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Two months had passed since Neteyam’s death.
Two months of mourning and grief.
Two months of pain and crying and struggling to make it through the day.
Two goddamned months of Lo’ak living without his brother for the first time in his life.
There was a gaping hole in his chest, like nothing would ever be okay again, like something as simple as breathing could cave his lungs in. Enough time had passed that people started expecting him to heal, to recover, to return to some sense of normalcy.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” they’d say, then keep talking like it was just something they needed to get out of the way, as if Lo’ak had moved on as quickly as they had.
His family was a wreck, maybe as much as he was. Jake had become completely closed off, seeming to have turned off his emotions rather than process them. Neytiri wore the traditional clothes of mourning, allowing the loss of her eldest to hit her full force.
Kiri had been heartbroken, and her usual sarcastic quips and jokes were traded for quiet, weighted silence.
Tuk cried at any mention of her lost brother, and Lo’ak wanted to cry right along with her.
It was his fault that Neteyam had died in the first place, after all. If he hadn’t been so stupid, so stuck in his own head, Neteyam would be with them. He and he alone was responsible for his family’s suffering, for his own suffering.
Only, this mistake wasn’t one that could be fixed. No amount of apologies, wishes, or ‘what if’s’ could ever fix this wound.It was a gaping valley in a mountain range, unavoidable, easy to sink and fall and drown in until you didn’t recognize yourself anymore.
What right did Lo’ak have to experience life when his brother was eternally fifteen?
He didn’t know how he’d even made it this far, if he was honest. Life without his older brother was something foreign and strange, something sticky and slimy and dirty.
He hated it, hated it, hated it.
Lo’ak knew his father blamed him for Neteyam’s death. He knew what those looks Jake gave him meant, the subtle hate. How Jake always jerked his eyes away from Lo’ak like it hurt too much to only see one son.
God, Jake probably wished it was him who’d died.
What did Lo’ak ever do for them? All he ever heard was about all his mistakes, all his wrongs, everything he could have fixed.
Neteyam had been perfect, smart, responsible. He was the better brother, Lo’ak thought.
There wasn’t a question about it. And instead of Neteyam becoming something great, something legendary like he was always meant to be, he was only a passing sadness in the clan’s mind and a permanent black hole in Lo’ak’s soul.
There was no cure, no sudden revival, no wake-up from a bad dream, because reality itself had become the nightmare.
There was no way to escape, no happily ever after. There never would be.
Maybe Lo’ak would be better off dead with his brother rather than just causing his family further problems.
Jake had been so, so angry with him lately. Everything he did was messed up.
And maybe Lo’ak deserved this cruel twist of fate.
He deserved to suffer for his brother’s death.
He deserved to cry himself to sleep every goddamn night.
He deserved the heartache, the heartbreak, the hurt.
Nothing would ever be the same. Nothing would ever be okay.
Neteyam would fade from people’s worlds until he was a small piece of their past, and, god, Lo’ak prayed they held onto that small piece of his brother.
Neteyam deserved that and so, so much more.
He deserved to be remembered.
He deserved to be loved.
He deserved to be alive.
Lo’ak wanted to scream and cry and throw up, wanted to die and wanted to live to remember his brother all at once.
He wanted to feel everything and feel nothing because it was all too much, too much, too much.
This would be how the story ends.
A brother dead and a brother lost.
But which brother was which?…