming to your face. This is your space now. It feels nice, warm.
Through the glass partition, you see them moving again– late patrol shift. It’s quieter now. Focused. In a way it wasn’t earlier. The joking is gone, replaced by efficiency.
And then briefly, you see Quaritch.
He doesn’t stop. He doesn’t look your way. You’re pretty sure the glass is only one way anyways. That gives you the confidence to keep staring as he moves through the hallway like a current through water. You watch him walk. A perfect mix of confidence and cunningness that isn’t at all uptight. It makes your shirt feel tighter and your lab coat feel suffocating. Command without ceremony. It makes you tingle and grow hot, dull ache blooming between your legs.
And then he pauses. Then turns toward the lab. Looking directly at you. The anomaly. His gaze lingers a beat too long. You’re swallowing again.
He couldn’t see you, right? But the way he stared right through the glass.
It’s no bother. When you look back up, he’s already walking away, face neutral like all is normal, sound of his boots fading into the corridor, the unit closing ranks behind him as if nothing changed at all. That dull ache becomes sharper and sharper the longer that you stand there and dwell on the cut of his jaw in your mind's eye… that delectable swell of his shoulders.
You feel it in your bones, even as you begin walking back to your room, empty box in tow. You feel it in your bones, even as you tuck into bed for the night.
You especially feel it in your bones when you cave and let your fingers finish what they started in the shower. You’re turning onto your stomach and arching your back, on your knees. Your moan is lost to the hard RDA issued pillow beneath your chin. Heat runs down your back and settles in your muscles. You buck back into your fingers, your thighs beginning to shake as you feel those digits torpedo inside of you at a punishing rate like they have a mind of their own. You’re fisting the sheets, slick running dripping from between your fingers, soaking your sheets.
It doesn’t take long for you to close your eyes and start imagining that your fingers are way larger… and blue… and his. His other hand on your cheek, spreading. His tongue along the rib of your ass, teasing.
You’re coming.
The roughness of the sheets rub your knees and thighs raw as you slide down the bed, your fingers still deep inside of you. Your breath is shaky, your arms weak. You can imagine him roughly flipping you onto your back and licking a long, slow, sinful stripe from your puckered hole to your belly button with that big, calloused tongue.
The thought punches a moan from your chest. The thought makes your fingers slip right back inside of you and scissor slowly. The motion makes your eyes wet with tears at the over stimulation. Your fingers are soaked. Your sheets are soaked. You’re going to come again.
~
Night settles over the compound in deep, peaceful layers, and weird Pandoran critters croak outside. The first is noise– metal clatter, distant laughter, boots on grating, people beginning to wind down in the only way they know how. The second is routine: lights dimming in stages, patrol rotations shifting, doors sealing with hydraulic hisses. By the time Miles Quaritch returns to his quarters, the unit is quiet in that deceptive way that never quite means rest.
His thoughts circle to you like clockwork. Irritation immediately fills his 9 foot body. You’re definitely something, that’s for sure.
Miles’ room is spare. Always has been. Bed. Locker. Weapons rack he technically no longer needs but refuses to remove. Everything where it belongs. Everything in it right place. Order carved into a space that thankfully doesn’t argue back. He strips off his clothes methodically, movements economical, his mind already beginning to stretch to beyond tomorrow. He rallies his mind back in. Back to you.
The stupid little scientist.
Earlier that morning definitely wasn’t his first encounter with you, unfortunately. You were one of the lab rats that put him in this body. Some days he was grateful. Others– most– he hated seeing petulant faces like yours. Snobs, that’s what you all were. Little snobs that just sat behind computers all day doing jack shit but put things in test tubes and give them names that don’t even sound right. Pompous asshats that think they’re Gods just because… Just because.
He saw it in your stupid face today. The expectation. That disappointment when nobody pampered you. He lets out an audible scoff.
Someone ought to pull you all down a peg.
A blunt ache settles between his eyes at the thought of you. Little headache.
He lies down and closes them. Sleep doesn’t come.
It never does– not since Pandora, not since the recom body that hums with too much awareness, too much input. His breathing slows. He listens, like he always does. Base systems. Air circulation. A patrol pair moving two levels down.
And then–
Something else.
Not loud. Not sharp. Easy to miss, if you’re human, that is. If you don’t know how to listen past walls and steel and insulation like he does.
His eyes open.
The sound comes again. Soft. Broken. Unmistakably a moan. Unmistakably human. Quickly swallowed back, like it wasn’t meant to escape at all. His ears twitch before he can stop them, angling toward the wall to his left. Your wall. His jaw tightens. He stays still, rigid, like the moment before an ambush breaks.
‘Probably nothing,’ he tells himself. A cough. A dream. People are noisy sleepers.
Then it happens again.
Breath, this time. It’s uneven. Not panicked, like from a nightmare. Not sick either.
It’s controlled. Bated. That’s what sets his teeth on edge– the restraint in it. The way it sounds like someone is actively trying not to be heard. He exhales through his nose. His jaw tightens. Of course it’s you.
Your quarters were assigned last-minute. Zero thought put into it. No care taken. Just slots filled where empty rooms existed. Command didn’t think about the fact that recom hearing doesn’t shut off just because the lights do.
“Unbelieveable,” he mutters to himself. His hearing sharpens again, whether he wants it to or not. The recom body doesn’t ask permission. It catalogs it. Like it catalogued him earlier. Isolates. Identifies. He can hear the rustle of fabric. The faint creak of the bunk next door. The cadence of your breathing changes, tightening, then pausing altogether for a beat too long. Then again. A moan. Pathetic, gutteral, desperate.
It’s intimate in a way he did not consent to.
And that pisses him off.
Miles rolls onto his side, back to the wall, stares at the opposite bulkhead like he can burn a hole through it with sheer will. His tail thuds once against the mattress, sharp, betraying him. He stills it immediately.
This is a fucking problem.
Not because of you. Because of him.
Because his body reacts first and asks questions later. A low heat curls in his gut, slow and mean, like a predator rousing from rest. It's a feeling long forgotten. Not since her. Not since Varang.
God, does he miss her. The painful scratch of her long nails… Feel of her dark braids between his fingers. The drawl of her voice. Those beautiful eyes.
Shame she’s in the ground now. He’s gonna miss his sweet piece of ass.
Miles turns to his side. His awareness narrows until there’s just that wall, that room, that human presence bleeding through steel and insulation like it has every right to be there. You don’t make a sound for a while. He almost misses it. The quiet stretches. Taut. He almost convinces himself it’s over– that whatever it was has passed, that he can let his guard down.
Then–
A single breath. Soft. Ruined. Pretty, even he has to admit. You came. He can hear it. Hear the wet sounds hitting your mattress. Swears he can smell it too. Miles’ hand tightens against the mattress.
He doesn’t move it anywhere else. Doesn’t need to. The control is the point. The restraint. He forces his breathing into a steady rhythm, slower than yours, grounding himself in it. You’re stopping again, eventually. The sounds fade back into the hum of the base. The silence that follows is thick and full of tension, charged, like the aftermath of something that never should have happened. Miles stares at the ceiling long after. He tells himself that it’s done. Hopes it’s done. That it doesn’t matter. People do stupid things in this compound. This isn’t the first time he’s heard things he wasn’t supposed to.
He tells himself a lot of things.
Tells himself that it doesn’t matter that his hand is wrapping around his cock.
Tells himself it doesn’t matter that he’s half elated that you’re starting your routine again. Louder this time. He wonders how many orgasms he could squeeze out of that pathetic little body before you’re begging him to stop.
Miles tugs at his hard length once, then three times, listening and waiting for you to keep going with bated breath and precum dribbling over his fist. He props his foot up onto the bed, bucking into his fist with a low growl. He could imagine you spread across that bed of yours, on your back like a stupid, pathetic little starfish. Those little fingers inside of you doing no fucking justice.
He pumps that big fist again, growling at the slight burn of his rough fist against his sensitive, blue flesh. With his other hand, Miles pulls the hem of his shirt into his mouth to keep himself quiet. He fucks that fist like he hates it. Like he hates you. Hates that body. Hates how… unfairly fuckable you looked in that lab coat and jeans earlier. How you glared up at him earlier through those lashes he wanted to make wet. How clueless and adorable you looked as he watched you through the two way glass when you were unpacking your lab. You stared directly at him, seemingly so sure he couldn’t see you.
He could.
He saw all of you. Every inch of that delicious body. Those stupid big eyes. Those tits. The next moan you let escape is muffled by a pillow, by the sounds of it. Miles feels his mouth water at the thought of your flesh between his teeth, bleeding because of him.
He’s fucking his fist at a furious pace, and then he’s coming with a stifled groan. His hand doesn’t stop, keeps pumping while the other runs its palm along his tip. Neat little circles. Quaritch has always been rough with his cock. Squeezing it, bending it. Flicking sometimes. The pain keeps his abdomen tight and his cock rock hard in a kind of euphoric way.
He squeezes the last drops of come from out the tip before letting teeth gritting down on the fabric of his shirt. His jaw begins to ache with the pressure. He relents, and lets go. Sitting in his bed damp with sweat, his cock softening against his stomach, Miles listens to you shudder out one last whisper of a moan before it goes quiet again. His skin crawls when he realises one thing.
He doesn’t hate you as much as he’d like to.