Reading aloud to Alecto is an unexpected pleasure upon an accumulation of pleasures, the ways they'd started to fit around each other in their shared lives. His salary as lighthouse keeper kept them in necessities and supplies, but it was Alecto's earnest efforts and hard work that made the best use of what they had. It was painfully enticing, coming home to a warm hearth and food and a welcoming smile, the comfort of another person's presence and company.

It made it so easy to forget that it was something coerced.

He finishes the next chapter, and slips a piece of paper between the pages to mark their place. Though they slept in the same bed - for reasons of practicality, of course - they had done nothing other than sleep, with perhaps a little more contact to share warmth on chilly nights. Alecto's reputation had already been strange in town, but Joshua's own standing, the formal code of conduct he was expected to abide by, kept the rumors to whispers rather an open roar. As long as the beacon was lit to guide ships to safety, as long as a storm didn't equate loss of life, as long as none of his duties were neglected, they had that cover of respectability, at least, whatever the townsfolk might make of the appearance.

It would all be moot, anyway, once (if) they found Alecto's stolen coat, and he disappeared back beneath the waves, where he belonged, leaving Joshua and the rest of the human world behind.

...Perhaps there was one more thing he could try.

He looks at Alecto, curled up under their shared quilts, and leans in to press his nose against his cheek, the little unique intimacy that had developed between them, that Joshua had started to come to treasure more than any other form of contact they shared.

"Thank you," he murmurs, soft and quiet. "For everything."