Edge of Reckless
pairing: jake sully x female!reader (no use of y/n)
summary: realizing what’s been missing
The first thing people noticed about you was how easily you smiled.
Not the polite, practiced kind meant to keep the peace, but a real one, wide and unguarded, the kind that came out when you were breathless from a run or laughing at your own mistakes. It followed you through the clan like a quiet warmth. You joked with other hunters as you passed them on the platforms, teased children when they tripped over their own tails, lingered with the healers longer than strictly necessary just to help grind herbs or hold a bowl steady while someone else worked. You were good with your hands, careful and gentle when the situation demanded it, and fearless when it didn’t.
That fearlessness bled into everything else.
In training, you moved like the forest itself had taught you — fast, instinctive, always a step ahead. You didn’t freeze when things went wrong. You adapted. When a raid shifted unexpectedly, you didn’t wait for someone else to shout instructions. You leapt, scaled bark and vine with practiced ease, dropped behind the target with a grin already on your face as if the danger had never been anything more than a puzzle to solve.
“It wasn’t even trying,” you said afterward, breath coming fast, eyes bright as you leaned on your spear.
A few of the others laughed. Someone shook their head in disbelief.
You reached out without thinking, adjusting another hunter’s grip when their hands trembled, murmuring encouragement under your breath. Being good at this mattered to you. Being useful mattered. You wanted to be someone others could rely on.
You especially wanted him to see it.
Jake Sully stood just beyond the main group, arms crossed, posture rigid in a way that spoke of another life entirely. He watched everything, always did, but his gaze lingered on you longer than it should have. He told himself it was because you were unpredictable. Because recklessness, no matter how skilled, got people killed.
He didn’t tell himself that your laugh made something in his chest tighten. He didn’t tell himself that watching you move — confident, capable, alive — made him feel like he was losing his grip on something he couldn’t name.
So when you laughed during drills again, flushed and joking as you dodged past a mock strike, when you broke formation by a half-second because you knew you could handle it, the irritation snapped sharp and fast.
His voice cracked across the clearing, cold and commanding.
You turned towards him, smile already fading as you took in his expression. It was hard and unreadable, all sharp edges. Something in your chest dipped, a small, instinctive warning.
“Step forward,” he said, eyes on you so you knew who he was talking to.
You obeyed, heart thudding as the attention of the entire group settled on you. You waited for instruction, ready to listen, because you always were. Feedback meant improvement. Correction meant someone cared enough to teach you.
“You think this is a joke?” Jake asked.
“No,” you said quickly. “I was just—”
“You broke formation,” he cut in, stepping closer. “You ignored my signal. You laughed like this was a game.”
Heat crawled up your neck. “I handled it. No one got hurt.”
“That’s not your call,” he snapped.
His tone wasn’t raised. It didn’t need to be. It was worse for how controlled it was, for how deliberately he kept his voice steady while he dismantled you in front of everyone.
“This isn’t about you showing off,” he continued. “It’s not about how fast you are or how confident you feel. You don’t get to decide that your life, or theirs, is expendable just because you think you’re good enough to outrun the consequences.”
You swallowed hard. “I wasn’t trying to be reckless. I just wanted to—”
The word landed like a blow.
“You want to be a warrior?” Jake said. “Then act like one. Discipline matters. Orders matter. If you can’t follow them, you’re a liability.”
The clearing felt too open, too quiet. You could feel every pair of eyes on you, the weight of their attention pressing down until it was hard to breathe. This wasn’t correction. This wasn’t guidance. This was dismissal.
“Yes, sir,” you said softly.
You stepped back into line, face carefully neutral, and finished the session without another word.
Jake told himself he’d done what needed to be done.
He didn’t tell himself why his hands were shaking.
The rest of the day sat heavy in your chest.
You tried to shake it off while helping the healers that afternoon, grinding leaves and cleaning tools, but the words replayed over and over again until they lodged somewhere painful and immovable. Liability. Reckless. You’d never minded correction before. You welcomed it. You wanted to be better, stronger and more capable, worthy of standing beside warriors like him.
You had been trying to impress him.
The realization made your stomach twist. Every extra risk you’d taken, every confident grin, every moment you’d pushed just a little harder than necessary, it had all been for him. To show him you could keep up. That you weren’t just fun and laughter, that you were sharp and capable and equal.
And he hadn’t seen it that way at all.
By the time eclipse settled over the village, the decision to apologize had grown heavy but inevitable. You hated that part of yourself, the one that always wanted to smooth things over, to make sure everyone was okay even when you weren’t, but it won out anyway. You couldn’t stand the idea of him thinking you didn’t care. Of leaving things like that.
You rehearsed the words as you walked, palms damp, heart pounding. I understand. I’ll do better. I just wanted you to be proud.
You found him before you reached his kelku, slowing instinctively when voices carried through the soft evening air. At first, you thought you were imagining it, your mind already raw enough to invent new ways to hurt, but then you saw them clearly through the curve of the roots and hanging leaves. Jake was seated beneath one of the larger trees at the edge of the village, posture relaxed in a way you had never once seen during training. Neytiri sat across from him, her bow resting loosely across her knees, and Jake was kneeling in front of her, close enough that their knees nearly touched. His hands moved with quiet care as he adjusted a loose strap on her wrist guard, fingers precise, practiced, and unhurried. There was no sharp command in his voice when he spoke, no clipped authority—only something low and gentle, like he wasn’t afraid of being heard.
“Hold still,” he murmured, a softness there that made your chest tighten before you could stop it.
Neytiri laughed, warm and easy. “You worry too much.”
“I’ve seen what happens when things go wrong,” Jake replied, quieter still. “I’d rather stop it before it does.”
It was the same logic he’d thrown at you earlier that day, the same justification. But here, it sounded different. Protective instead of punishing. Concern instead of condemnation. Neytiri reached out without hesitation, brushing her thumb along his cheek in an easy, familiar gesture, and Jake leaned into the touch as if it were the most natural thing in the world. The tension you had grown used to seeing coiled in his shoulders simply wasn’t there. He looked at her openly, fondly, like he trusted her to see him without the armor.
Something in you gave way.
You stood there longer than you should have, frozen at the edge of the clearing, your carefully rehearsed apology dissolving into nothing. You had been ready to humble yourself, to take responsibility for everything you’d done wrong — real or imagined — because you wanted him to understand that you cared, that you were trying. But watching him now, seeing proof that his harshness wasn’t the only way he knew how to exist, made the hurt sharper. He could be kind. Patient. Gentle. Just not with you.
Your throat burned as you turned away, each step back toward your own kelku feeling heavier than the last. The decision not to go back — to training, to him — settled quietly but firmly in your chest before you ever consciously acknowledged it.
You didn’t come to training the next day.
At first, you told yourself it was temporary. Just a few days to breathe, to let the sting fade until you could face him again without feeling like you were unraveling. You switched to another group, one that trained farther from Jake’s usual territory, and filled the rest of your time with anything that kept you away from him. You spent long hours with the healers, sleeves rolled up, hands stained with crushed leaves and yalna, offering help before it could be asked for. The work was familiar and grounding; cleaning wounds, preparing salves, sitting quietly with those who needed reassurance more than words. Helping had always been part of who you were, another way to prove you mattered.
When even that wasn’t enough, you went into the forest alone.
You moved fast, faster than you needed to, letting your body burn and your thoughts scatter as you ran and climbed and hunted without waiting for anyone else’s pace. The recklessness that had once been playful sharpened into something edged with frustration, as if you were daring the world, or maybe yourself, to prove that Jake had been right all along. You came back scraped and sore more than once, brushing it off with a half-smile when anyone asked, insisting you were fine.
Your liveliness didn’t disappear, not entirely. You still smiled when spoken to. Still laughed at the right moments. But it took more effort now, and the light behind it flickered.
Jake noticed your absence immediately.
He didn’t call it concern. Not to himself. He framed it as routine when he scanned the clearing one morning and frowned at the empty space where you should have been. “Where is she?” he asked, tone sharp, as if expecting a simple answer.
Someone hesitated before replying. “She switched groups. Been helping the healers a lot. Goes out on her own sometimes.”
Jake scoffed, crossing his arms tighter over his chest. “Figures,” he said. “Tell her she needs the practice.”
He said it like it didn’t matter, like your absence was nothing more than an inconvenience. But the question came again the next day. And the day after that. Each time, the same answers. Each time, the same tightness in his jaw, the same restless edge that crept into his movements. Training felt harsher without you there, more rigid, stripped of something he hadn’t realized he relied on. The clearing felt quieter, emptier, and no amount of discipline seemed to fill the space you’d left behind.
When the first whisper reached him, that you’d gone out alone again, Jake brushed it off with a sharp exhale and a muttered excuse about you being capable enough to handle yourself. You always were. Too capable, if he was being honest. You moved through the forest with an ease that made others trust you instinctively, and that same ease was what had always unnerved him. You didn’t hesitate. You didn’t second-guess. You acted from instinct and heart, and those were things he’d trained himself not to rely on.
But the whispers didn’t stop.
“She went past the old battlefield this time,” someone mentioned later, casually, as if it meant nothing.
“She didn’t say when she’d be back.”
“She’s been doing that a lot lately.”
Each comment lodged itself somewhere unpleasant in his chest. He snapped more during training, barked orders faster, corrected mistakes that barely existed. Neytiri noticed. Others noticed. No one said anything, but the tension clung to him, thick and unrelenting.
By the time dusk began to bleed into the sky, Jake couldn’t focus at all.
The image of you: mud-streaked hands, that determined little smile you always wore when you were trying too hard, kept intruding on his thoughts. He remembered how you’d looked at him during that last training session, eyes bright but careful, like you were waiting for something he never gave. Approval. Pride. Something warm. He’d chosen discipline instead. Distance. Control.
And now you were gone into the forest alone, again, and for the first time, the thought didn’t just irritate him.
He left without telling anyone.
The trail wasn’t hard to find at first. Your steps were light but familiar to him, the rhythm of how you moved burned into his awareness after all that time training you. But the farther he went, the more signs began to twist his gut; broken foliage where you’d moved too fast, disturbed ground where you’d slipped, the faint smear of blood on a leaf that made his heart stutter painfully before he could stop it.
“No,” he breathed, breaking into a run.
He found you just before full eclipse, the forest quiet in that dangerous way it got when something had gone wrong. A thick, fallen branch had collapsed awkwardly, pinning you at an angle that made his stomach drop. Blood darkened your side, soaking into the ground beneath you, your breathing shallow and uneven.
The fear hit him like a physical blow; sharp, overwhelming, undeniable.
“What the hell were you thinking?!” he shouted as he rushed forward, hands already straining against the branch, muscles screaming as he forced it aside. His voice cracked on the last word, anger and terror tangling so tightly he couldn’t tell them apart.
You gasped as the pressure eased, pain flaring white-hot through your body. “Guess I’m just reckless,” you muttered bitterly, the words slipping out raw and unguarded before you could stop yourself.
The word landed like a knife.
Jake froze for half a second. Just long enough for the weight of everything he’d said, every accusation, every sharp reprimand, to slam into him all at once. He dropped to his knees beside you, hands hovering uselessly for a moment before settling against your shoulders, trembling.
“Don’t,” he said hoarsely. “Don’t say that.”
You turned your face away, jaw tight, tears blurring your vision despite your efforts to hold them back. “You did,” you whispered. “You always do.”
Something inside him cracked.
“I was trying to keep you safe,” he snapped suddenly, frustration surging up like a last defense. “You don’t think I see how you throw yourself into everything? How you never slow down? How you—” He broke off, breath ragged, hands curling into fists at his sides. “Damn it, you don’t listen.”
You laughed weakly, the sound shaking. “I listened to everything,” you said, voice breaking at last. “Every correction. Every time you told me I wasn’t careful enough, wasn’t disciplined enough, wasn’t enough.” Tears spilled freely now, tracing hot lines down your cheeks. “All I wanted was to make you proud. Just once.”
The words hit him harder than anything else.
The word echoed in his head, heavy and damning, and suddenly there was no room left for the excuses he’d been hiding behind. Jake sucked in a sharp breath, chest tightening like something had wrapped itself around his ribs and refused to let go. He looked at you properly then; not as a trainee, not as a problem he needed to fix, not as a risk factor he could keep at arm’s length, but as you were right now: pinned to the forest floor, hurt, shaking, tears streaking down your face because of him.
He dragged a hand down his face, rough and restless, as if he could physically wipe away the truth settling in. “I never meant to make you feel like that,” he said, but the words sounded hollow even to his own ears. His voice faltered, the sharp edge giving way to something rawer. “I thought if I kept pushing, if I stayed hard on you, you’d stay alive. That you wouldn’t—” He swallowed, throat tight. “That you wouldn’t end up like the people I couldn’t protect.”
The silence that followed was thick, pressing in around you both. The forest hummed softly, indifferent, eternal.
“You don’t get it,” you said quietly, exhaustion seeping into every syllable. “I wasn’t trying to be careless. I was trying to be like you. Strong. Capable. Someone you could trust to have your back.” You turned your head just enough to look at him, eyes red and shining. “I thought if I proved myself, if I showed you I could keep up, you’d see me. Not just as a problem to correct.”
He saw it then. Not in a flash, but in a slow, devastating unraveling. The extra risks you’d taken. The way you watched him after drills, waiting. The way your confidence sharpened whenever he was near, how your recklessness had never been about defiance at all. It was devotion. It was you bending yourself around his expectations, chasing approval he’d been too afraid to give because giving it would mean admitting how deeply you were already under his skin.
Jake let out a shaky breath that sounded dangerously close to a laugh, or maybe a sob. “God,” he muttered, staring at the ground between you as if it might give him answers. “I told myself I was doing the right thing. That this was discipline. Leadership.” His jaw clenched. “But really, I was scared. And instead of owning that, I took it out on you.”
He looked back at you, and there was no command left in his expression. No distance. Just a man stripped bare by the realization of what he’d nearly destroyed.
“I didn’t want this,” he admitted, voice low and strained. “I didn’t want to need you. I didn’t want to wake up and notice when you weren’t there. Didn’t want to feel the training ground go quiet when you stopped showing up.” His hands lifted again, hesitant this time, before gently cupping your face, thumbs brushing away tears like he couldn’t stand to see them there. “I thought if I kept you at a distance, I’d be in control.”
His forehead dropped to yours, breath uneven, confession spilling out now that the dam had finally broken. “But all I did was hurt you.”
You shook, a quiet sob slipping free as weeks of swallowed pain finally found somewhere to go. “You humiliated me,” you whispered. “In front of everyone. And I still wanted to apologize. I still wanted you to think I cared, because I do.” Your voice cracked. “I just wanted to matter to you.”
His breath hitched, a sound torn straight from his chest. “You do,” he said immediately, fiercely. “That’s the problem.” He pulled back just enough to look at you, eyes burning, unguarded in a way that made your heart ache. “I miss you. I miss seeing you every day. I miss how you light up the clearing, how you smile even when I’m being an ass.” His voice dropped, trembling. “And the thought of losing you— of finding out you went too far into the forest alone and never came back...” He swallowed hard. “I can’t live with that.”
The words hung between you, fragile and irrevocable.
For a long moment, neither of you spoke. Your breathing evened out, the sharp edge of pain fading, but the ache lingered. Jake stayed close, close enough to feel the warmth, but he didn’t fill the silence with excuses.
“You hurt me,” you said finally, voice rough but steady. Not an accusation, just truth. “I can’t… ignore that.”
He nodded once, jaw tight. “I know.” No defense, no justification. Just the weight of it, accepted.
He shifted slightly, as if testing the space between you, hand hesitant. “I shouldn’t have… I didn’t mean—”
“Don’t,” you cut him off gently. “Just… be here.”
He froze for a heartbeat, then slowly let himself. Close, steady, not overbearing. Neither of you spoke again.
The forest around you was quiet, leaves whispering overhead.
Nothing was fixed.
Nothing needed to be said.
But for now, it was enough.
Aaaah my first request! I hope I did it some justice, seeing as was a bit out of my comfort zone 💗
