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The sea is dark. Spider is knee-high, shivering. The moon casts an eerie glow over the water, swelling the waves.
Neteyam is dead. Because of him. Because he - he had to be rescued. The thought burns in his gut, guilty and rotting.
(And he didn’t even kill Quaritch. Quaritch, who would have killed Kiri; Quaritch, who gloated about Neteyam’s death; Quaritch, who was kind and awful all at once.)
There's a creak, a shift in the sand. Spider looks up: Jake. His gut lurches in his chest, and his cheeks flush, and he hopes the night hides it all.
Spider nods in greeting. “Hey, Mr. Sully.”
Jake nods back, settles next to Spider.
“You holding up okay?”
“I’m alright,” Spider says, shrugging.
“It’s late.”
“Yeah.” I couldn’t sleep, he doesn’t say.
Jake draws in a breath, ragged as rocks. “You know, when I was a few years older than you, my brother died. My twin. His name was Tommy.” Jake pauses. “He was training for the Avatar program.” Spider’s stomach squirms. (Neteyam, bleeding out; Neteyam, taken in by the reef. But Neteyam was never a brother like Lo’ak was, even if the thought pierces.)
“I know you’re human. It’s why you and Lo’ak have five fingers.”
Spider thinks he sees Jake’s lips creep up.
“I joined,” he continues, “Because they gave me - they promised me a better life. I didn’t…I’d seen war, and the stipend they gave me wasn’t much. I was stuck in a shoe-box of a house. There wasn’t much green left, by that point - they’d killed their…their Eywa, their mother, by then - and the air was polluted, hard to breathe. I was lucky to make it to eighteen.”
Spider knows all of this; Kiri and Lo’ak have told him. He nods. The rebreather hisses. (The air was polluted, he thinks, and then: the air is poisonous to me.)
“And then I…I met Neytiri, and I fell in love. But I met Quaritch, you know, when he was alive.”
“I know,” Spider says, brows furrowing, heart thudding in his chest. (I didn’t kill him. He’s alive.) “It’s why he wants - wanted to kill you.”
“He thinks I betrayed him,” Jake’s voice is quiet. “And he’s not entirely wrong, you know. I was working for him. He called me kid. Son. I hadn’t had…well, my father had died a while back, and Quaritch was…I wanted to make him proud.”
Spider swallows, mouth dry.
“I started training to become one of the People. I got closer to Grace - Kiri’s mom -” Spider knows this; he’s seen the logs - “- and I started to see. To understand. But it…took me a while to get there. It took me a few years before I could speak fluently; it took me longer to learn all the ways.”
Spider’s not sure what to say. (Congratulations for becoming one of the People, when I’ll never be able to?)
“What I’m trying to say, Spider, is that - I get mistakes. I’ve made plenty of my own.”
“I think you should tell that to Lo’ak,” Spider blurts, and Jake laughs, then falls silent, pained.
“I already have. It’s…look, kid, if Quaritch was -”
“He was fine,” Spider says. “I’m fine.” Son. Kid. Tiger. He tries not to think about it.
“Okay,” Jake says, slowly, raising a hand. Spider draws in a breath, lets it out, tries to stop the shiver from working its way out of his chest.
“You should tell the others about your brother,” Spider says, after a moment. “They’ve - I haven’t - “ I wasn’t as close to Neteyam, he can’t say, because Neteyam saved his life; Neteyam is the reason he is alive.
“I already have,” Jake says, more quietly. “If you need anyone to talk to that isn’t Kiri - if you need an adult, then…”
“Sure,” Spider says, but they both know he won’t take Jake up on the offer.
“I know Neytiri hasn't always been the kindest to you,” Jake says, “But she'll come around.” Spider’s chest stings, and he ignores it, presses his palms into the grainy sand.
“I’ll listen, if you want to talk,” Jake says, slinging an arm around Spider’s shoulder; Spider flinches.
The words catch in the back of his throat. Quaritch is alive.
He doesn’t say them. He sits, and lets Jake’s warmth seep through his clothes, and pretends he has a family.