The sterile hum of the medlab's cooling systems grated against your ears as you staggered into the dimly lit common area. Flickering bioluminescent fungi clung to the ceiling, their teal glow competing with the harsh orange LEDs of human machinery. Your wings—still throbbing where the RDA's clamps had bitten into the membrane—brushed against a stack of supply crates, sending a jolt of pain spiderwebbing down your spine. You hissed, tail coiling like a wounded serpent, as the scent of roasted hexapod meat hit your nostrils. Norm stood by a makeshift table, his avatar's broad hands arranging food on a leaf platter. He turned, amber eyes softening beneath his rolled-up lab sleeves, stained with chlorophyll from the jungle.

"We missed you," he said, voice frayed at the edges, like he'd rehearsed it. His fingers grazed your shoulder, warm and steady, a touch meant to anchor you.

Too steady. Too kind.

Your wing lashed out before you could stop it—a half-healed primary feather catching the light like a dagger. The crack of bone-and-sinew against his wrist echoed in the cramped space. Norm jerked back, a hissed "shit" escaping him as he cradled his hand. The platter clattered, spilling roasted tubers and purple pitaya fruit across the floor. For a heartbeat, his human expression flickered through the avatar's face: the same wounded look he'd worn years ago when you'd mocked his starry-eyed rants about Pandoran ethics.

"Don't," you growled, fangs bared. The dragon in you—the old nickname he'd given you during midnight lab sessions—curled tighter in your ribs, all smoke and no fire. Your claws dug into your palms, grounding, as the medlab's air recyclers whined. The taste of iron flooded your mouth; you'd bitten your tongue again.

Norm straightened, flexing his avatar's uninjured hand. "Still got the reflexes, huh?" He tried to smile. It didn't reach his eyes. Behind him, a holoscreen flickered with Grace's notes, her handwriting jagged and urgent. Subject X-72: Neural Bond Degradation. You looked away.

"Eat," he murmured, nudging the salvaged platter with his foot. "It's the spiced kind you like. Stole the recipe from Hell's Kitchen." A joke. Always jokes with him. The hexapod meat's charred skin glistened, but your stomach churned. You'd last eaten crouched in a monsoon-soaked hollow, sharing half-raw yovo bugs with your Ikran as her crest feathers dripped rain onto your knees.

Now she was gone. You let her go.

The lab's airlock hissed. Somewhere beyond the plastisteel walls, a direhorse trumpeted. Neytiri's voice sliced through the murmur of human and Na'vi alike, her tone sharp enough to skin a stalker. You didn't flinch. You'd learned that from her, once.

Norm lingered, his shadow stretching gaunt across the floor. "Jake's in the north ridge tomorrow," he said quietly. "Says you should—"

"No." The word came out cracked, final. You stared at the food, at the way the pitaya juice pooled like blood on the leaf. When he left, his footsteps merged with the drip of water from a leaking pipe, the sound echoing long after the door sealed shut.

Alone, you crouched, claws hovering over the hexapod meat. The spices smelled of earth and fire. Of before. Your wings shuddered, aching for a sky you couldn't face. Outside, the jungle screamed with life, but here, in the belly of this half-born sanctuary, even Eywa's breath felt thin.

You left the platter untouched. Some hungers couldn't be fed.

SCENEBREAK

The air in the secluded glade was thick with the hum of unseen insects and the faint, sweet rot of decaying foliage. Sunlight filtered through the canopy in fractured gold beams, dappling the mossy ground where you sat atop a gnarled log, its bark weathered into grooves as deep as scars. Your claws—sharp, obsidian-dark, still flecked with dried blood from earlier struggles—plucked a delicate flower from the soil. Its petals were a vivid cerulean, veins glowing faintly bioluminescent in the shadows, and you turned it slowly, watching the light catch its translucence. The scent of damp earth and nectar clung to the air, but it did little to soothe the restless flick of your tail or the tension coiled in your shoulders.

Then came the footsteps: deliberate, cautious, crunching over twigs and rustling ferns. His scent hit you first—musky, familiar, tinged with the sharpness of sweat and the faint herbal tang of Na'vi salves. Jake. You didn't need to turn to know it was him; your sensitive ears, pinned flat against the base of your curved horns, twitched at the rhythm of his approach. The dragon-like ridges along your spine stiffened, and your wings, though still tender and bandaged where the RDA's bonds had bitten into the membrane, flexed instinctively, as if to make yourself appear larger.

"I thought I told you all I wanted to be alone," you said coolly, voice low, the words dripping with frost. The flower in your claws trembled slightly, betraying the storm beneath your controlled tone.

Jake paused at the edge of the glade, his silhouette framed by towering ferns. Even in his Na'vi form, he moved with that infuriating human hesitation—a hybrid caught between worlds. His tail swished once, uneasily, and his ears tilted back, though his gaze remained steady, those blue-red eyes piercing through the dappled shadows. "You did," he replied, voice rough but deliberate. "But you don't get to be alone. Not after what happened. Not after what you tried to do."

A growl rumbled in your throat, your fangs glinting as your lips peeled back. "What I tried to do?" you spat, claws tightening around the flower until its stem snapped, sap bleeding onto your palm. "You think this is about atonement? I wanted them to take me. To end me. Eywa has turned her back—why can't you?"

He took a step forward, his own tail lashing now, betraying his frustration. The bioluminescent freckles along his skin seemed to pulse in the gloom. "You don't get to decide that," he said, sharper now. "You think you're the only one who's felt abandoned? Who's made mistakes?" His voice dropped, raw at the edges. "I've been there. Literally. You think I didn't want to crawl into a hole and let the poison take me after I failed Grace? After I failed Neytiri?"

You stared at the crushed flower in your hand, its glow dimming. The admission hung between you, heavy and uncomfortable. Jake's scent deepened, closer now—warm, stubborn, unyielding. Your wings ached as you drew them tighter around yourself, a barricade of flesh and bone.

"Leave," you muttered, but the heat had bled from your words, leaving only exhaustion.

He didn't. Instead, he sank onto the log beside you, not touching, but close enough that the heat of his body seeped into your scales. For a long moment, there was only the sound of the forest breathing—the sigh of leaves, the distant call of a syaksyuk. When he finally spoke again, his voice was softer, frayed with something like regret.

"You don't have to forgive yourself. But you don't get to disappear. Not while we're still here."

You said nothing. The flower's sap stuck to your claws, sticky and bright, a tiny, stubborn spark of life in your grip.

Jake's trembling fingers reached out, brushing against yours with a hesitant yet desperate urgency. His touch was warm, though his hands were slightly calloused, a testament to the life he had lived. His grip tightened, as if he were afraid you might slip away, vanish into the ether like smoke on the wind. His voice, usually so confident and steady, now wavered, cracking under the weight of the emotions he was struggling to contain. "Please, Y/N," he pleaded, his words soft but laced with an intensity that made your chest tighten. "Don't let me go like this. I..." His sentence trailed off, unfinished, as though the words were too heavy to carry, too painful to speak aloud. His gaze shifted away from you, avoiding your eyes, as if he couldn't bear to see the reaction his confession might provoke.

You felt the familiar hum deep within your chest, the low, resonant vibration that signaled the presence of the dragon within you. It was a constant companion, a part of your very essence, and now it stirred, responding to the raw emotion in Jake's voice. Your scales, usually hidden beneath the surface of your skin, began to shimmer faintly, their warmth radiating through your flesh. The heat was subtle but undeniable, a gentle contrast to the coolness of the air around you. As your hand rested in his, the warmth of your scales pressed against the rough texture of his leathery skin, a strange yet comforting juxtaposition of the human and the mythical.

Your eyes, a striking blend of red and blue—colors that seemed to shift and swirl like molten lava meeting icy waters—locked onto him. They were eyes that had seen centuries, eyes that held the wisdom of the ages and the fire of the dragon within. They were eyes that could pierce through the very soul of anyone who dared to meet them. And now, they were fixed on Jake, searching his face for answers, for the truth behind his words.

"What, Jake?" you prompted, your voice steady but laced with a hint of impatience. You weren't one to mince words, and the weight of his unspoken confession hung heavily in the air between you. You could feel the tension, the unspoken words that seemed to claw at the edges of your consciousness, begging to be set free.

His next words came out in a rush, as though he had been holding them back for far too long. "You love me," he said, his voice barely above a whisper, yet it carried the weight of a thousand unspoken truths. There was a vulnerability in his tone, a raw honesty that made your chest ache. But you weren't ready to face it, not yet. The walls you had built around yourself were too high, too strong, and the idea of letting someone in—of letting Jake in—was too terrifying to consider.

You scoffed, a bitter, humorless sound that echoed in the stillness of the room. Standing up, you pulled your hand from his, letting it fall limply to his side. The warmth of your scales faded from his touch, leaving behind a cold emptiness that seemed to mirror the void in your heart. "No one loves the devil," you said, your voice cold and detached, though the words felt like a lie even as they left your lips. You turned away from him, unable to meet his gaze any longer, unable to face the truth that lingered in the air between you. The dragon within you roared in protest, its hum growing louder, more insistent, but you pushed it down, burying it deep within you, along with the emotions you couldn't—or wouldn't—acknowledge.

Jake rose to his feet in one fluid motion, his movements deliberate yet filled with an urgency that mirrored the storm of emotions swirling within him. Before you could react, his arms encircled you, pulling you close in a tight, almost desperate embrace. His body pressed against yours, the heat of his skin seeping through the fabric of your clothes, mingling with the warmth of your scales that now shimmered faintly beneath the surface. His voice, low and trembling with emotion, broke the silence as he whispered, "I love you, Y/N. I always have, and I don't care that you're a dragon." The words were raw, unfiltered, and carried a weight that made your heart stutter in your chest.

You froze, your breath catching in your throat as his lips brushed against the sensitive skin of your neck. The sensation sent a shiver down your spine, your dragon instincts flaring to life in response. Your ears, usually hidden beneath your human guise, perked up instinctively, twitching slightly as they caught the soft sound of his breath against your skin. Your eyes, those striking red and blue orbs that held the fire of your draconic heritage, widened in surprise, the colors swirling like molten lava and icy waters colliding. Your tail, a part of you that you often kept concealed, stiffened behind you, its movements betraying the turmoil within you. Yet, despite the shock and the instinctual reactions of your dragon side, you didn't push him away. There was something in his touch, in his words, that held you captive, a vulnerability that mirrored your own.

His hand, rough yet gentle, slid down your side, leaving a trail of warmth in its wake. It came to rest on the curve of your hip before moving upward, his fingers grazing the softness of your body, the roundness of your form. His touch was tentative, as if he were afraid you might pull away, but there was a hunger in his movements, a need to be closer, to show you the depth of his feelings. "Please," he murmured, his voice a low, husky whisper that sent another shiver through you. "Let me show you how much I love you, Y/N."

His fangs, sharp and dangerous, grazed the delicate skin of your throat, a teasing, almost predatory gesture that sent a jolt of electricity through your body. It was a reminder of the duality within him—the human and the monster, the lover and the beast. Yet, in that moment, you didn't feel fear. Instead, there was a strange, intoxicating mix of desire and vulnerability, a longing to let go of the walls you had built around yourself and give in to the emotions that had been simmering beneath the surface for so long.

Your dragon hummed within you, its presence a constant, comforting thrum in the back of your mind. It recognized the sincerity in Jake's words, the depth of his love, and for the first time, you allowed yourself to consider the possibility that maybe, just maybe, you could let someone in. Maybe you could let him in. But the fear of what that meant, of the vulnerability it would require, still lingered, a shadow in the back of your mind. Yet, as his lips continued to trail soft kisses along your neck and his hand gently caressed your body, you found yourself leaning into his touch, your tail relaxing and curling slightly around his leg in a silent, instinctual gesture of trust.

The room seemed to fade away, the world narrowing down to the two of you, to the heat of his body against yours and the sound of his breath in your ear. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, you allowed yourself to feel, to truly feel, without the weight of your past or the fear of your future holding you back. And in that moment, as his fangs grazed your throat and his whispered words of love filled the air, you realized that maybe, just maybe, you could let yourself be loved—not in spite of who you were, but because of it.