It remains amazing, honestly, how defiant it feels to be intimate on a ship. There's something half-blurry at the edges about feeling the motion under his feet and the old tang in the air, perhaps; some piece of him that knows he's been standing straighter and half-expecting old ghosts to appear.

It adds a wonderful haze of happy delirium to stand against those memories. He's fallen in love all over again with kissing Archie at the helm, with shouting across the waves, with laughing and gasping carelessly through the night. Now, here, as dawn finishes creeping belowdeck to meet them, with the freedom to gasp audibly and let his voice choke contentedly around Archie's name.

It's an incredibly lovely way to start the day.

He waits until he can barely stand. He gasps over and over as his throat grows nearly hoarse with moaning. He lets himself nearly buckle under the attention being lavished on him.

He has to tap at his husband's shoulder before the end, barely trusting himself to let go of the counter. "--bed?"

The coffee can wait. He can wait. This is always so much better when it's together.