Chapter Text
Quaritch watched the trees fly past, feeling the wind hit his newly acquired blue face. He can breathe in the air now instead of having to rely on an oxygen mask, which was nice. If only he didn’t have a lab coat in an avatar giving him the nastiest glare she could produce.
He eventually turned towards the woman, brow raised. Grace Augustine was a hellfire born in the form of a woman, and it would have been great to have her genius to use against Na’vi offensive forces. But, she uses her genius to research about them, learn their ways and study their culture. A damn shame. What good will knowing how they eat do for humanity? We already have good enough food, thank you very much.
Grace noticed that his attention came to her and took the chance to speak her mind. “We don’t need you here. In fact, we need you to Not be here.”
The newly recruited scientist, Norm Spellman, looked uncomfortable at the tension between the two other avatars. He was training for the avatar program for years, but he heard the horror stories of Pandora forests and he honestly appreciated having some extra protection, especially if that protection came from a man as strong and skilled as Quaritch. He’s the best bet on keeping them alive, and Norm definitely wanted to get back in one piece.
“Well, if one of your little blue friends didn’t attack one of our personnel, I wouldn’t have to supervise you lot,” Quaritch responded, adjusting the Hydra machine gun on his sling. It was a huge fucking gun, and he liked it.
Grace scoffed. “He wouldn’t have attacked if your dogs were able to keep their hands to themselves.” She looked down, seeing that they were approaching the landing site next to her school, and she gave one last warning glare with a hint of nervousness. “Just, don’t do anything to antagonize the Na’vi. We’ve worked a long way to get to this point, and I won’t have an army knucklehead ruin this delicate process.”
Quaritch squinted his eyes. “Marines, not Army.”
Grace rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Either keep away or play nice, Marine.”
The ship landed, but before Grace could hop out like she usually does, Quaritch held a hand up, stopping her in her tracks. He hopped down first, surveying the clearing that had a single building that looked too cheerful and welcoming to not be a school. There were a few Na’vi next to the school, but they froze at the sight of him and his domineering posture and his big ass gun. They flinched and some even reached behind them to almost pull out their bows, but then Grace shouted out from inside the helicopter.
“Stop! He won’t harm you, he is just here to watch over us,” Grace said in Na’vi, and Quaritch didn’t understand a lick of whatever she said but he did see that the Na’vi stopped moving towards their weapons at Grace’s voice.
Quaritch squinted at the group, and when they didn’t move any further, he indicated for Grace and Norm to exit the helicopter. Grace quickly exited, rushing to reassure her Na’vi students that they would not be harmed, while Norm was a little slower to exit, apparently less eager to be exposed to the dangers of the forests. Quaritch snarled at him to hurry it up, causing the weasel of a man to scurry out of the helicopter, and Quaritch was finally able to smack the side of the vehicle. He saluted to the pilot of the helicopter, who saluted back and started to maneuver out of the clearing. Quaritch sighed through his nose, they should probably get an avatar pilot so that they could just keep an aircraft here instead of having a human drop them off.
He looked away from the leaving helicopter and saw Norm had stuck next to him, hesitant of moving away despite how Grace was already all the way at the building with the other Na’vi. Quaritch scoffed and started walking to the building with Norm following behind him.
When he reached the group, he looked down at his watch. He nodded and spoke to the group, “You have four hours, and you better be all packed up and ready before the helicopter even lands. Understood?”
Grace huffed, her hands on the shoulders of two children that seemed nervous around Quaritch, but she nodded. “Fine. Norm, come here, I’ll give you a tour of the school.”
When Norm reached her side, she sent a glare towards Quaritch, which was something the man was quickly getting used to. “You can guard from afar, can’t you, Colonel Quaritch?”
Quaritch arched his brow. “What, you can’t give me a tour, too?” He grinned, hand clenching the sling that held his gun.
Grace narrowed her eyes, her hand still on the shoulder of a child, when her eyes went somewhere behind Quaritch and she startled. She walked forward fast, a nervous smile on her face as she approached with open arms. Quaritch was about to back up because the personality switch was too unnatural and downright startling, but instead of giving Quaritch a big hug, she went somewhere behind him.
“Neytiri! It is so nice to see you!” Grace said, and Quaritch turned around only to realize that Grace was holding her arms out against a Na’vi who was apparently sneaking up on him and was only 6 feet away from his unsuspecting back. What the fuck? How did he not notice?
“Where is your sister? And Tsyeyk?” Grace asked, slowly leading Neytiri to the school, but the Na’vi girl’s wide, green eyes were still zoned in on Quaritch like a predator watching its prey. Grace noticed her alert gaze and patted her hair, “He will not do anything, he is only here to protect us. He won’t do anything if you don’t, alright?”
Neytiri finally moved her eyes away from Quaritch and met Grace’s eyes. “He smells of dangerous Alpha. He is not welcome. I told Tsyeyk to stay away.”
Grace’s brows rose. An alpha avatar? From what she knew, the DNA that they used to build their avatars were from beta Na’vi due to the similarity between the mating habits of humans and beta Na’vi. The other two secondary sexes would likely make humans in avatar bodies feel uncomfortable with the unfamiliar sensations and instinctual behaviors.
Grace frowned and made a mental note to look into it later, preferably accompanied by a cigarette. “And Tsyeyk listened to you?”
Neytiri frowned, her expression exasperated and concerned. “No. The moron said he can take care of himself.”
Grace sighed. “Sounds like something he would say. Where is he then?”
Neytiri glanced at the forest at the edge of the clearing, and Grace nodded. As long as Tsyeyk stayed far away enough, it shouldn’t affect Quaritch. Then she looked around for said man, only to realize that he was gone.
“What the hell,” Grace exclaimed, head twisting left and right to see where the man went. She rushed to Norm, who was nervously staring at the woods. “Norm, did you see where Quaritch went?”
And then Norm pointed at the forest, right where Neytiri also indicated towards. Grace really needed a cigarette.
—
Quaritch wandered away from the clearing, bored of listening to a conversation he couldn’t even understand. His feet carried him further into the forest, his ears twitching at the sound of chirping by those tiny but demonic Pandora birds. Fuck, he hated those things, especially when they swarmed and created a cloud of hellish creatures thirsty for blood. But, after walking around in an avatar, he realized that those birds didn’t care much about him compared to when he was walking as a human. It was a nice perk to being in a Na’vi body.
The plants were freaky. Quaritch didn’t understand Augustine’s love for them. He walked past a bush of weird fan-like plants, but after touching one, they sucked in on themselves. Quaritch’s brow raised and he tapped another plant, causing it to retract as well.
His ear twitched when he heard a slight ruffling sound. After being snuck up on once, he wasn’t going to allow himself to get careless a second time.
He turned around, hand on his gun, only to have an arrow right at his nose. He froze, put his hands up, and stared down the arrow to the man on the other side of it.
And what an absolute sight for sore eyes this man was. Steely, practically glowing amber eyes were illuminated by specks of sunlight. His flat nose was flared in warning, but it sort of reminded Quaritch of a kitten, or maybe more like an angry tiger cub. And those lips had the subtlest tinge of pink. It teased him, made him want to come closer to see what exact shade of pinkish blue they were, but he couldn’t because he was kept away from them by the tip of a sharp, poisonous arrow.
Quaritch was taken out his thoughts when those lips moved to form a question.
“Who are you?” His smooth voice held only a slight accent, showing that he was familiar with the English language or was at least learning it for a long time.
Quaritch looked down at the arrow still very much threatening his life. “Colonel Miles Quaritch. I’m here to protect Grace Augustine’s group. Now, can you remove the bow?”
The man narrowed his eyes, and eventually he heeded Quaritch’s request and put down his bow, but he didn’t unload it.
“You are foolish.”
Quaritch scowled in offense. This bird sure was beautiful but he was apparently an asshole.
“You were about to startle a herd of 'angtsìk. You would have been crushed.”
Huh? Quaritch’s face must’ve shown his confusion because the other man rolled his eyes. “The herd of hammerhead titanothere.”
Ah. Those giant rhino slash hammerhead shark things. He looked around, trying to find where the herd of these enormous creatures were, but he didn’t see any.
The man sighed. “Skxawng. They are on the other side of the loreyu.”
Quaritch felt electricity go up his arm when the man’s hand grabbed his wrist to pull him away from the retracting fan bushes. So those plants were called loreyu? Good to know. (Not really.) And the other man had such pretty fingers for a Na’vi, long and thin but powerful.
Quaritch let himself be led away, eyes never leaving the other man. Holy fucking shit, his waist was so small.
“What’s your name?” Quaritch asked, giving it a shot. The other man let go of his wrist.
“Go back to the school,” he replied, turning away from Quaritch. Well, he missed that shot.
“Are you part of the school?” Quaritch continued.
“And if I am?” the man countered, walking farther away, and Quaritch followed closely.
Quaritch grinned, “Well, I’ll just ask Augustine who the prettiest Na’vi is, and then I'll find out who you are.”
The man paused and looked back at him with a strained face. “You say Na’vi wrong. And you are not, um, smooth.”
Quaritch had no idea what that last Na’vi word the man said was, but from the constipated look on his face, his attempt of a pick up line was not well taken.
“Tsyeyk!”
Both men turned at the sound and saw Grace and Neytiri running through the foliage. Neytiri immediately stood in front of the pretty man, standing guard between him and Quaritch.
Quaritch’s ear twitched upward at the sound of the word. “So your name’s Jake?”
The man hissed. “Tsyeyk.”
“… Jake.”
It looked like the man wanted to come to him and smack him, which Quaritch would have entirely welcomed, but Grace had to come in between them and ruin his fun.
“Alright everybody, let’s all get out of the forest and back to the school, alright? And Tsyeyk, please put your bow away.” Tsyeyk huffed but listened to Grace and slung his bow onto his back.
Grace put her hand on Tsyeyk’s back and Neytiri’s shoulder and led them back to the school. When they reached the edge of the clearing, Tsyeyk walked faster so that he could lead himself rather than be led by Grace, and Quaritch quickly walked forward too to catch up to him. But he was interrupted with a halting hand on his vest.
He watched the back of the Na’vi walk away from him, forlorn. Then he looked down at Grace with steel in his eyes, and his glare was met right back. “You Will guard us from afar, or I’ll file a complaint against you.”
Quaritch scoffed. “Complaints don’t mean shit to me if I’m the one who reads them.”
“You forget that I’m the head of the Avatar Division, and I can stop you from being able to use it.”
Quaritch sneered. He could probably get Selfridge to veto her decision, but that’s so troublesome. He wasn’t even excited to get an avatar in the first place, but now…
He huffed and stood at attention, looking away from the woman who looked at him with a smug expression. Quaritch snarled at her but she didn’t care, walking away with Neytiri next to her.
“He’s quite foolish, isn’t he?” Neytiri said as she was led to the school.
Grace hummed, “He usually isn’t, but he’s a man, and men do dumb things when they see something pretty.”