Raleigh drew in a breath as Raines face, once again, was so incredibly close to her own. She blinked a few times, her eyes moving from his eyes to his mouth to his eyes again, and for a moment she thought she was going to close the miniscule gap between the two. Instead, she breathed out quickly and turned away without saying anything hopping down off the table. She busied herself gathering up the supplies she had used to clean and dress his wounds, going to put the needle and thread back in their respective places.

She turned back to Raines from the drawer. ”I’m going to call it a night. Long day,” she said quietly, though the tone of her voice made it rather clear that she had many other things she had wanted to say. With that, she walked back to the table, grabbing her hat, and then towards the door, though when her hand found the handle, she paused. After a moment she turned back around and looked at Raines. ”No, you know what? I have some things to say to you,” she said. She didn’t sound angry or upset, but more serious than anything. Now seemed as good a time as any to say the things to him she had been thinking.

”This keeps happening, and you don’t seem to care - or maybe you do care! I don’t know what the hell to think any more,” she said, though she backtracked after a moment, realizing that she sounded utterly incoherent at first. ”Do you know how easy it would have been for me to kiss you just then?” she asked, looking him dead in the eye. ”God knows I want to - but I’m not going to. I won’t,” she said sternly, as though she were really telling herself that and not Raines. ”Ugh,” she said, clearly not sure how to proceed with the conversation. She tossed her hat down on the chair nearest the door in frustration, walking pointedly over to a cabinet and taking another bottle of rum, uncorking it and taking a large swig before walking back to her position by the door.

”You don’t get it, do you?” she asked, shaking her head and laughing quietly, though she did not find the situation amusing. She held the bottle of rum out, shaking it in front of her a little bit. ”It wasn’t just that night we planned today’s raid, no,” she said, looking at him for a moment before looking away. ”I want to kiss you, I want to do more than that, but… I can’t because you’re so fucking difficult to read!” she exclaimed, pointing a finger at him.

”You would think, after the time I have spent on this boat, I’d have a better idea of what you were thinking, but no,” she said. ”It’s like your thoughts are written in a different language. I’ve told myself, ‘Raleigh, if Raines had any inkling of you in that manner he’d have done something about it by now’ - but you haven’t, have you?” She dropped her hand to her side in exasperation, and she leaned back against the door.

”And before you go there, no, I was not trying to seduce you that night,” she said. ”I’ve never tried. I wouldn’t. I have certainly wanted to, but… you are, well, you,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. ”Every time we’re at a tavern and I see you with one of those barmaids, I keep thinking, ‘that could be me,’” she said softly.

She grew silent - after all, she had just practically told Raines how she had been feeling for quite some time. Her eyes dropped to the floor and she slouched back against the door, taking a drink of the rum. Though she had been drinking, she was in her right mind, and it had just been time for her to get all of it out in the open. After a moment she stood up straight again. ”And don’t you dare think you can hold this over my head! I’m not going to be all awkward around you - I won’t do it, I’m not one of those needy little women that requires validation,” she said, in an almost accusatory glance.

Throughout her ranting, she noticed Raines had remained generally silent. This worried her slightly. She knew she had taken a chance in revealing to him what he very well could have already known, but she had to do it. ”Well? Will you at least say something?” she said, looking at him with concern.

The atmosphere in the cabin took a dramatic shift, even Raines was aware of that as Raleigh turned away and hopped down from the desk. Raines watched her as she silently put everything back before coming back for her hat. A long day? How he knew that was a kid of crap, this woman could keep herself up all night if she wanted to. She walked to the door and as Raines was about to finish off the bottle, she stopped. She turned around to him and the tone of her voice as she spoke made it clear that this wasn’t a joking matter that she wanted to say.

And everything was laid bare, was it ever. He frustrations made clear as her hat was tossed to the nearby chair and she grabbed another bottle of rum from his stash. Raines just stood there as she expressed everything she wanted to, and made it clear in words how she felt. The bottle that he had. Even drinking out of just dangling off the edge of his desk between his fingers by the neck.

Finally it came time for him to speak, after she had asked him to say something. He brought the bottle up to his lips and finished it off before slamming it down upon the desktop. ”So that is how it is, is it? Ye can’t read yer ol’ captains thoughts or emotions?” His thoughts were swarming his head as normally he was not use to giving talks like this, as he usually had no reason to in the first place. ”Mayhaps ye should think about things before you let that mouth of hers go flying. Things that should be plain as the days sun” it was now time for him to play his hand since she laid hers down.

”Ye asked how many pirates steal by land, not many eh? Well how many, go back to rescue fools who get thrown behind iron?” His voice tone was slightly irritated by was all directed at her. ”What captain also would allow a crew member to barge into their quarters constantly and very seldom punish em for doing so? To kill rare crewmembers out of revenge for taking advantage of them, mind you I would have done it myself but I let ya.” He walked over closer to where she was and pointed down at the bottle of rum in her hands

”I have seen captains throw men overboard, strand them for even taking something that belonged to them. Yet again, here he are.” He spoke out before turning away. Realizing that she had made a jab with him having a little pleasure fun with the barmaids at port got him more heated, for a different reason. ”Ya wanted to be the barmaids, in my bed for a single night then tossed away do ya? I just use them to get my cock wet, do ya really think ya want to be treated like that or deserved to be treated like that?” he glanced over his shoulder at her. ”Ya rose through the shit, and landed herself as my second cause you aren’t a weak woman. I didn’t give ya the rank cause you bore a bare of tits. You are no mere barmaid in my eyes ye understand.”

He didn’t know if his words struck her where she wanted or even if she understood, sure she was smarter than rest of the idiots on board but she shared the same thing with Raines. They both were bloody bullheaded individuals. He then turned back around and walked over to her and placed a hand over her shoulder up against the door. Compared to him she was small. ”Also, don’t ya think I could have easily stopped you from dragging me about?” he leaned over looking straight into her eyes.

He didn’t want to hear her response to his points. He leaned down and planted his lips upon hers, forgetting that he still had the cut on his lower lip which sent a slight sting through him. He knew this would be one way to shut her up, and he should have just done it while they were on the desk.

When Raines had begun to respond, Raleigh realized a lot of the points he was making had been glaring her in the face all along, yet she had been so sure that she was nothing more than another crewmember to him that she had been blind to it. As he went on, particularly at the bit about the barmaids, Raleigh’s cheeks reddened and she cast her gaze down at the floor for a moment – not so much in embarrassment of what she had said, but more from the connotations the phrasing held. She kept her gaze cast downwards as he continued on, taking another drink of the rum and setting the bottle down on the small table near the exit, only chancing a look up when he told her that she was no mere barmaid, not to him. She was unsure for a moment what that meant, but straightened up with her back pressed against the door as he advanced on her.

For a moment, she had been unsure what he was going to do. When he braced himself against the door with his hand, she thought for sure he was going to trap her there so he could chastise her for daring to speak to him in such a manner. Instead, he made another point, lowering his gaze to her, his face once again hovering very, very near her own. She was trying to figure out what to say to him when Raines closed the distance between them, his mouth meeting hers and taking her by surprise. For a split second she was still, but almost immediately she found herself letting it happen, and in moments she was closing her eyes and meeting the kiss back, though on the inside she was in disbelief. Was this really happening? She felt Raines shift his body so the distance between them had closed more – she was on her tiptoes in an attempt to close the gap in height between them now - that answered her question – yes, this truly was happening.

Her hands raised from her sides and found their way first to Raines’ shoulders, before snaking up around his neck, her fingers brushing through the hair on the back of his head, almost in an attempt to pull herself closer to him, although there was no distance left to close. She felt his hand drop from the door behind her and find the back of her head, fingers entangled in her hair. Somewhere in the tumultuousness of the kiss, Raleigh had jumped up and wrapped her legs around Raines, one of his arms moving beneath her to support her as he pressed her back into the wall. A few moments later they parted, though Raleigh’s eyes were locked onto those of Raines, her lips still slightly parted in surprise as he gently lowered her back down to a standing position. There was a look in her eyes that seemed to be questioning the situation as a whole – not in an entirely bad way, but more curiosity. Where was this going to lead? Did this mean something now? Were they both just riding the high of success from the day and would come to regret this later? Well, she knew that she wouldn’t, but as for Raines, she could not say.

Her train of thought trailed off, however, as her gaze shifted down to Raines’ mouth once more and they again crashed into one another, Raines having leaned down to close the gap once more. Her hands started around his neck, but soon they were dragging down his chest between them until they had found the buckles holding his trousers up, which she began to unfasten. It took her only a moment to undo them, and she had just began to slip a hand down below the fabric when a loud, boisterous knocking sound coupled with someone clearly running into the door came from the other side, clearly the crew wanting the captain and presumably Raleigh to return to the festivities on deck. ”Raleigh!  Ya done stitchin’ the captain’s face up, yet, girl?” called Hale from the other side of the door. ”We got a bottle o’ rum out here with ‘is name on it, and a song for ya!”

Raleigh withdrew her hand, as it had not reached its intended position, and the pair broke their lips apart, still very close to one another. She seemed to be short of breath, but who could blame her? Her eyes fixed on Raines for a moment before she turned her head to the side to call back out to Hale. ”Aye, keep your britches on, mate! Just finishing up. That patrolman landed a fair hit on him, rather nasty gash!” she called, keeping her voice as even as possible. She turned back to Raines, who’s expression she could not quite interpret. Raleigh smiled rather simply and looked down with a soft laugh. ”That was either horrible timing or perfect timing, I haven’t decided yet,” she said. She reached up and ran a hand down the side of his face, the side without the newly stitched cut, before sliding away from him and grabbing her hat from the chair, placing it back on top her head. ”Come on, can’t have them wondering what’s taking so long,” she said, retrieving the rum from the table and reaching for the door handle. She stopped, letting out a laugh. ”Mm, might want to fix that before we leave,” she said with a laugh, gesturing toward his undone buckles with the bottle.

The initial reaction Raines had been expecting was her to break away and then either berated him for playing with her some more, like what their conversation had been going on with that or for her to meet him back into the kiss. Luckily enough for him, Raleigh decided not even seconds later to meet his kiss back. He took that as acceptance enough and moved in closer to her, he could feel her rise on her feet to meet his height. Being lost in the moment, he had forgotten how he stood taller than her.

Her arms moved, her hands landing on his shoulders briefly before they wrapped around his neck pulling on him more. As if to easy to struggle on both of them Raleigh and jumped up and wrapped her legs around his waist, as the hand he had been holding himself up ran through her fiery red hair. The sudden shift of both of their bodies caused them to slam up against the door, as he moved another hand underneath her to support her more. The intensity of the kiss raised before they broke off, Raines slowly lowering so she could stand again.

Their eyes met briefly, both of their breathing heavy. Her eyes a look of curiosity in them, he himself was wondering what she was thinking now that he had made the move. His own thought and second to breathe was cut short as he leaned down again and their lips met again. Her hands did not stay around his neck long as her slender fingers moved down his chest before reaching the buckle of his belt. The sound of it jiggling around as she undid it caused him to press into the intensity of the kiss, his hand moving down her back as he felt the tips of her fingers slid down his pants.

And as soon as it all started, it ended…

The crash of something slamming against the door followed by thunderous banging on the wooden door. Her hand withdrew from his trousers and they broke off the kiss as Hale had called the both of them back out from the Cabin. Raleigh yelled back covering up their actions, as Raines slowly closed his eyes and breathed in before the most menacing glare appeared as he stared at the door. ”Someone on th’ shit list, that much is for sure,” Raines growled in response, as her hand brushed the untouched side of his face and she snaked away from beneath him to gather her stuff.

He redid the buckles of his belt as she had pointed about before both of them walked out of the door. Thunderous cheers and clapping broke out as they stepped out, stepping over the crew member who had decided to ram the door probably to force em out. ”Bloody Idiot,” Raines spoke. Hale held out the bottle of rum that was reserved for the captain and Raines walked over to exactly the man that he wanted to see. He swiped the bottle from his hand and wrapped his arm around the man’s neck tightly as the captain held up the bottle.

”Let us drink the night away shall we!!,” He called out to the crew as if nothing had happened in the cabin, but his hold on Hale’s neck tightened as the crew cried out in agreement. Raines bent over, ”Ye had better enjoy the rest of this night, as much as you can my boy.” He said and let go and walked out to the middle of the crowd and pulled the cork of the bottle out with his teeth and raised it again. ”To The Misery’s End!!” He yelled, a small toast to the crew and his eyes met Raleigh’s briefly before he took his drink with the crew. Hale though had the most perplexed look on his face as he rubbed his neck.