Chapter Text
The sound of guns shooting blew at Lo’ak’s ears, making them ring as he ran across the ship, clutching the gun with his trigger finger twitching. His other hand clutched Spider’s arm, afraid to lose him in the midst of their escape. They meet a wall, the moonpool in front of them, close and yet too dangerous to jump into with the bullets grazing past them.
“Give me that!” Neteyam grabs the gun from Lo’ak, back against the wall as he shot at their attackers.
For a second, Lo’ak could admire how brave he was, how skilled he looked holding the gun and taking charge. He reminded him of Jake, sometimes. Fighting wasn't just the simple trigger of a gun, but the bravery and confidence to command, lead and make decisions quickly- decisions that could affect everyones lives in the process. But he didn’t have time to dwell, diving into the moonpool and hitting the water with an intense sense of relief. He swims to the surface quickly, looking around to spot Spider, catching his eyes with a wide smile. They both tip their heads back to laugh, victory overcoming the adrenaline and anxiety that weighed on them. Treading water, they both high five eachother with shakey hands (and miss), before they realize how much time had passed. A few moments too long, they sway in the movement of the water, waiting for their older brother to appear. Neteyam still has not joined them in their victory.
“Neteyam?” Spider frowns, swims to look up through the moonpool into the ship. “Neteyam! Let’s go bro!” There’s no reply, and his eyes narrow, cautious and concerned.
“Pxasìk! They got him!” Lo’ak replies, teeth gritting, as he watches one of the Recoms strut forward, holding a pained Neteyam by his neck. He can only partially see his brother, but he can tell there’s blood coming from his torso, trickling down his thigh.
“Lo’ak, go!” Neteyam screams, only to get yanked back by his hair, stumbling and slipping slightly on his own blood grotesquely. “Skxawn!” He swears, hissing slightly, although weakening in his struggles. His tail flicks aggressively behind him, ears pinned back, but Neteyam was too weak to release his anger.
Tsireya surfaces behind them on her Ilu. “Let’s go!” Spider climbs on behind her, but Lo’ak falters, conflicted as he looks up at Neteyam.
“Brother! Stay strong, I will come back with dad, we’re going to save you!” Lo’ak stutters, looking at Neteyam with earnest eyes, avoiding the sight of the blood that pooled beneath him. He notices his brother wane, gasping and wheezing, but he replies by gesturing with a trembling hand reaching from his forehead outward.
I see you.
Lo’ak swallows painfully, throat tight, and he doesn’t have time to reply before Tsireya is leading the Ilu underwater and towards the rocks. The water splashes in the wind, almost violently, as if reflecting the emotions that wail inside his stomach. He can't help but think he'd let his brother down. Who knew if that was the last time he'd see him? Would Neteyam be kidnapped by them forever, held ransom? Would he be killed by them, thinking of how his own younger brother's last words were that Payakan was his only family?
“Sir! They’ve got Neteyam- they- please, you gotta go!” Lo’ak leaps from the water, running forward across the rocks to come towards his father, taking his arm in a panic. He just remembered Neteyam’s face as he left, the look of agony and defeat as he slowly began to sink to his knees, the Recom's grip the only thing keeping him up.
“What?” Jake replies, holding onto Lo’ak’s shoulder, trying to ground him. “Slow down, son. What happened? Where’s Neteyam? I need you to stay calm.”
Lo’ak breathes deep into his stomach, feeling his chest expand and rise, willing his wild mind to remain silent for once. Instead, he remembers sitting in the sun while learning to breathe with Tsireya, and remembers the look Neteyam gave him while his heartbeat sped up. He had been too harsh on his older brother.
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“He’s my brother! I’m going.” Lo’ak yelled, turning to leave and find Payakan. He’s stopped by Neteyam, a hand pulling him back by his shoulder. The grip was gentle yet protective, but at the time it had just felt annoying.
“Oh, he’s your brother? No, I am your brother!”
“Let go of me!”
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Dread sat at the bottom of his stomach, blood roaring in his ears as he closed his eyes in defeat, fighting back tears. He loved Payakan, and he would never regret going out to save him, but Neteyam was also his brother, and he shouldn’t have put him in such danger.
“Lo’ak! Listen to me.”
Lo’ak jumps at the sound of Jake’s commanding voice, feeling himself reel as he’s forced back into the present. “He’s at the moonpool, dad. He’s shot! They- they shot him. A Recom is holding him.” He watches as his dad’s face sets to stone, a determination locked into his eyes, and yet he sees the dawn of fear there too.
“Fuck.” Jake grimaces, ears curling back. Neytiri lands beside him, her Ikran squawking as the beginnings of the eclipse darken the sky.
“Ohhh, Lo’ak! You’re okay...” Neytiri runs over, putting her bow over her back, sadly smoothing down his hair. Her expression turns from stoic to sweet almost immediately, her thumbs smothing over his cheekbones. Lo’ak avoids her gaze in guilt. Neytiri glances around. “Where’s Neteyam? Tuk? Kiri?” Her expression darkens, and so does the eclipse, the orange of the flames nearby highlighting the yellow in her eyes. “Jake?”
Jake is quiet, takes Neytiri gently into his arms. They huddle together, confused and scared and small, oh so small. The eclipse climaxes, the gold outline piercing the sky, and just as the world seems to turn quiet for a moment-
Neteyam screams.
It’s long, blood curdling, and filled with agony. Everyone flinches, darting up from their positions before eventually their gazes fall on the ship.
“Neteyam!” Neytiri yells, lunging out of Jake’s grip. Instinctually, her shaking fingers flew to her quiver, searching for an arrow to nock, a weapon to impale whoevers thick skull decided to hurt her child.
There’s more screams, and everyone is silenced by the sounds of Neteyam’s struggles. They're hoarse, they're coughed out as if pulled right out of his own throat, raw and bloody and wet. He wails like an animal, as though his mind was already long lost to the pain. What could be so painful to reduce a warrior to such a mess?
“It’s a trap.” Jake says. “They want me.” But there’s something in the way he’s poised, coiled up as if he was about to jump into the water no question, that told them that he’d walk right into it if it meant he could save his son from such torture. Quaritch is talking into the comms, and just as he’d predicted.
“I need something Jake, or there’s gonna be consequences.”
Neytiri sobs, curling into Jake as if for guidance, for answers, for solutions (there is none).
Jake tries to stay calm, schools his brain back into soldier mode. He's seen bloodshed and death and violence- it's what humans were, what Earth had become. Somehow, hearing the wails still made his mouth dry and his heart beat in his throat made it impossible to think straight despite his previous experience. He was a marine, he’d survived a spinal injury that had crippled him- but this, he would never be able to handle. The sound of his family in trouble. “Lo’ak, where are your sisters? Where’s Tuk and Kiri?”
“They are tied up on the ship.” Tsireya is crying, ears pressed to the back of her head in distress. Vaguely, Jake sees her holding Lo'ak's hand.
“At the moonpool. At- At the welldeck.” Spider answers instead, stepping forward. “Amid ships.”
“What?”
“C’mon, I’ll show you! C’mon!” Spider takes Jake’s arm, tries to guide him forward. The rest remain tense and unmoving, staring unseeing into the distance as the sound of Neteyam’s cries fill the air. They crack through the silence, like lightning and thunder except the only thing that rained down everyone's faces was tears and not the rain.
Neytiri screams Neteyam’s name again, something breaking in her voice as she replied to her eldest son, hearing his wails of distress. Jake approached her, trying to break her out of her willow in heartache.
“Ma Neytiri! Listen to me, listen to me!” Jake holds her cheeks, thumbs the tears that stain them, the bioluminescent markings on her face glowing powerfully. “They have Neteyam.” He swallows, closes his eyes for a second, wishing that Eywa would help them, would stop the sounds that were coming from his son. “They have our daughters.”
Jake looks into Neytiri’s heart, watches as her misery turns to realisation, to anger, then to an expression so dangerous and determined that he himself even felt a little bit scared. “I need you with me.” And he did, because even with his guns and his training and all the years of experience in the world, he couldn’t handle this by himself. Jake was the lost man who was trying to steel himself, and Taruk Macto was simply the facade that lay on top.
“And i need you to be strong. Right now.” Jake states. “Strong heart.” His voice cracks, and Neteyam’s screaming quietened for a moment, just as Neytiri takes a deep breath and holds her bow fiercely at her side. “Strong heart.” Jake repeats, a whisper, and yet carrying more meaning in the world than any other pitiful reassurance ever could. They would get Neteyam back, they would get their daughters (And they would shoot arrows and bullets straight through the hearts of those who dared to break theirs).
Neytiri’s gaze is cold as she stands, breathing hard, her expression turning from disdained to sharp and calculated. A predator.
The face of Palulukan Makto.
On her Ikran, Neytiri leaves with a roar, flying towards the ship with an arrow nocked to her bow. Jake watches before turning to Lo’ak, stern.
“Stay here, got it?”
“I want to come with you.”
The sound of his son's screams seem to reverberate around his skull, a pit growing inside his chest when he notices that they’ve quietened. At least before, they’d known he was alive. “You’ve done enough.” he responds. But he’s not angry, he’s scared. Three of his children are already on that ship, he couldn’t risk another. He pats Lo'ak's shoulder if only to feel the grounding and familiar part of his alive son's skin before he turned to leave.
“Dad…” Lo’ak chokes out, but Jake is already turning away, following Spider towards the ship.
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The ship had sunk, and outside it, Kiri listens to the sound of Pandora’s heartbeat. It flows like the waves- she feels it ripple, back and forth, like the water lapping on the shores of the beach. She feels as if she is breathing with Eywa, in sync with the in and out of the tides, the wax and wane of the moons, the back and forth sway of the kelp forests and the trees. She conducted the school of hammerhead squid like an orchestra, feeling them move with her, following her rhythm. They scatter at Kiri’s command, flowing towards the ship, seeking her family. As Kiri waits, she feels a flutter amidst the even pulse of the sea, the struggle of someone’s heartbeat.
As Kiri swims towards the sound, Gill Mantle on her back, she finds the unconscious body of her older brother. Neteyam. She remembers his screams, wonders what had happened to him to tempt such strangled wails. Kiri connects him to the Gill Mantle, attaching it to his back before seeing a Tulkun swimming from the depths towards them. From the wrecks, Jake and Lo’ak swim up, and only a small distance behind them is Neytiri and Tuk, following the bioluminescent stream of gold light towards the surface. Payakan swims under them, pulling them up, and Kiri holds tightly onto Neteyam’s body, holding his head above water.
The family all gasp for breath, only Payakan’s songs filling the air.
“I see you.” Jake chokes, turns to Lo’ak earnestly, and looking Payakan in the eye.
There’s more silence, and this time Tuk is the first to break it, climbing onto the Tulkun’s fin to reach towards Neteyam’s slack face. “Neteyam!” She exclaims, both worried and relieved to see him again (Jake is reminded that she, too, had heard the screams- she is so young). The Sully’s all seem to jumpstart at the mention, coming back to life.
“Thankyou Eywa!” Neytiri swims to hold Neteyam’s cheek, tears in her eyes. “Oh, my son. Are you okay?” There’s no response, but she holds him to her chest regardless, tucking his head under chin and breathing out a sigh of relief.
“Let’s get him over to that rock. Watch his head! Hey, watch out for his head!” Jake helps haul him up, hates how sick he feels at the boneless dead weight of his son. “Kiri! Check him. Lo’ak, Spider. Put pressure on this wound, stop the bleeding.” He shudders, sees the blood dripping from Neteyam, but there’s no exit wound as he checks his back. He doesn’t see signs of torture- no broken bones, no other wounds. It doesn’t make sense- except, there’s sweat beaded on Neteyam’s forehead, his skin pale and his muscles convulsing. “He’s poisoned.” he mutters to himself, before cursing. “He’s poisoned!” He repeats more strongly, starting to check his wrists for signs of where he may have been injected with something.
“Dad, here, on his neck.” Kiri is examining the small dart at the base of Neteyam’s neck, before she feels him start to wake.
“Dad…” Neteyam wheezes, and suddenly every touch is pain, every movement is suffering. His back arches and he cries and coughs, muscles taut in pain.
Jake is breathless for a moment, staring at his awake and alive son in shock and grief before speaking up again. “Where’s Ronal! Tsahìk! Neteyam needs help!” His hands hover, unable to help, unsure of what to do.
Neytiri cradles Neteyam’s head, tries to brush comfortingly through his hair, but instead his head slams down powerfully as tremors wracked his body, muscles seizing without control.
Jake could only watch in despair, and a small part of him wonders whether his son dying would have been merciful, to not have to endure this pain. Ronal arrives quickly, but it felt like the mere minutes were rather hours, having to watch as Neteyam’s breaths grew shorter and screams turn to low weak whimpers. He bent over, to listen to the small mumbled words.
“I die, Dad…” Neteyam sobs, tears streaking down his cheeks. His eyes open weakly, spiky eyelashes unfoding to reveal the tiniest spark of yellow underneath. “I cannot hold.”
"Ma Neteyam..." Jake swallows around the lump in his throat, leaning over and taking his son's hand in his, squeezing it tightly. "You will. You have to. It's gonna be okay." He can only watch as Ronal inspects the wound, feeding Neteyam medicine to sedate him and smearing the dart holes with a thick paste. He had come to the Metkayina Clan seeking to protect and shelter his family, and yet here he was, helpless as his firstborn suffered before him. This time, Neytiri is the one to bring him back, touching his shoulder gently.
“Jake.” Neytiri whispers, coming closer, where their heads are almost pressed together. “He will be okay.” Jake shakes his head, eyes shining with tears. When he fists at his wet cheeks he just feels like a kid again. “No! Ma Jake. Listen. He is a Sully. He is our blood. He will not die.” he sniffles, looks up at Neytiri with a grimace, losing hope. “Strong heart.” She repeats, patting Jake’s chest. “Like us.”