Kate knew nothing good came of getting drunk in a foreign port. Some of the junior sailors, she noted with a sigh, had yet to learn that lesson.
She was not sober but the wine she sipped while watching Spider was only her third.
"I'm not patching them up," Swain commented dryly beside her, gesturing at where Spider and 2Dads had gathered some of the other junior sailors for a drunken game of bloody knuckles.
Kate hid her smile in her glass. "No sympathy? I'm sure you never did anything as stupid as that."
Swain laughed. "Oh absolutely, I just wasn't ballsy enough to ask the medic to patch me up afterwards." He grinned slyly. "Also, I was fifteen."
They both looked back towards the other table and Kate winced a little in sympathy with the yelp Spider let out, shaking his hand out from where the coin had hit him. "I'm not sure they're that far off." She watched Spider place his hand grimly back on the table as 2Dads crowed in incipient victory.
"Should we stop them?" She glanced over at Swain who shook his head, arms slung easily over the back of the booth. It was nice to see him relaxed, he'd been so tense and drawn during the divorce.
"Nah. They can't do any real damage, just to their knuckles and their pride."
She laughed, shrugging. "Your call, they wouldn't dare come crying to me for sympathy."
Swain shook his head, smiling and she glanced back at the game just in time for Spider to take his penalty. He was drunkenly boastful and she watched, amused as he lined the coin up against the edge of the table and then slid it with as much strength as he could muster.
What she did not expect was the way it would miss 2Dads entirely, flicking off the table and directly into her eye.
The hand she held to her eye was instinctual but she could feel the sting beneath it.
"X." Swain's hands were on her shoulder even as she heard Buffer haul Spider out of his seat with a barked, "Seaman Webb!"
"I'm alright." Kate insisted, her hand still clasped around her eye.
"I'll believe that when you've shown me your eye, Ma'am." Swain's lazy calm had been replaced with firm certainty.
Kate knew he was right and removed her hand, wincing as though the removal allowed in the pain she had been excluding.
Swain leant close, his warmth bleeding onto her skin as he squinted. After a moment he sighed.
"I can't be sure whether there's a cut in this light, follow me, we'll find some better lighting." He offered his hand and she let him pull her up, aiming a scowl at Spider who looked cowed enough under Buffer's tongue lashing she almost felt sorry for him. Her eye throbbed as she stood and she suddenly had a lot less sympathy for him.
Swain kept a hand on her as he led her through the crowded bar, his skin warm and slightly rough against hers. She was glad for it as they emerged into the slightly chilly night.
Kate suppressed a shiver as Swain turned her, crowding her into the light of the alleyway bulb, his hand moving from her arm to the line of her jaw, gently turning it.
"Mmm." He muttered thoughtfully and raised his other hand, gently tracing a finger across the delicate skin beneath her eye. Kate suppressed another shiver, one she knew she could not blame on the chill. She felt his hand still for a moment before it moved again, still gently.
"No cut." His voice was low and soft and his fingers did not stop stroking her skin. "You might bruise though." He did not move closer but his weight shifted, an almost abortive movement.
She met his eyes and she watched as they dipped first to her wound and then lower, to her mouth.
Neither of them said the words but Kate had a moment of surety that they had thought the same ones, "Kiss it better?"
She knew she shouldn't but her focus was on how close his body was and the way his hand spasmed just slightly against her jaw.
She licked her lips.
"Shit!" The door slammed open. "Ma'am, I'm so sorry."
They didn't startle apart but something in Swain's spine straightened and Kate's eyes were suddenly on the wall behind them.
"Swain, is the X okay?" Spider's voice was frantic and Kate blessed and cursed him for his timing.
"No thanks to you Seaman." Swain's voice was stinging with an undercurrent of amusement that she knew Spider wouldn't detect, as drunk as he was.
"Shit. Uh, sorry Ma'am." Spider was trying to stand to attention and failing and Kate sighed, the last of the tension sliding out of her.
"Not quite enough Seaman Webb, but a conversation that's better had tomorrow morning." She grinned at him with all her teeth. "Very early tomorrow morning."
"Ma'am." He tried to salute her, nearly poked himself in the eye and grabbed the door, holding it open.
Swain reached for it, ushering Spider ahead of them, but as she stepped through his hand came to rest on her back, low and deliberate.
For once, Kate didn't think. She leant back.