okay so I might still post this on Ao3 so yeah. Enjoy ig??? I worked on this for a while and I'd love if you commented, It makes me feel like people are actually interested in my stuff :]
TW: Blood, injury, kidnapping, bruises
if i missed any tell me plz <3
A curt knock on the lid of his barrel woke Gill from his sleep.
He popped the lid off and looked out to find a very tired Chip, waiting for him to get up. "It's your turn for watch buddy" Chip yawned, already making the trek across the cabin to his hammock. Gill clambered out of his barrel and stretched. He almost felt bad for Chip as he watched his friend yawn again and almost imminently fall asleep. having the middle watch was always the worst, it made you feel like you didn't get enough sleep no matter what. Gill was fine with the first watch, it just meant he stayed up late, But last watch was always his favorite. He got to hang out in the early hours of the morning, watch the sunrise, and get in some good training. He finished stretching and after a couple seconds, he scooped the excited Pretzel from the water and put her in her bottle, securing her to his belt and grabbing his sword. He didn't need to take any time for his armor however, seeing as he had fallen asleep with it on.
He walked up to the top deck of the ship, and took a moment to look up and enjoy the night air. The clear sky hosted hundreds of sparkling stars, the half moon illuminating the ocean, making the small waves that bounced against the ship glitter with luminescence. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath of the salty air. He noticed a tapping noise and looked down at Pretzel, who made a cute squeaking noise. "Alright Pretzel," He said smiling, "We can play something before I train."
The two eventually settled on a game of chess, after a failed game of tag and a very unfair game of hide and seek. In the middle of the fourth game of chess, (Gill-0 Pretzel-3) Gill heard an odd creaking sound from the front of the ship. It was very unlike the normal creaking from the waves, it almost sounded as if someone were walking around, but Gill knew no one was awake at this hour but him and Pretzel. Gill cautiously began making his way forward, glancing around. Almost three minutes went by and he hadn't heard anything else. He figured a sea creature must have hit the bottom of the ship. He turned to walk back to the impatient Pretzel, who's eyes widened suddenly as he looked to her, when he felt something soaking wet, and very strong grab him from behind and dive off the ship with him in its grapple.
The cold sea attacked his senses, shocking him and for a moment he forgot he had just been grabbed. But the second of distraction disappeared as Gill began to violently struggle to free himself from the grasp of his captor He felt the presence of many others as well, but focused on breaking free. After a minute of struggling, he broke free. The first thing he noticed was the much darker surroundings, he had been brought far from the surface of the ocean. The second thing he noticed was who (what?) he was surrounded by. They looked like a mix between deep sea tritons and orcs, however, all of their faces were obscured by masks. Masks that were skulls of all sorts of creatures, ranging from elk, to wolf, to humanoid looking skulls. Each mask was also decorated and fit so that there were cloths that covered the entirety of the wearer's head and face. As Gill quickly glanced around him, he made a rough estimate of about 15 of them surrounding him, clearly not expecting him to have broken free.
"What do you want?!" Gill yelled at the large burly figure that had initially been holding him, while also drawing his sword.
"We seek the champion of the undersea." The apparent leader responded to him in a deep voice. He relaxed a bit, his sword dropping a few inches lower from where he had been holding it in front of himself.
"Well, you have found him. What do you want from me?" He asked, projecting his voice to the group the best he could.
"To fulfill the prophecy we have been tasked with" The figure responded, slowly getting closer to Gill. The way it had been said made Gill uneasy, and he repositioned his sword to its earlier position.
"What is the goal you must fulfill? What does your prophecy require?" Gill asked, becoming even more on guard as the figure did not stop approaching him.
"We seek a sea that has no ships polluting it. No people taking up space in our ocean. So, we first seek your death!" Screeched the figure as it lunged toward Gillion. Gill barely dodged, feeling the burning of cold steel as a shallow cut opened on his shin, the figure had daggers. He spun to engage, but was met with about five other humanoids speeding forward to attack.
He held up his sword in defense, and after a quick parry, he made a large downward slash at whoever was right in front of him. He felt contact, but he was too slow to pull away, as he felt a blunt pole smash into his side, knocking him away from the group. He grabbed for his shield and barely brought it in front of himself in time to deflect a trident that had been flying toward him. He surged forward to attack, preparing to freeze the water where a large group of the figures were, but before he got the chance to feel the water to his left shift, he barely looked over in time to see a chain flying at him, before it wrapped tightly around his arm, violently pulling him off track.
The next 20 minutes were a complete blur. Gillion fought tirelessly, doing his best to ward off the seemingly endless attackers. Over the span of his fight, he had to heal himself so many times, he knew it wouldn't work if he tried again. Not to mention, he had run out of his healing ability about a third of the way through the fight. He now drifted through the water, panting heavily, the water around him smelling heavily of blood and death. He knew that the blood was not only theirs however, as his adrenalin rush subsided, he began to feel the pain and agony that wracked his exhausted body. His head throbbed after being hit by the blunt of a sword, and there were bruises littering his face from those who fought him without weapons. His arm felt broken, but looked fine, however, his shoulder looked wrong, and his other arm (the arm he held his word with) was cut in many places, a particularly large cut on his bicep letting crimson seep into the water and dance around his shoulder. Both of his legs were covered in cuts, but one of his feet hung oddly in the water, at a sideways angle that made Gill sick to look at. But, by far the most painful thing, was the intense and dizzying throbbing of his side. naturally they had located a gap in his armor, and had plunged a sword into his abdomen. He had eventually been able to win the battle, the seawater mixing with the blood making an ugly color. Oh and the seawater was definitely not helping with the pain of the wounds. He floated through the vermillion stained sea for a few more moments, catching his breath and gathering the strength to swim back to the surface. He only got about halfway up before feeling extremely grateful the anchor had been dropped, as he began slowly climbing the chain with one arm back up to the ship.
When he broke the surface he was dizzy and exhausted. A worried, then terrified Pretzel met his gaze as his eyes lazily looked up to the edge of the ship. She screeched and warbled at him and he simply groaned. The climb up the side of the ship took about five minutes, even though it was only about 8 feet from the water to the deck. The first hand he managed on the edge of the deck, he felt Pretzel's tentacles wrap around his fingers and try to drag him up, although extremely unhelpful, Gillion's fuzzy mind still appreciated the gesture. He hauled himself onto the deck, laying on his back, trying to take deep breaths of the night air. He heard Pretzel, and felt her climbing onto him, but he couldn't pay any attention. The stars were just so mesmerizing. He soon felt the glittering darkness of the sky become a matte darkness, consuming his vision and making him feel numb. The last thing he though as he drifted into unconsciousness, was "I hope there aren't more of those guys, Chip and Jay shouldn't have to deal with that''
Chip awoke to a giggling Jay, and a... he couldn't place the expression on Pretzel's face. The frogtopus was positioned on top of Jay's head, tapping relentlessly at her forehead. He had woken to the sound of her giggling. "what are you doing Pretzel? it's way too early to do anything." Jay said, sitting up in her hammock, pulling the frogtopus off her head and looking down at her. Chip watched with mild curiosity, he guessed it had only been about two hours or so since he had finished his watch. Pretzel was waving her tentacles and nearly screeching at Jay, then looked over at him and did something similar, then pointed to the steps leading up to the deck. Jay furrowed her brows, looking over at Chip, "She seems upset over something, maybe we should go up?" She said, starting to sound worried. Chip would normally tell her to go up by herself, but to be honest, Pretzel never acted like this, and he was getting a bit worried as well. "Yeah, let's go see what she wants." Chip said, hanging his feet over the edge of his hammock and hopping to the floor, not bothering to pull on his boots, as the two made their way above deck.
The two found something that Jay was sure would give her nightmares. The two were met with a pool of seawater and blood surrounding their unconscious friend. Jay gasped and darted over to Gillion, Chip was close behind her, his mild annoyance imminently replaced by concern and fear. Gill's sword and shield had been strewn across the deck, both about a foot from their respective hands. Chip's breath shuddered as he took in the sight of his friend, the still bleeding gashes, the clearly dislocated shoulder, the ankle, and the bruises across his face. Chip looked at Jay, she was going through a similar experience, hands over her mouth. She suddenly reached for Gill's right hand, and held it tightly in her own.
"Okay, Jay," Chip said, repositioning himself to Gill's other side, "I need you to hold him still so I can relocate his shoulder." Jay looked scared, but complied, holding onto Gill's torso and bracing herself. As quickly as Chip could, without messing up, he relocated Gill's shoulder. He sighed with relief when it worked correctly, he will never admit that he had never really done that before. Jay reached over and began taking Gill's armor off. Chip quickly began helping her out, it only took the two about five minutes to get all of the pieces off of their friend, so they could see the full damage.
"Chip, go get bandages, I can heal the main wounds but I can't heal everything, he is really banged up." Jay said. Chip nodded and wordlessly dashed off to get bandages and anything else that might be useful.
Jay looked over her friend, a bit panicked and sad. She took note of all his worst wounds, then got to work. She started by going to his ankle, she straightened it out and made sure all the bones were in the right places before she used her healing magic. It made her a bit sick to look at the sheer amount of blood that was seeping from her friend, and the fact that he had been in the ocean, he definitely lost a lot that she didn't know about. She moved up to the large gouge in his side. She put her hands on his torso, and for a second she paused.
His chest wasn't moving.
She nearly slapped her hand to his neck to feel for a pulse.
She felt the faintest, smallest heartbeat coming from his body.
Quickly moving one hand to the gash in his side, and the other to the middle of his chest, she pushed all her energy into healing him. When she finished, she fell back a bit, her magic exhausted, when Chip burst from below deck, holding about a million rolls of gauze, rubbing alcohol, some janky painkillers, and a bowl full of water that she had no idea how he hadn't spilled yet. She reached for Gill's neck again, and after feeling his pulse steadily returning, and seeing the shallow rise and fall of his chest, she let out the breath she didn't know she was holding. Chip looked at her, a bit of fear in his eyes that he would never admit. "H-he wasn't breathing..." Jay trailed off looking down at her friend. She sniffed and rubbed at her face. She suddenly felt awful for even considering not getting up when Pretzel was on her.
She felt a hand on her shoulder, and found Chip kneeling next to her, his arms slightly open. She melted into his embrace and cried softly. She could feel the tremors going through him as well, although he would deny it. She also knew that Chip was almost definitely more angry than sad, angry at whoever did this to their friend. After a few moments of hugging, Jay pried her face away from his shoulder and grabbed the gauze that had been forgotten on the floor of the deck. Chip silently followed suit, getting some of the disinfectant ready.
It only took the two pirates about 15 minutes to patch up Gillion, seeing as Jay had healed the gash on his side and his ankle, and the two had fixed his shoulder. The only wound that needed more than just one or two layers of gauze, was a deep cut on his arm, that Chip had stitched back together (When did he know how to do that?!?) and then bandaged. It was times like these when Chip was glad they had accidently bought three hammocks rather than the two that were regularly used. Chip had Jay help him carry Gill's limp body into the cabin, laying him in Chip's hammock Jay made sure Gill was breathing once again before helping Chip set up the other hammock so he could sleep. Even though both of them knew they would not be sleeping. Once the hammock was set up, Chip sighed a bit and looked at Jay, who looked nervous and kept glancing at their friend.
"Hey, you did amazing, I know it probably brought up some nasty memories, and this is hard to deal with regardless, but you're good Jay. I'm glad you could help him, ''he said, embracing her again. She hugged him tightly, not crying this time, but they both held on to each other tighter than they would like to admit.
The next morning Jay woke up from her hammock, having no clue how she fell asleep, or how she didn't have an awful nightmare, but she took it. She looked around to see Chip sitting against the wall, totally conked out. Her sleepy eyes drifted to the hammock they had put the unconscious Gillion in, only to find it empty. She jolted up, practically sprinting to the hammock, and seeing a small white note laying in the hammock. She picked it up and unfolded it quickly, it read 'on dek with erl'. She imminently recognized the awful spelling and handwriting as Gill's. She glanced at Chip, deciding if she should wake him up or not. She decided against it and put the note where he would see it. She pulled on her shoes and made her way up the steps. She was met with the bright sun glaring into her eyes, obnoxiously almost in the middle of the sky. It took her only a moment or two to locate Gill and Earl. The two were sitting on barrels, playing chess, and drinking orange juice. She walked up to the two, and wordlessly hugged Gill.
"Oh! Jay," he hugged her back after quickly setting down his cup of juice, "Thank you so much, I would like to thank Chip as well when he awakens. I would also like to apologize fo-'' he was cut off by Jay violently pulling back and looking at him straight in the eyes. "Unless you got yourself that hurt on purpose, then I know it's not your fault. You are an amazing warrior and I know it would take a lot to take you down. And I know you took them down because you made it back. Gill, you can't be sorry because I know this wasn't your choice and I don't want you to feel bad." As soon as she finished her speech Chip plowed out from below deck, clearly not having seen the obvious note. Once seeing Gill, Jay and Earl all staring at him, he looked down at his hand.
Jay facepalmed.
He literally had the note in his hand, didn't read it and then got worried because Gill wasn't in the cabin. He looked at her warily when they both came to the realization, or, when Chip realized Jay knew what just happened. He felt embarrassment burn across his face but quickly approached the other two anyway, pulling them both into a hug.
"Thank you both. I am very lucky to have such amazing friends"
"Hey! I made ya juice ya ungrateful friggin..." Earl grumbled from the other side of the chess board.
Chip and Jay both burst out laughing as Gill frantically tried to apologize.
Thanks so much for reading!!! I hope you enjoyed it and I hope you have a good day/night wherever you are <3 comments give meh serotonin :0