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The beast howled.
Flung its claws forward with one swooping, smooth movement.
Chip thinks of Gillion Tidestrider when his body hits the forest floor, blood seeping through the torn fabric of his shirt.
God. If this was how he died, he’d die knowing nothing but the edge of adventure. An almost. He’d almost been a real pirate. He’d almost had a full, proper crew, more than just the older, redheaded girl that he’d managed to rope into what could’ve been an adventure .
And the triton. He couldn’t forget about the triton. Gillion Tidestrider - a strangely fitting name for an even stranger man.
He remembered having to practically beg Jay to let him keep the triton on board - as if the ship wasn’t his, as if he wasn’t the goddamn captain. It had taken a few days for Gillion to even gain the courage to utter a word to the two, and even then, his sentences were short and very matter-of-fact, like every question he was asked was a portion of an interrogation. Chip thanked every God he could remember the names of that Jay knew enough Primordial to bridge the language gap between them.
The weeks went by, Zero came and went like a lingering memory, and Loffinlot arrived in a moment of rescue, with forests full of horrors. To Chip, the gap between him and the triton felt like it kept closing more and more as the days went by. Something about sleeping beside a person, stuck together, with nothing but the open sea surrounding you. Stuck in your own thoughts, your own endless list of unanswered questions.
He’s pretty sure that was his downfall, that day in the forest. He’d been too stuck in his own head when the beast in the woods had struck him. To his credit, the majority of his supplies had washed away with the remnants of a blown-apart ship, and for the sake of his own ego, he’d stick with that excuse.
Gillion fought with valor, as if fighting was all he truly knew how to do, all he was truly meant to do. Each swing of his sword was purposeful and certain, each movement looking so perfectly choreographed. Magic seeped from his very being, pouring from every piece of his flesh, commanding the lightning and the skies to his bidding. Chip wouldn’t ever admit it out loud, but it was somehow majestic, watching from afar. Each of his own movements felt a little more clumsy in comparison.
Maybe he’d been too self conscious to focus on dodging the creature’s swinging claws. He couldn’t know. But the beast’s claw managed to reach for him - the weak link - and grab him with a set of claws.
The three claws hooked into his stomach, tearing him open horizontally from one side of his ribs to the other. As they hooked over his skin, he was flung backward, his shirt staining green as he skidded aross the open grass and thumped into the trunk of a tree a few dozen feet away. The pain quickly comes after, deep and hot and hammering through him with every thump of his overworked heart. Hot blood stuck the white fabric of his shirt to his trembling body. Each movement flared his abdomen with white-hot pain.
He was going to die, and he hadn’t even lived yet.
Chip couldn’t register himself crying. The sounds of his own yelps were nothing in comparison to the rumbling growls of his assailant. He pressed weak and shaking hands to his torso, trying desperately to stop the gush of blood but only succeeding in painting his hands a bright, arterial red.
The voices of Jay and Gillion yelling are distant.
He hadn’t even lived yet. He’s so goddamn young, the adventure hadn’t started yet, he hadn’t had enough of a chance-
Chip’s eyes began drifting closed. He remembered hearing something about how drowning victims were the calmest right before they died, feeling like they were drifting asleep after fighting for so long.
He’s woken by cold hands on either side of his face, tugging his chin upward. The feeling is quickly followed by the most pleasant, calming coolness that seeps through his burning stomach. When his eyes snap open, his gaze is met by that of Gillion Tidestrider, panting with his sword planted on his hip.
The pain begins to cease.
Hurriedly, Chip looked down at his torso, and to his awe, he watched the open gash begin to close, as if the skin was sewing itself back up with an invisible needle and thread. The blood he lost began to seep back into his body, leaving behind only the dried bloodstains on his hands and his shirt. Throughout it all, Gillion’s hands remained on Chip’s face, his attention never wavering. His brow was furrowed in the same deeply-rooted concentration that Chip watched him house in the midst of battle.
The wound was gone, but Gillion did not let go.
“The…what about….”
“I took the finishing blow to the beast,” Gillion replied, piecing together words into a sentence far quicker than Chip could. “Are you alright?”
“I-”
Their closeness became rapidly apparent to Chip. As Gillion panted, Chip could feel the heat of every exhale pool over his own collarbones, over his face. They were close enough for Chip to trace the flecks of green in Gillion’s otherwise bright blue eyes, the darkness of his slitted pupils, the parting of his lips.
Suddenly he’s staring too much, too long-
Gillion turns over his shoulder as Jay runs forward towards them, tripping over her own feet as she did.
“I’ve healed him!” Gillion called to her just as she knelt beside Chip, promptly socking him in the shoulder.
“ Jesus, fuck - ow!” Chip recoiled and sat up. His stomach still throbbed with remnants of lingering magic.
Jay grabbed Chip’s wrist, yanking him to his feet, punching him one more time. “You’re a fucking idiot, dude, are you serious? What the hell was that?”
“Not my fault that thing had fucking lightning reflexes!” Chip rubbed at his wounded shoulder.
“You’re damn lucky Gillion was there to help-”
“ You knew he could do that?” Chip balked at the both of them. “Was I the only dumbass? Don’t answer that.” He snapped at Jay, who raised her hands in quiet defeat.
Gillion stood up, dusting the grass from his pants and adjusting the sword that hung from his belt.
“Healing is something every Champion should know how to do, Chip,” he replied. “You saved my life once before, it is only right that I return the favor.”
The feeling still lingered, and Chip didn’t know if it was the remaining magic coursing through him, or the feeling of Gillion’s hands on his jaw. He didn’t ponder it much longer, for the sake of his own sanity.
The thought stayed in the back of his head. A triton with parted lips.
ii.
Chip wakes to the ship’s softened rocking, the distant sounds of waves lapping at the side of the boat, and the all-too-obvious barrel sitting empty at the end of the room. In the dark, he pulled himself from the sheets and let the coolness of the floor on his bare feet wake him. Chip scrubbed his eyes, waiting for them to adjust to the darkness. The distant sound of shuffling rang from the upstairs deck.
Shit.
Gillion was usually one to stay up past his shift ending. In the thick and cold darkness of the ocean-laden night, the triton usually preferred to stay awake, deep in his training. The sounds of grunting and swords clashing into metal often acted as a ceremonial ring-in for the morning. It was a wonder Gillion ever had any energy.
But that night, the shuffling from upstairs was not followed by the swinging of a sword, the gentle thrum of magic, not even an audible breath. Shuffling, almost sounding like pacing, then nothing. Just ominous stillness.
With a dagger in one hand and a lantern in the other, Chip hurried to the deck.
The worst parts of his subconscious expected to be faced with an attacker. Something was wrong with Gillion, he’d see the triton laying on the floor. He’d yell for Jay. The morning would begin early and in the most horrible fashion.
Instead, he found Gillion sitting beside the railing.
The triton was curled into himself. His limbs were knotted into a tight, trembling ball, with his head bowed in defeat to nobody. In the flickering light of the lantern, Chip could see every lock of kelly-green hair shake, like waves shifting to the hands of the wind, and for a second, he couldn’t move forward. He was paralyzed staring at the unfamiliar sight. A fallen God, a bowing wolf, a crumbled marble statue.
Gillion lifted his head.
Locks of his hair fell over his face in a curtain of seaweed-like shades. Even with his incessant shaking, the triton’s face was still and blank, aside from the two rivulets painting his face. Two steady streams of tears, lighting up iridescent in the lantern’s glow. Narrowed pupils, reddened waterlines, a trembling body, staring up at Chip with widened eyes, as if he’d been caught.
“Gil-?”
The moment of silent tension was shattered when Gillion moved to stand up. Chip hurried to push him back down, sitting beside him on the deck, cross-legged with the lantern in front of them.
“Are you crying-?”
Gillion’s hands clenched into tight, shaken fists, nails digging hard into the skin of his palms. He took a slow, wet breath, and shook his head in a silent response.
“If you had a bad night or something-”
“I am-” Gillion’s voice wasn’t the declaration it usually was. Like the rest of his body, every syllable was shaking, and he choked before he could get the final word out. A stifled sob stuttered through his lips before another word could get out. It sounded painful, as if an invisible hand was wrapped around Gillion’s throat, cutting off any of his body’s attempts to take in a lungful of air. Again, he squeezed his nails into his palms, hard, and took a breath.
“I am fine.”
For a long few seconds, Chip could say nothing. The tears were still streaming down Gillion’s face, but he made no move to wipe them away. It was as if he didn’t notice their presence at all. Perhaps he thought they blended with the natural moisture of his skin, just looking like two rivers of dew on his cheeks, dripping off his chin. His chest stuttered in more stifled, choked sobs, no noise escaping his mouth.
“Was it a nightmare?”
Gillion didn’t say a word. His eyes shut tight for a moment, but not a sound was shared between them. Chip stared at the flickering fire within the frosted glass of the lantern’s body.
When he looked back, Gillion was staring at him, wordless and trembling. Hesitantly, Chip scooted a bit closer. His back leaned against the coolness of the railing, knees loosely pulled towards his chest. His shoulder pressed against Gillion’s own. The pressure made his heart thump in his throat, the coolness of another body beside him. Chip tilted his chin to the sky. The stars blinked back at him like an old friend.
“I, uh…” Chip closed his eyes for a long second. “I used to get ‘em a lot when I was younger.”
The blanket of “ used to” felt comforting, somehow. Like he was no longer that scared child with a dagger at his belt. Like he hadn’t spent so many nights on board, replaying the same memories of fire and blood and sinking ships. How well can you truly comfort someone if you keep lying to yourself?
“I mean, I’m sure Jay does too, y’know? Not your fault. Sometimes you just have them.”
Gillion swallowed. “It is… childish of me.”
“Would it be childish if it was me having nightmares?”
Gillion paused. Mulled over the words.
“It is different,” the triton finally replied.
“Different?”
“I have endured the trials I was born to endure,” Gillion said. The distant look in his eyes made his pupils look foggy, both with lingering tears and with a cold reminiscence. “I am the Chosen One, Chip. I was not born to be afraid. ”
He spoke the word “afraid” with such visceral disgust, spitting out the word as if it tasted bitter on the back of his tongue. Chip let his hand drape between their bodies. His pinkie brushed against Gillion’s own, and he felt the chill of his skin jolt up his arm.
Chip took a breath, watching the way it fogged in front of his lips.
“What did you dream about?”
Gillion didn’t say a word for a long few seconds. In the light of the lantern, the tears were still illuminated in pearlescent rivers down the triton’s face.
“The memory is not important.”
“It’s important to me,” Chip said. “ You’re important to me.”
It felt like a confession. A plea for mercy. A begging to be believed, and a level of truth he’d never been able to rip from his mouth until that dark night on the deck, with nothing but the stars to witness them. The closeness between their hands became rapidly apparent to the skittish Chip. His heartbeat seemed to pound in his ears.
“Whatever they said to you, back…there.” The Undersea. It stuck in the back of his throat. “Jay and I are never going to think less of you for a nightmare, you understand that? Whatever it is, we can help.”
“I do not need help.”
“Gil.”
There was quiet. Thick, clawing quiet. In a moment of bravery, Chip linked their pinkies together.
The action seemed to wake the triton up, as he jumped in place. Chip scooted back. Shame burned in his chest as he began pulling his hand back.
“ Shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t-”
Wordlessly, Gillion grabbed Chip’s arm before he could move it back another inch. His long, teal fingers wrapped effortlessly around Chip’s wrist, like it was meant to be there. Like he was meant to be holding on to Chip, grounding him into place.
Slowly, yet certainly, Gillion pressed Chip’s open hand to his chest.
Underneath his awaiting palm, Chip could feel every thump of Gillion’s heart. A war drum between his ribs, a wild animal, hammering in a steady and certain rhythm. Chip went deathly quiet, feeling the way the quick hammer turned to a slow, steady pulse. As if Chip’s touch alone was enough to calm the anxious triton.
He stayed there far longer than he should have, his hand over Gillion’s chest.
He imagined a younger Gillion.
Did you look something like me? He wanted to ask about it, but couldn’t find the proper words. If we’d met back then, do you think we would’ve been the same we are now? Maybe if we were on the same ship as kids, we would’ve stayed awake on the deck, staring up at the stars. When the nights were too heavy, the stars would light our way.
Maybe you would’ve loved the same constellations I did.
Slowly, Gillion let Chip’s wrist go, letting the young pirate pull his hand back to his own chest. The tingling of Gillion’s hand remained on Chip’s skin.
“Do you, uh…” Chip balked. His throat felt dry. “We can go back inside, if you want to-?”
Gillion’s face was unreadable. He kept staring at Chip, as if there was something worth staring at.
“Would you stay with me if I remained out here for a while longer?”
“Yeah!” His enthusiasm felt like too much, so he quickly retracted, raising his knees to his chest a little more. “I mean, yeah, for sure.”
When he stared up at the stars, Gillion’s head drifted onto Chip’s shoulder, and for a second, Chip wondered if this was what it felt like to feel safe.
Who’s the one recieving the comfort, young pirate? Who’s the one searching for safety?
Who’s the one lying to themselves?
iii.
The mirror in front of Chip feels like it’s mocking him, daring him to look up at his own reflection. Both of them know exactly what he’d see.
He stood in the bathroom of the inn they’d stayed at for the night. Door closed, shirt laying abandoned and bloody on the floor, one hand pressed over the cut just below his ribs. It bled steadily, painfully, but not bad enough to leave any lasting damage. It wasn’t the cut he was too anxious to look at. It was the scars.
Had Chip’s body been a painting, its canvas surface would have long been torn apart, a relic of the original artwork it used to be. Across his naked torso, his skin was bedecked with a multitude of angry, white and red slashes, ranging in their age and size. Thick patches of pink, stripes of white, lines of red, as if the color on his body had smudged in multiple places. There were pieces of his adorned flesh that Chip could appreciate. The scattering of freckles on his upper body and face, the uneven tan lines from years at sea, the tattoos that stretched over his chest. But the scars felt like impurities. He was stained with fate’s horrible ink, and he couldn’t scrub it off.
In the bathroom, Chip took his shaking hands and wet one of the towels in the sink, hissing through clenched teeth as he pressed it over his bleeding side. The dripping water turned pink and fell to the floor in raindrops.
The familiar knocking came from the other side of the door again.
Chip shook his head, as if Gillion could see him.
“I’m fine, Gil.”
“Jay is asking-”
“Tell Jay I’m fine! ”
Chip’s voice cracked at the final syllable, and he silently chastised himself. With his free hand, he scrubbed at his eyes. The silence on the other side of the door made his stomach pang with white-hot guilt. He could still see the shadow under the door.
“You’re still there.”
Gillion took a breath. Chip imaginined him resting one hand on the hilt of his sword, tapping at the handle with an anxious fingertip.
“I am worried about you.”
“I’m fine.”
“You promised to never lie to me.”
This made Chip go quiet, for once. Remembering the feeling of a cold blade on his throat.
With his eyes downtrodden and his hand still clutching the towel to his bleeding side, Chip opened the door.
Despite only being shirtless, the sensation of Gillion’s concerned gaze and the cool air against the skin of his torso made Chip feel naked. Instinctively, he wrapped his free arm around his stomach, letting his shoulders cave in a little. To the outside eye, to Gillion, he’d look more like a shaken and bleeding young boy than the captain the triton had grown so close with. When Chip felt a hand drift over towards his side, he jumped instinctively backward, shoulder-checking the wall behind him. Gillion yanked his hand back.
“I mean no harm-”
“I know.”
“You are hurt, Chip, if you let me see-”
“I’ve got it, dude, it’s okay - ‘s not even that bad.”
“You are shaking-”
“It’s worse than it looks.”
“ Chip. ”
Chip didn’t make eye contact. He couldn’t make eye contact. He was certain that if he did look up, if he saw the concerned haze in Gillion’s piercing, aquamarine eyes, then he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from crying, and he’d rather bleed himself dry than cry a single tear in front of his co-captains. In front of Gil.
“I can heal it,” Gillion said. Looking down, Chip could see him nearing closer, approaching as if Chip were a wild animal set to snap at any moment. “It is no burden to me. If you’ll allow me.”
Gillion, expectantly, held his hands forward, a silent question of consent, and Chip moved his shaking arms and dropped the bloody towel to the floor.
The triton made quick work of settling both his hands on Chip’s sides. The action felt oddly and painfully intimate, and Chip felt heat rise into his face, blocking him from even glancing down at the wound on his side coursing with magic. The excess blood soaked back into his body, the wound stitched itself closed, but even then, Gillion’s gentle and tender hands did not move. Instead, they began shifting across his chest.
Silently, Gillion ran the pads of his fingers across the scars that lined Chip’s skin, as if he was following the pathways on a map. He recognized the patterns, the textures, the colors. Burn scars, spreading in pink and amber patches under his arm and beneath his pecs. Slashes of various degrees of jaggedness, length, and depth, some shining a brilliant crimson, others a faded white. He could recognize every weapon that created the marks, but he didn’t dare speak their names. He didn’t even dare speak a word. The silence was a thin pane of glass beneath the two of them.
Chip glanced away. His eyes, as Gillion could see them, once a brilliant and amber-toned brown, were touched with tears that the young pirate was trying desperately to conceal.
“I have them too,” Gillion spoke softly. “The scars. They are the marks of a warrior.”
Chip took a shaky breath.
“They remind me of all the stupid shit I’ve done.”
Gillion breathed in. His finger brushed over the edges of a particularly deep scar over Chip’s ribs, feeling every indentation and movement of his muscles underneath the skin.
“And yet, you have survived it all,” the triton replied, not knowing if he was speaking to himself or to Chip more. “In spite of everything.”
Chip laughed. A dry, uncertain sound. “Not sure if that’s for the best.”
“Do not say that,” Gillion replied, rather sternly. “Had I not met you-”
I might have returned to a place that was no longer home, to arms that no longer wish to embrace me, to be a weapon still to be forged.
“...I am not certain where I would be.”
When Gillion glanced up, Chip’s watery brown eyes were gazing down at him, as if trying to read his intentions through his skin. It felt almost holy, being washed over in the beams of sunlight that often radiated off of the younger man. He looked so… lost.
But what a colorless existance we would live in, Chip, if soldiers did not carry the stories of their victories written in red across their bodies.
iv.
“Just trust me for a sec.”
They stand in a dark, wooden dome.
The place is lingering with an otherworldly sort of magic. Chip could feel it, floating through the air on invisible wings, brushing over his skin. The place appeared so small on the outside, but based solely on the echoes in the pitch black darkness, the interior was much larger. Chip found himself inching closer to the sounds of Jay and Gillion’s breathing. A habit.
He’d told them this was a surprise. They didn’t need to know that he’d spent forty of his own gold on it. The look on their faces would be worth it.
“If something jumps at me, I’m gonna break your fucking nose,” Jay whispered in the dark. Chip laughed.
“Just stay still for one second!” Chip could sense Gillion’s hand on the handle of his sword, on edge, waiting, until-
All at once, the dark dome bloomed into mirthful light. The walls of the place vanished completely, creating a replica of a glorious, ever-extending valley. A golden sky glimmered overhead, with a slowly setting sun painting the clouds tints of pink and orange, as if the horizon had turned into an oil painting. Below it, a thick, grassy field, heavily bedecked with an assorted arrangement of different flowers. White daisies, sunflowers that tilted their smiling faces to the fading sunlight, dandelions beneath their feet, and what felt like hundreds more, stretched across the overgrown grass and created spots of color everywhere the eye could see. When he inhaled, Chip could smell the sweet, floral scent of dew-kissed grass and petals.
Lord, were they out of place in such a colorful, youthful location. But Lord did it feel good.
Gillion’s hand didn’t move from the handle of the sword on his hip. Jay, on the other hand, looked only at Chip, mouth open and eyes gleaming with a sort of nostalgia.
“I thought they got rid of this place.”
All-Port called it See it To Believe! In exchange for an hourly fee, one could pay to visit a tangible, explorable replica of whatever location or time period the buyer desired. Forty gold had gotten the three of them into the valleys of Everton, one of the islands decorating the southern seas. Chip remembered passing by the place dozens of times as a kid, seeing the trees reach for him. Like they were beckoning him forward.
Arlin had always promised they’d stop there some day. He never had the chance to. But this, standing in the middle of it with his two co-captains, it felt like enough.
“‘Course they didn’t get rid of it,” Chip turned to Jay with a boyish grin. “It’s cheaper than travelling some hundred-fuckin’ miles with the whole family, isn’t it?”
Gillion, one hand still tight on his sword’s handle, glanced down at his feet. Overgrown, dew-painted grass grew up towards his shins, with small, budding daisies brushing against his skin. Curious, he reached down, brushing his thumb over one of the petals.
“Where have you taken me…?”
Chip knelt beside Gillion. The grin on his face hit the light.
“What, you’ve never seen a flower field?” he teased, nudging Gillion’s arm.
Gillion stared, seemingly overwhelmed, lips slightly agape in the midst of his shock.
“I…had not known the Oversea had coral reefs as well.”
Chip couldn’t stop the lighthearted laugh from escaping him. “Yeah, man, something like that.” He plucked a daisy from the grass beneath them and held it out towards Gil’s face. “Smells pretty nice, too.”
He’s staring. Gil’s staring. Awestruck, grabbing the flower, gently breathing in the soft, sweet aroma. Suddenly, the triton’s face is spreading into the same giddy smile as Chip’s.
“Your world must have been blessed by the Gods to create such a place.”
Jay knelt beside the two of them and lightly slapped Gillion’s shoulder.
“You’re just gonna sit there and stare at one flower?” She said, yanking Chip to his feet with a childlike joy in her eyes. “There’s a whole field out there, dumbasses! Let’s go!”
They’re on their feet, and Chip is watching Jay and Gillion run through the overgrown grass, suddenly back to being two little kids without a shred of civility in their chests. They’re flying. Laughing.
So Chip runs after them and sheds his fear like a second skin.
Gillion runs his hands through the grass, thumbing over each flower he could find with an incredible gentleness, as if he were frightened of possibly ruining them with a harsh touch. “This one?”
“Tulip,” Jay replied, “they grow in a bunch of colors.”
“And this?”
“Sunflower. The petals lean in the direction of the sunlight.”
“Is that true? Certainly they are influenced by magic-?”
“It’s how they survive.”
“But how do they know where to lean?”
Chip didn’t feel like he was properly in his own body anymore. His heart felt warm in his ribs, as if he’d swallowed the rays of sun that danced over the valley. Unconsciously, Chip held his hands together towards his chest. As if he could hold his heart down. As if it were a rabid animal to be controlled by his bare hands.
Because Gillion Tidestrider’s eyes were lit up in a way he’d never seen before.
The triton’s pupils were expanded so wide, they nearly drowned out the blue of his irises in deep, fascinated black. As Jay kept guiding his hands through the different flowers, letting him touch each collection of petals, his ears were wide on either side of his head. His lips were parted. His eyes were large.
He looked so strangely, strangely beautiful.
Chip’s brows furrowed a bit in the realization. His stomach ached. His body ached. The sun was hitting Gillion’s skin, turning him agate-teal, and Chip swears it’s the most beautiful color he’d ever seen.
“Chip?” Jay’s voice cut into his thoughts. She’s smiling like she knows. “It’s gorgeous, isn’t it?”
She means the flowers. The valley. This.
Stop thinking about it.
“Yeah,” he replies, his eyes crinkling upward as he smiles. “It’s beautiful.”
v.
The sea reaches up. It takes its bleeding Champion into the depths again.
No, no, NO-
Chip feels like he’s watching the ordeal in slow motion. He’s watching Gillion’s stomach bleed, slashed open by the Navy Sargeant’s blade. He’s watching Gillion fight back like there wasn’t blood pouring down his middle, down his legs, staining the deck beneath him. He’s watching Gillion force a wall of water to bend at his will, to fly the last few members of the attacking fleet backwards. He flies. He moves. He fights like it’s all he ever knew how to do, and Chip could do nothing but watch.
The brigade had come without warning. Perhaps they’d found out about Jayson Ferin, about Jay, about how the entire crew seemed a little bit stained with the crimson and gold of the Navy’s influence. They didn’t get answers. The three of them never got answers.
But they’d been struck. Nearly two-dozen officers and sargeants against the three of them, just as the sun had begun setting into the horizon. A brigade. And, as he always did, Gillion put up one hell of a fight without his armor keeping him afloat.
And Chip, hand pressed over his bloodied shoulder, did nothing but watch as the stabbed Gillion fell into the awaiting water.
Chip very nearly tripped over his own feet trying to get to the railing. The sea beneath the ship mocks him.
Chip hears himself screaming, but he does not feel it.
Jay yanks him backward before he could make it beneath the waves.
“Chip-”
“He’s fucking hurt! You saw it!”
“And you can’t swim !”
“But-”
“Chip, if you drown out there, I can’t fucking save you, you get that?”
“So you’re gonna let him bleed out? ”
Chip remembered fighting Jayson Ferin.
Seeing Gillion on the ground. Seeing blood across the surface of the deck, like a permanent reminder of nearly losing his friend. He’d been so fixated on that spot, even after Gillion was standing again. Even after everything was over and the ash had settled.
He’d fought so bravely. He always did. He always does.
He’s not gone.
“ Gillion! ” Chip screamed into the open sea, like anybody is going to respond to him. He watches the Navy’s ship float into the distance. He wants to burn it down.
Jay pulled her jacket over her head and abandoned it on the deck. She muttered a quick shit, shit, shit, before leaping off the edge of the ship and diving into the water beneath. Alone, Chip could do nothing but keep screaming. The triton’s name felt bittersweet on his tongue.
Gillion. It sounded like the waves lapping at the surface of the boat in a misty, summer morning. When the sun had not yet fully risen, and the sky was a distant shade of angelic orange.
Gillion. It sounded like poetry. A folk song passed down through generations, a story about good conquering evil.
Gillion. It sounded like just about everything Chip had left.
Jay resurfaces. When wet, her hair looked a much darker shade of red, like blood dripping down her scalp. She keeps swimming, but she can’t see under the depths.
Gillion.
Ten minutes turn to fifteen. Fifteen turn to twenty. Each minute passing feels like an hour.
Chip can’t handle another moment of grief. Not yet. Not now. Gillion hadn’t met Arlin. He needed to meet Arlin. They’d barely found Finn, they’d just said goodbye to Ollie. God dammit, what was he going to tell Edyn?
Your brother is dead. He fought so hard, but every God he ever prayed to just decided that he wasn’t enough. He was nothing if not a fighter. A soldier. You couldn’t have chosen a better Champion.
Your brother is dead, and all I could do was watch.
Jay resurfaces. She’s crying.
Chip could not feel his own body.
I know I have kissed you before, Gillion Tidestrider, but I didn’t do it right.
Desire Island. He’d been much too stiff.
As Chip stared over the railing at the ominiously still water, down at his rippled reflection, he imagined traveling back to that little moment. Feeling Gillion’s cold but inviting hands on the back of his neck, pulling him in, looking at him like there was something artful looking back. Had he been given a second chance, he would’ve reached down, his grip matching Gillion’s and his touch lingering far longer than it had originally. He’d card his fingers through Gillion’s hair. He’d grip Gillion’s shoulders. He’d untie every bit of his soul for Gillion to see, if he’d asked for it.
He would’ve kissed Gillion Tidestrider like he meant it. Like there would never be another chance.
Just to let him know he was loved by someone that didn’t expect anything back.
A hand breaks the surface of the water, and Chip screams.
Jay’s crying still as she helps hoist Gillion onto the deck again. Shaking, she heals him with whatever small amount of energy she had left in her, and his bleary eyes turn a little clearer, slitted pupils searching through the dark like a frenzied animal. Terrified, Chip knelt beside him, hands wrapping around his shoulders and sitting him up against the railing.
Their eyes meet. Gillion’s pupils widened a little more. He remembered how wide they’d looked at Desire Island.
“Gil-”
“Chip-”
“ Holy shit- ”
He doesn’t think. He never does. Chip just moves his hands from Gillion’s shoulders to cup his jaw, and suddenly, suddenly, he presses their lips together and lets the feeling of kissing Gillion Tidestrider drown him.
It is everything. He is everything. The pain in his shoulder doesn’t feel like it’s even there anymore, like Gillion is healing him from the inside out. Maybe every breath the triton was taking was him inhaling the pain from Chip’s body.
He didn’t know. For once, he didn’t have to know.
When the kiss ends - and it ends far too soon - Chip could feel Gillion’s lips chasing his own as he broke away. Their foreheads pressed together, the heat of both of their breaths combining into a small cloud of white mist against the cold air.
“I-”
“Do not apologize,” Gillion interrupted. “You fought valiantly. You always do. My failures are not any fault of yours.”
“ Failures?” Chip couldn’t help the tear-stained laugh that came from his lips. “Gil, you never failed out there.”
“I frightened you.”
“You scared me because I love you.” It sounds so right saying it out loud. Something his nightmares had rehearsed for him, over and over, sounded so natural coming from his own mouth. These were words he was meant to be saying. A truth he was born to tell. He nearly covers it with a quick and so does Jay, but he doesn’t. He stops the words before they come, just lingering on the truth for a while.
“I thought…” His breaths are shaky. “I thought I’d lost one of the most important people in the world to me, out there. And I’d just stood there, like a fucking idiot, and watched you die-”
“You fought like a soldier,” Gillion said.
“But-”
“Chip.” Gillion’s hands mirrored Chip’s own, cupping his jaw and silencing the young man. Finally, Chip is able to look the triton in the eye. There’s shifts of gold in the piercing blue of his irises. Softly, Gillion pulled one of Chip’s hands to press against his chest. The familiar thrum of Gillion’s heartbeat tapped at his palm.
“Had I known someone like you when I was young,” Gillion said, “I would have believed there was good, somewhere in the Oversea. Perhaps I would have known peace.”
Chip felt stuck on the feeling of Gillion’s hands on his jaw. He remembered how it felt being healed by the triton for the first time. The warmth of it all, the comfort, the need.
“You bring me that peace, Chip,” Gillion continued. “And for that, I can say that I love you just the same.”
He’d nearly forgotten Jay was behind them until he stood up with Gillion’s hand in his own, all to see her with her arms softly crossed across her chest and a knowing, coy smile on her face.
Chip’s face went pink. “What?”
“Oh, nothing. I’m happy for you,” she said. “Lizzie and Caspian just owe me a shit ton of gold now.”