Chapter Text
He doesn't taste, smell the ashes until later, when they kiss him, soot scraping his cheek in a way that makes think of the scruff of Norm's beard when Spider would nuzzle him as a kid the way Na'vi babies do (when Norm would pull away for a heartbeat, eyes panicked with responsibility he never asked for).
Ash fills his mouth, slithers down his throat, unwelcome and inescapable like all their gifts. Ash on the fingers they drag over their bodies, ash on their tongues whispering assurances, stop crying baby, we let them live.
He doesn't bother trying to explain that you can kill someone even when they haven't stopped breathing. When he talks he feels the ash still in his mouth, shifting like a snake or a cock, living, breathing, hungry.
Spider could spit it out, but he doesn't. He keeps it in his belly, scorching his insides, a punishment well earned.
Later on, the Metkayina people build fires on their beaches, for cooking and gathering. Spider stays away, despite invitations to join, only coming by when everyone else is gone. He brushes his hands through the still-warm ashes and thinks of lifting them to his mouth with one hand and the mask with the other, swallowing them down.
Sometimes, Spider sees embers glowing gently and he wants to eat them, too. He dreams of swallowing one down, fire scorching his throat clean, washed in flame from the inside out. He thinks that's the only way to get those hands off of his skin, those voices out of his head.