Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"Where are you heading to?" Norm questioned him from the kitchen. He had a cup of coffee in his hands, the hot liquid still steaming. Who even drank coffee at 5 p.m.? He took a sip from it, looking over at Spider like he was a puzzle yet to be solved.

"I‘m gonna pay Kiri a visit. I just need to blow off some steam." When Norm simply looked at him, he continued. "I might be back at midnight. I‘ll let you know over text, alright?" He said, putting on his shoes and tying his laces with double knots. For as long as he could remember, he‘d always done doubles knots, but he didn‘t kow exactly why.

"What do you mean 'blow off some steam'? Something happened?" He asked, his brows furrowed in an odd expression. Well, yeah. Things happened all the times. Spider didn‘t exactly feel like being a smart-ass at the moment though, so he made up what he hoped was the most convincing answer.

"Uh, it‘s not anything to worry about. Just teenage stuff, y‘know?" He nervously laughed. He’d been really on edge lately, for whatever reason. Even he didn‘t understand his own feelings, most of the time. But that was okay. That happened to everybody, didn‘t it? And especially to teens, from what Spider had been told. Something about hormone instability and trying to find their place in society.

Norm was a real nice guy. He really was. But sometimes he just didn‘t seem to understand that he‘d better keep his nose out of other people’s business. And that annoyed Spider. But he always tried to keep cool, because he couldn’t bring himself to blame him. It wasn’t his fault that he was so frank. There were those people born without this thing that could generally keep the thoughts inside our mind from escaping by our mouth. This thing was called a filter, and Norm certainly didn‘t have one, as far as Spider knew.

"You‘re not on drugs, are you?" Norm gasped, only to prove his point. Spider stopped dead in his track. He felt his whole face turn hot with shame. Not shame—more like embarassment. To be totally honest, he was not. At the moment. But even if he was, he would never tell Norm. Simply because that did not regard him. He awkwardly coughed. This was not a subject he really wanted to talk about with anyone. And especially not with Norm.

"Yeah—No! I mean no! Of course not." He mentally slapped himself. Man, he was such a gawk. "I really gotta go. See ya!" He exclaimed through clenched teeth, looking at his imaginary watch. He needed to escape this situation as fast as possible.

"But—look at both sides before crossing the street!" He awkwardly yelled, making himself sound strict. Except Norm Spellman was anything but strict. And anyway, Spider was gone before he could even finish that sentence.

Within twenty minutes, Spider had rolled his way to his friend‘s house. The wind was dancing through his hair, rushing into his ears loudly. The wheels of his skateboard were rolling on the concrete, sending shivers up his legs, the sensation somewhat similar to a million tiny little ants tickling his feet. That was one thing out of a thousand others that he loved about skateboarding. He could feel all the little rocks, the little cracks and imperfections on the ground. That somehow helped him feel more aware of his surrounding, but he was still able to completely let go. It was a sort of therapy for him. Just him and his board and nothing else. All the problem he had—the summer classes he was supposed to attend due to his poor math grades, the social workers who persisted on trying to get Spider out of Norm‘s custody, the other kids at school calling him a freak. Poof. Gone with the wind.

He dragged the tail of his board on the ground to come to a complete stop and hopped off when he arrived at the Sully‘s house. It was a big and very welcoming house. At least, it seemed big and welcoming for Spider who lived in an apartment barely wide enough to house both him and Norm. The lawn was always green and neat with small flowers all arround the borders of the house. He picked up his skateboard and scooped it under one arm, walking up the entrance. The wooden porch faintly creaked under him as he knocked on the door. He took a step back as he heard Bob yapping from the inside, followed by shouts of protest. The door opened on Kiri holding back an over-excited German sheperd from jumping on Spider.

"Sorry about that. You know how much he loves you." She laughed, swooshing Bob away. She stepped aside and made a hand motion for him to come in. "We‘re having pizza tonight, if that‘s okay with you?" She asked. Spider was kind of smart. A smart dumb. So he knew all about politness and etiquette or whatever they called it and figured out pretty quickly that was just a rhetorical question and there was no place left for arguing. He was fine with pizza anyway, so he simply nodded. He took off his shoes lazily, dropped his backpack next to them and followed Kiri to the living room. Tuk was sitting on the floor, both elbows propped on the coffee table, holding her head in her hands. She seemed very focused on what was playing on the TV. Meanwhile, Lo‘ak was idly lying on the couch and scrolling through his phone.

"Look who‘s here." Kiri announced. Curious eyes turned his way. "Spider!" Tuk exclaimed, running to him and embracing him into a tight hug. She tugged her head under his chin, telling him all about the drama surrounding the teacher who‘d gone on maternity leave. He didn‘t actually care that said Miss Davis had named her baby Oliver even though that was the name of Miss Johnson‘s husband—whom she had beef with. But he still listened to her until the very end, playing with the red beads of her braids.

He realized that she was taller than the last time he saw her. She used to barely reach his shoulders. It was pretty well know that Spider was small for his age, being only 5 foot 3 while some other boys his age would easily reach the six feet and above. Even Kiri was at least two feet taller than him. His height had always been a huge complex for him, but he didn‘t want to let that show. At least, not in front of Tuk.

He pried her off him, looked her dead in the eye. She reminded him of a baby koala holding onto its mother, somehow. "Lucky you, Tuk. Your life is so much more fun than mine." He said, making exagerated hands gestures. She simply shrugged and went back to watch her TV show.

"Yeah, you ain‘t wrong there, man." Lo‘ak said from beside him. "You‘re not doing anything with your life. You should go out more often if you don‘t wanna end up like one of those weird loners at school." He said, passing an arm around Spider‘s shoulders.

"Thanks for the advices." He said as sarcasticly as he could. "Where‘s Neteyam?" He asked, looking around. Lo‘ak waved his hand in the air as if chasing something away, a bored expression on his face.

"He‘s at his job, but he‘ll probably be coming home soon." He explained. "You know, he‘s been spending a whole lot of time working there for the past few weeks. I‘m telling you, he‘s gonna burn out before even getting an actual job." He continued in a sigh. Lo’ak was hard to read. Spider couldn‘t tell whether he was annoyed or sad or indifferent. And he was unpredictable, too. But at least, Spider could agree with what he was saying. Neteyam was the kind of person to get really invested in basically anything he would do. And especially his job.

"Don‘t get all worked up over just that, bro. It‘s not like you can do anything about it.“ Spider tried to reassure him as best as he could, but he didn‘t exactly have the small manual of 'comforting phrases to tell your friend who’s upset because his brother overwork himself up'.

"Yeah, well—I used to think that since he just graduated, he‘d be celebrating with friends or going to parties, y‘know that kinda stuff?" Spider hummed slowly. "But all he does is work and work and work." Lo‘ak rolled his eyes. Spider scoffed loudly.

"Dude, it‘s Neteyam we‘re talking about! I can‘t even try to imagine him going to a party." He laughed. Spider had almost forgotten that Neteyam had graduated a few weeks prior. He was only one year older than Spider and Lo‘ak, but he sure made it feel like he was at least five years ahead of them. He had always been a very mature guy for his age, but Spider couln‘t seem to figure out whether that was simply how he was or if he was mature because he felt like he had to be. Because he thought that‘s what Jake expected of him. Maybe a bit of both.

"So. Who‘s ready for a game of Uno?" Lo‘ak changed the subject, clapping his hands togheter. Kiri raised her hand high, as if she was trying to touch the ceiling, while Tuk simply shouted "Me!" A moment later, Jake‘s head poked out from the kitchen, giving them a suspiscious look. Spider had almost completely forgotten that he was even there to begin with.

"Y‘all kids remember what happened the last time you played Uno?" He warned them. Well, yeah. He‘s pretty sure they all remembered. Afterall, they did break a vase. Things tend to get heated up when the Sullys play games. Sore losers, he guesses. Spider had always been scared of Neytiri and the look on her face when she saw the scattered glass on the ground that day only gave him more reasons to. Well, that was a pretty big word. He wasn‘t exactly afraid of her, he simply felt uneasy whenever she was around. And he was pretty sure the feeling was mutual, somehow.

"Yeah, we know." Kiri complained, rolling her eyes.

"Just—manage yourselves this time, okay?" He ordered. He hadn‘t been angry back then. Somehow. Jake was never angry. Or maybe he was from time to time, but that was pretty rare. Spider felt a twinge of jealousy for his friends. If he had a father like Jake, he would never complain about him. Even if he‘d put a bedtime curfew. Even if he‘d confiscate his phone. Even if he‘d lecture him about stupid and ridiculously useless things. The four Sully siblings didn‘t seem aware of just how lucky they truly were, Spider bitterly tought. But that wasn‘t what he wanted to think about tonight. He just wanted to have fun with his best friends, and now really wasn‘t the time to think about all the things he would never have. So he bit back the growing lump in his throat and smiled at Jake in greeting. Tuk came back running with the deck of cards in her hands.

When Lo‘ak tried to take the cards from her, she only protested. "I wanna be the one to shuffle the cards!" She shouted. Lo‘ak and Spider exchanged a look. Ever since they were kids, they shared this weird connection by simply having eye contacts. As if they could read eachothers mind. So much could be shared between these two with one simple glance. Or maybe that was a dude thing? Spider doubted it, because he never had such an affinity with Neteyam. Perhaps Spider and Lo’ak got along pretty well because they were so similar. Maybe they didn‘t exactly like the same things, wear the same things or even listen to the same things, but in the end they always got eachothers back. They understood themselves. Like brothers. That must have been what brought them so close in the end, the reason they were best friends in the first place.

That same truth was different with Kiri, however. They had always been extremely close as well, but their bond was different. Deeper, somehow. She could practically read Spider like an open book, to say the least. She always seemed to notice when something was wrong with Spider. And she was never wrong. Almost. But forcing him to admit that she was right about his weaknesses, that was a whole other story. Eventually, the four of them sat down cross legged around the coffee table and started the game.

The doorbell rang and snapped Spider out of his haze. It had been almost two hours since they started playing Uno, and he’d gotten so much into it that he’d completely forgotten about the whole pizza thing. "I‘ll answer it!" Jake yelled from the dining room. He quickly walked to the entry and opened the door. Spider stretched his neck to catch a glimpse of the delivery man. He turned back to his friends, an incredulous look on his face.

"Goddamn, how much did y‘all order?" He whisper-yelled at them in disbelief.

"Uh—I‘m not sure. Maybe seven?" Kiri started counting on her fingers, squinting her eyes as if she was deep in her thoughts. His mouth dropped open.

"Who‘s gonna eat all that?" He gasped. He could not believe his ears.

"You boys, of course. Just last time, Lo‘ak gulped down a whole pizza all to himself." She scoffed. As if that was obvious. It was true that—concerning Lo‘ak and Spider—teenage boys had quite an apetite. But seven? Really? Jake thanked the man and closed the door in a loud "Dinner‘s ready!" And Spider felt his heart squeeze warmly as all of them hurried to the table, leaving their game behind.

At the apartment, things were so different. The place was always quiet. Awful quiet. And all he could hear was his own breathing and the ringing of his ears. As if the silence weighed down on him. A silence louder than noises. Norm was rarely home—and when he was, him and Spider didn‘t really talk. They didn‘t have dinner togheter either, so Spider had gotten used to making his own meals at a very young age. So of course he was glad to have dinner with the Sully family. He labeled the feeling with 'happiness‘ and decided to place it on an empty shelf in the back of his mind. Tuk sat next to Spider, happily swinging her feet under the table.

"Do you want apple juice, Tuk?" He asked her. She vigorously nodded and he got up, walking over to the kitchen. He’d always conscidered the Sully‘s house as his only home. It was the place where he‘d spent most of his childhood and everybody was pretty used to the idea of Spider wandering around the house like it was his own by now. Everyone except Neytiri. Good thing she was busy at work tonight and couldn‘t come home until later.

He opened the fridge and grabbed the bottle of apple juice. He poured two cups, because deep down he knew Lo‘ak would want a sweet glass of juice as well, although he didn‘t ask for one. He came back at the table and handed the first cup to Tuk who was already eating a mouthful of pizza, and the other to Lo‘ak. He flashed his eyes up to him in a content grin. A way of saying thank you.

Suddenly, Spider felt his stomach gurgle and that weird pressure at the back of his throat tightened. Now that he thought about it, the only thing he ate today were a protein bar and half a bottle of lemon Gatorade. Spider wasn‘t so fond of cereals and eggs and toasts in general, so he never actually ate breakfast and he was usually too lazy or simply forgot to cook lunch. So most of the time, his hunger striked him between one and three a.m. and he was left with eating snacks. So he lost no time digging in his pizza slice that Kiri had placed in his plate a while ago. That was about the best thing he‘d eaten for a long time. Let‘s just say that the usual dry tuna sandwiches and cold pasta leftovers he ate at home didn‘t look so great compared to this greasy all-dressed pizza. They ate in a comfortable silence, because they were all too busy eating to actually maintain a conversation.

"I‘m home!" Neteyam shouted, closing the front door behind him.

"You hungry?" Jake asked him. He simply hummed as he took a slice of vegetarian pizza in his hands. Kiri and Neteyam always had a taste for whatever was healthier, prefering to eat vegetables rather than meat. Not that meat wasn‘t healthy if you took it in resonable quantity. Neteyam always said he did it for his health, while Kiri claimed to avoid meat simply to spare those 'poor little cows and chickens and porks'.

"Man, how dare you take the last slice of vegetarian pizza? It‘s my favourite." Lo‘ak gasped, acting offended. He continued chewing on his dry pizza crust. It was obvious that he was only joking. Lo‘ak was the only person he could think of who hated any kind of fruit or vegetable.

"Ha-ha." Neteyam deadpaned, taking a seat among his siblings. "Hey, I didn‘t know you‘d be coming over tonight. What brings you here?" He asked, turning to Spider with furrowed brows.

"Do I need a reason to visit my best friends?" He scoffed. "How was work?" Spider tried to change the subject, taking a sip from Lo‘ak‘s glass. Neteyam simply shrugged like he didn‘t know what to think about it. He worked in a small coffee shop just a few miles away for almost a year now. The place wasn‘t as popular as any drive-thru, because it was more of a local thing than a food chain, but they did great numbers still. That was just the perfect job for Neteyam. He could study for his upcoming exams or read or do whatever when the shop was empty and nobody could blame him.

"The usual stuff." He sighed, rubbing a hand over his face.

"Man, you look totally wasted." Lo‘ak said. "We should go to the convenience store and get you some candies. Sounds nice?" He continued, eyeing his father for a reaction. Neteyam didn‘t like candy, or anything sweet to begin with, so that simply made no sens. Spider kicked Lo‘ak under the table.

"He doesn‘t like candies, dumbass." Kiri whispered through clenched teeth. So they were mind connected too?

"I mean, we could get you anything you‘d like." He quickly said. The whole intension of the proposition was way too obvious.

"Yeah, I‘m sure Bob is dying for a walk. Aren‘t you, buddy?" Spider played along, scratching the dog‘s neck under the table. Jake sighed. A deep and long sigh thick with exhaustion. Something he‘d only ever heard adults do. Because from what he knew, adults were always tired. Or seemed to be.

"You kids can go, but bring your own money. I‘m not paying for any of the crap you guys are gonna buy." He declared, showing the palms of his hands in surrender, as if he was held at gun point. Spider somehow knew that if Neytiri would have been there, the answer would have been a straight no.

"Great! Who‘s coming?" Lo‘ak shouted, already putting on his red Air Jordans. Spider joined him, slipping his feet into black Vans shoes. The old skool kind of one. They were his favourite and only pair of shoes, but he miraculously never got bored of them. Maybe because he didn‘t have the choice to. It‘s not like he could even afford the luxury of having any other shoes. He wore them during winter as well, even though that meant getting snow into his socks and resulting to his feet being completely frozen. They were plain and simple, almost boring looking, but that was fine.

As for Kiri, she was apparently in the mood to wear her brownish Converses. She had multiple pairs of various colors, each more unique than the previous one, but he must admit that the simplicity of the brown ones fitted just great with the green shades of the crop top she wore today. As badly as she wanted candies, Tuk didn‘t want to walk the mile to the convenience store. So the three of them left with Bob in the wind of June.

They walked to the convenience store, the sun already setting. It was probably around nine o‘clock, maybe a little earlier. Spider hadn‘t even realized it was so late yet. Now he understood what adults meant when they‘d say time goes fast. He always loved sunsets. Yeah, pretty cliché. But they were dazzling to his eyes, each one unique and different. Like a lifesize painting. The art of nature. He liked the idea. They also helped him pass the time faster, whenever he was bored, by simply looking out the window. Made it easier to handle the stress and dreaful ideas, too.

Sunsets helped him feel more human. More true. As if he mattered. As if he wasn‘t just a dust in the universe. But even he couldn‘t fall for his own tricks, most of the time. He knew that was just play-pretend. Life did not matter. One day or another, he would be gone. And he would be forgotten. Like the people who lived on this Earth three hundred years ago were forgotten. But when he looked up at the endless sky, bare of any borders like the land which had been separated into countries, he felt connected with all the human beings. Because sky was the one thing you could find anywhere on Earth, wherever you‘d go. Each country had different languages, different weathers, different kind of climates and laws and species and cultural differences like traditions and all those things that made each one unique. But in the end, they all had the sky.

So he stared at the sunset with unblinking eyes, almost forgetting about the convenience store. After all this time spent alone at home or at school—which he rarely attended anyway because none of his friends were in his classes—or at the skatepark or anwhere, really, he was more than used to getting lost in his mind. He could almost claim that was a hobby, but not really because he didn‘t choose it to be.

"I don‘t think dogs are allowed inside." Kiri said. "I‘ll wait for you guys over there." She announced, pointing to the bench beside the door.

As the two of them entered the store, Lo‘ak nudged Spider to get his attention. Spider always hated when he did that, hated being shoved around at any point. That made him feel small. Vulnerable. He didn‘t like to use that word to describe himself very much. Spider only stared at him, muttering a silent "What?" He couldn‘t help but notice the depraved grin that appeared on Lo‘ak‘s face as he nodded toward the refrigerated aisle. Well, more like toward the alcohol aisle.

Spider‘s eyes widened as he shook his head. "Man, that‘s not a good idea." He whispered, as if he feared that Jake or Neytiri would jump out from behind one of those odd looking shelves and catch them red-handed.

"C‘mon dude, my dad won‘t know about it." He said. "We‘re not gonna get in trouble." He added, seeing how incertain Spider seemed. There was a moment of silence. Spider didn‘t know if he truly wanted to get all caughted up in this game again. Maybe just this once, for the trill?

"Okay, but the blame is on you if we get caught." He groaned in defeat. Lo‘ak always seemed to make sure to bring Spider along whenever he wanted to do something dodgy or vaguely ilegal. He was his security net. He could practically get him out of any problematic situation, somehow.

"You‘ve got a plan or sum?" Spider asked. "Cause, like—not to hurt your precious ego or anything, but you sure as fuck don‘t look of age. And neither do I." Spider had done some things he wasn‘t very proud of in his life. Not just some things. Many things. Drugs, alcohol, stealing, vandalism, you name it. He‘d done it all. But he didn‘t exactly want his friends to think of him as a hoodlum, so he did everything he could to avoid people knowing about it. That included acting as if he didn‘t know exactly how to get alcohol in his possession.

"Who even talked about buying it?" He suggested in a flat tone. Yeah, not bad.

"Man, you‘re a—" Spider kept his act. He wanted to lecture him about how bad stealing was, but that wasn‘t his role to complete. And who really cared anyway? Surely not him. "A fucking genius!" He finally exclaimed. Spider knew how imoral that was, of course he knew, but he couldn‘t bring himself to care. He did that all the time, and no one had ever bated such as an eye. People were dying at every passing moment all over the world, from the war or from famine or from illness. Now what harm was there really in stealing two cans of beer barely 350 ml each? They were under ten dollars for both anyway, so that was fine.

"You cover me." Lo‘ak whispered, eyeing the clerk. She was an average woman with greyish hair and dark skin, probably in her mid-fifty. She wasn‘t exactly over-weigh, but she was far from skinny. If necessary, running away from her would probably not be a problem.

"We‘re making this way too obvious." Spider sighed, blocking the clerk‘s view on Lo‘ak. They were lucky enough to have landed in a convenience store which couldn‘t even afford security cameras. Made the whole thing easier.

"Dude, just act normal." He replied, stoking the cans in his bag.

"I mean, kinda hard to act normal when we‘re literally shoplifting in broad daylight." He checked over his shoulder, just as Lo‘ak closed his backpack. He wouldn‘t usually be all that panicky about stealing, but he‘d gotten caught just two weeks ago and let go with a warning. Ever since, he tried to maintain his status as clean and avoid that kind of not-so-legal activities. Looks like he didn‘t, in the end.

He drew in a deep breath as they headed toward the candy row. They should have expected it from a convenience store in the armpit of the universe, but there were not as many candy brands as they had expected. Shelves half empty and without any doubt at least a few months old. To make matters worse, the place was on the verge of bankrupcty, and Spider now realized why—this place sucked.

He heard Lo‘ak start rambling about wether they should buy Swedish Berries or Sour Patch Kids, something along the lines. He simply told him to buy whatever was sweeter. Which won in the end, that he couldn‘t tell. He didn‘t care much for it anyway, so he strolled down the aisles one by one, looking for the most fucked up item—something probably made in China and sold way over the regular price simply because it had eccentrics colors.

When Lo‘ak came back empty handed, Spider gave him an odd look. "I thought you wanted candies?" He asked suspiciously.

"We sneaked the beer, mignt as well have those candies for free." He shrugged. Spider felt his ears turn red with anger, but managed to keep a rather neutral face. Maybe Spider stole from shops sometimes, but he had so many reasons to. But Lo‘ak? He had plenty of money, enough to buy whatever he wanted. And what did he do? He decided to steal. Spider didn‘t know what to say. There was so much going on his mind, so many things he wished to say, but no word came out. It wasn‘t his job to tell his friend whether something was good or bad for him afterall. He was supposed to be the cool friend that let everything slide. So that‘s what he did.

"Try not to attract too much attention. Act chill. She probably won‘t notice anyway." Spider whispered, pointing at the clerk behind him. Lo‘ak nodded as they headed to the door. And as planned, everything went smooth as butter. The woman did‘t even look their way as they left the store.

"Took you long enough." Kiri complained on the walk back home. "What‘d you get? Let me see." She insisted.

"We‘ll show you when we get home." Lo‘ak kept saying through clenched teeth everytime she would ask.

By the time they arrived home, the sun was long gone and had given way to the darkness of the night. The sky wasn’t totally pitch black, more like a dense blue, almost purple. The air was still, locusts singing peacefully. He wished everyday could be like today. That would be more fun. Life would seem almost worth it. Not that he didn‘t like his life. But sometimes he just thought his life was a movie and he wished he could hit the pause button.

Spider quickly noticed the black Honda civic parked in the driveway. Of course he noticed. It was Neytiri‘s. He quietly gulped, taking a deep breath as they entered the house. This would be fine. Why wouldn‘t it? He‘d spent years alongside her, and it was fine. So why would now be different?

"We‘re back!" Kiri yelled. The place had gone silent, lifeless as a dollhouse. "They‘re probably in the courtyard." She shrugged, as if reading his mind. Neteyam walked down the stairs, a mango popsicle hanging from his lips. "Hey, have you seen Tuk?" Kiri asked him. He pointed upstairs.

"Well, we‘re going downstairs if you wanna come." Lo‘ak said, removing his shoes. The basement was their playground, in a certain way. Adults rarely went there if it wasn‘t to do the laundry. The place was packed with stuff like plants and fairy lights and frames of family pictures and concert posters. Lo‘ak and Kiri had their room in the basement as well, while Tuktirey’s and Neteyam’s ones remained upstairs next to the master bedroom.

Spider sat down on the couch in a sigh next to Kiri while Lo‘ak unpacked his backpack. He placed the bag of Sour Patch on the coffee table and threw a can of beer onto Spider‘s laps. Kiri rolled her eyes at them. "Cheers." Lo‘ak said. Spider smelled the yellowish liquid, then took a sip. The bitterness settled itself in every corner of his mouth. It wasn‘t exactly as nasty has he‘d remember it being, but it was far from his drink of choice.

"You guys are unbelievable." Kiri scoffed in amusement. "At least let me have a taste." She said, reaching for Spider‘s can and took a sip. "That thing is nasty." She twisted her eyebrows into an odd expression. "I‘ll stick to green tea." She said, bringing her knees up to her chest and resting her chin on them as she chewed on a blue Sour Patch.

Spider stared at her for a moment. At her beauty. At her short brown hair with a glimpse of red in them, at the freckles all over her cheeks, at her glowing hazel eyes. She was a pretty girl. What was he saying? All girls were pretty. But Kiri seemed the prettiest of them all, to him.

He knew how that sounded, but he had no romantic feelings toward her. They were just friends. Just friends. And he didn‘t understand how people still thought that—just because he knew how to appreciate someone‘s beauty—that meant he had to have a crush on them. That‘s not how it worked. He could think a girl was pretty or a boy was handsome and that didn‘t make him want to be in a relationship with them.

He knew what love was like. He loved his friends. And he had loved his mother. He still did. But romantic love? He‘d only experienced this kind of feeling twice. Once for a girl and once for a boy. He tried not to think about it too often. What would that mean for him? He knew how people would react. A boy could not love another boy. Well, he could. But that would be weird. And Spider didn‘t want to come out of the lot. So he sticked to girls as best as he could. Even though his heart beat for someone else.

Soon enough, Spider wedged the entire can of beer, leaving only small drops at the bottom. Kiri was scrolling through Pinterest and Lo‘ak was on his phone, doing whatever. Man, kids these days. "I‘m bored. What should we do?" He asked them, resting his feet on the coffee table. The basement smelled of burnt vanilla candle and old wood planks and fresh laundry.

"Wanna play Mario Kart?" Lo‘ak suggested. There wasn‘t much else to do anyway. "Yeah, sure." Spider shrugged.

"Shot gun Yoshi." Kiri said without even looking up from her phone. Spider chose Toad, his go-to character whenever they played Mario Kart and Lo‘ak picked King Boo. After some arguing over what track would be the best, they began the game. They played for about one hour and a half, occasionaly getting up to refill the bowl of chips or go to the bathroom.

"Guys, I think I gotta go." Spider yawned, rubbing his eyes. "I told Norm I‘d be there around midnight." He rested his head on Kiri‘s shoulder for a moment, eyes closed. She passed her hand through his curly blond hair. "Just text him that you‘re staying over." She suggested.

"I really can‘t, Kiri. Maybe another time." He whispered. Almost sorry. He hugged her for a minute, head hidden in the crook of her neck, hands on her back and he didn‘t want to leave. But he felt like he had to. Because he told Norm he‘d be there at midnight. So he had to be there on time.

Lo‘ak accompanied him upstairs without saying a word. That was odd. Lo‘ak would ever shut up only if he was tired or if he was planning to murder someone who‘d spread a false rumor about him that said he ate his boogers. So he was probably tired, just like Spider.

"Are you sure you don‘t want me to walk you home?" Lo‘ak asked. "Cause, you know. It‘s pretty dark." He leaned on the door frame with his arms crossed over his chest. His eyes were small, almost closing on themselves. If Spider dared speak the truth, he would have accepted the offer without any doubt. But he didn‘t want to bother Lo‘ak who looked completely wiped out. He couldn‘t admit he was scared to walk home alone neither.

"No, thanks." He refused. Lo‘ak raised one eyebrow. "I‘ll be fine. I‘m not a kid anymore." He tried to grin. For a moment, the expression on Lo‘ak‘s face was indescribable. His eyes looked somehow blank. But then he blinked once and his crooked smile returned. Spider gave him a friendly punch on the shoulder, something he had done way too many times as a sign of affection.

"Alright. See ya, loser." He concluded sleepily. They waved each other goodbye and when Lo‘ak finally closed the door with an audible click, Spider sighed in pure exhaustion and relief. He walked down the driveway in a slow rythm. He must say that the amount of pizza and Sour Patch he gulped down tonight grossed him out and he wasn‘t so sure he‘d be able to keep all the content of his stomach inside. Not to mention how badly he handled alcohol. He decided it wasn‘t such a great idea to use his skateboard right now, so he slid the board through the straps of his backpack and simply walked.

There were a few cars here and there, but they were rare. The night was well installed and floor lamps were lighting up the street with a warm orange tone. He saw the stars in the sky, and he wondered how many wishes they could hold. Spider pulled his phone out of his pocket and texted Norm.

SPIDER ( 23:47 )
I‘m on my way rn
Should be there soon

NORM ( 23:47 )
Ok look both ways before crossing the street.

SPIDER ( 23:48 )
You already told me that

He shoved his phone back into his fadded baggy jeans and kept on walking. He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket just a second later, but he ignored it. That was probably just Norm saying he was simply reminding him about it, so that could wait until later.

NORM ( 23:49 )
No more orange juice
Please stop at the grocery store?

Then, he realized that he was exhausted. He just wanted to hit the sack right about now. At walking speed, he calculated that he would get home in about thirty minutes. But using his skateboard would probably make it twice as fast. Was it worth the trouble? He felt kind of nauseous, but he still decided to roll his way back to the apartment. He placed his board on the ground and propelled himself with his right foot across the deserted street.

Spending so much time at the skatepark had earned him quite a few aquaintances among the world of skateboarders—people who couldn‘t exactly be called friends, but had been there for Spider in the past eight years and helped him through his journey. They were there to help him overcome his fear whenever he wanted to try a new trick he‘d never done before or something risky. They hyped him up. Challenged him. But he learned most of his tricks by himself or with the help of Youtube tutorials to get a small idea on how to get it done. But mostly alone. Of course advices and tips from his folk never went amiss, but he didn‘t need them all that much. He was independant. He was fine.

He was only mid-way across the street when all turned to utter shit. It was a blur of white and red, a loud honk tearing his eardrums apart. He felt his heart seize in his throat for a moment. He didn‘t have time to think about it all that much. But his brain had the time to process that life would never be the same again. And he just felt extremely bad suddenly. He should have accepted to stay over at Kiri‘s house. He no longer hoped everyday could be like today. The sound of screeching wheels echoed through the whole neighbourhood. He didn‘t know where the car even came from. It just appeared out of nowhere.

NORM ( 23:51 )
You still there?
Hello?

What he did know however, is that this car hit him.

NORM ( 23:52 )
You okay?

And it hit him hard.

Chapter Text

For a second, he was just laying there and looking up at the dark sky. Then, the second turned into two seconds and the tingling sensation shooting up his elbows and knees and hands turned into painful burns. Was that how it felt like to die? He used to think it would be different. Perhaps he was expecting something warm and comforting to take him away in his sleep. Like the waves on the shore, slow and steady and unstoppable. But from what he knew, death truly hurt like a bitch.

He tried to calm down. Inhales through his nose, exhales through his mouth. He didn‘t want to go. Not yet. He needed time to think about what to do in this kind of situation. He never thought something like that would happen to him in his whole life. Yet here he was, wounds so deep he wondered if he couldn‘t see bones through flesh.

He wondered for a moment what he would tell Norm for being home late, but decided it didn’t matter, since he was literally dying. His mind couldn‘t process it all at once. After the fourth second, he felt the blood from his knuckles run down his hands in heavy drops. He tried to flex his finger and when he couldn‘t feel his own hand, he froze. Because that couldn‘t mean anything good. He moved his feet arround and let out a breath when he realized he hadn‘t been paralyzed.

Everything hurt so much. Breathing hurt. Bleeding hurt. So he tried to tell himself it could have been a whole lot worse, tried to picture himself skull split right in half. His body as a lifeless corpse. An old shell, dead and silent and more dead. What did it even mean to die? At the fifth second, the driver got out of his engine, leaving the door wide open behind him as he ran at Spider‘s aid.

"Oh shit, kiddo. Are you alright?" He asked, eyebrows twisted into a concerned expression. Was this man retarded or just fucking stupid? Spider almost wanted to answer, to tell him no—cause look at him covered in blood from head to toes and barely managing to breathe properly, and you‘ll know that he‘s not alright. But not a single word came out of his mouth. He groaned painfully, attempting to blink away the black spots in his vision.

The car‘s headlights were wide open and blinding him. He couldn‘t really see anything past them, but he still made out the shape of the passenger door flying open to reveal a second man. The figure seemed to be walking toward them, pace slow and steady. Almost menacing. Spider tried to stand up as he felt his throat close on itself, his stomach clenching painfully. The sensation knocked the breath out of him and he knew that he was about to throw up.

"Hey don‘t move, stay still." The bald man tried to lay him on his back, to no avail. The feeling of nausea overtook him once again and he barely had the time to double over that he was retching all over the ground. The sound of orange-ish liquid splashing on the concrete made the man look away. He couldn‘t do it, Spider thought. This was going to kill him. He felt beads of sweat run down his forehead, cold on his warm skin.

"Oh man, that‘s disgusting. God, I can‘t." The man said beside him, his voice hushed. Spider wished a hand would start stroking soothing circles on his back, in what he considered a reassuring way. It was something he remembered the nurse doing back in school, when he got sick as a kid. He used to think he was so lucky to skip class and get to go home early instead of learning what were 10 bananas minus 3 apples. But no hand came rubbing his sweaty back. Spider was rarely sick, but when he was, it truly did a number on him. Never taking alcohol again, he mentally noted.

"Get back into the truck, Lyle. I‘ll take care of him." Another voice said, so deep Spider almost didn‘t understand what he‘d said. Man, he had a bad feeling about that dude. Something deep inside him was steering like crazy. A feeling so strong he could almost hear it, could almost taste it and smell it. Something that made him want to physically recoil as the man walked closer and closer and closer to Spider. What the hell were they waiting for to call an ambulance? Spider made the mistake to look up, and when blue eyes met brown ones, a shiver ran down his spine. Ice blue eyes. Crazy eyes.

"Sure thing, boss. Watch out though, he‘s pretty bloodied." The bald one said—Lyle was it? And suddenly Spider came to a realization, one he wished he never did. He was scared. He was so fucking scared and he didn‘t want to be, because he was supposed to be tough. So why was he shaking all over, his heart in his throat and staring at the concrete as if he was a lamb about to get slaughtered. Sure felt like it, though.

"Tell me something I don‘t know." The man with crazy eyes replied, laughing one of those short laughs as he crouched down next to Spider, but there was no humor to it. "Hey, can you hear me?" He asked, waving a hand before his eyes. He articulated the words as if Spider was some kind of retarded freak. There was something about this man that instantly made him crave to land a good and strong punch right in the middle of his face.

"Loud and clear." He bit back, but his voice broke and he felt his face turn red from embarrassment. The ghost of a headache was building up behind his eyes. His hands were cold, his face was hot and his vision was quivering. He wasn‘t the sharpest tool in the shed, but he was pretty sure those were not good signs.

"Think ya can get up alone?" He asked. He seemed so casual about the situation yet so serious. Not serious, just stern. This man probably had superiority issues or something of the kind. Spider didn‘t answer him. He could have, but he didn‘t want to. He swallowed thickly, ears ringing. And somehow, whatever miracle he‘d been blessed with, he managed to get on his two feets.

He looked down as his bloody shaking hands. There was dust and little rocks and all kinds of dirty crap that hurt worse on his palms. And he realized that he still couldn‘t feel his right hand. At all. He couldn‘t decide whether that was any better than having a broken arm. The feeling was weird. Quite phantom. He finally had a look at himself, his jeans torn with holes at the knees, his shirt stained with dirt and blood. Man, Norm would be so mad. He licked his lips, the taste of iron strong on his tongue, almost suffocating, even.

"Alright champ, get in." The man huffed out, jabbing his thumb at the car behind him. "We‘re driving you to the hospital."

"Um—no, thanks. I‘m good." He refused flatly. He wasn‘t about to get in the car of this complete stranger. Let‘s just say that getting kidnapped wasn‘t exactly on the top three of his to-do list. Or at all, for that fact. The man stopped a moment, staring at him. Analyzing him.

"Have you seen yourself, smartass?" The man said, motioning him with his chin. Yes, yes he had. And he knew that he wasn‘t looking too good at the moment. But if he told himself that those were just scratches, he could almost believe it.

"I said it‘s all good. I‘m fine, really." Spider replied through gritted teeth. He was far from fine. Anything but fine. He probably looked like he‘d been run over by a truck. Oh wait—he had. And he was still alive, somehow. For now. Perhaps he would die from internal bleeding in a few hours. Maybe not, if he kept up with the bad luck.

He almost wished he would have been dead on impact. It‘s not that he longed for death, craved it like a sociopath. He just wasn‘t willing to live. He had no future, no tomorrow awaiting him. The yesterdays kept piling up as bad souvenirs and the hope of a better life faded with every passing day. He felt dead alive. There was almost nothing for him to hold on to. Well, maybe the Sully family? He guesses so, because removing them from his life would be removing any purpose at all. And he doubted that was mutual. They would be fine without him. Anyhow, he felt like simple and utter shit. And he was not fine at all.

"I ain‘t having any of your bullshit. You‘re coming with us, period." He said, grabbing Spider by the elbow and leading him to the back seat of the car. He could have resisted, or at least tried to, but he was just so tired. Or maybe he just knew that he had no chance against this man. He sure had an iron grip on his arm. He had gray hair, so he must have been at least fifty, Spider thought. Most people this age didn‘t have such a strength, so this guy must have been a cop or something of the kind. Perhaps a firefighter?

"Buckle up, kid." Lyle looked at him in the rear-view mirror. This whole situation should have been normal, or as normal as it is to drive someone to the hospital, yet something about it felt odd. Spider couldn‘t quite put a finger on the problem. Those guys were just strangers trying to help him, as they should. Yeah, right. Who was he kidding? Those idiots shouldn‘t have been granted a driver license to begin with. They almost fucking killed him.

Lyle started the engine, whistling an air as if there was not a problem in the world. They drove for a few minutes. There was the sound of the radio, but it was too low for him to comprehend it, and the roaring of the car. "You still alive in the back?" He asked Spider and he didn‘t know. Maybe. He felt a sticky liquid roll down his arm and whatever it was, it was warm. The scary man checked over his shoulder, eyeing Spider bizarrely.

"For Christ‘s sake, the blood is dripping everywhere. Hit the gas, Lyle." He angrily growled. Spider could feel his eyes slowly close on themselves, his eyelid heavier by the second. He looked at the board computer. 00:17 He had told Norm he would be there about 20 minutes ago. He didn‘t want to make him worry. He would text him later.

"I can‘t help it, there‘s a red light." Lyle responded in his defense, sounding almost offended.

"I couldn‘t care less about your damn Christmas lights. I said floor it!" And he did. Spider‘s sure he heard a few cars angrily honk at them despite the late hour. But maybe he just hallucinated it. He was pretty out of it to say the least and doesn't remember much. Or little did he remember was all fuzzy and mixed up. He let out a shaky breath. The burning sensation on his elbows and knees got worse. Bad enough that he could have bawled his eyes out right there and then. He felt as if he was on fire. His head started hurting too.

"You‘ve got a name, kid?" The man asked, turning to him while Lyle was busy avoiding to run over yet another pedestrian. That would be ironic. It would make a good plot for a thriller. Serial killers running over people with their car and taking them away into their basement to steal their organs.

"Spider." He said, and his voice was raspy and hoarse.

"Spider? And your imaginary friends are Cockroach and Butterfly?" He huffed out, mocking him in a way he had been millions of times before. This man could use some creativity. He‘d definitely heard better insults in his life.

"Yeah and they are awesome." Spider replied in sarcasm, but he’s pretty sure that simply came out as flat.

"Spider you say, huh? I guess you ain‘t exactly rocking into that baby boy names sites." Lyle erupted into laughter, slapping the steering wheel. Man, he was sick of these people using his name as an excuse to mock him. Okay, he was named after an insect, so what? Augusts were named after a month and Olivers after a tree and did people ever mock them? What was it about being different anyway? Why couldn‘t he be like other people?

He felt the corner of his vision darken even further into the black of the night, his sight blurry and ears ringing. That‘s when he knew he was about to pass out. Or that he was dying and the light was leaving him. Did people dream when they passed out? He sure hoped so.

"Kid in the back ain‘t looking too good, boss. He‘s pale as fuck." Lyle eyed him in the rear-view mirror, a big smile still stretched on his lips. The man said nothing, he simply waved his hand in the air, pushing something imaginary aside. Just like Lo‘ak had done back when he‘d asked where Neteyam was. He could already see the expression on their face when they would learn he‘d gotten rolled over by a car. Well, not rolled over. Just hit.

"Don‘t you worry, kid. I ain‘t letting you die on me." The man said, and that‘s the last thing he heard as he felt the same warm liquid rolling down the base of his skull, before his world went blank. But it was alright, because he expected to wake up in a hospital.

And he did. Truly, he did. He woke up in an unfamiliar place, all four walls a shining white, ceiling and floor as well. The room was lit by overbright neon lights. So a hospital, he guessed. Because only hospitals were ever this white, this cold and this dead. To be honest, he had half expected to wake up in a dark basement with dozens of other children. Real talk, these guys were creepy as hell. He let out a shaky breath when he realized he sure as fuck wasn‘t in a basement or anything close to it.

The place smelled bad, smelled of cleanness and chemicals, and it hurt his nostrils to simply breath. Maybe he was just being over dramatic, so he pushed that statement away. And the noises, they bothered him too. He could hear a recurrent beeping noise, far away as if in another dimension, but it was there nonetheless. But aside from the beeping, the place was totally silent. Stillness. Not a noise, not a whisper, not a sign of human life at all.

Spider felt tired. He guessed his muscles felt tired too. He wanted to stretch in every possible way, crack his bones. Spider raised his head a few centimeters and let it fall back down on the pillow in exhaustion. The lower part of his body was covered by a thin powder blue blanket and his right hand was rolled into bandages, in a way that let the fingers visible and flexible. He couldn‘t feel his face or his hands or his feet or his body overall and it took him a big minute to realize he had been drugged. Hell yeah.

He wondered if his friends would come to visit him today, or if they knew he had an accident at all. And the imbeciles who brought him here, did they leave already? He decided he didn‘t care and that didn‘t matter. There were no windows in his room and it made it even harder to know what time it was or how long he‘d been in here for. Probably for a while.

He closed his eyes and sighed. Talk about a way to ruin his summer. He didn‘t want to be here. Not that anyone would. But he should have been more careful. Not that he could do anything about it now either. He looked up at the ceiling, tracing the corners of the neon lights with his eyes. That was probably the only thing he did for the next few hours.

Time was such a weird thing. There was no such thing as future or past. Time was a concept. Then used to be now and now would be then and the future would be past. But what even was past? Time was a whole. There was no interruption between the then and the now. Time was movement. And there was nothing else to say. So however long he had been staring at the ceiling, he got bored eventually and realized he needed to piss, honestly.

So he slowly got up, careful as if he was made of porcelain. He walked to the door, bare feet on the cold tiles floor, and let out a breath he didn‘t even know he was holding when he realized it was unlocked. He pushed it open to reveal an hallway, bright and white as his room. He looked at both sides. Was he dreaming? This place was completely empty. No nothing. The hallway was bare of any object, any color or shape. No sign of life.

He finally decided to leave the threshold of the door. He took a first step, unsure and almost shy, although he wasn‘t sure what for. He took a second one, this time a bit more confident, and another and on and on until he arrived at an intersection. This place was quiet, so quiet and even almost too quiet, and it turned out Spider felt unsafe in this place. He almost started to wonder whether he was really in a hospital or not. His head felt like it was spinning crazy, everything around him fuzzy, but he kept going. Suddenly, he heard something like voices. He stopped dead in his tracks. Listening.

"What the fuck do you mean he‘s not in the register?" A voice growled, loud and angry.

"I don‘t know, boss. There is no result for the name he gave us in the registered birth data." Another voice replied. Boss. Could that be Lyle? He‘d only ever heard him call the scary man by that title. So those idiots were still around, from the look of it. Well, more like from the noise of it.

"Are you sure you checked every year? He might be older than he looks." Who were they even talking about?

"Sure did. You know what I think?" He huffed out, voice strained and accusing. "That little guy is making a monkey out of us." Lyle said, ending his sentence on a high note. Spider let his gaze wander around in a brief moment of silence. He looked up at the wall and could not believe what he saw. He double checked to make sure his eyes were not playing tricks on him. On the wall were written three letters in navy blue. RDA.

His heart skipped a beat, maybe even two or three. He could not breath. All the air was stuck in his throat, unable to reach his lungs. Oh shit. He definitely was dreaming. A hell of a terrible dream at that. Maybe if he pinched his wrist hard enough he would wake up?

"C‘mon, boss. With a name like that, what were we really expecting there anyway?" Lyle laughed out loud, awkward and forced in an attempt to calm his boss down. Whom seemed anything but calm.

"Something‘s going on with that kid." He heard him mutter, something along the lines. What? He took a step back, hands sweaty and ears ringing. He felt knots in his stomach. Maybe he‘d read that wrong? He looked up once again, his worst worries confirmed. He was in an RDA base. Great. Words fell to describe how utterly fucked he was. If they‘d come to know who he was, they‘d gut him alive. Things would happen. Bad things.

He could literally feel the three huge letters staring at him, weighing on him and lurking their poison into him and that was probably the thing that made him buldge, made him realize and snap out of his haze. He had to get the hell out of here and fast.

"What makes you think that?" Lyle asked, visibly taken aback by the sudden information.

"An intuition, Lyle. That boy smells of Na‘vi." He replied, putting an emphasis on Na‘vi, as if the word was bitter on his tongue.

"Surely you don‘t mean that—"

"I mean nothing. I‘m simply stating the obvious that he has something to do with Jake Sully. Have you seen his hair to begin with?" And just like that, Spider‘s life started to fall apart. He had absolutely no idea what was awaiting him.

Chapter Text

He took a step back. He felt an inexplicable shift of energy, a powerful aura radiating from the very center of his body. He related the unusual feeling to the word adrenaline. He turned around, the weight of his own body heavy on his two feet. Spider tried to make up a plan of some kind in his mind, a coherent train of thoughts to get him out of this situation. He quickened his pace as he strolled down the hallway back to his room. First, he would need access to his phone to locate himself on Google map. RDA bases were kind of in the middle of nowhere, and for many reasons, one being to avoid people knowing about its location. And Spider was one of those people.

Once he got back to his room, he lost no time locating his backpack at the feet of the bed. He anxiously zipped it open to reveal its whole content. The integrity of his stuff was still in there, as well as his old dirty clothes, neatly folded up. He quickly slipped off the white gown that he was somehow wearing and changed back into his baggy jeans. He put on the gray hoodie he‘d kept in his bag for good measure as well. He didn‘t even want to think about who must have changed him into that hospital gown while he was unconscious.

The fabric of the hoodie was rough and itchy against his bare skin, but his t-shirt was too dirty even for his own taste to put back on. And it‘s not like he was in any position to be complaining about that. He would just change into something more comfortable once he got back home. If he got back home. He let out a breath and rummaged through his bag, looking for his phone. The tension was building up in his chest like a balloon getting blown up. And that balloon would soon burst, he feared.

Once he finally got a hold on said phone, he tapped on its cracked screen to open it and it showed 10:58 in white bold letters on his wallpaper—a dark red background with a black spiderman-like logo. He tried to call Norm first, to let him know he would be back soon and that he shouldn‘t worry, but he had no connection. That meant he couldn’t use Google Map either. So he let out a curse and slipped it into the back pocket of his pants.

He put on his backpack and couldn‘t help but notice how light weighting the bag was. Or maybe that was just him? Something was definitely missing. And then he understood. The realization hit him like a brick wall, knocking the wind out of him. He held his breath for a second before allowing himself to acknowledge it. His skateboard. They had left his skateboard at the crime scene. Or whatever you‘d call it. It probably rolled away and they didn‘t notice in the heat of the moment. He was going back there as soon as he got out of here, that was a sure thing in a very large sea of uncertainty.

He got up and walked to the door at a careful pace, peeking his head out to check both sides before stepping out and into the hallway. He chose to go the opposite direction than he went last time, reducing the chances of coming face to face with Lyle, despite how small they were. He walked blindly for a long time, but he‘s sure it had been just a few minutes. This place was a total labyrinth. He faced his worst worry and admitted to himself that he was lost. Suddenly, he heard something like footsteps.

To think about it, it must have looked so ridiculously stupid, but he still pressed himself against the wall, not totally expecting it to make a difference. A woman in her young thirties appeared in the hallway. She had brown hair tied up into a tight bun at the top of her head and was wearing a white smock. Not that how she looked really mattered. She was looking down at her notepad and walking straight toward him. When she looked up and saw him, she stopped dead in her tracks and her face made all kinds of expressions. First confusion, then something akin to fear or confusion and then she seemed upset. She furrowed her brows at him.

"What are you doing here?" She asked, but she probably wasn‘t expecting him to answer. He saw her reach to her left ear and he quickly realized that she was about to call the security on him. What a ditch. "Corridor B-35. There is a teenage boy wandering around unsupervised. Send the security." She said to herself.

That was his clue to start running, to wherever they would not find him. He could play cat and mouse all day if that’s what it took for him to achieve his goal. He looked around for an exit or even just a door, somewhere to hide. He found a door and tried to open it, but of course it was locked, because it couldn‘t have been this easy. His next attempts were just as ineffective as the first one. He felt trapped like a caged animal. He could feel that the anger and fear was getting to him. He needed to calm down. Think like a civilized person. Stop acting so feral, as the people at school said. Fuck them.

He started walking backward to get a better view on the situation when he bumped into someone. The person was a tall man with a pair of sunglasses over his eyes. Spider found it weird that someone would wear sunglasses indoor, but did not say anything about it. He mumbled an apology of some sort and continued on his path. Except he didn’t, because strong hands grabbed the back of his bag and pulled him right back on his track. He looked up at the man, feelings all mixed up. Was he just surprised, or downright scared? Even he didn‘t know.

The man’s face was blank, stoic in a way he‘s sure he never saw before. The sunglasses made it hard to tell whether he was looking directly at Spider in the eye, or analyzing his body. He‘s not sure which one would have been worse. When Spider shook his backpack once and the man did not let go, he realized he was most likely from the security. He felt his heart pick up the speed and drum in an irregular rhythm. According to his plan, which he never really made up, this was not supposed to be happening. Ok dude, you‘ve got this.

A woman, thin and tall with a wannabe mohawk at the top of her head appeared behind him. Jeez, just how many of them were there? Spider‘s sure he must have looked as cornered as he felt, because she gave him an odd look, then erupted into laughter. "That‘s him? They‘ve gotta be kidding." She grinned. Spider couldn‘t help but notice how defamatory she made it sound, whether that was intended or not. He felt his hands close on themselves in tight fists.

"I didn‘t know we were hired as babysitters." She scoffed. Spider glared at her with what he hoped was the most venomous gaze ever known to mankind. Meanwhile, his brain was processing to come up with another solution.

A little further down the hallway, he saw Lyle and his scary boss storm their way at a quick pace. Christ on a cracker. He needed to escape at any point. He slid his arms out of the bag's straps, freeing himself. The woman who he thought was only for emotional support caught up to him, but he had kind of half expected it. So he fought with what he knew best. Teeth and nails.

A scream erupted into the hallway as Spider bit her arm to the flesh. To be honest, he‘d done it harder than was necessary, but according to how much of a bitch she looked, he spoiled himself. She let go as quickly as she‘d got a hold on him. She called him a few inappropriate names, but he thought that was okay, because she probably hated him as much as he hated her now.

He ran to another corridor, only looking back once to see the boss yell at them all how incompetent they were. That made Spider laugh, because he wasn’t any better. Spider still hadn‘t come up with a new plan. Surely he couldn‘t keep running around the base until he tired them out. He had great stamina, but so did they. He was gonna need to be wiser than them. Find a good hiding spot, somewhere they couldn‘t reach at least.

He turned left and opened the first door he saw, quickly getting in and locking it behind him. When he realized he landed in a bathroom, white and clean just like his room, he couldn‘t help but crack a smile. This must have been a fucking joke. Was this The Truman Show? His bladder angrily protested and he gave it a thought, because anyone on the run still had their normal human needs. Except they didn‘t have time for those human needs, so he pushed the idea aside. He could hold it for now.

In all the rooms there were in this gigantic place, he really had to end up in a regular bathroom? No stall, just one toilet and a sink with green liquid soap. Where was he supposed to go now? Hide in the toilet bowl? He rested his head against the door for a brief moment to gain his breath back. He looked up at the ceiling and saw an air conduct entry. Bingo. Now was the moment all those spies movies he‘d watched as a kid would come handy.

He climbed on the toilet seat, praying to anyone willing to listen that the thin plastic under his feet could hold his weight. He took off the dusty metal plate and placed it in the sink next to him. He let out one anxious breath and started hissing himself into the air conduct with the strength of his arms. He heard someone start barging on the door. Fuck. Anxiety crawled into the pit of his stomach and deep in his throat like a vile snake. About two seconds later, the door swung open to reveal Lyle and Sunglasses Guy, who pointed a gun at him. He mentally cursed. They were trying to scare him. They wouldn’t actually shoot him. That was against the law. Right?

He felt his heart jump when Lyle grabbed his ankle and tried to pull him out of the conduct. Spider attempted to land a kick at his head with his other foot, but he slipped and almost completely fell out of the duct. His heart was beating so loudly he wondered if Lyle could hear it too. His eyes widened as he attempted to scramble back up, using Lyle‘s bald head to hiss himself in. This would work. At least, he hoped it would.

The using-Lyle‘s-head technique worked impressively well and when he was all the way into the duct, he sank his nails into the hand still holding his ankle. He‘s sure there would be marks for at least a few days. He heard Lyle curse loudly as he let go. Spider almost felt bad for him, because he was the only one who‘d seemed genuinely nice, but not quite. Spider lost no time crawling into the unknown tunnel, heart beating so hard he thought it was about to explode out of his ribcage.

He waited until the voices faded away, until the footsteps vanished. He was left in utter silence. He wondered if he could get back down to take a piss, but decided otherwise, as they might have been patiently waiting for him to come back down. The duct was small and narrow, and Spider barely had any space to move his arms around. This would be the only time in his entire life that he would be grateful of his small height.

He realized that he did lose his backpack and its whole content, but luckily his phone was still in his pants pocket. He reached for it and activated the flashlight mode. He could now see just how small and never ending the air duct was and audibly gulped, not so sure if he wanted to take this path anymore. Well, not like there was any other option. He decided to keep crawling.

He crawled for ten minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes. He crawled until his upper arms and elbows hurt and until he felt like he couldn’t no more. He had to come up with the conclusion that he was lost. He thought about Norm. Was he worried about Spider right now? Was he wondering why he hadn‘t come home yesterday? Fuck, Spider truly had a gift for getting into trouble. He felt pearls of sweats gather on his brows, some rolling down into his eyes. He swiped them off with the back of his hand and let his burning head fall on the cold metal of the duct. He closed his eyes. Just a little nap would be fine. Just five minutes.

He woke up to a weird feeling. Like wind caressing his skin. His mind clicked in place quick enough. There was some sort of air changement through the duct. He should have expected it. He rubbed his eyes hard, until red spots danced behind his eyelid. His phone was still in his hand and he realized that he fell asleep with the flashlight on, so now the battery was dead. Great, things were going right his way. He would just have to continue in the dark. He rubbed his forehead, hissing when the headache got particularly bad. Don‘t cry. Don‘t cry.

There was almost no time. He had to get back down there or the dust flying in the air could cause him an asthma attack. And where the fuck do you think his pump was? In the backpack. It was surprising enough that he hadn‘t triggered an asthma attack yet, with all that running. Adrenaline must do that, he thought. So he pulled his upper body up with his elbows and started crawling in the now dark environment. It was quite panicking if he was honest with himself, which he was not. Would he die here and become the ghost of the RDA base? That would be totally creepy, but also cool. Think about it. He would get to freak out his nemesis day long.

He crawled for what felt like an eternity, only stopping once he started hearing voices. At first he thought he was becoming schizophrenic, crazy from the lack of noise and outside brightness. But he saw something like light and the closer he got to it, the louder they were getting. He grinned as he propped his head on both elbows. There was a metallic fence, like the one he‘d removed earlier, but he couldn‘t see much through it. He angled himself differently and when his eyes caught a glimpse of a white hallway, he stayed in that position.

The voices were coming from under him, but he soon realized they were just coworkers having a chat about the coming weekend. He waited for them to walk away and everything to fall dead silent to push the fence out. It came crashing on the ground a few meters lower in a mess of metallic noises. He held his breath for a moment, waited to see if anyone would be coming to check what all that noise was about before slipping out of the duct with little strength was left in his arms.

He squinted his eyes at the sudden intensity of the light after spending what felt like hours in the dark. Respect to the blind, he thought. His shoulders and upper back hurt the most, and his legs were shaking and unsteady from lack of use. He almost felt like he was about to pass out. No. Stay strong. He blinked rapidly, trying to concentrate on his surroundings. The dull pain that had been growing behind his eyes for the past hours was starting to feel like a serious problem. It felt as if they‘d put acid in his head, his brain melting away and sipping out from his ears. The headache was consuming his whole energy like a flaming wick burning the wax of a candle.

He felt so angry. He didn‘t know if he was angry at himself for being so dumb or at the men for being so reckless or just at life, because it sucked. Why was he into that shit right now? Him out of all people? He was a tough kid, people said. He wanted to convince himself that they were right, that he was as strong as they all claimed him to be. But convincing yourself of something was like a New year’s resolution, you always picked up the same old habits after a while of trying and eventually completely gave up. He recalled how he‘d learned to skateboard as a kid and used to fall again and again until sharp little rocks would dig their way into the skin of his knees and he'd have to take them out by himself once he got home. Never spilling so much as a tear or let escape one small complaint.

So he told himself he was capable of it and opened his eyes against the burning ache. He looked around himself. Nothing had changed, he was still in that creepily too white and too clean hallway. They must have hired a prime janitor to keep such a place so clean. He decided to try his luck going to the right. There were a few plastic plants and doors, but those weren‘t exactly what he was looking for anymore.

Spider looked around himself one more time. Any sane person would put indications in a place like this. But this was an RDA base, so it‘s not like he was expecting anyone sane to work here. He wandered blindly in the hallways, always expecting to come face to face with the ice blue psycho and his pocket dog when turning a corner. After twenty minutes of looking for something that wasn‘t there, he came to the conclusion that he had to find another way. He wanted to scream every curse known to mankind at the top of his lungs, but something in the corner of his vision caught his eye.

Said thing was red. And hollering over a closed door. Exit was written in red letters on a white background. His eyes shot up quickly, beaming with hope. That was it. This would be the element that would solve his journey. The odds were finally on his side, for once in his life. He lost not a second running to the exit, opening the heavy metal door with his back to reveal staircases lighted up by cold faint neon lights. The gray paint on the wall was peeling off and the ramps were rusty. This place didn‘t seem to be used much.

He went down the stairs two by two, eager to find himself out of this hell. He smiled. Luckily this would all be part of the past soon. A faraway nightmare. He pushed the last door downstairs, the taste of freedom on the tip of his tongue. There was the main hall before him, the place so vast that it looked like an airport. He could see the main entrance. Two huge glass doors leading to the outside, the blue sky of the afternoon so immense he could have looked at it for hours. But what he mostly saw were two men blocking his way.

"Would you look at that, Wainfleet." The ice eyed man huffed out. "Took him long enough, didn‘t it?" Spider’s sure he felt his heart jump in his throat. His eyes widened in shock. No, he wanted to say. He‘s not so sure why. Maybe to convince himself that he was hallucinating. His mind was screaming at him, begging him to run, but Spider just couldn‘t. He couldn‘t move. How did they know he would be coming from that door? Was there not any other way? He refused to admit that hours of running and hiding had led him to this.

It did occur to him that he had not bothered to look for surveillance cameras. There had been none in the hallway next to his room, so he had assumed it was the same everywhere. What a dumbass he had been. He didn‘t know what to do now, so he simply stood there in aprehension. Would this man attempt to have an actual conversation with Spider, an opportunity for him to explain himself, or would he downright give him the worst whipping of his life? Suddenly, he didn’t know whether it was too cold or too hot in here anymore. He had to admit that he was scared. And that was lame for him. He felt ashamed. Spider had never feared anything. Not even the monsters under his bed or the striking presence of the school principal or the buzzing of the wasps. But this man, he was weird. He made a shiver run down his spine by simply landing his eyes on Spider. Lyle and his boss looked at him with that odd glare of satisfaction, as if they were waiting for him to beg them mercy. But he‘d rather die. Quite literally.

The ice eyed man—who he still didn‘t know the name of—turned around to look at Lyle and puffed out a bitter laugh. "Looks like the cat got his tongue." He said and Spider felt the boiling need to tear his eyes out of their sockets with the nails of his fingers. All of his previous attempts of getting the fuck out of here had been mostly thought through. Now he was desperate, and he‘d have to take all the chances he would get, even if that meant being reckless.

Seeing the moment as an opportunity, he rushed in the small gap between the door frame and the man as if they were playing a fun game of red rover. He managed to gain speed pretty quickly, pushing through the sea of people. He was truly almost there, he could feel the taste of victory, could see it. A thick and rich kind of yellow. And it smelled like iron and dry soil. He swore he could almost touch it, the blue of the sky and the clouds.

But then a foot emerged from somewhere in the crowd and tripped him. He fell face first. Oh he would gut alive whoever that was. Slice the thin skin of their neck and let them to bleed out. Stop thinking like that, he told himself. If his life was a movie, he hoped the outcome would come soon, because this was going to kill him. He gasped, holding his nose with both hands even though he was pretty sure it wasn‘t completely broken. He couldn‘t get up. It hurt too much. He felt someone grab his wrist and put his hands behind his back. And then the clicking noise of handcuffs. Shit.

He was roughly pulled into a standing position, his legs wavy and shaking. "I must say I‘m impressed." The boss began, nodding toward Spider. "You run fast for a kid with a concussion." Spider simply looked at him, catching his breath. So that explained the terrible headache. To be honest, the idea of a concussion had gone through his mind, but he had quickly brushed it off, thinking he was probably being over dramatic. He still tasted the iron in his mouth from running so much, like blood was coming up his throat. People all around him were watching the whole scene with depraved fascination.

"Let me go home. You‘re not allowed to keep me here without a motive." He snarled and instantly regretted it. Technically, they had no reason to put him under arrest in the first place. But now, after everything that happened, he‘s pretty sure he broke one or two laws.

"Yeah? What about conveying false information regarding your identity and being unlawfully at large?" He had a kind of glimpse in his eyes, as if he was actually enjoying this. You know, like a psychopath. Which he definitely was, considering the odds.

"What? That‘s bullshit." He shouted, brows furrowed into a bemused face, as if he‘d been slapped. Hypothetically, since he was not under arrest to begin with, unlawfully at large was not a valid charge. And what did they mean by conveying false information? They barely exchanged two sentences and one of them being Spider telling them his name. He couldn‘t think of anything he‘d said wrong.

"Want me to read the criminal code to you, smartass?" He said. "Now you shut up or we‘ll add resisting arrest to the record." And Spider found himself making a perplexed face. Was he allowed to talk to him like that? Was he allowed to threaten him like that? There was something abnormal about him.

"What are you even talking about? I never gave you any false information." He said in a baffled expression, pushing the later threats aside.

"Tell me what‘s your name again?" He snorted, like Spider was the biggest dumb fuck on Earth. And Spider could admit that he was probably the stupidest person in the world, but only in second place. Because this asshole would definitely win first place.

"Spider." He declared. This was not a secret. He had told him in the car already. Or maybe he had imagined that? Yeah, he was probably losing it.

"Right." He said, pulling his mouth into something like a nasty smile. Or more like a snarl. "So you‘re telling me that your mother popped you out and when she saw your little face, she turned to your father and said 'We will call him Spider'?" And Spider realized that he had a good point, somewhat.

"Well, not technically but—" He began and was immediately cut off. Christ, he probably sounded like a total nerd.

"Then that‘s considered faking your identity." He snarled in annoyance like he was a busy man and Spider was the least of his priorities. Because he thought Spider didn‘t have better things to do as well? That was downright conceited. "What is your real name?" He asked, putting an emphasis on the word real.

"Spider." He repeated, more firmly. He shifted the weight of his body from feet to feet. The handcuffs were cold and uncomfortable, a bit too tight on his right hand that was still wrapped with bandages. He fidgeted with his fingers. Please just let him go home. That‘s all he asked for.

"For Christ‘s sake! Are you brain damaged? I‘ll ask you one last time." He took a step closer, pointing an accusing finger at Spider. "What is your goddamn name?" He warned him and Spider suddenly felt like a young child being scolded for lying to his father. Except this man was the furthest thing from a father that he could think off.

"I already told you, it‘s Spider.” He growled, voice getting louder. “Are you fucking deaf, grandpa?" A few people turned their way as he practically shouted. But he didn't care. Why would he? This was all extremely frustrating and Spider wasn‘t known for being the best at channeling his emotions.

Lyle intervened between them to prevent a fight. "Do you have an ID on you?" He asked in that weird neutral voice, like he was a therapist glad to see its patient again after a long time. He sounded like some kind of health-and-safety twat. That just sounded fucking stupid.

"Do I look like the type of person who carries that kinda shit?" He bit back. He tried to sound indifferent, but inside he was utterly distressed. If he couldn‘t feel that his whole body was sweating, then he could definitely smell it. It reeked of teenagers, as Norm would have said.

"So that‘s a no. That‘s what I thought, too." He sighed. He muttered the last part, but Spider heard him nonetheless. He had quite good ears. Growing up in a house alone would do that to you. Luckily enough, he met the Sully family at quite a young age, so he spent alot of time with them. Otherwise, he’s pretty sure he would have learned to hear the ultrasounds by the time.

"You‘ve got a last name, at least?" The ice eyed man asked. He seemed calmer now, almost as if nothing had happened. Perhaps he just needed a breather. No, he actually did. That was not negotiable. Something snapped deep inside Spider. What kind of fucked up situation was that? He was supposed to be home now, probably still in his bed and scrolling through his phone, listening to music. Stop it. Just answer the question, Spider.

"Socorro." He said. The boss and Lyle exchanged an odd look. Something that could have been described as confusion and disbelief, according to Spider‘s inner sense of deduction. There was an awkward moment of silence before he turned his eyes to him again.

"Miles?" He asked, analyzing Spider with a fascinated expression. As if he was a new species of bug or an old Lego brick found under a couch after decades of searching for it. How did that man know his birth name? The only people who knew about it were Norm and his mother. He‘s pretty sure the Sully family knew as well, but they did not speak about that subject alot, because they knew how much Spider hated his name.

"Nobody calls me that." He spat, like the words were bitter on his tongue. There was another moment of silence, like he was considering his options and trying to choose which one was the best. A smile appeared on his face. Psycho. Get this freak away from me, Spider mentally begged.

"You really don‘t remember me at all, do you?" The man grinned, bending over so that they were at eye level.

"Am I supposed to?" He asked, but he didn‘t want him to answer. He feared what the answer would be. The feeling of familiarity. The hate he felt for this man. Every clue led to one conclusion. Yet he refused to admit it. This was impossible. In every ways of the term. Simply not possible.

"You could say that." His smile only widened and Spider took one last breath. "Let me introduce myself to you. Colonel Miles Quaritch." Oh fuck.

Chapter Text

Well, the alcohol was really getting to him. His father died over a decade ago. Six feet underground. Muerto. You pretty much get the idea. So that was utterly and simply impossible. This man was gone. He was killed in action, that little four years old Spider had been told.

"I know what you're thinking." The boss said, as if reading his mind. Quaritch, as he claimed to be. "But do I look dead to you?" Spider studied the man for a long moment. He must have been dreaming. A bad dream. He'd remembered his father differently. Younger, perhaps. But this man in front of him wasn't his father, was he? The few memories he had of him were kind of groggy, all mixed up. He could remember parcels of him in his childhood, but couldn't tell when or where they had happened.

Spider grew up without a mother. He started asking about it when he was about two years old. There was a bitterness in his father‘s eyes that couldn‘t have been anything else than annoyance everytime Spider would ask ‘Where is Mama?’. His father never admitted anything about her, brushing the subject off when Spider would abord the subject. He learned the truth by himself a few years later, while searching through his father‘s personal stuff.

A few months before celebrating his fourth birthday, his father left for a mission in Africa. It was originally supposed to last about a week or two, no more. But months passed without any update about said mission and little Spider couldn‘t help but wonder where his father was. A few weeks later, two cops showed up at school, asking to see Spider. He was in pre kindergarten back then, slowly learning to count from the number 1 to 10. He remembered all the children looking at him with their big curious eyes. Curious and so naive. His legs felt like jelly as he got up from the multi-colored rug and headed outside the classroom. The teacher looked at him and gave him a short smile in acknowledgment, before turning back toward the other kids.

At first he thought he had done something wrong and the cops were there to arrest him or something. But a thought is an opinion and later on you realize it‘s either right or wrong. The shortest cop kneeled before him so that they were at eye level. He was shorter than the second cop, but he was still a giant for little Spider. And surprisingly enough, he smiled at Spider. A sad smile. An adult smile. Adults were sad.

"Miles?" He asked, but it was not a question. "I‘ll be honest with you." He sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. He sure hoped so. Afterall, wasn‘t it part of their job to be honest? "This is going to be a hard couple of weeks for you. Or even months." He continued. The tallest cop was nodding to himself, as if he was reciting a script. "Your daddy had an accident." He paused, glancing at Spider for a reaction. He closed his eyes.

"He didn‘t survive." The big cop said, his muscled arms still crossed over his chest. His voice was deep and suited his prominent dark mustache. It looked part of his personality. Spider held still and realized just how fragile life was. He was not coming back. He didn‘t cry at first. Maybe because he didn‘t fully understand what was going on. Or maybe he was just in shock, because you don‘t get prepared to be told that kind of thing. Not when you‘re four years old, at least.

"You‘re gonna have to be strong. I promise things will get better for you." He said at last. Spider agreed with him on that point. He would have to be strong. For his parents whom died too young and for the son they left behind, which was to say himself. He tried not to cry. Crying was useless. It would achieve nothing and certainly not bring his mom and dad back.

It took just a few calls for him to be legally and officially put under Norm‘s custody in a new home, in a new city. Leaving the little memories he had of his parents behind. It took only a couple of weeks for him to adjust to this whole new life. He quickly made up his mind about Norm. He was nice enough. He had been named as guardian in his mother‘s will, so he must have surely been someone reliable to her. It was said at the time that his father had not completed his will, but he wasn‘t so sure whether that was actually true or not.

The accident happened on a Thursday, he remembered. Spider did not go to school the next day. Or the one after. It took three years and a stack of paperwork for him to get back into a classroom, this time in a third grade class. It was always difficult for him to sit still on a chair and listen to the teacher talking for a whole day, not to mention that he had to catch up with the other kids who‘d learned to write and read and count while he was gone. He was always jumping from desk to desk, running around the classroom and bouncing his legs. His grades were terrible, something around twenty percent general average. School was not made for him, he would always tell himself.

It’s only when teachers started complaining about him to Norm, saying that they suspected he had ADHD that he was officially diagnosed. Attention deficit with a slight hyperactivity and dyscalculia with a bunch of other learning disorders. The jackpot, really. Spider would sometimes tell himself that if he had gone to school like a normal kid during those three years, he probably wouldn‘t be having any of those issues now. But he wouldn‘t have met Kiri and the whole Sully family neither and that was just the best thing that ever happened to him. So he thought his friends were worth having difficulty doing three times four.

He always told himself that if he ever got old, he would be telling all the kids in town the story of how he met the Sullys. It was a funny story, really. It happened on Easter day. Maybe that was why Easter was his favourite holiday. Maybe it reminded him of the good old days. Norm had left for the office early in the morning. He‘d left a note, saying there was a sandwich for him in the fridge, even though Spider couldn‘t read a single thing that was scrambled on the small piece of paper. He had turned six years old a month ago. He was a big guy and could go out by himself.

That day, like every other day, he had gone into the forest to play with nature. What else was there really to do anyway? He loved climbing the trees, so that he was at the very top and could see the scenery before him. The blue of the sky and the mountains, the city far away like a tiny grain of sand. He was okay by himself, he knew how to occupate his time alone. But that day he wasn‘t alone. He heard them before he saw them. Laughing and screaming, their echoes were so loud. He looked down and saw the three of them.

They were kids around his age. One smaller girl with hair the color of dark caramel was holding a basket full of plastic eggs. The boy leading the way made a comment and they all erupted in laughter. The two boys looked so similar they could have been twins, except one was taller than the other and the shortest one had skin a slightly lighter shade of brown. Spider wasn‘t so sure whether he was supposed to climb down the tree and go greet them or simply stay up there and watch them have fun. If he didn‘t already have difficulties with school, then he definitely lacked social skills.

He decided to stay there. The girl looked up and glared right at him, as if she‘d known he was there all along. Her eyebrows shot up in surprise as she pointed a finger at him. "Guys! Look!" She shouted from her high pitched voice at what he thought was her friends. "There‘s a boy in the tree!" She had screamed with such a fascination in her voice, as if he was one of those majestic lions you see in the zoo. She looked amazed to see him perched up there and Spider didn‘t know how to feel about that. Was he supposed to be proud or offended that she was talking about him as some kind of mystic animal?

The two boys followed her fingers to see what she was pointing at exactly. The shorter one erupted into a chao of incomprehensible babbling. "Wow! That‘s totally badass!" He shouted in turn. "How‘d you get up there, bro?" He placed his hands around his mouth, as if he was holding a megaphone. Even at a young age, Lo‘ak had always loved calling practically everyone bro or dude, which had gotten him in trouble on more than one occasion.

"Like that." He said and then proceeded to climb down the tree in an impressive sequence of movements, tightly gripping his small hands around the trunk and firmly planting his feet on the crumbling bark. "Tadah!" He said, arms stretched wide as if he had just completed a difficult magic trick once he was all the way back down. The boys applauded him loudly. "Want to help us find the remaining eggs?" The girl said, showing the half full purple bucket she was holding. He felt his heart squeeze. Was that what it was like to make friends? He smiled widely with his teeth, even though two or three of them were missing. They talked and played together for the whole afternoon.

"I‘m Kiri. And those two idiots are Lo‘ak," She pointed to the shortest one. "And Neteyam." She designated the other. Spider was sure he was supposed to greet them back, tell them how he was called. But he wasn‘t so sure if he liked his own name. He had been named Miles after his father‘s name. As if he was a mini version of him. But he was not and never would be. He hated his father. Spider didn‘t want to be Miles. That didn‘t suit him, anyway. It was a good thing that his father was dead, in the end.

"What‘s your name?" Neteyam asked after a moment of silence. He shrugged and replied with a simple 'I don‘t know'. They laughed, but not in a mean way like the kids back in kindergarten would have done. "You don‘t know? But you can‘t not have a name!" He replied with fierce determination. Kiri who had gone egg hunting a bit further away came back with a baby blue plastic egg decorated of white dots, a victorious grin on her face.

"Mom and Dad said they hid twenty of them in the woods. I think we found them all!" She announced. "That makes five for each of us." She said, starting distributing them in four equals pile on the ground. She kept a pile in her bucket, then gave one to each of the boys. Spider turned a bright shade of red when she turned to him and gave him the last pile. She said it was to thank him for helping them find the last few eggs. He mumbled a weak thank you, his cheeks a flaming hot.

"If you don‘t have a name, we should find you one.“ Lo‘ak said, sitting down on the ground and opening a pink egg, which contained a small chocolate. They all sat down in a circle, even though they knew their pants would be stained with soil and dirt. Neteyam started humming as if he was deep in his thoughts. Lo‘ak raised a finger like he was arguing against solid evidences and Spider could only imagine a light bulb lighting up above his head.

"Spider!" He declared and Neteyam made a face so that everybody knew he thought it was odd. Lo‘ak felt the need to explain himself. "You know, since you climb super fast everywhere. Like a spider." He said, imitating spider legs with his fingers. He popped a chocolate out of its shell and put it in his mouth, letting the sweet taste of cocoa melt on his tongue. He nodded as a smile appeared on his lips.

"I love it." He declared. And that‘s how he became Spider. Or maybe he had been Spider all along? They brought him to their tree house that day, which was in a part of the forest a bit closer to the city. They gathered there everyday for a long time. The place was furnished with old wood planks as tables and cardboard boxes filled with books as seats. It became their base, the place where they would play. It wasn‘t until a few weeks later that he met Jake and Neytiri and went to their house for the first time. But that was a whole other story.

"That was a rhetorical question, smartass." Quaritch said, bringing him back to reality. Spider wasn‘t at ease right now. He didn‘t belong in the same perimeter as this man. He was oppressive as fuck. His nose still hurt pretty fucking bad. He wondered if it was possible to dislocate it or you downright had to break it to feel such a pain. Spider glared at him.

"You know, you were still a toddler the last time I saw you. Throwing tantrums over nothing, screaming and breaking things. I must say you haven‘t changed much from what I see." He said and Spider seriously wondered what was wrong with him. Why did he feel the need to say those things? What reaction was he really expecting from Spider? Outrage and a great comeback or fear and surrender?

"Yeah, and I see you‘re just as much of an asshole as I had imagined." He scoffed in an attempt to contradict him, somehow. There was a split second of silence where he wondered if he had caught him off guard. If he did, then he didn‘t let it show and quickly regained his composure.

"You look just like your mother, but this fire—you‘ve got it from me." He had a way of saying it, like he was trying to convince Spider and himself along the way. Maybe it was the way his head was slightly tilted to the side or his eyebrows were cocked, but there was something odd about him. Spider wanted to quite literally kick his teeth off. Anything to remind him that he wasn‘t welcomed in Spider‘s life and never would.

"I gotta piss." Spider said in a way he‘s sure he would have laughed at if it weren‘t for the situation. It wasn‘t a lie. He had to go or he would wet his pants in the next ten seconds. Quaritch furrowed his brows and gave him a look as if he was mental. "I‘m serious." He added for good measure. He sighed deeply but still brought him to the nearest bathroom, which was a lot bigger than the one he had gotten stuck in. He shoved him in front of a urinal and nodded at it as if he was a dog and needed to be shown how to pee.

Spider slowly turned to him, a suspicious look on his face. "Um—my hands. I can‘t move them." He remarked and Quaritch reluctantly removed the handcuffs, groaning loudly. Spider let out a breath because he really hadn‘t wanted Quaritch to see his dick. There was a boundary to every father-son relationship and theirs was extremely small. Either way because they didn‘t entertain any father-son relationship to begin with or maybe because Quaritch was downright an asshole

"Don‘t try anything or I‘ll practically glue them together." Quaritch huffed out from his deep and raspy voice. "Your hands, I mean." He added and Spider wished he never did because he hadn‘t had any explicits thoughts at first, but now he definitely did. He grumbled some kind of answer as he unzipped his pants. He turned to Quaritch once again.

"You wanna watch or something?" He said and Quaritch slightly turned his back to him, but not enough that he couldn’t have peeked an eye at him. The proximity made Spider feel uneasy, but he still did what he had to do. The silence was awkward and Spider found himself thinking about the rest of the events. What would happen next? In some sort of way, it was for him to decide. Either he didn‘t try to run or struggle to gain their trust, which would be difficult to acquire regarding the latter turns of events, or he found their weak point and pushed until they burst.

Spider zipped his jeans back up and was grabbed by the arm as soon as he even tried to walk over to the sink by himself. "No need." Quaritch said as he dragged him out of the bathroom. Well, this would definitely be the first time an adult would tell him not to wash his hands after going to the toilet. Outside, Lyle and Mr Sunglasses were waiting with a few other members of this violence-and-argument club. They exchanged a few words through their radio that wouldn‘t stop screeching, but Spider didn‘t attempt to comprehend any of it. He didn‘t care about that, anyway.

He was led through hallways, another part of the base he hadn‘t visited yet. This section was a lot more lively, people were talking and coming from every side. Their green uniforms made the place seem a bit less sickly white. "Where are we going?" Spider dared to ask, but he wasn‘t expecting to get an actual answer if it wasn‘t a sarcastic one. He heard the men behind laugh from their deep voices and he wondered if it was him that they were mocking. He glared at them over his shoulder, but they did not notice. Or if they did, they ignored him. They kind of looked like a group of high school jocks, he thought.

Quaritch gave him a push so that he kept on walking. "You stink of sweat and you‘re dirty." He finally said. "You need a shower." He declared and that was probably the best thing he heard in the last twenty something hours. How long had it been since he got here? It was probably around five p.m. if not later. Quaritch pushed a door open and told everyone to stay outside, as he led Spider inside. The place looked like some kind of bathroom but there were lockers to one side and showers delimited by white curtains on the other.

He was given a blue towel and a pile of clothing. The pile included a gray sweatpant and a white shirt written RDA in the back. Christ. "You‘ve got five minutes, timed." Quaritch said before leaving the room. Timed? These guys were serious as fuck. There was one single camera in the corner above the door and Spider wondered if they were watching him. A shiver ran down his spine in horror. He wouldn‘t be surprised if they did. He tried to push the idea aside and removed his clothes. He stepped in the cabin and turned the water on. He had to hurry up or he was pretty sure they would quite literally drag him out of the shower if he took too long.

There was a small shower caddy which contained a white bottle of shampoo and a bar of soap that looked unused. He decided to wash his hair because he didn‘t know when he would get a chance to shower again. He stood under the jet and let the cold water flow down his body and into his eyes. He took deep breaths with his mouth, letting some of the water in before spitting it out. Then he put a generous amount of shampoo in his hands and started massaging his scalp.

He looked down at his body. There were red scabs on his knees and elbows and his legs were covered by a mosaic of yellow and purple bruises. His hands were irritated and dry even under the water. His whole body ached except from his right hand that he still couldn‘t feel. He thought about having a look at the damages, to see what was hiding under these bandages, but he realized he didn‘t have the time for it.

After an average of 30 fast seconds shampooing his blond curls, he rinsed them and made sure he left no foam. He started rubbing the bar of soap all over his body and vigorously scrubbing at his skin. He wanted to feel clean again, wanted to be a whole new person. He scrubbed so hard his skin turned red, but at least he was sure he got rid of all the dirt. It must have been at least 3 minutes so he stepped out of the shower and wrapped the towel around his waist, shaking as the cold air hit his skin. The bandage on his hand was wet and dripped with water on the freezing tiles.

He looked at the pile of clothing he had been given, and then at his own clothes, his jeans torn with holes and his wrinkled hoodie. He reluctantly chose to put on the fresh clothes and the softness of the fabric was an instant relief. The clothes were one size too big for him, but he had always preferred wearing baggy clothes so that was fine by him. He passed his hands through his hair and combed them with his fingers. This would do. The door swung open in a kind of squeaking noise, like it needed to be oiled or something. "Time‘s up, champ." Quaritch pointed his thumb outside the door. Ok. This would be fine.

He woke up drenched in sweats from head to toes, the mess of tangled sheets sticking to his skin. The room was dim and dark. It was early in the morning, so early he wondered if he couldn‘t say it was still the night. They had assigned him a room and put him to sleep as soon as he was done showering yesterday. Spider had a lot of difficulty remaining asleep. He would wake up with a start every thirteen minutes, panting and sweating like crazy. He wasn‘t sure whether that was because he was a night owl and they had practically put him to sleep at 7 p.m. or if it was because anxiety and worry was poisoning his mind. Maybe a bit of both.

These guys, they were clever. Or at least, a bit more clever than they looked. They had handcuffed him to the bed rail. Of course they did. It was kind of uncomfortable, though. His nose got a bit better, but he was pretty sure it was swollen or at least bruised. He was in a nightmare. Or something worse than a nightmare, because this was true and he wouldn‘t just wake up with a snap of fingers. He wanted to go back to sleep, but the sore throat made it hard to relax. Everytime he would swallow his own spit, it felt as if glass was cutting down his throat.

Man, just how weird was life right now. He kind of felt like he was in a sci-fi movie. And it wasn‘t as cool as it sounded. He closed his eyes and let out a sigh of frustration. He imagined Kiri reading a book in the living room and drinking hot steaming tea, while next to her Lo‘ak and Tuk would be playing an epic game of Mario Kart. Neteyam leaning against the door frame and looking over at them all like a guardian angel. He imagined them all smiling and doing everything like they always did, imagining how much they didn‘t care that he was gone. Or did they?

How lucky they were to have a normal life, he thought. Not just a normal life, but a happy life too. Spider bit back his jealousy as his throat started closing on itself. His eyes stung, so he closed them. He just wished he was like them. He tried changing his mind, to convince himself he belonged. He thought of a memory from when he was a kid. It was during summer vacations and they were the four of them. Tuk was a few weeks away from being born. Him and Lo‘ak were 7 years old while Neteyam and Kiri were 8 and 6 years old respectively. They were still young, still pure and so naive.

They had gone to the park, the one that was pretty far away, but definitely the coolest, so it was worth the trouble to walk all the way over there. They were building sand castles in the sandbox, the dirty sand getting under their nails. Neteyam was seated on the grass next to them because he didn‘t want to get his clothes dirty playing in the sandbox. He didn‘t mind watching them play all that much anyway. They were almost done with their sand castles, each of them all too focused on their own architecture to say anything.

"What do you guys want to be when you grow up?" Neteyam said from his childish voice. The kid he used to be had almost nothing to do with the handsome young man he had become. Spider was sure that Jake was proud of him. The question caught Spider off guards. He had never thought about that before.

"I want to be a princess!" Kiri was the first to answer. The three boys only giggled at her in response.

"And I want to be a soldier, just like Dad." Lo‘ak said, looking up from his sculpture. A bright smile appeared on his face. Neteyam agreed with him, saying that they should both join the army when they got older. They were both clearly delighted at the idea of becoming soldiers like their father had been earlier in his life. Or maybe they were hoping to surpass him, become a better version of him? Spider was still lost in his thoughts.

He never really thought about becoming an adult. It just felt wrong. Maybe because he was still too young. He just couldn‘t imagine himself all grown up. That was the first time he was brought to think about the future. The real future, the life you will lead—not the future as a kid. Not what he would eat tonight or when his next movie night would be. No, the future that was far away yet so close and so unsure. It scared him and he quickly enough realized that growing didn‘t seem like much fun. It was better if he could stay a child. To play all day. That would be cool.

"What about you, Spider?" Kiri had turned to him, brows furrowed. Spider had always been the black sheep of the group, he was different from them, so of course they had expected him to say something odd. That‘s something he loved about the Sullys. They accepted him as he was. They accepted his differences and his weak points, they helped him through everything he had trouble with. Spider had pouted at the question.

"I don‘t want to grow up." He had said. And in the end, he never really answered. If you were to ask him the same question today, the answer would still be the same. He didn‘t know. He couldn‘t imagine himself part of this modern society, waking up and working and coming back home and going to sleep and over again and again until death. Death. That was something he often thought about. He would quite literally rather die than have a life like all those weird adults. With a stable job he wouldn’t even enjoy in a depressing office, with a wife and annoying kids. There was something that didn‘t quite feel right about this sentence. Wife and kids. Or maybe husband and kids? God, he disgusted himself.

He didn‘t want to grow up. But that wasn‘t for him to choose. There are many things in life which you cannot decide and he understood that pretty quickly. So he thought about his friends a bit longer, remembered the good memories that would never come back. He tugged on the cuff once, just to make sure they were still there. It was pretty amazing to see how much effort these guys were ready to make to avoid him escaping. His heart felt like it was about to shatter in a million pieces. Having to escape from something or someone shouldn‘t be a normal thing. They were keeping him here, against his will. Was that not illegal?

Emotional pain was harder to heal, wasn‘t it? If you break your leg, go to the doctor and they will put it in a cast. If you break your heart, what should you do? It‘s about personal work and perseverance. It doesn‘t take just a few weeks to heal this kind of thing. Hell, it might not heal at all. Spider found himself wondering if he would always feel so bad and unsecure. Maybe he would. And he didn‘t want to live such a life. He might as well end it all.

Fuck, he almost felt guilty for having such thoughts. But not quite. This kind of decision was his to take and not some kind of mental doctor who claimed to want to help him but if anything didn‘t give two shit about him. He tried to fall back asleep, hoping he would wake up tomorrow morning in a normal bed, to get ready to have a normal day at a normal school with normal friends. He just wanted to be like everybody. But he didn‘t have that choice.

The second time he woke up, the room didn‘t feel as hot and suffocating as before. It wasn‘t colder, it was simply fresher. The neon lights had been lit up and he understood that this was a way for them to tell him it was daytime, since he didn‘t have any window in his room. Maybe it was because he couldn‘t afford that luxury, or perhaps it was because they just didn‘t want him to risk an escape so easily. Either way, they didn‘t want him to leave this place and that was a sure thing. Luckily, his sore throat was gone and he felt so much better.

Someone walked in just as his stomach started gurgling. The person was an old lady, perhaps in her mid sixties, with her gray hair tied into a low ponytail. She had smiling eyes. He didn‘t know how to describe them. Not that how she looked even mattered. Well, she was old and her frame body was so thin he wondered if she wouldn‘t literally fly away if he blew on her. She was holding a tray of food and Spider almost instantly gagged at the idea of eating now. Seriously, it was still too early for this shit.

He internally groaned. But then he realized that if he was granted to eat, that meant someone would remove the handcuffs. He‘d be surprised to be spoon fed like a toddler, but he really couldn‘t be sure about anything. Spider anxiously bit his lips as the old nurse put the tray on his bedside. In the plastic bowl was a ladle of lifeless oatmeal that looked more like vomit than actual food. Spider had never been much of a picky eater, he always ate everything people gave him out of politeness, but that was a bit over the top. Plus, he could afford to complain about this meal that, he was almost sure, would taste like cardboard.

The nurse walked over to him and removed the cuffs with a key so small he could have swallowed it. Not that he was planning to, but you know. Her hands were so thin that he wondered how she wasn‘t shaking. Then he heard and felt it all at once. The clicking of the cuffs. It made the exact same noise as when they were put on, he realized. Except now they were being removed, so it was at least twenty times more satisfying. He looked at her oddly. She was a bait, he knew. Of course she was. They knew he would never hit a lady, let alone an old one, so that‘s why they sent her instead of the big guys like Lyle or even Quaritch himself.

He tried to look her in the eyes, seeking any sort of reassurance that decidedly wasn‘t there, but she kept avoiding his gaze. She kind of looked like a zombie or a ghost. Her body was there, but her soul was somewhere else, he was sure. There was an emptiness in her eyes. Was she forced to work here? What other horrible things did they do in this base? Maybe it was better if he didn‘t know.

The lady left without a word and he was left alone once again. He looked over at the food with comptent. He didn‘t care how hungry he was. He wasn‘t eating that. Was this meal actually nourishing to begin with? He was almost convinced this was a plastic bowl of food used to trick his mind into believing he wasn‘t hungry anymore. You know, like the one you‘d find in an IKEA.

His stomach made a kind of noise of protest and for a moment he almost caught himself rethinking the whole thing. But he didn‘t want to lose this game. So he swallowed back the hunger before taking the bowl in his left hand and throwing it on the wall with all of his strength. The plastic bowl made a kind of echoing noise through the room as it fell on the ground. The oatmeal was running down the white wall, leaking in a pool on the floor. He couldn‘t help but smile. He had always wanted to throw food once in his life. This felt good, he thought. And it wasn‘t like he would be the one to clean this mess. He turned around and flipped off the security camera in the corner of his room. He called this modern art.

Just a second later, Lyle entered the room with a vivid pace. "Fucking hell, boss ain‘t gonna be happy about that." He scoffed, eyeing the whole scene with a wide grin. Spider glanced at his wrist. He could clearly discern the small marks of nails he had left there. "Just what are you waiting for? Get up, kiddo." Oh great, so he had a personal clock now? Spider didn‘t even want to know what was in store for today. Not that he planned to stay for the whole day anyway.

"What if I don‘t want to?" He replied, crossing his arm over his chest, in what he hoped was a good imitation of a grumpy teenager. Lyle let out a long sigh, like the one those exhausted parents in movies blow when they know their kid got in trouble again. He walked over to him and gripped his arm. The pressure alone was enough for him to drop the act. "Okay, okay, fine. I can walk by myself." He groaned in annoyance.

"You know, you're lucky that I‘m the cool uncle. Otherwise you would have had your ass kicked by the Colonel first thing in the morning." Yeah, cool uncle his ass. If it weren‘t for him, Spider probably wouldn‘t even be here. He was the one driving that night, wasn‘t he? Yeah, a total moron. He led Spider out of the room. It seemed that being shoveled around like a package was a normal thing for him by now. Spider gave one tug in protest.

Everytime they would carry him to another room, he became more and more familiar with the place. The corridors, the turns and the directions. The way the baseboard was just slightly cracked beside the door 472 and there were ventilation grilles on the ceiling at intervals of 20 meters each. It was somehow advantageous to him, in the end, even though they probably didn‘t realize it. This was only his second day here but he could already tell who worked in what room, even though he couldn‘t exactly pinpoint what they worked as. He guessed his visual memory made up for the dyslexia and dyscalculia.

They entered a large office, with white furniture and one single green tropical plant beside the desk. A white desk of course. They seemed to have a taste for the colour white around here. If white was even a colour to begin with. He didn‘t know. Some people said it was and others said it wasn‘t. White pencils existed, so it must have been, surely. The smell hit him as soon as he entered the room. It reeked of chemicals and cleaness. This place was different from the others. This was a medical office. Christ. Please don‘t make him piss in samples, he quietly begged.

There was a woman with neatly combed black hair at the desk. She greeted them with a polite smile and motioned for Spider to sit on the examination table. Spider looked back at Lyle, like he was expecting him to say she was kidding or at least reassure him. He didn‘t know what he was expecting there, but he simply patted his shoulder, as if he thought that was the right thing to do. Spider slowly approached the table, like it was about to eat him alive. He could smell the latex gloves, the hand sanitizer and the cleaning product. His heart started beating louder.

He propped himself on his hands and climbed over the table, almost ripping—was that parchment paper? Spider tightly clenched his fist, nails digging into the palm of his hand. His experiences with doctors were mediocre, to say the least. But this would be okay. It had to be. He glanced over at the doctor talking with Lyle. Lyle was fine. He wasn‘t mean, not to him anyway. He laughed a lot and talked loudly. Spider told himself that if it had been Quaritch standing there and talking about him like he was some kind of mentally retarded freak, he would have downright flicked him off.

Once they were done rambling nonsense, the woman turned to him and introduced herself as the Dr. Mogue. She had everything of a typical doctor. She wasn‘t old enough to be considered an elder, but she didn’t seem young enough to be in her forties neither. She looked like the kind of person you‘d have to be to get hired in the field of medicine. Calm and thoughtful. She looked smart. And she had a name that suited the title. Dr Mogue? More like Dr Morgue, he thought.

"Mr. Socorro? Are you there?" She asked, flashing a small light before his eyes. He blinked and his whole body straigheted like he had been slammed on the hand with a ruler. He nodded at her. "Great. I‘m going to ask you to take deep breaths." She said, placing the stethoscope against his upper back, where he supposed she could hear the rhythm of his heart. What was it like to listen to life at its purest form? He would most likely never get to know. "One and two and three. Perfect." She added, the fall and rise of his body in harmony with her counting. The examination felt like some kind of therapeutic session, to distract his heart from all that stress. He could imagine the title on the door. Breathing And Relaxation With Dr. Mogue.

For the next hour or so, Dr. Mogue scrambled notes on her notepad, registering whether his abilities were as good as they should or above the average of his age. If he was breathing well, his heart pumping right, his blood sugar level high enough, his bone density as it should. She removed the bandage on his right hand and Spider felt almost disappointed to see that it looked no different than his left one. No stitches or even any bruise. The doctor started poking at his hand with her pen, asking if he could feel anything. He told her that he couldn‘t and she noted something down on her pad before bandaging it back up, a bit tighter this time.

"I think we‘re done for today." She said, sitting behind her desk. For today? So he was coming back? Jesus. "You did a good job. You are healing extremely well and your health is remarkable." She started, looking down at her notes. Lyle that had fallen asleep on a chair in a corner yawned loudly and came to sit next to him. "However, your hand has suffered intense nerve damage. It could take weeks or even months to come back to a completely functional state." She turned to Lyle, as if things were getting serious. "I would recommend applying ice once or twice a day. No more than five minutes should do. It will help with the numbing and speed up the healing process." She paused, then turned back to Spider. "You will have to keep the bandage on to limit any sudden movements for at least three weeks. Rest is essential. And of course, no sport or intense physical activity."

No physical activity? For at least three weeks? Was she kidding him? She continued talking and giving multiple pieces of advice and prescriptions in case he started feeling any pain, but he wasn‘t really listening. His hand was so numb he was pretty sure he wouldn‘t feel anything until weeks later. Dr. Mogue said they could go and that she would send them a health status report with a link attachment to a site concerning nerves damage a bit later. They got up and Lyle thanked her with a polite smile before they both left.

Spider already felt a bit better. This went great. Almost no pain and great results. The lump in his throat was slowly easing, giving way to oxygen for his lungs. She didn‘t say anything about the state of his nose, so it must have been looking alright. He noticed that this wing of the base was a lot more calm, people were slower and more quiet, and there were more windows that gave a spacious view on the outside. He could see a lot of green in different shades, the trees and the plants taking way over the roads and parking lots. This was summer. This was great.

Spider had expected to be thrown right back into that cold room he had been held in for the night, but he rather found himself in a vast open space furnitured with rows and rows of long white tables and benches. The place looked a lot like a school cafeteria, but cleaner of course. Some people were eating alone, trays full of hot steaming food. He felt his stomach clench and his throat squeeze enviously. He felt like he was about to throw up.

"Are you hungry, Miles?" Lyle said, looking at his watch. And he froze. He didn’t just call him that, he told himself. He felt an electricity course through his whole body. He was suddenly extremely warm, the tips of his ears burning. His stomach started groaning painfully, like it was claiming its right to be fed, but Spider had now lost the little appetite he had. He nodded slowly nonetheless. He didn‘t dare move, as if he feared his whole body would crumble in shame if he did. "See the people over there? They‘re part of the team. Go sit with 'em." He pointed at a group of people, nine or ten of them seating at a table and discussing loudly.

Lyle gave a pat on his shoulder in encouragement. He must have sensed that Spider was slightly nervous. Fuck this. He was downright about to shit his pants. He slowly walked over to them, then sat at the extremity of the table. He could feel knots in his stomach, eating his organs like a parasite. The discussion fell dead silent and Spider turned around to seek help from Lyle, but he was gone. Christ.

"Who‘s that?" One of the guys whispered. His voice was laced with a light hispanic accent and his eyes were a tint too wide. His few days old mustache and dark buzz cut gave away that he couldn‘t have been older than twenty five years old. "He‘s his son." Another one with a dark green cap replied. He had strong features, like his brows were constantly furrowed even though he didn‘t seem upset. Spider counted that they were a total of ten. Two women and eight men.

Someone said something and they all laughed, low under their breath. "So you‘re the infamous Miles Jr.?" The guy with the cap said, turning to him like he had just noticed he was there. Spider simply shrugged. Some part of this was true and some other part was also false. "Damn. The last time we saw you, you were knee-high to a grasshopper. Now you‘re what? Four feet three or something?" He said and some of his teammates snorted.

Spider furrowed his brows at him. "You‘ve seen me before?" He found himself asking. His mind wouldn‘t go as far as three years old maximum. He couldn‘t remember anything before that. He now realized that he had a lot to learn about his said father.

"‘Course we did. Your daddy wouldn‘t miss an occasion to bring you and your curly head to an office party." He said, as if recalling the good old time. "You were always running around in diapers. Boss used to say you‘d make a great athlete." He admitted. Quaritch had evoked earlier that Spider used to run around too and cause a lot of trouble. But he didn‘t recall being all that much of a defiant child. Or maybe he had been?

"And did you know my mother?" He was as surprised as them to hear himself ask the question. It slipped out before he could think twice about it. But Lyle came back with a well stocked tray at the same moment and placed it before him. He sat on the other side of the table and motioned for him to eat. He had a look at what he was given. This meal had nothing to do with the cold oatmeal he had 'politely' refused. He had a bowl of steaming tomato soup next to a crust of bread and an apple. He hated tomatoes, but at this moment he didn‘t seem to care. He was drooling at the smell.

He quickly thanked Lyle before digging in, drinking from the bowl like it was pure happiness. This wasn‘t a five stars meal, but this was so much better compared to the food they gave him earlier. He took a bite of bread like he hadn‘t eaten for hundreds of years. Spider could hear the guys talking about him, talking about the way he looked or the way he ate. Judging him without even knowing anything about him. He could feel their eyes on him. And suddenly, he was back in the high school‘s cafeteria. At lunchtime, eating with just Kiri and Neteyam, because Lo‘ak was busy with basketball practice most of the time.

He wasn‘t bothering anyone. He was minding his own business. But Aonung and his friends were known for picking on innocent people. Especially if you stood out in some way, that you weren‘t conforming with the idea that Aonung had of what normal people should look like, should be like or act like. He had tormented Kiri on more than one occasion before, but never when Spider or her brothers were there, so he got away with it most of the time. It had been quite a while now since him and his friends had started bullying Spider. They would say things to him about the way he looked or the way he ate. They would call him disgusting and feral. Spider wasn‘t one to let other people step on him, and that was just exactly what Aonung wanted.

One day, he asked the teacher to go to the bathroom, claiming it was urgent. She had agreed to let him go, but he had to be back in less than ten minutes. When he arrived at the bathroom, Aonung was there with three of his friends. He wasn‘t sure whether they were anticipating that he would come or if the odds were simply not on his side. "Hey, is it true that your parents abandoned you in a trash can when you were a baby? You look like you grew up in a slum." He said and Spider looked down at himself. It was the end of the school year and spring was giving way to summer. Which meant that heat was escalating like crazy. He was wearing jorts with his black Vans shoes and a dark blue shirt.

That‘s not how people in slums looked. Remove the shirt and the socks and the shoes and maybe then you could reconsider it. But he was looking just fine. Aonung wasn‘t any better than him to be totally honest. He wore the same fit every single day, except for the fact that the color of his tank top changed. Otherwise, he seemed to stick to those light brown shorts and this stupidly looking cowrie shell necklace. "You‘re such a freak. I bet you like dicks." He had exclaimed before calling him a word he could never forget. Faggot. His friends had all laughed out loud, but Spider hadn‘t. He froze. Aonung couldn‘t possibly know about it. He was just being paranoid again, he had told himself. He must tell everybody that. Don‘t take it personally, Spider.

The rest of the events had been pretty messy, in every way of the term. They had both gotten suspended for two days and given a letter of apology to complete for the other in the due time. He had actually put effort into writing this letter so that it looked convincing and sincere, even though he was barely containing the urge to throw another punch at his stupid fish face. On the other hand, when he had opened Aonung’s letter, it was scrambled with doodles of what he thought were either dicks or middle fingers. Aonung was such a bad drawer it was hard to tell.

"Hey? Kiddo? Are you even listening to me?" Lyle waved a hand before his face, snapping him back into reality. He blinked once. "You really gotta stop spacing out like that. It‘s legit creepy." He gave him an odd look, as if Spider was mental. Spider leaned slightly toward him, scrunching his face. He looked at him. He had a tattooed skull on his right shoulder, which wore a war helmet. 'No Fear' was written below it.

"Uh—yeah, sorry. What were you saying again?" He replied, still staring at his arm. Lyle was looking at him weird, gaze unsure and troubled.

"You‘re bleeding." He repeated. Oh.

Chapter Text

He leaned forward and pinched the bridge of his nose with his thumb and index. A few drops of blood splashed on the table. Blood so vibrant he could have sworn it was the precise color of garden roses. These flowers were kind of tricky in a way he couldn‘t exactly describe. Their beauty was simply a facade of the sharp thorns that coated their stem. Yet those said prickles did nothing to prevent humans and their tools to chop them down and sell them in flower shops. And that‘s exactly why staying low and melting into the others was the perfect strategy. Who would want a dull looking flower for their birthday? This was simply a metaphor, of course. But the point was the same. Don‘t attract unwanted attention if you truly wish to survive. Unfortunately, that was about exactly what Spider was doing at the moment, words for words. Lyle was looking at him funny, like he wanted to help but didn‘t know how to. Spider scooped his other hand into a kind of bowl shape under his nose.

“Would someone tell me what‘s happening around here? Why is he bleeding?" An all too familiar voice barked out from behind him. Everybody stopped their small chat and straightened their backs as if they were soldiers falling in line at their colonel‘s arrival. Which Spider supposed was true, in some way. Some of them claimed they were not involved at all, as if that was really any better. Lyle nodded toward Spider, coughing once then pausing for a brief moment, like he didn‘t know how to explain the situation.

"Just a small nosebleed, boss. Look at him, he's top shape." He said at last, making sure he sounded as casual as possible. Even Spider himself wasn‘t totally convinced by what he was saying right now, so he couldn‘t begin to imagine what Quaritch thought of him. A passible idiot, perhaps.

"Just a small nosebleed, huh? Wainfleet, have you fucking seen him?" He said and Spider could make out the exasperation in his voice just clear. His eyes momentarily flicked toward Spider before landing back on his superior. He opened his mouth as if to say something but was almost immediately cut off by Quaritch and his angry rambling.

"You are dismissed. All of you." He declared and they nodded in an oddly satisfying synchrony. He said something else, but Spider was too focused on breathing through his mouth to actually bother trying to comprehend any of it. Then he grabbed Spider by the upper arm in a way that he understood was not simply an automatism by now. This was a technique of some sort, he knew. Though he couldn‘t recall the exact name of the method.

Quaritch opened a door with his back and shoved him in front of a sink with a brutality that Spider knew was anything but necessary. He wasn‘t some kind of mind-reading freak or anything, but he could see right through his game still. Quaritch was trying to scare him. Although he wasn‘t sure what for. But this was very obvious and he understood it from the very beginning.

He propped his hands on the edge of the sink and watched as the blood streamed down the drain in a creek of bright red. Then he splashed his face with water so cold he gasped, rubbing circles into his eyes until sparkles flew behind his eyelids. He just wanted to erase the images of the past two days from his mind and leave them to be forgotten forever. But all he saw was blood, blood and more blood. Like following him everywhere he went.

He was fine with blood. He had to be okay with it, because he bled often. That‘s what skateboarding would do to you after all. In a rush of something like remembrance or nostalgia, all his early memories of skateboarding rushed back to him in a gush of wind. The good as well as the bad ones. He was 8 years old the first time he stepped on a board. He had found it in the garbage behind this old shoe store down the school road, scratched and slightly damaged at the extremities but functional nonetheless.

Norm had clearly stated that he was displeased with Spider skateboarding since the very beginning. According to him, this sport was too dangerous and involved a lot of potential risks. But Spider was stubborn and didn‘t care what Norm claimed to be safe or not. Norm was some kind of health-and-safety freak so Spider wouldn‘t have been surprised if he quite literally wrote down a list of reasons why skateboarding was such a dangerous sport. But Spider loved skateboarding and he knew that falling was all part of the process. Hurting himself, getting back up and trying again until he worked it out. That‘s what skateboarding was really about. It was a whole mindset to itself.

He got his own board as soon as he hit eleven years old. For years on strike, he saved up all of his birthday money in the hope of changing that old slashed deck for the brand new Spanky Terror Squad. Everynight he would go to sleep and conceptualize what people would see when they looked at him. Would they see a young delinquent or an experienced skateboarder with far more than one trick up his sleeve? That was about the point of view.

He had to wait a whole other year to make up enough money to buy a new set of wheels and bearings. By the time he was thirteen, his board was as good as new. That was what growing up independent and having to look out after yourself as a child looked like. To get everything by yourself. It was like constantly fighting and sometimes he landed good enough punches, but other times life would take a swing at him and he would be KO. Want this pretty thing over there? Then work for it. Pay for it. Fight for it. That‘s how it worked. And that‘s exactly how growing up had looked like for Spider, as sad as it sounded.

He pulled a paper from the towel dispenser and dried his hands. His bandaged hand was like slightly pink, stained with washed out blood, but he did not mind at all. He heard Quaritch below orders at his shoulder mic, watching Spider from the corner of his eyes. Then he started nodding slowly, as if the person on the other side could see him. Spider sniffed loudly, or just loud enough to catch his attention, and swiped his nose with the hem of his shirt. Quaritch grumbled something at his screeching radio before grabbing Spider by the arm once again.

And maybe if it would have been someone else he wouldn‘t have snapped like that. But well, he would never know. He felt like everything he held back since forever, all the times he said 'it‘s okay' or 'I don‘t mind' when he actually did mind, came back up to the surface all at once. And without even really thinking about it, he shook his arm from his embrace.

"Stop touching me! I‘m not some kind of baby. I know how to walk, dumbass." He snarled. Quaritch whipped his head around so fast Spider wondered how he didn‘t quite literally crack his neck. He‘s not sure what he was expecting there honestly. Maybe he prepared himself to be lectured about his language or something. You know, anything that a normal parent would say to their feisty teenager. But he simply stared at him, the ghost of a grin ready to appear on his lips any moment now.

"You‘re really testing my limits, you know that?" He replied, a fire in his gaze so intense it looked like he was about to explode in a fit of rage and he was barely containing it. "I would advise you to watch your mouth, if you know what‘s good for you." He retorted from deep down his throat. Spider barely caught himself before rolling his eyes. Fucking hell. This man had two moods and four or five lines at great maximum. Goddamn NPC. Spider glared at him as if he was the devil in person, which he suppose he was, in some sort of way. He wondered how there could be any connection between him and this man. Apart from the DNA in his genes, Spider knew that they were both complete strangers, deep down.

"I don‘t take orders from a jerk." He snorted and then wished he didn‘t as soon as he saw the expression on his face. His face was red with strong and violent anger, as if the fire deep down was slowly starting to come up to the surface. And Spider was the one who had triggered it. He had to admit to himself that outraging the person he hated the most in the whole wide world brought him an odd satisfaction.

"Keep up with the attitude and I‘ll give you a whipping so bad you‘ll wish you were never born at all." He said pushing Spider out the door. He didn‘t find it within him to fight back anymore so he simply grumbled an insult in response. Spider found himself wondering if the Sully siblings were worried sick about him. Did they know where he was or what had happened to him? Probably not. If they knew, they would have come looking for him a long time ago, surely. Right?

Quaritch flew past the cafeteria and hurried him down a set of stairs. His pace was quick and harsh in a way that made it look like he was in a rush. Spider didn‘t dare ask what was going on, but he knew it couldn‘t be anything good from the moment they stepped outside. As much as he knew that something was up and for all he knew he was probably about to live the worst day of his life, he couldn‘t help but be filled with awe at the sight of the sky. Had it always been so vast and so blue? He felt like he hadn‘t been outdoor for an eternity.

He filled his lungs with as much fresh oxygen as they would allow, like he was stocking up for winter, before blowing the air through his nose. The wind was soft and Spider savoured every second he could spend outside. He thought about running. Of course he did. Who wouldn‘t? He was finally out of this awful place and it almost seemed as if they were doing this on purpose. To test him in some sort. But he knew he wouldn‘t get far away, including the fact that he had nowhere to go and that Quaritch and three other guys laid a cautious eye on him, so he didn‘t.

He was reluctantly shoved into the backseat of a black car with tinted windows, sandwiched between Sunglasses Man and another guy with a green headband. He had dark circles that dug beneath his eyes, giving him a kind of exhausted look. When he looked over at Spider as if he had grown a third eye, he quickly realized that he had been staring. He snapped out of it and stared ahead. Spider wanted to know just where the hell they were heading, but he couldn‘t bring himself to say anything. His voice was trapped in his throat and he feared that it would break if he attempted to say anything now. He wasn‘t here to make small talk with them anyway.

Lyle was in the passenger’s seat, trying to deal with the radio to find an interesting station. Spider realized he could maybe ask him, afterall. He was nice and easy to talk to. Spider thought he was a good guy who simply put his trust into the wrong people, and held onto that loyalty a bit too hard. But he never got to ask him as Quaritch started the engine and they drove away.

Spider woke up as the car came to a complete stop. He didn‘t know how long he had been sleeping for. Probably for the whole car ride. Which was to say a pretty decent amount of time, but not enough that he could say he wouldn‘t be able to sleep tonight. He snapped back into the horrible reality pretty quickly. He was in a car with Quaritch and his men. And most importantly, he didn‘t know where he was. "Wakey wakey, sleeping beauty." He whispered and voices around him started laughing. He didn‘t understand what was going on even with his eyes open so wide they probably looked like they were ready to pop out of their socket.

Headband Guy dragged him out of the car by the arm and it‘s at this precise moment that Spider realized where he was. Snakes started twisting deep down into his guts, leaking their poison into his intestines. He planted his heels firmly onto the ground, refusing to enter this ridiculously huge house. He turned to Headband Guy. "Say, how much do you get paid for this job, exactly?" He asked. He made a weird face, as if Spider had just asked him how big his dick was.

"That‘s none of your business. Now move." He replied, pushing him to get him going as if he was livestock. Spider knew that if he entered that house, he had about less than one percent of chances to ever come back out. This would be his prison for the next two years, or until he turned eighteen. He felt it deep down in his guts. Like the way you can tell when a snowstorm is coming. You just feel it in the air.

"Wait, wait, wait! I can give you all of my pocket money right fucking now. Think about it, dude." He held his hands up in surrender. The guy gave him a look as if he was a homeless man proposing his selfmade drug for two hundred bucks. He scoffed quietly, then shoved him in the house. It was a decent house, almost as big as the Sully‘s. There was an odd feeling about it, though. Like it had been made for a family to live in there but was currently empty as a dollhouse. The frames held no pictures and the furnitures felt cold and impersonal.

"What are we doing here?" He asked to no one in particular but somewhat already knew the answer.

"This, my boy, is your new home." Quaritch replied from his deep raspy voice, opening his arms wide to motion the whole house. Spider thought he had a pressure drop at that exact moment. His eyes were wide open but he couldn‘t see anything aside from pitch black, as if he was in space but all the stars had been killed. The moment felt like an eternity before he blinked and the faces of Quaritch and Lyle appeared back into his field of view.

This could not be happening. It had to be a fucking joke or a prank of some kind. His place was not here with him. He had school starting in less than a month and Norm was probably ill at ease right now simply thinking about Spider whom had vanished without leaving a note or any text message. He would sometimes do that, leave for a day or two without coming back home until the next morning. But he always noticed him, just so he wouldn‘t fall head over heels trying to find him. The first time he‘d done that, Norm had quite literally called the police, thinking he had run away or worse.

On top of that, his friends were now half an hour from him and all of his stuff was at the apartment. Not that there was much stuff that Spider held onto beside his clothes and rock collection. But, you got the idea. His life was not here and Quaritch didn‘t seem to understand that very clearly. He furrowed his brows into a furious expression. "I don‘t remember consenting to this. You have no right to keep me here against my will." He snarled.

His face twisted into a depraved grin. "And I don‘t remember asking for your opinion. Now, tell me. What are you going to do? Call the police?" He walked closer to Spider. He wasn‘t much of a tall man, but he was at least two or three feet taller than Spider. He had to twist his neck up to meet his gaze. In a brief moment of dread, Spider realized that he was right. There was no restraining order that could keep him from seeing Spider. Not yet.

"I swear I‘ll fucking sue you the moment I turn eighteen." He shouted. Quaritch sighed a long sigh, as if he knew all along that Spider might say something like that. He gripped Spider by the arm and dragged him up the stairs, leaving Lyle and Headband Guy in the kitchen while Sunglasses Man simply stood in the hall, watching them storm away.

"You‘re a real pain in the ass, you know that?" He said, shoving him into a room at least twice the size of his bedroom at the apartment. From one simple glance, he could tell this place had not been used for a long time, if not ever. There was one double bed at the center of the room, furnitured by a wooden bedside table and a white drawer. On the opposite side of the room was a large window and his first thought was 'God, he‘s even dumber than he looks.' But he knew there was a catch. He just couldn‘t tell what it was yet.

"Thanks, I got it from my daddy." He replied and for a second Quaritch simply glared at him, as if he didn‘t know whether to yell at him that he was just a little brat or simply laugh. Then he told him to think about his attitude and slammed the door closed. So that was it? He would lock him into a room until he begged to be fed, saying he was sorry that he called him an asshole? Well, he was not sorry one bit. And he would rather die than beg.

His first instinct was to try for the door, but of course it was somehow locked by an outside mechanism. Then he turned around to have a better look at the bedroom. He opened each of the drawers only to realize that they were all empty. Next, he opened the bedside table drawers to find a deck of cards and an old dusty book. Bleak House by Dickens. Spider had never been too fond of literature due to his dyslexia, so he thought this would not be very useful. He walked over to the window and analyzed its materials.

The window was strangely ordinary. He could open and close it without setting off a whole lot of alarms or security systems. He glanced out the window thoughtfully and
already dismissed the diverses unrealistic possibilities that had popped up into his mind. A minimum of four meters separated him from the ground, if not more than that. If he risked jumping out of the window, he was assured to break at least his legs. He would keep the idea in case of an emergency. A huge emergency, he decided.

Then he lay down on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. This was going from bad to worse. But maybe this would be part of the past soon. Just a question of days, perhaps. He closed his eyes for one single second but fell asleep just as quickly, drifting off into dreamland.

He woke up the next morning around eight o‘clock, which was remarkable considering that he fell dead asleep around five o‘clock yesterday. That meant he slept for straight up fifteen hours or so. That was pretty amazing for someone who would usually sleep seven or eight hours per night, if not less than that. He yawned loudly and stretched like he was a bear coming out of hibernation. He had fallen asleep above the covers so there was no need for him to tidy the bed.

He knew the door would still be locked, he wasn‘t that dumb, so he simply stayed there for the next hour. He didn‘t know what exactly he was supposed to do for them to let him out. Or if there was something he should do to begin with. He waited for what felt like twice an eternity before a knock was heard at the door. It was so faint he almost didn‘t hear it at first. He figured the person had knocked more out of habit or politeness, since it‘s not like he could open the door from the inside by himself.

Lyle poked his head out of the door frame, eyes sparkling with pure energy. "Morning, kiddo. Slept well?" He whispered, as if he didn‘t want to wake the whole house. He found it weird that he was still there, but Spider brushed it off thinking maybe Quaritch had asked him to stay over for the night to help deal with him. He didn‘t particularly know how to answer the question, so he let it hang in the air until it settled on the ground like dust.

"You‘re still mad at him, huh?" He said and at first Spider didn‘t know who he meant by 'him' but then he understood. Lyle gave him a look and if Spider didn‘t know any better he would almost think he was empathizing with him. If he was still mad at Quaritch for keeping him here against his will and quite literally ruining his life? Of course he was. Lyle opened the door a tad wider. "You know what? I totally get it, buddy. But just know that he‘s trying his best. He wants to give you the father you deserve. " He paused for a second, then opened his mouth again. "Breakfast will be ready in five minutes, if you‘re hungry." And then he left, just like that.

Spider turned the words over and over in his mind, trying to make sense of it all. He just wants to give you the father you deserve. Had Lyle been genuine when he said that? Probably not, he concluded after 20 minutes of true headache. Then he cracked the door open, stepping into the hallway. It had a whole lot of closed doors, or at least more than he had ever seen. The staircase was vast in a way that made him feel in the open air, but maybe that was simply due to the sunlight filtering through the ceiling window. He wondered for a second how there could be a house that exuded so much wealth and a poor cramped apartment in the same country. How could life be so unfair?

He went down the stairs one by one, stopping once in a while as if he didn‘t know if going down was really a wise choice. As he had noticed yesterday, the second floor was much too high for him to be able to jump out of the window safely. If he wanted to break out of here, he would have to go through the ground floor. He sighed loudly and went down the remaining stairs, following the smell of food to the kitchen.

The house was oddly ordinary. Or at least, much more than he had expected it to be. Which said a lot more than one would believe about Quaritch as a person. But maybe that was downright bullshit and he was just taking it upon himself to analyze anything in this house that stuck out, as if these small things actually held the answer to his phenomenal escape. But that was far from being the case, so he tried to shut down his overthinking and took a seat at the edge of the kitchen island.

When Lyle slid a glass of green unknown at him across the counter, Spider stared at him as if he was trying to poison him. This shit honestly looked like baby diarrhea and if anything couldn‘t have looked any less appetizing. “Spinach and blueberry. It‘s rich in antioxidants and vitamins. Good for concussion.” Lyle simply replied.

“Let me guess. Google told you that?“ He deadpanned, eyeing the glass. Spider didn’t make a habit of complaining about food, but this was completely on another scale. Lyle made a face like Spider had just asked his secret recipe and then sighed.

"Oh, come on. This can't kill you." He almost practically rolled his eyes. Spider raised the glass to his lips and took a hesitant sip, bracing himself to witness the world's most obnoxious healthy juice. Most healthy stuff tasted like shit, anyway. And that wasn't just based on his personal experiences or the humble saids of Loak and Tuk who dreaded dinner time as soon as they saw a green vegetable so much as touch their plate.

“It’s sweet.” He frowned, as if both completely dumbfounded and revolted. “Like sick sweet, not candy sweet, you know?” He crossed his arms over his chest in a thoughtful gesture, slumping back into the stool. He took another sip, as if he was expecting it to taste any different now that he saw the thing from a different perspective. This tasted like the kind of thing you would give to a sick kid with a sore throat, like created to imitate the flavor of a strawberry or a banana, but ending straight up tasting like meds and nothing else.

He cleared his throat as Lyle slurped loudly at his coffee. Spider felt uneasy, as if he was having a chat with his friend's father at a birthday party or a sleepover because he'd woken up too early or something. He glanced at Lyle for a moment, then looked down at his glass like it held the answers to all the questions in the world. If it did truly contain such things as antioxidants just like Lyle had mentioned earlier, something that-accordingly to the Internet-had significals benefits concerning the healing of a concussion, then Spider knew he should gulp it down to the last drop right now. Anything that could help him heal faster through this injury was one good thing. If he wanted to escape, he would need to put aside his pride and work up a lot of patience and determination. Of course he wanted to run right through the front door at this exact moment, but he was smarter than that. He knew he had to think this through. He had to shape himself up and admit the fact he couldn't rush this like this was a useless homework.

He took the glass and drank the remaining juice, before sliding it back across the counter just like Lyle had done. "Never thought I’d say that, but thanks." He said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He had to admit there was an unusual edge to being around here. It was like realizing that despite being a total jerk, his father did have a life aside from his job and kicking everybody's ass. Like he was just human and tended to activities such as reading and sports or perhaps cooking.

"Don't get all polite on me, chico. I'm just doin' my uncle's job." Lyle drew in a breath, placing his cup of coffee next to the sink, like he might have wanted to wash it but was too lazy to actually bother doing the dishes now. He glanced down at his watch, then back up at Spider. He had so many questions and things going on arround his mind at the moment, and he didn't know whether those said questions were meant to be answered and develloped into something more, something like an outcome to all those years spent wondering about a missing father, or not and he was just being over dramatic as always and delusional. Which was hard to tell, to be totally fair.

"You're not actually my uncle though, are you?" Spider asked before he had the chance to even carry on with a different subject. The words slipped out of his mouth unconciously, like a part of his brain knew he had wanted to ask him the question, but hadn't totally intended to say it out loud. There was a long silence that seemed to stretch over the time interminably and Spider meanwhile had the time to look around himself once more. Had death not claimed his mother that day or his father not accepted this augmentation that led to him leaving on a journey of no return, would he today be calling this place home?

"You're right, I'm not." Lyle finally replied, his tone between casual and apologetic. "But I'm your godfather and that's close enough." And that simple sentence sent Spider spiraling into a void of confusion. He thought about that science class that had taken place a few years ago about the waves and asked himself if what he was seeing was even remotedly true to begin with. If the eye could only capture a wave ranging between 380 and 780 of wavelenght, then what about infrareds or UV? How could you look at something green and be sure it wasn't yellow or orange? How could you be sure something was the truth, knowing that truth corresponds to reality and facts. How could you be sure those said facts were reality?

"My godfather?" He simply asked, surprised. He tried to push aside the science class and focus on what he was facing. His godfather. Or maybe that was yet another lie. But he doubt it would be, because Lyle didn't seem to be the type of guy to be able to lie. He licked his lips, proceeding what was just said. "Then how come you didn't get custody of me after what happened... with my father?" He asked rather than something about the fact that not only was he not even baptized, but he had never heard about Lyle in his entire life before two days ago. What happened with his father. That was yet another great question. What had happened, the real truth of it? How come he had been presumed as dead when clearly he wasn't?

"Oh boy, that's a long story." He sighed, crossing his arms over his chest. "Just a bunch of legal bullshit, actually." He narrowed his eyes slightly, tilting his head to the side and looking at Spider as if he was the one talking. "You probably heard the story already a million times without even knowing. A famous war hero taking an arrow just bellow his clavicle, sent into coma for two years? Doesn't ring you a bell?" He asked as if he wasn't sure of his very own source of information. He pushed something imaginary aside, pushing the subject away when he simply stared cluelessly at him. "Whatever, you were probably too young to understand all that drama anyway."

"I was, like—three or four years old?" Spider chimed in, not frankly remembering quite neatly how old he was at the time but knowing he was old enough to recall the event like you do a twisted dream. Your mind would replay the dream like a video tape, would retrace the exact shapes like some kind of movie or artwork, but you couldn't draw a picture of what you saw to save your life. It was like a different universe, where everything beyond human's comprehension was now the norm. A fourth dimension or something like that, maybe.

"Yeah, that's exactly my point." Lyle nodded, his voice taking a different edge. He seemed to weigh his every words, carefully choosing the right vocabulary that could convey to Spider a message of importance without slipping and saying too much to ears that weren't meant to hear some things in particular. It looked a bit like he was purposely leaving out details, and Spider noticed that pretty quickly. Lyle was picking at the subject and only seemed to keep the meat of it, deliberately forgetting to mention the bones of the remains—or in this case, the base of the matter.

"Which is to say, you can't leave a toddler wandering around the city alone like some stray cat, yeah?" He said and sighed mid sentence, as if he was already wretched from his day. "So the notary came in contact with the designated Guardian of the parent that died last. But apparently, the law does not consider someone in a coma as dead. And that's exactly why I couldn't get custody of you. Pretty dumb reason, don't you agree?" He shrugged slightly, then turned toward the fridge and opened it.

Spider stared at the marble counter blankly. This couldn't be all there was to the story, there surely was something more. Something to explain. And suddenly he wasn't just in a stranger's house anymore with a guy he just met two days ago. He wasn't here by any awful coincidences. And he could not exactly describe this feeling, but he knew what it stood for. Curiosity. Spider didn't just want to know about his past, he quite literally needed it. He needed to learn about his parents, where he came from. The what to the why and the how. He was Miles Quaritch's son. And he was alive, somehow.

Hell, was he losing it? He probably was. You can't just brush it off when you realize that your father—who you thought was dead for the past ten years, shall he add—is actually still breathing and healthier than ever. If there was some stages you go through when living a traumatism, then he guessed he probably was at the overthinking-and-going-insane one. Lyle closed the fridge empty handed and turned back toward Spider, his lips slightly pursed.

"I'll be transparent with you on this one. What we did back then—that wasn't neat at all." He continued slowly, staring at the ceiling for a fraction of seconds, then back down at Spider. "We decided to make something up. His death, to be precise. Came in contact with the right people who knew what they were doing, made up a bunch of mails and paperwork. You'd be surprised to know how easy it is to fake someone's death these days, kiddo." He raised his eyebrows, as if to convince him. "A few calls and you're done. Miles Quaritch, deceased on August 23. Brain death."

Spider quite literally felt his jaw drop to the floor. He was waiting for something. For Lyle to start laughing and say he was kidding. But he wasn't, was he? He didn't know what to say or even how to simply react to begin with. "I can't exactly say I was surprised when trouble came knocking at the door, though. Court got involved at some point, because some nobody claimed to believe I was unfit for the role of Guardian. Norman was his name, if I recall correctly." He slightly narrowed his eyes, racking his brain to remember a detail that seemed rather meaningless at first glance, but if anything was the most essential information Lyle had just given to him in the past ten minutes of monologue. Norman as in Norm. Two words : Holy fuck.