Archive of Our Own ^beta

"What do you need me to do?" Spider asks.

"We're all good here, Spider, but thanks for the offer." Jake starts to turn away, distracted by Tuk, who's giggling and tugging on his sleeve.

Spider grabs his arm. "No. I need to do something. Please, I just want to focus on work for a while. Get out of my head, you know. Please, you know what it's like to be human here - too many colors and sounds plus a shitty human brain means a lot of tuning out and time in your own head. I gotta get away from all that for a bit."

Jake sighs. "Fine. There's one job- but it's boring, dangerous and only Lo'ak would be with you, not Kiri or Tuk."

"I'll take it."

--

Spider now hates the him of three hours ago, he's decided because past him thought it would be a good idea to just jump at the first opportunity to work. Past him had signed up for what had to be the dullest job on all of Pandora- net-weaving. More specifically, weaving nets from Samta - a rubbery, thorned, seaweed that ignited if it came into contact with blood. It was, however, incredibly useful in fishing. But, so the children didn't hurt themselves on the barbed edges of the weed, teens were made to do the monotomous, back-breaking task.

Lo'ak is swearing rather ferociously and hastily wrapping a bandage around his cut thumb, but no blood has touched the seaweed yet, thank goodness. All in all, it was actually pretty calm.

Spider spoke too soon.

"Fuck me!" One of the younger Metkayina huffs as a drop of his blood dripped onto the plant. The Samta starts to hiss and bubble, and the group of teens fling themselves back from it as it ignites in a smoldering ball of carnage.

The smell of smoke fills Spider's lungs. Fire dances in his eyes. He closes them, but the fire is stll there, shining, burning, destroying. He stays completely still. A heavy boot slams into his lower back, knocking all air from his already struggling lungs.  Phantom pains spread along his body. A woman's scream wails shrill in his sunburnt ears, he tries to reach a hand up to cover them, but he cannot move.  Sand stings in his eyes, and wind whistles in his ears. Saltwater scrubs harshly along his cuts, wrenching them open and giving him more. Lash marks open along his skin, red, human blood pouring from his wounds, a sickening parody of the Na'vi's graceful stripes. There is nothing elegant about the blocky burns and scars that litter his aching body.

Images of destruction play out before his eyes, pods and homes bursting into flames -a little girl screaming as her pet is consumed by the raging inferno- a bloody column of fire and charred bones. The animal staggers towards him in the haze of his mind, howling and screeching, before it's legs give out. It tries to crawl towards him on charred stumps of flesh and shards of bone, but instead, it lays on the floor, twitching and jerking. The girl turns to him.

"You did this. Why didn't you save us? Spider, why did you let us die? You were too late." The girl is wearing Tuk's face but has Neteyam's voice and Lo'ak's eyes, and Kiri's scream rings in his ears when the girl speaks.

"I- I tried to help. Quaritch- He-" Spider gasps out.

The girl raises her gaze to the red sky, opens her mouth, and shrieks. She grows taller by the second, pale blue, Metkayina skin darkening to become Omaticaya. And then it's not the sobbing Kiri-Lo'ak-Tuk-Neteyam hybrid, but Neytiri who stands before him. She is looking away, but her hate-filled eyes quickly snap to him.

"Do not blame the Demon for this, Sky Person. This was you!" She gestures at the destruction around them, at the burning home and ruined villages. "Without you, my son would still be alive! A son for a son, Miles. I will tear your head from your pathetic human neck!" She screams the last sentence and leaps towards him. Her sharp teeth sink into his flesh. Ah. Honour-killing was always done with a knife, or, in terms of an unforgivable, unmendable sin, one's teeth. It makes sense Neytiri would choose the latter.

Spider screams. He wants this, he's long since accepted it, but, Eywa, does it hurt. He feels Neytiri's grip pull at his arms and legs, tapping and scratching, wrenching vast chunks of bloodied flesh away from his muscle. He, strangely, rejoices. Somebody is touching him! He's not alone! Touches from the Na'vi now are few and far between. Even though Neytiri wanted nothing more than to harm him, he finds himself calming at her touch. Finally. Somebody is holding him.

"Demon!," She hisses " Talk, and I will take far longer. I will make. you. hurt!"

Spider is silent.. He lies there, in the grey muddiness of his mind, in the yellow itchiness of the sand, and bleeds to death.

Somewhere, far off, his ears register crying. "Oh," he notes absent-mindedly "It sounds like Tuk."

It sounds like Tuk.

He wrenches his eyes open, expecting to see pools of hot, sticky blood staining the sand around him.

He does not.

He wakes in a cool, airy pod, under a thin, light blanket. Kiri is standing above him.

She smiles, and, for a second, her teeth glint like Neytiri's did.

Spider flings himself backward, hands flying up to protect his head.

(You don't deserve protection, you should have died when Neteyam did.)

"Tuk!" He gasps out "Where's Tuk? Is she ok?"

"Tuk's fine, just a bit scared, you gave us a fright." Jake says softly.

When Kiri reaches for him, Spider presses himself further back into the covers. A pitiful croaks escapes his throat when he tries to scream. His fingers dig sharp grooves into the soft flesh of his hands, tearing strips of flesh off. Panic obscures his vision. Oh, Eywa, they're gonna get him. They're coming for him. He can hear her. He-

He blinks and shakes his head, pushing down his fear.

(If you're scared, they'll break you)

It's like switch has been flipped. His face goes blank.

"Kiri," He says. "Are you alright? You look very pale."

Kiri turns around and vomits into the dirt.

"Mom!" She screams.

Neytiri strides into the room.

Spider smiles up at her. "Ma'am," He asks calmly, "What's going on?"

"You passed out." Lo'ak buts in, concern shining in his eyes, "You just dropped - we don't know what caused it. You've been out for four hours, Spider."

Spider stretches and clicks his joints. The Na'vi in the room flinch. Fuck.

"I'm fine, Lo'ak, just haven't drunk enough today. You know me, just work, work, work. If somebody has water, that would be great, but no pressure or anything."

Kiri looks at him like he's grown three, incredibly moronic, heads.

"Spider, what the fuck. You don't get to pass out and then pretend like it's nothing! You screamed yourself hoarse for nearly an hour straight!" She berates him/

Spider winces. "Err.. Whoops?" He jokes.

Nobody laughs.

The Sullys (excluding Tuk)crowd around his bedside. They look at him in part confusion and part anger.

"Don't joke about this, Spider," Jake says.

He hauls himself upright. "Right, if that's all, I'll be going then." It takes all of his energy not to faceplant onto the damp floor.

Kiri tries to stop him, but he dodges her and makes for the door.

Neytiri grabs his arm. "Miles!" She calls, hoping to shock some sense into him.

Spider turns around and-

Spider snarls at her. Teeth bared in open defiance, eyes so dark and angry they look black. His canines glint in the sunlight, making them look sharper, more dangerous, more... Na'vi. 

Neytiri pulls her hand away but stands tall.

"Do not snarl at me!" She threatens, voice low. Fire sparks in her eyes. As Spider watches, her mouth drips crimson blood."I am your healer, don't you ever snarl at me!"

Kiri speaks "I'm - we're- just worried." She placates "We were scared."

Spider's had enough of this bullshit. He's happy to be getting attention from the Sullys that wasn't just blaming him for Neteyam, of course, but this was too much.

He scoffs. "Please, like you care about me. I got stuff to do. Don't come looking for me." Spider tosses over his shoulder as he steps over the threshold.

"Spider-" Kiri starts.

Spider levels a glare at her. "That means you as well, Daughter of Eywa. Not right now."

Kiri pulls back, hurt. Spider was her friend! Surely he understood she was more than just a freak, more than just Eywa's strange child. He didn't need to use titles around her! They were friends, for Eywa's sake! He knew that. Did he?

She watches him leave with a strange, hollow pit in her stomach.

Spider knew her.

Right?

Spider knew her. Right?

----------------

Spider twists the worn leather of his songcord around his fingers. The cord is bare. He had made it himself, when he was nine, after Kiri had gotten her third bead. Nine-year-old Spider had felt left out, and had created his own one from the strap of a bag one of the scientists he had lived with owned. Current Spider wanted to go back in time and slap younger him, because younger him was a fucking wishful idiot. When Neytiri had seen his, admittedly pathetic, songcord, she had scoffed at him and told him not to expect any beads. Nine-year-old Spider had thought she was wrong- surely Jake or Kiri cared about him enough to give a bead- but, years passed, and his pathetic song-cord remained empty.

Spider now knew that Neytiri was right. Nobody would give a bead to a demon like him. He would've saved himself a lot of unecessary childish heartbreak if he had just realized he wasn't wanted sooner.

He fishes out the half-finished samta net from earlier and starts weaving once more. He might as well be useful, seeing as they'd be sending him back to the lab soon. Nobody would want to keep him around after his  freak-out this morning. He was worthless. Damaged goods. 

At least, when he was the Omatikaya,  he was kept around for cheap entertainment. Here, he was more like rat than a stray cat. Relatively harmless, but brought with it disease and rot. Spider was rotting from inside out.

His mask hisses as he inhales shakily. It reminds Spider of the  Ako snake, a low-lying predator, that, as a child was completely harmless, when the baby's parent got involved, however, you ran. Because that adult snake was mean, willing to kill even it's own family or allies to protect it's young.

When him and Neteyam had been running one day as children, they had found one. As it lay, curled up, scales glinting in the afternoon sun as it basked on the flat grey rock of it's home, Spider had joked that the baby was like Neteyam - harmless- and the adut was like Jake and Neytiri. He supposed it made him the unlucky ally. When he had said this, however, Neteyam had shaken his head and vigorously insisted that Spider was the child too. Thye had both conviently ignored the fact that Neytiri had chased Spider out of camp earlier that day, screaming that he was the Demon, simply because he had been too loud while Tuk was napping.

Yeah, Spider was  definitely the dead ally.

And now, he was barely an ally. Just a traitor, who had pulled the first damned man to show him kindness from the murky water of the wreckage. He had grown soft -  too used to the militaristic touches of Quaritch to go back to the radio silnece from the Na'vi. Sure, Quaritch had beat him black and bloody several times, but that was just what happened you were too human to be Na'vi, and too Na'vi to be human. Hell, even Neytiri had cut the top part of his piky finger off when she had caught him trying to open a door he wasn't supposed to. THe fact that Spider was, at the time, ten years old and unknowing of what lay behind that door (Jake's last few human items,) had been irrelavent to Neytiri as she had slammed the knife into the wood of the door. She had sliced into the thick timber, but also Spider's finger. And she was guilty, afterwards, she even brought him medicine! Real, Na'vi medicine! Quaritch had never done that. He had just hauled Spider to his feet and told him to stop being a pussy. Pain was just what happened when you were a stupid huan like him.

At least Neytiri would've given him a quick death. Quaritch would've drawn it out.

-----

He wallows in that rather macabre thought for a while, still weaving the net.

His fingers are quick, pulling and looping with the ease of a grown, educated Na'vi, not his usual clumsy, small human hands.

Ha! His stupid, pudgy human hands were useful for once!

Normally, his hands just got in the way, unable to sign in the graceful Metkayina sign lanugage due to their lack of dexterity, unable tp wrap all the way around a wide tree branch. His attemts at any Na'vi skill involving great coordination usually failed. But, here he was, weaving away like a proper Na'vi!

Finishing up the last few loops, he proudly holds the net he had painstakingly poured over up to the dappled light that shone through the wide, flat, blue  leaves of the tree for closer inspection.

It's useless.

"Stupid fucking human hands!" He curses, staring at the impossibly small net, so tight it would hold water in, not just the fat, grey Shal fish it was used for.

He drops the net into the sand beside one of his favorite spots - in the waving, green grass under a shadowy, secluded tree.

The net rips. He does not care.

He slams his fist lush green grass, runs a muddied hand through his hair.

"Can't do anything fucking right." He mutters to himself. "Fucking waste of space."

He throws the ruined net to the ground, wincing as the thorns catch on the soft flesh of his thumb. His eyes widen. He scrambles backward from the net, shoving himself away as he hurries, skittering like an Aiko crab on his hands and knees. He curls himself into ball, eyes screwed tightly shut and hands clamped over sunburnt ears.

Nothing happens.

No flames appear, no fire blazes into existence on the weed, shrouding his mind. 

Cautiously, walking with a strange, tiptoe-like gait, Spider picks his way over the green, weed-covered grass, to the net.

The blood pools on the Samta weed, lying there, taunting him. Unconsumed by flames, untouched by Spider's object of hate.

Oh.

Right.

He was human; he had a different blood composition to the Na'vi. Even now, as being human saves him, keeps him from spiralling further into his own hallucinations, he loathes it. HIs stupid human body couldn't do anything right, not even burn.

Spider sits down heavily..He stares blankly at the Samta. One small, unimportant net had almost thrown him into yet another pit of self-hatred. It was pathetic what made him hurt. 

Neytiri offering up his life for Kiri's -  that made sense, that was right. Kiri was much better than him, kind where he was loud, familiar where he was strange, Eywa where he was other. And Kiri was her daughter. It made perfect sense, a human life over an Omaticaya was a preposterous exchange- it was like swapping a high quality mountain lion for a worthless stray cat. So, it wasn't the callous bargain of his life what made his heart ache, it was that Neytiri had performed the Omaticaya ritual for strangers. Not even aquaintances, or, Eywa, SPider would rather be her enemy than a stranger. But no, the thin, long, silvery scar in the middle of his chest proved that he was nothing. Not even worthy of a respectful cut to the heart. Even Dad  Quaritch got an arrow into the soft flesh of his beating heart. Spider got nothing. 

Even the way Neytiri had held him as she dug the bloodied dagger into his flesh, away from her body, distancing herself as though he was a disease, a virus, unsafe to hold close, has stabbed sharp barbs into Spider's heart.  A single tears slisps from Spider's eye, dragging a lonely, salty path along his cheek. Spider closes his eyes and leans back against the tree.

Gasping in deep lungfuls of slightly stale air, he calms his spinning head.

He stands, and  immediately stumbles, twisting over his ankle, crashing painfully down onto his knees.

Damn it.

Another side affect of his allergies to Na'vi food, and, therefore, his lack of actual food, meant he was almost permanently dizzy. Resting made it worse. Lights flash in the darkness behind his aching,heavy eyelids, fireworks pop in the corner of his mind. Letting out a loud groan of pain, Spider prods gingerly at his misaligned left knee. It bulges slightly to the right, a bruise already forming. Bone pushes at the thin skin, grotseque and misshapen. Lo'ak had hurt his knee in much the same way when they were younger, Spider remembers, and he had been unable to walk for a week. Neytiri had set the dislocated bone, pulling Lo'ak's leg straight while he was under a heavy dose of Tulo - a pain-killing plant. Lo'ak had screamed so loudly his voice was hoarse until the next day. Spider, despite lacking pain meds, a trained medic and possessing no more than a vague idea of what to do, decided he would not scream, and would set his own dislocated knee, and he would do it well. 

Attempting to straighten his leg sends fresh lances of pain surging down his puffy, bruised leg, so he settles for tentatively poking at the misshapen lump that is his knee. He reaches down, barely managing to stop himsel from screaming as he nudges his leg, and grabs a thick handful of the fat, soft grass that covers the hard ground beneath his aching body.  HE shoves the handful of grass into his mouth and bites down. In one swift movement, he lifts his fist and slams it into the bulging side of his knee. He howls, tears springing to his eyes and throat hoarse. The grass is not enough to contain the pain-filled groans that erupt from his mouth, spilling out into the cool night air. 

Spider vomits, head spinning, into the grass beside him. The bitter taste of his own stomach acid is enough to set him heaving again, reinforced by a quick glance at his now bleeding leg. He heaves, spitting acidic vomit into the grass - there is not enough in his stomach to even throw up properly. Spider mourns his lack of food as the acid rips his throat raw on the way back up.

Somehow, he manages to haul himself into a standing position, all weight placed onto his uninjured leg. He scans the ground ahead of him, eyes staring out franitcally at something to help him. His gaze lands on a short, slightly twisted, branch, half-covered  in sharp thorns and oozing pus. Gritting his teeth, he takes a stumbling step towards it. He falls. Crashing into the dirt, head slammed down, he lands, outstretchd hands just centimetres away from the branch. Spider lies there, half-buried in the dirt and sobs. He had been so close! The branch was right there! But no, his stupid, short arms couldn't reach it, and Spider doubted he had the strength or the will to scramble forward to reach it.

"Eywa," He cries, "Please, help me. I know I'm not your child, and I know I'm too human for you to love, but please, help me."

A gust of wind blows, melodic but unfamiliar in the usually calm landscape. The branch shifts, just slightly, the barest tilt backwards, and Spider's shaking hand claps around it's thorny, sap-drenched bark.

His aching knee sends knife-like waves of pain up his body as he pushes himself to stand up. His legs buckle, and for one horrifying moment he thinks he's going to fall again, crash to the ground and remain there for days. His stomach lurches uncomfortably, but he somehow keeps moving forward.

He hobbles slowly towards the gently rising smoke of the Metkayina village, praying he finds Kiri before he finds Neytiri. Kiri, at least, would help him gather some medicine. Neytiri would probably break his other leg.

They break him at dawn.

They barge into his cell, smelling like chlorine and emptiness, and break him.

His cell is barely furnished, consisting of a singular bed, sitting snugly against the wall, and a cold, hard marble floor.

The white floor is stained a garish pinky-red by the time They're finished with him. 

Beating him black and blue, bruised and broken. His ankle crunches as the tall man, the one with the wine-purple birthmark marring the dark, wrinkled skin around his eye, had stomped down, hard, on it. Spider is dragged, dripping a winding trail of ruby blood, to the lab where It was waiting.

He is shoved unceremoniously into It, gaining a brief few precious seconds of respite as a nameless short, round woman is made to clean the last few drops of his blood off of the floor. The floor is stained again the second it's clean, but this time with the blood of the nameless woman, who's just a few seconds too slow to dodge the large boot that slams into her undefended back. Spider winces as a loud cracking noise echoes throughout the pristine lab.

And then They switch the machine on. 

Blinding lights whirl past his eyes, and foghorns scream in his ears. Distantly, he notes that he can feel a warm liquid dripping from one of them, and, when the liquid drips to the floor, it is red. He screams. 

"Please, I don't know!"

Quaritch is calm. "Yes, you do."

Spider retches and swallows down a mouthful of his own vomit. If he vomits while in the machine, he'll only choke on it and damage his already fraught vocal cords beyond repair.

"Where are the Sullys?" Quaritch repeats.

He’s disorientated, hungry, nauseous, and cold and every instinct inside of him is screaming to lash out, to twist and dig nails and teeth into the restraints holding him, his chest heaving in short static breaths, his ruined lungs making themselves known as he kicks out-

He sobs as fresh waves of pain lance through his mind. He desperately squeezes his tear-filled eyes closed, letting out a groan as a new, stronger shockwave pulses along his body. Desperately, he throws his body weight against the metal restraints, screaming as the rough metal rubs over his already lacerated wrists. 

There’s a rustle, arms wrenched behind tighter in the restraints metal sealing around his wrists, his right protesting with pain that wires up his arm. He can't quite bring himself to struggle. He's so disoriented he couldn't fight, even if he wanted to. His body is weak, sapped of strength through mental torture and brutal manhandlement.

The cuffs are wrenches impossibly tighter, and the jagged edge of the right cuff catches on his wrist. Warm, wetness slides down where the metal has pierced his battered skin. Tighter and tighter the cuffs go, until he's screaming from pain, pleading with someone, anyone, to stop.

They do not stop, the restraints are pulled through the skin of his right wrist, grating down on the bone. Howling, Spider twists and turns as much as his chains will allow, gabbling incomprehensible nonsense as the pain only increases.

"Enough!" Comes a stern voice. "Leave it, we don't want him passing out from the pain."

Tentatively, Spider opens his eyes. The machine has stopped, all whirling lights ceased in their deafening dizzy dance.

The voice belongs to an irate Quaritch, who's striding down the stairs towards the lab techs, one of whom he grabs and raises into the air by their collar.

"Fucking useless, the lot of you!" He huffs.  "He'll either pass out or die if you keep going, and both scenarios end with your head on a fucking pole. Down the voltage, or we'll blow his skull open before we get what we need."

The lab tech nods shakily and hurries to the controls.

Spider steals these precious few seconds of respite to look over his wounds. his lungs ache with every ragged breath he heaves in, but they're no worse than usual. There's a sharp pain in his head, a ringing noise constantly blaring in the background of his brain. And, taking a deep breath, he glances quickly down at his wrists.

Bloody, tattered skin barely covers the soft flesh of his arm. Blood shines amongst his torn flesh, and, as he moves, a soft squelching noise rises up from the remains of his wrists.

Pearly white bone peaks through the battlefield of oozing skin and muscle. The metal restraints are firmly shoved into his arms, barely visible through the muscle that engulfs them from where they've been shoved, down, down, down into his body.

Spider heaves at the sight, coughing wetly. He tries to swallow it down, but he does not succeed. Spider lets his eyes fall closed as he throws up, retching and coughing while a painful stream of reddened, acidic vomit heaves its way up through his aching throat. The restraint around his neck means he can't tip his sobbing head forward, so he retches the pitiful contents of his stomach down his chin and neck, a few drops landing in his already screaming, red eyes. Choking, gagging on his own vomit as he scrambles for air that he cannot reach.

Dark spots float in his vision, his head felt as though the weight of all of Pandora was pressing down on him. there's a roaring in his ears, a cacophony in his head. But, strangely, Quaritch's voice was seeming further and further away...

Strange.

Spider was so tired.

He might just...

take a nap.

yeah, that would be nice.

A quick nap, and he'd wake up in the forest with the others, and he'd be safe.

Just five minutes.

It would be a long time before he woke up.

"Well done, Quaritch, you broke him. You broke the bastard." The woman says as she slams her mug down onto the cluttered wood desk.

She is tall, and very human, with pin-straight brown hair pulled back into an over-gelled bun.  Wrinkles are beginning to prematurely creep their way into her cheeks, small lines circling her eyes. She has no smile lines. She possesses no fewer than four Phds. three of which are displayed with pride on the buckled wall behind her. The fourth is shoved, hastily and haphazardly, in a locked box under her cot back in her childhood bedroom back on Earth. Some things are best left hidden. Her uniform is immaculate, as always. Quaritch has never seen her with so much as a chip in her bright red nails. 

The room they're sitting in is sparsely furnished. Even the best and brightest of humankind's army do not deserve luxury. In the small room is a solid, false wood writing desk, the kind that would've been old several generations ago, back when trees still graced the Earth and wood wasn't a valuable commodity reserved for the ultra-rich. Two frail plastic chairs are pushed on one side of it, a large, high-backed false leather chair on the other. It is in this chair the woman sits, hands folded neatly on suited lap.

"No, ma'am, he can handle it. He's a tough k-" Quaritch protests.

The woman holds up a carefully manicured hand. "I don't want to hear it." She states. Her voice is deceptively calm. "Your little bastard out there is our only link to the Sullys." She stands up. Her voice increases in volume. "You understand that? We lose him, we lose the Sullys, and then your little revenge campaign is gone! Do you hear me? I'll have your whole unit demoted to janitors, and you'll be dead faster than you can say 'Mercy'! You better fucking fix this, Colonel, because if I go down, you're going with me!"

Quaritch rises "I'm not another of your little foot soldiers, Doctor. I know the Na'vi better than you, and all your men. You need me."

"I won't be needing anyone if we don't get the Sullys, Miles, because we'll all be fucking dead! What aren't you getting? It's bigger than you, or me, or any of the other five hundred tired, scared, barely adult soldiers I've been given to run this place with. If we don't get the Sullys, and control this threat, they will kill us. So God help me, Miles, shut the fuck up and do your goddamned job before our families have to find out about a little 'accident'. Dr. Greenwell snarls.

Her voice echoes around the small room. Outside, the shouts of new recruits permeate through the thin metal walls.

"Do my job! How can you even say that? I'm trying my fucking best. How the hell am I supposed to get the kid to talk with the piece of shit you called a Mind searcher! 'Foolproof' you said it was. Well, guess what? It doesn't work! We had to be tested on that, back in the fucking two weeks of training we got before coming to this hellhole, and no one, not even the strongest of us could beat. Fucking Mccrall couldn't beat it, Greenwell. The pile of shit's broken! There's no way a stubborn child could brave what even Mccrall couldn't. Why would the kid care so much about the fucking Sullys anyway? They don't even like him! He's like a fucking street cat to them." Quaritch sits down heavily and runs a hand through the few loose hairs which escaped his braid. "Fucking bullshit." He mutters, "This is all fucking bullshit."

Greenwell sighs. "It's our fucking bullshit to deal with, Colonel."

Quaritch stands and crosses the room in two strides. He reaches for her hand. His blue hand dwarfs her own. "It doesn't have to be, Melissa. You could transfer, get a job back Home. Anywhere on Earth would be lucky to have you, you're the best leader we've got! Come one, Greenwell, why do you stay?"

Dr. Greenwell snatches her hand back. "I am Loyal!" She all but screams, voice hoarse with emotion. "Don't you ever insinuate that I am anything but Loyal to the cause! Doubt in yourself, Miles, doubt in your brat of a kid. Hell, doubt in fucking humanity if you want,  but never doubt my loyalty to this! I will see this to the end, even if it means burning every last Na'vi, children and all, as I lay dying myself. 

Quaritch steps back as if he has been burned. "Doctor Greenwell, I want those Demons dead as much as you do. Do not doubt my loyalty, you will regret it." They are colleagues once more. 

Quaritch sits back down. The chair creaks as he does. Avatars are not made for human furniture.

"How are we going to get the Na'vi then?" He asks, all business. "Our planes cannot get close enough to bomb them, and they are too widespread for that to be a feasible plan, anyway."

"Oh gods, I don't know, Colonel. Our scientists are useless rejects, you know that. I'm working with complete greenies here, half these kids are just here to make connections, live up to the family name!" She makes a jerky gesture, like she was about to throw her arms into the air in frustration, but had decided against it. "Some of them hadn't even held a gun before they were shipped out here! Can you believe that? A citizen of Earth, and never even held a gun. The rest of 'em are good, but they're still kids, Q, they're not gonna hold up against Na'vi."

Quaritch groans. "Cannon fodder." He says, running a hand across his face. "We've been given cannon fodder to beat the Na'vi on their home turf."

Dr. Greenwell stands, abruptly. "I've got to go train the cannon fodder. Maybe an eighth of them'll make it home, if that. But I can make sure they go down fighting."

She leaves, letting the door slam closed as she goes.

Spider is dumped, battered on the floor of his cell. His head cracks against the floor as a nameless lackey drops his half-dead body to the ground. 

The lackey glances over his shoulder, at the one-way glass to the other side. He, who had several glittering medals glinting on his now blood-stained chest, crosses the room and wraps on the glass. There is no answer. The man smiles and rushes to where Spider is lying, curled up, on the ground. Spider lets out a pitiful whimper, curling further into himself. 

The man hauls Spider uprights and grabs his jaw, wrenching his mouth open. 

"You don't speak, do you, fucking mutt?" The man says, titling Spider's head this way and that. "Shame, maybe your pretty screams could've cheered me up after the shit day I've had." The man runs a finger along Spider's teeth. "Come on then, mutt. Fucking do something."

Spider sets his shoulders, and, drawing back, bites down, hard, on the man's hand. The man yells, flailing his hand around in an attempt to throw Spider off.

Spider feels his teeth sink through soft skin, unmarred by hard work, and into the muscle below. Blood floods his mouth, the taste of metal filling his senses. Spider bites down harder, head snapping side to side as he clings on for dear life. The man finally comes to his senses and backhands Spider across the face with enough force to send him flying. Spider spits out a mouthful of bloody tissue onto the floor in defiance.

The man, strangely, smiles. "There we go!" He crows. "Fucking finally! You finally do something, for once. You know, you were so interesting when you got here, mouthing off to Quaritch of all people, and cursing left, right, and center.  I thought to myself, 'Miguel, this one will be fun.' But you're so dull now. They broke you, coward."

Spider swallows down a mouthful of blood. "Come over here and you'll see just how much of a coward I am, you fucking bastard."

Miguel laughs again, "Bravo, bravo! He can speak! I thought you were just fucking stupid for so long, you know? I mean, what kind of moron doesn't know what a phone is, or who the Prime Minister of Earth is. Then, I realized you're not really one of us. Us proper humans don't want you."

Spider snorts. "I don't give a fuck. My place is with the Na'vi." It was surprisingly easy for him to slip back into this persona, this angry teenage boy.

Miguel hums in faux sympathy, "Yeah, but the Na'vi don't want you either, do they? You're not a proper human, or a proper Na'vi. I mean, the Sullys didn't want you, Quaritch doesn't want you. Nobody's coming for you, nobody cares. You are nothing. I would kill you myself, if I could. You are everything that's gone wrong with humanity, prancing around as you reject us, reject our heritage. You may live on Pandora, but human blood runs through your veins, Miles."

Spider sees red.

Despite his aching head, and bloodied wrists, and screaming lungs, he lunges at Miguel, tackling him and throwing him to the ground. Spider sits on top of Miguel, hand at his throat. He hauls Miguel up by the shoulders and slams his head back down. Miguel screams. Spider does it again, relishing in the red pooling from the back of Miguel's head. His mind garbled by lack of food and sleep, and the false memories implanted in him from that machine, the scrambled brains the machine gave him, Spider sees red.

"Don't fucking call me that!" Spider screams, voice loud and broken. "That's not my fucking name!"

Miguel's eyes are wide, and he's mouthing desperately. Spider's hand is pressed to his throat. Miguel's skin is slowly turning redder, a faint blur tinge creeping onto his lips. Spider lifts the blabbering man up again, bashing his skull into the solid floor. Blood is streaming from the back of his head, garbled, choked groans are ripped from Miguel's mouth as Spider lifts him up once more.

"Still think I'm a fucking mutt? Huh?" Spider screams.

Miguel cannot answer.

"I asked you a fucking question!" Spider yells in his face, "Am I a mutt?"

Miguel shakes his head frantically, eyes pleading as Spider punches him across the face.

The door flies open.

Quaritch strides into the room, gun trained on Spider.

"Leave Private Miguel alone, Miles." He commands. "Let him go, or I will blow your brains out, information be damned."

Spider ignores him, licking a drop of blood off of his lips, put there by the blood that sprayed from Miguel's head.

Quaritch lifts the gun an dpull sthe trigger.

The shot flies over Spider's head, slamming into the metal wall behind him, showering him and Miguel in shards of sharp metal.

SPider's eyes widen, and he drops Miguel to the floor, pressing his hands to the bloodied mess of grey brain matter and bone that's leaking from the back of Miguel's head.

"No.." HE whispers to himself, "Please, Eywa, no. What did I do?"

Spider looks up, and sees the butt of Quaritch's rifle slamming into his head.

All goes dark.

"I ought to have blown your skull open," Quaritch says from his place standing by the door. His gun is trained firmly on Spider. "Miguel will live, but barely. His legs are paralyzed. Dr. Greenwell says it's highly unlikely he'll ever walk again. I hope it was worth it, because there are many people out there who would pay to kill you. I'm quite tempted to let them, actually. Miguel's kid would be first in line."

Spider scoffs, emboldened by false confidence and his desperate need to put up a front, hide himself from what he'd done. "You won't. You need me."

Quaritch leans forward, across the room to the bed Spider's perched on. "We don't need you." He says, "Just an informant. We could take any of the Na'vi, you know. Maybe the freak, Grace's kid. Or one of her brothers, now they'd be useful." Quaritch smiles. "Oh! We could take the little one, the little kid. What's her name? Tina? Tusk?"

Spider's gone still.

"Oh! I know, "Quaritch's voice drops, "Tuk."

Spider shakes his head desperately, ignoring the pain lancing through it as he does.

"NO! No, you have me, I'll cooperate, just don't take the others. Please, don't." He begs.

Quaritch starts forward.

Spider jumps, pushing himself back against the wall as a huge hand comes near. It wraps itself around Spider's upper arm, like the Aya snake he and Lo'ak had found when they were young had curled around a tree branch. Had it been Lo'ak? Or Kiri? Spider doesn't know, his brain too scrambled to try and untangle his mess of false memories.

"They're not looking for you, you know? The Sullys don't give two shits about you. We'd know if they were looking. Hell, they made enough of a fuss to raise the dead when we got the Sully kids that first time. There's not been a whisper of action from them. You're not going to be rescued. They don't care about you."

Quaritch adjusts his bruising grip on Spider's arm and hisses in his ear "You see, son? You see now, don't you? Love doesn't exist for people like us. We're monsters, I don't deserve love, your mother didn't deserve love, and you certainly don't."

Spider bats the man's hands away and swallows down his tears.

 He spends the night curled up on the cold, hard floor under the cold, hard bed, hands pressed tightly into aching ears and dry eyes crewed tightly shut in a futile attempt to block out the frightened screams in his mind. 

Quaritch tries to pull him out from under there, but his avatar hands were too big to reach under the human-sized bed. 

Miguel's blood still stains the floor.

When he finally crawls out, unfolding his limbs and folding his misery into a neat little box in his mind, the sun is just beginning to shine through the barred window of his cell.

Spider, in desperate need of a distraction from Miguel's screams which play constantly in his head, goes to find Quaritch to piss him off enough that he would get beaten again. The pain helps him resist the urge to throw himself against the bars, and smash his head into the cold metal until his blood painted the white tiles a beautiful red, like Miguel's had the day before.

Spider didn't think he'd ever forgive himself.

Spider wonders, sometimes, as he lies there in that tiny space under the bed, if his parents had loved each other. Probably not, he assumes, if the crude way Quaritch had spoken about his dead mother was anything to go by.

"Stupid bitch." Quaritch had slurred. "Worth nothin' more than a quick fuck, and she wasn't even that good. Annoying slut, she was. Always banging on about 'families' and my 'duty' to look after you. God, if only she hadn't got knocked up." Quaritch had lifted a huge hand, pointing it at Spider's chest, "It's your fault, you know? " He had drunkenly stated, "Without you, I wouldn't have all this shit to deal with! Your fault! And your whore mother's!"

That had been in the early evening, when Spider had enough fight left in him to snark back that Quaritch had slept with her too, and didn't that make him the whore?

That particular comment had earned him a solid backhand to the side of his face, and all talk of his mother was forgotten about.

Whatever.

She probably wasn't even that great anyway, if she had given birth to a monster like him, Spider thinks.

Spider cries out, a ragged half-scream escaping his throat as his damaged leg slips sideways on the rocky beach floor into an animal burrow. His legs shake with the exertion of keeping upright, and sweat beads along his brow.  Somewhere to his left, shouts and whoops from excited Na'vi hunters. He dares not call out for help, fearing their sharp spears and sharper words. Breath coming in short gasps, he walks near silently across the rocks - a habit he picked up during his time with his father Quaritch and the others. If they couldn't hear him, they couldn't find him, they couldn't hurt him. His injured knee screams in complaint as he picks his way across the rocks - jumping over small rock puddles where colourful, almost certainly venomous fish live and blue reeds sway in the minuscule currents.

Birds shriek in the few trees which dot the shore of the island, crying out for their mates, their kids, food, whatever they had decided to complain about today. Spider doesn't mind the noise, though. It reminds him of home. What doesn't remind him of home, however, is the glint of sunlight off of the water droplets running slowly down the sides of now-visible Metkayina pods. It was too damp here, Spider had decided, that first day when he'd hauled himself out of the water and onto the sandy beach of the Metkayina clan's home., desperately staunching the blood flowing from the deep cut on his chest. Too damp and too hot. He missed the cool calm of the forest, and the dry warmth of the hot months there, so different to the cloying, humid heat that coats itself, paint-like over your skin in the sandy flatness of Metkayina's lands. he hates the sand as well, Sider decides, tin grains of the stuff flying, whip-like, towards him, and scratching at the softness of his eyes.

Laughter and smoke drift towards him, and Spider, panic beginning to rise in his chest, sees he's walked too far. Lost in his thoughts, he'd wandered right into the middle of the Na'vi cookfire - an event he most definitely had not been invited to. Unwilling to turn his back to the throngs of Na'vi, Spider with promptly half walks, half runs backwards and heads towards the one place he knows is safe - Kiri's Cove, a few square meters of muddied sand surrounded by a clump of purple bushes, sheltered from the elements by wind-bent rock formations and towering cliff faces.

He's just pushing past the sharp silver thorns and picking his way over the jagged spikes of rock when he hears it. 

A voice. 

A voice screaming his name.

"Spider!" Comes a ragged call, "Spider, where are you? Adanje? Kid?" The voice breaks on the last word.

Spider opens his mouth to call back. He pauses. Who would possibly be looking for him at this time? It was afternoon cookfire, why would someone other than a hunter leave the warmth and hearty food of the cookfire to search for him, of all people? If it had been Tuk whom the mysterious voice had been searching for, he would've understood, but him? Really? He says nothing.

The voice moves closer to him, advancing rapidly and sounding slightly out of breath on the jagged, mountainous terrain.

Heavy, ordered footsteps echo around him, and a tall blue figure jogs around the corner of the rock face.

Spider wrenches himself back into the cluster of bushes, heart pounding in his chest. Had he been seen?

The figure scans the area, tail whipping from side to side, surveying the bare rocks and rough ground.

It spots the bushes Spider is hunched in, and, with a speed that would rival the 'Cheetahs' of Terra, bolts towards him.

With the figure's silent gait and large, dark blue, five-fingered hands, Spider is certain it's Quaritch come to finish him off, to make him pay. Oh, Eywa, it's Quaritch.  Come to hurt him like Spider had hurt Quaritch, to humiliate Spider. Spider's breathing quickens, muffled by the hand pushed so deeply over his mouth it draws blood. His head is spnning, eyes widening.  You didn't run from Quaritch and live. The long, jagged scar down Sider's back is proof of that. 

Spider snarls, drawing his arms around his head as the figure approaches. His heart pounding in his ears and vision obscured by dark spots crowding him, head spinning and mouth bone dry.

"Spider!" Comes the astounded voice. "Is that you?"

Spider peers through his almost-closed eyes, to see..

Jake.

He lets out a strangled cry, trying to flee, only to find Jake's tal figuree blocking the exit.

Jake standing above him, arms folded and frowning so deeply his whole face looks to be drawn in at the eyebrows.

He gulps.

"What the hell were you thinking!" Jake yells the second they arrive back at the Sully clan pod, Neytiri standing silently beside him. "Do you even know what you put us through!"

Spider stands there, feeling two feet tall. He was such a fucking ska'wang! How did he not realize his pathetic inability to deal with his own injuries inconvenienced the Sullys? Honestly, it was like he was four again, crying to an apathetic Norm over a paper cut. For god's sake, the Sully's should've been eating round the cookfire by now, not searching for an idiotic human who was too stupid to realize he has responsibilities he can't slack on! He fucked up, Spider knows, he should've been better, shouldn't have just run off when he has jobs to do.

Jake stares down at him. "Well?" He asks, expectantly, "What do you have to say for yourself?"

Spider, to his horror, feels hotness prick at his eyes and squeezes them tightly closed momentarily, before gasping in air and beginning to speak. "I- I;m sorry Sir. It won't happen again. I will be better next time."

Jake's body goes lax, pleased with Spider's answer. "And what are you apologizing for?" He prompts, going to nudge Spider's arm.

Spider flinches back, keeping his gaze fixed firmly on the sandy floor. He recites in a careful, emotionless tone. "Shirking my duties, letting down the Clan, being useless and slowing everybody down, and not completing my orders at the detriment to those around me. I apologize, it will not happen again, Sir." He has said these words many times before. This was what Quaritch wanted, this was what he liked, Spider, underneath his proverbial thumb, Quaritch's to do with as he pleased.

Jake stops. He grabs Spider by the arm, voice loud and painful in Spider's ears. "What did you just say? Eywa, Spider, why would you-. I- " He cuts himself off in a series of splutters, a vice-like grip around Spider's wrist.

Spider flinches back, attempting to pull his wrist out of Jake's bruising grasp. He doesn't understand. He did what was expected of him, he apologised. Couldn't Jake just hit him already and be done with it? Why was he drawing this out, it was so confusing, just prolonging the inevitable. Oh Eywa, this was gonna hurt.

Spider's internal panic is cut off by Jake's grip loosening. Jake looks down at him, clearly expecting an answer.

"I-" Spider begins tentatively, "I don't understand, Sir. I know I deserve punishment, and of course I'm not trying to escape the backlash from that. I don't understand, Sir. Is there another way you would like me to apologize? Would you not like an apology? I'm sorry, I don't understand what I should do." Upon seeing Jake's face, he backtracks massively. "Not that you should have to lower yourself to respond to me, of course. I- um, I shouldn't have implied that at all, I just-" Spider sighs, squares his shoulders, turns his face towards Jake. "Please, just hurt me and be done with it. I fucked up."

He is cut off from this by Jake's large hand releasing his wrist from the chokehold of before, and swinging up, up, up into the air. Solid metal wedding ring glistening in the sunlight, Jake brings his hand down with speed, and Spider tenses, screwing his eyes closed, stiffening his spine. That ring would hurt like a mother fucker. Quaritch's had.

Jake reaches out and pulls Spider into a hug, picking the boy up bodily and wrapping his arms around him. Spider ties to pull away, but Jake just tightens his grip, one hand cradling Spider's head. Spider gives in, pressing his teary-eyed face into Jake's warm, solid, shoulder and clinging onto Jake's midriff with his aching leg.

"Don't you ever think that you deserve to be punished, Spider." Jake whispers, "You are so much more than that. You are worth more. "

Spider lets out a broken half-sob, his whole body shaking with the effort of stopping the tears welling in his eyes from spilling out in salty trails over his sunburnt cheeks. 

Jake rubs gently circles on his back, soothing Spider's beating heart. "Shhh." He whispers "Just let it all out, it's ok, I;ve got you."

Spider's breath catches and he makes an awful noise, somewhere between a gurgle and a scream, clinging onto Jake like a lifeline.

Eventually, after what seems like a lifetime but nowhere near long enough for Spider, Jake lets him go  and sets him gently down on the floor.

Spider's aching leg buckles, and, before he knows it. he's crashing to the floor. Jake catches him once more, lighting fast reflexes grabbing Spider as his legs give way.

"Spider," Jake says, tone unreadable "You're hurt. Let me get Neytiri."

Spider feels like screaming.