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It was well past midnight when Gillion heard the sudden, jerky movement of the human next to him.
Atop of Ursus, he, Aurora, Chip & Jay had all settled down to rest during their travels to Eldon: the inter-dimensional & inter-planar whale, or the next leviathan they hoped to save.
Or to send off, Gillion had thought with a pit in his stomach, his mind hardly allowing his body to sleep as he’d been continuously reckoning with the weight of his choices. He felt utterly distraught by the idea that maybe, just maybe, none of this would have happened if he'd just been there.
Chip had done his best to comfort him earlier, Gillion knew that, but every word the pirate had said felt muffled through the thick barrier of suffocating & overwhelming guilt that encased the triton; a guilt he adamantly believed that he had earned. He’d then vaguely overheard Chip & Jay agree to give him space, though Gillion couldn’t help but feel it was more out of a sense of helplessness on how to reach him than anything else.
But then again, how were they supposed to? How could they possibly know what to say to someone whose cultural deities were being slaughtered at the hands of other humans? What could they possibly say to him, a supposed “protector of the undersea”, who’d been repeatedly told his entire upbringing that oversea-ers were dangerous & would seek to threaten the undersea’s way of life, only for them to have been doing exactly that to achieve their own goals?
Gillion knew that there were good people in the oversea. Jay, Chip, John, Lizzie- they were good. He knew that. But as everyone had gone to sleep for the night, a gut-wrenching & intrusive thought had stabbed at his chest. How for just a moment, he hated humans. He hated their selfish nature, their lust for power, and their lack of connection to the greater cycle of life.
He’d felt his throat tighten.
That’s not true, he’d insisted to himself. That’s just what the elders believed in, and they were wrong. Humans aren’t all like that.
Gillion had then thought about his co-captains. How the same Jay that had once trembled & failed to utter a single word to her grandmother, the Navy admiral, had then gone on to outwardly defy her at the cost of any family status she had left. How the same Chip that’d once shamelessly hounded those they’d saved for money, had then gone on to sheepishly give his magically granted keep to Enza- a stranger at the time- and ask for nothing in return. When thinking of the Grandberry pirates' oversea crew, their actions only furthered how wrong Gillion knew the elders to be. John himself had turned away from everything he’d ever known once he acknowledged RAFT’s corruption, and Lizzie had even risked her life for the mere possibility of securing a better future for all pirates.
Quietly, Gillion had also thought of Jay’s mother. The woman had never met him before they’d burst into her tavern as Gillion was bleeding out & delirious, and yet she had dropped everything at a moment’s notice in an attempt to save him. Yes, he was Jay’s friend, but the experience had made him certain that she would have done the same for any stranger who’d looked as bad as he had. It hadn’t mattered to her that her connection to magic was weakening by the day. That hadn’t stopped the woman from using the full extent of her powers without an ounce of hesitation, operating as if she was at the strongest she’d ever been. Gillion prayed to the goddesses that she was still alive, and that one day he’d be able to thank her once more.
All that was to say, he’d grown to understand that humans were far more complicated than the brutish depictions he’d trained against. That everyone was, really. Gillion couldn’t bring himself to think too deeply about Odilath right now, but he knew that the elder was by far one of the most prominent cases in recent memory.
Maybe as a result, Gillion had recently found himself believing that everyone was susceptible to corruption of their ideals, no matter how good they started out. In turn, that meant he also had to accept that everyone had the ability to change for the better too, that is, if they wanted to. This shift in perspective had forced him to reckon with the reality that well-meaning, otherwise good people could go on to do horrific things and continue to do so with ease, as long as they believed that the ends justified the means. Those kinds of thoughts flipped everything Gillion had ever been taught on its head and made him a bit queasy, even if they also brought him a strange comfort to know that anything could change. The world wasn’t black & white, and nothing was stagnant, and that came with both the bad & the good.
What definitely wasn’t good, however, was the way Chip lurched forward in his sleep with a small hiss between his teeth.
Gillion immediately felt himself pulled to attention, recalling their conversation from earlier that morning.
Is he dying? Gillion thought in a panic, sitting up to look over the body of his nightmare-ridden friend.
There didn’t appear to be anything outwardly wrong from what he could tell, though Gillion didn’t doubt that the Dread Queen’s realm could have the ability to hide visible damage. He had no idea how her domain worked at all. And unluckily for him, he couldn’t use his magic to detect anything that was potentially underlying right now even if he tried. Unless Chip was dead, there was nothing Gillion could do to help. Even then, their conversation from earlier & the lack of guidance from the pearl made that option precarious too. He shook the thoughts away.
Check the pulse, check the pulse, Gillion repeated to himself, doing his best to recall the most basic medical training he had.
Gently, he put two cold fingers to Chip’s wrist. It was extremely hard to tell if there was any heartbeat over the sound of his own frantic one pounding in his ears. Sighing shakily, Gillion moved his hand up to Chip’s neck. Please be alive, please be alive.
After a moment, he felt it. The beat of Chip’s heart was quick but steady, though not any quicker than normal since the “transplant” he’d received. He was okay. Gillion sighed once more, regaining a steadiness to his own breath.
Even so, he couldn’t bring himself to draw his hand away.
Even if he knew Chip was alive now, Gillion couldn’t stop himself from worrying that the moment he’d remove his fingers, the beat would cease its rhythm. That he’d wake up tomorrow to find Chip dead next to him & past the ability to revive, and Gillion would go on to mark yet another failure to the unwinding scroll of them he was discovering about his life.
If he lost Chip…
Gillion refused to even consider that.
Instead, he slowly laid down once more, but this time with the side of his head directly on top of Chip’s chest. He tried his best to keep the rest of his body relatively separate from the other man, not wanting to violate his friend’s personal space too much in the middle of the night. It wasn’t like they hadn’t slept this close to each other before, but it was rare for one of them to crawl over to the other at night like this. He only wanted to monitor the heartbeat for a little while. Then, he would move away & keep trying to go to sleep.
It surprised Gillion how loud and clear Chip’s heartbeat was. The abnormal speed was, well, abnormal to say the least, but didn’t disturb him as much as he thought it might. It actually brought Gillion a surprising amount of comfort to have something else to focus on other than the harrowing thoughts that plagued his mind. The unfamiliar noise made it much harder for his brain to let them in. The triton took a deep breath, allowing the rhythm to consume his other thoughts for the time being. Nothing else mattered right now. He just needed to focus on that rapid beat.
At some point, it began to sound like the melody of a song. Gillion wondered if someone ever wrote one about the riptide pirates, or about Chip, if this is how it’d go. He hoped so. A speedy pace of adventures with short lulls of calm in between, and with the ability to continue them again & again. It was a beat of resilience; of miracles & second chances he’d only ever dreamed his co-captain would be lucky enough to receive. After all, Gillion had been astonished, completely puzzled, and grateful beyond measure when Niklaus had given Chip the ever-beating heart. It'd come with a catch, of course, but he was alive. He was alive & breathing, and Gillion could be met with his ridiculous ideas, his fumbling words, and his laughter & warmth that he'd nearly watched drain from the other man entirely. And goddesses, did he never want to see him like that again.
It seemed to hit him all at once just how terrified he was of losing Chip. Just thinking about his brushes with mortality unintentionally brought about an entirely new spiral within the triton’s mind. Without ever intending to, his co-captain had become the catalyst for so much of the change in his life he’d either grown to refuse- or always had refused- to take back.
When he’d been floating adrift on the surface, Chip had found him & given him a new beginning- even if their friendship had begun with a lot of misunderstanding & trickery in the early days. It was almost laughable now, given how much they’d grown to trust & be honest with one another as time went on. Particularly after the Faewild, Gillion had found that Chip was a lot more attentive & curious towards him as a person, maybe somewhat from how close he had come to losing him. It’d still really touched the triton to say the least. To return his kindness, Gillion had done his best to be more attentive in the ways he knew meant a lot to Chip, and especially so in the Black Sea.
Whether he had pulled a smile out of his boney friend or gotten through to him in the midst of a spiral, it had felt like a victory greater than any battle Gillion had ever won- even if he’d end each interaction with a fear it could be their last. What mattered most was that he was able to get through to him at his lowest. Then, in Bubble Trench, this dynamic had been flipped- as it had often felt like only Chip knew how to reach him. It wasn’t something he’d ever anticipated, and it absolutely terrified Gillion how important & necessary the other man had become in his life- given his apparent magnetism to death itself.
Whether he liked it or not, Chip had undeniably become his anchor. And now, in the middle of the Northern ocean, Chip’s heartbeat seemed to be the only thing tethering him from drifting aimlessly once more.
Slowly, Gillion began to feel a scarred & callused hand make its way down to the top of his head. He froze, unsure whether to move or stay where he was. It didn’t end up mattering either way, as Chip began to run his fingers through the strands of hair absent-mindedly. It was incredibly gentle & comforting- even if it’d come completely unexpectedly. The triton felt all his previous worries begin to wash away as if they’d been etchings upon a beach's coastal shoreline.
He took a deep breath, feeling Chip’s own breathing push against his head in return. He was alive. He was still here. Gillion’s heartbeat began to calm as he focused on the hand running through his hair. For a moment, the triton wondered if the other man had woken up from how well he was avoiding touching the corals on his head, but the mumble of nonsense words that followed quickly suggested otherwise.
Gillion exhaled as a small, resigned smile danced across his lips. For better or for worse, the triton knew that he was now stuck like this. Moving away at this point would definitely disturb the other man from his sleep, but Gillion needed to prop his injured arm onto something if he was going to be able to sleep himself. He looked down at his co-captain’s stomach. Very carefully, he reached up his bandaged limb to let it rest across Chip’s torso. The other pirate made a quiet but content humming noise in response, continuing to massage the side of Gillion’s scalp & let the teal strands twist around his fingers.
Gillion couldn’t recall the last time he had been held like this. He knew that Edyn had occasionally done so when he was a young child, most often after a training session with Celeste had gone particularly terrible. But even back then, he remembered that it’d felt so unearned. He was supposed to feel bad for failing, wasn’t he? It was supposed to drive him to be better. And even now, despite knowing that he’d been sabotaged in that process as a child, Gillion’s stomach felt tight & his body tensed in guilt at being held again. Especially when his most recent decisions had been entirely of his own accord, and he knew he should feel ashamed for doing them. He should want to move away from Chip. He was completely undeserving of this.
As if frustrated by his co-captain's thoughts, Chip’s opposite arm reached down to lightly tug the back of Gillion’s shirt closer to him. The triton didn’t move at first, causing the man to grumble & pause from moving his hand through Gillion’s hair. He lightly tugged at the shirt again. Only after the triton had nervously closed the gap between their bodies did Chip finally let go of the material, though still, his touch lingered. His hand drifted over to Gillion’s shoulder. He grasped onto it softly, almost hesitantly. Then, he began to gently rub his palm along the skin.
The miniscule gesture was seeping with care, a quiet reassurance of safety & his presence. The bumps & lines that textured Chip’s fingers were a poignant reminder of his survival, a signifier that his undead state had been lifted from him. The fact that he had been fought for. That he’d been loved enough to live to witness it. And, by the touching of their skin, that he hadn’t been able to do it alone. As his fingertips continued to run along Gillion’s shoulder, it was as if the motion conveyed everything Chip had attempted to express earlier that day.
The words didn’t feel necessary anymore.
After a few moments had passed, Chip slowly withdrew his hand & yawned sleepily as he sprawled his arm above his head to where it’d been before. He resumed to lightly run his fingers through the shorter man’s hair with ease, all while his nose began to emit a very typical Chip-esque snore. The ridiculous noise made Gillion fail miserably to contain a wide grin, a small shimmer of tears glinting from the corners of his eyes.
For the first time in what had begun to feel like a lifetime, Gillion felt a small sense of purpose spark deeply within him once again. A shifting of embers from within his chest. Because for all the shame & self-loathing Gillion had felt since he’d broken his oath, he knew that he couldn’t bring himself to regret the life he’d chosen. How he’d grasped the hand of a stranger after being banished from his home, how he’d focused on clutching the co-captains in his arms after they’d saved his life, and how easily he’d shifted his blade at the pinnacle of his prophesied decision. Those choices had brought him meaning beyond anything he’d been trained for.
And maybe, that made him terrible. He didn’t know anymore. But even if the feelings themselves were far from resolved, Gillion knew that his desire to do good was certainly not. He wanted to do the right thing. The King of Crabs had seen that desire too- using his dying breath to grant a boon upon them all to shift the scales on the outcome of their world.
Gillion blinked away the tears in his eyes as he recalled the leviathan. Forget wanting, he needed to do the right thing. He needed to keep fighting for this world. He needed to keep going in the face of failure. He needed to do everything he could to shield those he loved from harm; to face the choices he’d made with honesty & accountability, and to visit each & every remaining leviathan to assist them however he could- no matter what awaited him. He had to.
He had to, because beyond the undersea & his duties & even the world itself, Gillion had people in it who needed him for the person he’d become- not the one he’d been expected to be. Chip needed him. Jay needed him. Aurora needed him. And without any doubt, Gillion now knew just as well that he needed each of them all the same. And that was okay, because it meant that he wasn’t alone anymore. He didn’t need to be.
Letting his eyes begin to flicker shut, the triton returned his focus to the heartbeat beneath the other man’s ribcage. It had actually calmed slightly, perhaps sensing that his own had, too. Gillion pretended that it was a song he’d already heard a thousand times before, and one he deeply hoped to hear a thousand times more.
Chip slept soundly for the rest of the night.