Chapter Text
A son for a son.
Jake Sully’s voice shivers through Spider’s forehead where one trembling blue hand holds him firm against Jake’s solid presence; the words break off in a gusting hiss of grief as Spider turns his face into Jake’s side, like a much younger child seeking comfort.
Jake’s hand threads through Spider’s dirt and seawater-matted hair like it belongs there – fatherly, warm, and for a moment Spider closes his eyes against the guilt of knowing Neteyam lays dead just a bowshot away and basks in the warmth of Jake’s care.
Jake is there, and Spider is safe, and seen–
Then there is been a cry over the water, a terrible, wrenching counterpoint of relief against the howling grief that still laces Neytiri’s sobs, and Tsireya leaps off the rocks to throw herself weeping into a Metkayina woman’s arms – her mother Ronal, Spider would later learn.
And with that, the spell is broken. Jake’s hand leaves Spider’s hair, and Spider is once more a human kid standing on the fringe of a broken Na’vi family, and all around them, in the eerie stillness of the first light of morning, is blood, fire, and calls for aid.
Neytiri is still holding Neteyam. Her song holds as much power as her anguish; her keening cries shudder uncomfortably against Spider’s ears, latching keen claws of grief into his already aching chest and calling him let go and drown in it.
None of the surrounding Na’vi are immune to it. Spider sees Tuk blink wide, tremulous eyes as they begin to fill with tears again; Kiri folds in on herself, her breath a rattling gust, and Lo’ak’s face freezes over into an aching mask.
Spider feels Jake take a slow breath next to him as he straightens. Spider does the same, breathing in the salty, filtered air of his mask, and looks up at Jake.
A few months ago, Spider would never have thought Jake Sully could look exhausted; but now that is the only word to describe the tired slant of Jake’s yellow eyes as his chin drops to meet Spider’s gaze.
Spider swallows past the taste of blood as he dares to raise a hand to press Jake’s elbow. “How can I help?” he rasps. “I don’t…tell me what I can do to help.”
The ghost of a smile passes over Jake’s face; the recognition of one soldier to another.
“Thank you, Spider,” Jake says, quiet words over the hitching sobs of his family a few feet away. “I’m needed here. But if you could circle around, start helping wounded and rounding up any surviving humans, that would help. Go with Lo’ak. You’ll get around quicker.”
A few paces away, Lo’ak wipes his face, bends to kiss Neytiri’s cheek, then turns determinedly towards his father and Spider, tightening the straps of his hunting knife.
“Yes sir,” Spider says, and swallows as he glimpses a spark of something like disappointment in Jake’s eyes. “I mean. Yes. General.”
“I’m not a general anymore,” Jake says quietly. “Call me… anything. Anything you’re comfortable with. But there’s no need to call me sir.”
“Yes sir,” Spider says reflexively. “I mean… Jake.”
The name sounds wrong on his lips and Spider can tell Jake finds it discomfiting too, but then Lo’ak is there and there is an Ilu in the shallows and then suddenly there is only oil-slick water giving away to clear, unsullied waves.
Through the froth and the spray, Spider glimpses Jake nudge Tuk and Kiri towards another Ilu, and only then drop to his knees beside his wife and eldest son.
The sigh of the sea, the sting of the current, and Spider has his orders.
He tightens his hand on the Ilu’s harness, and focuses on Jake’s orders beyond the exhaustion in his bones and the taste of bitter salt in his throat. His mask was briefly compromised in his swim up to the deck.
Spider caused this, this grief; it is only what he owes to help where he can.
(:~:)
One thing Spider had become all-too familiar with in the year since the Sky People returned is the bloody, organised chaos that is the aftermath of battle.
The battle of Three Brothers Rocks is no different. There are terrible injuries and many bodies, both human and Na’vi, and many times, Spider finds himself faced with the sharp end of a spear attempting to help wounded Na’vi or preventing Metkayina from executing human survivors.
More than once, Lo’ak has to intervene when Spider’s explanations of who he is and what Jake’s orders are fail in the face of fury and grief for lost loved ones.
“Demon!” Comes the hiss, again and again. “Demon!”
The word brings to mind Neytiri’s scream at him when Spider was only a boy. His throat tingles with the memory of her blade, and the congealed cut at his chest throbs heavily.
“Bro?” Lo’ak whispers to him when the day reaches its zenith, and the heat beats down on Spider like a suffocating blanket. “You good?”
“I’m good,” Spider murmurs back, taking a breath of filtered air through his parched lips. The last time he had anything to drink must have been afternoon the day before; Quaritch had done the thing again where he “just so happened” to make too much coffee, and Spider had a little warm cup of it all to himself up on the railing of the fishing ship, Quaritch an arm’s length away and grumbling at Spider for adding so much sugar.
The memory makes Spider’s gut clench. He pushes it down, down, like he had pushed away any thought of the Hallelujah Mountains when the scientists put him in that machine, and he chalks the nausea up to not having eaten or drunk anything for eighteen hours.
Which, speaking of, might be the reason he feels like his head is about to split open.
“Shut up, dipshit,” Spider growls at a cursing soldier as he corrals the soldier into the little group of surviving humans on the shore.
“Traitor,” the soldier hisses. “They should have blended your brains back at base–”
Whatever the soldier had been about to say next cuts off abruptly as Lo’ak slams him in the gut with the butt of a spear.
“He said shut. Up,” Lo’ak growls, baring his row of sharp teeth, until his face drops into a frown. “Wait,” he says, turning to Spider, “What did he mean blend–”
Spider’s heart leaps into his throat. He opens his mouth to reply, thinking rapidly, but a sudden burst of black spots invade his vision and the hand he had intended to place reassuringly on Lo’ak’s elbow instead turns into a clumsy grasp.
“Hey,” Lo’ak says, suddenly sharp and fierce like his father occasionally is, like Neteyam used to be. “You don’t look so good.”
“I’m fine,” Spider retorts, fumbling a little with his exo-pack. To his alarm, the little indicator light is flashing red. It never flashes red; Spider always switches out the batteries when the indicator shows amber–
No, but he had meant to change the batteries two hours ago, then he had spotted amongst the torn metal an unconscious Metkayina boy, clinging to debris–
He and Lo’ak had dragged to boy to a Skimwing where an older Na’vi had taken over, and Spider had just– he had forgotten–
The depleted battery tumbles out of Spider’s hands as he slips it from the socket; he watches it hit the sand with an inward groan, knowing how difficult it would be to get sand out of the connections–
The new battery clatters against the exo-pack as Spider wills his numb fingers to work it into the slot. The light is flashing more rapidly red now, indicating no more than ten seconds of reserve power, but Spider’s fingers are slowing, and his breath is coming more rapidly in his chest now as his vision flickers–
Larger, thin-fingered hands snatch the new battery out of his grasp and slam it home.
A rush of oxygen, heady and clear.
Spider comes to properly with Lo’ak grasping his shoulders like a vise and shouting in his ear.
“Spider! Spider!”
Spider blinks. The sand is almost burning hot against his shins. He frowns. When did he fall to his knees?
His eyes slowly focus on Lo’ak’s face. His friend looks terrified.
“Bro?” Spider mumbles, slowly. He becomes aware he is taking great, deep gulps of air, like a man who had been drowning.
The fear in Lo’ak’s face flares into fury.
“Don’t do that, sk’awng!” he hisses. He shakes Spider, once, violently. Spider’s teeth clack painfully together. “Don’t fucking do that to me.” The English curse mixes with Na’vi like blood in water. “Not after–”
The air snaps between them, like a breaker slamming into shore. Even the Na’vi guarding the surviving humans a little ways away are staring.
Lo’ak’s face is beginning to crumple.
Fresh, bitter guilt wells up over Spider’s lips. “I’m sorry,” he says, raising a hand to grasp Lo’ak’s wrist. “I’m sorry. I just. I was tired. I forgot.”
Lo’ak scrubs vehemently at his wet face as he hauls Spider to his feet. “Dad’s going to be furious when he finds out.”
The breath spills out of Spider’s chest again.
He can already imagine it – Jake’s disappointment and fear. The worry and endless planning, which will take time away from preparing for war and helping the wounded that Spider knows Jake cannot afford–
“Don’t,” Spider blurts, tightening his grasp around Lo’ak’s arm. “Don’t tell him. Please.” He hates the plea in his own voice.
Lo’ak looks as though he might retort, but the sound of rotor blades descends from above. They both shield their eyes from the whipping sand as the gunship painted in Na’vi colours lowers to the rocky shore.
“Hey!” Norm shouts from the cockpit. “You both okay? Good to see you, Spider!”
Spider sees the moment Lo’ak almost tells Norm the truth.
But then Lo’ak’s hand tightens on Spider’s shoulder, and he gives Norm an acknowledging nod. “We’re okay,” Lo’ak says.
The relief is almost dizzying – enough that it is only after Spider helps load the surviving humans into the gunship and the Scorpion is once more in the sky that he realises he should have thought to ask for something to eat. Or drink.
His tongue is heavy and thick in his mouth.
At least there are spare batteries, a bioscanner, a solar charger and a nasal cannula in a waterproof bag over his shoulder. That would help, for the days to come.
In the sky, Polyphemus is well on its way towards eclipse again.
Lo’ak sighs.
Spider realises with a start that the other Na’vi are all already gone, Ilu and Skimwings working their way through the surf towards the horizon.
“Let’s go home,” Lo’ak says with quiet, exhausted relief.
It is only as Lo’ak vocalises for an Ilu that Spider realises he has no idea what that word means anymore.
Three Brothers Rocks fade over the horizon. Three brothers went; only two return.
Spider grasps the Ilu’s harness with both hands, and lets the current take him.
(:~:)
Alpha Centauri B is a sliver of silver behind Polyphemus when Spider and Lo’ak reach Awa’atlu at last.
There is gentle firelight between the huts. A murmur passes among the Metkayina on the beach as Spider slips off the Ilu’s back, but it is not one of outright hostility; perhaps enough have seen Spider throughout the day to be aware of what he is.
Spider’s thirst is a living thing now, clawing at his throat; there is cough gathering under his ribs like it wants to strangle him. His stomach is as empty pit.
Even Lo’ak’s blue skin looks a little grey, and Spider has known Na’vi to fast for two days on gruelling hunting trials.
To his surprise, the figure that emerges from between the huts to welcome them is not Jake, but a tall, imposing Metkayina with a chieftain’s shawl.
Spider dips his aching head automatically, bringing his hand to his forehead and out again. I see you.
The chieftain smiles down at Spider from his towering height – a faint, slightly careworn smile, fatherly and a little grieved. Spider is suddenly reminded of Jake.
“I see you,” The chieftain greets them both. He holds Spider’s gaze. “I am Tonowari, chief of the Metkayina. Toruk Makto has made known to me who you are. Welcome. What the Metkayina have is also yours.” He turns to Lo’ak. “I am grieved to know what has happened to your brother. May he rest in Eywa.”
Beside Spider, Lo’ak lifts his head. “I receive your grief with thanks,” he says, sounding suddenly older, and not at all like the Lo’ak Spider knew a few months ago.
Tonowari nods. “I thank you in turn for your aid to my people today.” His eyes rest keenly on both their faces. “Now, have you eaten?”
Lo’ak’s stomach rumbles. Spider’s only clenches painfully, soundlessly.
Tonowari smiles. “There will be no family cook-fires tonight,” he says. “Nor I suspect the few days to come. We will all eat when we can spare a moment, from the communal fires. Come. There is food aplenty.”
“I need to find Dad first,” Lo’ak says. “You go, Spider.”
Jake. Spider badly wants to see him, but thirst and hunger turn his feet to follow Tonowari through the huts and toward a group of cook-fires at the jungle edge. The black spots have returned to his vison; he slips on a small trench in the sand, and Tonowari’s hand shoots out unerringly to clasp around Spider’s arm.
“Boy?” Tonowari says, concerned.
“I’m fine,” Spider rasps, forgetting the sir in his attempt to stay on his feet. “I’m… I need… water.”
The admission is out of him before he could stop it.
He is thirsty. He is so, so thirsty. Even in that terrible machine he had not wanted water like this. He feels as though his head is about to burst.
Five more staggering steps, Tonowari almost dragging him by the arm now, calling out before them, and Spider finds himself being lowered to sit on a woven mat and a bowl of clear water thrust into his hands.
“Drink,” Tonowari is saying, somewhere before and above him. “Drink.”
Some primal, dangerous part of Spider wants to rip off his exo-mask and gulp down the water, breathing be damned, but he masters himself with the same resolve he did under capture and removes his oxygen cannula from his bag with shaking hands.
It takes three tries to connect the cannula to his exopack; he nearly whimpers as he pulls off his mask and fits the tubing under his nose. It keeps slipping off his ears as his stomach contracts with a shrieking cry for water.
Huge, pale blue fingers push Spider’s shaking hands away from his filthy hair, tucks the tubing secure.
“Is this right?” Tonowari says, and Spider gives in to the whimper of relief as he takes one sharp breath through the cannula and dips his face to the bowl.
The water is sweet and cold and almost drives Spider to tears.
It doesn’t. There isn’t enough moisture in his tear ducts to cry with.
Spider knows he shouldn’t drink too much too quickly, but the bowl is drained almost before he takes his next breath. Someone passes him another, then another, and Spider drinks what must be almost an ocean itself before he finally stills.
When he lowers the last bowl he finds he has an audience; Tonowari is looking at him, expression closed, while in beyond, the cook-fire attendants and several other Metkayina stare openly.
The lake of water churns in Spider’s stomach.
“Sorry,” he says, feeling heat climb up his neck. “I– I just– sorry.”
“You have nothing to apologise for,” Tonowari says. “Will you be well enough to eat if I leave you?”
“Yes,” Spider says, too quickly. “I mean– I’m fine. Sir.”
The title, translated into Na’vi, only seems to make Tonowari further frown.
“I can find someone to sit with you,” Tonowari says, and Spider burns with shame.
“No, thank you,” Spider blurts. “I’ll be fine.”
He expects Tonowari to push further; Jake would have. But Tonowari only stands, nodding in acknowledgment, and has a whispered word with one of the attendants at the closest fire before stepping away.
An attendant passes Spider a heaping bowl of stew, despite the perturbed look on her face. She is clearly unused to seeing a human that is also not an enemy.
The scent assaults Spider’s nose even before the bowl is even in his hands; he knows without needing to taste it that there is fiddlehead root in this stew.
Fiddlehead root, used in paints and cooking all over Pandora; its light stimulant properties make it perfect for a post-battle meal for any Na’vi.
For Spider, unfortunately, fiddlehead root is strong enough to stop his heart.
He swallows past a newly moistened throat into the churning pit of water that is his stomach. “Thank you,” he says. “I think I’ll. Uh. Go eat this by the water.”
Spider stands, only wavering a little, and turns purposefully away from the firelight towards the water. The eclipse is full now, and the air is cool and dark though the water below shines silver and bright with bioluminescence.
He finds a little stretch of surf under a walkway and rinses the bowl clean. A part of him winces at the waste, but it would be better than to offend his new hosts.
He realises halfway through studiously scouring the bowl that he still needs to eat.
The bioluminescent kelp by Spider’s fingers gives him an idea. Out comes the bioscanner Norm gave him; a scan proves the kelp edible to humans, though unpleasant, and Spider snags a handful out of the water.
It tastes exactly like when he was a kid and had gnawed on some freshly cleaned rubber tubing at the lab, much to Max’s disgust; but food is food and Spider is almost completely through a second handful of raw kelp before his stomach clenches like a vice.
Up comes the water and the kelp and sour, bitter acid; Spider retches until his head swims with lack of oxygen.
Don’t do this to me. Not after–
Spider slams his mouth shut and forces himself to take slow, even breaths out of his cannula; his racing heart calms, though he tastes blood at the back of his throat. He opens his eyes and winces. The kelp is luminescent even on coming back up.
“Spider?”
Spider surges to his feet and twists to look up at Jake.
Jake looks – there is no other word for it – exhausted. The bright yellow of his eyes are rimmed red, and his usually neat dreadlocks are still tangled and spotted in places with dried salt.
But he doesn’t look like he’s about to grab Spider and check him over, so he must not have witnessed Spider’s illness.
“Sir,” Spider says. “Uh – Jake.”
Jake’s eyes roam over him, settling on the cannula. “Oh, good, you’ve eaten,” he says, sounding relieved. “I’ve – well, to be honest I’ve got about a dozen things I’m supposed to be doing, but I was going to find something for Lo’ak.”
“Where is he?” Spider says, quickly, latching on to the topic before Jake can look too closely at him. “I know where the cook-fires are, I can bring something to him.”
“Can you?” Jake sounds almost relieved. “I need to find Tonowari. Norm’s just radioed in, he can bring more medicine tomorrow.”
“Sure,” Spider says, grabbing his empty bowl and blinking away the rush of darkness as he straightens. “Where’s Lo’ak?”
“He’s–” The light suddenly blinks out of Jake’s eyes. “He’s with – Neteyam. We set up an infirmary past the main hut. He’s back there. With the rest of those we lost.”
Spider is suddenly unsure which he Jake is referring to in the second half of that speech, and his heart twists as he reaches up to press a hand to Jake’s elbow.
“I’m sorry,” he says, and he knows if he had the guts he would say why he was sorry; that it wasn’t just that he was sorry Neteyam was dead, or that Lo’ak was keeping his older brother’s body company.
If Spider had anything near Neteyam’s bravery he would admit to Jake’s face that Neteyam is dead because he went back for Spider.
Neteyam is dead because of him.
But’s Jake’s hand is on his head again, warm and steady and gentle, and it fills a void Spider didn’t know he had, so he folds his guilt away like a terrible, hidden knife.
“It’s okay, Spider,” Jake says hoarsely. “You’re a tough kid. I knew you’d come through. You’re coming through now, for Lo’ak. For all of us.”
You’re a tough kid.
It’s what Lo’ak had said Jake said, back when Spider was first captured.
It should feel like praise. It should.
But it feels–
The hunger disappears from Spider’s stomach as suddenly as a diving Ikran. It leaves behind a hollow emptiness.
“I’ll bring something to Lo’ak,” he hears himself say. “You should – find Tonowari.”
“Yeah,” Jake says, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He looks very human, doing that. “You should rest after this, Spider. You need it. Kiri and Tuk are back at our hut. You should go there.”
Spider thinks briefly of sleeping within bowshot of Neytiri, and suppresses a shudder.
Jake is already moving past him.
Spider collects his fallen bowl and spoon. He moves slowly back to the cook-fires, and asks for another serving to the consternation of the attendants. He fills a gourd-bottle with water, and sips gingerly at it as he moves between the huts. This water is staying down, at least
It doesn’t make his stomach feel less hollow.
He passes a large, temporary structure of woven kelp and leaves, with row after row of wounded Na’vi and attendants moving between them; he glimpses Ronal and Neytiri among them, moving with quick, gentle purpose.
The flash of Neytiri’s yellow eyes in the darkness still makes Spider shiver.
He nods at her shallowly, and continues on.
Past the last line of huts, there is a softer, gentler glow among the luminescent trees. Spider comes upon a cluster of shimmering pools under the heavy, vine-covered branches. On each pool is thick, shimmering lily pad, and on each lily pad lies a still form, covered in reed blankets and surrounded by many candles.
He finds Lo’ak sitting beside his elder brother’s wrapped body, his hands loose in his lap and a lost look on his face.
Spider puts the bowl into Lo’ak’s hands. There is a moment where Lo’ak looks down at the food, dazed, but when Spider sits next to him, he blinks, picks up the spoon, and begins to eat.
Spider sits beside him, unspeaking.
When Lo’ak is done, they both sit a little while longer, watching the candlelight reflect on the water, and the soft, cocooning glow of the candles surrounding Neteyam’s wrapped body. Then eventually someone brings soft kelp-fibre blankets, and they curl on either side of Neteyam, facing outward, like personal guards.
Spider replaces his mask, rests his head on his arm, and attempts to ignore the emptiness of his stomach and the heaviness of his heart.
It is the first time in months Spider goes to sleep without Quaritch’s gravelly breaths a pace away. He almost…misses it. It had been grounding.
Soft, quiet sobs across the lily pad; Lo’ak is crying.
Spider closes his eyes.
It takes a long time to fall asleep.