Work Text:
Jay stared at the pile of nuts and bolts on the table in front of her, the collection of scrap metal and pieces that she had taken apart from other mechanisms spread out around her in a wide array. It was like someone had just dropped an entire tool kit on the table and forgot to clean it up when they left the room. Jay would be playing 52 card pick up later but with all her tools and supplies. But Jay would worry about that later.
Pulling her shoulders back and doing her best to stretch her wings, Jay settled with her feet on the rungs of her stool. The cushioned seat sank beneath her weight when she shifted into what would hopefully be a more comfortable position. Her back was starting to hurt both from the weight of her wings and her slouched posture that she had been sitting in for well over an hour. She stretched her arms above her head until she heard her shoulders give a satisfying pop.
Jay settled once more with her wings drooping slightly, primary feathers dragging on the wooden floor. She blinked and squinted, looking around tiredly, her eyelids drooping as she studied the mess around her, thinking about her next course of action. Her mind moved sluggishly as she tried to brainstorm how she would get this item to work, or what tools she could use to get the intended results. All the notes that had been written in the journal next to her were scribbled and smudged with oil.
Jay used her elbow to prop the book open, staring at the messy diagrams that she had drawn and the notes that she had jotted down yesterday. None of her notes made much sense to the Present Jay, but she was sure that there was some semblance of cohesion when Past Jay had written them. She would uncover their secrets eventually, Jay didn’t have the energy at the moment to try and translate what she had written into something that made sense.
So instead of focusing on her notes, she poked around the pile with her left hand, trying to find a gear that might fit the space that she needed it to slot into. With her right hand, she held a small metal contraption shakily in her palm, her fingers darkened with oil as she did her best to get a good grip on the item. She had to be careful with the way that she held it, knowing that the moving pieces were finicky and easy to snap like a mouse trap. Jay already had bruises and welts on her hands from getting snagged in between the moving parts.
And without a proper gear to fit in place, it wouldn’t move on its own since Jay couldn’t get it to follow through with a different system. She knew how to get gears to work, but she just had to find the right one that would fit where it needed to go. But maybe if she couldn’t find that, she might be able to work around that by trying to change the gear.
Either way, she would figure something out to get this to work, hopefully without snapping the pieces shut on her finger again. Jay still had the bruising on her nail from yesterday’s incident and she didn’t really need any more of that. If she wanted her nails to be red or purple she would paint them herself.
Jay reached to the side to hook her fingers around the lip of her tool bag to reach inside. She stared into the cloth bag, trying to find where she last put her screwdriver. Her hands trembled when she moved and Jay found that it was hard to focus on what she was currently doing. When she stared at something too hard, it felt like her left eye would get a bit blurry or start to drift when she definitely didn’t want it to. Her eyes always got weird when she was tired, especially when she was trying to focus on something that the rest of her body didn’t want to focus on.
Jay blinked and rubbed her face in the crook of her elbow, squeezing her eyes shut for a moment to try and reorient her vision. She let out a small groan and couldn’t help but yawn, her eyelids becoming heavier and heavier when she tried to open them back up. Her feathers rustled when she adjusted them to sit more comfortably on her back, and she tried to ignore the itchy, irritated feeling that had been plaguing her the past few days. She shook out her shoulders and felt a few feathers dislodge and fall to the ground, a steady pile growing beneath her stool.
Distantly, Jay considered the fact that it was getting pretty late and she had been drowsy and exhausted all day, which really meant that she should stop and get a good night’s rest. But she didn’t want to have to stop and clean up all her work only to spread it all back out in the morning. She would rather get this done, or at least get to a point where it would be easy to stop and pick back up later. Then she wouldn’t have to worry too much in the morning.
The only problem was that she couldn’t figure out how to pass the age-old struggle of not knowing how to get her contraption to actually move. It had hinges and the ability to move when Jay guided its movements, but when she tried to automate it to follow the simple programmed pattern, it wouldn’t budge. Jay even considered a wind-up or spring mechanism. But Jay didn’t have any of the right materials or supplies to do so.
Jay squinted at the mechanism, her wings drooping a little bit and brushing against the floor while she leaned forward, both her elbows resting on the desk for support. Her shoulders were tired and her hands were exhausted from all the work she had been doing. All the delicate and careful movements combined with her shaking, trembling form made it impossible to get anything done without getting frustrated. And Jay didn’t have the energy to be patient with this project.
She found her screwdriver hidden behind a piece of larger scrap metal that Jay hadn’t figured out what to do with yet. The handle fit just right in her palm and Jay used the tip of it to sort through the pile of gears that she had separated out.
She dragged the tip of the screwdriver from the center of each gear, pulling it forward to examine it tiredly before casually pushing it back into place. Jay repeated this a few times with each and every gear until she descended into just tiredly shifting her gears and other items back and forth. The movement was repetitive enough that it almost caused her eyelids to droop, her current exhaustion clouding her mind and making it hard for her to think what might be best for her current predicament.
Each idea that she considered bounced around in her head for a little bit and then promptly disappeared into the void never to be seen again. Jay set her contraption down on the counter, one of the springs snapping shut the moment that it hit the table with a small thud and Jay flinched. She blinked and held her breath for a second, hoping that the entire mechanism wouldn’t immediately go off now that the spring had been released. Thankfully, it stayed in place.
Jay wiped her now free hand off on a nearby cloth, hoping to rid herself of some of the oil and grease that she had gotten covered in throughout the past few hours. It didn’t come off easy, but Jay was able to get at least some of the slick substance off of her skin, ignoring the dark stains on her hands for now. She dug the heel of her palm into her eye socket and tried to clear the tiredness from her eyes, hoping that it might help somewhat. A yawn spilled from her lips, strong enough to cause tears to spring in the corners of her eyes.
Jay hastily wiped her face on the crook of her elbow and let out a sigh. Her wings twitched and Jay felt a sharp twang in her feathers where something either sat wrong or decided to come loose right at that moment. She clenched her hands into a fist and took a deep breath, resisting the urge to pull at her feathers or scratch at the skin just for some sort of relief from the irritating and achy itchiness. She had been trying to stop her habit of picking at her feathers, but it was so tempting at the moment.
The gentle swaying of the ship did nothing to help her growing exhaustion, causing Jay to rock lightly back and forth with the movement of the waves. Her eyelids drifted shut for a second before Jay was able to blink them back open as if she had just gotten shocked. She sucked in a deep breath and looked around the common area tiredly.
There was no one else below decks except her. Jay was sure that the rest of the crew was above doing whatever it was they were doing late at night, possibly drinking, possibly playing games, possibly just plain old messing around. Chip and Ollie were probably riling each other up and Gillion was probably encouraging it in the way that he didn’t accurately know how to keep them from going too far. She was sure that Gryphon was watching with disappointment while pretending not to enjoy the shenanigans.
Earl was probably trying to sleep, Drey would be too if he didn’t like watching Chip and the others get into whatever hooligan behavior they were planning on engaging in tonight. Alphonse was probably standing at the helm, one eye on the crew below him and one eye on the horizon in front of him, occasionally providing input when he deemed the situation to be appropriate (or comically timed). And who knew what Queen would be doing, either engaging in the stupidity or hanging back to watch, they were hard to tell.
Jay could hear their footsteps thumping across the deck above her, voices carrying through the thin layers of wood as she tried and struggled to figure out the glaring issue with her current project. Now that she was a little less focused, she could actually slightly hear what they were doing. Although just because she could hear their footsteps thumping back and forth across the entire deck of the ship, that didn’t mean Jay had any clue what they were actually doing.
She sighed fondly and leaned her chin in her hand, resting her elbow on the desk to use as support. Jay pulled her journal of notes towards her and tried to stare at what she had written before, hoping there would be something useful in her past notes to figure out how to solve her issue. She was attempting something a little more experimental than her other projects, and Jay was silently hoping that she might be able to pull some knowledge from previous projects in order to complete this. But so far, she had been coming up blank the past few days.
Jay moved her project to the side, careful not to set off any more of the springs as she instead focused on the pages of her journal. Her hands traced across the smudged and messy chicken scratch, eyes squinting in the flickering yellow glow of the nearby lantern to make out what things said. In the process, Jay could feel her left eye drifting again and she blinked to try and fix it, hating the odd feeling of pressure that it always caused in her skull when that happened or how it made her vision all blurry.
A small, tired chirp spilled from her lips and Jay tried to hike her wings further up on her back to keep them from dragging on the floor. A shiver ran down her entire spine, causing her wings to shake and tremble, a few more feathers dislodged while she shook out her shoulders and tried to get comfortable again. Her hip creaked painfully when she moved her leg in a bad position and she just sighed.
She couldn’t help but yawn, leaning both her elbows on the table as Jay hunched forward over her journal, head drooping a little bit as she struggled to stay awake. Her hands felt the edge of the paper as she flipped backward in her notes, eyes tracing over the words without actually comprehending what she was reading. Nothing was making sense anymore and it was hard to stare at the words and find meaning out of them.
It certainly didn’t help that her handwriting had become nearly impossible to read, especially when she was jotting down notes about one of her new creations or inventions. She didn’t have the time or coherence to be neat about her notes when she was so excited and eager to jot down all her new ideas and sketches that she painstakingly doodled on the paper.
Jay swallowed thickly and sighed, tilting her head to the side as if that might help her understand what was going on a bit better. She squinted hard, the dancing flame inside the lantern causing the shadows to move in such a way that made it hard for Jay to trace the lines of the words on the page when all the items around her kept moving in the shadows. She rubbed her eyes again and yawned.
Every so often, Jay’s head would droop and she would find that her eyes had slipped shut a bit longer than they should have. When she realized what she was doing, she would jerk her shoulders, lift her head and force her eyelids to open no matter how heavy they felt or how badly she just wanted to give in and go to sleep. She was so exhausted that she could barely even lift her hands to turn the page, fingers sluggishly trailing across the paper to follow the lines of words that she had scribbled.
Jay was hyper-aware of the sound of waves pushing against the side of the Albatross, the sound crashing against her ears and making the hair on the back of her neck stand up. She could hear the footsteps of her crew above her messing around on the top deck as well as their joyful voices carrying far beyond the reach of how normal voices would carry. It seemed like she was in an echo chamber, every single sound feeling louder than how it was supposed to be.
Her eyelids slipped shut again and Jay only opened them back up when she felt her head hit the table, the thump hard and loud enough to startle her back awake. Jay flapped her wings in surprise a few times, her hands scrabbling for purchase against the edge of the table so she didn’t accidentally fall off her stool. She blinked and groaned softly, reaching up to scrub at her face with both hands.
It was getting harder to stay awake the longer that Jay struggled to peruse through her notes. Jay let out a small sigh and just let her forehead thump against the table for just a moment, her arms cushioning her face. She groaned and decided that she might as well rest her eyes for a moment. Her head was starting to hurt from the pressure built up especially when her eyes would cross or go blurry. She was sure that it was from the strain of that which was causing her current exhaustion.
She just needed to give her eyes a break for a second then she could go back to work. Jay’s wings fluttered a bit as she folded them tightly to her back in what would hopefully be a position that wouldn’t hurt even though every time she shifted a few more feathers fell out. She heaved a sigh and practically deflated, trying to think long and hard about what she was going to do about her current project.
Gillion smiled at the other members of the crew, watching the way that Chip carried Ollie on his shoulders, stomping around the deck for Ollie to get a better view of the stars and the lights above them. Ollie laughed and tangled his hands in Chip’s hair, kicking his feet lightly as his tail wagged back and forth in excitement. The wide smile on his face was enough to show his joy, and Gillion smiled in response.
He liked seeing his crew happy, and he loved watching the way that Chip and Ollie would race around the deck, and sometimes even participated himself. But at the moment he was just standing off to the side, rocking back and forth on his feet while his tail swished back and forth behind him. He listened to the sounds around him with a steady smile, sharp teeth poking out behind wet lips.
The night air was warm against his skin, and he could smell the salty spray from the ocean around them when the waves pushed against the side of the Albatross and rocked them back and forth. At first, Gillion figured that the rocking of the waves would have caused him a lot more panic than it currently did, the constant movement just as unfamiliar to him as the feeling of sturdy ground. But after a while, Gillion got used to it and even came to find it relaxing.
Gillion glanced around at everyone above deck gathering together to just enjoy the calm, pleasant night without all the responsibilities that the sun brought on them. They could sit and bask in the light of the moon and enjoy the warm company of the crew.
Chip and Ollie were there, of course, talking loudly about all the stars and constellations that Chip knew how to point out. Ollie sat on his shoulders happily and pointed out bright stars to ask what they might be. Gillion occasionally would listen in to whatever story that Chip was currently telling, curious to know more about the mythology and stories of the oversea. He wanted to know more about the religions and all the different explanations that the people here had for the natural phenomenon of the world. But he hadn’t gotten that far yet in his quest to learn more about the oversea.
Gryphon was off to the side near the helm with Alphonse, keeping the construct company as he would occasionally roll his eyes and shake his head at whatever antics everyone else was getting up to. Alphonse had a warm glow in his eyes, what almost seemed like a fond look on his face, even for a construct. He looked down at them from the helm, the sound of his gears whirring and clicking inside of him audible to Gillion standing just below the helm.
Queen was sitting across the deck from Chip and Ollie at one of the railings, they were sitting with Earl and Drey who were just idly watching the conversations. Earl looked like he wanted to be anywhere else but here at the moment, elbow resting on his knee to hold up his chin as he grumpily looked around at the rest of the crew. He seemed to be not so happily listening to a story that Queen was rapidly unfolding with extravagant gestures and many near experiences with falling off the barrel they were perched on. Drey was listening a bit more politely.
Gillion shifted his weight from foot to foot as he continued to look back and forth, head swiveling around to take in the entire scene and commit it to memory. He wanted to wrap this all up in a present and tie it neatly with a bow in the back of his mind so he could always remember it whenever he felt sad and needed a reminder of all the people that he loved and cared for.
Though every time they had a moment like this, it always felt like something was missing. Whether it be the night was a little cold, or there weren’t enough drinks to go around, or the night was too early for a celebration like this, or it was getting too late. There always felt like there could be one small thing that might make the night a million times better.
Gillion felt something was missing. He felt the aching absence of something deep in his chest that made it hard for him to properly enjoy the current scene to its full extent. He frowned and furrowed his eyebrows, looking around to try and figure out what it might be that was wrong.
The night was warm and the stars were bright as well as the extravagant moon above them. The night was still young but not too young that Gillion was feeling the weight of the day pressing down on him. They had drinks and snacks and the occasional song or loud story from Queen when they felt the inspiration take hold. They had plenty of stories and good fortune to share around since there was nothing upsetting hanging over their head, nothing bad in the near future, and nothing lingering in the near past. It should be perfect.
As Gillion traced his eyes across the ship one more time, even taking a few steps back so he could look up at Gryphon and Alphonse at the helm, he suddenly realized what the problem was when he went through the mental checklist one more time.
Jay wasn’t here.
How had Gillion not realized that their other beloved co-captain had been missing this entire time? He felt shameful for not noticing sooner, Jay was missing out on all the fun and no one had thought to go find her.
In the back of his mind, Gillion registered that he actually hadn’t seen Jay in a while. The last time he remembered talking to the other woman was sometime earlier this morning around breakfast. Other than that, they had relatively kept their distance, unintentionally keeping their paths from crossing throughout the tasks of the day, all the responsibilities of being a pirate and being pirate captains keeping them from talking and seeing each other.
Gillion huffed and set his shoulders, a small frown tugging on the corners of his lips. That wouldn’t do at all.
Jay should be up here joining them as well, she might be sad or lonely or needing someone to keep her company. She might be tired or missing the presence of her crew just as much as Gillion had been feeling her absence (even though he had not truly realized what that absence was until just now). There could be so many different things keeping her from being up there with the rest of the crew, and Gillion wanted to find the bottom of it.
He couldn’t stand the idea of his co-captain being lonely or sad, and he wanted to make sure that she wasn’t unintentionally isolating herself in the way that Chip always did when he was feeling down. Her not being here with the rest of the crew worried him a little bit more than he cared to admit.
Jay hadn’t been feeling well the past few days and Chip and Gillion had done their best to make her more comfortable, but even despite that she had been lethargic and a little grumpy. They didn’t blame her. Gillion just wished that there was more he could do to help her get more comfortable.
So with his observation of the missing member of their crew, Gillion snuck off down the stairs to the lower deck in search of Jay. His tail swished back and forth lightly with each step, moving in time with the movement of their ship.
His glowing blue eyes darted around the room, observing every detail through the darkness and the shadows that had no real effect on him. His footsteps were loud as he thudded down the stairs with way too much force than was necessary, his hands gripping the railing for support to ensure that he didn’t immediately faceplant down the entire length of the stairs.
Once he entered the commons room below the main deck, Gillion’s eyes immediately darted toward the desk tucked in the corner of the room that Jay usually occupied. And sure enough, Gillion was able to spot the outlined form of Jay Ferin hunched over her work, reddish-brown wings drooping as they dipped towards the floor, a pile of feathers beneath her.
Slowly, so as to not disturb her, Gillion crept across the room to meet her at her desk, noticing the slow rise and fall of Jay’s shoulders with each gentle puff of breath that spilled from her lips. She was breathing slowly, not even looking up as Gillion approached even though he had a relatively hard time sneaking, footsteps wet and loud against the floor. The only reaction she gave was an involuntary twitch of her wings, another feather dislodging and fluttering to the ground in the same way that they had been doing these past few days.
Jay’s wings looked a little patchy, patches of what Jay had described as pin feathers poking up from within the expanse of dull brownish feathers. Gillion tried to remember what the other word Jay had used to describe what was happening. He remembered her telling both him and Chip about what was going on with her wings, about how her old, worn-out feathers would shed and new, stronger ones would grow back in their place.
It was a yearly process that she had to go through and had been dealing with almost her entire life, so Gillion was sure that she knew what to do more than any of them. But she had confided in them about the issue when Gillion had gotten alarmed at the amount of feathers that she had been shedding. She probably only told them to ease their worry. Gillion thought hard about what it was called, the word unfamiliar to him in common. Molting, he remembered distantly.
As he examined her wings, some of her flight feathers had already shedded and there were gaps where they were supposed to be. Although Gillion couldn’t spot any of them on the ground beneath Jay, they looked loose and out of place, so none of them had fallen recently. But there was still a good amount of down and other feathers around her that had been pretty much trailing her all around the ship as she struggled not to pick and scratch at her wings. She had been irritable and tired the past few days, blaming it on her wings molting.
And as much as Gillion and Chip tried to help, there really wasn’t much that they could do when Jay gave them no information to work with. Besides, the subject seemed to be a bit of a no-no topic at the moment, since Jay would get defensive and a bit snappy whenever they would ask about it. She wouldn’t answer any questions about her wings, brushing off their concern and trying to shy away from the others while also leaning into their touches in a way that she hoped they wouldn’t notice. It was a conflicting situation.
As Gillion’s eyes traced across Jay’s wings, he found that all her feathers seemed to be in desperate need of preening. A good portion of them were stuck up and twisted in the wrong directions, certainly making it uncomfortable for Jay as she hunched over the desk. He could see the sheaths of new feathers poking up within the mass of down and fluff, and the older feathers seemed like they were just hanging on by a thread. Gillion resisted the urge to reach out his hand and comb his claws through her feathers, trying to sort them out in the way that he had been taught.
Now that Gillion had been instructed on how the correct way her feathers were supposed to lay, he couldn’t help but notice every time they were out of place. A small urge inside him wanted to reach out and fix them every time, even though he knew that he probably shouldn’t unless Jay gave him permission. Her wings were sensitive, and he never wanted to accidentally hurt her by being too rough or accidentally scratching her with his claws.
So he shook the instinct to care for her wings like that away, knowing that Jay might not like it at the moment. He instead focused on Jay herself, leaning over with his palm pressed against the surface of the desk to examine her face.
Jay had her head in her arms, her hair spread out around her like a halo as she breathed softly, small chirps spilling from her lips. She barely reacted to the other presence in the room, her entire body shaking and shivering with the chill of the lower decks. There were goosebumps prickling against her skin and she let out a slow, heavy breath, almost like a sigh.
It was obvious that she was asleep, and when Gillion placed his hand on her shoulder to try and rouse her, she didn’t even stir more than a small chirp spilling from her lips. Her wings twitched a little bit and she sniffled, Gillion smiled softly at her sleepy noises.
Even when he lightly shook her shoulder, Jay still didn’t wake up. She was completely passed out. Gillion couldn’t help but huff out a small laugh at how she had fallen asleep, even if it was a little worrying. She had been falling asleep in odd places a lot recently, but Jay had mentioned something about the exhaustion being part of her molting, so Gillion hoped that was the only thing that was wrong.
Deciding that it would be better to let her sleep, Gillion moved to scoot Jay’s stool out a little bit from her desk so he could hook his arms around her. He maneuvered in just the right way that he could easily scoop Jay up in his arms, her weight being essentially nothing to him. He hooked his arms around her and pressed Jay against his chest, taking a moment to get them both situated so he wouldn’t accidentally drop her.
Her wings drooped when he picked her up and Gillion wished that there was an easier way of holding her when she was a lot taller than him and had very droopy wings. But Gillion just held onto her tighter, her chin falling against his shoulder as he awkwardly shuffled away from the desk and towards their sleeping quarters.
He didn’t want to leave her asleep at her desk since that couldn’t possibly be good for her back. So Gillion figured he would tuck her into bed and go back up with the rest of the crew. Jay needed the rest anyway, it was probably better that she was asleep rather than hanging out with everyone else. She deserved as much rest as she could possibly get in order to start feeling better.
Jay shifted a bit in her sleep now that she was being moved, nuzzling her face deeper into Gillion’s shoulder with a small chirp and a comfortable click. Gillion traced gentle patterns into her skin with his claws as he carried her to bed, feeling the warmth radiating from her skin and the calm thrumming of her heartbeat. Even despite the heat, she shivered and Gillion wished that his skin wasn’t so cold so that he could at least warm her up a bit. Her wings puffed up and some feathers dislodged, drifting to the ground and leaving a trail behind them.
Gillion used his elbow to press down on the door handle, nudging open the door to the sleeping quarters with his shoulder. The room was dark with no lanterns lit, but Gillion didn’t need the light to see. He just held Jay closer to his chest and picked her up a bit higher, feeling her wings twitch just enough to press against his arms as if she were trying to wrap him up in them.
The soft fluff of her feathers brushed against his arms, even as Gillion shuffled over to Jay’s cot. Jay whimpered a bit in her sleep and shifted while he put her down on the worn-out creaky mattress. Her hands scrabbled for purchase somewhere on his form, fingers wrapping around his arm with another whimper.
“It’s okay, I am right here,” Gillion muttered, not knowing if Jay would even hear him in her asleep state. But she seemed to calm down a bit more when she realized that Gillion wasn’t going to leave her. She chirped again in her sleep and scrunched up her face, but she didn’t wake up.
Gillion did his best to arrange her wings so that Jay wasn’t laying on them while she slept, his hands gently pressing against the soft muscle and skin beneath her feathers, pulling the droopy limbs to rest in a more comfortable position. Jay didn’t even stir, allowing Gillion to move her as if she had become a ragdoll in the time it took for her to fall asleep. It was cute, Gillion had to admit.
As he stared at her in the darkness, pulling the sheets out from under Jay in order to drape them over her shivering form, he recognized how adorable she looked at the moment. Her face was relaxed, eyes shut in the calmest expression that Gillion had seen Jay wearing in a while. In the darkness and even with Gillion’s heightened dark vision, he could barely make out the freckles that dotted across her face, or the scar that traced her upper lip.
Her orange curls fell in front of her face as she pressed it into the pillow, letting out a small snuffling noise whenever she moved, her wings fluttering as she shivered. Gillion reached out with a gentle hand and tucked her hair behind her ear, getting it out of her face. Jay chirped softly, her hand still hooked around his other arm.
Gillion tucked Jay in as comfortably as he could, making sure that the blankets wouldn’t fall off the bed if she moved. Then, he tried to pull his arm away from Jay’s grasp so she could get some comfortable sleep without being disturbed.
But, when Gillion pulled his arm away, Jay whimpered again, eyes suddenly fluttering open a bit to grasp where his hand had just been. Gillion felt a spike of alarm go through his chest as Jay made a distressed chirp, starting to squirm a bit at Gillion’s absence, her wings fluttering lightly. Gillion’s heart ached at the way her hands scrambled to find Gillion, searching in the darkness for him. His movement had made her sad.
“Hey, it’s alright, I’m right here,” Gillion moved his hand to Jay’s face, tucking her hair away from her eyes and cupping her cheek in his hand. Jay grumbled something quietly under her breath, her eyes slipping shut once again as she reached up to hook her hand around his wrist. He pulled his claws through her hair gently, Jay hummed and let her shoulders relax, a heavy sigh spilling from her lips.
Against his better judgement and knowing that he should probably leave Jay alone to get some rest, Gillion sat down on the edge of the bed. Then, when he wasn’t met with any resistance, Jay’s hands tugging him closer in her sleepy state, Gillion laid down next to her as well, slipping underneath the covers. He would keep her company for a bit until she had fully fallen asleep, and then Gillion could slip back into his own cot so he wouldn’t disturb her.
Immediately, Jay snuggled closer to Gillion, pressing her face against his neck and practically settling right on top of his chest. Gillion blinked, a little surprised at her sudden clinginess as she pressed herself as close as possible, humming and chirping from deep within her throat. She sighed and made a gentle clicking noise, her patchy wings settling to rest over the both of them.
She chirped and chittered happily in her sleep, responding just as well when Gillion hesitantly wrapped his arms around her, pulling the blanket back up over both of them so she wouldn’t shiver as much. Her hair tickled the underside of Gillion’s chin and he did his best to brush it away, combing his fingers through her curls much to Jay’s content. She sighed and practically melted against him like an ice cube left out in the sun for too long.
The warmth radiating from Jay was admittedly quite nice and Gillion found the comfort underneath her wings. He reached up and gently ran his hand up and down her back, sifting his claws through the soft feathers protruding from her back. He combed his claws gently through the part of Jay’s wings closest to her back, some of her loose feathers coming off when he did so. Jay shivered and chittered softly, sighing heavily and nuzzling closer to Gillion, her hands wrapping around his torso.
Gillion told himself that as long as Jay was comfortable, that’s what mattered. Although he pointedly ignored thinking about the fact that he was also very comfortable allowing himself to be squished a little bit by Jay. Her weight was reassuring, and as much as he was trying to keep Jay safe in his arms, he figured that Jay’s weight also served to make him feel safe as well.
Jay’s breath brushed against Gillion’s throat, her soft sleepy noises filling the room and causing Gillion’s ear to twitch in her direction. He felt her pulse thrumming underneath her skin from where he pressed his hands against her back and Gillion focused on that, listening to the sound of her breathing. It was nice to know that she was getting some good sleep at least.
Gillion sighed as well, letting his eyes slip shut as he gently combed his claws through Jay’s wings, casually dislodging some of the feathers that were soon to come out anyway, hoping that it would help with some of Jay’s discomfort. He wanted to do as much as he could to help her, even as he felt his own exhaustion start to take hold.
With Jay cuddled up tightly in his arms, the sound of her breathing being enough of a reassurance to Gillion that she was sleeping soundly, Gillion found himself slowly drifting off as well.