#extradirty
Peter Solarz
Sade Olutola
blake kathryn
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
i don't do bad sauce passes
Andulka
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Origami Around
🪼
we're not kids anymore.
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Product Placement
art blog(derogatory)
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
Kaledo Art
❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
will byers stan first human second
Kiana Khansmith
seen from Malaysia
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seen from South Africa
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@mylastflowers
AHH I still can’t get enough of this game. I admittedly started the DLC’s not in order, but I just started Skybreaker. I’m loving it, but man it’s challenging. I’m so intimated to try fire and ash once I’ve completed everything else.
My Tamtey guy is so pretttyy
Playing in photo mode. Tamtey + the western frontier’s wildlife. :D
TAMTEY 💥 I had so much fun with this! The game is totally my fav.
hi jackie Shauna fans yellowjackets😊🐝🐝🐝🐝buzz buzz buzz yuri
Spider!
+ Mangkwan alt hehe
Threaded by memories
Avatar: Fire and Ash Post-canon oneshot ft. Spider x Kiri - just some silly fluff.
—
Spider works slowly. Not because he has to, but because this matters.
The tide pools near the reef glow faintly in the late afternoon, bioluminescence still tucked away, waiting for night. Spider kneels at the edge of one, bare feet half-submerged, fingers sorting carefully through a small collection of things he's gathered over days. All delicately chosen.
A curved shard of pale reef-shell, smoothed by years of water. A thin strand of woven kelp-fiber, dried and softened until it bends without breaking. Tiny beads carved from sky-stone he traded for with the Metkayina kids—cool blue-green, almost translucent, like shallow water caught mid-breath.
And lastly, a button from Grace's lab coat.
It rests apart from the others, cradled in his callused palm instead of the sand. Small. Off-white. Plain plastic, faintly yellowed with age. One of those things no one would ever miss. And somehow, the most important piece of all.
Getting it hadn't been easy. Not because it was guarded, exactly. But because of where it lived now. The old things originally from Hell's Gate. What little had been salvaged, were kept tucked away in a sealed storage hut near the edge of the village, half-forgotten, half-sacred. Equipment no one used anymore. Crates no one liked to open. The Sullys didn't talk about it much. Kiri least of all. Some memories still sat too close to the surface.
Spider had waited days before he went near it.
He told himself he was just curious at first. That he wanted to see it again. The lab. The place that smelled like antiseptic and warm electronics and Grace Augustine's constant, barely contained impatience.
The hut had been quiet when he finally slipped inside, light filtering through woven walls in pale strips. Dust hung in the air, slow and drifting. Everything inside felt... paused. As if the room itself was holding its breath.
The lab coat had been folded neatly in a storage crate, wrapped in protective fabric. Someone—probably Norm—had taken care with it. Spider recognized it immediately anyway. The cut of the sleeves. The faint cigarette scorch mark near one cuff. A smear of old, indelible ink near the pocket where Grace used to keep her stylus.
He hadn't planned on touching it. But his fingers had moved on their own.
The fabric was softer than he remembered. At least from the spirit world. Thinner, too.
He'd lifted it just enough to see the front, and that's when he noticed the missing stitch near the hem. One button loose, hanging by a single tired thread, like it had been waiting years for someone to notice.
Spider stood there for a long time. He thought about about the way Grace's voice lived on in her, not just in sound, but in curiosity, in stubborn kindness, in the way she reached for the world like it might answer back.
Taking the button didn't feel like stealing.
It felt like... carrying something forward.
He'd clipped the thread cleanly, careful not to damage the fabric, careful not to leave a mess behind. The button slipped easily into his bag, warm from his hand, heavier than it had any right to be. He hadn't told anyone.
Not because he was ashamed, but because this part was his.
Now, sitting at the edge of the reef, Spider turns the button over once more before threading it in. He places it near the center of the bracelet, nestled between shell and stone, where it won't stand out unless you're really looking. Unless you know.
Kiri will know. She always does.
And when she does, he hopes she'll understand what he couldn't quite say out loud, that this isn't just something he made for her. It's something made of her history. Of the people who loved her before either of them knew what love was supposed to feel like.
Carefully, gently, he knots the thread closed.
Pandora breathes around him, and for once, he breathes back. No mask. No seals. No hiss of borrowed air. He still isn't used to it. Sometimes he half-expects the world to pull away again, to remind him he doesn't belong. Instead, the air settles easily in his lungs, salt-sweet and alive.
His kuru shifts faintly at the nape of his neck as he leans forward, fingers steady as he threads the beads one by one. He's clumsy with a lot of things, words, timing, the way Kiri looks at him like she's listening to something beneath his skin. But this? This he understands.
As the bracelet takes shape, he turns it slowly in the light, imagining it against her.
Against deep blue skin dusted with faint, freckled stars. Against the soft striping that curves along her wrist, darker bands flowing like water-shadow over stone. The beads will echo her, cool against cool, light catching where her skin already glows faintly at dusk. Nothing loud. Nothing flashy. Just something that looks like it belongs there. Like it was always meant to rest against her pulse.
His mouth curls into a quiet, private smile.
She'll notice the details. She always does. She'll trace the shell with her thumb, feel the weight of it, maybe tilt her head that thoughtful way she has when she's feeling more than she's saying. And then she'll look at him—eyes bright, a little too knowing—and something in his chest will twist itself loose.
He swallows, breath hitching, giddy in a way that makes him feel twelve again instead sixteen.
Eywa. He really, really likes her.
Not just the dizzy kind of liking. Not just the ache. It's softer than that. Deeper. She makes him feel... steady. Seen. Like he's allowed to exist exactly as he is. Ever since she first planted her lips on his in the forest.
He knots the bracelet carefully, tests it twice, then a third time. Strong enough to last. Soft enough not to bite into skin. When he slips it over his own wrist, it rests there like it belongs Cool at first, then warming.
Spider watches it for a long moment, heart doing a small, hopeful stutter.
Yeah, he thinks, quiet and certain. This will look right on her.
A ripple passes through the water at his knees.
He glances down just in time to see a small shape glide in close, sleek and pale, still a little round in the fins, movements soft with youth. His Ilu nudges gently at his knee, a questioning bump, followed by a slow, contented circle. Clicking for his attention.
Spider laughs under his breath.
"Hey, you," he murmurs, lowering one hand to trail his fingers along the Ilu's smooth head. It presses into the touch immediately, trilling in a pleased little sway. He scratches just beneath the chin, where he knows it likes best, and the creature hums faintly through the water before drifting off again, satisfied.
The moment lingers. Warm, grounding. His chest aches with happiness over how much the creature has grown since they first made tsaheylu.
A soft splash breaks the quiet.
Spider looks up, already half-expecting it. Smiling.
"Seriously?" Lo'ak says, surfacing a few steps away and wiping water from his eyes. "You've been sitting here forever. I thought you turned into a statue or something."
Spider startles, then snorts. "Don't just appear like that, dude."
"I did not appear," Lo'ak says, grinning as he wades closer. "I swam. You know. The ocean."
Spider rolls his eyes, but his hand curls instinctively over his wrist. Lo'ak notices immediately.
"Is that new?" he asks, nodding at the bracelet.
Spider hesitates half a second too long. "Maybe."
Lo'ak's grin widens. "Ohhh. That kind of new."
"It's not—" Spider starts, then exhales. "Okay. Yeah. It's for Kiri."
Lo'ak lets out a quiet, pleased sound. "I knew it."
"You didn't know anything."
"I absolutely did," Lo'ak says. "You've been acting weird for days."
Spider frowns. "I always act weird."
"Yeah," Lo'ak agrees easily. "But this is a focused weird."
He crouches in the shallows, leaning closer, not touching, just looking. His expression shifts, curiosity replacing the teasing.
"You made this yourself?" he asks.
Spider shrugs, suddenly unsure. "Yeah. Took a while."
Lo'ak studies it for a moment. The shell, the beads, the way it's put together like it belongs.
His voice softens. "She's gonna love it."
Spider swallows. "You think?"
Lo'ak nods. "Yeah. It's... her. You didn't just grab shiny stuff." His gaze flicks to the center of the bracelet, and he pauses. "Is that—"
Spider tenses.
Lo'ak lifts his hands slightly. "I won't say it out loud. But... yeah. She'll understand."
Spider looks back down at his wrist. "I didn't want it to feel like a big thing."
"That's why it works," Lo'ak says simply.
Then his mouth twitches.
"So," he adds, "are you giving it to her today, or are you gonna panic and shove it back in your pouch when she smiles at you?"
"I don't panic," Spider says flatly.
Lo'ak raises an eyebrow.
Spider sighs. "Okay. I don't panic that much."
Lo'ak laughs. "You froze yesterday when she asked if you were coming swimming."
"That was different."
"How?"
"She was standing really close."
"Uh-huh."
Spider squints at him. "You're one to talk."
Lo'ak blinks. "What's that supposed to mean?"
"You suddenly can't swim anywhere without Tsireya being 'coincidentally' nearby."
"That is not on purpose."
"And you trip over your own tail every time she laughs. Or touches you."
Lo'ak groans, dropping his face into his hands. "Eywa, you're the worst."
Spider grins, feeling lighter than he has all day.
They fall quiet for a moment, water moving gently around them.
Lo'ak glances back at the bracelet. "You're good for her," he says, more serious now. "You know that, right?"
Spider's chest tightens. "I hope so."
Lo'ak straightens. "You are."
He nudges Spider's shoulder with his own. "Just... don't overthink it. Give it to her."
Spider nods, fingers brushing the beads once more.
"Yeah," he says quietly. "I will."
Some things don't need perfect timing. Just honesty.
—
The sun is already sinking when Spider finally finds her.
Kiri is knee-deep in the shallows near the mangroves, fingers trailing through the water like she's listening to it. The sea around her glows faintly now, soft blues and greens blooming with each movement she makes. Little fish dart away and then back again, unafraid.
She feels him before she sees him. She always does. So in tune with the environment around her.
Her head tilts, braid sliding over her shoulder, and she turns with that calm, knowing smile that still makes Spider's heart trip over itself.
"You're breathing loud," she says gently.
Spider huffs. "Am not."
She just looks at him, amused, eyes bright in the deepening dusk. "Okay," he mutters. "Maybe a little."
He steps closer, water lapping at his calves, and for a second he just... stands there. The bracelet is warm against his wrist now, like it's been waiting. His fingers curl and uncurl at his side.
Kiri studies him, expression softening. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," he says quickly, then corrects himself. "I mean—something. But not bad!"
She turns fully toward him, attention settling like a gentle weight. "You can take your time."
That almost undoes him.
Spider swallows, then slips the bracelet off his wrist. He holds it out carefully, like it might startle if he moves too fast.
"I made this," he says. "For you."
Kiri blinks. Just once.
Then she reaches out, slow and reverent, not taking it yet, just hovering her fingers beneath it, feeling the space around it, like she's sensing more than the shape.
"You really made it?" she asks softly.
He nods. "Yeah. I—I thought of you."
Her fingers close around it, and the glow in the water seems to brighten as she lifts it into the light. She turns it slowly, eyes tracing every detail. The shell. The beads. The careful knots.
She smiles, small and real, the kind that starts somewhere deep in her chest.
"It's beautiful," she says. Sincerely.
Relief rushes through him so hard his knees almost buckle. Kiri slides it over her lithe wrist, adjusting it gently until it settles just right. The cool beads rest against her skin like they belong there, catching the last of the sun. She turns her arm, watching how it moves with her.
Then her fingers still.
Her gaze narrows slightly, drawn to the center.
Spider's breath catches.
She lifts the bracelet closer, thumb brushing over the button. Her touch is feather-light, but the moment it makes contact, something shifts in her expression—recognition, quiet and deep. Not surprise. Understanding.
"Oh," she whispers. "It's Mom."
She doesn't look at him right away. Instead, she closes her eyes, just for a second, like she's listening inward. Like she's standing somewhere else entirely.
When she opens them again, they're glassy, shining, but she isn't crying. She looks at him.
"You remembered her," she says. Not a question.
Spider nods, throat tight. "She's... part of you. I wanted—" He falters, words tangling. "I wanted you to have something that knew that."
Kiri steps closer. The water ripples between them, bioluminescence blooming brighter now, responding to her pulse. She reaches out and takes his wrist in both hands, grounding, warm.
"Thank you," she says quietly. "For seeing her. For seeing me."
Her thumb brushes over his pulse, just once, and Spider feels it everywhere.
"I'll keep it," she adds. "Always."
Something in his chest loosens, like a knot he didn't know he'd been carrying. She smiles at him then, wide, luminous, utterly hers, and leans forward, pressing her forehead gently to his. No rush. No spectacle. Just sweet closeness.
The sea glows around them, soft and alive, as if Eywa herself is listening.
Spider grins, hard, full of teeth, and bumps his nose against hers affectionately. She nuzzles back. He's in awe at the ornate bioluminescent freckles scattered across her face.
He wants to kiss every single one.
For a heartbeat, he simply holds her, feeling the warmth of her palms, the steady pull of her gaze. Then, in a fleeting rush of courage, he presses his lips to hers.
It's brief at first. Soft, searching—but earnest. He closes his eyes, heart hammering the hardest it ever has, and tightens his grip on her fingers, letting the moment speak everything he can't put into words.
Just weeks ago, he never even dreamt this would happen. Kissing so freely. No longer prisoner to a mask and artificial air.
His heart's still racing, his stomach's fluttering, and the world feels like it's spun just for this moment. He's dizzy, still grinning, and already knowing he'll never forget it.
Just like their first kiss.
UNEXPECTED (Silly Drabble)
(**SLIGHT SPOILERS FOR AVATAR: FIRE AND ASH**)
AU in which Kiri has blessed Spider with a little more than a Kuru and mycelium lungs. Somewhat serious but silly crackfic that takes place post-canon. Enjoy!
—
Spider notices it at the worst possible time.
It had been weeks after the battle with the RDA & Mangkwan tribe. The mourning period for the fallen lost in battle was coming to an end, and things were tentatively coming back to normal. Almost.
He's halfway down a mangrove root, barefoot, sun-warmed sand still clinging to his calves, when something pulls at the base of his spine.
Not pain. Not exactly.
More like... pressure. Like a muscle waking up after a very long nap. It had felt like this for a while now, but suddenly, now, it had worsened the most it ever has.
He freezes.
"...Uh," he says eloquently, nails digging into the bark. "Lo'ak?"
"What?" Lo'ak answers from below, distracted. They were foraging and exploring deeper into the island together today.
"If you fall again, I am not catching you. Last time you elbowed my—"
Spider swallows.
"There is," he says slowly, "something very wrong with my ass."
That gets Lo'ak's attention.
He looks up just in time to see Spider twist awkwardly, one hand hovering behind him like he's afraid to actually touch whatever's happening there.
Then it moves.
Just a twitch. A flick.
Lo'ak's eyes go wide.
"...Is that—" He squints. "No way."
Spider finally dares to reach back. His fingers brush skin, warm, sensitive, and then something longer. Covered in fine, downy hair. Flexible. Alive.
He yelps and nearly falls off the root.
"I GREW A TAIL," he shrieks.
Peeking out of his tweng, there lurked a fairly small tail. Faintly blue in color and swaying cautiously. It only stretched a foot at most. Surely to keep growing.
Lo'ak loses it. Absolutely loses it. Laughing so hard he drops to a knee, tail lashing wildly behind him.
"Oh my Eywa," he wheezes. "You did! You actually—Spider, that's, that's incredible."
"This is not incredible!" Spider snaps, still half-panicking, half-dazzled. "I didn't order this! I don't even know how to operate it! I thought it was one and done, y’know? Was the Kuru and air breathing not enough!?”
As if offended, the little tail flicks again.
Then, traitorously, wraps around Spider's own thigh.
He stares at it.
"...Rude."
Lo'ak climbs up beside him, still grinning, eyes bright with something warmer than humor. He doesn't touch at first. Just watches, fascinated, like he's afraid the moment might spook and vanish.
"It's reacting to you," he says. "Your balance. Your mood."
"Fantastic," Spider mutters. "Now my emotions have a visual aid."
He shifts, trying to sit, and the tail immediately slides behind him, instinctively curling to brace him. They both notice. There's a beat of silence.
"...Oh," Lo'ak says softly.
Spider exhales, something in his chest loosening. "Yeah. Oh."
Later, much later, they're stretched out in the sand, sun dipping low above the ocean, utterly serene as always. Spider still getting used to the strange, grounding weight behind him.
Lo'ak finally asks, gentle now, "Can I?"
Spider hesitates. Then nods. Almost sheepish.
Lo'ak's fingers are warm, careful as they brush along the tail's length. Spider jolts. Not unpleasant, just new, and then laughs breathlessly.
"That's—okay, yeah. That's weird. But good. I think."
The tail curls on instinct, looping loosely around Lo'ak's wrist.
Both of them freeze. Spiders ears burn viciously.
He groans. "I swear I didn't tell it to do that."
Lo'ak smiles, slow and soft, not pulling away. "S'okay. It likes me."
"Traitor," Spider mutters, but he lets it stay.
The tail settles. Heavy. Content. So does Spider.
“Dude. Kiri has some serious explaining to do later.”
Lo’ak snickers at that, and affectionately rubs his thumb over the end of the tails tuft.
“She’s going to lose her mind.”
The Ground Keeps Us
PLATONIC Spider/Lo’ak oneshot. Based off of AVATAR: Fire and Ash post canon.
Sorry, I’m utterly obsessed with these two little guys. I also just saw AFAA last night so I HAD to write something fluffy after essentially crying for those 3 full hours.
Comments/requests are appreciated!
—
The coarse sand gives a little when Spider drops into it, grains biting briefly at his sun-tanned shoulders. He barely gets a breath in before a shadow falls over him.
"Oh no you don't," Lo'ak says, already grinning.
Spider looks up just in time to see a whole lot of blue coming his way. He yelps and twists, rolling aside as Lo'ak lunges, missing him by inches and sprawling instead.
"Missed," Spider says smugly, scrambling to his feet.
Lo'ak snarls. Playful, exaggerated, and swings a long arm out, catching Spider around the waist before he can bolt. The size difference is immediately unfair. Lo'ak lifts him clean off the ground without meaning to, both of them laughing as Spider flails.
"Put me down, you cheat!"
"I'm not cheating," Lo'ak giggles, breathless. "You're just—light."
Spider plants a foot against Lo'ak's thigh and shoves, using momentum instead of strength. It works. Lo'ak stumbles, surprised, and Spider wriggles free, tackling him low. They hit the ground together in a mess of limbs and waxy leaves.
Lo'ak lands on his back with a bark of laughter, tail flicking wildly. Spider scrambles on top of him, knee digging into Lo'ak's side as he tries, very unsuccessfully, to pin someone twice his size. His goggles are knocked off to the side in the process.
"Oh yeah," Spider pants. "Totally got you, bitch."
Lo'ak snorts and bucks his hips, rolling them easily. Spider squeaks as he's flipped and flattened, Lo'ak's forearm braced beside his head, weight held carefully off him.
"Done?" Lo'ak asks.
Spider grins up at him. "Not even close."
He twists, ducks, and slips free again, darting like an eel. Lo'ak grabs for him, misses, and the next thing Spider knows they're both laughing too hard to keep fighting. Chests heaving, hands still gripping each other just to stay upright.
Eventually, gravity wins.
They collapse back into the sand, side by side this time, shoulders knocking. Sticky with sweat. Debris from the surrounding mangroves tangles in Spider's hair. Lo'ak's braid has come loose at the end.
"Eywa," Lo'ak mutters, staring up at the branches shading them overhead. "You're exhausting."
Spider laughs softly, breath evening out, chest rising and falling without resistance. No hiss of seals. No fogging plastic. Just him.
"You started it."
Lo'ak hums, not denying it.
Without thinking about it, he rolls onto his side again, closer now, his arm settling heavy across Spider's middle—instinctive, familiar, like it always comes after the adrenaline drains out. Spider doesn't protest. He shifts instead, tucking his feet against Lo'ak's shin, fitting himself into the curve of him.
It's easier like this without the mask.
No hard edge digging into Lo'ak's ribs. No careful angles. Spider presses closer, cheek against warm peach-fuzzed skin, breathing him in with his notes of salt, sun, and something herbal.
Their breathing slows. The mangroves creak softly with the tide. Somewhere, water laps against roots.
Spider reaches up and fidgets with the cords of Lo'ak's necklace, fingers busy, absentminded, tracing bead to bead, different textures grounding him. Lo'ak glances down, then shifts closer so Spider doesn't have to reach.
"You're gonna wear that thing out," Lo'ak says.
Spider shrugs. "It's sturdy."
"So am I."
"Debatable."
Lo'ak scoffs, but his arm tightens just a little. Not holding, just there. Solid.
Spider feels the faint vibrations of Lo'ak's silent purring through his chest, so much deeper now that there's nothing between them.
They lie like that, heat shared, energy spent. Just two teenage boys cooling off after too much movement and too much laughter, letting the mangroves cradle them until they're ready to get up and resume chaos in the reefs. With Payakan, obviously.
Lo'ak shifts again, slower now, careful. He tilts Spider's head just enough with his knuckles, thumb brushing his jaw with rare tenderness. For a second, he hesitates. Then he leans down anyway.
The kiss lands soft and brief against Spider's forehead. Still, his skin tingles quietly where it touched.
Spider freezes, then melts, a quiet huff of laughter slipping from him.
"Sap." he murmurs.
Lo'ak grins, unapologetic, forehead resting there afterward like he belongs. "Whatever, bro."
He stays close, sharing breath, warmth, gravity.
Lo'ak's breath brushes Spider's temple, steady and familiar. Spider swallows.
He doesn't pull away. Doesn't joke it off. Instead, after a second, after a long internal don't be weird, don't be weird—he shifts.
Just a little.
Lo'ak feels it immediately, glancing down in quiet question. Spider doesn't look at him. His eyes stay fixed somewhere near Lo'ak's collarbone, lashes fluttering like he's bracing for impact.
Then—quick, awkward, almost clumsy, Spider leans in.
The kiss lands against Lo'ak's cheek, closer to his jaw than his eye. Bare skin to bare skin. Gone almost as soon as it starts.
Spider pulls back just as fast, ears burning.
"—Yeah. Okay. That's... fair," he mutters.
For half a heartbeat, Lo'ak just blinks. Then his grin breaks wide and stupid, like the sun finally caught him unguarded.
"Oh," he says, voice low and pleased. "So that's how it is."
Spider groans, shoving lightly at his chest. "Don't make it weird."
"I'm not making it weird," Lo'ak says, laughing quietly. "You made it weird."
"I did not—"
Lo'ak's arm tightens again, tugging Spider back into place with zero effort, chin resting briefly on the crown of his head. Protective. Spider allows it.
"Relax," he murmurs. "Was nice."
Spider exhales, tension draining out of him like the tide pulling back from shore. He settles again, cheek pressed to Lo'ak's ribs, breathing freely.
"...Yeah," he admits. "It was."
They don't say anything else after that.
I've been very lazy with my art, I know how mediocre this is and how bland the colors are as well ❤️🩹 I haven't been motivated to do much
But I thought I'd make bittersweet art of these two once again
You see the little goggles and you’re STILL hating on him? What’s it like to be without silliness and happiness all of the time?
Tsu'tey teaching Spider to use the bow proper 💜🥰
I imagine that Tsu'tey teaches spider, coz he saw Spider protecting Tsu'teys son (Tsayo) from bullies. Even that Spider is so much smaller, he is very kind and brave. Tsayo gets bullied coz he is more pale and light hair and the children call him half demon. But Spider alsways stands up for him.
Love this aaahhh
Half awake, fully held
(Platonic drabble: featuring Spider, Kiri, and Lo’ak.)
Needed a break from angst. Hope you guys enjoy!
Requests/comments are always appreciated. <3
Spider is still laughing when he hits the ground.
He stumbles out of the undergrowth, breathless and flushed, mask fogged faintly at the edges, and drops onto the plush bed of hoverleaf clusters like gravity finally remembered him. High above, the Omatikaya hammocks swayed between the trees, smoke from the evening fires threading lazily through the canopy. The forest hums around them, leaves and distant water, but Spider's laugh cuts through it. Bright, reckless, earned.
Lo'ak follows a heartbeat later, skidding to a stop and nearly tripping over Spider's painted legs.
"Hey—hey, don't fall asleep," Lo'ak says, though he's grinning too hard for it to be real. "You're gonna regret it later, bro."
Spider sprawls out on his back, arms flung wide, chest rising fast beneath the straps of his mask. The cool terrain feels wonderful. "Can't," he pants. "Legs stopped working."
Lo'ak snorts. And then, without hesitation, drops down beside him and deliberately scoots closer, long body folding in until his shoulder presses into Spider's side. He hooks a leg loosely over Spider's calves, casual but possessive, like he's staking a claim.
"Too bad," Lo'ak says. "You're stuck with me now."
Spider laughs, breath hitching again. "Wasn't complaining."
Kiri lowers herself more gracefully on Spider's other side, kneeling and immediately noticing the way Lo'ak has already crowded in. Her mouth curves, unimpressed. She reaches out and brushes debris from Spider's hair anyway, fingers gentle and familiar.
"You're squishing him," she says mildly.
Lo'ak shifts just enough to press closer. "He's fine."
"I am right here," Spider adds, voice muffled by a grin.
Kiri slides closer, shoulder nudging into Spider's other side in quiet defiance. Her long leg folds near his knees, effectively boxing him in. "He was sitting with me earlier."
Lo'ak glances at her. "He ran with me."
"That was hours ago."
Spider turns his head slightly, eyes flicking between them. "You guys are ridiculous."
Neither of them listen.
Lo'ak drops down fully now, half draped over Spider, thigh pressed into his side, sweat-slick skin warm and unashamed. The size difference is absurd. Lo'ak's arm alone feels like a weighted blanket, but he settles there like it's the most natural thing in the world. Kiri counters by resting her hand lightly on Spider's chest, careful of the mask straps, fingers splayed as if to say mine. She leans in, cheek brushing his hair.
Spider exhales, laughter dissolving into something softer.
His hand drifts, idle and familiar, tracing the memorized patterns of stripes on Lo'ak's ribs where his arm crosses Spider's middle. The peach-fuzzed flesh pleasant beneath his fingers, grounding. Lo'ak doesn't stop him, just hums low in his chest, content. Spider knows that he loves when he does it.
"You climbed too fast again," Kiri murmurs.
It's true. Climbing was one of the things he excelled at most. One of the only things, really, where he surpassed both Na'vi and humans. Today, he pushed too hard. Faint but fresh indentations and scratches marked his hands and feet, both heavily callused from years of adapting to free-soloing the relentless jungle.
Spider smiles without opening his eyes. "You love it."
Lo'ak huffs. "You're not supposed to out-climb us," he says. "It's rude."
"Get better," Spider murmurs back, already fading.
Lo'ak adjusts, tucking Spider in more securely, forearm heavy and protective across his stomach. Kiri's fingers slip into his dreads, smoothing them back slowly, deliberately.
The forest keeps breathing around them.
Spider interlinks his fingers with Kiri's, giving them a reassuring squeeze, and then nestled his body deeper against Lo'ak.
Lo'ak watches him go still and sighs through his nose. His hold tightens just a fraction. Kiri smiles, soft, and stays exactly where she is.
Soon, reluctantly, he will have to retreat back to Hell's Gate. Back to filtered air and metal floors and scientists who love him loudly and worry at him constantly. Back to Norm counting calories and tapping his datapad, back to half-serious scolding about hydration and protein intake and how he smells like sweat and sap again.
He knows they mean well. He knows they're scared for him in their own way. always counting, always correcting, always trying to keep him human enough to survive. But it's different. Their care comes with schedules and warnings and the quiet panic of adults who know too much.
For now, the Sully kids are enough.
WAS THERE EVER ROOM FOR ME IN YOU? (PART 1)
-Spider & Recombinant Miles Quaritch fic. Significant angst + my take on Spider as a character.
Spider is tall for his age, lean and weathered by sun and jungle, a body shaped by scaling mountains and running and surviving without permission. He carries himself with a feral confidence that makes it convenient to mistake him for something older. Something sturdier. Something that won't crack.
Strapped into the chair, that illusion collapses.
————————————————————————
The restraints bite into his wrists and ankles, cold metal against overheated skin. Wires arc overhead, fastening to his temples, to his spine, the machine looming like a patient predator. The hum beneath him grows louder. Invasive, vibrating through bone. Spider's breathing turns sharp and uneven, chest hitching as panic outpaces control.
A female voice cuts through the room.
"Where is Jake Sully?"
Spider swallows hard. His eyes flicker. Defiant, frightened, furious all at once.
"I don't know."
The machine surges.
"We know that you know."
Pain detonates through him. White. Consuming.
His back arches violently against the restraints as a scream tears free, raw and unfiltered. His body convulses, muscles locking, breath shattering into ragged gasps that refuse to steady. The sound of it fills the room. Too loud, too human.
"I don't know!"
Blood spills from his nose, dark against his upper lip. He doesn't register it. His vision blurs, the world narrowing to sensation and noise and the unbearable pressure inside his skull. He thrashes, teeth bared, breath slipping into a panicked stutter.
"Just form a picture in your mind. Is it one of the floating mountains?"
The room watches. Readouts flicker. Someone adjusts a dial.
"Let me out of here—I don't know!"
She doesn't stop. Persistent.
"Just form a thought, and we will see it."
It's beyond terrifying. The way her cold eyes bore into him. Ruthless. The eyes of someone who has done this many times. He keeps pleading.
"Look, I don't like this any more than you do. Which clans would be harboring him?"
It's unbearable. He cannot breathe.
"You're gonna have to kill me!"
The silhouette of her before him blurs.
"It's not going to stop until you give us something. Where is he?"
The current spikes again, and Spider's control finally snaps.
"I—I don't know, you buttholes, okay? I don't know!"
The words burst out hoarse and furious, juvenile in their simplicity, and that is what makes them devastating. For a fraction of a second, the room falters.
Not because of the insult. Because of what it reveals.
A kid. A terrified, hurting kid, lashing out with the sharpest thing he has left.
Quaritch feels it land like a blow. This time, it stops with a harsh press of a button.
The hum dies abruptly, leaving a hollow silence behind. Spider slumps forward, chest heaving, breath still skidding wildly as his body struggles to come back from the edge. Blood drips from his nose onto his chin. His hands tremble against the restraints, fingers curling as if bracing for pain that doesn't come.
Quaritch steps closer. He looks at the boy. Really looks at the too-small frame strapped into a chair built for adults. At the way Spider's shoulders shake, fury and fear tangled together. At how easily they all forgot what he was.
A child.
Not leverage.
Not data.
Not a tool.
Just a kid who refuses to break quietly. And that refusal, loud, ugly, human, lingers in the room long after the machine falls silent.
—
The room doesn't empty so much as it abandons him.
The door seals with a hydraulic sigh, and Spider is left strapped in the chair, the air still humming faintly, like the machine hasn't quite accepted that it's done with him. His ears ring. Not loudly, just enough to blur the edges of thought, like the world has been wrapped in cotton.
He tests his hands. They shake. Not violently. Worse than that. Small, traitorous tremors he can't bully into stopping.
Breathe, he tells himself.
In. Out.
Like the forest taught you.
His chest refuses to listen.
Every inhale stutters halfway in, sharp and shallow, as if his lungs are afraid they'll be punished again for taking up space. His nose aches. Something warm slides over his lip, drying tacky against his skin. He doesn't bother wiping it away. It feels earned.
He stares at the far wall. Doesn't really see it.
What he sees is blue.
Too blue. Too big.
The face comes back to him in fragments, because his mind can't hold it all at once without cracking. The stripes, the sharp yellow eyes, a mouth shaped the same way, even when it snarls. Even when it smiles wrong.
His father.
No.
That word hits like a misstep on loose rock.
His father is dead. He knows that. He's known it his whole life. Known it the way you know gravity. Unchanging, brutal, absolute. Miles Quaritch died before Spider ever had the chance to hate him properly, before he could be anything more than a ghost and a warning and a name spoken with distaste.
So what does that make the thing wearing his face?
A copy, they said. A memory. Data poured into flesh that wasn't born, only built. A soldier grown like a weapon, fed with instincts and orders and rage. Just a lab monster cultivated from his Father's DNA.
But memories matter.
Spider presses his tongue to the roof of his mouth, grounding himself in the dull copper taste there. The machine didn't just hurt him, it reached. It pried. It treated his thoughts like open terrain, like something that could be marched through and claimed.
And that thing, him, stood there and watched.
Not detached. Not clinical. Watching.
The worst part isn't the pain. Pain is loud; it burns and then it passes. The worst part is the knowing. The sudden, irreversible understanding that the man who shares his blood now exists again. And that he is looking at Spider not as a son, not even as a person, but as something useful.
Leverage.
A map.
A loose thread that could unravel Jake Sully.
His throat tightens, sharp and hot, and this time the tears do come. Silent, furious, humiliating. He turns his head as far as the restraints allow, as if there's anyone left to see. There isn't.
Good.
He hates that some part of him had hoped, stupidly, traitorously, that it might be different. That the resemblance might mean something. That the eyes might soften. That blood might count for more than orders.
Instead, he got a machine and a monster wearing a familiar face.
Instead, he got confirmation.
Spider closes his eyes.
He thinks of the forest. Of roots and leaves and the way the ground never shocks you for standing on it. He thinks of warmth that doesn't hurt. Of hands that don't restrain. The companionship he had with Kiri.
And somewhere beneath the fear, beneath the anger, beneath the grief he never asked for, there is something smaller and meaner and harder to admit:
A pull.
Not love. Not loyalty.
Just the terrible, human instinct to look at the thing that made you and wonder,
Was there ever room for me in you?
The device creaks softly as he slumps forward, exhausted past defiance now. His breathing finally begins to slow, though it never fully steadies.
Whatever that thing is out there—
alien, resurrected, weaponized.
It knows his face.
And worse,
It knows his name.
—
Getting away from the scientists should have felt like freedom. Instead, it only traded one kind of suffocation for another.
The recoms moved around him like living walls. Too tall, too heavy, too quiet in the way soldiers get when they're relaxed but never truly at ease. Their presence pressed in on him, constant and inescapable. Spider hated the new helplessness that coiled in his gut, hated how easily his body had begun to adapt to it. Like an animal learning the limits of its cage.
The oxygen mask was the worst of it.
The thing that kept him alive was also the thing that made escape impossible. A leash disguised as mercy. The tracker embedded inside it might as well have been a brand. Wherever he went, they would know. Wherever he ran, they would follow.
He lived because they allowed it. That knowledge gnawed at him.
Spider had grown up Omatikaya-adjacent. Raised on their stories, their reverence, their understanding that life was not something to be taken lightly. Violence, when it came, was purposeful. Defensive. Necessary. Never indulgent.
He had never thought of himself as violent.
But the RDA had a way of carving new rooms into a person's mind.
Months of captivity, of restraints and machines and voices that spoke about him as if he were an object, had pushed his thoughts into darker territory. Places he'd never needed to visit before. Places a kid shouldn't have to know exist.
He thought about hurting them.
More than he wanted to admit.
It wasn't strategy. It wasn't planning. It came in flashes. Sudden, vivid, and horrifyingly specific. Hands at a throat. The sick give of flesh beneath his fingers. Teeth sinking in, desperate and animal, until breath cut off and resistance faded.
He imagined their eyes when they finally understood fear.
The marines who laughed.
The ones who watched and did nothing.
The ones who hurt people and called it procedure.
He wondered, quietly, shamefully, if it would feel good. If the rage building in his chest would finally have somewhere to go. If killing them would make the screaming stop.
The thought made his stomach twist. Because part of him knew the truth.
It wouldn't be justice.
It wouldn't be balance.
It would just be damage, passed along.
And he hated himself a little for even wondering.
That was what scared him most. Not the anger itself, but how easy it had become to imagine it. How natural it felt to picture violence as release. As relief. The monster wasn't something the RDA had implanted in him. They had just taught him where to find it.
Spider kept his mouth shut around the recoms. Kept his hands busy. Stayed useful. Survival had always been about adaptation, and he was good at adapting, too good. Every day he lasted felt like both a victory and a betrayal.
He told himself this wasn't who he was.
That the jungle had raised him better than this. That the Omatikaya values still lived in his bones. But at night, when sleep came in shallow, fractured pieces, the thoughts waited for him in the dark—patient, feral, and sharp.
And he was terrified of how much they sounded like they belonged to him.
—
Despite all, there is something about Spider. Unintentional, almost treacherous, that makes him endearing. A quiet charm, the kind that slips past defenses before one realizes it has taken root. Cute, even, though the word feels insufficient. It is in his doe-brown eyes, the way they lift to meet another's gaze with a depth of perception that far exceeds his years.
Those eyes are not fragile, nor are they innocent. They are watchful. Calibrated. They read a room the way prey reads wind, always anticipating the strike, always guarding a fragile ember of hope without ever letting it show. They belong to a boy who lost his mother before memory could anchor her face, who carries her not in recollection but in bone and blood, in the warm hue of his skin and the quiet set of his mouth.
Spider is light. Built of sinew and tendon, engineered by circumstance rather than design. His body is made for climbing sheer faces, for running barefoot over stone, for vanishing into green shadow. He weighs little compared to a Na'vi, less still beside an RDA soldier, yet he occupies space with a gravity that defies physics: a small, breathing presence that insists upon being noticed simply by enduring.
Quaritch, by contrast, is mass incarnate. Engineered bulk and military intent. Shoulders like plated armor, a chest built to absorb recoil, hands that look capable of crushing stone without effort. When they stand together, the disparity borders on absurd. Like a housecat pressing itself against a panther, refusing to recognize the imbalance of power.
What makes it linger, what makes it unsettling, is that Spider is blind to his own softness. He does not recognize it, because he believes it burned away long ago. He assumes whatever gentleness once existed in him was stripped out by survival, leaving only sharp edges and instinct.
But it remains.
It shows itself when exhaustion steals his vigilance and his features loosen. In the way his lashes spill shadow across his cheeks when sleep finally claims him. In how his eyes, so like his mother's must have been—still seek an anchor when the world tilts and threatens to throw him loose.
Quaritch notices these things, much to his own irritation. The boy is a contradiction made flesh: resilient, adaptive, infuriatingly hard to break. Those qualities earn a soldier's respect almost by reflex. But it is Spider's quieter vulnerabilities that unsettle him. The hitch in his breathing when he thinks he's alone, the way his fingers curl tight when his thoughts turn inward, as if bracing against something unseen.
Colonel Miles Quaritch is never quite certain what he despises more: how much of the boy carries the echo of Paz, or how much of himself he sees reflected there. A child left behind. An outcast shaped by neglect and necessity. Forced to adapt to a hostile, impossibly green hell.
Not Na'vi enough to belong. Not human enough to return. Something in between. Something that survived.
—
It happens slowly enough that Spider doesn't notice at first.
That's the worst part.
At the beginning, Quaritch is just another threat. Bigger than the rest, louder when he chooses to be, quieter when he doesn't. A constant presence. A shadow that follows him through corridors and decks and briefing rooms, impossible to shake. Spider keeps his distance where he can, keeps his spine stiff, his mouth sharp. He tells himself that anything else would be weakness.
But weeks stretch. Days blur. And the human mind, starved long enough, begins to cling. Quaritch is predictable.
That's what does it.
He doesn't flinch when Spider snaps. Doesn't rise to the bait when he mouths off. He corrects him when he's wrong, ignores him when he's being stupid, intervenes when things cross a line he's decided belongs to him. The rules are brutal, but they are consistent, and consistency feels dangerously like safety.
Spider hates that his body notices.
That it relaxes a fraction when Quaritch enters the room. That his breathing steadies when the colonel's voice cuts through the noise. That the fear he feels around him is no longer wild and formless, but contained. Manageable.
He tells himself it's survival instinct. And maybe it is. But it doesn't explain the ache.
The ache is new. Low and constant, settling somewhere beneath his ribs. It surfaces in quiet moments. In the long stretches between missions, in the hum of engines, in the weight of exhaustion that makes his thoughts go soft around the edges.
That's when the questions creep in.
Did you know about me?
Did you ever think about me at all?
Would you have hated me?
Spider never asks them. He wouldn't survive the answers.
But Quaritch's presence pulls them closer to the surface anyway. Every time he gives an order that keeps Spider alive. Every time he looks at him like he's assessing a weapon and finding something else entirely. Every time he steps in front of the scientists, even briefly, even without kindness.
Especially then. Because Quaritch doesn't pretend to be gentle.
There's no softness in the way he talks to Spider. No false reassurance. He doesn't lie and say it'll be okay. He doesn't promise rescue or absolution or belonging.
He just stays.
And that does something to Spider's brain that he doesn't have the language for.
He grew up surrounded by Na'vi, by closeness, touch, shared breath and shared grief. Family was not a concept to them. It was an action. Something you did, over and over again, until it rooted itself into your bones. Being taken from that, cut off so completely, leaves a hollow that screams to be filled.
Quaritch doesn't fill it. He occupies it.
Spider catches himself watching him sometimes. The way he moves through space like it's already been cleared for him. The way the recoms orient instinctively toward him. The way his attention, when it lands on Spider, feels heavy, unavoidable.
There is something terrifying about realizing the man who should mean nothing to him... does.
Not because Spider admires him. Not because he trusts him.
But because the part of Spider that learned to survive by attaching, by latching on to whatever stayed has quietly chosen him anyway.
And Spider hates himself for it.
He hates the relief he feels when Quaritch returns from a mission uninjured. Hates the way his anger cools faster when Quaritch is the one delivering orders. Hates that, on the worst nights, when sleep refuses to come and the ship feels too cold, too loud, too empty, It's Quaritch's presence his mind reaches for.
Not Jake. Not the forest. Not the life he lost.
Him.
That's when the shame sets in.
Because Spider knows exactly what Quaritch is. Knows what he's done. Knows that this closeness isn't love and never will be. Knows that if the roles were reversed, the colonel wouldn't hesitate.
And yet,
There are moments. Quiet, unguarded ones. A hand briefly steadying his shoulder. A wordless correction that keeps him from getting hurt. A look that says pay attention instead of shut up. Moments that feel dangerously like being seen.
Spider doesn't tell himself Quaritch is his father.
That would be a lie too big to survive.
But sometimes, when he's exhausted, when the ache in his chest is loud enough to drown out reason, he lets himself imagine what it would have been like if his father had stayed. If he'd been something solid. Something unyielding. Something that didn't leave. The human one.
The thought terrifies him.
Because wanting doesn't make it real. And wanting Quaritch, of all people, feels like the final proof that captivity has gotten inside him, rearranged him, taught his heart to settle for whatever heat it can find.
Spider tells himself this attachment is temporary. That once he's free, it'll fade. But deep down, where the truth lives, he knows better. Some bonds aren't chosen. They're forged under pressure. And they leave marks you carry long after the cage is gone.
—
The fires change something in him.
Spider smells it first. Salt and smoke, burning resin carried across the water. It crawls into his lungs and stays there, sticky and choking. The Metkayina villages glow on the horizon like dying stars, and every instinct in him screams the same truth it always has:
This is wrong.
He doesn't argue. He doesn't plead this time. He goes quiet in that way Quaritch has learned to recognize as dangerous. Not for them, but for Spider himself. His shoulders hunch. His jaw locks. His eyes sharpen into something feral and familiar.
Regression isn't weakness. It's retreat. A mind crawling backward to someplace smaller because the present is unbearable.
Spider feels twelve again. Or younger. All raw nerve and loyalty and fury with nowhere safe to put it.
Quaritch gives the order to move. That's when Spider snaps.
It isn't calculated. It isn't brave. It's not even particularly effective. He lunges at Quaritch like a cornered animal, fists slamming uselessly against armored muscle, nails scraping blue skin, breath ripping out of him in a sound that's half-snarl, half-sob.
"Stop it!" he yells, hoarse and wild. "You said—you said you'd stop!"
He's not trying to kill him. Not really. He's trying to make it hurt. Trying to shove the fire back where it came from.
Quaritch stumbles a step. Not because Spider is strong enough to move him, but because he isn't expecting it. No one else touches him like this. No one dares.
The recoms freeze.
Spider keeps swinging until his arms shake and his vision blurs, until all that rage finally burns through what little strength he has left. His fists thud uselessly against Quaritch's chest, his forehead knocking once, clumsily, into hard muscle.
He hates that it hurts him more than it hurts Quaritch. Hands close around his wrists. Not rough. Not gentle either. Just enough to stop him from tearing himself apart.
"Enough," Quaritch growls.
Spider thrashes once more, breath hitching violently, then stills. His chest heaves. His face twists. Nnot with fear, but with something uglier.
Guilt.
Because some small, traitorous part of him remembers. Remembers Quaritch turning away from the villagers. Remembers the order that wasn't given. Remembers the pause.
Spider refuses to sit with that thought.
He can't. Not now.
Because if he acknowledges that, acknowledges that his voice mattered, that he had influence, that he changed something, then the rage loses its shape. Then the world becomes complicated in a way he can't survive tonight.
So he shoves it away.
He snarls instead.
Glares.
Spits venom with his eyes.
"I hate you," he snaps, voice breaking around the edges.
It's not true. Which is worse.
Quaritch studies him for a long moment, hands still locked around Spider's wrists, eyes narrowed. Not angry. Assessing something dark and conflicted stirring behind them.
"You're angry," he says flatly.
No comfort. No apology. Just a statement.
Spider jerks his hands free and steps back, chest still shaking. He doesn't look at the fires again. He doesn't look at Quaritch.
He curls inward, arms wrapping around himself like he can hold the pieces together by force. Later, much later, he'll remember this moment and realize something that terrifies him.
Quaritch let him attack him. Let him get it out. Didn't retaliate.
Didn't punish.
But right now, Spider is too young in his bones to handle that truth.
Right now, all he knows is that the world is burning again, and somehow, impossibly, the man standing in front of him is both the cause and the only thing keeping him from falling completely apart.
And he hates that more than anything.
Some of the usernames on here from my liked notifs are absolutely diabolical.
I did this little doodle of baby Ellabs hanging out in the woods, inspired by the photos @abbystanaccount tposted yesterday. Thank you so much for sharing them!
I guess I’ll turn these sketches into full illustrations in a few days :)
My son who I will protect at all costs
March vs May, I just like putting us in trucks I think
