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Jay wasn’t one to nest.
She had long outgrown the silly habit a few years before she ran away from home. And since then, she’d never felt the urge to make a nest, fill it with the things that she loved and huddle up in the warmth for a while.
She knew that some of her family members did, ones that bore the signs of their wings proudly, displaying them with a great fondness. Other members without her short, stunted wings that could never serve for flight. Jay knew that her sister used to when they were kids. Her sister used to make a large nest in the middle of her room with their shared blankets and sheets and the two of them would cuddle and play in there until the urge subsided and they went about the rest of the week and Jay wondered if her sister still nested before she died.
Jay hadn’t indulged in something like that for…
She can’t even remember how long it's been.
She figured that it had something to do with the way her wings had grown in. Both of them, short and weak, not growing to adjust with the rest of her growing body and staying the size of a toddler. The left one was shorter than the right, and the muscles were too weak to move very well. Sure, she could probably work with it, stretch and try and build up the muscles. But Jay didn’t see the point anymore.
Flight had never been an option she considered. So it hadn’t really been something that bothered her.
But she figured that her wings were probably the reason why she didn’t feel instincts as strongly as her sister or her other family members. Chirps and clicks—sounds she knew that she could make—didn’t bubble up as often as when she was a child and she barely felt the urge anymore. The flock instinct had died a long time ago and even with her crew now, they felt like a family, but nothing that would set off her instincts.
It was an interesting thing and if Jay wasn’t the subject of it, she figured that she would want to find out more about this. About her wings, about her heritage.
But, she was Jay. And she didn’t really want to figure that stuff out. Nor did she really care to learn about what awful things her heritage did. Or how the wings popped up in their family tree.
Her great grandfather didn’t have wings. The bright red fluffy feathers that soon became a status symbol to the Ferin’s was first recorded with her grandfather. Knowing her family, it was probably some curse or a spell. Humans didn’t just suddenly grow wings after all.
Not that it bothered her. Sometimes clothes were a bit annoying to find, and not to mention if she didn’t hide them she was practically walking around with a massive target on her back. A giant ID to alert everyone in the vicinity of her identity. Which helped massively that her wings were small and easily tucked underneath her jacket.
Hell, it took Chip months of sailing to find out about them. Jay had been nervously hiding them from the other members of the crew for reasons that she couldn’t even place in hindsight. They knew she was a Ferin from the start. They knew of her family and the navy connections, and they didn’t care. The wings were only a confirmation of who she really was. No reason to hide it from the crew.
However, ironically, Gillion was the first one to find out about them. He was a lot more observant than he seems and his lack of knowledge of human customs and the entire idea of privacy definitely made for some awkward situations.
He had walked in on her changing and Jay was lucky that he didn’t seem too alarmed by the red fluffy wings sprouting from her back. It was lucky and probably helped by the fact that Gillion didn’t know much about humans besides what he had been told in the undersea (probably not good things).
After Gillion found out, Jay figured it was only a matter of time before he told Chip. Of course, it wouldn’t be on purpose or with malicious intent. Gillion had simply asked Chip if he too had wings and if that was something that happened with humans which concluded with an awkward conversation between the three.
She stopped hiding her wings around the ship after that.
She had allowed Chip to help her preen the feathers a few months later.
It was a few months after that when she woke up one day feeling a tightness in the pit of her stomach. An annoying tremor had taken up her hands and she shivered constantly, seemingly unable to stay warm despite how tightly she bundled herself in her jacket.
Nightmares took up even more of her sleep, leaving her exhausted and jumpy in the morning. And she had no idea what the cause of it was.
She was distracted, kept spacing out, and forgetting what she was saying mid-sentence. Anxiety thrummed just under her skin, making her flinch whenever someone came up to talk to her or brushed against her arm. Jay told herself that it was because she hadn’t been sleeping well.
Perhaps she was coming down with a sickness. She always had worse nightmares when she was getting sick.
“It’s not that cold out,” Chip commented, raising an eyebrow at Jay as she zipped her jacket up, her hands clenched so tightly around the railing of the ship that her knuckles bleached white just to try and stop the shivering.
“I’m probably getting sick,” She said through chattering teeth, “I’m freezing.”
“Maybe you should go lay down for a while?” Chip suggested, stepping away from the railing, “I’m sure that Gillion would like some company wherever he sulked off to.”
“Where did he go?” Jay asked, she wrapped her arms around her torso. Her wings fluffed up as she shivered and she could feel them pressing against her back, folded tightly to fit underneath her jacket.
“Below decks,” Chip looked up towards the sky, squinting out at the horizon, “it’s going to rain.”
“Oh,” Jay licked her lips, “I’ll go find him.”
“Have fun, he’s probably pouty,” Chip gave her a mock salute as she moved away from the railing, shuffling towards the stairs with her legs shaking. She hated this feeling and wanted nothing more than to burrow deep underneath the covers of her cot until she felt warm again. To press her face into her pillow and sleep until she no longer felt the exhaustion weighing heavily on her bones and she could face the frigid air around her once again.
Oh.
She realized what the feeling was that had been plaguing her for days as she stumbled down the stairs. The rocking of the ship did nothing to help her shaky balance as she shuffled into the sleeping quarters.
She hadn’t felt the urge to nest in years. She had forgotten what it felt like. The exhaustion, the dread, the coldness that seemed to grip her entire being.
She had forgotten the altogether unpleasantness of ignoring those urges.
Jay had honestly thought that she had outgrown the entire thing. It was childish and silly of her to indulge in, especially here on their rocking ship where blankets and clothes weren’t a very plentiful commodity.
Steeling herself on the door to the sleeping quarters, she caught her balance. Taking a deep breath, Jay told herself that she wouldn’t indulge like that. She could wait it out until the feeling subsided.
Besides, there wasn’t enough room to make a nest. There weren’t enough materials and she would feel bad if she would take Chip or Gillion’s blankets for something as silly as that.
Jay shook the thoughts out of her head, running her fingers through her hair. She began to search for where Gillion had hidden himself.
The Triton, oddly enough, didn’t like the rain. Jay would’ve thought the wet droplets would’ve made him happy. However, whenever it was going to rain, Gillion sulked below decks, shivering and curled up in a ball until it passed, holding his head and whimpering.
It had something to do with the air pressure, Jay figured. The change in the air whenever a storm was brewing must’ve set him off, clearly not used to something like that happening. Since of course, there was no air in the undersea to deal with. It got even worse when there was going to be lightning as well.
The first time Gillion had seen a thunderstorm, he had panicked, clutching his ears with sparks flickering from his skin. Chip had gotten shocked trying to comfort him and his hair stood up the rest of the night while Gillion was too out of it to even say anything.
Jay figured he’d be in the storage room. Usually, he would curl up between two crates and the wall and wait there until the rain passed. She thought he might like some company. And while she was trying to fight back against long forgotten instincts, the storage room might be a good option.
She pushed open the door with her shoulder and skimmed her eyes across the crates and barrels.
“Gill?” she called, letting the door swing shut behind her, the darkness causing her to squint as her eyes slowly adjusted. The storage room was dark, there weren’t any windows in this room and it was packed with enough boxes to make anyone feel claustrophobic.
Jay heard shuffling on the other side of the room but no voice answered her call.
With her hands outstretched to keep her from bumping into anything nearby, Jay shuffled through the room, nudging against crates and trying not to knock anything over. She strained to hear over the crashing of waves against the side of the ship, but she could hear a crate being moved nearby.
“You gotta give me a bit more to work with,” Jay called into the room, gripping her hands on the edge of a barrel.
“Jay?” She heard a voice come from the corner. She turned to see a pair of glowing blue eyes staring back at her from behind a crate. Jay worked her way over to where Gillion had huddled himself in.
“Thought you might want some company,” Jay said as she pushed aside a crate. She was only able to see the outline of Gillion’s form and she couldn’t even read his expression.
“You do not need to worry about me,” Gillion insisted, moving over some to give Jay room to squeeze in behind the crate.
“Nah, I was going to go lie down anyway,” she took a deep breath, pressing herself against Gillion’s side. She was still shivering, the stuffy room did nothing to ease her chill.
“Oh…” Gillion sniffed, he pulled his knees up to his chest.
“How come you always come down here when it’s going to rain?” Jay asked, tilting her head to the side. She felt a bit awkward knowing that Gillion was able to see her, but she couldn’t see him back.
“It…” Gillion hesitated, “it hurts… my head…”
“Oh,” Jay frowned, nodding sadly.
“It’s not as bad down here, but… I wish I could enjoy it…” Gillion let out a sigh, “Rain seems like such a nice thing… but it only ever hurts…”
“Rain is only nice if you like getting wet.” Jay forgot for a moment who she was talking to and realized in hindsight that that might not have been the right thing to say at the moment. Gillion just heaved another sigh, he shifted again, leaning his chin on his knees. Jay frowned and looked down at her lap.
It took only a few minutes for the rain to start. She could hear the droplets pattering against the deck above them and she felt Gillion wince at the sound. He seemed to curl in on himself tighter and after the storm began, didn’t seem up for very much conversation.
Jay herself felt a surge of exhaustion settle on her shoulders. She sighed and blinked blearily in the darkness, her wings were shaking just as much as the rest of her body and yet the rubbing of her jacket against them was starting to hurt. Jay just sighed, shimmying out of the jacket and placing it over her lap like a blanket.
She heard Gillion move from beside her and could feel his eyes trained on her as she stretched out her wings. The tips of her primaries brushed against Gillion’s shoulder as she did so.
Jay sat there for a long time with Gillion until the exhaustion threatened to drag her into sleep meaning she had to get up soon or risk falling asleep in the storage room. Jay winced as she stood up, wriggling out between the crates.
“I’m gonna go see what Chip is doing,” Jay said to Gillion, unsure if he was even listening to her. She felt around as she walked, shuffling towards where she remembered the door to be, and stumbled out into the sleeping quarters.
Even though they weren’t much brighter than the storage room, it still caused her to squint, blinking with disorientation.
Chip was sitting near the stairs playing a game of chess with old man Earl. Chip seemed deep in concentration as Earl sipped on a glass of juice, looking vaguely amused.
Earl looked over at Jay as she collapsed on her cot. She shivered, letting herself settle underneath the blanket.
“Still got that chill?” Early asked, his raspy voice breaking the loud silence of the room.
“Yeah…” Jay muttered.
“Y’know, I got a good way of curing sickness like that,” Earl smacked his lips, taking an obnoxiously loud sip of the juice, “if you’re ever interested.”
As much as Jay appreciated Earl’s presence on their ship. She didn’t think that she trusted any cure that he could offer.
“No thanks… I think I’m good,” Jay muttered, she buried her face in the pillow. She was forced to swallow down a fledgling-like chirp that threatened to bubble up out of her throat. A hot, red blush flushed across her face like a sunburn and she pushed herself up on her elbows, clasping a hand over her mouth as another chirp threatened to surface.
That was weird.
She didn’t chirp like that.
She didn’t chirp at all, actually.
“You look like you’re going to throw up,” Chip said, looking over at Jay, furrowing his eyebrows, “please don’t do that.”
“I’m…” Jay pulled her hands away from her mouth tentatively, “I’m… fine…”
She took a deep, shuddering breath. Chip didn’t look too convinced, but he turned back to the chess game.
“How’s Gill doing in the storage room?” Chip asked her, not looking up from the worn-out pieces.
“He seemed… okay when I left…” Jay flopped back down on her cot, turning her head to the side to be able to watch Chip and old man Earl, “do we have any spare blankets?”
“I don’t think so,” Chip licked his lips, “you could probably take Gill’s for the night if you’re cold. He doesn’t sleep in the cot often.”
Jay would’ve felt guilty upon doing that even if it was true that Gillion didn’t use the cot very often. So, Jay remained where she was, burrowed under the thin set of sheets that she had. It did nothing to soothe the cold ache that had wedged itself deep within the very fiber of her soul.
She took a deep breath, along with the shivering, she felt jumpy and restless, like a wind-up toy far too tightly wound. She blinked for a split second and when she refocused her eyes, Chip and Earl had finished their game of chess. Earl coming out as the victor.
The craving for warmth was exceeding her willpower and Jay curled up on her side, her knees pulled up to her chest.
“You don’t have a fever, do you?” Chip had got up from the chessboard, his brow furrowed.
“No,” Jay pulled the sheets up to her chin, glaring at him through the small gap between her bangs.
Chip reached down, brushing her hair aside and pressing the back of his hand against her forehead. Jay jumped at the action, unexpecting of him to do something like that. A strangled chirp wormed its way out of her mouth and she clasped her hands over her lips, trying to pretend like she hadn’t done that. Embarrassment bloomed across her cheeks once more.
“I…” Chip blanked, he clearly heard it, “I didn’t know you could do that…” he pulled his hand away and Jay suddenly missed the contact. Then she scolded herself for feeling like that.
Jay didn’t respond, she looked away and half expected Chip to make fun of her for it. To her surprise, he didn’t say anything else, maybe he sensed that Jay didn’t feel well and decided to hold his tongue. Chip lingered by the side of her cot for a few moments before moving to his own. Jay sniffed and closed her eyes, burrowing deeper underneath the sheets.
Something deep inside her felt wrong. Like something was missing. She was tired, she was shivering so hard her teeth were chattering, her thoughts were sluggish and the rain was serving no help to keep herself awake. The soft pattering against the deck above them made her even more sleepy, and if even possible, seemed to make the chill bore itself deeper within her bones.
She heard Chip’s footsteps again and she peeked her eyes open to see him standing by her cot again. A weight was draped over her shoulders and he looked at her with slight concern.
“Here, if you’re still cold,” he said, “You can have my sheets as well, but I just took the ones off Gillion’s cot for now.”
Jay rubbed her eyes, “thank you…”
She was still shivering but she said nothing. A small bit of shame started to eat away at her, a pressure forming in her chest. This was a childish instinct that she didn’t even know why she was indulging in this much. Chip nodded at her and walked away, she didn’t look up to see where despite the urge that wanted her to.
The rain was slowing down, she could hear the faint pattering stretch out until there was quiet again. She heard the storage room door creak and tentative footsteps.
“Have fun in your hidey-hole?” Chip asked a hint of playfulness to his tone. Gillion didn’t respond but let out a huff. He must not be feeling well either.
Jay rolled over to her other side, trying to find a new comfortable position as her ear was starting to hurt from laying on her side for so long. Laying on her back was no go since even while her wings were often pinned underneath a jacket or a shirt, the pressure caused by laying on them would certainly injure something.
She flopped over on her stomach, tucking her arms underneath her pillow. The weight of the blankets felt odd against her spread wings. So she turned onto her other side. It was comfortable for a few minutes before the restlessness took hold of her being once more.
Jay sat up, curling her fingers around the blankets. Chip was still in the sleeping quarters, reclined in his hammock that he only used for relaxing since he kept falling out whenever he slept in it. He stared at a golden coin in his hand, twirling it between his fingers and watching the light from the lanterns reflect off it.
Gillion was sitting on his cot, he didn’t seem to care that the sheets were missing. He stared down at a piece of paper in his hands. His eyes were rimmed a darker shade of blue and he looked tired. His hair was disheveled and tangled even more than usual.
Old man Earl had disappeared, probably going to check on what the rain and wind had knocked over and to make sure that they were still on course.
Jay took a deep breath, she stared down at the two sets of sheets that covered her, anxiety filling in a gaping hole within her chest. She licked her lips, pulling back the first blanket, draping it over the pillow, and tucking it near the edge of the mattress.
She told herself that she shouldn’t be doing this. It made no sense and it was childish, embarrassing even, especially to be doing this in front of Chip and Gillion.
It was one thing when she would make nests with her sister or her family. They felt the same urges.
It was another thing with people that never knew the aching lonely feeling and the never-ending chill.
Jay pulled back another blanket, she tucked it closer to the foot of the bed and used the other parts of Gillion’s sheets to fill in the gaps between the top and bottom of the bed. Her sheets were used to arrange inside the walls of the nest, tucking them close to make a sort of burrow.
It was a small nest and she used what she could to satiate the part of her brain that was itching for this.
Her mind felt better as she sprawled over the blankets, spreading her wings as far as she could drape them over the bed. She wormed her way underneath the sheets that she had arranged and pressed her face into the pillow. It was content, and there was a pleasant hum in her mind that she had forgotten about a long time ago.
There was still something missing, however. Something that Jay didn’t exactly know how to figure out.
She rearranged the nest a few more times, none of that helping with the feeling that there was just one thing off.
Chip looked up from his hammock the longer that Jay kept shifting around on her cot.
“What are you doing?” He asked, raising an eyebrow. Jay froze up, her eyes widening.
She had honestly hoped that Chip had fallen asleep.
“It’s…” she fumbled, her feathers fluffed up with the growing embarrassment that spread a warm blush to her ears. She didn’t even know how to remotely explain what she was doing to Chip who was looking at her with confusion.
“Trying to get comfortable…” She muttered, her voice rising in pitch as she tried to think of a more convincing lie. She swallowed down a chirp.
“Looks like a nest,” Chip huffed out a snort, leaning back in the hammock, using his leg to push against the wall, causing it to rock.
Jay didn’t respond, she sunk deeper into the blankets and hoped that was the end of the conversation. Chip, however, seemed to take her silence as an answer.
“Wait, is it?” he suddenly sat up.
Jay looked away, she picked at the hem of one of the sheets and coughed awkwardly into her elbow.
“If I say yes will you make fun of me?” Jay asked in a small voice.
“Only if this isn’t a sensitive situation,” Chip responded, “and even then I won’t mean it.”
“It’s a nest…” Jay admitted, she worried at her lower lip, hiding behind her bangs.
“I didn’t know you did… that…” Chip furrowed his eyebrows, he looked and sounded confused. Obviously, he hadn’t met someone with wings before, not that Jay had ever either outside of her family. But that still didn’t mean she knew what it meant, or what any of the weird instincts that her family had meant.
“I’ve outgrown it…” she looked down at the sad nest she’d made, knowing full well that she hadn’t in fact outgrown it as she thought. If she had, she wouldn’t be sitting here right now.
“Is that like one of your bird things?” Chip asked, tilting his head to the side.
“Don’t say it like that… that makes it sound weird…” Jay clenched her hands into fists, she refused to look over at Chip, instead, focusing on a spot on the wall where she noticed a particularly dark knot in the wood.
“Sorry…” She heard Chip jump down from his hammock, his bare feet hitting against the wood. He approached the cot with an air of curiosity, Jay barely glanced over her shoulder, a surge of anxiety causing her feathers to ruffle even more.
“I’m just looking,” Chip held his hands up in front of himself in a placating gesture as he noticed Jay’s suspicious gaze.
Watching Chip examine her nest made Jay feel insecure about the sad state of it. But it also alerted her mind to what felt off about the nest still, not that she could ever bear the embarrassment of asking.
“It seems kind of cold still,” Chip tilted his head to the side, shifting his weight from foot to foot, “do you want my sheets as well?”
Jay shook her head, she fidgeted with her hands. She did want Chip’s sheets, the thought sounded very pleasant in the side of her brain that was enjoying this comfort. But she didn’t want to take them away from Chip who still needed them to sleep tonight.
“Well, if you need something, I guess you can let me know?” Chip shrugged and furrowed his eyebrows, “if this is some… thing that you have to do… I don’t really understand it but y’know, as long as you’re comfortable.”
“Thanks, Chip…” Jay muttered, she folded her wings behind her back, “Actually uh… I…”
“Hm?”
Jay felt another chirp in the back of her throat and she waited before saying anything until the feeling faded. She figured she’d die of embarrassment if she let one slip like that in front of Chip.
“Can you… stay… here?” She didn’t know how she should word her request. What she even truly wanted.
Did she want Chip in her nest? Did she just want him nearby so she knew where he was? Did she want someone to be in close contact? Did she want contact?
“Stay here?” Chip asked.
“Like…” she shifted, patting the mattress, “like… here …”
“Am I allowed inside the nest?” Chip took a timid step back, “I thought that this was a personal thing?”
“It would help…” Jay whispered, “I think.”
“Oh…” Chip looked over his shoulder, he seemed to be debating his options, Jay didn’t blame him for hesitating. “I mean… sure? I guess.”
Jay scooted to the side, her cot and the nest were nowhere near big enough for two people, but Chip climbed over the side of the nest, sitting down next to Jay. He folded his hands in his lap. His eyes darted around.
“Now what?” Chip asked.
“I didn’t think I’d get this far…” Jay muttered, “I don’t know…”
“Do you want to lay down?”
Jay furrowed her eyebrows but nodded. She shuffled so that Chip had more room to situate himself as the two of them struggled to lay down in the too-small nest. She could make a bigger one if she had more supplies and more room. But this would have to do, she was not going to make this a regular occurrence. No matter what happened, she didn’t think that she could handle the shame for more than one night.
Chip hesitated before wrapping his arms around Jay and pulling her close. Jay let out a small breath, laying her head on his chest and burrowing her face in the crook of his neck. She draped one wing over his torso even though the small feathers barely covered him.
A pleasant hum started in the back of her mind. A warmth that she hadn’t felt in years blooming deep within her chest and she couldn’t stop the light chirp that escaped her lips. Chip let out a huff of laughter, his one hand moved to Jay’s back, just below the base of her wings. He didn’t touch them and left his grip loose enough that Jay could easily get out of it if she wanted.
She didn’t think she did.
A few minutes of contentment passed when the feeling of something being missing rooted itself back in Jay’s mind. She peeked her head up, looking around the room as she heard shuffling.
Gillion stood up from his cot, he looked at the two of them with confusion, his and Jay’s eyes meeting.
She lifted a hand, untucking it from where she had been clinging to Chip. She waved Gillion over. Gillion tilted his head to the side, curiosity filling his gaze. He looked better than before, the effects of the storm finally having worn off.
“Can you lay down?” Jay asked quietly, Chip had fallen asleep and she didn’t want to wake him.
“What is going on here?” Gillion asked.
“I… can I explain later?” She picked at a loose thread. Gillion licked his lips and after another request, sat down on the bed. It took a bit more coaxing to get him to lie down. Jay was practically squeezed in between the two of them, she shifted so that she had the room to drape her other wing over Gillion. He flinched at the sudden movement, a hint of insecurity flashing across his face.
“Sorry,” Jay found herself muttering but she couldn’t muster up the energy to move her wing. Gillion frowned but it didn’t seem like an overly negative frown.
Unlike Chip who liked being modest when they cuddled, Gillion put his hand over the feathers of Jay’s wing. He didn’t move the feathers or really his fingers very much, but it was a weight that Jay was aware of.
She shuddered, burrowing herself deeper between the two of them. Her thoughts were fuzzy and a different kind of exhaustion settled over the room.
Jay promised herself that she wouldn’t indulge in this after today. She would keep her composure and act her age. She made that promise to herself right before she drifted off to sleep, unsure if she’d even be able to keep her word.
Maybe she hadn’t grown out of her instincts as she thought.