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Lo'ak hunched over in the corner of the marui, tapping his old wooden pa'li toy in a pretend gallop as he tried to ignore the scene a few feet away from him where the rest of his family sat gathered around his mother, taking turns feeling his new baby sibling kick.
“Wow!” he heard Neteyam say as he placed a hand on their mother’s rounded belly.
“Can you feel the movements?” Neytiri asked warmly.
“Yeah,” said Neteyam, laughing. “That’s so weird!”
Lo'ak grimaced in his corner.
Big deal, he thought irritably. That’s all they ever talk about these days. Baby this, baby that. Can’t they ever focus on anything else?
“Let me try!” came Kiri’s voice, and Neteyam shuffled over to give her room. “Whoa…hey, do you think the baby will have four fingers like me ’n’ Lo'ak, or three like Neteyam?”
Lo'ak’s scowl deepened. He hated it when people drew attention to his fingers. His parents had assured him many times that there was nothing to be ashamed of, that he should be proud to take after his father. But still. It made him different, and different could be hard. He didn’t understand why Kiri had never seemed bothered by her extra fingers, but then, Kiri had other talents. Not like him.
“I do not know,” said Neytiri. “We will just have to wait and see.”
Lo'ak tuned away in dread as he felt his mother’s gaze shift towards him. He felt himself cringe as she called,
“Lo'ak! Don’t you want a turn to feel the baby?”
“No thanks,” he called back, ardently refusing eye contact. He tried to say it casually, dismissively, but his throat felt oddly tight. He tapped his pa'li’s hooves harder against the wicker floor.
The pause that followed felt impossibly long and awkward to Lo'ak. He kept his gaze trained stubbornly away as he silently wished for his family to give up trying to get him to join in the baby talk and just move on to something else. Finally he heard his father take a breath.
“Oh, Kiri, I just remembered, I think Mo'at wanted some help sorting some medicines today, could you go do that? And maybe you should go too, Neteyam; more hands will make it faster.”
Kiri blinked in surprise at this sudden request, but shrugged and stood to leave with a simple “ok”. Neteyam cast a quizzical look at his parents as he left, but followed his sister without complaint.
Great, thought Lo'ak with a snort. Here comes the lecture.
Sure enough, as soon as his siblings were out of sight, his parents moved over to kneel in front of him. They seemed to be waiting for him to make the first comment, but Lo'ak said nothing. He didn’t want to talk about it. After a moment, Neytiri took over.
“What is wrong, ma 'itan?” she prompted gently.
“Nothing,” Lo'ak growled. “Why do you think something’s wrong just because I don’t want to feel the stupid baby?”
“Hey now, that’s no way to talk about your new sibling—” Jake began to chide, but Neytiri put a hand up to stop him.
“You do not have to feel the baby if you don’t want to, sweetheart. But you are clearly upset about something. Why not tell us so we can help?”
Lo'ak’s brow furrowed. Should he? Could he? He wasn’t even sure if he really understood the reason himself.
“It’s just…” he began hesitantly. “It’s just…it seems like you guys are always talking about the baby now. You an’ Dad and even Neteyam an’ Kiri. Like it always has to be such a big deal all the time.”
“A new baby is a big deal for any family,” Neytiri pointed out calmly.
“Well, maybe I don’t want it to be a big deal!” Lo'ak blurted suddenly. “Maybe I don’t want to have a new baby sibling! Maybe I don’t want to be a big brother!”
There it was, the secret thought that had plagued the back of his mind for the past few months, ever since his parents told him they were expecting a new baby.
A stunned flicker of hurt crossed Neytiri’s face, and Jake took over the talking.
“Why not, buddy? What’s wrong with being a big brother?”
“I don’t know,” Lo'ak muttered, looking away. “I just don’t want to, ok?”
He was the little brother. He’d always been the little brother, even though his siblings were only a year older than him. Big brother…no, that was Neteyam’s job. And Neteyam, of course, was good at everything…
And even if that weren’t the case…
Lo'ak bit his lip nervously. He knew what he wanted to ask, but…
But…
Well, he had already admitted to not wanting a sibling, and it was too late to take that back. He might as well get this off his chest too.
“Will…you still love me even after the baby is born?”
“What?” gasped Jake in shock.
“Of course we will still love you!” Neytiri insisted emphatically. “Why would you think we would not?”
“Zami told me that her parents stopped caring about her when her baby brother was born,” Lo'ak admitted miserably. “She said they were always fussing over him and didn’t have time to listen to her anymore.”
“I’m sure Zami’s parents didn’t stop caring about her, even if she felt like it for a while,” Jake assured.
“Babies need a lot of attention,” Neytiri explained gently. “They cannot walk or talk or get their own food or clean themselves or do much of anything, really, so they need grownups to help them all the time. Unlike big boys like you, who can do all those things all on their own!” she added with a playful poke to her son’s nose, which he scrunched at the contact.
“Trust me, buddy, you don’t want the kind of attention babies have to deal with…unless you want us to come wipe your butt every time you take a dump!” joked Jake.
“Ewww, no way!” gasped Lo'ak with a giggle despite himself, but his face quickly fell again as he drifted back into thought. “But…Zami said—”
“Never mind what Zami said,” Neytiri asserted firmly. “Nothing will ever stop us from loving you. Ok?”
“O-ok,” said Lo'ak, pausing as he digested what his parents told him. He was feeling a little bit better now, but something still nagged at the corner of his mind. His ears drooped.
“But I…I’m not good at hunting like Neteyam, or good at healing like Kiri,” he confessed. “I’m just…the little brother…so…if I’m not even that anymore…”
“Oh, sweetheart,” Neytiri sighed with sudden understanding, opening her arms in invitation, “Come here.”
Lo'ak hesitated for a moment, then accepted his mother’s invitation, burying his face into her neck as she wrapped her arms around him.
“You have been the youngest for so long, and now you feel like the new baby is going to take your place in the family, hmm?” she crooned softly, and Lo’ak felt himself tremble slightly as the feelings he couldn’t quite sort out before were finally put into words. He nodded numbly against his mother’s shoulder.
“Well, you do not need to worry about that,” Neytiri insisted lovingly. “You have a very special place in this family that no one else could ever fill. You do not need to be Neteyam, or Kiri. You just need to be you. The baby won’t change that.”
“Tell you what,” chimed Jake, “why don’t you and I go out hunting tomorrow, just the two of us? We’ll take Bob and fly wayyyy far, to the very best spot we can find.”
“Really?” asked Lo'ak, pulling away from Neytiri to look up at his father. “Just us? Not Neteyam?”
“Just us,” confirmed Jake, reaching out to ruffle the boy’s short braids.
Lo'ak felt a genuine grin spread across his face for the first time that day. “Ok.”
Neytiri leaned over to give her son a quick kiss on the foreheard.
“You see? You will be a wonderful big brother, Lo'ak.”
“Yeah...yeah, maybe I will,” said Lo'ak, his heart feeling much lighter than it had before. Glancing down at his mother’s belly, he seemed to make a decision. “Can I, um…can I feel the baby now?”
Neytiri smiled warmly, her eyes full of love.
“Of course,” she said, tapping a spot where the baby had been active. “Right here.”
Slowly, almost tentatively, Lo'ak placed his hand where she’d indicated…jerking it back almost immediately with wide eyes as the baby kicked in response.
“Whoa!” he gasped reflexively, but he couldn’t help a stunned smile.
“Pretty cool, huh?” said Neytiri.
“Yeah, I guess it is,” said Lo'ak, reaching forward to feel again. Now that he knew what to expect, he held his hand there longer, feeling his new sibling’s tiny movements with an open curiosity he hadn’t let himself feel until now. When he decided he’d felt enough, he patted the spot gently a few times.
“Don’t worry, baby,” he said. “I’m gonna be a good big brother, I think. Maybe even cooler than Neteyam. You’ll see.”
And when little Tuk was born some time later, he was determined to keep that promise.