Chapter Text
The first ones were a bitch. Sounds that made him snap awake even in the quietest nights, the metallic echoes that had once meant death inches away. Years of service had taught him to read them, to anticipate them, to channel the surge of panic into action, but the muscle memory remained, buried deep beneath scars and medals, a pulse in the marrow that no training could erase.
He remembered the smell of fire and smoke, the acrid tang that had been everywhere, always, in the corners of corridors and the wind that carried the screams of those who trusted him. He had walked through it so many times that he could close his eyes and hear it, see it, feel the tension in his own hands before a threat even came. All those who had watched him, thinking he was untouchable, had been dead long before he had finished counting the cost.
The knives, the broken glass, the screams in the dark, all of it had woven into him, leaving a trail of instincts that no calm could undo. He had learned to carry it, to contain it, and for decades it had stayed with him, silent and waiting. And yet, for all the fire and death he had survived, for all the ghosts that had ever haunted him—
—he would never have thought in his life that the main trigger for him would be the fucking, half-assed arrows of some crazy woman!
The bitch hissed at him like a venomous snake or whatever other fucked-up creature crawled across this thirty-three-times-cursed planet he’d helped doom himself. She clearly didn’t give a single shit that he was half-shielded by Spider and her own precious husband. This cunt was perfectly happy to pump a couple more of her reeking arrows straight through him, and if her darling spouse and his kid turned into goddamn pincushions in the process, she’d probably shed a single tear sometime after performing some victory ritual dance over his corpse.
It sounded and looked like pure shit. He wanted to laugh right in her snarling face. She must’ve sensed it somehow — some primal radar tuned to his bullshit — because she lunged forward again, almost a full fucking leap, drawing the bowstring so tight it was a miracle the damn thing didn’t snap.
Quaritch raised both hands slowly, palms open, deliberate, giving her zero excuse. His right hand screamed like it had a power drill jammed into the bone and someone was twisting. The kid had really fucked him up good with that thing, and at least he’d at least realized the chaos he’d unleashed. Unlike his “father number two,” who apparently suffered from chronic fucking stupidity (not that Quaritch hadn’t known that from day one).
“Wait—”
Quaritch had no fucking clue why Sully was even trying, his deranged wife obviously wasn’t planning to listen to a word he said. But no, the idiot genuinely believed otherwise. Anyone with eyes could see that this bitch didn’t give a flying fuck about the moralist’s opinion, especially when it came to her end goal.
And Quaritch really didn’t like the idea of being that goal.
“Wait, wait!” The moron somehow managed to twist around, and even raise a hand… and miracle of miracles, the rest of the circus that had rushed to the bitch’s aid (look at that, she dragged the whole fucking litter with her!) actually froze, though the hissing didn’t stop.
Spider, whose ass apparently had a sixth sense for the mood, edged sideways, putting a little more distance between himself and Quaritch. Smart kid. Quaritch couldn’t even blame him for the raw panic painted across his face right now. The unhinged cunt had already tried to murder him once, which was one of the main reasons Quaritch hadn’t wanted to drag the boy back to this insane family in the first place.
“Please. Just—wait.” Sully was staring straight at his wife now, like no one else existed. The one semi-positive thing in this entire clusterfuck was that she locked eyes with him and for the moment didn’t shoot. Big fucking thanks.
Technically, Quaritch could’ve lowered his hands by now. The idiot had shifted so that he was now fully blocking Quaritch with his own body. The bitch would have to put a perfect, elegant hole through her beloved husband’s skull to reach him. The itch to grin right in her face about that little detail was almost unbearable, but he swallowed it. Not the time. Not yet.
She kept the bow steady, teeth bared, eyes promising murder while Sully had run out of arguments beyond the same pathetic “wait”, “stop” and “please.” Quaritch wouldn’t have listened either if he were her. Fuck, even the clean headshot was off the table now — she was good. She could thread an arrow just under the earlobe of her darling husband without clipping him and still nail Quaritch clean through the eye. The whole situation was spiraling so far into absurdity that instead of fear for his life, all Quaritch felt was growing, boiling rage. And irritation. Lots of fucking irritation. Everything had gone to shit long before this stinking flying chunk of rock they were stuck on.
“Spider!” someone from the family pack called. The tall girl with the braid, the one who could do all kinds of weird shit. Quaritch wasn’t bothering to memorize their names. Thanks but no thanks. “Come here!”
That was the right move. The kid hesitated and didn’t want to make any sudden moves, but he shot a quick look at Sully, like he was asking permission. That little glance stabbed somewhere deep, sharp and sudden, making Quaritch clench his teeth so hard his jaw popped. Sully gave a short nod, said something Quaritch didn’t catch, and the boy scrambled sideways, then bolted in quick, panicked bursts toward the girl. Mrs. Sully didn’t even glance at him. She kept Quaritch pinned in her sights like he was the only thing in the world that mattered. And suddenly, he was fucking done.
He was not going to give her the satisfaction of sitting there like a good little boy while she turned him into a goddamn dartboard. Fuck Sully and his moralizing savior complex. Fuck this bitch and her entire spawn. Fuck the General and all of them. He made his own choices. No one told him what to do.
Go fuck yourself, you stupid cunt, would’ve been too kind. But giving her the perfect excuse to finally put an arrow through him? No. Not happening.
“Enough of your fucking arrows,” he hissed, lips peeling back in a slow, vicious snarl. Behind him was nothing but empty air and the memory of fire. Good enough. Better than—
Sully whipped around so fast it was like he’d read Quaritch’s mind before the thought even finished. Quaritch’s smile stretched just a fraction wider. His upper lip split either from the snarl or something else, fresh blood flooding his mouth like water from a cracked flask. He still had time to see realization flash in Sully’s eyes, saw the hand shoot out toward him, heard the desperate, broken—
“No…”
And then the entire stinking, impossible, physics-defying hunk of rock decided it was sick of this pathetic family drama and simply tilted sideways from some distant explosion’s shockwave. Perfect ninety-degree angle.
How Quaritch knew that while falling backward into the void remained a fucking mystery.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
If Eywa everyone here either pissed themselves in awe over or cursed like it owed them money actually existed, she could’ve pulled the ultimate sarcastic “fuck you” by being the first thing he saw in whatever passed for an afterlife for three-meter-tall freaks with golden eyes, pointy ears, and tails. The same afterlife he’d been dragged into thanks to one particular psychotic bitch. That All-Mother-Grandmother-Prime-Bitch would’ve been the perfect vengeful cunt in that scenario, flicking him on the nose like a naughty child: “So, do you believe in me now? See me now?” He’d have taken a couple of arrows from the crazy woman over that outcome any day, obviously. But no such luck, because the situation was this.
No bitches in sight. Just a nauseating swirl of dark and light spots bleeding together behind his eyelids. No new holes punched through him either, except the one in his hand, which kept throbbing like someone had shoved a live drill bit into the bone and left it spinning. The pain was so vicious he wanted to hack the whole arm off at the shoulder and be done with it.
And that brought him to the third, very fucking important fact.
He hurt. Which meant he wasn’t dead.
Dead Recoms probably didn’t feel shit like this. Though who the hell knew where Na’vi went after they croaked, or what kind of bullshit sensations they got stuck with.
Pain meant he was still here. Wherever the fuck “here” was.
And speaking of… where the hell was he?
He forced his body to move, and to his surprise, it wasn’t as hard as he’d expected. His head didn’t even try to roll off his shoulders when he hissed through clenched teeth and slowly pushed himself into something resembling vertical. Under his bare ass was rough, gritty stone and once the blur finally cleared from his vision, he realized he was sitting on actual rocks. Thank fuck or fuck no, who the hell could tell, but at least they weren’t floating in midair.
A quick scan of the surroundings confirmed he was inside some kind of cave — or whatever the fuck passed for one here. No sound of water. Almost no sound at all, except for some periodic rustling or scraping he wasn’t in the mood to identify yet. He sure as shit wasn’t going to keep sitting on his naked ass staring at the dancing dark-and-light patches overhead — sunlight, obviously, leaking through some hidden holes in the ceiling somewhere up there.
He’d had enough fucking holes for one lifetime.
Getting to his feet required rolling onto his knees first, hissing and cursing under his breath, then planting one foot, then the other, and finally pushing upright one leg at a time. His calves and thighs trembled, quivering like a newborn colt on that first step, but he wasn’t going to fall. Not yet. Now all he had to do was figure out where the fuck he’d been dumped and how to get the hell out.
Whatever had been programmed into this new body — the one that had replaced the rotting meat sack he’d left behind among twisted metal, rocks, and leaves — it either came with a built-in compass, or the whole “reborn as Na’vi” package included directional GPS as standard. Either way, his feet started moving on their own, carrying him exactly where he needed to go.
To the edge. A goddamn cliff edge that marked the abrupt end of this half-assed cave. And what had he just said about rocks not hanging in the sky? Fuck that. This one was hanging too, just… higher. Because all he could see was thick white fog or clouds swirling around him, vague silhouettes of more floating stone monoliths in the distance, and nothing else.
Up close it looked just barely like one of the usual ikran roosting spots. Which would mean his own had somehow managed to snatch him out of freefall, drag his unconscious ass up here for reasons unknown, then fucked off into the ether. Because there wasn’t a single pissed-off hiss or wingbeat anywhere in earshot—
A shadow slammed over him so fast he spun on instinct before his brain could finish the thought: if he slipped on these slick rocks now, he’d go tumbling into the abyss for the umpteenth fucking time and this time not even by choice.
The ikran was in front of him… If you could even call it that.
The longer he stared, the clearer it became that this thing — whatever the hell it was — was not his usual ride. Massive. Crimson and molten gold. Wingspan spread wide in blatant demonstration. And the hiss that rolled out of it was pure, unmistakable murder. Counting the eyes on this monster wasn’t on the agenda. But his brain — finally done bullshitting — started speed-feeding him the facts like there was a goddamn database installed in his skull.
Large flying animal native to Pandora. Leonopteryx. Difficult to locate. Apex aerial predator.
And the most important thing: here it was called Toruk. A wild, untamed monster, except in the rare cases when it had a rider, the last of whom had been, precisely—
Either the beast could read minds, or it was simply in a piss-poor mood, or Quaritch’s face pissed it off so badly that patience wasn’t on the menu, but those massive wings snapped open again and the entire fucking world exploded with a screech that punched straight through his skull and plugged his ears. The wound in his hand flared with bright, searing pain, echoing the sound like a second scream. Quaritch hissed back on a pure fury and clamped the injured arm tight against his chest, bracing it with the other, staring straight into the clusterfuck of eyes glaring down at him.
The wings slammed once, twice, then folded. The creature crouched low, as if all the air had been ripped out of it along with that shriek. Quaritch’s incinerating glare probably hadn’t done shit. But Sully — materializing out of the goddamn cloud like he’d been summoned, right beside the monster, one palm already pressed to its thick neck — that did. The second he touched, the colossal nightmare arched its neck and rubbed its head along his arm like some surreal, oversized cat. It didn’t quite start purring, but it might as well have.
Sully stroked the beast with one hand, the other still flat against its neck, murmuring something low and steady. Quaritch couldn’t make out the words. He was too busy being fucking stunned, because he hadn’t expected to see him here. Even in whatever hell this was, the man followed him like a curse.
You chased him like a dog with its ass on fire, some part of him sneered. Yeah. That had been the job. The mission. If he hadn’t finished it, at least he could admit that much.
Toruk scraped its talons across the stone, yanking his focus back. Above the little cave-mouth he’d crawled out of stretched a cascade of ledges — a jagged, rain- or time-worn staircase climbing straight up to a second “tier” of this floating rock-cave. That was where Sully must’ve been earlier, fussing over his “little friend”. Whatever he was doing now, Quaritch couldn’t see clearly anymore; the beast had shifted sideways, blocking the view with its bulk, and kept throwing him those creepy, side-eyed glances while still idly gouging the rock with its claws.
He had zero intention of standing here like a snack waiting to be rated. Going back into the cave and potentially meeting whatever other buddies this thing might have lurking in the dark depths sounded even less appealing. So he made the only sane call in this insane situation and started climbing.
Toruk let out a short, warning hiss, but didn’t lunge. It kept letting Sully mess with whatever he was messing with. Now Quaritch could see a little better: the Corporal was apparently gluing or pasting something directly onto the creature’s hard skin (armor?). Treating it? The thing was wounded? Quaritch had a hazy memory of Mangkwans loosing arrows at the beast when it first appeared over the “battlefield”, but he’d figured that hide was too thick for sticks to punch through. Apparently fucking not.
Sully was either deliberately ignoring him right now or had simply bumped him down the priority list while he took care of his “bird” first. And where the hell had he even gotten the supplies to treat prehistoric monsters in this shithole? Unless Toruk lived here full-time and Sully dropped by on weekends when the mood struck.
Curiosity killed the cat, he’d once heard some stupid saying, but in his case it probably wasn’t quite that. More like some dumb leftover Na’vi instinct the user manual for this cursed body had forgotten to mention, because he shifted sideways just enough to get a better angle, to see exactly what the fuck Sully was doing that was so important, and, more importantly, where exactly on this monster the weak spots might be. For future reference. A very vague, probably short as hellfuture, but just in case.
Apparently the monster wasn’t a complete idiot either, because it clocked his little sidestep tactic instantly. The massive neck whipped around like a cursed serpent, jaws snapping shut with a crack that echoed off the stone. It even flicked its enormous crest forward in the same motion and if Quaritch had been standing half a meter closer, he’d have been skewered or knocked straight off the ledge into the void for the umpteenth fucking time.
His body reacted on pure reflex: a sharp, fluid twist backward, out of range. Both hands shot up high, palms out, open in universal sign of “I’m harmless”, as if that would mean jack shit to a creature like this. Yeah. Right.
“Shhh,” Sully cut in right on time, stroking long, soothing lines down the neck of his goddamn “little bird”. “Quiet, buddy. Easy. It’s alright.”
Buddy. He might as well have called it “sweetie” or “good boy”. Nothing could’ve made this already batshit-absurd situation any more ridiculous.
Quaritch kept his hands up, lips curling into a slow, taunting smirk as he stared straight into the biggest of the monster’s glittering eyes.
“Place.”
Toruk — who clearly wanted nothing more than to use Quaritch as a between-meals snack, judging by the overall vibe and those very pointed stares — was obviously trying to play nice for Daddy. But the beast had serious attitude issues, because the hiss that ripped out of it was pure, venomous fury, whistling so hard a hot gust of breath blasted straight into Quaritch’s face.
“Stop teasing him,” Sully said, voice flat, tired, and edged with warning. He didn’t even look up from where his hand was still smoothing over the armored hide.
Quaritch stared at his profile for a long beat, then flicked his gaze back to Toruk. The monster’s stare hadn’t changed — still that same flat, predatory promise of teeth and death. Quaritch’s smile stretched wider, all fangs and malice.
“Can’t promise that.”
“Then you deal with the consequences yourself,” Sully said, calm and casual as if they were out for a Sunday stroll, for fuck’s sake.
“Oh, yeah? What, your little bird’s gonna swallow me whole if I pet him the wrong way?”
Sully seemed to have finished whatever field-medicine bullshit he’d been doing; now he was just gazing at his “buddy”, one palm sliding slow and steady down the thick neck and whatever came after. The beast leaned into it like it was getting scratched behind the ears.
“He can do whatever he wants,” Sully finally answered after a long, deliberate pause, eyes never leaving Toruk. The creature immediately shifted its own stare to him as if it heard every word and understood it. Fuck. It probably did.
Another heavy silence stretched. Then Sully finally deigned to look at Quaritch.
“He’s free.”
The implication hit like a slap — sharp, pointed, and way too fucking familiar. A flash of memory surged up uninvited: the same kind of loaded bullshit they’d traded back in that cell, right before everything went to hell. Quaritch’s jaw clenched so hard his teeth scraped. He kept the grin nailed to his face anyway — ugly, sharp, vicious. Sully stared back, cool as ice, like someone had glued that serene expression to his skull and forgotten to install a second one.
“So you—” Quaritch raked his eyes over him from head to toe, slow and mocking — “and your little bird—” a lazy jerk of his chin toward Toruk — “fished me out of a burning hell and dragged my ass up here just to tell me how fucking free I am?”
Sully blinked once — short, quick. Something raw flickered across his face for half a heartbeat, then vanished.
“It was the right place,” he said, shrugging like it was nothing.
Yeah, no fucking shit. He couldn’t exactly drag Quaritch home to that psycho wife of his. Not that hiding the location mattered anymore — it was already burned into the system, flagged with a forest of red markers, screaming “priority target” to anyone with clearance.
Quaritch didn’t have that clearance anymore. His smirk flickered — not because of Sully’s words, but because the reminder still tasted like battery acid. If Sully thought he’d cracked him with that little jab, he was in for a hell of a disappointment.
“You could’ve just let me roast down there,” he reminded him, voice low, almost silky. Of course the moralistic prick wouldn’t have. Even after they’d both tried to choke the life out of each other, right up until Spider decided to play skydiver.
There it was — contact. Sully’s face twitched, brows knitting together like he’d just heard the most disgusting thing in his entire existence. Fuck, the man was an open goddamn book. How the hell had they pulled off successful ops against the RDA for years with a leader whose every plan was tattooed across his forehead? Quaritch had been rotting in cryo, waiting to drop into this shithole, and apparently Sully had still managed to keep the resistance alive. Miracle.
“What’s the matter?” Quaritch pressed, grin sharpening. “Your noble little soul can’t stomach the idea of letting me die before you get to play savior to my poor, lost, redeemable ass?”
Sully looked exactly like he had back on that rock in the vortex — same hollowed-out exhaustion, same stubborn glow. No convenient fountain nearby to wash off the contamination, either; both of them were still coated in the same thick layer of black grime from whatever hell they’d crawled out of (or however much time had passed — who the fuck knew). He looked worn-out to shit, but that didn’t mean he didn’t still have enough left in the tank to swing at Quaritch for the blatant mockery he was shoveling at him right now.
Quaritch wasn’t looking to start another brawl, not yet anyway, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to spare the bastard’s pride either. He’d had enough of the beautiful speeches about “seeing”, “Eywa”, “harmony” and all that other nauseating crap. Sully could try to crawl inside his head all he wanted. Quaritch had his own opinion on the matter.
Sully let out a breath that sounded almost identical to the one Toruk had hissed earlier — short, whistling through clenched teeth. He turned away, pressing his palm flat against the beast’s thick hide again. Toruk immediately sensed the shift; the massive neck curved, head dipping low like it was trying to peer into Sully’s face. If there was some fucked-up mental link or telepathic bullshit going on between them, Quaritch had zero doubt it was something along the lines of “Can I eat him now?” followed by Sully’s half-hearted attempts to explain why not.
And honestly — why the fuck not?
“I don’t know what fantasy you’ve built in that head of yours,” Quaritch said, just to make it crystal fucking clear, “but I have zero interest in becoming your prisoner, your pet project, or your goddamn lab rat.”
Sully slid him a sideways look, face carved from stone.
“I don’t see you having many other options.”
For one vicious second, Quaritch wanted to throttle him harder than usual — fingers around that blue throat, squeezing until the smug calm cracked wide open.
“You don’t exactly have any leverage for that,” he sneered, licking the faint taste of ash off his lower lip. Fuck, he was only now starting to feel how filthy he was, coated in grime, soot, dried blood, the whole apocalypse special. “What, no cuffs at least? To make sure I don’t run?”
Sully raised one expressive brow at the last question. He didn’t even need to sweep an arm around the endless drop surrounding them; the implication landed like a brick anyway.
“If you haven’t noticed, your ikran isn’t here.”
“I can always jump again and try my luck,” Quaritch said, taking a deliberate half-step back, palms lifted like he was balancing on a tightrope, though he wasn’t in any hurry to actually cross the edge. Not yet.
“Toruk will catch you anyway,” Sully countered instantly, as if that single fact should stop him cold.
What, scared he might actually do it? The man’s face didn’t show it, he was clearly fighting to keep some violent emotion locked down tight.
“Or I could call my own bird. She’s probably looking for me right now.” Whether that was true or pure bullshit remained to be seen. Tsaheylu was still more mystery than reliable tool, and his ikran might’ve already bought the farm for all he knew.
“Judging by how no one’s showing up,” Sully said, a faint edge of satisfaction creeping in despite himself, “it’s because Toruk is here.” His monster scared the shit out of everyone and fucking loved it. “He’ll rip apart anyone who gets close.”
“Then I guess it’s back to jumping,” Quaritch shrugged.
Sully made that sound again — teeth hissing through a tight exhale. His hand twitched like he wanted to rake it through his dreads, then aborted at the last second.
“We already established that won’t work,” he said, voice dropping into something darker, almost sullen.
“You’re really that desperate to keep me from dying?” Quaritch tilted his head, baring fangs in a wide, mocking grin.
“And you’re really that eager to off yourself and call it a day?” Sully snapped back, literally snarling. Toruk bristled instantly, rising its neck like it was mirroring whatever storm was churning inside its rider. “You don’t even think—”
He cut himself off sharply, face darkening, eyes snapping back to his beast. He didn’t need to finish. Quaritch wasn’t stupid. Sully had almost said Spider’s name and then swallowed it. Moralistic fuck wouldn’t use the kid as leverage? The urge to strangle him surged hotter by the second. And the worst part? Quaritch really had no goddamn choice. He was stuck here, at this bastard’s mercy, on a floating rock with a monster that wanted to eat him and a man who refused to let him die.
Sully clenched his jaw so hard his fangs flashed for a split second, but it didn’t look like anger or grief. More like… resignation.
“If you’re in such a hurry,” he said, voice flat, “go ahead and jump. Toruk won’t catch you.”
It sounded like permission. But he wasn’t looking at Quaritch anymore. He pressed his palm harder against the beast’s hide for one long moment, then pushed off gently and started toward the jagged “staircase”. Or rather — limped. Noticeably, painfully limped.
Around his thigh was wrapped some indeterminate strip — cloth, bandage, who the fuck knew, as filthy as their own loincloths and soaked through with dried, crusted brown bloodstains. Obvious. He had a hole there, same as the one in Quaritch’s hand, which, as if on cue, decided to start screaming louder and more insistently, throbbing in hot, vicious pulses.
The wound needed cleaning. Getting yanked out of a burning death by a nightmare bird only to rot from gangrene or whatever other delightful shit this body could cook up would be beyond fucking pathetic. No medical supplies on him, no way to get any, but Sully clearly had a stash — he’d patched up his oversized pet first thing. Because of course he had. The man himself looked like he’d been dragged through hell twice and left to dry; whatever patching he’d done on himself was clearly “later” priority.
Meanwhile, Sully had scraped himself down the rock face and back into the cave, probably the same one Quaritch had crawled out of. No sounds. No hissing, no grunting, no teeth-grinding groans. But walking had to hurt like a motherfucker.
Quaritch flicked a glance at the watching “bird”. Toruk hadn’t moved, just stared, head cocked, those multiple eyes tracking every twitch like it was deciding which part to bite off first. Options weighed fast: stay up here in the company of this feathered murder machine? Hard pass. Follow Sully down? Not the worst of the two evils.
He found him inside the cave, on his knees beside some kind of bag or crate — Quaritch didn’t stare long enough to catalog it. A sharp click and the lid popped open (crate, then). Inside flashed a whole organized spread of first-aid crap: bandages, antiseptics, sutures, the works. What the hell? Had Sully stashed emergency kits all over his “territory” like some paranoid field medic? In case a patrol went sideways or he needed to patch himself or someone else mid-flight?
Not bad. Actually, pretty fucking smart.
Quaritch stayed in the shadows of the entrance, arms crossed, watching Sully methodically pull out what he needed without a single wasted movement. The limp was worse up close: every shift of weight sent a visible ripple of pain across the man’s back, but he didn’t pause, didn’t whine. Just worked. Like always.
Quaritch’s hand throbbed again, hot and angry. He flexed the fingers once — slow, testing — and hissed through his teeth when fresh fire lanced up his arm.
Sully didn’t look up. But he knew Quaritch was there. Of course he did.
Something flickered at the edge of his vision. Quaritch snapped his good hand out on pure reflex and caught the bundle before it could smash into his face. Soft something wrapped around something hard. He stared at it, turning the package over once, twice, then lifted his eyes to Sully.
“You’re bleeding,” the man said without turning around.
No shit. If Quaritch had been the actual age of this Recom body — six fucking years old — he would’ve hurled the bundle right back and told him to choke on it, along with his goddamn concern. Only kids pulled that shit. And Sully had plenty of those already.
He dropped into a crouch, bringing the bundle close to his face and snagging the tie with his teeth to rip it open. The cursed hand was getting worse by the second, refusing to cooperate like a traitor. Inside was exactly what he needed — everything calibrated for a through-and-through wound of this caliber. Did Sully get skewered by arrows through limbs on a regular basis? Not surprising in this shithole.
His brain switched off for a while, leaving only cold, mechanical, muscle-memory precision. If this body didn’t come with that kind of training baked in, the Colonel’s mind wired into it was more than enough. Not his first rodeo. Probably not his last.
Doing it one-handed wasn’t exactly convenient, but he managed. When he finally inspected the clean, tight and functional result, he exhaled. The rest of the world slammed back in so fast he blinked hard a couple times, shaking off the colorful spots swimming in his vision from the waves of raw pain that had crashed over him during the process.
Whatever Sully had been doing, he hadn’t made a sound. Quaritch let both hands hang loose over his knees and lifted his head.
Sully was still on his knees by the crate, one hand braced on the open lid like it might fall and crush his skull. His forehead was pressed against that same lid. He was breathing through clenched teeth, the other hand locked around his thigh where he’d ripped away the blood-soaked bandage. He still hadn’t started cleaning or wrapping his own wound. Quaritch could only see his profile — jaw locked so tight the muscles jumped, eyes screwed shut against the pain.
Sully didn’t flinch when Quaritch’s shadow fell over him. He just opened his eyes and slid a sideways glance up. His fingers on the crate lid were white-knuckled, knuckles standing out stark through layers of soot, grime, dried blood, and blue skin.
Quaritch didn’t say a word. He simply knocked the lid out from under Sully’s grip. The man rocked back on inertia, blinking up at him, silent.
“Let me see,” Quaritch said, dropping into a crouch that mirrored Sully’s own. Sully shifted toward him as much as he could manage, knees scraping stone.
Judging by the reaction, Sully couldn’t handle his own wound cleanup or bandaging, which meant there was some serious shit in there, and that was absolutely not part of Quaritch’s plans. If this bastard died right here, first, the way down would be fucked. Second — and most importantly — that psychotic bird would lose its shit, pick a target, and Quaritch didn’t need to be a genius to know exactly who it would blame. The future prospects that came with that scenario were not acceptable in the slightest.
Whatever was going on down there, he wanted no part of those consequences.
On both sides of the thigh, slick and wet with fresh blood and sweat, were two unmistakable puncture holes, noticeably larger than any standard bullet wound. Sully’s fingers, digging into the skin just above the injury, twitched in short, spasming bursts, clenching hard, then slackening for a heartbeat, over and over. Quaritch shoved the hand away and clamped his own palm over the wound, fingers splayed wide, pressing in.
Sully hissed — sharp, identical to the sound his monster made — and grabbed Quaritch’s wrist on pure instinct.
“Fuck.”
“What’ve you got in there?” Quaritch didn’t let go, probing deeper with steady, deliberate pressure. The muscle was too dense, too tight, but something was definitely inside the wound — something alive, moving, though he couldn’t quite feel what.
Sully’s grip on his wrist tightened, but he didn’t try to shove him off. Just breathed fast and ragged through the pain. When he didn’t answer, Quaritch squeezed harder, merciless.
“Arrow,” Sully spat through another hiss, nails biting into Quaritch’s skin in retaliation. “Stop…”
“What — the whole thing?”
Sully managed only a short, choked “ngh” — something raw and strangled — eyes squeezing shut as his head tilted back like he wanted to throw it against the ceiling and disappear.
Whatever the hell he was thinking, Quaritch wasn’t here to torture him on purpose. No fucking point. It was obvious the arrow hadn’t gone all in, Quaritch had only asked for form’s sake, but now it came down to figuring out which part was still stuck inside. Definitely not the lethal end; that one punched clean through. He knew that much, thanks to Spider.
“Okay,” he said, voice dropping low. “This is gonna hurt like a bitch.”
He didn’t bother waiting for acknowledgment — bodies in this state reacted on pure instinct, lashing out in blind panic to escape the agony. A fist to the face was a risk he’d already accepted.
Sully’s teeth clicked together hard, breath locking in his chest. Quaritch slid a finger into the entry wound without hesitation. Sully turned to stone instantly. Quaritch pushed deeper — and there it was.
“Stop tensing up,” he ordered, the command tone slipping out like muscle memory, sharp and no-refusal. “You’ll make it worse. I said relax, damn it.”
He didn’t pause, pressing steadily against the lodged fletching, forcing it toward the exit. Sully’s body flickered between rigid lock and violent shudder — ribs heaving, hand clamped on Quaritch’s wrist like it might snap bone. His spine cracked audibly when he arched backward, but Quaritch finally yanked the broken shaft free in one brutal pull.
Sully folded in half with a sharp, involuntary exhale that ripped out of him like a sob. He swayed hard, forehead slamming into Quaritch’s collarbone, blocking his entire view. Dreads, tangled with feathers and beads and whatever the fuck else they’d woven in, spilled downward, brushing and tickling skin. Fucking great. Just what he needed.
“Don’t pass out,” Quaritch growled, smacking lightly somewhere in the mess of hair. Felt like cheek. Good. Sully jerked, tried to straighten, but failed.
Quaritch exhaled through his nose, shoving him sideways with his free hand until at least Sully was braced against his shoulder instead of his chest. The grip on his wrist loosened but didn’t drop. Sully hadn’t blacked out, but he was teetering right on the edge. Quaritch wasn’t waiting for him to pull himself together. He dragged the crate closer with a scrape, digging through it one-handed for the right supplies.
How the fuck had this idiot been moving around with that thing lodged in him all this time?
Sully twitched through the rest of it, flinching and shuddering, but he stopped hissing and clawing when Quaritch clipped the ragged edges of both holes and started cleaning. When he finally finished, they stayed frozen like that for a long moment: Sully breathing heavy, ragged, forehead and crown rubbing slow, mindless circles against Quaritch’s shoulder, Quaritch not in any hurry to shove him away.
The work was solid. Clean. Tight. Nothing a mosquito could criticize. Still.
When Sully’s breathing evened out just a fraction, Quaritch pushed him back with a firm jab to the chest. Sully hit the rock wall behind him, momentum carrying his arms up to brace himself so he didn’t topple. Quaritch bent the injured leg at the knee, planting the foot flat on the ground for stability, and started wrapping the final bandage.
He didn’t leave things half-done.
Sully tensed like he might kick, then relaxed again, slow, letting the air hiss out of his lungs in a long, controlled stream. He watched from under heavy, half-lowered lids.
Quaritch felt the stare. Didn’t acknowledge it. Just kept working in silence.
When the last knot was tied, he pulled back, settling on his heels.
“That’ll do,” he said flatly, wiping his hands on his thighs and sitting back.
Sully straightened up too, one hand briefly pressing against the fresh bandage on his thigh as he stared down at it.
“Don’t thank me,” Quaritch bared his teeth when their eyes met.
Sully frowned, but after a small, reluctant delay he gave a single nod.
“Thanks.”
He could shove that gratitude straight up his ass.
“You’re lucky that shit didn’t fester,” Quaritch said, voice low and edged. “But you’ll still have to flush it properly. Though I doubt this luxury resort has a lake lying around somewhere.” He flicked his gaze upward like the cave ceiling might crack open and pour water on command.
Sully nodded absently, already shoving the leftover supplies back into the crate and snapping the lid shut. No weapons inside, none visible nearby — not that Quaritch had expected them to be left out in plain sight like a welcome mat. Sully hiding them somewhere was a given.
His eyes drifted back to the wrapped thigh.
“And it’s a good thing the arrowhead wasn’t the one to lodge in there for a while,” he added almost casually.
He felt Sully’s stare snap to him instantly. His lips curled into a slow, vicious smirk.
“What?” He leaned in just a fraction. “If you knew what Varang and her crew coat their blades and arrows with, you’d be on your knees thanking your precious Eywa right now for keeping you alive.”
That was debatable, of course.
“Eywa kept me alive?” Sully looked at him like he was about to laugh and his mouth actually twitched. “You actually believe in her now?”
And just like that, the faint softening from the last few minutes evaporated. Of course this fucker had to ruin it.
“If I throw you off this ledge and you don’t splatter like roadkill down there because some goddess swoops in at the last second and catches you in her divine little palm, maybe then I’ll think about it,” Quaritch said, deliberately dropping his voice into that mocking half-threat growl they both knew was empty right now. Neither of them had the strength to actually try shoving the other over the edge.
Sully let out a short, tired huff of a laugh anyway, shaking his head and refusing to rise to the bait.
They sat in silence for a while, pointedly not looking at each other. Quaritch finally stood and stalked back toward the cave mouth, right up to the edge, staring down into the endless white void. No real urge to jump, especially since the only thing waiting at the bottom would be a pack of women with arrows trained on his skull, but he could feel Sully drilling holes into his back the whole time, ready to whistle for his monster and dive after him if he so much as leaned too far.
For half a second Quaritch actually considered doing it just to watch the idiot scramble and save him anyway. Pathetic. Did he have zero self-respect? Whatever. He wasn’t testing it today.
Exhaustion was creeping in heavier now, sinking into his bones like wet cement. His stomach had been growling for a while, demanding fuel after days of chaos, blood, and starvation. In the field you could go without, but now — after the fight, the fire, the everything — the body was screaming to be fed so it could rebuild.
No question food was stashed somewhere here. Sully had everything covered, always had. Old habits from the other life died hard, no matter how much he pretended to reject them. Quaritch could rub his face in that later. If the bastard pushed hard enough. For now, he just stood there, wind tugging at his hair, staring into nothing.
When he trudged back inside, there it was, right on the same flat rock he’d been sitting on before: something that passed for a field ration, Na’vi edition. Looked like compressed roots, dried meat strips, some kind of dense, pale paste wrapped in leaves. Nutritious. Tasteless. Perfect.
He flicked a glance toward Sully. The man was already tearing into his own portion, focused, silent. Quaritch didn’t say shit. His stomach snarled again, louder this time, twisting with a sudden, ugly flare of something hot and vicious. He crushed it down, ripped open the leaf wrapping with his teeth, and bit into the bland mass like it had personally offended him.
There was a water flask too. Of course there fucking was. Practically begging for a pat on the head.
Sully finished faster and without a word just stood up and limped toward the exit. He wasn’t even trying very hard to favor the good leg — weight shifted, yes, but stubborn as always. Quaritch didn’t bother watching to make sure he babied the wound. He’d patched it, he’d pulled the damn arrow out, he’d kept the idiot from bleeding to death. That was enough. Sully could thank him or choke on it; either way, Quaritch was done playing nursemaid.
From the fading rustle and scrape of claws on stone outside, Sully had climbed back up to his monster. Quaritch swallowed the last bite, froze, ears pricked, listening hard.
Sure, Sully could saddle that overgrown murder-lizard right now and fuck off into the clouds, leaving Quaritch stranded on this floating rock with a couple days’ rations and no way down. But something told him the moralistic prick wouldn’t. If he’d wanted to ditch him, he could’ve dumped the body somewhere near Hell’s Gate and let the RDA scrape him off the dirt. All of this — the rescue, the cave, the food — would’ve been pointless otherwise.
Quaritch could only guess what the hell their plans were now.
Was Sully actually hand-feeding the beast? Had that thing turned so domesticated it ate straight out of his palm like a goddamn pet?
With a low groan he slid off the rock, back braced against it, legs stretched out in front. Whatever had been in that ration hit fast — full stomach, finally, after days of nothing. And now every muscle, every joint, every goddamn nerve reminded him exactly how wrecked he was. Rest. Real rest. Not optional.
He caught himself fighting the heaviness creeping over his eyelids out of pure habit. Stupid. He needed sleep like oxygen. Without it, the next threat, whatever it was, would drop him flat. And expecting Sully to use the opportunity to stick a knife between his ribs? Idiotic. The bastard had had twenty chances while Quaritch lay unconscious after the crash-landing. He hadn’t taken them.
So Quaritch folded his arms across his chest, tipped his head back against the stone, and finally let his eyes close.
When Sully returned, Quaritch already didn’t hear a thing.