Archive of Our Own ^beta

The kitchen below deck was empty, save for two lone souls- sounds from above echoing down to them. Gillion was leaning his chin on top of Chip’s shoulder to watch his hands, standing right behind him.

“It's tender.” 

Gillion's voice was uncharacteristically quiet. Chip didn't even twitch at the sound.

“I wouldn't describe fish meat as tender, not really…”

“Stubborn, then.”

Chip’s knife made quick work of the fish despite its stubbornness.

“How about tenacity.” Chip's fingers dug into the fresh wound and he unfolded the fish, all of its insides suddenly perfectly in view. Gillion pressed his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Or, uh- persistence.”

“Call it what you must.” 

“If I must,” The fish guts were already spilling out, and Chip just scraped along the grates to get it out completely. Gillion watched. There went its stomach, there went its heart. “I'd call it, that my knife is blunt.”

He turned the knife back and forth, and then he scanned the room- but he stayed where he was. Gillion cleared his throat. “It still works fine.”

“I’d love to have something to sharpen it with.”

They definitely did, somewhere. They could even try sharpening it with their swords. “How many fish do we need?”

Chip laid the fish aside for a moment, moving onto the next. His hands were on the counter, then, moving his head but never quite enough to see Gillion. “Gryffon likes having a bunch. Jay and I are fine with one, as long as it's good, you usually take two…” Chip explained to Gillion the math of it, what each crew member needed- something that Gillion wasn't paying attention to, usually, something he trusted his crew members to just be aware of- “We might be standing here a little longer if you're bored.”

“I'm not bored.”

Definitely not bored, that wasn't the right word. Gillion thought it would be utterly insane to be bored as he watched Chip dig hard into the head of the fish with that blunt knife, ripping at its gills. He didn't know a lot from the overseas, but he did know some unsavory details that were offered by the Elders- like unusual and cruel executions for prisoners, a blade slicing through their neck and their head tumbling down-

Gillion watched Chip toss the head into a waste bucket. He pressed his lips flat together. “Beneath the eye, the fish’s cheek, that's the best part of the meat.”

The elders were people of little words, but the stories they have told about the overseas were colorful enough to paint an entire, horrific picture. The overseas, where pride and honor were discarded and any prospect of a respectable death was laughable. 

“I think if I took my time to make a gourmet meal, I'd be torn apart by hungry pirates.”

“Fair.” Not quite fair, but then again, it was understandable. Gillion did learn during his time on the oversea that very few people were as the Elders had described them, and everyday he was trying to see nuance where he usually couldn't.

“Back home, have you cooked before?”

Gillion felt a little watched as Chip seemed to guess his thoughts, just slightly- it felt like a strange coincidence that he brought up the undersea. But then again, Gillion knew his expressions hid very little.

“No. It was, um… not considered a useful skill. I was shown how to survive, foraging food, but not necessarily more than that.” And as Chip was quietly cutting along that fish, the sight of fishy little organs always just a little unexpected, Gillion got the feeling that his friend was waiting for something. “What about you?” Gillion figured it couldn't hurt to throw the question back at him. “Where'd you learn?”

“A little bit on the Black Rose.” Scrape, scrape. Gillion's eyes were locked onto the blade, cleaning out the fish. “A lot when I was with Price. When I was on my own, it was just, uh… I ate whatever I could. Not a good time for me, digestion wise.”

“Hah,” Gillion huffed, but it wasn't very funny.

“But I can cook up anything easy- edible, but not good, maybe…”

The smell of the ocean was strong in the kitchen. The saltwater from the fish skin, all of the waste piling up in a bucket- but there was a certain distinction between the smell of a living school of fish, and a dead pile. Gillion ate fish regularly, even in the undersea, there was nothing strange about it, nothing that should grab him as much as it did-

He pushed his nose into Chip’s shoulder, and instead took in the scent of linen cloth. Chip twitched once, like he didn't expect it, but otherwise kept gutting the fish.

He took another one. It had a black beady eye, and it reflected the knife that was lowering onto it.

Then, Chip stopped. He angled his elbows.

“Gill, put your hands on the counter.”

Gillion didn't step aside anywhere, putting his hands under Chip’s arms to do as he said. Chip pushed the knife into his hands, and he moved to close his fist around it, but the motion was natural for Gillion.

“What is it?”

Chip put his hands over Gillion’s. “You can learn things from watching,” when he maneuvered his wrists around, Gillion let him. He watched the knife sink into the gills, and this uncomfortable feeling came up like a shiver down his spine, as he felt a dry stabbing in his own gills. “But you will learn best by just doing things. I figure you'll have to learn these things somewhere- I'll show you what I know.”

The head came off. Gillion's hands felt numb, watching it fall away. “Thanks,” he said curtly.

Incision from the throat to the fin- Gillion had never been on an operating table before, but this is what it must feel like. He could squeeze the stomach of the fish and see what it had been eating when it popped from the sheer pressure, and he could take its heart in his hand and ridicule it for being weak and stupid.

His own heart beat higher.

“Do you think I'd taste good, like that?”

Chip's hands stopped. He turned, slowly- this time far enough to face Gillion. 

His eyebrows were up, and his nose was a little scrunched. “You always say some weird shit, man.”

“...Is that a yes or a no?”

Chip looked down, like he was thinking about it. “I think the fish would taste better.”

“Hm.”

He turned back around. His hands were led around until the organs were scrapped off, a little clumsy with Chip moving him- two fingers pinching his thumb to do as he said. And the fish was ready to be served- or, actually, he didn't know what came next. If they ate it raw, or cooked it…

“On second thought-” Chip's voice cut through Gillion's musings. “You do have all that fat and muscle, but-” he shook his head. “It's just too weird, you look too much like me. Like a human, I mean. It wouldn't register in my head as something that I should do. If we ignore the fact that we're friends.”

“Too similar…” Gillion looked at the next fish that Chip pulled closer. He saw his gills and fins, his wide open eye. Not a thought in the world. “I see.”

“And, uh, of course, you have full consciousness, and it would be murder, and-”

“You're getting into specifics that I wasn't even considering.”

Chip shrugged. “Hey, man. You asked the freaky question.” 

He let go of Gillion's hands, and quicker than he anticipated of himself, Gillion snapped away from the dead fish.

“For the record,” Gillion separated himself from Chip’s back, “While I'd much rather eat the fish, eating you would definitely have more nutritional value.”

“Gee, thanks. I'll keep that in mind when we're low on food.”

“I would never, Chip.”

“I figured.” Chip raised his arm much higher than before. “You haven't asked quite enough questions for me to be concerned about a new dark desire of eating humans.”

His knife struck down. The fish's head was separated in one cleave through sheer force. Gillion found himself nervously grimacing, and he had to look away. 

“How many questions is too many?”

There was this sickening sound of the knife digging into grates, and Chip kept pushing it in there, back and forth, like a spear to his ribs. “One more and I'll get suspicious.”

“...” His nervous grin softened to a slight smile. “So… what do you think humans taste like?”

“Okay mister-” Chip whirled around on the spot to face Gillion, the knife still in his hand. “You're going to go upstairs, and tell everyone to come down to eat. Yeah?”

Gillion gave him a salute, grinning wildly. “Aye aye, captain.”

He ran out, around Chip, and out of the belly of the ship. The moment he was out, that overwhelming stench of fresh death disappeared. Very suddenly, he felt how tense his shoulders had been.

He switched his jog to a leisurely stride, breathing in the ocean air sharply, before going to look for everyone.