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They were halfway through sorting trade tallies when it snapped.
“It was a simple promise—pänutìng,” Jake groaned, palms open like he could scoop the words out of the air and make them gentler. “They needed Tìkamel Aean. We’ve got plenty stored. I told Tsentey and Pxoeìng we’d send bundles next moon.”
Tsu’Tey’s ears angled back, the slow, dangerous kind of tilt. “You told the Tayrangi we would send medicine you did not harvest. You promised roots you did not bless—labor you did not think or schedule. You offered from the leaves of a plant that may sour if it is not approached with care.” His voice was not loud. It did not need to be. It hit like a clean arrow. “Do you see this…simple pattern?”
Jake scrubbed a hand over his face—his own words thrown in his face. “Baby—”
“Do not ‘baby’ me,” Tsu’Tey snapped, sharper than he meant. He stopped himself, jaw locking. His shoulders pulled in, forcing steadiness. “Do not do it publicly again.” And in front of Tsentey, most definitely was implied.
Jake blinked, drawl heavy with exhaustion and frustration. “That’s the part you’re mad about? The public? I’m tryin’ to keep the peace. I’m—”
“You are the Olo’eyktan,” Tsu’Tey cut in, every word precise—honed like flint. “I am the Tsahik. We do this together. You do not make promises and leave me to tally the cost.” His tail flicked, the only outward sign of the storm he kept pinned under his skin. “Not when we are already stretched. The last herb harvest was fickle—the plants soured for two days before they allowed us to touch them again. Half of our herbalists were sick, Jake—not to mention Kieye' and Rini just recovered from losing their sa’noks.”
Silence cracked between them.
“I dislike it when you do this. I dislike it a lot.”
Outside the kelku, the late afternoon shifted toward evening—the leaflight going amber, the vines humming with insects, the far-off murmur of hunters crossing a bridge. Inside, there was only the space where Jake’s hands stayed open and empty.
He let them fall. “You’re right,” he said, but it came out wrong—too fast, like a soldier half-raising a white flag because he didn’t know what else to do. He tried again, softer. “You’re right, I shouldn’t have promised without you. Without checking. I just—” He stared at the floor mat, jaw bobbing. “It felt like one little thing I could…fix. Without askin’ you to hold any more.” Without making it seem as if I was inadequate or obsolete.
Tsu’Tey only huffed; did not answer. He pivoted on his heel in that clean, elegant way only he had and strode to the cooking pot, the motion so pointed it might as well have been a slammed door.
Argument over. Or at least, paused, which could be worse.
Jake sat in the middle of their home, feeling five inches tall. The kicked-puppy part of his brain (a big part; he’d admit it if someone pried hard enough) wanted to follow and apologize into Tsu’Tey’s shoulder until the tension eased. The part of him that knew better stayed planted on the mat. He listened to the sounds that meant Tsu’Tey cooking pointedly—the steam of a pot wafting upward; the clatter of the low clay pot; a knife meeting the cutting board with exact, measured taps.
And he thought Neytiri was a sight when she was mad. (She was.)
Neteyam and Kiri toddled in like benevolent spirits with no interest in mortal storms. Kiri carried a woven ball and a leaf in equal reverence. Neteyam wore a string of beads he’d half-threaded himself, pride making him taller.
“Daddy!” Neteyam beamed, plopping into Jake’s space without permission and grabbing his cheeks with both hands. The kid had sticky fingers and joy like a sunrise. “Hi Daddy, how is you?”
Jake’s mouth twitched despite the ache in his chest. “Hey, bean.” He nuzzled Neteyam’s forehead and made an exaggerated sniff. “You been eatin’ sweetfruit without me?”
“Mm-hm,” Neteyam said, utterly ruthless, and shoved a damp wedge against Jake’s lips as proof. “Lolo did too! He did too, Daddy!” He bounced once, sticky hands flapping. Then, very solemn, “Uhm—Mama. Grampy told me to say…” He scrunched his nose, digging for the words. “Kiri, what was it ‘gain, I no ‘member?”
“Lolo spend night?”
“That! T’ank you, Kiri! Yes! He told me to say that Lolo spend the night. With him. And Grammy. Okay? Is that okay?”
Tsu’Tey blinked down at him, lips twitching, then smoothed a hand over Neteyam’s curls. “Sran. That is okay. I will drop by later. Irayo, baba, for telling sa’nu.”
“And me?” Kiri chirped. “I did too!”
Tsu’Tey pressed the fat of Kiri’s cheek. “Irayo, Kirina.”
Neteyam beamed, triumphant at being useful, and immediately flopped on Jake, hands still sticky.
“Traitors,” Jake mumbled around a laugh, taking the offering. Kiri climbed onto his thigh with the calm of a cat and handed him the leaf, which he accepted with the solemnity she required—“thanks, baby girl”—and tucked it behind his ear like a flower.
Behind them, Tsu’Tey’s knife kept time. Chop. Chop. Chop.
Jake glanced toward the pot. His husband’s silhouette moved with clipped efficiency: cleaning a river fish, laying pepperleaf across the low, hot stone, tossing sliced root into the pot until the oil sang. He ground salt—myula—with a little mortar and pestle, the sound a gritty purr. He did not look up.
The toddlers, who lived purely in love, toddled to the edge of the cooking space, hovering like small satellites. “TeyTey,” Kiri said, thumb in her mouth, “Tummy go roar.”
Tsu’Tey’s shoulders softened just enough to answer, “I know.” He tapped Kiri’s thumb from her mouth gently—twice, a ritual. “You may watch. No touching the blade or dipping grumby fingers in the sauce. If you and Neteyam obey, we can have dawnfruit.”
Kiri clasped her hands behind her back obediently. Neteyam reached for a slice of root and then looked at his sa’nu, and then, with heroic restraint, put his hands behind his back too. “No touchy,” he said, nose scrunching with the effort of being good. “Not touchy—yet.”
“Sran. Yet.”
Jake sat there, useless, sticky–ish, and full of feelings. The smell of pepperleaf and seared fish slid under his ribs and made a home. He wanted to go press his face into the warm place where Tsu’Tey’s neck met his shoulder, steal a taste like his husband usually let him, and say I’m sorry one hundred times until the air changed. He didn’t. He gathered the abandoned ledgers instead—the ones with the herb counts and trade drafts—and stacked them neatly along the wall, something for his hands to do that wasn’t reaching.
It reminded him of how the kitchen in his home had sounds yet could also be so quiet—especially during the moments when his Ma and Pa argued, primarily about whether they could afford Tommy’s summer school activities or when Jake acted more with his heart than his brain.
From the pot: the scrape of a spoon. The soft exhale Tsu’Tey made when he tasted and found it wanting and corrected without thought. The quiet tsk at a too-rough chop. The flicker of his tail that said he felt eyes on his back and was not going to meet them.
Jake swallowed. He set the ledgers down in their nest, stood, and walked to the far shelf. He collected bowls and cups. He rinsed them with their gourd and let the water run out the side of the nest. He took the gourd next and refilled it at the spout just outside. He did the little dances of domesticity, similar to the unconscious rubbing of prayer beads—one after another—until the heat in his chest turned from sharp to manageable.
“In the middle,” Tsu’Tey said at last, not unkind, not kind—simply a request given into the room.
“On it,” Jake murmured, grateful for the task. He spread a mat, set bowls, and placed tiny cups where tiny hands would reach. He tucked Neteyam’s favorite wooden spoon under the rim of one bowl because it always made him shout when he found it. He laid the pepperleaf flat on a platter. He tried not to look at Tsu’Tey like a drowning man watching a shore.
Dinner came together like a truce. Tsu’Tey brought the fish—gold-edged and fragrant—then the pot of broth where root and greens softened to velvet. He poured a small dish of red sauce and set a bowl of roasted teylu beside it with a face that looked content. The toddlers squealed at the sight of the teylu and clapped, which pleased him even when he pretended it did not.
They ate.
Jake ate Tsu’Tey’s cooking the way he had learned to do everything important—like it taught him the shape of being alive again. He took a bite, closed his eyes for a second too long, breathed like the steam could clean his mouth of every stupid word and thought he’d acted on earlier. He tried to say delicious and thank you and I love you without speaking, because it felt like any sentence might shake the fragile bridge they’d all stepped onto.
Neteyam found his hidden spoon and crowed—sivako; Kiri dipped a teylu in her fish, then broth, then red sauce, and declared it “very yummy” and wriggled in place. Tsu’Tey’s mouth twitched against his will. He kept his eyes on the children and on Jake’s bowl, which he refilled with a precision that was not quite neutral. Jake took the refills like a penitent—like I see your care; I deserve less; I’m grateful for more.
He lasted three minutes before sneaking affection.
It started with his tail: the shameless creature slid across the mat and curled around Tsu’Tey’s ankle like it had independent governance. Tsu’Tey’s ears flicked; he did not move his leg. That was not acceptance so much as not a rejection, which in their house was stage one of forgiveness.
Next, Jake reached across to wipe a bit of red sauce from the corner of Tsu’Tey’s mouth with his thumb. He did it casually, as if talking about the weather, then looked at the thumb like it held a secret and licked it off like a man who would memorialize a taste.
Tsu’Tey’s eyes cut to him. Sharp. Warm. Dangerous.
“Hot,” Jake murmured, absolutely not talking about the sauce—even if it carried a twang. “Careful.”
“Eat skxawng,” Tsu’Tey ordered, but the word had lost its edge. He spooned more root into Jake’s bowl with a small huff that meant I see you, even if you do things that make me irritated or want to huff to the Almother.
Jake obeyed. He obeyed like he’d joined a religion where the sacraments were fish and salt and his mate’s stern mouth softening by degrees. He ate, and he made small noises—happy little mms he couldn’t tamp down—and kept his eyes soft as he let the tide of Tsu’Tey’s silence run out on the shoreline of his patience.
When the bowls were mostly empty, and the toddlers were painting their mouths with sauce and giggling like bandits, Jake risked a sentence.
“I’m sorry,” he said, simple, without defense. “For promising in council without you. For making more work. For makin’ you feel…alone with the counts. Especially in front of Tsentey.”
Tsu’Tey did not answer for a long, measured breath. He wiped Kiri’s mouth with a cloth; he removed the sauce from Neteyam’s reach with an almost invisible sleight of hand. He took a bite of the soup, then placed his own spoon down.
“I do not like when you make me the one who says no,” he said finally, voice even. “They love you. They love your big ideas and your big mouth. And most importantly, they love Toruk Makto.” And that made Jake’s ears press flat. “And then they look at me to be the wall or...” His eyes flicked up, met Jake’s, and held. “I am not angry that you want to give. Your heart is…kind. I am upset you give with your heart.” A pause. “I am not mad about Tsentey—he is a separate issue.”
“We see Uncle Tsentey, mommy?”
“No, baba—we discuss him and Aunt Ikeyni.”
“Oh—we see them? We see them soon?” Neteyam’s eyes went wide and wet, lower lip caught between his teeth—Jake’s exact I’m-about-to-ask-for-something-stupid stupid face, shrunken down to child-size. Tsu’Tey’s chest squeezed; Eywa help him, he was raising a second Jake.
Tsu’Tey sighed. “Maybe, yawnetu, maybe.”
Neteyam screamed, and it urged Kiri to scream louder—it all slid into Jake’s chest like a key.
“Okay,” he breathed. “Okay. You’re right.” He sat up straighter. “Next council…we agree on a sign. If I get the itch to promise the moon, you—” he gestured vaguely, searching for something petty enough to make him laugh. “—you just…tug my loc.”
Tsu’Tey’s mouth twitched. “I will rip it out. You want that?”
“No—not really—but that’ll also work.” Jake’s grin stumbled out. “And I’ll check the basket before I talk about the basket.”
“That is all I ask,” Tsu’Tey smiled softly, tail tapping on Jake’s thigh.
Neteyam, kindness incarnate, solved the rest: he crawled into Tsu’Tey’s lap with his teylu-flavored hands and planted a saucy-gritty kiss on his mother’s cheek. “Mama,” he declared proudly, “I love you more than teylu and fish and dawnfruit.”
Kiri, not to be outdone, leaned into Jake’s ribs and announced through a mouth full of nothing, “Daddy is…big.”
“Incredible words,” Tsu’Tey said, deadpan, and the laugh that lived in his chest kicked free. He hid it in Neteyam’s hair and kissed the top of his head until the child shrieked again.
Neteyam wiggled, eyes bright and hopeful. He tugged insistently at Tsu’Tey’s chest beads with his little fists.
“We get dawnfruit? Now? Now?” His words tumbled out in a rush, saucy cheeks pressed right against Tsu’Tey’s neck. “Rutxe!”
Tsu’Tey leaned to the side to balance the squirming weight, ears flicking. Kiri, nearby, clapped her hands at the word fruit, already bouncing in place on Jake.
“We eat?” Neteyam tried again, panting excitedly, pulling back just far enough to look Tsu’Tey square in the face, tail swishing with determination.
Tsu’Tey smoothed a palm over his braids, patient. “Srane, we eat. But not yet, ma ’itan. First, we wash your face.”
Neteyam huffed a dramatic sigh, then lit up again, voice climbing higher with excitement. “We get kivuo spice on it, too? Rutxe, sa’nu? Phhhease?”
Tsu’Tey’s mouth curved despite himself. He tapped the tip of Neteyam’s nose, smearing a spot of oil there. “Only a little, baba. Your belly is small. Too much spice and you will chirp like an ikran all night.”
Neteyam giggled at the image, wiggling closer. “Chirp-chirp!” he squeaked, flapping his arms. Kiri squealed with laughter, clapping even harder.
Tsu’Tey sighed, resigned, and gathered both children close. “Eywa ngahu, my noisy ones. Yes. Dawnfruit with spice. After we clean.”
Jake felt the tide turn for real then—the specific relief of being allowed back into warmth. He slid closer like a guilty dog, pressed his knee to Tsu’Tey’s, and ducked his head.
“Let me do dishes,” he said, already gathering bowls. “And…lemme rub your shoulders after the kids are down. I owe you a hundred.”
“You owe me twelve bundles of Tìkamel Aean, yawne,” Tsu’Tey corrected, but his tail looped around Jake’s calf again, a comfortable knot.
They cleared quietly. Jake piled bowls and scrubbed them at the rinsing basin, metaphorical sleeves pushed back, then left them outside to dry, muscle moving easily now that he had something to carry besides words. Tsu’Tey wiped the mat, lifted the toddlers, and rinsed their hands and faces while they sang two mangled lines of the roly bug song in a valiant duet.
Now, the kelku was quiet except for the sound of satisfied chewing and the little smacks of lips. Neteyam and Kiri sat side by side, their fingers and mouths stained sunset-orange from the dawnfruit slices, sprinkled generously with kivuo spice.
“Mm,” Neteyam groaned happily, head already lolling against his sister’s shoulder. “Good, this so good, Mama. So good.” His small belly bulged, round from both the sweet fruit and the heavy dinner he had wolfed down before it. “Daddy? You want some, want bite?”
Jake smiled. “It’s all yours, Bean.”
“Okay…!” Neteyam licked the kivuo and bit his fruit, juice spraying all over his chubby cheeks to his nose and shoulders. “If you say so.”
Kiri hiccuped once, covering her mouth with her sticky hand, then let out a small giggle. “I'm full,” she whispered, proud of herself—as if it were a great accomplishment. She slumped over, curls brushing Neteyam’s cheek. Neteyam let out a loud burp. “‘Cuse me.”
Tsu’Tey hummed low in his chest, amused, as he plucked the empty bowl away before they could demand another piece. “You have eaten twice your weight, child,” he murmured, grabbing a cold cloth and cleaning their faces and hands once more. He supposed a bath could wait until morning. He highly doubted Neytiri would mind.
Bedtime was its own compromise.
Neteyam did not do much but twitch when Tsu’Tey put him in a lighter loincloth, only gave a long, satisfied sigh, little fingers drifting up to rub at his eyes. His lashes fluttered, heavy, and his tail gave one last lazy flick before it stilled. "Night-night mommy..."
"Goodnight, Neteyamur."
"I love you and daddy..." Neteyam yawned and curled into himself.
Tsu'Tey smiled and kissed his baby's cheek, patting his baby belly. "We love you too."
Beside him, Kiri slumped further, her own hands coming up to clumsily rub her eyes with the backs of her fists. The motion was slow, uncoordinated—already half-asleep.
Tsu’Tey’s chest softened at the sight. He set her cloth aside, fixing it with the spare he always kept for her, and bent low, brushing his knuckles against Kiri’s temple. “Ma‘ite,” he murmured, voice deep and hushed, “you are full and weary. Do you wish to sleep with me and sempul tonight…or go to your mothers? They should be home by now, sran?”
“Mama and Sa’nu?”
“Srane, mama, and sa’nu.”
Kiri’s eyes cracked open just enough to find his face. Her mouth curved faintly, parting around a yawn. “I sleep with TeyTey and Sempu and ‘Teyam,” she mumbled, decisive even in her drowsiness. She tucked herself closer to him, curls spilling against his chest. “Mommies on a date.”
Neteyam wanted to sleep on Jake’s chest. Kiri wanted Tsu’Tey’s ear in her hand. Jake offered a trade: “You start on Mama and roll to me when you get too hot, yeah?” Neteyam accepted with solemn gravitas. Kiri simply sleep-crawled between the couple and made herself a necklace out of his braid.
The nest softened around them. The house exhaled.
When small bodies finally went heavy and quiet, and the last little hand uncurled from Tsu’Tey’s face, Jake eased out a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. He waited a moment—long enough to be sure they were truly asleep, not just faking it with those dramatic sighs kids (Hint: Lo’ak) thought were clever.
Then, carefully, he gathered them up one by one. It wasn’t that he minded them in the main nest—half the time he loved it—but tonight Tsu’Tey needed the space. Needed rest. And Jake knew if their children stayed sprawled across them both, Tsu’Tey would spend the whole night with a crick in his neck and one leg half-asleep, so Jake shifted the little bodies to the nestlet.
Neteyam curled instantly into himself, neat as a comma, breath whistling through his nose. Kiri, though—she scrunched until her little butt was pointing skyward—again. Jake had tried, more than once, to tuck her into something resembling a comfortable position—tummy, back, on her side. But no matter what, she squirmed back into that strange knot, tiny tail twitching like a flag before settling down.
He hovered, watching. A part of him always worried he was missing something—that maybe he should straighten her again, or nudge Neteyam’s blanket higher. But then Kiri sighed, long and content, and Neteyam’s thumb drifted to his mouth. They were fine. They. Were. Okay.
Only then, when they were settled, did he return to Tsu’Tey’s side—one hand brushing over his mate’s hip, reaching across the shadows and grabbing Tsu’Tey’s wrist.
“C’mere,” he said, voice pitched low so it didn’t jar the sleeping world. He guided Tsu’Tey onto his stomach and braced astride his hips, palms spreading over warm muscle. He kneaded slow, deliberate circles at the base of Tsu’Tey’s neck, where the day’s discipline lived. He worked his thumbs down to the hard knots by his shoulder blades, to the place where the tail met the spine. Tsu’Tey gave a sound that was not quite a sigh, not quite a purr.
“Uh-huh,” Jake murmured, fond pride slipping back into his voice. “There it is. All that tension. Come on, lemme take some.”
Tsu’Tey did not speak for a long time. He let himself be tended like he tended to everyone else, which was its own apology, its own forgiveness. When he did speak, it was into the nest, into the quiet.
“I know why you did it,” he said. “I know you want to be the one who brings something good into the room. I do not want to take that from you.”
Jake bent and pressed his mouth to the nape of Tsu’Tey’s neck. “You’re the good thing, baby,” he muttered, unashamed. “You always are.”
Tsu’Tey turned his head then, slowly, until he could meet Jake’s eyes over his shoulder. The look was an open door. Jake leaned down and kissed him—soft first, then deeper, the kind that starts with thank you and ends in stay.
When he pulled back, Tsu’Tey touched Jake’s jaw with two fingers. “You do not need to walk alone,” he said again, gentler. “We are mated. I know you are not used to having another, but I am not going anywhere, Jake.”
Jake’s throat tightened. “Yes, yeah,” he said, and meant it like a vow. “You better not.”
Silence settled—the kind that comes after rain. Jake shifted, sliding down, and fit himself along Tsu’Tey’s side. He set his hand over Tsu’Tey’s heart. Tsu’Tey covered it with his own. On the other side of the nest, Neteyam rolled and flopped across Kiri, who snored and flopped on her belly.
“I love you,” Jake whispered into Tsu’Tey’s hair, drowsy, grateful, a little silly again now that the world was safe—his world was safe.
“Ngenga yawne lu oer,” Tsu’Tey murmured. You are beloved to me.
Jake’s stupid, relieved laugh puffed warm at his ear. He tucked his face under Tsu’Tey’s and let himself be warm and loud and open, exactly all the things his mate loved, exactly all the things that made up their home.
☆
Dinner was the good kind of loud—easy.
Big shared pot, roasted roots, strips of grilled meats, and fruit cut into sticky wedges. The adults were sprawled on low mats and roots, plates on their knees; the kids had already eaten the interesting bits and were now running purely on chaos and sugar.
Jake sat with his back against a warm curve of Hometree, one knee up, the other leg stretched out.
He was done eating. Or, more accurately, he’d given up trying.
He sat on a low woven bench along the wall, plate abandoned, because his lap was currently occupied by one (1) pudgy one-year-old who kept trying to eat his fingers instead of his own food. Lo’ak faced out, perched on Jake’s thigh, kicking his little feet and babbling at Tarsem.
“Ta’sem!” he crowed. “Ta! Ta! Hi! Hi!”
Tarsem—four and a half, limbs everywhere, a small tornado in braids—glanced back from where he and Neteyam were building some sort of precarious tower out of spare cooking stones. “Hi Lo’ak, no, this one big,” he informed Neteyam, adding another rock to the top. “You are too little.”
“I am big,” Neteyam protested immediately, tail puffing. He was nearing three, which meant his whole personality was becoming If big kids could do it, so can I. “I am a big boy. I help.”
“You are bigger than your brother,” Kiratx said from his squatting spot nearby, eleven. He reached out to steady the wobbly tower with two careful fingers. “Watch, Tarsem. You put a small stone here. See? Balance. Do not let that stone fall on Neteyam.”
“I know balance!” Tarsem’s tail flicked.
Neteyam’s brow scrunched. His little tongue poked out between his teeth as he mimicked Kiratx. “Ba-lance,” he murmured, placing the stone exactly where Kiratx then showed and guided him. When it steadied, he gasped. “Look! Daddy, look!”
“I see, Bean,” Jake grinned. “Engineering genius, that's what you are.”
Lo’ak, thrilled to be there, shouted, “DA!” and slapped Jake’s chest with both hands.
Jake wheezed. “Yeah, you too, buddy.”
Across the hollow, Neytiri was crouched by the entry-curtain with Peyral, both of them wrestling a squirming, giggling Kiri back into her tiny tweng. “Kiri, hold still,” Neytiri scolded, laughter in her voice. “You cannot go play with your cousins bare like a worm.”
Kiri, two years and some months and newly obsessed with “Doing Things Herself”, did not hold still.
She wriggled, tail flicking, eyes on her brothers and cousins like a pa’li just released from the corral. “Mommy, done? I done?” she pressed, her voice high and eager.
“Almost,” Peyral muttered, tugging the last knot tight. “If you run without this, your bottom will be open to the whole clan.”
Kiri gasped like that was the worst scandal imaginable. “No bottom!” she squeaked. “Only play!”
“Yes,” Neytiri laughed, patting her hip. “Now go. But no biting—Kirina.”
Kiri whirled, already halfway gone. “Bye Mommy, sa’nu and—TeyTey! I play!” she chirped in a rush, sing-song, waving vaguely in Tsu’Tey and Jake’s direction as if they were one creature.
“Bye, baby,” Jake called back. He hoped they wouldn’t have another Elder Rikum situation.
Neytiri reached out half-heartedly, missed her, and just sighed with affectionate resignation as Kiri hurled herself straight into the kid pile.
“Do not fall on your face,” Neytiri added softly.
Immediately, Kiratx grabbed her hand and folded her into the game like it was nothing.
The big people could only sigh.
Jake felt someone move in behind him and, before he could turn, a familiar weight leaned into his side; long thigh bracketing his, a warm arm sliding behind his back and over the back of the bench. Tsu’Tey sat close enough that their hips touched, the curve of his tail overlapping Jake’s on the woven flooring.
Jake didn’t comment. He just shifted instinctively, letting Tsu'Tey tuck right under his arm, resting comfortably against his chest and shoulder.
It’s funny, Jake thought, in a distant way. Tsu'Tey was a little taller than him—inches that never really mattered, back when they were all teeth and snarl. But now, with the weight and width on Jake’s frame, the way he carried himself, he could just…fold Tsu'Tey in like this. Wrap him around him without thinking. Human DNA made easy muscle; it made him a slightly broader gravity well for his very tall, very lean mate.
Tsu'Tey did not fight it, not tonight. He let his head tip toward Jake’s, temple brushing temple. One of his hands dropped to Lo’ak’s back, splayed protectively, thumb rubbing up and down his little spine.
“Your son has sauce on his feet,” he observed.
Jake glanced down. Sure enough, Lo’ak had discovered the art of dipping and was having fun because he had run out of food to dip and moved on to his own toes.
“Bug—buddy,” Jake sighed. “C’mon. You can’t marinate yourself.”
"Yum!" Lo’ak just squeaked and stuffed his toes in his mouth. Problem solved.
“You will bathe,” Tsu'Tey huffed softly, something akin to a laugh. His eyes were on the kids, though, not the mess—watching Tarsem patiently show Neteyam where to place another stone, watching Kiratx share out little bits of carved wood so everyone “had a job.”
Watching, always watching.
Jake’s chest warmed at the sight. At all of it.
The four kids tumbling over each other; Neytiri and Peyral murmuring together as they cleaned up plates; the sure weight of Tsu'Tey pressed into his side—it knocked something loose in him. A thought he did not think often.
He heard himself speak before he fully decided to.
“Hey,” he said quietly, so it didn’t carry beyond their bench. “Can I ask you somethin’ kinda stupid?”
Tsu'Tey’s ears flicked, the only sign he was alerting more fully. He did not look away from the children. “When are your questions not stupid?” he muttered, but it was soft, no bite. “Ask.”
Jake huffed a little laugh, then sobered.
“You ever think about…if you’d’ve recognized me?” he said. “Back then. If Eywa’d…done it differently. If you’d seen me first as a tawtute. As I really was. In the chair.”
That got Tsu'Tey’s eyes. He turned his head, slowly, to look at Jake full-on. The kids’ laughter became a muffled backdrop.
“What do you mean?”
Jake shifted Lo’ak higher up on his thigh with one forearm—automatic dad adjustment—then stroked his knuckles along Tsu'Tey’s jaw. “Like…say things hadn’t gone the way they did. I know you never saw me like that. Only your parents, Neytiri, and the Omaticaya were there when they brought my body to the Tree. Only heard about it from them.” He swallowed. “But if you had. If you’d walked up on me out there in the forest. Human. Legs useless. Tiny. Chair an’ all.” He forced a crooked grin. “You think you’d’ve known it was me?” Or would I just be another sky-demon takin’ up space?
Tsu'Tey’s face drew in, a slow frown forming. Not annoyed. More…sorting.
“I have thought about it,” he admitted, after a moment that felt much longer. “After I came back.” His fingers keep moving on Lo’ak’s back, steady little circles. “At first I was jealous.”
Jake’s head jerked. “Jealous?”
“Yes.” Tsu'Tey’s gaze slides briefly to Neytiri, then back. “That she saw you like that, when I did not. That she saw all of you.” His lips quirked in something faint and self-mocking. “Only Neytiri, Mo’at, your brother’s spirit, and Eywa herself could say they knew every shape you walked in. I had…one.”
Jake stared at him. He hadn’t expected that. For years, he’d carried a quiet, stubborn certainty that Tsu’Tey would hate talking about his human body—that even bringing it up would sour the air between them, make his mate’s mouth go thin and his ears go flat. That this was the conversation he’d always meant to dodge.
“Tsu'Tey…”
Tsu'Tey shrugged one shoulder. “It is…foolish. I was still learning to be alive again. Everything felt…sharp. Unfair. I knew Neytiri had found you when your other body lay dying. She told me. She said she felt fear, but no malice. That you looked at her the same way you did in your Na’vi body, even when you could not breathe.” His eyes narrowed slightly. “That your soul and scent were the same.”
Jake swallowed hard. He remembered that moment. Choking on the thin air, vision blurring, seeing that dark, furious, beautiful face stare down at him with something like…confusion. Frustration. Complicated mercy. I see you.
“I smelled a lot when I woke,” Tsu'Tey continued, softer now. “Under the Tree. Neytiri was there. Mo’at. The People. But you…” He leaned in, just a fraction, to inhale along Jake’s cheek, nuzzling slowly. “You were the one burned into my nose. Your fear. Your stubbornness. Your…stupid hope. It was the same as before. Just…more.”
Jake’s throat felt tight.
“So?” he managed. “If I’d been in that forest. Human. Fragile. Tied to that chair. You’d…have known?”
Tsu'Tey pulled back enough to meet his eyes.
“I would have smelled you,” he confessed simply. “I would have known you were the same man who drove me mad from the first day he arrived—who could not stop asking questions, who tripped over his own tail in a uniltìrantokx, who fell off a branch in front of all the hunters and still laughed.” His mouth softened. “Body is…form. Your scent, your heart, your spirit—those are you. I know those.”
“Okay,” Jake blew out a shaky breath. “Okay. That—yeah. That makes sense.”
Tsu'Tey watched him for another heartbeat, saw the way his shoulders did not drop all the way. The way shame still hung, thin but stubborn, under his words.
“But you are not only asking if I would recognize you,” Tsu'Tey pressed quietly. “You are asking if I would be ashamed of you. Because you could not stand. Because you sat in this ‘wheelchair.’”
Jake winced, caught. “…Kinda, yeah.”
Tsu'Tey’s jaw set.
“Explain this contraption to me—again.”
Jake huffed a surprised little laugh. “Again, huh?”
“I did not understand it well the first time,” Tsu'Tey was unbothered by the admission. “I wish to imagine it correctly as I imagine you tormenting yourself with it.”
That earned a real laugh, though it comes out rusty. Jake would always rather take Tsu’Tey’s sharp, snide jokes than be handled like something fragile; the last thing he wanted was his mate tiptoeing around the word paralyzed. “Okay.” Jake shifted a bit, Lo’ak now dozing against his arm, and tapped a spot on his own thigh. “So. Back then, my legs—these? They were…empty. Nerve pathways were damaged. Couldn’t feel ‘em below here.” He drew a line at his waist with his fingers. “Couldn’t move ‘em. I used my arms to move the wheels.” He mimicked the motion unconsciously, hands pushing phantom rims. “Got pretty good at it, actually.”
Tsu'Tey watched his hand, then his face, absorbing every bit.
“And you could not walk at all?” he pressed.
“Nope.” Jake shrugged, trying for nonchalance that didn’t quite land. “Not without braces an’ folks holdin’ me up. It was tedious—chair was faster. Independence,” he added with that old pride. “Didn’t have to wait for anybody to carry me.”
Tsu'Tey was quiet for a long moment. Then he tilted his head, slow and very deliberate, “I am angry at skypeople for doing that to you.”
Jake blinked. “What?”
“They made you a warrior of that Jarheadclan and then...put you in a metal body that rolled,” Tsu'Tey’s ears flattening slightly. “Made you live in a box with thin air that hurt your lungs. Then told you to be grateful you had this device to drag yourself around in.” His tail flicked, agitation seeping out. “They took your legs and then gave you wheels treat you like a…baby. And now you ask me if I would be ashamed of you for surviving it.”
Jake stared at him, floored.
“I did not know the word then,” Tsu'Tey went on, eyes bright and fierce. “But I know it now. That chair was…adapt...ation. A tool. Like a knife. Like a bow. It was not shameful. It was their failure that you needed it at all.” He leaned closer, voice low and intense. “You used what you had. You kept moving. You crossed worlds to…us. You learned to fight in a body that did not listen to you, and then again in one that did. You think I would mock that? That I would feel shame to see you changed? Jake those are warrior marks.”
Jake’s eyes stung. He opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. “…When you say it like that…”
Tsu'Tey’s expression eased finally, some of the ferocity softening to a wry tenderness.
“I did not even know what a ‘wheelchair’ was until you tried to explain it to me. If Eywa had shown me you sitting in such a thing…I would have been curious—angry—I would have wanted to put my hands on your shoulders so no one could push you where you did not want to go.” His lips twitched. “And I would have argued with you. Often. Because it is you.”
Jake barked a laugh, and this time it was clean. Wet at the edges, but real. Lo’ak gave a soft, sleepy peep at the jostle and burrowed closer against Jake’s chest, little fingers curling in his father’s beads as if to anchor himself between them. “Daddy’s sorry, bug—you got me there.”
Tsu'Tey’s hand shifted from Lo’ak’s back to Jake’s forearm, fingers wrapping firmly around his wrist. “Jake,” he murmured quietly. “Listen to me.”
Jake does.
“If Eywa had not given you this body,” Tsu'Tey let his thumb press into the pulse point; anchoring the words, “I would still have loved you. This shape,” he gave the Na’vi chest a small, self-deprecating glance, “makes it easier for us to run together. To hunt. To raise our children in the same way. But if I had met you small. Sitting with wheels. With scars.” His eyes softened. “I think…I would have fallen in love even faster. No one could ever say I only wanted you for your title or strength only, MaJake. I have my own. I wanted you—your heart. You are the gift given to me.”
Jake’s breath caught.
He closed his eyes for a second because it was either that or let them leak. He felt the kids’ noise, the soft thump of their play, like sound underwater. When he opened them again, Tsu'Tey was still there. Still looking at him like that.
He huffed a tiny laugh. “You’re gonna make me cry in front of your nephew,” he muttered.
Tsu'Tey’s mouth curved. “Tarsem already thinks you are soft—it will not change his opinion. You know who his father is.”
As if summoned, Tarsem let out a triumphant yell as the stone tower collapsed. “IT FALLS!” he crowed. “AGAIN!”
All four kids descended into giggles. Lo’ak flinched in Jake’s lap at the sudden volume, then blinked, realizing it was just fun, and laughed too, little shoulders shaking.
Jake tipped his forehead forward until it rested against Tsu'Tey’s. “You’re somethin’ else, baby.”
“I am correct,” Tsu'Tey fixed calmly. He bumped his nose against Jake’s, so small and sweet it made Jake’s chest hurt. “These are part of your story, not measures of your worth. If I had met you like that, I would have dragged your chair into my home and refused to allow anyone to touch it without permission. I would learn.”
Jake exhaled, long and shaky, and nodded. Some old knot inside him loosened. “Okay,” he smiled softly. “Okay.”
Tsu'Tey studied him a moment longer, then his expression soften and he nudged Jake.
“…you’re ridiculous,” Jake said hoarsely. “God, I love you.”
“I know,” Tsu'Tey leaned in and kissed him, soft and sure, right there with the kids shrieking and stones clattering and Neytiri calling, “Not so high, Kiratx, they are still small!”
When they parted, Tsu'Tey pressed his forehead to Jake’s again. His voice stayed very quiet.
“I will always know you. There is no shape you could take that would make you not mine, Jake.”
Jake’s heart did something messy and enormous.
On the floor, Neteyam and Tarsem moved on from rocks to playing “Iknimaya” by jumping off a low root. Kiratx supervised, tiny arms crossed, while Kiri was in the middle of it all, shouting, “I CAN FLY, WATCH!”
Lo’ak, exhausted from existing, had gone heavy and slack in Jake’s lap, thumb in mouth, little tail draped over Tsu'Tey’s arm.
Jake and Tsu'Tey sat there together on their bench, bodies pressed close, hands resting easy on their son, watching their kids and their family and the world they fought like hell for. And somewhere in the back of Jake’s mind, he also pictured another version of himself—small, pale, wheels under his hands—and, for the first time in a long time, the image did not burn. It just…is.