Chapter Text
Her screams are animalistic, her face a rictus of pain and her movements jerky. Uncoordinated as her hands dig the knife deeper into the body beneath her. The one that was no longer a person, but a pile of skin and bones for her to punctuate with her blade.
It’s not laced with toxins like her arrows, but it’s big enough that the tip of it goes through to the other side easily every time. And it comes out again with an impressive spray of blood as she shrieks, ripping the blade out in an arch that has the bright red liquid splattering against the deck.
Movement catches her eyes, and she pounces on the next victim, who barely has time to breathlessly beg for mercy before they too become a meat sack for her to tear into.
She’s so close to him that Spider can see how her pupils have turned to slits, how her teeth, bared in anguish, drip with saliva and glint in the firelight. She’s so close that he can hear the muted thump of the ikran claw meeting bone, flesh, muscle.
Over and over again, until the human is no longer recognisable.
Only then does she stop, and scream over the body in pure rage. Her tail lashes behind her so quickly it’s a near blur, and her head tilts side to side. Looking for another victim.
Her gaze drifts over his hiding spot, and Spider barely manages to duck before she catches sight of him. He presses his shoulders against the metal behind him, feeling the edge of the lifejacket dig into the back of his neck. The cold seeping into his skin. Just about keeping the razor sharp claws of terror from burying into his body instead.
If she gets him now, there’s no doubt that she’ll pounce on him like the other two humans. And she wouldn’t have any cognitive thought to be able to distinguish him from the others, to be able to recognise him for who he is, not what . Not like this.
So he stays right where he is, concentrating on the thumping of his heart in his ears, the hiss of his breath. And not on the snarls behind him, or the quiet tap of feet as she moves across the deck.
At one point, he thinks he’s safe to move, and then something wet sounds behind him. He twists a little - ignores the glazed eyes that he sees first, holds against the twist of his stomach that comes with the sight of gore - and watches with wide eyes as Neytiri yanks an arrow out of a different human.
The head glints in the firelight, and he shivers in fear.
But then the terror is snuffed out easily by the sight of her broken bow. It snaps her out of her anger too, because she stares at it for a moment with such sadness that it has Spider’s nose burning. Her brow crinkling, her mouth downturning and her eyes dimming just a little bit more. His breath stutters in his chest at the sight, his whole body locking up and tensing, his eyes brimming with tears.
That’s her father’s bow, the one that’s always remained on the wall of their pod. Only taken down and used in ceremonial hunts to honour his memory. He didn’t realise she’d taken it with her.
Or that she was using it to kill the recoms and the humans.
It gives a retribution for Eytukan’s death. A revenge of sorts, which is obviously not enough to satiate her, if she’s still looking for victims.
It’s also heartbreaking to see how Neytiri simply sets her sorrow aside in favour of a blank faced anger.
He waits and watches as she goes, stepping over fallen bodies and barely looking back. They mean nothing to her, and when she finally disappears into the smoke, Spider makes his move.
Creeping across the deck by keeping his body low, hopping over jagged bits of metal and attempting to avoid the corpses. Darting back when a piece of the ship suddenly explodes.
He catches a hint of the smell of burning flesh through his exopack and gags. Pauses to lift his hand to the edge of the rubber. Ready to tear it off if his stomach rebels against him properly, but breathing through his nose deeply so it doesn’t come to that.
There are no respectful injuries here, that he can be sure of. No one singular fatal wound to kill the person humanely, just multiple incisions made by a hunter with half of her cognitive mind under her control. He can’t even stop to close their eyes, and barely spares a look for the recoms where they lay.
He wonders again if he would have been one of them, had he taken even a single step out of his hiding spot. If he’d exposed a bit of his pale skin to the firelight would she have killed him just as brutally. Or would he have been able to try to reason with her? Or would he have taken one glance at those cold eyes and just accepted his own fate?
A piece of metal collapsing startles him badly, but he clamps down against the gasp that wishes to escape his mouth, and keeps himself as quiet as he can amongst the crackling flames. It’s not difficult; the fire has encompassed half of the ship and it’s large enough to easily make up for any silence. Or loud, clumsy noises caused by kids trying to be as stealthy as trained adults.
He hears voices just ahead, the low growl of Quaritch as he threatens someone. As usual.
Spider rounds the last bit of the broken ship, wincing when his toes splash into the sea and darting for cover. Peering over the top of a supply crate which is nearly on its final legs and freezing again.
Quaritch has Kiri.
And not like last time, with his hands wrapped around her arms keeping her still.
He’s holding a knife to her neck. The serrated one which always hangs on his belt. It seemed so big whenever Spider caught a glimpse of it, and he understands why now. Its length encompassing the width of Kiri’s neck easily.
“Kill him Dad!” she shouts, and the sudden break in the silence has Spider jolting a little in place. Quaritch tugs back against her hair fiercely, and Tuk whines when the knife digs in further.
(Spider ignores the anger that threatens to overtake his thoughts, the hatred that is sweeping through his veins so suddenly he feels he’s on fire.
Tuk shouldn’t be here. Shouldn’t be seeing this, she’s only nine she’s a kid.
This isn’t fair.
And yet, she whimpers again when Kiri is jostled, and Spider can do nothing but apologise profusely because this is kind of his fault.)
“Drop the weapons,” Quaritch shouts, even as Jake desperately pleads for him to let Kiri go, “now. Do you want to lose another kid, Corporal? Put the knife on the ground, or I slit her throat.”
With a loud clang, Jake throws his weapons down, and Spider flinches at the noise. When he’s told - ordered - to kick them away he obeys, and Spider winces when he tomahawk and knife skitter to the edge of the deck. Threatening to tilt the rest of the way into the sea.
Quaritch shuffles until he’s able to free one hand but keep Kiri close to his body. Fingers scrabbling for a back pocket, he grunts at the effort it takes. A small whimper escapes Kiri’s lips when his movement jostles the blade, but Spider holds his hiding spot. Barely.
“Cuff yourself,” Quaritch tells Jake with no small amount of triumph, tossing a set of red cuffs onto the deck of the ship so they land where the weapons lay. And that’s what has Spider running out from his hiding spot. Because if Jake is cuffed, who will save Kiri?
“No!” he exclaims, darting out from behind the airlock door he’d been hiding behind, exposing himself to the elements, “don’t! Don’t do this, don’t hurt her!”
“You stand there!” Quaritch roars at him, and it has Spider’s feet sticking to the metal beneath. Like an animal caught in a predator’s claws. “Don’t. Move. Not a step.”
Spider breathes, and glances at Jake. He tries to give a sign that he can help, that he could maybe reason with Quaritch. But the expression that meets his eyes is one of utter defeat, and Jake is quick to snap one part of the cuff onto his wrist.
“You son of a bitch,” Jake snarls, voice breaking with emotion but eyes burning with rage and hate and sadness. A potent mix which has nowhere to go.
Spider tries again, trying to see if there’s some relaxing in the man’s shoulders as he takes a step forward, his hands held palms out. “Please,” he says, “don’t hurt her.”
Something like fear causes Quaritch’s eyes to widen, but then Spider finds the back of his hair being grabbed - right at the base, where a tswin would be - and his body pulled back so that his back arches painfully. A familiar snarl grazing the shell of his ear.
Quaritch swivels on his heel with a surprised sound, and pulls Kiri with him. Placing them at an angle so that he can keep an eye on both adults, but also allowing Spider to see her properly.
Terror suddenly has his blood turning to ice as a knife is placed against his neck. The same one that smells of copper and feels tacky against his skin. She came from nowhere, how did he not hear her? His breath comes stuttered and uneven, fogging up the bottom of his mask badly.
“Release,” she hisses quietly, and Spider’s gaze darts between them as the tip of the knife digs into the curve at the base of his throat, “or I cut.”
The blade is cold, and a trickle of something works its way down to Spider’s chest slowly, causing a shiver to make its way up his spine. And it’s because of Quaritch’s sudden change in expression that he knows he won’t be able to depend on a rescue from him.
And that Neytiri is banking on that to save her daughter.
“Think I care about some kid?” he says with a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders. Kiri wiggles a little, but his hand tightens on the pommel of his blade, even though a small noise of discomfort escapes her. “He’s not mine. We’re not even the same species.”
“Just pl-please don’t– don’t hurt her,” Spider says, trying to reason with him again. Even though he knows it won’t work. But his voice comes out with a desperate crack in it as he says, “Just please let her go.”
And Neytiri wrenches him back again with another animalistic snarl, beads clicking when her ears fold backwards.
“Mom, please don’t kill him,” Kiri says over the blade, and Spider feels his stomach drop to his feet. His eyes burning with tears again.
“Please, don’t hurt her.”
“Don’t kill him, Mom, he hasn't done anything.”
“Just let her go, please.”
“Don’t hurt him.”
“Don’t hurt her–”
He’s burning. A line of flame shoots across his chest and he can’t help the yelp of pain that escapes him. He breathes against the hurt, breathes through the heat to gain control of himself before the day catches up with him.
She cut him. She actually hurt him.
“I cut,” she says again, and it feels like it has more weight to it than the last time.
“Just–Please, just let her go, okay?” he says again, “Just let her go.”
The tension builds suddenly and swiftly, and he feels Neytiri move him before he can even comprehend it. Shrieking in grief as she bends his back further and holds the knife high above his chest.
“No!” comes Quaritch’s voice, and Spider stares at him incredulously. The Colonel’s face gives nothing away, but his actions speak for themselves as he lets go of Kiri’s braid and allows her to drop to the ground with a thump.
Spider’s breaths are still quick and loud, but they lose the panicked edge when Kiri reaches Tuk and her dad. Finally reaches safety. And he would let some part of his body relax with relief - his shoulders maybe because they’re screaming at him about the position - but he’s still staring at the knife held above him.
Still wincing at the slice across his chest.
For a moment, he hopes, wishes for mercy. Waits for the knife to lower to the ground and for Neytiri to shove him away with no small amount of hatred.
But then, the knife comes down to his neck again, this time pressing against his Adam’s apple, and he realises.
She’s really going to kill him.
“Babe, baby what’re you doing?” Jake asks, but Spider doesn’t take his eyes from her face. Doesn’t allow himself to watch as Kiri and Jake both protest Neytiri’s decision. Doesn’t let himself flinch when she hisses at them dangerously.
“A son for a son,” she says with no small amount of hatred, and grief, and she turns to him again.
Her eyes are so yellow, so acidic, bright like the stuff the RDA drew from the Tulkun’s bodies that Spider can’t help but stare. Waiting for the inevitable press of the blade when a small call of his name distracts him.
And one look at Kiri and Tuk, both watching with the same amount of fear he’s got running through his body has a single thought encompassing all others.
He doesn’t want to die.
Not like this, not by this hand. Not with his friends– sisters watching. Not with a brother already dead before him, not with the man who started this staring at him with some sick sort of familiarity. Not with an ikran claw digging into his neck.
He won’t.
He shuts his eyes tight, so much so that colours flicker within the darkness. He clenches his hands into fists until his nails dig into the meat of his palms and distracts him from the wound on his chest. He ignores all sounds, shuts out all pain and just–
Falls.
Like he does when he’s in that place between sleep and awake, but when he gets close to impact his eyes snap open and his body ‘lands’ in his bed.
Except, he lands in the SeaDragon. Watching the Tulkun attack the ship. A familiar red canister glinting at him from the corner of his eye.
He doesn’t think, just does, following muscle memory as he snatches the thing from its place in the wall and collides it with the driver’s temple. Causing him to crumple onto the floor bonelessly.
The controls are as easy to destroy as last time, and Spider sends a leering smile in the direction of the science guy when he’s dragged away.
Was it a dream?
He can’t help but think it was as they follow the same pathway as before. And when he subtly glances upwards, he spies the wary movements of Lo’ak and Neteyam as they follow from the rafters above their heads.
Just like the last time, they drop on top of the RDA soldiers, easily taking them by surprise and overcoming them quickly.
“Spider!” Lo’ak says with the same enthusiasm. “It’s good to see you safe.”
“Nice of you to drop in,” he says with an amused grin. Neteyam groans and rolls his eyes as he empties the clips on the soldier’s guns. “We need to get out of here.”
“Which way?” Neteyam asks, and Spider’s stomach squeezes harshly at his voice. He was only dead a little over half an hour, but even still the grief is palpable. He shoves it away though in favour of pointing ahead of them.
“Down there,” he says, “but we need to be careful of patrols.”
There’s a nod and then they’re moving. And Spider marvels at the teamwork between the two brothers, how easily they move together without a word. How they use hand signals he can’t even begin to comprehend without hesitating.
How much had they learned in the time he was captured, he wonders. Staring at them in amazement when they work to take out an entire squad, with little help from him.
Spider finds a smile inching up his cheeks, his expression turning into one of hope as they work their way through the ship with ease. Just like last time.
Maybe it had all been a dream. A warning, that if he didn’t do something specific someone he loves would die. It would be a pretty nasty method of teaching a life lesson, but he supposes it’s only a possibility of what could be.
And yet, somehow, everything turns out as it did before.
The attack within the main hangar splits them up, and Lo’ak and Spider jump first. He stays a moment to watch as Neteyam sprints for the water, and his body jolts when he’s hit.
Spider swims towards him as soon as he lands, grabbing for his torso and having them break the surface as quickly as he can get them too.
The rasping sounds of Neteyam’s breath is as horrible as last time, and the dread is so heavy and thick Spider’s barely able to hold onto the girl's water creature as they dart away from the ship.
This is his fault. Again. He couldn’t do anything to stop it, couldn’t save him his fault hisfault hisfaulthisfaulthis fault
“Spider!”
The voice has his eyes snapping up from Neteyam’s blank dead gaze. And into Jake’s which burns with a familiar anger.
“Where are the girls?” he asks, and Spider jolts into action. Desperate for something to ground him because this is starting to feel real, and not a dream.
The battle is the same, the blood and guts and screaming and fire are all the same. The fear, palpable as an animal scratching against his back, is the same. And the bent back position, and the knife at his neck, is enough to have Spider squeezing his eyes shut again.
Because he doesn’t want to die, he really doesn’t, he can fix this, he can figure out a way to mend everything he really can just don’t let him be killed–
And once again Spider squeezes his eyes until he sees stars, clenches his fists until he feels the muted pain.
And
he
falls.