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The dirt on his fingers had felt too grainy and odd.
Even after all this time, Jake can still remember the feeling of dirt in his hands. His mother had gotten her hands on seeds for some plant that had failed to sprout later in the year. At the time, she had been so excited. Her smile was wide, with wrinkles around it that were still familiar even though Jake had lost her only a few years after this particular memory. His mother had wrapped a bright cotton head scarf to keep her hair out of her face and had pressed seeds into both his and Tommy’s hands.
Tommy had taken the work seriously—that Jake also remembered. Even as a kid Tommy had been more attentive and… better than him. While Jake had gotten preoccupied with digging with his hands and watched worms wriggle around in his palms, Tommy had listened to their mom’s instructions and carefully dug into the dirt with a hand shovel and planted each seed.
It was that kind of care that had taken Tommy to the big times.
While Jake was stuck with dirty hands, Tommy had been out there with that big brain of his to make a difference in the world.
The dirt on his fingers had felt grainy and odd and had somehow seemed to stick with him for the entirety of his life.
The thing about sharing a face is that while nobody ever saw a difference between them, that was all Jake ever saw. It was Tommy’s heart, his smarts, the curl of his smile, the way he laughed so freely while Jake felt like every ounce of his happiness was hiding underneath his ribs and kept digging deeper and deeper and deeper. It was in the way Tommy would cross his arms and scold Jake and ask “and who here is the older brother again?”
“Looks just like him,” Jake had said in awe when he first laid eyes on the avatar meant for his brother.
And it did.
Fuck, it really did.
Behind the long ears and glaring blueness, that face was all Tommy.
Norm had said the words that Jake knew weren’t true at all: “Looks like you.”
And, logically, maybe it did. Or—it did. Of course it did. Jake and Tommy had been identical. On the day they were born they’d been marked on their feet so that they’re parents could tell them apart. Their teachers would mix them up and it all came down to their penmanship and grades with them. It wasn’t until Jake got his tattoo that people had been able to tell them apart. Doubly so when he’d lost the use of his goddamn legs.
They had been identical. Even down to their DNA, they had been identical enough for Jake to use Tommy’s avatar. That was science. They were identical.
But never to Jake. Never to each other.
Jake woke up in a body with his brother's face.
Jake began to live in a body with his brother's face.
It was easier to try and forget about Tommy all together. To not dwell about how the body he lived in was supposed to be his. It was easier to forget. To live. There was no reason for him to think about the past like that. Not when Jake still had to find his footing within the Omatikaya. What was done was done. This was his body now. His life.
A part of it was easy—he never had to look into a mirror and look into the face of his dead brother. He just lived. But, as his two sons grew and grew, suddenly he could see Tommy again.
Neteyam did not look like either Tommy or Jake—instead he had the fine, lovely features of Neytiri. Still, Tommy was in the way Neteyam would concentrate on his tasks and scold his younger siblings before giving them kind smiles. There was so much goodness in him it felt blinding. It was so overwhelmingly familiar that all Jake could do was look at his beautiful son and see his long lost brother and love him deeper than he thought he could love anyone again.
“He reminds me of my brother,” Jake had confided quietly to Neytiri one day. Their ikran were flying in playful swoops with each other beyond where they sat in a small alcove, sharing a small meal Jake had carefully prepared beforehand. He had never been good at cooking, something his dear wife laughed about frequently while asking, how did you live before we ever met, My Jake . He always answered with unwell or in agony waiting to meet you because it always got her to laugh even more.
Oh, how Jake loved Neytiri’s laugh. It was such a fragile thing, something he found that most people had to work hard for. But not him. Not as they grew closer and closer until they were like two halves of a whole.
Neytiri’s slim fingers reached towards his cheek, but he couldn’t find it in him to look at her. It was too much. Her fingers softly caressed his face. He had expected her to say something, but she was quiet. Waiting for him to continue.
Jake breathed in and watched as his ikran dove downwards with Neytiri’s close at his heels. He thought of how Neteyam had sat down with little Tuktirey in his lap and demonstrated how to weave, helping her clumsy toddler fingers work through it with a smile. He thought about how Tommy would stay home to help Jake with his homework, softly smiling every time Jake an answer correct. “He’s kind, like my brother was. Smart, too. So smart. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Neteyam has Tommy’s blood in him.”
The words tumbled out of his mouth without meaning to and he quickly shut it. No. This was his life. His body. He was Jake Sully. He was a member of the Omatikaya clan, a leader, a father, a husband. This was his body. This was his face.
Without looking, he knew Neytiri understood what his words meant. They often shied away from topics like Jake’s past. It was painful for them both that it was better to act as though it wasn’t real. At least to each other. Despite that, they had been together long enough, connected enough, bared themselves to each other enough that Neytiri knew.
This body of Jake’s had been made with his brother’s DNA. Not his. And no matter how many years Jake lived within this body, made it his home, it didn’t change that fact. It didn’t matter that their DNA was identical. It didn’t. Because Jake and Tommy had always been different. And no matter how Jake tried to grapple with this, it always circled right back again to the front of his mind. This was Jake’s life and body—but it should have been Tommy’s.
Neytiri huffed and tugged Jake’s chin so he would meet her eyes. “Jake, it is not your brother who I fell in love with. It is you . I see you . Many children hold similarities to family they never met. My father had told me that I was much like his sister.” She said that quietly, like a secret, a small smile on her face. “Neteyam is similar to your lost brother. Me to my aunt.” She raised her eyes back to meet his. “Even people still alive are reflected in our children. Tuktirey has pieces of my mother within her. Lo’ak has so much of you in him. So frustrating and loving!”
Jake huffed out a small laugh that was too close to a sob and let Neytiri wipe away the tears from his face. He knew she was right. Of course she was—Neytiri nearly always was. But that couldn’t erase the worry and guilt that lived in his heart.
“I know. He is, isn’t he?” Jake mumbled. “It scares me. How similar we are.”
His wife hummed quietly, her hand still cupping his face, her eyes serious. “It scares me too. You both are too stubborn. Hard-headed and stupid. Especially with each other!”
A small laugh escaped his lips again. “I know, I know. I’m trying better.”
“I know, My Jake.” Neytiri kissed the corner of his lips. “It scared me how similar you two are. You’re both strong. But what if I lose you both? My stubborn, stupid loves.”
“Hey, hey,” Jake shifted and grabbed a hold of Neytiri’s face. “You’re not going to lose us. Not me, not Lo’ak. Not Neteyam or the girls. You won’t lose us. There’s nothing to take us away from each other.”
There was something in her eyes, a deeply familiar fear that made Jake’s chest twist with his own fear. She was scared of the Sky People returning—and Jake was intimately aware of that since it was a thought that had been wriggling about in his brain since the RDA had first left. They would be back. That was the tenacious nature of humans. Knock them down and they’d come right back up, give or take a few years, sure, but they’d do it. It was only a matter of time.
But, they couldn’t live in fear.
“Even if the Sky People return,” Jake began slowly. “We will be okay, Neytiri. We’ll stick together and be safe. Don’t worry about a—a possibility.”
Neytiri nodded her head, which he still held in his hands, and pressed closer into his left palm. “How can the man who worries more than anyone tell me not to worry?” She said it with a smile, so Jake sighed and lowered his shoulders. “I love you, Jake.”
It never had to be said between them. He knew her love for him better than he knew anything in this world. Still, the words, the reassurance behind them, made him smile widely at his lovely wife. “And I love you, Neytiri. Thank you, for giving me this wonderful life.”
Neytiri pinched his arm and moved back towards her food. “I never gave you a thing. We worked hard for this, together.”
Together. Huh.
When Jake had seen the body of his dead brother, he had kept himself together. A part of him had been numb to the fact that his brother was gone from this world. And wasn’t that a saying? Tommy had been supposed to leave, off of Earth, off to Pandora where he could study people and plants and do something meaningful with that degree of his he’d worked his ass off for.
He was supposed to be gone from this world.
Just not in this way.
He had kept it together, holding himself tightly, not letting any part of him break as he moved through the motions of preparing to leave. Jake kept himself from letting any pain seep through, focusing on leaving, on arriving to Pandora, on learning the ways of the Omatikaya, on fighting. Each step was both familiar and unfamiliar, but it kept back all the soaring waves of sadness of losing Tommy. His brother.
Jake held it in, in, in. Never breaking or stopping.
Never, until—
Neteyam had been so small when Jake had first held him and, in the end of his short life, he seemed to be that small infant yet again.
The waves of the water pushed against Jake, but he pushed back. It was what he did. It had always been what he did. He pushed and pushed and fought. Because, at the end of the day, that was all Jake Sully was good for.
Jake stood with Lo’ak under one arm and Spider under the other and closed his eyes, thinking of the dirt that had been on his fingers as a child, of his brother’s neat penmanship, of the way his son had held his youngest sister in his arms, and finally let himself mourn what was lost.
Later, after it all, Jake found himself sitting far away from the Metkayina settlement. His feet were in the warm water while his mind was far beyond it. The sound of soft footsteps broke his thoughts and he glanced back over his shoulder.
There Lo’ak stood, his eyes wide and his hands clasped in front of him. He opened his mouth before closing it right back up. Jake sighed and wiped at the tears on his tears before gesturing his son forward, watching as he took small steps. He sat a few inches away from Jake, looking so small and young it made Jake’s heart hurt. He reached forward and pushed his son’s hair behind his ear.
“I’m sorry.”
Jake startled and tugged lightly at Lo’ak’s ear. There was no need for that much guilt to be in a boy so young. There was no need for any guilt to live inside of him. Sure, he was young and reckless and a picture perfect image of Jake when he was around his age. But that didn’t mean he had to hold onto the same hurt that Jake had. He shouldn’t. He wanted better for his son. He’s only ever wanted better than his own experiences for Lo’ak. “Don’t apologize. There is nothing you have to apologize for, my son.”
His little boy’s face crumpled and he leaned forward, his forehead resting against Jake’s clavicle. “I messed up. I always messed up.” Hot tears gathered on Jake’s chest. All he could do was rub soothing circle on Lo’ak’s back and let him cry. Tears of his own began to fall again. Jake kissed the side of Lo’ak’s head, hoping that could be enough. Hoping his son could understand the words that were lodged in his throat: I love you more than anything in this world .
When Jake opened his mouth, he was surprised by what did come out. “Neteyam was a lot like my own brother. Kind and level-headed.”
Lo’ak pulled away from Jake and wiped at his face with the heel of his hands. “Is…” the boy paused for a long moment, looking out at the water, as though gathering its strength for himself. “Is that why you liked Neteyam better than me?”
And—
Jake had thought his heart had hurt before. But this? This was as though his son had reached into his chest and tore his heart right out. There was no malice to it, only the innocence of a child. He’d never meant for Lo’ak to feel this way. To feel unloved, like the lesser. Like Jake.
He grabbed his son’s face and guided him so their eyes could meet. “Lo’ak, I love you the same as I love your brother. I never meant to make you feel like I don’t.”
Lo’ak shook his head, his face still crumpled and tired. “I know you love me. But—it feels as though all I can do is mess up. Make you mad.”
Jake sighed and fell into himself and forward, nearly dropping himself into Lo’ak as he pressed his son into a tight hug. He felt as Lo’ak startled slightly before wrapping his arms around Jake. “I saw my brother in yours,” he said carefully, not willing to let go of Lo’ak just yet, “and in you, I see myself, Lo’ak. You do things and I recognize them, I know them to be what I would do. It’s hard to face, Lo’ak, knowing that you hold yourself as I do. I want you to be—better than me.”
Again, his son pulled back. There seemed to be something he wanted to say, but he simply nodded his head. After a long moment he whispered, “You never talk about your old life. About your brother. He must have been a good brother, if Neteyam was like him.”
All of his children’s lives, Jake avoided the past best he could. He was open to Kiri about who her mother was and had let the kids pore over Grace’s and his old video logs, but he had never been able to bring himself to talk about who he was before he arrived to Pandora. Now, he could see the questions that lived inside of Lo’ak’s mind. The want to know more about his father. It was one Jake knew intimately.
Jake grabbed Lo’ak’s hands and quietly brought a finger to each one, counting them like they had years ago when Lo’ak had been a young boy. He could feel Lo’ak’s puffing breath on his ear—he was counting along, just like he used to. “I always thought it would be easier to forget my brother. To forget Earth. But, it’s all a part of me. And you.” He breathed in. “How about I tell you a story of my brother and you tell me one about Neteyam?”
Surprise flickered through Lo’ak’s face. “But—you knew Neteyam.”
A small laugh left Jake’s lips and he marveled at the fact that he could still do that. That he could still live, even with the past he could live. “I’m sure there’s some things you boys got into that neither of you wanted to tell me. Now, c’mon, what do you say? I won’t get mad.”
Lo’ak pursed his lips and tilted his head back. “Really?”
Now that got a real laugh out of Jake. “Yeah, I promise. Pinky swear.” He held out his pinky, long and slim and blue, and thought of how his brother used to do the very same a whole lifetime ago.
His son wrapped his own pinky around Jake’s with a smile.