Work Text:
The second that Jake Sully and his family turned their backs, Spider slipped away, into the water and into the night. He thought that he could do it; he thought he could pull his—pull Quaritch from the water and abandon him, then return to the family whom he’d grown up alongside, and everything would be alright.
And then he’d taken one look at Jake’s face and known, in his heart of hearts, that he couldn’t tell him. The knowledge would ruin everything. Even the thought of saying it out loud, saying it to them, to his not-family, made him sick.
Honestly, the thought of diving into the water and pulling that bastard out of it, pulling him to safety, made him sick. It was sickening. It was a terrible act, done to the advantage of a terrible man, and he curled his fingers into his arms and dug his nails into his skin at the thought of it; he wished, now, that he hadn’t done it.
That isn’t to say that he wished his father dead. Not really. If somebody else had done it—had pulled that man from the water and left him gasping on a beach, half-dead, then he’d be… not glad. He didn’t know.
It was all too confusing. He wished he had somebody to talk to about it all. But there isn’t anybody, because what he did was a secret.
So, he ran. The ocean was cold on his skin and the island he pulled himself onto was an alien world to him, the foliage unfamiliar; even the stars in the sky were different. He was not welcome here.
The horizon still burned, however, and he debated trying to survive the night here in this foreign land, before deciding that he really didn’t want to cross the paths of any Metkayina, and so struck out for the burning remains of the human machinery; surely, he would find a radio somewhere.
There was a downed ship half-broken on a bit of reef that protruded from the water, far enough away from where the main ship was still breaking beneath the sea—Spider could hear it, groaning under the water, the metal straining against the great pressure—that he felt he could curl up in the cockpit and fiddle with the communications array.
The front screen was shattered, and he’d had to haul a dead man out of the way to make room for himself; the floor was littered with glass. Under the central control system he found a silver emergency blanket, a first aid kit, rations, a tiny handheld radio that he didn’t need, and a full rebreather pack—including the full mask, and the smaller cannulas that everybody used if they needed to eat in the Pandoran air and had absolutely no other choice.
He wrapped himself in the emergency blanket, then set about dismantling the communications array and doing his best to communicate with High Camp—with Max, and Norm, and the other families there, who might be able to help him.
It took him an hour. He gave in and used the cannula, eating quickly; it was an uncomfortable set-up and he disliked only being able to breathe through his nose, not to mention having to breathe out the poison air there was no way of not closing his mouth around every time he took a bite. He did feel better for eating, though.
Jake had taught him morse code, one day when he was young and disappointed about being human. In an effort to reconcile him to it, or perhaps just to distract him, he had taught Spider some of the things he learnt on Earth, when he was a warrior there.
It came into use now, when he made contact with Max.
Please come get me, he asked.
Max said that they would. Then he talked Spider through how he could open a channel where they could type out proper messages, still bouncing off the rudimentary satellites that hung in Pandora’s skies—risky, as Spider didn’t want the RDA to discover his whereabouts, but Max assured him that it would be safe.
He asked what happened. Spider summarised, as best he could: he had been captured by the RDA; his father had intervened in their interrogation of him—he skipped quickly over what that entailed—and offered him a way out of it. Spider had taught him, a little bit, about Na’vi culture—just enough to keep him safe—and then, when they discovered a rogue ship in an archipelago to the south, they’d followed, hunting Jake Sully and his family down.
He told Max (and Norm, who by now had asked a few of his own questions) that Neteyam was dead. He told them that Jake and the rest of his family were safe. He told them that, last he’d seen, Quaritch was alive, but he didn’t know what happened after that.
Can you come and get me, he finished, and then he added, please.
Of course, came the response, as if it was something Spider should have expected. ‘Of course, we’ll come get you. Of course you belong with us. Of course you can stay’.
For all of his life, Spider had been in-between. The humans kept him alive and let him wander in and out as he pleased, and did not bother themselves beyond that. The Omaticaya tolerated him. Jake Sully’s children became family, his brothers and sisters, but he also never felt like he belonged. Neytiri made sure of that.
He couldn’t even blame her. Spider’s father had done his level best to kill her and her mate. She regarded him as trouble and could never get over his crime of being born human.
So yeah, maybe he was a little bitter. It was a new feeling. He had been reconciled his whole life to his station; and then he spent several months in the company of a man he thought he hated, he should have hated, but who had been kind to him when he didn’t have to be. And Spider had shown him Pandora, and they had shared an ikran, and before he knew it Spider was full of all of these complicated feelings that he didn’t have words for.
So, yeah: bitterness was easy.
They were several days away, they said. Where would he and Jake be?
Spider hesitated over the controls, before saying, Jake and his family will make their own way, when they’re ready.
They’re not with you?
Shit. Their priority is Neteyam, was all he wrote, hoping it said enough.
--
It did, apparently. They arrived in a small craft, and Max didn’t say very much to him when he boarded, except to offer clean water and a place to lie down.
Spider didn’t hesitate. He was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.
-
“Do you want to talk about it?” Norm asked him when they landed.
Spider didn’t. Not really. But he needed to tell them some things—about Bridgehead City, what he saw there. About what the RDA now was. He needed to talk about what Quaritch new, and therefore what the RDA knew.
He relayed what facts he could, there in that little base that had been his home for so long. It didn’t really feel like it fit him anymore.
They asked him about why Quaritch saved him. And they asked about what Quaritch had saved him from.
That, he couldn’t talk about, not without his heart beating wildly out of his chest and his throat closing around the words. They called it a panic attack. They told him he was safe here. They said they’d stop asking.
“I didn’t tell Jake I was leaving him,” he had to admit, and they gave him knowing looks that told him they already knew.
“Yeah,” Norm said. “He, uh, he may have brought that up.”
“He said he wants to talk to you, kid,” Max told him, “when you feel like it. He, um, he understands that you—you’ve been through a lot. And he’d like the chance to talk to you about… what happened.”
What happened. That could mean anything.
“Also, Kiri misses you,” Norm added, and Spider felt his heart wrench in his chest and he muttered something, ducked his head, and slipped out from under their gaze. He avoided everyone, shut himself in his room, and curled up on his bed with his head in his hands, wishing he were anybody else.
--
Spider retreated. The Omaticaya camp felt alien, in a way it never had. The forest outside was worse. He could not go out and walk among the People, not with what he’d done weighing on him heavy enough to suffocate. Among the humans he was underfoot, not useful enough to them to be worth having in the way, so he spent a great deal of time in his room, watching and re-watching old video logs from both Colonol Miles Quaritch and Jake Sully given to him by the humans here after he’d spoken a little of what he’d endured, until his head was spinning badly and he felt physically ill.
He supposed it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that Jake Sully did not wait for very long.
-
He arrived on his ikran alone, which Spider was almost grateful for, if he didn’t feel too ill for anything else.
Norm came to inform him. Spider thanked him quietly. He tried to shake off the feeling that he was walking to his doom, as he left the human quarters and went to face Jake.
The air was heavy with something when he stepped outside, and he put it down to having the former Olo'eyktan and the Toruk Makto back among the clan; he supposed that nobody here really expected to ever see him again. Spider shrugged it off, having already spotted the silhouette of Jake and his Ikran, perched on the lip of the opening like he wasn’t quite sure of his welcome.
Somehow, that quiet hesitation gave Spider just a little bit more courage. Jake turned around just as Spider began to approach, and he tried not to wither as their gazes met, those sharp yellow eyes catching far too much, he was sure.
“Hey, kiddo,” Jake greeted him, voice pitched low.
“Mr Sully,” Spider hedged. “How are you, uh… how are you?”
Jake’s smile was a little pained, but otherwise there was not much emotion on his face. He tipped his head to his ikran, watching them unblinkingly.
“Wanna go for a ride?”
Spider swallowed. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d flown with Jake. He couldn’t remember if he ever had. He flew with Lo’ak, and Kiri, and then—then with Quaritch.
Jake was watching him carefully, so he swallowed again, then said, “alright,” and accepted Jake’s hand to help him up onto the beast.
He settled in front of the saddle, holding onto the wraps that covered the spurs protruding from the ikran’s head, and flinched only minutely when Jake put a steadying hand on his waist as they took flight.
Spider had never felt more jealous of the Na’vi than when he was on an ikran. Flying was—
It was freedom. It was the ability to escape to anywhere on an entire planet. It was a partnership unlike any other, with a creature unlike any other. It was so much more exhilarating than simply leaping through the Hallelujah Mountains, thousands of feet into the air.
It was a short flight. Jake took them to the base camp where Quaritch’s corpse lay, where Spider had first been taken by his father’s recom, where memories lay so thickly on the ground for Jake that they both had to take a minute, upon dismounting, to readjust.
Jake led them both inside. Quaritch’s squad had torn the place apart; papers and photographs littered the floor; equipment was turned over; old rations that had rotted into dirt now sprouted plants that had begun already to return the place to Eywa. It looked nothing like it had.
Yet, Jake couldn’t help but shake the feeling that any minute he’d turn around and Grace would be there, admonishing him for not eating; or Norm would duck into the central room, absorbed in one scientific venture or another.
Spider nudged him. Jake seemed to shake himself, then turned to appraise him. He had to duck, in this little room, and finally he sat on the pod that he had used to drive his avatar, more than a decade ago.
“I figured you’d want privacy,” Jake began, “when we, uh… when we talked. I think we should probably set some things straight.”
“Right, yes sir, uh—”
He stopped when he saw Jake wince.
“Y’know, I’m not sure that—kids shouldn’t call their dads ‘sir’,” Jake said, looking down at the floor between his feet and looking, for the first time in Spider’s life, regretful. It was a sobering sight.
“Mr Sully,” Spider tried again, and Jake only winced harder.
“That’s—worse, I think. Just—Spider. I guess I really—I brought you out here to tell you that none of this, none of this, was your fault. I know the RDA had you, and then—Quaritch had you, and you did the best you could. Whatever you did. It was the best you could, ‘cause—you never do anything less. You’re a good kid. And… it was our job—my job—to protect you, and we—we failed.” Jake paused, then, and eyed Spider, like he wasn’t sure how well his words were being received, before he continued.
“You—okay, I want you to know that this isn’t—this isn’t because Ne—” Jake stopped, his throat caught on the word. “My son died. This isn’t about that. You—you are my son. You have been since Lo’ak nearly killed you by tackling you outta the trees and I had to jump after and grab you. You’re his brother; you’re Tuk’s sister; you’re Kiri’s—well. You’re Kiri’s something. And you’re mine, too.”
Spider was crying, by now, glassy eyes shedding silent tears that dripped messily onto the floor that the forest was slowly reclaiming. It was the worst thing he’d ever heard, because he now had to ruin it.
“Mr—Jake, stop. Stop. I have to—I have to tell you something.”
Jake stopped, though he didn’t look at Spider, emotion fighting to overcome him.
Spider sat across from him on the other pod, and looked down at his hands. Without making eye contact, he just—he just said it.
“I pulled Quaritch out the water.”
There was dead silence.
Then Jake said, “you what?”
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Spider pressed his hands into his eyes and could not prevent one single sob from escaping. “He’s not the same man. He isn’t. He saved me—he didn’t kill any of the Na’vi; Neytiri was gonna kill me and he sa—”
Strong arms interrupted him, wrapping around him, as Spider descended into tears he tried desperately to choke back and Jake murmured platitudes in his ear as he pressed Spider into a hug, tugging him against his chest.
“Kiddo, hey—hey, Spider, I don’t—I don’t blame you. I don’t. You—fuck, your whole life you’ve been fighting for a place among the Na’vi. Fuck me if I don’t know a little of how that feels. And you—you haven’t ever really had a family.” Jake fell silent for a minute, and Spider focused on just breathing, still keeping his face tucked against Jake’s chest just so he could avoid making eye contact. “I can’t blame you for trying to hang on to a little piece of—of what you could’ve had.”
“What I could’ve had,” Spider repeated, hoarse with trying not to cry. “Yeah. If my dad weren’t fucking evil.”
“Watch your language,” Jake reminded him, but absently, like it was reflex rather than real counsel. Spider shot him a withering glare, clearly thinking about all the times Jake had cursed during this very conversation.
“He isn’t the same man,” Spider said then, but wearily. “He isn’t.”
“Well,” Jake said after a moment, “I guess—I guess now we’ll get the chance to see.”
Spider hunched his shoulders and finally managed to ask, “you’re not mad?”
Jake actually took the time to consider. Then he answered, “well, I’m a little mad—but not at you. I’m not mad at you. I’m mad that people keep trying to kill us, and I’m mad that I’m never gonna be able to stop fighting, if I want my family to be safe. I’m mad that we’re still running.”
“So, you’re just mad at everything and everyone else, then.”
“Yeah, basically.”
They looked at each other then, properly looked at each other, and then Jake put his hand on Spider’s cheek—it was so big he cupped Spider’s whole head in his hand, though for some reason, Spider didn’t feel small—and told him, with all the gravity of the Toruk Makto: “I see you.”
Spider did break, then. How could he not have? And Jake just held him, until he was done.
-
“So,” Spider began, because he couldn’t help but ask, “Jake: do you know who Kiri’s dad?” Is it Norm? he thought, but didn’t say, because it was still weird to be calling Mr Sully by his first name out loud, not just in his head, and he didn’t want to push it.
“No,” Jake replied, tonelessly, like he’d been asked too many times already. “The next time someone asks me that I’m gonna tell ‘em it was, though, just so everybody stops asking.”
“Please do.” There was a photograph, of Grace and Norm in their Avatar forms with some children from the village. As Kiri got older, she began to look more and more like her mother.
There was a photo of Neytiri, too. She looked… displeased. It was an expression that Spider was accustomed to seeing on her face.
He didn’t know what Jake was doing, routing through old lockboxes that had long since been turned-over, but he was taking the chance to snoop anyway.
“How—how is everybody?” Spider asked, because he realised he hadn’t asked yet. Jake had lost his son. It was still hard to believe, even now, that Neteyam was just… gone.
“Struggling,” Jake answered, now curt. “It’s—it’s tough. He’s okay, though.”
Spider processed this, then asked, “so you—you spoke to him?”
“Me and Neytiri. She’s—she’s strong.”
Spider got the sense that Jake was not telling him everything, but this was also kind of a subject where he didn’t really want to know. It felt… private.
“Are you guys coming back here? To the Omaticaya?”
Jake stepped through into the main room, then, a sheaf of papers bound neatly together held in one hand, which he tucked into the pack he’d left sitting on top of the pod he had sat on earlier. “I don’t know,” he said quietly.
“We’ve been invited to stay with the Metkayina. We have ties there, now. But…” he fell silent, his ears flat against his skull, and Spider wanted to say something that would comfort him, if only he could think of something to say. It didn’t matter anyway; Jake managed to rally himself. “The last thing Neteyam said was for us to go home. He just wanted to go home.”
Spider bit his tongue, first, to make sure he was sure about it, before he said, “Jake—your family is your home. No matter where you are—your family comes first. You’re Turok Makto; wherever you go on Pandora, the people will welcome you. You don’t have to worry about that. Eywa keeps us. And Eywa is everywhere.” It didn’t really make sense, and it hadn’t come out how he’d meant it, but Jake was looking at him like he’d said something profound.
“My family,” Jake repeated, like it was a new concept.
Spider swallowed, thinking of his own family. Thinking about betrayal. “Yeah.”
“Does that mean you’ll come with me?”
Jake looked… hopeful. And Spider so desperately wanted to say yes. But he could feel Neytiri’s eyes on that photograph burning into him, so regretfully, he turned and looked at her. He may be Jake’s family, but he wasn’t hers.
Jake seemed to know what he was thinking. He stepped closer, and put his hand on Spider’s shoulder, so he could lean down and inspect the photo more closely.
“God,” he said, invoking a deity that was lightyears away from this planet, at the sight of his wife and her disapproval. “She looks at me like that all the time.”
“What?”
“Oh, yeah,” Jake nodded. “It used to be literally all the time. But now it’s just when she thinks I’m being an idiot, which is almost all the time."
“I think it’s just humans,” Spider reasoned.
“Or by this point it might just be her face.”
Spider couldn’t hold in a snicker, and Jake grinned at him brightly. Then he sobered slightly.
“She’s what you’re worried about?”
Spider didn’t answer, but apparently his face said it all, because Jake only shook his head.
“She’s my mate. She’ll accept you because I accept you. Our children accept you. You’re family, Spider; I promise you that she’ll see that, too.”
Spider held his breath. He couldn’t think of a time Jake had ever lied to him.
Fuck it, he thought, and said, “okay. Okay, I’ll come with you.”