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“I see you,” Neytiri had whispered to him. She’d placed her hand on his face, her wide palm dwarfing his jaw. Jake had pulled him into his arms, with Neytiri crushing him from the other side. He had closed his eyes and let their bodies warm his chilled skin and brace the tremors that wracked his frame, ignoring Jake’s jade knife pressing into his thigh from where it’d been abandoned on the ground. He’d smiled through the tears, accepted Jake’s hand pulling him up from the ground, and had followed them back to Neytiri’s mount, Sa’ata, which had carried them up into the air and away from the forest that had nearly become his final resting place.
And yet, Spider was sure that a part of him would never leave that forest clearing, that narrow log, that patch of sunlight that Jake had chosen because it had seemed like the nicest nearby place where he could sacrifice Spider. Put him down like a sick ikran that had outlived its purpose.
For once, sitting between Jake and Neytiri, his cheek resting on Neytiri’s back, with Jake’s arms braced on either side to keep him from falling, he didn’t feel tense. He didn’t feel anxious, or guilty. The darkness behind his eyes was soft, and warm, and empty. And Spider just felt numb.
“Wake, Spider,” Neytiri’s voice whispered softly, after an eternity. “My son, we are here.”
The second statement had stirred him, the kind of thing that he had ached to hear for so long, and yet had never expected to. It had only taken nearly dying for it to be true. Spider lifted his head, self consciously wiping his mouth when he realized he must have been openly drooling on Neytiri’s shawl. The world was still wreathed in darkness, and Spider’s head spun as he looked up into unbroken shadow, instead of the open skies and wide, bright beaches of the Metkeyina. For a moment, illogical panic gripped his heart, metal walls closing in around them, burying them inside one of the Sky People’s metal monsters. His breath caught, until he felt Neytiri’s hand brush over his hair, her thumb pressing against his cheek.
“Spider?”
He blinked up at her, following her glance to see Jake waiting at the ground by the mount’s side. Jake’s brow was furrowed in concern.
Spider shook his head. “Sorry, I-” he swallowed the words. “Sorry.” He swung his leg over the side, sliding down the ikran until his feet hit the ground. His knees nearly buckled, he leaned into the beast for support. Sa’ata keened softly, twisting her head around and nudging Spider.
A large hand dropped onto Spider’s shoulder, pressing against a sore spot, and Spider cringed away from the pain, from the words that echoed in his ears.
Kneel. Eyes front. Don't move.
“Spider, I-” Jake’s voice broke, pulling his hand back as if burned.
“Sorry,” Spider said again, biting his lip. He didn’t even know what he was apologizing for, other than everything felt broken, and everything felt wrong, and it was somehow all his fault. He squeezed his eyes shut, wishing for that numbness, instead of this crushing dread and the feeling that he would have been better off left in the forest.
“We’re at High Camp,” Jake said, and now Spider noticed the shelters and campfires, smothered to embers. Their arrival had stirred up the People somewhat, but they were hanging back, maintaining a respectful distance. Pushing through a few of the onlookers was a tall blue body clothed in the garb of the Sky People. And yet, Spider felt only a deep sense of relief at the sight of his familiar face.
“Oh, thank Eywa,” Norm said as he approached, clasping hands with Jake. He hugged Neytiri warmly and was reaching to clasp a hand on Spider’s back when he faltered, face falling as he got a good look at him. Spider straightened, tried to flash the scientist a familiar smile, but it felt false and plasticky on his face, so he let it fall, staring down at his feet.
“Jesus, kiddo,” Norm murmured, dropping into a crouch. He still met Spider at eye level, and Spider felt every inch of the gaze that swept over him from head to toe, noting every scrape and bruise, and the caged way that he held himself. “Maybe I should check you out, huh?”
To Spider’s horror, tears filled his eyes. “N-no, I’m- Please, I just- I wanna sleep, Norm, you don’t have to-” his voice cracked and he gasped in a shuddery breath, slamming his eyes closed against the alarmed gazes of the three adults staring down at him.
“Alright, easy, Spider, hey…” Norm shushed him, wrapping an arm around Spider and pulling him into a soft hug. Spider fought to contain his sobs, biting them down as he leaned into Norm.
“You’re shaking like a leaf, Spider,” Norm murmured, his hand brushing against the back of his head. “It’s okay, kiddo. You’re safe. It’s over.”
Spider didn’t have it in him to argue, or explain that it wasn’t over, and that was part of the reason that he felt so tired. He just bit his lip as tears slipped over his face, fighting to get the reaction back under control.
Stop it, you skxawng, he cursed himself, fighting to shove the bubbling tide of emotions back down. He was better than this at hiding how he felt. He’d hidden his fear from the Sky People (both times he’d been taken and tortured), he’d hidden his dejection from the Sully family for years growing up (every time he’d been rejected or left behind). And now, when it really mattered, he felt raw and exposed, like the baby kuru that the scientists had been one step away from dissecting.
He bit his tongue until he tasted copper, focusing on that sharp pain, and on the dull ache pulsing through his entire body, slowly beating him into submission. His ears were ringing, but he could hear the adults talking over his head, muttering to each other in concern.
“What did they do to him?” Norm was asking.
“I don’t know,” Jake admitted, his voice guttural with guilt. “But that wasn’t the only… when we got away, after, there was… we had a…”
“Jake, what happened?” Norm asked above Spider’s head, and Spider felt another surge of panic. He couldn’t hear it retold, couldn’t listen to Jake tell someone else in front of him, because that would make it real. A real thing that really happened, the closest thing that he had to a father holding a knife to his throat in the stark sunlight, telling him not to look, telling him that he would be with Ewya, that this was the only way-
“-ider, Spider, breathe! Breathe!” Norm was shouting above him, and his ears were ringing, and the world was closing in around his eyes, tunneling down, and he wondered if this was what it would have been like if Ewya had guided Jake’s hand, his knife, through his throat, if she had accepted him into her arms instead of leaving him here for more-
A sharp blow knocked his face to the side, and a pained gasp sucked air into his lungs. He shoved out of Norm’s arms, stumbling onto the ground, scrambling back.
“-the hell, Neytiri, seriously?” Norm was barking at her.
Neytiri dropped into a crouch and slid next to Spider’s side, so quickly that he flinched. Her hand closed around his jaw, firm but gentle. Her wide yellow eyes settled in front of his, until they took up his entire world.
“You will breathe, my son,” she ordered, and the even keel of her tone made the order seem absolute and unavoidable. “And you will calm. No further harm will come to you here.”
Spider offered a shaky nod, pulling in uneven breaths, and Neytiri settled her other hand over his heart, breathing deeply with him until he felt some of the tension bleed from his muscles. Neytiri pulled back, kneeling a few feet away, and Norm joined her side. Jake stood back, watching with pained eyes.
“Let’s get you some rest, yeah?” Norm offered. “We can worry about anything else in the morning.”
“Early,” Neytiri amended, a smile flickering across her face as she glanced back at Spider. “Your brother and sisters will be eager to see you.”
The thought of seeing Lo’ak, Kiri, and Tuk within another day’s ride grounded him, and this time, the smile that he offered was real, if tenuous.
“Attaboy,” Norm said, offering a hand. Spider took it, letting Norm pull him up swiftly. His stomach lurched when the Avatar pulled him clear off his feet and swung him up onto his back. Spider latched his legs around his waist by instinct, his arms locking around the man’s neck.
“You’ve been on your feet enough,” Norm commented as he headed toward the berths.
Spider didn’t argue, just dropped his face into the man’s neck, relaxing into the familiar smells, sounds, and the sway of Norm’s footsteps, slowly rocking him into a stupor…
He was half-asleep when Norm placed him gently onto a soft surface and draped a blanket over his shoulders. Spider never even opened his eyes as he clutched the blanket close and rolled onto his side, away from Norm’s receding footsteps.
Cuffs bite into his skin.
A blade slices through his flesh.
Fingers pry at his jaw, shoving something hard between his teeth.
Cold presses in on all sides.
A blunt tool scrapes down his throat as he tries to convince himself he can breathe-
Hands hold him down-
Hands push him down-
The knife at his throat-
“Don’t look at me, please don’t look-”
Spider jolted upright, his heart thundering in his ears. The lab, the hands, they were- he was-
The room was cold. He was shivering, bare on this surface, his sweat chilling against his skin.
It was dark, but there was enough ambient light for his eyes to adjust, make out the hard edges of work tables, the computers that were blank but hummed in their sleep.
They’d forgotten the straps. The door was open.
Spider stumbled off the table, his feet tangling underneath him in his haste to reach the door. There was a tug and sudden sting in his arm. He hit a knee-high obstacle with a loud clash and clang, his shoulder singing with pain as it connected with the ground, and there was shouting outside, someone was shouting, loud, angry-
He pulled himself off the floor by gripping the cold edge of a table. When he got himself upright, he cringed away entirely. All he saw was the glint of metal, wrapped instruments, the bright colors and logos of Sky People tools. His back hit a wall and he kept moving to the side, putting as many steps between him and that table as he could. In the stark, sterile air, he could smell his own blood, and his arm was hurting, and where was Jake-
A doorway hissed open, and Spider let loose an angry cry, grabbing the first loose object his hand could find and launching it at the intruder.
“Whoa, Christ- Spider, it’s me! It’s Norm! I come in peace, quit- quit throwing stuff-”
Spider held out a hard object in front of him, his only weapon, breath heaving as his brain scrambled to catch up. Norm was good. The Sky People were bad. Norm was a human, not in his Avatar, but he wasn’t Sky People. Spider was in a lab. He didn’t want to be here. He was fairly sure that Norm had brought him here. Where was Jake? Where was Jake, where was-
Two large, blue figures ducked into the doorway behind Norm, crouching to fit in the small space. Spider shuddered when he saw Jake, flickers of forest and skinned knees and sunny clearings passing through his mind. He squeezed his eyes shut, letting loose a growl as he threw the object at the ground in his frustration.
“Hey, Spider, easy on the staplers, please, I only have a few more of them,” Norm was fighting for a light tone, but Spider had grown up with him. He knew what it sounded like when the man was upset with him, and this didn’t sound like that. This didn’t sound like joking, either. This sounded like scared.
“Spider, you’re safe now, we got you home, I swear-”
“NO!” Spider cried, shoving his hands against his ears to block out Jake’s words. “Don’t say that! You were gonna… you were gonna…”
A softer voice pushed the other two back. “Mawey, ma’itan. Mawey.”
Spider trembled again, looking up to see Neytiri creeping forward, hands raised with her palms toward him.
“Syeha si, ma’itan. Nga lu kxuke. Lu mawey.” Breathe, my son. You are safe. Be calm. The familiar notes and cadence of Na’vi washed over Spider like a balm, and tears blurred his vision. He couldn’t hold them back as Neytiri pulled him toward her, drawing him into her lap and wrapping a protective cage of arms around his body. Neytiri hummed softly, rocking back and forth, and slowly Spider began to settle.
“I’m sorry, I thought he would sleep better here… it’s quieter, and I thought it would be familiar…” Norm winced. “He probably woke up and thought… Shit, and he saw the stuff I left out… I was just going to treat some of his injuries while he was asleep.”
“This?” Neytiri swiped a finger over his arm, and Spider winced at the slight sting.
“He was dehydrated,” Norm said, his voice tight with remorse. “It’s just fluids, I swear. I thought… God, Spider, I’m so sorry.”
Spider shook his head. “No, I’m- I’m sorry, I- I didn’t realize-”
“Of course you didn’t,” Norm sounded torn between guilt and relief. “It was stupid. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, now,” Neytiri said simply. “You see you are safe.”
“Of course,” Norm reassured him. “And you don’t have to sleep in here, obviously. With your… I mean, you can sleep outside with everyone else, if you would be more comfortable there.”
“Yes,” Spider agreed quickly, though it twinged in his heart to think that that lab would no longer ever be a safe space for him. This place that he spent so much of his childhood, that he associated so many good experiences with, would always be tainted with the stain of the bad memories.
“Okay,” Norm agreed, sounding relieved. At least he didn’t seem upset that Spider didn’t want to be here. “Can I please give you a quick look-over? And then you can go outside to sleep, I promise.”
Spider dropped his head into his hands, feeling a wave of exhaustion wash over him. He had no idea how long he’d been asleep, but it wasn’t nearly enough. And the memory of those tools on the table made the room spin, made his skin crawl, brought flickers of the other place back.
Norm didn’t insist again, but he also didn’t take back the request. Spider must have looked really rough. Which was weird because, as invasive as the Sky People scientists had been, they had also been very deliberately careful about not hurting him. Or rather, damaging him. It would have cost them too much if he’d died.
“Listen to Norm,” Neytiri said, her voice firm but gentle. “We will be outside, waiting for you.”
That made Spider’s stomach hurt in an entirely different way. It felt good, to know he would be sheltered between them, tangled in their limbs the way that the Sully kids had grown up. It was just bizarre to think that less than a day ago, Jake had been willing, and dead set, on killing him to prevent the Sky People from unlocking the deadly secret trapped in his skin. A day ago, Neytiri had been willing to let him. If Spider had really thought about it, he would have assumed that it was her idea. But now she called him ma’itan and said they would wait for him. And he believed her.
Jake and Neytiri left, and Norm slowly rose from his crouch, holding out his hand. Spider took it and allowed the man to pull him to his feet. Followed him quietly back to the couch where he’d awoken. An IV pole was slowly leaking fluid into a puddle on the floor. Norm clamped the tubing closed and pushed it to the side, gesturing for Spider to take a seat on the couch.
Spider released a slow breath as he sat, grateful that Norm didn’t ask him to sit on the table.
“I’m not hurt,” he told Norm in a quiet voice, keeping his eyes on the floor as the man prepared something on the table.
“That’s up to me to decide,” Norm said as he turned back around with a couple pieces of gauze in his hands. “Look up for me.”
Spider complied, turning his face upward. Norm held his chin with gentle fingers and dabbed a bit of the gauze, wet with something, over an abrasion on his forehead. Though it was long scabbed over after a full night of travel, and a few more hours of sleep, it still stung. Spider winced at the sensation and tugged away. Norm let him, his hand falling to brush Spider’s wrist. Both arms were ringed with subtle bruises and scrapes, marks from where he’d fought against the restraints. Norm held one wrist at a time, treating the wounds gently before wrapping them with clean bandages.
“They aren’t that bad,” Spider said, though he didn’t pull away again. “I’ve had worse that have healed on their own.”
Norm’s mouth tightened as he fastened the end of the bandage. “They aren’t going to leave you with scars.”
He said it like it was decided. Like some ointment and gauze could wash away everything that the Sky People had done to him. Everything that they would do to him, again, if they caught up to him. The thought made Spider’s stomach ache.
“They aren’t going to give up,” Spider murmured. “They need… whatever’s in me. To figure out how to stay.”
“I don’t care,” Norm said, his voice uncharacteristically sharp. His hands drifted up, over a sharp, stinging wound on Spider’s neck with antithetical gentleness. Spider’s heart dropped when he realized what that cut must have been from. Norm’s hands stalled, his thumb brushing over the wound as if he could smooth it away. When Spider looked up into the older man’s eyes, they were hollow with shadows. Sadness. Rage.
“Jake told me what happened,” Norm said in a low voice. His eyes were fixed on Spider’s neck, as if against his will. “What he did. I wanted to kill him. God, I almost tried.”
Spider lowered his gaze, a new kind of pain lancing through his chest. “Jake was just… he thought we would be safer-”
“Don’t,” Norm stopped him, his voice slightly hoarse. “Please. Please, I cannot listen to you justifying your own murder.”
Spider winced at the wording, and it seemed to jolt Norm out of his horror. He turned around to grab another piece of wetted gauze, and dabbed it over the cut. This pain went deeper, sinking far below the skin.
“He had no right,” Norm continued. “No fucking right to make that kind of decision.”
Spider swallowed further protests, and not just because it would upset Norm. There was a scalding, tight feeling in his chest, like a hot spring about to erupt.
Norm taped a bandage in place, covering up the hurt, and his hands came up to cup the back of Spider’s head. His thumbs braced either side of Spider’s jaw, a grip so firm it toed the line of uncomfortable. Spider met Norm’s eyes, and there was something fierce and desperate in their depths. A fear that Spider had never known, and didn’t want to.
“You’re my kid, too,” Norm said, his voice shaking. “Nobody is taking you away from me.”
The hot feeling in Spider’s chest fractured into a rushing, frothing mess. His eyes filled with tears as he threw his arms around Norm and let out a sob. Norm sighed, tucking his face against the top of Spider’s head, squeezing his arms around the teenager.
“You’re too young. Too goddamn young to know what this shit feels like.”
Spider didn’t know exactly what he was referring to, but it was probably any of it. All of it. Torture and kidnapping and medical experimentation and a trusted adult trying to kill him and the thought that maybe- maybe- that would be the best thing for everyone after all. He burrowed deeper into Norm’s embrace, as if he could crawl into the man’s skin and escape it all. Norm let him cry it out, holding him, rocking back and forth slightly.
Spider couldn’t remember the last time that someone held him like this. Not Kiri or Tuk. A parent, an adult, someone shielding him from the world with no ulterior motive other than they thought that he deserved it. Even Jake and Neytiri’s hug in the forest had been more of a desperate bid for his forgiveness and a guilt-ridden apology all in one.
Eventually he pulled back, feeling wrung out and empty.
“You could stay here, you know,” Norm offered. “We can always use another set of hands.”
Spider cracked a smile as he wiped the snot off his nose. “You hate it when I help. I always break stuff.”
“Sometimes things are better off broken,” Norm said quickly, too quickly, and Spider chuckled. The levity didn’t last long.
Norm gave him another squeeze. “I’m always here for you. You know that, right? There are a lot of places where you belong in this world, Spider, and one of them is right here with me.”
Spider fought against another wave of tears as he looked up at the man, finally naming that hot, tight feeling in his chest. Gratitude. Love. So desperate that it was painful. He nodded, past words, and Norm nodded, too.
“Alright. You should get some sleep. You’ll be good… out there?”
Spider knew what he was really asking. If he wanted to sleep with Jake and Neytiri, after everything that had happened. Knew it was also him testing the waters, seeing if Spider really did want to go back with them.
He could stay. He loved Norm. He loved the forest, and the People. He would always be the odd little Pink Skin to them, but he still had a place here, like Norm said. But Spider knew that he was right about the Sky People never giving up their search for him. For the secrets that would allow them to infest Pandora like a virus. Like parasites. And Spider knew that the people most capable of preventing that were waiting outside for him.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “I’m good.”
Jake and Neytiri were sitting a ways away from the lab entrance. Jake was stirring a dying fire, teasing the last of the warmth from its embers. Their ears perked up when the door opened, their gazes following soon after. A shiver ran through him at the glint of their eyes in the dim light, but it was quickly smothered by the way they both stood to receive him.
Wordlessly, they led him to their sleeping quarters for the night. In the forest, the People slept in hammocks strung through the trees. In High Camp, they slept similarly to the Metkayina, on woven mats, often pressed close to one another for warmth. Jake and Neytiri silently guided Spider between them, until he was enveloped by both of them, feeling their strong heartbeats thundering against his own. He felt dwarfed by their Na’vi forms, a sharp contrast to the way that Norm had matched Spider’s size, had hugged him as if trying to make Spider small again, but couldn’t.
Spider gazed up at the distant stone ceiling, lit dimly by flickering ember and moon light. He knew that Jake and Neytiri were both still awake. He wondered if they were waiting for him to fall asleep first.
“They aren’t going to stop,” Spider murmured, taking himself by surprise.
Neytiri’s arms tightened around him, a wordless protest against the thought.
“They need me if they want to stay. They need me alive. So they can take me apart and pry this thing out of me and-”
“That’s not going to happen,” Jake interrupted him softly. “We won’t let them.”
Spider choked, halfway between a sob and a laugh. “It’s happened before.”
He didn’t need to see their faces to imagine their guilt.
“Maybe… maybe you were right. Maybe it would be best if I… if I went to Eywa.”
“No,” Neytiri whispered, sitting up abruptly and glaring down at Spider. “No!”
Spider sat up, too, but he was still looking up at her. Jake followed suit, watching them both with a gutted, empty expression.
“We could wait, until I have my first communion,” Spider continued, looking down at his hands. “Then… you could still see me. You’d know I was there. I could be with Neteyam.”
“No!” Neytiri barked again, and Spider flinched, wondering if mentioning her eldest son had been going too far. Neytiri grabbed Spider’s upper arms, and held him tight when he tried to draw back. “No. We want you here. Eywa does not get another one of my children. Not without a fight.”
Spider blinked away tears at her fierce stare. She pulled him roughly into her chest, her chin digging into the top of his head. Pressed against her, he watched as Jake shifted forward and reached out a hand, holding it against Spider’s cheek.
“Spider… I am so sorry. I’m sorry that I ever considered that an option. I’m sorry that I let you think it was an option. I said we would find another way, but the truth is, there can only be another way. I’m sorry that it took us so long to realize it, but I promise we are never going to forget. We're not going to let anything happen to you. And that is what's best.”
“But… the Sky People…” Spider said, a token protest. “If they figure out how to stay-”
“Eywa has given you a gift,” Neytiri cut him off. She released her grip on him, only so that she could put her hand on his chin, look deeply into his eyes. “Eywa wants you to stay. The Great Mother has all but declared that you belong here. That you belong with us. And I will deny her no longer. Neither will you. Yes?”
Spider’s protests died in his chest, and he nodded. Neytiri hugged him again, a crushing embrace, and Spider closed his eyes, feeling as if he was shrinking in his own body. Feeling as if he were younger than his 16 years. Most of the time he wished desperately that he was bigger, stronger, older. As Jake shifted next to them, wrapping his own long arms around both Spider and Neytiri, as he was lost in the warmth of both of them enclosed around him, he’d never felt smaller. Or more grateful for it.