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Chip rolled over, mindlessly flexing and unflexing his fingers. He caught himself doing it a lot lately, now that he could feel the blood flowing through the vessels again, up to the tips of his fingernails and stringing through the tendon of his thumb. He hadn’t really been sleeping, just pretending, but gave up on squeezing his eyes shut and blinked a few times to adjust to the moonlight streaking through the window. Gil was sprawled across his sleeping mat—theirs now, since he had taken to resting by Chip’s side and not in his barrel after the Black Sea. Humming tiredly, Chip threaded an arm over Gil’s broad shoulders and pulled him close, pressing their foreheads together. He placed a small kiss on the corner of his mouth as an afterthought.
Gil shifted, and his eyes fluttered open. “…Oh… Hello, Chip.” He rumbled softly, and Chip smiled tiredly back at him. The light of the moon was silvery liquid on Gil’s cheek, fine threads of shimmer on his flyaway hairs. Chip felt a rush of feeling in his chest, the color so much clearer after what felt like weeks of fading away into gray memory.
Gil’s hand came up to brush a stray eyelash from Chip’s cheek, then curled behind his ear to massage his scalp. The calloused base of his thumb scratched against Chip’s stubble. Chip tightened his grip and squeezed, trying to press his heartbeat to Gil’s, to rattle his ribcage with the joy thrumming in his chest, still deafening and filling and overflowing from the corked hole in his heart. What an odd experience it was to have dead skin and muscle come back to life, to have a tingling feeling rushing up and down his limbs—to have limbs—to feel every comforting touch and hug and scalp massage as if it was your first time feeling joy in an eternity, to have your body rebuilt to manufacture a life again after having it ripped from your chest. Chip loved Gillion so much that it hurt and he couldn’t find the words to say it, at least not any that he hadn’t used before.
“You tired?” He asked Gil, not realizing that he was breathless.
Gil chuckled softly, craning his neck to press a kiss to Chip’s forehead. “Sort of. Depends if you are.”
“You’re… mgh. Fuck off. Stop it.”
Gillion smiled, webbed fingers threading through Chip’s hair as he hid his flushing face in the space below Gil’s chin. “You’re my favorite person. ‘S not hard to wake myself up for you.”
Chip groaned into Gil’s sternum, cheeks hot, heart thumping loudly in his chest. “Gods, Gil, you’re so cheesy.”
“I haven’t eaten cheese in a while?”
“Not what I—grgh. Love you, or whatever.”
“I love you too, Chip.” Chip could hear the pleased grin in his voice, and snuggled closer. After a moment, Gil began tapping his hand along with Chip’s heartbeat. Another new habit. He liked it. He was alive. His eyes weren’t heavy anymore, but his body still was. “Gil, you wanna go look at the stars?”
Gil hummed in assent, and Chip rolled out of bed, fingers interlocking with Gil’s. They quietly made their way above deck—well, as quietly as Gil could be, anyway—and Chip led him up the scaffolding to the crow’s nest. The wind whistled softly, the Albatross rocked gently, and the salty air buffeted Chip’s cheeks. He settled criss-cross applesauce on the wooden platform and Gil laid beside him, head resting in Chip’s lap. Chip couldn’t stop tracing his facial features, his chin and the scar on the bridge of his nose, his webbed ears and curls of hair framing his coral crown.
“When did you get this one?” Chip tilted his head down slightly and ran a fond finger over a freshly scabbed-over gash on Gil’s upper arm. “It’s new.”
“Oh. I guess it is.” Gil hummed, pitch low. It was his thinking hum. “I think that was from in the Hole. Captain Rose.”
Chip shuddered a bit despite himself and Gillion frowned, squeezing his other hand. “It wasn’t too bad, Chip. It’s already healed.”
“Yeah. I know.” Chip raised his chin to look at the constellations. The air was so clear and the stars were so defined. He didn’t actually know the real constellations, but he and Arlin used to make up their own. He thought of asking Gil, but remembered he hadn’t had the sky growing up. Deflection was something he’d been trying to improve upon, anyway. And the responsibility he felt was still aching, so what else could he do? “I’m still… sorry, though. That you had to—“
Gillion sat up, eyes suddenly fierce, and placed the back of his fingers over Chip’s mouth to silence him. “Chip. I will choose you over the world over and over and over again. I don’t care if it—if it makes me a fake hero, or if it makes me selfish, or if I’m a bad person because of it. You are my family. I love you. And I refused to let you give up on yourself. That’s all.”
Chip felt his throat close up, his eyes water. Instead of responding he just bumped his forehead against Gil’s and closed his eyes, soft gasps escaping his mouth. They’d done this dance a few times before. He still couldn’t think about what they’d done, what choice he had forced Gil to make, without breaking. It was an impossible one, and yet—
There was something so, so warm about knowing that Gillion loved him that much. Even if he never felt like he deserved it. Gil was pure and holy and he had committed sacrilege in Chip’s name. Gil was perfect and prophetic and larger than the life Chip had lost and he had followed Chip into the depths of chaos incarnate just because Chip couldn’t do it alone. Gil was so good that it hurt to think about, and he had somehow decided that a lying dirty orphan bastard was worth dedicating his life to. It didn’t matter that Chip loved him the same way, that Gillion was who he thought of to reconnect the soul to his body, that it had been a constant ache with no start and no end. He still hadn’t been able to convince himself that he deserved anything more than an ice arena and an improvised “act of love”.
That didn’t matter to Gillion. He loved him anyway, brighter than the sun, the moon, and all of the stars, and Chip could do nothing but let himself be shone upon.
Chip shakily threaded his fingers through the hair on the back of Gil’s head and kissed him, hard, again and again. Was it bad that it didn’t ache as much as it should have, the selfish decision that Gil had made on his behalf? It probably made him a bad person, how warm it made him feel. They had doomed the world by descending into the hole in the sea, yet the weight of it—it suddenly felt light as a feather. Maybe it was the confidence that filled Chip’s body when he was around Gil, or the lightheaded cotton that mushed his brain when they kissed. It was surely naive, most certainly selfish and ignorant—
And he couldn’t make himself regret it, not when he was still alive and Gillion was still here to hold him and put his pieces back together and make him feel like he was Chip again and they could do anything together.
Gil obliged his wishes—he always did—fingers trailing down his chest and up his arms, settling on his collarbone. “I love you.” He whispered firmly against Chip’s jaw. “I love you, I love you, I love you. You’re alive, you’re Chip, and I love you.”
“Gillion,” was all Chip could force from his mouth, over and over. He was near sobbing, but kept trying to stifle his pathetic noises. Feeling this deeply after being so empty was novel, terrifying—but he could do anything for Gil. “Gillion, Gillion, Gillion. I love you too. Thank you, Gil. Thank you for choosing me.”
The moon was full. Gillion’s murmurs and movements were reverent in her light, shimmering silver hair falling to cover Chip’s eyes as he pressed kisses down Chip’s cheek, across the new flesh where his jawbone once stuck through, to the pulse point of his neck. Chip’s heart was overflowing with the love he felt for Gil, beating so fast he feared it might fall out again, ringing his arms around Gil’s neck and pulling him closer. It was safe and warm in Gil’s arms, neck curled to nestle an ear against his cheek, listening to affirmations and prayers and the word love leave his lips over and over and over again.
Had living the first time felt this special? He wasn’t sure. Chip’s thoughts were hazy and waterlogged with sappy joy, joy that just kept bubbling forth as Gil ran his thumb up and down the back of Chip’s neck. “Y’r so kind,” he managed, soft and into his shoulderblade. Gil laughed wetly.
They fell asleep like that, although it took a while and the sun was almost peeking over the horizon when Chip finally managed to drift off. It didn’t matter much to him, anymore. He felt lighter, like how he imagined Jay felt when flying, like some huge weight had been lifted off of his shoulders. Gil wasn’t holstering that weight for him, either—he had set it aside as if it was nothing, just the towering jenga-framework of Chip’s imposter syndrome, expectations for himself, eldritch deals, father figures—and it was nothing, because Gil loved him all the same no matter what.
It was not a captain’s duty to carry unnecessary weight, unless that weight was gold. Kind of counterintuitive to the whole freedom thing. So Chip let himself be carried and held, let Gil hold and protect him closer than his oath, let the aching love in his heart act as a pillow for both of them to rest their heads at least for a bit.
Come what may, they would be ready. They both knew the coming battle would be the farthest thing from easy.
But—at least for a night—it was nice to alleviate themselves of the weight of the world’s darkness and sit for a bit in their shared moonlight.