He pressed a finger into his mouth, feeling the pulse of throbbing heat just under the skin. Lips curved in a pout, he let his head fall back with a hollow thud against the wooden crate. Sprawled out under the shadows of mountains of storage, he tugged his straw hat over his face with a grunt, finger still cushioned under his tongue.
The door snapped open, bounced off its hinges. Light toppled in, dust particles dancing in diamond form in the air. He could hear his navigator's voice somewhere on the deck, shrilling about the fees for the broken door. He could hear the faint whistle of breath from the doorway, and the waves rapped lightly against the hull of ship, giggling.
Footsteps stamped out a spot next to his head, and the wooden board creaked. A pair of hands dangled just beyond the horizon of the crate, offering a plate lined with strips of sizzling beef.
He nudged his hat away, popped his finger out, mouth open wide just as the plate tipped generously in the direction of his rows of teeth. He barely need to chew, slices easing down his throat in a water slide.
He reached up to those giving hands that still hung above him. Hands that were callused and rough and leathery from the wear of weather. A thumb glided over his finger, still sticky and wet from his saliva, the skin red, swollen from a burn.
"Be careful next time." The voice growled somewhere in the world all the way across the crate.
He laughed.