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Eclipse felt like a fitting time, as much as any. Darkness spilled across the sky in inky streaks, the glow of the sun flaring fiery in one final burst before it's light was swallowed by the eclipsing moon. Lo'ak barely noticed it anymore. The passage of time spilled like unseen grains of sand through his fingers, every bright morning shadowed dark with grief, every golden afternoon awash in the same rich blues and bloodied crimsons he could never clean from his hands or erase from behind his eyes.
Days didn't matter. Nights didn't matter, not when Lo'ak was living a nightmare he could never wake up from. The eclipse on that night had never ended for him. The moon had never passed over it's smaller sibling, light had never bled back into the sky. Gold hadn't spilled back over into the blue sky. It had run red instead, spilled bloody over the clouds. The sun had never returned. It never would.
Lo'ak watched the eclipse with glassy eyes, the pain that burned in his chest a wound that would never close, a guilt that would never stop gnawing at his bones until he was nothing more than a memory in the wind. It was eating him alive, and it would never stop. How could it? It should haunt him. Blood stained his hands, a death weighed heavy on his soul, a debt that could never be repaid burned into his bones until he was sure even future generations would know it tainted him. Guilt seeped poison into his veins, burned in the back of his throat, buried beneath his skin in jagged shards with every pitying, wondering, or blaming glance.
It wasn't your fault. But wasn't it? Neteyam always pulled Lo'ak close when he had to leave, cupped a palm at the back of his younger brother's neck like he always did. That's not your fault. Reassurances by the brother who'd always given them to him, comfort in the place Lo'ak always knew he could get it. But the warmth from where Neteyam grasped at the nape of Lo'ak's neck, the comfort from the arm he wrapped around his back, it always faded into something cold and numb. Because Lo'ak couldn't forget. Couldn't forget how Neteyam's body grew cold, how the eyes that glinted gold in the light of the memory Lo'ak always met him in had grown blank and glassy, forever staring at an eclipse he would never see the sun emerge from.
It was fitting, this way. The sun had died when Neteyam had. The light would never return to his eyes, and it would never return to the sky. The sun that set for Neteyam always glowed golden in Lo'ak's memories, and maybe it would do the same for him.
It had to, right? Even if poison sank into the marrow of his bones, even if sin sank beneath his skin, even if the guilt that twisted behind his ribs had truly rotted his heart, the sun would still be gilded in the After of it all, wouldn't it? Maybe even if it didn't, even if the shadows of guilt that hung heavy like stones around his neck followed him to meet Eywa, even if the sun never rose for him, would it matter? It would be befitting, maybe, but Lo'ak didn't think Eywa would be so cruel.
The rifle felt heavier in Lo'ak's hands than it ever had before. A weapon he'd once grabbed excitedly to gloat about, one Neteyam had tugged from his grasp and shoved him to move out of the way of. The same breed he'd watched his father meticulously strip and clean since he was young, the one whose gunpowder scent still stung like bloodied iron in his nose, all too familiar no matter how badly Lo'ak wanted to forget it's sting.
He wondered if Neteyam had smelled it in his final moments. If the sting of gunpowder had covered the coppery layer of blood, or if both had mingled in the back of his throat like Lo'ak still woke up tasting alongside the salt of sweat and tears. He hoped his brother hadn't. Hoped Neteyam didn't remember it now, was unbothered by it all where he was. Hoped he'd be able to forget it too.
The sand still held the warmth of sunlight as Lo'ak stumbled along, the heated grains unbothered by the darkness spilling over the sky and hanging in the air. The land still grasped onto the warmth of day, plants still turned towards a sun that had been swallowed up. Bioluminescence flickered to life in the shallow waters around the sandbank where he collapsed, a soft glow that tried to push away the fall of night.
It didn't matter. Lo'ak had never woken up from that nightmare, had never opened his eyes from the darkness of that eclipse. The soft glow of the waves didn't matter, the shine of the looming planet couldn't drive away the darkness crowding at the edges of his vision, the sun couldn't burn away his guilt.
That's not your fault. Neteyam's effortless comfort, a hand pressed to the back of his neck, warm where it had been cold when Lo'ak had clutched at it last.
That's not my fault. A hand shoved against an unmoving chest, a face that had once inspired such pride in Lo'ak crumpling behind the blur of tears.
It had been his fault, hadn't it?
If you hadn't disobeyed orders than your brother would still be- Metal pressed cold into the curve of his palms, seeping beneath his skin and spreading through his muscles, chilled where tears still burned hot in his eyes.
His disobedience. His decision. His burden to bear. But he hadn't, had he? His decisions left him unscathed. His disobedience had gotten him Spider back. His brother hadn't been so lucky. It hadn't even been his plan, but he was the one who bled out on a cold rock in a land he hadn't been born in. He was the one whose panicked eyes flattened until they bore unseeing towards a darkened sky. He was the one who now laid with ancestors who weren't his own, he was the one who wouldn't get to go home. Because of Lo'ak, wasn't it? His choices, his failure, his constant disobedience that always got Neteyam in trouble had gotten him killed.
That's not my fault. A sentiment that rung hollow. He knew it. His father knew it. Jake could barely meet his eyes, and his mother only watched him with hollow grief, like she didn't even see Lo'ak at all. His decisions. His guilt to repent for.
He had killed his brother.
His fingers curled around the rifle. Unlike the sand, the metal held no remnants of warmth. It only burned after it was shot, but Lo'ak would never feel the heat, or see the light.
The barrel pressed cool and unmoving against his chin. The trigger slipped smooth and cold under his fingertips. Tears dripped silent and burning from Lo'ak's eyes.
He hoped it would be gold when he woke, that the sun would finally rise again. He hoped the warmth of his brother's arms around him would never fade, and the cold that spread beneath his skin would never return.
"Lo'ak. Lo'ak!"
His hands shook as the rifle was wrenched away, his eyes burned as tears rolled down his cheeks, his shoulders heaved as he dropped his head and sobbed.
"Lo'ak." Strong hands grabbed at his face, ran over his shoulders and pushed at his chest, forcing his chin up. His father's eyes burned gold through Lo'ak's blurred vision, his large shoulders heaved and his hands shook as they gripped either side of Lo'ak's jaw. "Lo'ak. What the hell were you thinking boy? What were- What- I-" Lo'ak had never seen his father at a loss for words before. Had never seen panic so raw in his eyes, had never seen his hands shake as they did right now.
His father, as distant as he'd been since Neteyam's death, shattered right before his eyes.
"I'm sorry." Lo'ak's throat burned, his eyes burned and his lungs were on fire as he tipped forward and sobbed, his father's hands pressed shaking against his back as he tugged him close. "I'm sorry dad I'm- It's all my fault. It's all my fault."
"Lo'ak it- Lo'ak." Jake's hands pressed over his back, gripped at his shoulders, moved to cup at the back of his head like he did when Lo'ak was a child, like Neteyam had learned from him to do. He leaned back and practically cradled him, sat back and tugged Lo'ak closer with shaking hands and pressed his face against the crown of his son's head and squeezed Lo'ak close enough until his ribs expanded against Jake's arm with every heaving breath. "Lo'ak it was not your fault. I'm so- I- I didn't mean that son, you know I didn't mean that."
"But it was." Lo'ak shook like the cold from the metal of the rifle had sunk into his very veins, shook like adrenaline roiled alongside it, shook with tears and heaving breaths and guilt rattling in his lungs. "I made us go back. He- I- I made us."
"Lo'ak." Jake's hiss sounded pained as he pressed it against the top of Lo'ak's head, his breath sounded shaky as he grabbed his son close. "Lo'ak." He didn't say anything else, just dug his fingers bruising and quivering into Lo'ak's back and held his son close.
Seconds, minutes, hours passed in silence as Lo'ak curled into the embrace of his father, seconds, minutes, hours passed as Jake smoothed assessing hands down Lo'ak's spine like he was making sure his son was still there, seconds or minutes or hours passed until Jake squeezed at the back of Lo'ak's neck and tipped his head back towards the sky with a low, shaking exhale.
And when Lo'ak sucked in a breath that shook and lifted his eyes to follow his father's gaze, the light of the sun painted gold across the sky.