Rolani

very beautiful very sad very gay

they go see their little pebble, who (in my reality. ignoring the fact that their two systems are nowhere near each other) saved Grace, by not immediately shooting him in the face, and building him a little fort to hide out in at first, and keeping the others from shooting him in the face, and helping him find food for his trip to Erid.

Grace obviously helps Pandora save their sun, he'll need out with Norm and Max and figure out how to get taumoeba out to their star, and what not. so Spider doesn't have to hide him forever.

but he does at first. when Grace is a random crashed shuttle that barely survived it's fall through a sense patch of forest. he's curious and afraid and has no time to go get other scouts, especially if this is RDA, so he approaches, bow ready.

but he quickly finds Grace and Rocky. and they're clearly no threat. Rocky is... so strange. but he's grown up with blue feline aliens, so... he adjusts quick. and Grace needs a mask, his ship has oxygen, but that's only going to stretch so far. and Rocky is chirping at him while Grace dazedly— the man looks half dead, all skinny and weird colored and... withered —resets his translator.

and Spider decides he'll help them, cause... he doesn't see a reason not to. he helps Grace out of Mary. he's scarily fragile. and him and Rocky have to really manuever him out.

and Spider sets to making him a really nice fort and getting him water and tending his various injuries from his crash landing and the whole starving thing that's made him pretty fragile.

Rocky thinks this human is so amaze amaze amaze. because he's so kind. he's so helpful! so interesting, how he is human like Grace, but nothing like Grace! Grace is so shy about his body and privacy, when Spider— fun fun fun name. like Earth bug —is not. Grace cringes at the thought of being offered "Na'vi clothes" by Spider. it's funny. Spider is so different then all the human things Rocky has learned about Grace. Terran humans and Pandoran humans are so different. Grace lived in an apartment and had a job and technology. Spider lives in a "mauri" whenever he can and has a bow and a knife and hunts and gathers and only uses tech when he has to. tech doesn't "belong on Pandora", he says. interesting interesting interesting. and he wears jewelry like Rocky! and he speaks a different language then Grace and Rocky. and even his English is weird when he does speak Grace's language. nice but weird. kinda like how Rocky's English is weird. and Spider thinks Rocky is sick sick sick, but apparently that's cool!

and Grace... oh he missed kids. he missed kids really bad. he was always better with kids then other adults. and this kid is great. he's so smart, but still loves it learn and is asking Grace surprisingly complex questions about space and astrophage and Rocky and taumoeba. and same with Rocky, asking about Erid and quickly realizing he's the smarter of the two, and teasingly snubbing Grace to ask Rocky questions instead. he's fun and cheeky. and... having missed seeing another human for so long, and then this one shows up, with blonde hair like his, and just... looking sorta like him... maybe his desperation to connect with him makes that bond naturally paternal.

"Grace imprint on similar pebble, Grace cute when he imprints on pebble"

"Rocky no–"

cue Spider tearing up, cause this guy likes him that much? and he's hugging Grace really tight. so tight, maybe forgetting about the whole malnourished thing, that he almost breaks one of his ribs. but Grace just pats his head.

and Spider got him food. good food. better than taumoeba slurries. Grace watches him hunt and gather around the forest and bring it back to him. he's so smart (Grace is literally crying).

and eventually they get his strength back enough that Spider thinks he'll survive meeting the resistance.

and the rest is history. saying goodbye to each other so Rocky can go back to Erid and save his star and see Adrian is hard. there's lots of hugs. and Grace feels like he's losing a child (even if this child is twice his size). and Spider doesn't want him to leave, doesn't want Rocky to leave. but he knows they have to. they leave with new jewelry and a stock of food. Spider has xenonite charms and maybe a blade or something.

like being with the recoms had to be a mindfuck. at all times. his social norms would be so different then the squads. they're all modest and Terran-y and he's... not. he's happy to roam the forest in nothing but his loincloth and spend his days tending for himself. while they're scandalized when he's walking around base "half naked", and cracking jokes he doesn't get, and relying on the RDA's forces to just about anything, even get a drink of water.

maybe at bridgehead, he sees some of the civilian families that surrendered (High Ground), and even if he, a prisoner, isn't allowed to interact with them. maybe he sneaks to try and see if he can find the McCosker boys (he grew up with them, he probably misses them). maybe he watches from afar. it's so clear the difference between them, no matter what.

and even compared to Jake and Norm and Max. I'd love to see how he sticks out amongst them. the little habits and quirks that the terrans still have, even in their blue bodies. while Spider, and his pink skin, lacks them entirely. while Spider's first instincts have always been very Na'vi in nature. even if it's just the way he'll crane his neck like the Na'vi would flick an ear at a sound, where the humans and once humans still turn their entire head. or the way he moves to perch on everything like a feline, while, even to this day, neither Norm nor Jake can fully trust even their avatar joints to allow that. he speaks differently then them, in either language. he knows how to use tech and human utensils and guns, but you can tell that the workings of Na'vi tools and eating with his hands or with only a knife and a bow come so much more naturally. while the avatars are stuck between both worlds, having preferences so clearly defined in them.

.

.

.

something something, Spider admitting to Lo'ak, before his blessing, how he feels guilty for not only causing Neteyam's death, but also for Lo'ak's own guilt and the sickness it's brewed in his head— if you guy's hadn't come back for me, he'd still be here! and you... you wouldn't blame yourself for something I caused, and... and. Eywa Lo'ak, I already feel like his death is my fault, Lo'... if you... left us too. cause of him. cause you blame yourself. I would feel like I killed you. I killed both of you. I can't lose both my little brothers, Lo', I can't do it—and Lo'ak telling him what Neteyam told him. that they had to go back. that they went back for him, because he mattered. because he was their brother. and they needed him. no matter the risk. and having to face that it was neither of their faults. even if he can't believe it outside of that night when he hugged his brother to his chest and just kept repeating— we had to go back we had to go back we had to go back it wasn't our fault —into his hair. they can just hold each other until the pain soothes, just slightly. Lo'ak cries for his big brothers, and Spider cries for his little ones. and neither can truly imagine the others pain. Lo'ak can't imagine not being able to hear those words from Neteyam himself. he hardly believes them, and he's heard them straight from Neteyam's lips. felt Neteyam's warm arms around them, telling him loved him. but he tries to force them into Spider's skin with the brute force of locking his arms around him.

something something, Lo'ak finding out, after his own attempt, when he spends every day reminding himself he deserves to be here, about what Jake nearly did and how Spider was ok with it, as if he believed, deep down, he should die for the 'greater good'. and realzing that Spider has always believed that. realizing that his brother, even if the sickness and its method of poisoning his mind are different, is sick like him. Lo'ak telling him— if I have to stay in this life, then you do to! don't make me do this alone Spider. please I... I promise I'm trying, so... so you have to promise to try too. you have to want to stay, you have to try! —because he can't fathom losing another brother. he can't stomach the fact his big brother wants to die like him, even if the thoughts are quieter. more insidious. waiting for someone to take his life instead of making his fingers itch. terrified of the possibility of Spider feeling that itch one day. and he tries to physically keep Spider held into this world like the girls had weeks, if not months before.

something something, my boys being brothers in their grief and shared suicidality (intent vs ideation)