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Jay wakes up to the smell of smoke. It's not exactly unusual, of course, because Chip always seems to set things on fire, but this smoke smells different. Bitter, and a little sweet underneath. Cigarette smoke. Drey smoked. She remembers the smell of it on his clothes from when she was a kid. He doesn't smell like that anymore. Now he's got this subtle smell of decay that lingers even though most of his wounds have healed. She doesn't mention it. It would be cruel to the both of them.
She rolls out of her hammock reluctantly, deciding that she probably shouldn't ignore this. Just in case Chip has somehow managed to set the ship on fire in new and interesting ways. It's the middle of the night still and the ship is so quiet it would be creepy if it wasn't home in a way her father's house in the city never was. Her mom's tavern was home, but it carried too much of Ava's ghost by the end to be anything but bittersweet. The Albatross isn't haunted, at least not yet.
She follows the smell of smoke, wondering if her uncle got Earl to buy him cigarettes. The image of him smoking with his feet is a little funny and a little sad underneath the humor. There's always layers to this shit. To her feelings about her family. She inhales deeply, the salty ocean air burning in her lungs along with the smoke. The source of the smell is coming from the bow of the ship, so she follows it there, and it's not her uncle that she finds.
Chip looks a lot smaller than usual. He's shorter than her but he more than makes up for it in attitude and movement, so she forgets until moments where he's silent and still. Too still and too silent and too goddamn small for her comfort. She can so easily imagine him at Ollie's age, scrawny and scrappy and fighting to survive while she lived in a nice house with her sister and her mom and didn't have to wonder where her next meal was going to come from. A little hard knot of guilt rolls around in her stomach.
Sometimes, she likes to pretend that the three of them have always known each other. That they lived on the same street since they were babies and they grew up splashing through creeks and climbing trees in the woods. That they were there after her dad shot her doll, sending porcelain shards spraying everywhere. Cutting into her cheek but she didn't dare cry about it. Crying meant yelling meant anger meant... Well, she doesn't think about it. Instead, she likes to pretend that Ava wasn't the only person she could run to when shit got bad. She likes to pretend that she was there to come up with schemes with Chip, ways of scamming people because that's as close as they get to being kids playing pretend. She likes to pretend that she could've been there to bandage Gillion's wounds from his training, something that she relates to more than she should. Remembers being eleven and having a gun shoved into her hands and her father insisting that she was plenty old enough to learn how to shoot. To start training for the Navy. She likes to pretend that she didn't stand taller under his praise when she hit her first bullseye, that she didn't paint a sloppy Jolly Roger on the target to motivate herself. That she didn't both crave and fear the heavy weight of his hand on her shoulder.
She shakes the memory off, willing it to dissipate like smoke. Which is a shitty metaphor because the smell of smoke always lingers in the air, doesn't it? It's lingering right now. She didn't bother putting on a jacket or even a shirt, just in her sports bra and loose pants and she shivers at the cold. Kind of regretting it, but also glad for it because the chill keeps her grounded. Keeps her here and not eight and watching her doll's head get blown off.
Jay crosses her arms to ward off the chill as she marches up to the bow. "Didn't know you smoked," she calls out to Chip.
He flinches visibly, which is... not something she's going to comment on. "Didn't know y'were awake," he mumbles, slurred, and she notices the mostly empty bottle of whiskey at his feet.
Jay snags the bottle, mostly to drink the rest of it to piss him off but also because he's definitely had enough. She takes a long pull, feeling his eyes trail over her exposed skin. Even after sharing quarters for all this time, a boy is still a boy. Especially a boy like Chip. Gillion stares at her too, but he also stares at Chip. And Chip stares at Gillion when he's shirtless and training, and Jay stares with him, so it evens out. She snags the cig out of his hand and takes a drag of that, too, just to be annoying.
"Hey," he whines.
She coughs as soon as the smoke hits her. "Gods, this is foul," she says. "Why the hell would you smoke that?"
He shrugs. "S'what he always smoked."
She nudges him with her shoulder. "Yeah? Well he has shit taste." Doesn't ask who he is. "Drey used to smoke," she says carefully. Takes another sip of whiskey.
Chip sighs, leaning into her side. Jay looks at him, at his alcohol-flushed cheeks and glazed over eyes. She frowns, holds out the cigarette for him to take back. She only ever smoked to get an extra break during training anyways. And because her dad fucking hated it because it reminded him of Drey. Little acts of rebellion were what got her through the day, after Ava. He takes the cig back and stares at it, the end burning like a dying candle flame.
"I remember," he says, taking a drag. Exhales. His cheek is warm against her shoulder. Wet too, like he's been crying. She doesn't comment on it. "S'not who'm talkin' about."
She blinks, a little surprised he's offering up information like this. Chip never talks about anything unless he's got no choice. "Okay," she says, because she's got no idea what to do with a Chip that wants to talk about his problems. Their whole thing is sitting and making jokes and not talking about their shit. "Who got you to start smoking?"
"Mmh," Chip grumbles. "Reuben. Said it would make me tougher."
Reuben. Captain Price. The guy that sent an assassin after them. The guy that Chip called evil, and set his house on fire. That Reuben. "I smoked because my dad hated it," Jay offers.
"Fuck yer dad," Chip mumbles. "Not like, y'know, but fuck 'im. Piece a shit."
"Thanks for clarifying that you don't wanna have sex with my dad," she deadpans.
"Fuck you," he mumbles.
"Ew," she scrunches up her face, playing up disgust. "You get no bitches. None. Me included."
He whines. "Everyone is so mean to me all the time."
She nudges him again, playful. "Yeah, 'cause you deserve it for being a bastard."
He stares off into space for a concerning amount of time, not saying anything. Jay's pretty sure she just fucked up.
"Chip?" she prompts. "Man, you okay?"
"I do," he says abruptly.
"What?"
"I do deserve it," he repeats, voice hollow.
Her stomach drops. "No, no, I'm kidding. God, it was a joke." She doesn't know how to handle seriously fucked up and sad Chip. She's never been very good at this. Ava was the one who always knew what to say to make the hurting stop.
Chip stares at his cigarette for a long time. Then, very deliberately, he presses the lit end to the back of his hand.
"Holy shit," Jay snaps, grabbing his wrist. "What the fuck, don't do that!"
He yanks out of her grasp with a hissed, "Don't touch me," panting and wild-eyed.
Jay makes another grab for the cigarette, successfully knocking it out of Chip's hands. She stomps it out before he sets the deck on fire and stares at him for a while, speechless.
"What the fuck," she repeats after a moment.
Chip shrinks in on himself, and Jay subconsciously rubs at the place where her pants cover the scars on her thighs. It's not like she doesn't get it. Things were really bad, after Ava. Her dad was so angry and her mom threw herself into watching out for the town and Jay didn't have her safe place anymore. So she gets needing to take shit out on yourself. But it's different when it's not her. When it's Chip, who is annoying and stupid and one half of her set of best friends. Someone who saw her at her worst, her most disgusting and irredeemable and still didn't let go. One half of her home. And it makes her chest ache fiercely to see him dig into his own skin, to try and burn himself up.
"You don't deserve it," she tries. She's bad at this. "You don't- don't do that shit. Seriously."
"I'm not gonna off myself," he snaps at her, which is scary because she didn't even bring that up. "I just- He used to smoke. And then..." He runs a hand through his hair, the hand with the fresh burn in the middle of brown skin.
"Gimme," she says, holding out her hand.
He looks at her blankly, and she can tell that he is a million miles away from here. "He told me that smoking after would take the edge off," he mumbles. "Make it, I dunno, more hazy. I'd associate it with the nicotine or somethin'. Make it easier."
She's not really sure what he's talking about, but it doesn't sound good, so she shakes her head. "Just don't think about it," she says, thinking about how she still can't stand the sight of porcelain dolls with red hair. "Don't think about it."
"Tried that," he huffs.
"Give me your hand," she tells him, holding out hers.
He does, and she presses her palm over the burn and casts lay on hands. Watches the way the golden magic turns his brown eyes the same color as the whiskey, amber and deep and haunted. He pulls away as soon as she lets him, rubbing his palm over the freshly healed skin. He looks out over the ocean and doesn't say any more, and neither does she. They're at their best when they're sitting in silence and not talking about it, after all.