Chapter Text
It was obnoxiously early in the morning, and Jim would never have left their bed if it wasn't for their turn to steer.
There was no one at the wheel, and Jim said a word, which their grandma would be quite shocked to hear if it wasn't her who taught them that.
The sun was just high enough to make things visible without straining the eyes, and Jim immediately noticed something in the water. It quickly sank back down, though.
Jim walked up to the board to try and get a better look, in case it was something either dangerous or useful, and stepped right into something.
Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a pile of clothes. Jim easily deduced that they were Archie's, the main evidence being the pair of absurd leather trousers, each leg as wide as a dress they wore as a kid.
“Hey!” they heard from overboard.
It, obviously, was Archie, swimming in the sea, the answer to an earlier question.
“Come join me!” she shouted, her head bouncing above water. “The temperature is perfecto! No sharks! Some pretty little fish though! Tried to catch them! Failed!”
“Are you drunk?” Jim asked, slightly uncomfortable with such intensity at this hour.
“Nope!”
“You left the wheel! I don't want to hide from Blackbeard all over the ship after he finds out we are off course because of you!”
“Fuck you!” was the energetic and gleeful reply, and Archie dived down.
Jim scoffed, tried to kick the clothes, missed and came back to the wheel.
In five minutes they heard Archie jumping over the board.
“Okay, I think I'm done now,” she said from behind their back. “Should've joined while you could, but that's your loss, because now I'm going away, and you are here alone with the wheel you can't abandon.”
“Listen!” Jim yelled, turning around, “What the fuck’s with you toda—”
The rest of the potential insult hung unfinished in the air, because Jim stammered, seeing Archie's naked frame.
She was holding her stuff under one of her arms, which were both, naturally, still encircled with the leather bands. Her bronze skin glistened with salt water and was covered with goosebumps in peculiar places. The wet hair looked even more black than usual and got pulled tight by the water to the back except for a couple of strands that crawled over her shoulder in a shape of lightning towards…
“Oi! Hey!” Archie waved her hand in front of Jim's eyes. “Snap out of it!”
“Huh?” Jim uttered.
“Are you okay? You were just standing here, with those vacant eyes people get when someone's just slammed them on the back of their head.”
“No, I'm fine…”
“Jeez, can it be sunstroke? This early? Nah.”
Jim blinked twice and, apparently, for the first time they turned around.
“Oh, oh!” Archie gasped. “Is this because of these two?” she juggled her boobs with her hands. The clothes fell down. “Shit. Damn, please don't tell me you haven't seen boobs before. You've got two yourself, mate!”
“Pfft, totally,” Jim said, a little too forced, trying to urge their blood back into the rest of the body instead of cheeks and some other places.
Meanwhile, Archie was already almost gone.
“Oh yesss, gotta eat an orange,” she sang, disappearing into the insides of the ship, leaving Jim confused and alone at the wheel.