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It’s a quiet night aboard the Albatross. Chip sits with his back to the railing, holding his guitar in his lap. Reuben had stolen it for him, before it got bad, and Chip has clung to it ever since.
He couldn’t sleep, residual fear from Kuba Kenta’s curse waking him up every time he began to doze off. And their quarters felt cramped, the beds too close together.
So Chip had fled gone up to the deck for some breathing room.
He plucks at the strings, ignoring his swords lying next to him. Reuben had taught him this too, bony shoulder pressed to bony shoulder, uncharacteristically soft with him in the little house they’d found. The rhythm is simple, a “beginner’s tune” according to him. But regardless of what he said about it, Reuben had been proud when he figured it out, giving him a grin. (That same grin had been turned on him after…after what? The memory he’s grasping for slides away.)
He doesn’t look up when he hears the door to belowdecks open and shut, or when soft footsteps pad towards him. They don’t squelch or slap against the deck, so it’s not Gill, and Ollie has no idea how to be quiet. Drey or Jay. Probably not Drey, but he can’t ever be sure. The man has a habit of roaming the deck late at night.
“You scared me,” Jay says quietly, sitting down next to him. “When I woke up and you were gone.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” He finally glances over when she bumps her shoulder against his. She’s in her sleep clothes: a baggy shirt he’s pretty sure she stole from him, and a pair of loose shorts, hair left loose and tumbling down her back and shoulders. He nudges back, and she leans into it, a solid warmth against his side.
She tilts her head to look at him, and Chip frowns slightly at the dried tear tracks on her cheeks. “Nightmare?”
“Mhm. The BLOCK,” she clarifies, when he hums softly. “Just that…I didn’t have my healing potion.” Jay slumps against him more as she adjusts slightly, slotting against him like it’s the most natural thing they can do. “And…” She trails off, shaking her head.
The press of Jay’s body against his is comforting, in a way he doesn’t quite know how to think about it. Jay isn’t skin and bones the way he and Reuben were, the way Price still is. Her shoulders and arms are muscular, effortlessly drawing back her longbow when she chooses to use it in combat. (Chip’s spent a lot of time admiring her easy strength with her bow, the way her muscles flex when she pulls the string back, and- he should really pay attention.) Jay rests her head on his shoulder, closing her eyes, lashes clumped from tears.
“Can I do anything?”
“Just keep playing?” She yawns. “I’ll just clear my head up here and then go back down.”
“Okay.” This is familiar territory—he plays when any of them get nightmares, whether it’s Ollie half asleep on their unused cot, or him pretending that he can’t hear Gill’s quiet, heartbroken sniffles, or times just like now: Jay, curled against his side with a faraway look in her eyes, like she’s seeing something that he can’t.
Chip strums gently, a song he half remembers from that bard girl—Ella? Eliza?—who used to run with him and Reuben. She’d left before Chip, sneaking aboard a merchant’s boat and sailing away. Chip can kind of remember her face, just a little bit. Freckles splashed across her cheeks, a face that flushed easily when they got into the alcohol, a tangle of dark hair that he’d ran his hands through a couple of times when he was drunk and tired and neither of them cared. They’d kissed a handful of times in dark corners and the back room of the house until Reuben found out and made her leave.
He kind of misses her sometimes. Hell, he misses Skullslice, some nights. And Reuben. There was something…comforting…about the perpetual desolation of that island. About how time passed but nothing changed. How it was a perpetual limbo of waiting.
Chip keeps playing, repeating the melody line over and over. He keeps playing when Jay’s shaky breaths dissolve into hitched sobs, and as she roughly wipes her face.
He wishes he could do something more. Say the right words, or provide some measure of comfort better than quietly playing songs he only half remembers. Chip can’t. Not this time. So he starts a new song, one that he picked up in a shitty tavern just before he met Jay.
“I…I keep dreaming about Gill dying. In the BLOCK. Or-or us not getting to Liquidis in time to save you. And it’s…” Her voice catches, and she sobs, body shaking. It’s instinctual for Chip to abandon his guitar, turning to pull Jay into his arms. She presses her face to his neck, hot tears dripping on his skin and soaking his shirt collar. “It’s always my fault. I didn’t have the healing potion, I couldn’t get us there fast enough, and,” She breaks again, crying loudly into him.
Chip holds her tightly, hand rubbing circles on her back. “It’s not your fault. Me and Gill are okay.”
Jay sniffles and then draws back, giving him a shaky smile. “I know. It’s just…it’s hard. And it doesn’t help when both of you keep almost dying on me every chance you get.”
“It’s not on purpose!” he protests. “And it’s usually Gill’s fault anyway!”
“Don’t throw him under the rudder. You’re usually the one who drags me into it.”
“You don’t have to follow me, Jaybird.”
Her cheeks flush. “Someone has to keep the two of you alive. And get you out of trouble.” She eyes him from underneath her bangs, blue eyes softening.
His face warms. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“You know what.”
“Right.” Jay goes to say something else but her jaw cracks with a yawn. “I should probably go back to sleep. And…hope, I guess.”
“I can keep playing for a little while if you want.”
She considers, tilting her head, fiery curls spilling over her shoulder. “I think I’ll be okay. Do you—are you coming down?”
He can’t help the way he flinches. “Nah, I’ll stay up.”
She squints at him. Even exhausted, she can effortlessly pin him under her sharp gaze. “You need to sleep, Chip.”
“I know. I’m just…scared.” The words eke out of him painfully. He avoids her discerning look. “It’s over but—it doesn’t feel like it’s over.”
“Chip…”
“It’s stupid. You can just go to bed.”
“Chip.” Jay rests her hand on his chest, over the freshly healed scars. “It’s not stupid. I know it feels that way sometimes, but it’s not.” Her other hand guides him to look at her, sky blue eyes imploring. “You need the rest too.”
“I know.” He leans into her hand, sighing softly as her thumb caresses his cheekbone. “I was supposed to be comforting you,” he says instead of baring his soul more.
“You did. And I…” She sighs, shifting to press her forehead against his. “I’m good at this. At the—the aftermath.”
“I wish you weren’t.”
Jay laughs humorlessly. “So do I. C’mon, Chip.” She stands and extends a hand to him. The moonlight glows softly behind her, gently lighting her in silver. Like this, she’s almost ethereal. Nothing like what he was used to with Reuben.
Chip takes her hand.