"Smiley face pancakes!" Abby, clad in an eggshell blue dress shirt half-unbuttoned, looked down at her plate with a sleepy yet unabashed glee. The kiss she pressed to Ducky's cheek as he placed the plate in her hands was equally clumsy and exuberant.
"Not your ideal breakfast of doughnuts and Caf-Pow, my dear, but something no less fitting," Ducky said, ears reddening, despite the far more blushworthy nature of their gestures and touches the night before.
"Just glad its not black pudding, Duck." Gibbs pushed a familiar red cup into Abby's eager hands, nuzzling below her ear. He was an expert at evading Ducky's glares of mock-indignation, less so at dodging a swift foot under the table.
"It was the one time, Jethro," Ducky said, jabbing at the air with his fork. "And I'll have you know my coffee is entirely drinkable."
"Yeah, not so much." Gibbs curled his fingers around the green and white cardboard, raising the coffee in a jaunty salute before lifting it to his lips. "You've got your strengths, but coffee? Not one of 'em."
"Strengths? Darn right you've got strength." Abby grinned, wiping a drop of syrup from her lips, her other hand dancing up Ducky's thigh. "I mean, I'm still all-" Her shoulders trembled beneath the blue cotton, sparking an equally tingly memory of those shoulders, creamy and bare, pulse fluttering just beneath her collarbone.
"Believe me, I was as surprised as the both of you," Ducky said, his lips quirking in a not-at-all-smug-but-eminently-satisfied smile. "I could have hardly guessed there was a veritable fountain of youth in my bed."
"It's big enough to hide one." Gibbs's fingers curled around his, and the twinge in Ducky's hip - he needed to take Abby's offer of yoga lessons more seriously - faded, washed away by a giddy vigor he didn't think he felt even as a young man. He had enough youthful indiscretions even to make Tony envious, but he hardly regretted this morning or the wondrous, if tiring, night before it.
"Speaking of bed, why aren't we still in it?" Abby nudged Gibbs' shoulder, even as she gave Ducky a look that made it clear she was anything but tired. "I mean, it's Saturday morning – Saturday morning are for-"
"If you say cartoons, I'm afraid I don't have a television upstairs-" One of Abby's fingers, sticky with syrup, interrupted Ducky's protest. He closed his mouth around the delicate black-painted nail, tasting the subtle sweetness of Vermont Fancy and beneath it, the faint citrus notes of bergamot-scented hand soap.
"Don't think she was talking about t.v., Duck," Gibbs pushed himself from his chair, fingers tangling in Abby's frazzled tresses before pulling her to her feet. "I guess we could be a little lazy."
"Oh, perhaps a lie-in is in order." The duo across the table was soon again a trio, arms and hands entangled and intertwined. Ducky's lips brushed against Gibbs, still smelling of salt and cologne, before pressing them against Abby's. His hands clenched around her waist, and he felt Gibbs' hands, in a curious reciprocality, clutching at his hips. A low laugh escaped Ducky's lips, as he bowed his head. "After all, it is a privilege of the young."