Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The tavern fire had burned low by the time the trio stumbled out onto the cobblestones, their boots scuffing and tripping over one another in laughter that would have seemed out of place coming from officers of His Majesty’s Navy—except in Portsmouth, at half past midnight, such things were common enough.

The innkeeper had shrugged helplessly. "One room left, gentlemen. One bed, large enough for three, if you're friendly."

"Friendly," Archie Kennedy had repeated with a crooked smile and a brow cocked. "We’ve shared worse, haven’t we?"

Hornblower had nodded curtly, cheeks already pink with drink and—perhaps—a flicker of something else. Bush, ever steady, merely said, “Better than a hammock.”

They’d stumbled up the narrow stairs, bumping shoulders and laughing louder than officers ought to.

Now, hours later, the room was dark but for the dying orange glow of the hearth, and all three were under the same thick blanket. Boots discarded, coats off, trousers gone, shirts rumpled. They lay close. Very close.

Archie, caught in the middle, couldn’t sleep.

Bush had gone first. Sleep came easy to him—he drank like a man who’d earned it and dozed like one too.

To his left, he lay flat on his back, one arm stretched carelessly above his head, the other rested loosely against Archie’s side, heavy and warm, slowly seeping into Archie’s ribs.

He slept like a man with no fear of the world, mouth open and his jaw tilted, as if he had fallen asleep mid-thought. His broad chest rose and fell like a tide. There was always something about Bush—something grounding. His presence could silence a storm, and Archie, who had once felt adrift in every room, every mess deck and wardroom, had found in Bush a strange kind of anchorage.

Bush was warm against him. Solid. Reliable. Always there, like the sea itself. Kennedy had once thought Bush was unreadable, all stony features and silence, but sharing a ship with someone for long enough peeled back layers no storm ever could. He had learned the shape of Bush’s kindness in the smallest gestures—how he watched Horatio like a second-in-command should watch a man: protectively, not possessively. Archie had never seen him look at himself that way. Not until lately.

Lately, Bush had started watching both of them. And Archie… had let himself hope.

He turned his head slightly and found himself gazing at the line of Bush’s jaw; there was a freckle just beneath his chin Archie had never noticed before.

Horatio had succumbed last, though not before Kennedy had caught the soft flicker of his eyes drifting shut. Hornblower always fought sleep as if it were a surrender, but the drink had loosened him, and the comfort of the room—the safety—must have chipped away at his usual reserve.

Lying to his right, turned on his side and one hand curled beneath his cheek, his breath was steady—slow, shallow, the rhythm of someone well and truly asleep. He could see the smallest details—the fine shadow of stubble along Horatio’s jaw, the ghost of a smile still resting on his lips, the curve of lashes far too long for a man so grave in daylight. The lines that usually cut across his brow had smoothed. He looked younger like this. Softer. Vulnerable.

His curls were loose and slightly damp at the temples. His lips were parted. His shirt had tugged open just enough for Archie to glimpse the way his collarbone rose and fell with each breath.

God, he was beautiful.

Not in the way Archie had once admired girls—in the marketplace, on balconies, half-glimpsed in candlelight—but in a way that made his chest ache, made him want to reach out and touch the soft skin of Horatio’s throat, to feel the pulse there.

He did not touch.

Archie didn’t let himself think that too often. It was dangerous, like climbing out on the bowsprit in high winds—thrilling, but likely to end in ruin. Still, here, with the scent of old rum and wool and warmth around them, with Horatio’s knee resting lightly against his beneath the blanket, Archie allowed the thought to bloom.

He is beautiful. And I love him.

Archie sighed despite himself and turned his head away.

Between the heat of Horatio to one side and the weight of Bush to the other, Archie was all but cocooned. And yet, his eyes stayed wide.

He’d never said anything. About what he felt.

About how sometimes, when Hornblower frowned in thought, he wanted to kiss the worry line between his brows. About how Bush’s hands looked when he rolled his sleeves up on deck—rough, capable, oddly graceful. About how much it meant to him to be between them, as he always seemed to be—at sea, in battle, in this bed.

He didn’t know if they knew. Did Horatio feel the same pull when their fingers brushed over maps? Did Bush notice how close he leaned when Archie laughed? Or were these drunken thoughts—romantic fancies, stirred by proximity and the memory of near-death so often shared?

Archie bit his lip and closed his eyes, trying to breathe slowly. Trying to relax. It was too warm under the blanket. The bed was too soft in places, too firm in others. But Archie didn’t care. He lay still between them, eyes open, and tried to breathe quietly.

Their bodies were touching him now in more than passing ways. Bush’s thigh pressed against his own. Hornblower’s hand, half-curled in sleep, rested just barely on Archie’s stomach. Their heat was soaked into the sheets, into his skin.

He was completely enveloped.

He swallowed thickly.

Bush’s mouth twitched in his sleep—perhaps dreaming of gun decks or distant shores—rolling onto his side. Hornblower shifted slightly, breath catching on a snore, then went still again, his fingers brushing Archie’s shirt.

They didn’t know how close they were. Or maybe they did. Maybe something deeper, older, unspoken had made them shift in their sleep, pull toward him like ships to a common current. As if even in dreams, they sought him out.

Archie blinked at the rafters above. His throat ached.

He had wanted this. Not the drunkenness or the noise or even the shared bed, but this—this moment of stillness, of being between them, with them. Not second to Horatio or half-heard beside Bush, but among them. Folded into their lives, even if neither man said it aloud. Especially because they didn’t say it aloud. That was the most Hornblower thing of all.

Bush was close.

Too close.

Archie could feel every ridge of the man’s chest pressed against him, feel the subtle shift of his breathing—low, patient, endless. It wasn’t snoring, not exactly; it was deeper than that. A hum, a quiet growl that seemed to vibrate directly into Archie’s chest. It was as if Bush’s exhale started in his ribs and travelled outward through his body—and then into Archie’s. It shook through him in gentle pulses. Not jarring, not loud. Just constant. A living presence wrapped around him.

Bush’s arm had also fallen across Archie’s middle. That weight had settled like an anchor. His hand, resting just above Archie’s waistband, lay with careless familiarity—the heat of it burned. Every time Bush exhaled, the sound rolled into Archie’s bones and stayed there. He felt it in the curve of his back, in the pit of his stomach. It made him ache in ways he couldn’t name.

As if drawn by an invisible string, Horatio too drew in closer. Still facing the centre of the bed, Archie realised their foreheads were mere inches apart. He was so close Archie could feel the rise and fall of each breath.

Their legs had tangled without design. One of Horatio’s knees settled atop Archie’s thigh, and his toes occasionally bumped Archie’s shin, soft as feathers. The back of a long, clever hand brushed the skin where Archie’s shirt had ridden up. His skin tingled everywhere they touched him.

But it was his breath that undid him. It touched Archie’s face with unrelenting tenderness—each inhale a whisper across his lips, each exhale a sigh on his neck. It was maddening. Sensual. Kind.

Archie had turned slightly to face him, just enough to see his face in the dull red glow from the embers across the room. Horatio looked utterly at peace. His mouth, so often a tight line of resolve, was slack with breath—open just enough to let out that warm, rhythmic breeze that danced along Archie’s throat.

He was beautiful.

He looked like someone who had never fired a broadside. Like someone who didn’t carry the weight of two dozen men’s fates in his hands every day. He looked like the boy Archie had first met all those years ago on the Justinian—except softer now, warmer, shaped by years of loyalty and grief and courage. And he slept so innocently as if he had no idea what his nearness was doing. As if lying this close to Archie—breathing across his neck, pressing his knee atop Archie’s thighs—meant nothing at all.

He was hard. Achingly so.

He could never say it. Couldn’t say that some nights, when he lay in his own hammock, he imagined what it would be like to wake up with Horatio’s nose pressed to the back of his neck. Or that he sometimes watched Bush tie off lines just to admire the curve of his forearms.

Couldn’t say that he had once dreamed they would hold him like this—not out of accident or need, but because they wanted to. Horatio’s fingers had curled more securely now, just under Archie’s ribs and Bush’s arm rose and fell with each breath, strong and slow, his chest firm against Archie’s side.

Their bodies wanted him.

Even if they didn’t know it.

His hips twitched—unbidden—and he bit back a groan.

It was the warmth. The pressure. The unbearable intimacy of it all.

Their bodies weren’t just near—they fit against him. They moulded to the line of his own form as if sleep had erased boundaries. Hornblower’s brow nearly touched his own. Bush’s mouth was close to his neck, his breath ghosting hot across his skin.

He could smell them: Horatio’s soap—simple, sharp, and clean—and Bush’s quiet earthiness, the scent of worn linen and wind. Archie was wrapped in them. Surrounded.

His pulse thudded low in his belly. He should have rolled away. Said something. Made a joke. It would have been easy—“Are we all so fond of cuddling now?”—but he couldn’t. Because he didn’t want to. Because every nerve was lit up with feeling.

It wasn’t just arousal. Not just the thick, burning awareness of flesh on flesh, of warmth and pressure and the maddening friction of bodies asleep and unknowing.

It was the yearning underneath it.

Archie had loved Horatio for years. Quietly. Fiercely. He had watched him rise through the ranks with clenched hands and a heart full of pride and something sharper. He had longed to kiss the ink-stained tips of Horatio’s fingers, to lean against his shoulder and be held.

And Bush—Bush had crept in slowly, like tide over sand. At first just respect, then affection, then something deeper. Something rougher. Bush, who spoke rarely but looked at Archie like he saw him. Who had stood by his side without question. Who now slept with his arm heavy across Archie’s middle, fingers just brushing the slope of his hipbone.

How was he supposed to lie still?

Archie shut his eyes, just for a moment. And immediately regretted it. The dark made it worse.

With his eyes closed, the other senses sharpened: Bush’s breath rumbling up his spine, Horatio’s exhale tracing down the line of his jaw. Their heat filled the blankets, clung to him like another skin. It was no longer just closeness; it was invasion. A soft, relentless claiming of space.

His arousal hadn’t gone. It had only settled deeper, lower, turning from a sharp ache into a throbbing, quiet hunger. Not just sexual—though that was part of it—but need. To be touched. To be held back. To be seen.

Archie felt as if he were burning silently between two innocents.

He shifted slightly—only slightly—and that small motion drew Bush’s arm tighter across him. Horatio’s hips pressed a little harder against the line of Archie’s thigh and beneath it, through the thin barrier of a cotton nightshirt, something unmistakable: the gentle press of Horatio’s genitals against his leg.

It froze him.

Not obscene, not aggressive—just there, as natural as breath. Soft warmth. Barely a shift of cloth between them. The kind of closeness that only came when the body no longer censored itself.

Archie’s pulse thudded in his ears and his own manhood struggled in response. Horatio had no idea what he was doing to him.

A quiet gasp escaped him.

Still, neither stirred. They slept like they trusted him. God, that trust.

Archie pressed his eyes shut and bit his lip. He couldn’t touch them. Not really. Not like he wanted to. His hands ached with the desire to run through Horatio’s hair, to trace the lines of Bush’s chest. To take what was not his.

So instead, he lay there, trembling faintly, caught in the unbearable stillness of it.

Horatio’s face was right there. Their noses nearly touched. And yet Horatio’s expression remained unbothered, breath still ghosting out in those maddening little sighs.

Archie stared at the fullness of his bottom lip. He wanted to kiss it. Just once. Not out of lust—but to see what it felt like to touch something so gentle. Something so close.

His chest hurt with it.

And before he could talk himself out of it, before fear could claw its way into his chest again, he leaned forward—just slightly—and pressed his lips to Horatio’s.

A feather kiss. No more than a breath.

Soft. Trembling.

I love you, he thought.

He pulled away before even a second had passed. Horatio, in recognition, stirred briefly bringing his lips together to hum deep in the back of his throat and bucking his hips a fraction closer to Archie’s side. For a moment all Archie could feel was the soft firmness of his stomach and the gentle, unmistakable press of his body lower down—unashamed, unhidden, resting easily before their legs had tangled.

Archie swallowed. Hard. Just beneath the hem of his shirt, there was a single bead of sweat trembling there like a secret.

He didn’t move.

Couldn’t move.

Archie had watched men die. Had watched comrades bleed, scream, beg for mercy, go silent forever. He had seen things that stole sleep from stronger men than he. And yet nothing—not gunfire, not the stink of black powder, not even the crack of sails in a storm—had unravelled him like this: Horatio’s mouth barely an inch away, and Bush’s arm across his hips.

And neither of them knew what they were doing to him.

Or perhaps they did, and chose not to show it. That was worse. That was unbearable.

Minutes and maybe hours seemed to pass, the passage of time too fast and too slow all at once. Archie dangled in a state of wired arousal punctuated by each breath and touch by the men either side of him, each acting as a ballast that prevented him from fully sinking into the deepest depths of depravity.

Archie Kennedy, in the darkness, let out the breath he didn’t know he was holding.

He closed his eyes.

The teasing of the bodies pressed into him had worn him out and whether he wanted it or not the alcohol he had consumed hours earlier felt heavy in his limbs. And for the first time in a long time, he let himself believe—for one night—that he was wanted.

He lay in the cradle of their bodies, wrapped in a heat not born of lust alone, but something far more unbearable:

Affection.

He smiled, lips still tingling from that stolen kiss.

And slowly—bit by bit—sleep finally came.

Chapter Text

The years had softened them.

The sea had taken its due—time, blood, bone—but it had also given something in return: a bond forged so deeply that it no longer needed hiding.

Tonight, the wind scratched gently at the shutters of the little house perched on the coast, and the fire in the hearth crackled low. The three men lay close in the wide, generously built bed—broad enough for comfort, narrow enough for closeness.

They didn’t drink as much now. Their appetites had changed. But their traditions hadn’t. Three cups of brandy. A familiar bed. And the steady, trusted presence of one another.

Archie lay in the middle. It was always Archie. He liked it there. And they liked him there.

Horatio was already asleep, head nestled close beneath Archie’s jaw. His arm curved around Archie’s waist, hand resting with the ease of long habit over his stomach. His hair, now streaked with silver, curled softly against Archie’s collarbone.

On the other side, Bush—William, now less stiff and more affectionate—pressed close against Archie’s back, one leg tangled over Archie’s, his hand resting squarely atop Horatio’s where they overlapped.

Years had passed. Decades. There were no ships to command anymore, no cannon fire in the night, no war to distract them from the truth they had always known. And in this quiet age, they had stopped pretending.

Archie was awake but he didn’t need to hide it. He lay still, not because he feared being caught, but because he enjoyed this: the breathing, the warmth, the weight of the men who had walked beside him through every shadow and light.

He looked at Horatio—his dear, proud Horatio—whose mouth was slightly open in sleep, brow still creased faintly even in rest. The old worry lines never faded, but they softened now when he smiled. Archie had worked hard over the years to coax those smiles out more often.

Horatio looked older now, yes, but gentler. The angular sharpness of youth had given way to a quiet dignity. And his grip around Archie’s waist, even in sleep, was steady.

On the other side, William murmured in his sleep—a low sound—and nuzzled closer, his breath warm on the back of Archie’s neck.

Archie smiled to himself.

The old seaman had been the last to give in to closeness. But once he had, he had given wholly. Quiet devotion. Steady hands. Fierce loyalty that asked for nothing in return.

Now, William’s arm pulled snug across Archie’s ribs, anchoring them all together.

They breathed in rhythm. One heartbeat. Three men, pressed close, still, after all this time.

Archie lifted one hand and gently ran his fingers through Horatio’s curls.

Horatio stirred, his eyelids fluttering open with the familiar slowness of age. His eyes, still dark and intelligent, met Archie’s.

He didn’t speak.

He didn’t need to.

Archie leaned in and kissed him—slowly, deliberately, without fear. A kiss given not in secrecy, not stolen, but offered openly.

Horatio sighed into it, his lips curling faintly. “Still awake?” he murmured.

“Mmm,” Archie said. “Wouldn’t miss this.”

From behind, Bush groaned softly. “Talking again,” he muttered, sleep-thick. “Some of us are trying to rest.”

Archie chuckled. “You’re the one who always wakes us with your blasted snoring.”

“I’ve earned the right,” Bush grumbled, though his arm only tightened around them both.

Horatio turned his head slightly, pressing a kiss into Archie’s neck. “Let him sleep. He won’t stay grumpy for long.”

“No,” Archie said fondly. “He never does.”

Bush was already half-asleep again, mumbling something unintelligible as his hand settled once more over Horatio’s.

They lay in silence for a while longer, wrapped in warmth, sea air filtering gently through the cracked window. The smell of salt. The softness of flannel. The hush of wind over roof tiles.

Three old sailors.

Three old friends.

Three men who had once touched in fear and hope, in longing and secrecy—now touching in comfort, in certainty.

No one would come knocking.

No orders would be shouted.

No ship would set sail in the morning.

Only this.

The fire dying down.

The two hearts on either side of Archie Kennedy, steady as ever.

He closed his eyes.

Horatio’s hand squeezed his.

Bush’s breath deepened at his shoulder.

And in the quiet, Archie smiled.

Home, at last.