Catch of the Day

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Chapter One

It was raining this morning. Boralus was dismal and wet, shrouded in the same grey downpour that fogged the sea into the sky, the weather hellbent on drowning the city and all its inhabitants where they stood. This was not a surprise to Mathias Shaw, because it had been raining for days. When it wasn't a viciously stinging torrent it was a constant damp mist that sank its chill deep into Shaw's bones.

Even Stormwind's worst storms had a warmth to them, the city being wedged between the Steppes' volcanic peaks and Stranglethorn's sweltering rainforests, and so having icy drizzle lash horizontally off the ocean and into his face had very limited appeal in its novelty.

"If we can sabotage key locations in their harbour defenses, it would be of great advantage to us," Wyrmbane was saying, his voice hollow in his helm and rain sheeting benignly off his plate armour. Shaw couldn't help but think that there were more agreeable places he could have chosen to conduct this meeting than on deck of the Wind's Redemption, exposed to the endless ocean and its inexorable weather. "But move too soon, and the Zandalari will go on the offensive. We cannot afford that."

A drop of icy rainwater insinuated its way beneath the collar of Shaw's uniform and trickled down his neck. His patience with the Light-bedamned weather finally expired, and he forfeited his position at the campaign table in favour of inching further into the shelter of the fo'c'sle, leaning with arms folded in a bid to warm his hands.

To make matters worse, he spied a Tirassian brigantine coming in to dock further down the harbour. It wouldn't be long before Captain Fairwind came to inflict his indefatigable good cheer on him under the guise of reporting in.

"Remotely-detonated bombs," Shandris said, who, like most elves, seemed to wear the weather like a second skin. The rain slid over her hunting leathers and pearled in her hair instead of soaking in. "Placed around their warport, and activated just as our fleets arrive. If that's feasible, they won't know what hit them."

That was about what he'd expect from General Feathermoon; thousands of years of experience had stripped all ornament from her designs. He approved, though it would still take some finessing on his end. Shaw pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. The headache he'd been staving off all morning bloomed across his forehead.

"Shaw?" Wyrmbane prompted.

"It's feasible, yes," Shaw said, dropping his hand. "I've been liaising with Gnomeregan Covert Ops. Kelsey Steelspark has been eager to assist. It'll take time, however. She'll need to prepare the devices, and I will have to ensure her passage in and out of Zuldazar is as discreet as possible. We have some intelligence on the defenses they have in place at the warport but it's by no means comprehensive."

"Very well," Wyrmbane said, though he didn't sound particularly happy about it. He frowned and turned his face skyward as if he'd only just noticed it was pouring down. "We'll reconvene tomorrow. Report on your progress then."

Shandris caught Shaw just as he was about to duck into the relative dryness, and ideally, peacefulness, of belowdecks. "A word," she said.

"If you want to request some of SI:7's files, you know the procedure, General."

"I have everything I need, thank you." Shandris flashed a sharp smile. "I want to talk to you about Steelspark. As fond as she is of knives, we can't risk our technician in a fight. Who do you have earmarked for support?"

"I thought to accompany her myself."

Shandris nodded, raindrops shivering from the tips of her ears. "Good. I want Keeshan there as well. He's very capable."

"Fine choice. If you put it to Wyrmbane, I'll second you."

Shandris dipped her head in a nod, thanking Shaw and excusing herself both. Unfortunately, her interception had detained Shaw just long enough to leave him at a disadvantage.

"Good day to you, Master Shaw!"

Shaw pushed his sodden hair back from his forehead and sighed. "Fairwind," he said.

Captain Fairwind had sense enough not to interrupt when Shaw was talking shop, but it was a small consolation when it came to the rest. He made his way past Shaw and onto the steps leading belowdecks as though he belonged there.

"Pretty good haul of azerite today," he said, sluicing the rain off his longcoat with both hands. It pattered to the dry boards, leaving dark spots. "A bit touch-and-go for a while on account of some rampaging feral worgen and the fact it's absolutely pissing down out there, but we made it in the end."

"Heartening news," Shaw said, flat, and then, for what felt like the hundredth time, "but you report to the Harbourmaster. You don't report to me."

"Ah, but I know what you're like," Fairwind said, also for the hundredth time. He punctuated his usual vigorous obstinance with a wipe of his nose on the back of his hand, and followed tight on Shaw's heels as he headed to his quarters. "You want to know everything. I'm doing you a favour here, cutting out the middleman. Straight from the horse's mouth."

Shaw paused with his door half-open. "I appreciate your consideration."

Fairwind narrowed his eyes, midway through wringing out his tail. "All right, you're in a funny mood today. What's the deal? Hey, are you under the weather? You're looking a bit—"

He made a gesture at his face, which was apparently supposed to convey further detail on what Shaw was looking a bit of. He faltered, adopted a bizarre expression, and in the next moment turned aside to let loose an explosive sneeze.

"Whew, that was a lively one," he said, and sniffed loudly.

Fairwind had a habit of actively fraying Shaw's patience in a way he wasn't accustomed to, whether it was his unyielding sarcasm, his equally unyielding insouciance, or his blithe disregard for Shaw's personal space, but currently Shaw couldn't muster anything beyond tired resignation. He shook his head. It agitated his headache further.

"I'm not in the mood for this," he said, barely resisting the urge to press at his temples. "If you'll excuse me, Captain, I have work to do."

With that, Shaw stepped into his cabin and firmly shut the door in Fairwind's face.

"Oh, that's more like it! I was almost worried," Fairwind said cheerfully from the other side of the door. There was another resounding sneeze, and then sounds of him ambling off, a tuneless forebitter on his lips.

---

"Steelspark has the materiel underway. We'll be prepared to move out in a matter of days."

The seasons were shifting noticeably toward winter. Shaw had awoken this morning with his feet and fingers going numb. Outside and on deck, his breath coalesced in the air. It was still raining, and he suspected if it were to stop it would be only to snow instead.

"Excellent news," Wyrmbane said, and turned to address Shandris. "General, have you a—"

Shaw had a moment to register what was about to happen, then a sneeze crept up on him with such speed and force he had no hope of intercepting it. His hand flew to his face, and with it came an uprush of irritation. His mind jumped immediately to Fairwind and his sniffling, his insistence on breathing near him and in close quarters, and came to a likely conclusion.

Tension was building in his face again already. He took a deep breath and cursed under it. Wyrmbane shot him a foreboding look.

"Excuse me," Shaw said, and turned away to sneeze again, violently enough to send pain jolting through his sinuses. He caught his breath and wiped at his watering eyes as discreetly he could, his hand held to his face until he was certain he wasn't going to be waylaid by another.

"Have you a strategy? I know you prefer the direct approach, but this calls for a lighter hand," Wyrmbane finished slowly, giving him the gimlet eye all the while, which Shaw didn't care for even slightly.

"Light hand indeed. I believe Master Shaw intends to accompany Steelspark," Shandris said. She sounded considerably more dubious about that than she had yesterday.

"No," Wyrmbane immediately said. "I don't think so, Shaw."

"With all due respect, High Commander—"

"You won't be infiltrating anywhere if you're fit to sneeze like that," Wyrmbane interrupted. "You'll compromise the whole operation."

That disgruntled him to no end, but Shaw had to be in agreement. Keeping under the radar was imperative; even the smallest noise could draw attention. Deep in enemy territory, a sneeze would be a death sentence. He pressed his lips together and gave a grudging nod.

"Perhaps Magister Umbric could offer some assistance instead," Shandris suggested.

Wyrmbane actually seemed to be considering it. "As loath as I am to meddle in such affairs, his affinity with the Void may be of use. A cloak of such magics may be more practical than relying on our stealth agents to remain undetected."

That was an aggravation too far. Mages were always too certain of their own guesses for Shaw's liking. "I direct my agents well," he said. "I could sneak a raiding party into Rastakhan's treasury if I wanted to. Don't sideline me, Halford."

If there was an entirely wrong tone to take with him, that was it. While they didn't see eye-to-eye when it came to some of the more unsavoury necessities of war, they usually managed to function together with a sincere enough cordiality. However, Shaw suspected that Wyrmbane would regard this lapse as a sign of compromised judgement, once he was done bristling.

In the meantime, Shaw ruthlessly stifled another sneeze and thought about garotting Fairwind next time he showed his face. It made him feel marginally better.

"I will remind you, Master Shaw," Wyrmbane said evenly, "that while you may have the King's ear, when it comes to the 7th Legion, I am in charge. You're best served here in Kul Tiras for now. The auxiliaries could always use your expertise."

It was an attempt to ameliorate his obvious displeasure, and something of a sop. Shaw clasped his wrist behind his back, took a measured breath, and accepted it as gracefully as he could.

"Very well," he said, and inclined his head in a shallow bow. "By your leave, High Commander."

"Dismissed," Wyrmbane said.

With that came a tremendous crack of thunder and the clouds upended their lot, the rain coming down onto the deck of the Redemption in a roaring deluge. Shaw, immediately soaked through, made himself scarce before his indignation could burn him up like a fever.

---

---

Another wet and dreary morning. Flynn pulled the collar of his coat up around his neck, ducking between the bustling market patrons and the rainwater streaming off the stall awnings. He had some coin in his pocket and a hankering for something hearty in his belly—something to stave off this case of the shivers that was becoming even more of a damper than the weather was.

He was inspecting the butcher's stall when someone tapped him on the shoulder. He half turned only to find nobody there. From his other side came a delighted chortle.

"Tae!" He swung round, brandishing a cured sausage with intent. The stall vendor cleared his throat loudly until he tossed a couple of silver his way.

"You're slow today," Taelia said. "Hey, don't wave that at me."

"I know. Look, my brain is porridge," Flynn said, tucking his sausage inside his duster and making a note to not forget it was there. That'd be the kind of gory discovery his future self could do without.

"What brain?"

"Oh, ha ha." Flynn bumped her shoulder with his, and when she bumped him back, his fake laugh turned into a real one that in turn deteriorated into a wheezing cough. The inside of his skull felt as though it was being holystoned, not that different from the worst hangovers he'd had, but without the fun of the night before.

"Uh oh." Taelia gave him a sympathetic thump on the back. "Are you dying?"

"I think so," Flynn said sombrely. "I always thought I'd go out in a swashbuckling blaze of glory, but looks like I'm to be struck down in my prime by some exotic malady. At least I'll die young and beautiful."

"Exotic? Flynn, what have you been doing?"

"It's mainlander germs, I reckon."

Taelia's eyes widened, and then narrowed in suspicion. "Mainlander—have you been bothering that poor fellow again?"

"No idea what you're talking about," Flynn said with what he figured was about the right amount of nonchalance.

Taelia shook her head as they jostled their way around barrels of salted meat and crates of hardtack, through the market and its humid air and crush of bodies and out onto the promenade. It was a relief until the chill sea breeze that buffeted them sent Flynn shivering again.

"You'll find yourself in trouble," she said. "You know he doesn't like you."

"Nonsense," Flynn said. "Of course he likes me. Everyone likes me. Well—except Harlan. Harlan definitely didn't."

Taelia folded her arms, and then unfolded them again so she could stop the wind blustering her hair into her face. "And Captain Keelson."

"Exes don't count."

"And Stabby Roscoe."

"To be fair, she's stabby with everyone. She'd just be called Roscoe otherwise."

"And then there's, oh, I don't know, half of Freehold..."

"Oh, come on," Flynn exclaimed, throwing up his hands. "Only because I owe them money. It's nothing personal."

"Money is always personal with pirates!"

"Well," he said. "I have to give you that. But I maintain that everybody else likes me, including Master Shaw." He hopped up to sit on the promenade's stone balustrade and patted at his duster. Pistol, cutlass, sausage, other cutlass, coin pouch… ah, there it was. He fished a hip flask from one deep pocket. Something saucy to tamp his cough down.

"Before you start on that," Taelia said with a neutrality Flynn appreciated, "Cyrus sent me to find you. There's some activity around the foundry, probably Ashvane loyalists that need seeing to. He wants us to take a look."

"Can't catch five minutes of peace around here, can I?" Flynn got to his feet again. Too fast. The minor altitude change struck him dizzy.

Taelia grabbed him by the lapels to steady him and gave him a once-over, chewing her lip as she made her judgement. Flynn tried to recall the last time he'd shaved. He probably did look a bit rough. "On second thoughts," she said, "I think you should sit this one out. Galeheart and I can take care of it."

"I'm fine, you know. Just a cold."

"You look like you're about to throw up on your own boots. I don't think you could handle a gryphon ride."

True enough; Flynn's stomach turned queasily at the thought. An afternoon bundled up in front of his hearth sounded infinitely more appealing, even with a bounty factored in. "All right," he said, trying to sound put-upon. "You talked me into it. Or out of it, I'm not sure."

"Good," Taelia said firmly. "Come on. Let's get you home."

"I know the way, Taelia. I do—" He faltered a moment, held up a finger, then sneezed into his sleeve. "Do live there."

"Too right." Taelia tugged him along by the arm. "And I know that you know there are any number of taverns between here and there. That won't do your head any favours."

"Rum has medicinal properties," Flynn primly informed her.

"Not the stuff they sell at the 'Wick."

"You're a monster," he said, even though he'd once gone blind for an hour after sampling a selection of the Dampwick Tavern's mystery liquors. "Making me suffer through this in the cruel embrace of sobriety."

"It's only because I care, you big galoot, though I'm not sure you're all that sober to begin with." She neatly circumvented a puddle then yanked Flynn around it, too.

He should probably muster up some indignation since he'd pretty much dried out for the time being, but he couldn't quite manage it. It was this damned cold. After a childhood spent grubbing for anything edible anywhere he could get it, Flynn had assumed he'd rendered himself immune to every conceivable sickness, but it was making him feel punchy and strange, like he wasn't getting quite enough blood to his head.

Wasn't worth arguing about though, since it amounted to the same thing as far as his balance was concerned, not to mention whenever he opened his mouth.

Mariner's Row was quiet. The weather had encouraged most people to seek shelter, and the faded bunting strung between buildings dripped sadly into the empty streets. Even the gulls seemed subdued. He and Taelia made it to his place without serious incident despite the slick wet cobbles and all the mud the rain had churned up. By the time they arrived it was thick on the soles of Flynn's boots. He took them off on the stoop, hopping in his stocking feet while Taelia laughed at him.

"Go on, get in and get yourself warm," she said, and recoiled when Flynn noisily cleared his throat then ducked in to plant one on her cheek. "No! I don't want your plague!" she laughed. "Ew, get off, I'm too young to die!"

"Sharing is caring!" Flynn said, but she just she smothered his face with her gloved hands trying to push him away, then made a break for the gryphon aerie before he could sneeze on her.

---

Flynn shrugged his duster off onto his armchair and then slung himself onto his bed. It was almost nice for a minute, but then all the fluid in his body rushed to his lungs like the tide coming in high. He groaned and flopped about like a fish until he got onto his front, but that just made him cough uncontrollably until his nose ran and his eyes watered.

He propped himself onto his side instead and managed to doze off like that, but he woke himself up with his own wet snoring before he really got going—though not before he could work up a clammy sweat, apparently. Outside, the rain had eased enough that the gulls started up their usual shrieking again, at just the right pitch and volume to keep him awake. They didn't usually bother him, but this time they were getting on his nerves and then some.

All in all, it had been a pretty mediocre day so far.

Well, he couldn't lie around feeling sorry for himself for the rest of it. It did a man good to keep in high spirits when he was feeling out of sorts, so Flynn heaved himself to his feet with every intention of locating said spirits and actively introducing them to his body.

Then sat down abruptly, because whew, that was a lot of blood rushing to his head after all.

His second attempt to get upright was more successful. He was reminded of the sausage in his pocket when he pulled his duster back on, but turned out he couldn't stomach eating it at present. Theoretically, there was no harm in it staying there for the time being.

This cold had left him more wrung out than he'd felt in a long time, give or take a few storming morning-afters. These mainlanders and their maladies had a lot to answer for.

Speaking of, he was starting to think he should drop in on Shaw again. Taelia's remark was bothering him more than he'd prefer. Shaw was so stiff-backed and serious that it was impossible to not rip the piss out of him at every opportunity, despite the fact he could likely bump Flynn off with impunity, but the idea that Shaw might genuinely dislike him hadn't occurred to him at all—and now that it had, it wouldn't leave him alone.

While getting Shaw's dander up was a rewarding pastime, it occurred to Flynn that maybe he should do something to actually earn his regard instead of persistently trying to tease it out of him. He'd probably be able to rein himself in long enough to make good. Probably.

Nothing like having a plan to get him feeling like himself. So: back to the market for a likely peace offering, perhaps a swift one at the Snug Harbor to steel himself, then onward to the Redemption.

---

Something was afoot. Sections of soldiers were moving through the harbour, Alliance and Proudmoore Guard alike, all heading out to the Sound. Flynn paid them minimal attention. There'd been some amount of military activity or other going on since the Alliance and their war first dropped anchor here, and he had more immediate concerns at present—such as whether foaming turtle broth was as unappetising as it sounded, and whether he could convince Shaw to try it.

Probably a yes and a firm no, in that order, but folk tales said it could soothe all manner of ailments, and there was also the promise of Shaw's disgusted expression as a bonus. He had to give it a punt. The stall owner was a Tortollan who seemed somewhat befuddled that he wanted it, so that boded well.

It came in a lidded stoneware stein with a turtle design in its glaze and was definitely as foamy as promised. Yellowish suds escaped from beneath its lid and slid down the stein's side. Flynn was unsure as to whether it contained actual turtle, or, for that matter, actual broth, but he decided to stick to his tried and true approach of not thinking about things too hard.

As far as peace offerings went, it wasn't much of one. There was likely a law against it, in fact.

He reached the harbour and headed up the gangplank onto the deck of the Redemption, only to find it packed with mobilising soldiers. Shandris caught him immediately and tried to march him straight back off the ship again.

"In case you failed to notice, we're in the midst of an incursion," she said, as Flynn dragged his heels and craned his neck, trying to catch a glimpse around her. It was really quite obnoxious how tall night elves were. "Whatever it is, it can wait."

"Yep," he said. The throng of soldiers parted long enough for him to see that Shaw's post was empty. "It usually can. Say—where's Master Shaw today?"

Shandris shouldered a quiver of arrows and seemed to cycle through a series of decisions that made her spectacular eyebrows sway into a frown. "I suppose he might appreciate the additional support. He was deployed to Greystone Keep," she finally said. Her gaze alighted on the cutlasses at Flynn's hips. "Be prepared to show your steel. This is a bold push on the Horde's part. They won't be merciful."

"They won't see me coming," Flynn assured her. Or see him leave, either, all things going to plan.

"And, Captain Fairwind," Shandris said with a sigh. "It's not important that he knows I sent you."

"Aye, aye, General." Flynn tipped her a salute that was a few notches more respectful than his usual and set off towards the keep, all the bloody way back he'd just come. The broth was going to be stone cold at this rate. Congealed, even, and if there wasn't a law against that, then there definitely should be.

---

Chapter Two

"Who sent you," Shaw said, lowering his spyglass and taking no trouble to keep the waspishness from his voice. Despite his squelching boots, Shaw had let Fairwind believe he had successfully approached him undetected, if only so he'd maintain some degree of stealthiness while there were Horde saboteurs at large.

He had been crouched for hours under the basha he'd pitched among the trees while his agents ferreted out explosives the Horde's sappers had set. Most of his muscles were cramping. It had taken every ounce of his self control to not sneeze, sniff, sputter or otherwise draw attention to himself while he'd coordinated the defence, his ribs ached as though he'd taken a beating, and the last thing he needed was Fairwind blowing his cover at the eleventh hour.

The question was, apparently, a difficult one. "Absolutely nobody," Fairwind said, after a visible struggle. He ducked under Shaw's basha and crouched down next to him. His trousers were soaked past the knee and clinging to his calves; he must have hiked up here through the long grass with whatever that was he had clutched to his chest. "I found you by accident. Good thing, too. You're looking a right state."

What Fairwind expected to do about it was a mystery, since he wasn't looking much better—usually the definition of hale and hearty, instead his face was sallow, his nose a sore red. Shaw felt his irritation tempered by a mild concern. Whatever it was he'd inflicted on Shaw, it was doing a number on him as well.

"A likely story," Shaw said, even though Fairwind seemed to be able to find him as unfailingly as a compass found true north. He shook his head and raised the more salient point. "Why are you here?"

Fairwind looked pleased with himself, which was always concerning, and presented the thing he'd carried all the way up here for Shaw's edification. It appeared to be a stein of some fashion. A full one.

"Brought you this." Fairwind sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his wrist. "Sorry, it's gone a bit cold."

"What is it?"

Fairwind shrugged. "Victuals," he over-pronounced, and handed it to Shaw.

Shaw took it and tentatively flipped up the stein's lid. A smell redolent of a river mouth at low tide wafted up to insult him to his face. Fairwind could not expect him to actually drink this.

"No, thank you," he said, and gave it back.

For all his faults, Fairwind was an affable fellow; he accepted its return without apparent offence, once he'd finished coughing. "Sure?"

"I didn't get where I am by drinking whatever I'm handed. I'm sure."

"Honestly, don't blame you. Wasn't much more appealing when it was warm, to tell you the truth." He dipped his finger into the stein and gave it a lick, and his face contorted into a grimace. "Oh, that is—that is a special kind of rank. But hey, something that tastes this bad has gotta be good for you, right? Bottoms up."

He tipped back the stein and downed its contents, his throat working in a series of long swallows. Shaw watched with fascinated distaste as he slurped the last of it, clunked the lid down, and made a troubled noise.

"That," he said, "was much lumpier than I thought it would be."

Shaw shook his head and raised his spyglass to his eye. His agents had succeeded in getting rid of most of the explosives with controlled detonations, but that had inevitably drawn the Horde's attention. A number of small skirmishes had arisen in the outer bailey. Not unexpected, but they were keeping his operatives busy.

A seaforium payload remained at the foot of one of the gatehouse's towers. If that were to blow, it would significantly weaken the keep's defences. Looked as though Shaw would have to take care of that one personally. He rose to his feet with this intent and was blindsided when his head spun hard.

"Hey, steady on there," Fairwind said.

Shaw found that he'd grabbed at Fairwind's arm in his moment of disorientation, and broken into a sticky hot sweat that clung to his face and the back of his neck.

Fairwind's brow furrowed. "You need me to do something? Don't take this the wrong way, but you look like you're about to swoon at my feet."

Shaw fixed him with a suitably withering look, but either it was lacklustre or it couldn't penetrate Fairwind's shield of casual amiability. Frustrating as it might be, the fact that his vision was intermittently blurring at the edges limited his current options.

Trial by Fairwind it was.

"All right." He gave his spyglass to Fairwind and directed his attention. "See that crate of munitions? I want you to dispose of it."

"Uh huh," Fairwind said, squinting down the glass. "By 'dispose of it', do you mean..."

"I mean get it away from the keep and blow it up however you see fit."

"I was hoping you'd say that." A grin broke across Fairwind's face, a bright flash of teeth in his unruly beard. He handed Shaw's spyglass back to him, set his empty flagon at his feet and tugged up the collar of his longcoat. "Right. Leave it to me."

"And, Fairwind." Shaw caught his arm before he could light out. "Try not to blow yourself up in the process."

"Always my top priority."

He touched his hand to his forehead in a salute and dove into the treeline. He could be proficient when he put his mind to it: Shaw watched as he emerged from the damp undergrowth and crept up the motte to the keep's walls, managing to cosh the goblin guarding the munitions without incident. Then, unable to resist the urge to make comedy out of things that weren't funny at all, he discarded all pretence of subtlety, lifted both arms to give a double thumbs-up in Shaw's general direction, and with a whoop, booted the crate of explosives down the scarp.

Covert ops would never be Fairwind's strong suite. Shaw sniffed and wiped at his nose. Perhaps he would come back and examine that thought later when he could afford for it to give him indigestion.

Fairwind primed his flintlock and backed up as he took aim, though scarcely far enough to avoid being caught in the blast when he fired. The munitions went up in a racketing eruption of earth and flame, and sent Fairwind scudding onto his backside, his coat whipping about and soil raining down around him. He sat there for a long moment, then picked himself up and dusted himself off, checked his eyebrows were intact, put his hands on his hips to survey all that he had wrought, and apparently satisfied, turned on his heel and headed back towards Shaw.

Shaw wasn't certain what he'd expected. Of course there'd be fireworks. No doubt Fairwind had gotten a rush out of it, though the adrenaline only carried him so far; by the time he reached Shaw's hiding spot he was windswept and ailing. He leant over to brace himself and cough.

"A bit rough and ready, but it'll do." Shaw cast his eye over him and found him worse for wear. "That was good work, Captain, but you should get yourself back to Boralus, posthaste."

"Yeah." Fairwind pressed the back of his hand to his mouth and then turned aside to spit. "You know, I think that broth might've been alcoholic."

Appalling. Shaw remained uncertain as to why he'd brought it to him in the first place. Friendly antagonism or a misaimed kind thought? Difficult to tell. When it came to him, possibly there was no distinction at all.

"Maybe it fermented," Fairwind said, with more consideration than Shaw heard him give most things. "I don't know. Anyway, you're welcome, and also, you owe me one for this."

"If you insist. Now get out of here. You look ready to drop and I'm certainly not carrying you back."

"You're not looking full of vim and vigour yourself, mate. I say you come back with me. Bit of mutual support, eh?"

"I still have work to do here," Shaw said, just as he sensed one of his agents approaching through the trees from the direction of the gatehouse.

"Sir," the agent said, emerging from concealment—it was Ground Operative Meers, who was promising when directing in the field, but lacked somewhat the tact required to become one of Shaw's favoured agents. "The remaining Horde have routed and the keep is secure. There's only the cleanup, if you want to… er. That is to say, we can take it from here."

Fairwind had startled at Meers' appearance, but smoothed himself down enough to give Shaw a self-satisfied look. "Guess you're free, then. Come on, let's blow this joint."

Shaw clenched his teeth but that only exacerbated his headache. He consciously relaxed his jaw again. "Thank you, Agent Meers. Finish up and have your report to me as soon as possible."

Meers saluted smartly and removed herself back to the keep. Overhead, the sky darkened and a distant thunder rumbled. The threat of snow hung heavy in the clouds. While he would prefer it to yet more rain, Shaw was growing very weary of Kul Tiras and its bitter air.

"Let's get moving," Fairwind said, sparing a glance at the sky as well. "Don't know about you, but in this weather I'd rather be in front of a roaring fire than freezing my arse off up some miserable little hill."

"You didn't have to come," Shaw pointed out, dismantling the basha and folding the wet tarp into his field pack. It was true that Fairwind hadn't had to trek his way through the mud and drizzle just to vex him with dubious foodstuffs, but whatever his motivation, when he nudged Shaw with his shoulder and inclined his head toward Boralus, Shaw found he wasn't as displeased as he would've expected.

---

"Mostly they're just loud and obnoxious, but sometimes they get really feisty and scoot into your house looking for scraps. That's when you've gotta fetch the broom," Fairwind was saying as they slogged their way back towards Boralus' southern gate. He sniffed and wiped his nose, then mimed as though he were jousting. "Taelia says you can just shoo them out, but most things like Tae more than they like me. Anyway, they seem a lot bigger when they're indoors. Nobody's lost an eye yet, but it's only a matter of time."

Shaw regarded Fairwind's pantomime with quiet bemusement, then gave a mental shrug and braced a forearm before him as though a buckler were strapped to it. "In Stormwind we use a trashcan lid."

"Trash—? Oh, Dustbin. Yeah, nice. That probably handles the wings better."

"So I've heard." Shaw hiked his field pack further up his shoulder, careful to keep his balance. The road was clear for travel, though a perilous skim of frost had crisped over everything. "I don't live near enough to the docks for seagull infiltration to be a significant issue."

"Lucky," Fairwind said. After a moment he asked, "What's it like? Stormwind, I mean."

A sprawling city full of places to hide. Dizzying buttresses to find vantage atop, bridges to prowl beneath, canals to sink bodies into. Many regarded Stormwind and its reconstruction after being razed in the First War a testament to the Alliance's steadfastness, including Shaw most of the time, though it was hard to forget the dark blot on its history that followed. Corrupt nobles, due payment unfairly denied, the riots. Things had escalated.

The surrounding territories were still paying a price much dearer than gold, and Shaw found himself wrestling with a regret that ran deeper than the city's foundations. He remembered abruptly the delicately-worded message from Stoutmantle informing him of Edwin's death. He still had it, somewhere.

Light, he must be tired for his thoughts to have taken such a turn. He ran a hand over his mouth.

"Much larger than Boralus," he said, for want of anything better. A cough tickled the back of his throat. He tried to clear it repeatedly without success.

"Gosh. Can barely conceive of it," Fairwind said with incredible sarcasm, but he must have registered Shaw's shift of mood on some level because he lapsed into an easy silence, punctuated only by an occasional loud shiver.

"It's home," Shaw said eventually. Fairwind gave him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder.

Dampwick Ward was peaceful as they made their way through its narrow streets, though never quiet; the sporadic whine of gulls and the clink of glassware and cheer from a nearby alehouse textured the evening. The strains of a fiddle and pipes stretched into the stillness, the bones of a half-familiar shanty.

Shaw had expected Fairwind to peel off to a tavern or inn or wherever he called home at some point, but his companionship persisted past the market and onto the promenade until there was nowhere to go but the wharf, where he lingered at the foot of the Redemption's gangplank like a stranded seal pup. A sick one, at that.

"Captain," Shaw said, meaning that will be all, but still Fairwind stood there, staring hazily at him. The longer they spent lollygagging, the more the piercing wintry air threatened to make his teeth chatter. "Captain Fairwind," he said again, more gently.

Fairwind blinked as though coming out of a slumber. "Oh, sorry," he said, frowning. He shivered violently as though he'd only just realised it was cold. "Was miles away. Thinking."

"Is that so," Shaw said dryly, but all that earned him was a lethargic smile.

In a fit of camaraderie he put a hand on Fairwind's shoulder, who leant into it immediately. That had not been Shaw's expectation, though perhaps it should've; if he had been visibly flagging before, now he was practically dead on his feet. Shaw couldn't say he didn't feel the same way.

"I'm going to retire for the night," he said. "I suggest you do the same."

"Yeah, think I might. I feel how you look, and you don't look all that hot, no offence."

"Only a small amount taken," Shaw said.

Fairwind huffed a laugh at that, then glanced up at the sky, where the stars glimmered in a band between the thick clouds, down the harbour, and then back to Shaw. He absently scratched at his cheek, breath clouding in the air.

"Well, good night," he said, gave Shaw's arm slightly too hard a clap, and then ambled off back toward Boralus proper.

Shaw watched him go, the scarce moonlight draping him as he made his way along the docks, then prepared to weather the chill of his small cabin.

---

Morning found Shaw standing in front of the small hand-mirror he'd pinned to his cabin wall, trying to steady himself enough to shave. He brought the razor to his lathered cheek, then dropped his hand and bent over to wrench out a cough. His eyes watered so fiercely that the soap ran and dripped from his chin. His chest felt thick and congested, and he hacked up something of truly objectionable consistency which only made him think of Fairwind and his damned broth.

Still, it was better than thinking about how he'd felt after his rescue from Suramar, running on nothing but adrenaline to root out and dispose of Detheroc, then his subsequent exhaustion and the excruciatingly lucid, trembling days that followed. He'd barely been able to shave himself then, either.

He lifted the razor again but still it shook, and Shaw closed his eyes for a moment, just to breathe and to not have to look at himself, then he folded the razor away and briskly towelled the soap from his face. He looked wretched with any amount of stubble, but he felt wretched as well, so it was fitting enough that it would have to stay for now.

Above deck, the frigid air burned in his lungs. He intended to report for duty and attend his post at least for a short while—he was expecting communications from an agent he'd insinuated into a recent sortie to Vol'dun, and from an aerial picket over Zuldazar; news from the fronts at Arathi and Darkshore; surveillance reports from Stromgarde and Northwatch and Tirisfal; further developments on how King Anduin's gambit with Saurfang was playing out—but Wyrmbane took one look at him and strode over.

"Are you well, Shaw?" he said, apparently troubled enough by Shaw's appearance to have taken off his helm for a better look. He leant in, his heavy grey brows drawn together.

Shaw cleared his throat, for all the good it did. "Thank you for your concern, but I'm fine."

"I know you can lie better than that," Wyrmbane said. "Perhaps a healer should take a look at you."

"The healers are under heavy enough strain. Including you, before you suggest it. It will run its course in time."

Shaw returned his attention to the field reports spread on the campaign table, underscoring that this was to be the end of the conversation as politely as he could. He bent to read one of them and had to lean hard on the table when his head spun. When his vision evened out, he found he'd crumpled the report beneath his fingers.

Wyrmbane clapped a heavy gauntleted hand to Shaw's shoulder. "In that case: Spymaster Shaw, I'm relieving you of duty until you're recovered." He sounded somewhat sympathetic, though mostly firm about it. "That's an order, soldier."

The nature of Shaw's work meant the chain of command was not cleanly delineated where he was concerned, but it was alarming how swiftly his authority had been eroded, and now revoked entirely. A faint disquiet settled over him, and not a small amount of obstinance.

"It's a cold," he insisted. The words felt like fish-hooks in his throat. "Nothing more."

"Oh, no doubt, but it's essential that you have your wits about you. Get your man Renzik here and up to speed in the meantime. I trust he knows your cipher."

"Most of them." Shaw took a long inhale that failed to alleviate his headache enough for him to think his way out of the situation. That in itself suggested he should capitulate. He let his breath out again in a resigned sigh. "I'll see to it."

"Thank you for understanding, Mathias."

"High Commander," Shaw said tightly. He bowed and excused himself back to his cabin. If he could get a missive drafted and through a portal immediately, Renzik could be here before nightfall, give or take an amenable mage.

In the meantime, he would have to arrange his pieces where he wanted them and hope they'd be played to his satisfaction. That restlessness of war. So much in precarious balance, but nothing to do but set the dominoes and wait for them to topple one way or the other.

---

Chapter Three

Shaw's childhood might have been marked by his mother's death, but it'd been more powerfully shaped by his grandmother's intense direction. His own time had been scarce even as a youngster, more focused on steadily working him up the ranks of the Guild than traditionally childish pursuits. Despite this, he had managed to spend one summer shirking as many duties as he could get away with, and some he hadn't, in order to befriend one of the stray cats that scrounged a living along Stormwind's canalways.

It'd been a lanky ginger tom that he'd dubbed Fang, as he only had one of them. Fang had been aloof when he wasn't being vicious, and some of the other Fifth Fingers had laughed at Shaw when they'd caught him trying to coax Fang out from among the dockside barrels—but Shaw had eventually earned his trust, if not friendship, with patience and forgiveness, and a lot of pilfered fish heads.

He hadn't thought about that summer in years but he was thinking about it now as Fairwind, once again intruding upon him without so much as a by-your-leave, presented him with some waxpaper-parcelled food that he laid carefully on his desk, and then took a cautious and expectant step backwards.

"What is it," Shaw said without looking up. It certainly didn't smell like something Fairwind had sweet-talked from the gedunk guy. He dipped his pen and returned to his composition. It was taking an inordinate amount of focus to keep his cipher straight. —requests your presence in Boralus as acting Spymaster for the foreseeable—

"Honey-glazed loin. Local specialty. Why don't you try it?"

"Absolutely not," he said, because of the suggestive way Fairwind had said 'loin', and because of the many, many unthinkable things it could be loin of. He lifted his pen and carefully poked at the parcel with the end of it. The soaked paper gave way. Honey oozed out, pooling onto his desk.

"It'll do you good," Fairwind insisted. "Put hair on your chest. Meat on your bones."

Shaw set his pen aside and pressed his fingers to his temple, trying to do something about the unbridled anger that had risen up in him. Not just at Fairwind's presumption, but the fact he'd been looking closely enough to pass such a judgement. Shaw already found himself preoccupied with this man more than was reasonable, he was the wrong side of tired, it hurt to breathe, his head ached abominably, the indignation of being deemed unfit for duty was heaped high upon him, and now—now his blasted paperwork was stuck to his desk.

It simply wouldn't do.

It would not do.

"I'm capable," Shaw said, "of feeding myself. I do not need you to bring me whatever strange morsel you deem edible on any particular day. Even if it were actual food, I am not interested in indebting myself to you any further than I already have, Captain Fairwind, and I would appreciate it if you would finally take a damn hint and please, for the love of all that is good, please stop it."

"Well, I'll be," Fairwind said. "I've never heard you say so many words all at once. A pity it was those ones." He looked taken aback, of all things, but it didn't last. He puffed himself up, only to be undercut by a rough cough. It was coarse and rattling, straight from his lungs. Shaw refused to be concerned about it this time. "Look, I was just trying to help."

"I've had quite enough of your help for the time being."

Fairwind managed to sound indignant even through his sputtering cough. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"What I mean is this: you're in here pestering me on a daily basis for no reason whatsoever, interrupting my work with your frivolities and dragging Light knows what in from those islands along with you—"

"Well, mate, I'm only out there because you lot roped me into doing your dirty work. You think I'm grubbing about in the far reaches for your precious azerite 'cause it's fun? Dragons!" He threw his arms out wide. "You know what's bad for ships? Fire, and therefore fire-breathing lizards. And vrykul and saurok and mogu, for that matter. Not to mention the Horde leaping halfway up my backside whenever I look the other way for five minutes—"

"All of which you're paid handsomely to deal with, and none of which are my concern."

Fairwind laughed. "Right. But you should see your face when I tell you about it. It's a picture."

Shaw rose from his chair and braced his arms on his desk. "I'm here to fight a war, Captain. Not to entertain you." His voice broke into something hoarse; it made him sound upset. Unacceptable. He poured some of his limited reserves into hardening his tone. "And now I'm sick, because you couldn't be professional about things. I hope you're pleased with yourself, you insufferable roustabout."

"Me?" Fairwind said. "You think you caught it from me? That's a laugh coming from a mainlander. How many times have you almost wiped yourselves out with some kind of ancient curse or blood plague or—"

"I don't see anybody else sick here," Shaw snapped. "Just you and I."

"Very suspicious. If I were a gossip, I'd gossip," Fairwind said, and then ducked aside as Shaw hurled the parcel of food at him. It hit the wall, and then the floor, with a meaty thud.

"Out," Shaw said in the ensuing silence.

Fairwind raised both hands in placation. "All right, all right, don't get your corset in a kink."

"Get out." Shaw leant over his desk, his voice rising until he was an inch from shouting. "Or the next thing I throw will be a knife, and this time I will not miss!"

Finally, something that gave Fairwind pause. He stared at Shaw as though he'd only just realised they were having an argument. "Okay. Sorry," he said. "I'll, er, take a hike, then?"

"Please do!"

Fairwind stood for a moment longer, his shoulders drooping until he couldn't look any more crestfallen. "All right, then. I can take a hint. Good day to you, Spymaster," he said, and then, in an act of remarkable passive-aggression, quietly and carefully closed the door behind him.

Shaw sank back down into his chair and pressed his fingers to his eyes until the blinding pain in his head subsided. He couldn't seem to get his breath to come evenly, angry just thinking about how angry Fairwind made him.

No doubt his reaction was partially down to the day's failures, but in truth there was no accounting for the way Fairwind got under his skin. Shaw frequently dealt with more challenging men with less effort. Most rogues he encountered outside of SI:7 were a scurrilous, conniving lot, always looking to slip either knife or light fingers past one's guard, and liable to dispense a cutting word or three when they failed.

While not innocent of such behaviour, Fairwind was comparatively pleasant. His charm might be an acquired taste, but he had a quick smile and was always eager to see the funny side of things—and perhaps that was the worst part of it. Half the time he likely didn't intend to put Shaw at the brink of losing his temper, and that didn't leave him feeling particularly proud of himself.

Light, he was tired. The words swam on the page before him. He rested an elbow on his desk, took up his pen and brute-forced his way through the rest of the damned letter before it began to hurt too much to hold his head up.

---

A loud rap on his door jerked Shaw awake. He was in his bunk, atop the sheets and still in his armour, having neglected to take off even his boots. He sat up and leant over immediately with his head in his hands until everything, both inside and out, had the good manners to stop lurching around.

Another knock. For a disoriented moment he thought it might be Fairwind, though he rarely bothered with such niceties, but then recollected with pitiless clarity why it was unlikely to be the case. Fairwind had a disobliging nature and needed a firm hand, but perhaps all that had been unnecessary.

"A moment," he called. He wet his fingers in the pitcher of water by his bed and wiped his face. He suspected it helped his appearance very little. It didn't make him feel much better, either.

He opened his door; a young woman in hunting leathers and a 7th Legion tabard hovered on his threshold. She had a Gilnean air about her, a doubtful grimace on her face, and was clutching what looked suspiciously like another waxed-paper parcel of food.

"Captain Fairwind asked me to give you this," she said, thrusting it at him.

"Of course he did." Shaw took a painfully deep breath and counted to five, since ten would be ambitious at this point, and managed to accept it with grace. It was still warm and filled his cabin with a rich savoury aroma that he could smell even through his stuffed nose. It was enticing enough that it dissipated the last of his anger.

His stomach gave a plaintive mewl.

The Gilnean loitered politely. She'd stepped in a streak of honey but had the tact not to mention it. "He said you'd give me four gold and seventy silver for my trouble."

Shaw hadn't the wherewithal to be more than mildly exasperated. "Seventy silver?"

"He haggled me down from five gold."

Shaw dug into his belt pouch. "Get him to pay you upfront next time," he said, counting out five gold coins and then an additional five. He handed her the letter from his desk. "Since you're here—find a courier and get this to Stormwind immediately."

"Aye, sir." She dispensed a quick bow, peeled her boot off the floor and backed out of his quarters, holding the letter a slight distance from herself. "Feel better soon?"

"Thank you," Shaw replied absently, already inspecting the package. The paper had an import stamp on it, blurred ink that read Goldshire Farms. A taste of home, he thought with a twinge, though not one that was going to last long. It was lamb, dripping with redcurrant gravy and cooked so slowly that it fell apart in his fingers. Shaw devoured it as though he hadn't eaten for a week.

He was left with some roasted bones and a smear of gravy, and altogether more remorse than he was accustomed to. Instead, he tried to resent Fairwind for sending it even after Shaw had demanded he cease and desist, but it didn't feel enough like impertinence. Not after last night and his unanticipated jolt of homesickness.

Of all the ways to be thoughtful, Fairwind would choose the most annoying one. Blast it all.

---

The sky was ripening from golden to scarlet as Shaw made his way along the harbour, the sleeting rain temporarily given way to a crisp autumnal air. The descending sun cast parhelions and lit strands of cirrus on fire, dousing Fairwind's brigantine in fierce hues. Fairwind himself was barefoot and bare-armed a hundred foot up the mainmast, straddled over a yard and inspecting the stowed sails. Looked as though he hadn't been joking about the dragon.

Shaw clasped his hands behind his back and observed him for a while as he tested the rigging. Eventually, he was noticed. Fairwind seemed amenable enough to his presence, at least; he raised a hand in greeting and hollered, "Ahoy, Master Shaw!"

Shaw raised a hand in return. "Captain Fairwind," he called back. "Permission to come aboard?"

He gestured for Shaw to get on deck. "Here to have another go?" he asked as he clambered down the shrouds. His voice was husky, as though shouting had blown it out.

"No," Shaw said. "I came to thank you, this time. And—" he cleared his throat. "To apologise."

Fairwind swung and landed on the boards with a thump. His colour hadn't improved at all, and it took him several attempts to tuck his marlinspike into his belt, to the point that Shaw was concerned he would stick himself with it. He was shivering, either feverish or because the cold sea air was having its way with him beneath the thin fabric of his shirt.

Having thoroughly taken himself aback with that observation, Shaw kept his eyes on Fairwind's face, where instead he realised he might be driving himself toward a gentle ruin.

Mercifully, Fairwind shrugged his longcoat back on. He clapped his hands and blew into them, rubbing them vigorously. "All right. We're good, then?"

Shaw had been prepared for reparation negotiations bordering on farcical, but apparently it was as easy as that. He hadn't even made a proper apology. It must have shown on his face, because Fairwind grinned at him.

"Expecting an argument, were you?"

"I was unkind enough."

Fairwind just shrugged and sat on a forebitt to pull his boots on. Despite his offhanded forgiveness, Shaw suspected he was still a little injured, though he seemed more cautious than sulky. "I've heard worse things from better people, mate."

"I don't doubt it." Shaw came to sit by him, leaning forward with his hands on his knees. It was less work than sitting upright. "There's something else, since I'm here. So that you know, I won't be aboard the Redemption for a while."

"Oh," Fairwind said. He dug around in his pockets, coming up with a sorry-looking kerchief to noisily blow his nose into. "Assigned somewhere fun?"

Officially it was none of his business, but Renzik had a stab first, ask questions later approach to things, and for all his irritation with him, Shaw didn't want to see Fairwind on the wrong end of a shiv. "No. I was relieved of duty this morning. My second will need the space."

Fairwind seemed inexplicably cheered by this. "You're on the binnacle list? No wonder you were so cranky."

"I wasn't cranky. I was—" Shaw began. He felt his voice want to rise and immediately stopped to let himself settle into more controlled tones. If Fairwind had learned any kind of lesson from this, he'd forgotten it already. "I was frustrated. I am still frustrated. I took it out on you. I'm sorry for that."

"Can we have it on the record that I didn't deserve a pound of honey loin lobbed at my head."

Shaw found himself wondering if he could find use for an agent who was as capable of talking himself into trouble as he was at talking his way out of it.

"I wouldn't go that far," he said. "And please stop saying 'loin' like that."

Fairwind snorted a laugh. "Loin," he said, reaching for his other boot and almost toppling off his seat. He drastically overcompensated when he sat back up, lurching against Shaw's side. He squinted up at the mainmast from this vantage, the rising breeze catching his hair and tickling Shaw's cheek. "You know," he confided. "Probably shouldn't have been all the way up there without a rope."

"Looks to be the case," Shaw said, about managing to keep the consternation from his voice. He nudged Fairwind fully upright again. "Perhaps keep yourself at sea level for the time being."

"Sails won't repair themselves."

"You mean to tell me there's not a sailmaker in the entire Port City of Boralus you can hire?"

Fairwind made a theatrically ambivalent noise, drawn out to the point of absurdity. It was stubbornness, however relatable, and presumably a matter of the pride he took in his ship. 'Captain' was more than a sobriquet to him. Shaw found it was easy to lose sight of that when contending with his usual nonsense.

"So," Fairwind said in a rather unsubtle change of subject. "Time on your hands, eh? What are you going to do with yourself?"

"You needn't make it sound like a vacation," Shaw said.

"Isn't it? Why don't you take some time to breathe in the sea air."

"I've been doing that since I got here."

Fairwind gestured at the harbour and the flicker of the lamplighters as they began their evening rounds. "Or go for a stroll along the promenade..."

Shaw fixed him with a tired stare until he looked away, smiling broadly. He was obviously leading up to something.

"Hey—you could get lost in the hedge maze."

"It's a very straightforward maze."

"Then put a bit of effort into it."

"Still in the mood for a good upbraiding, I see," Shaw said, which only made Fairwind laugh and lean briefly against his shoulder, easy companionship that Shaw had by no means earned nor knew what to do with.

"Okay, be like that," he said. "Where you gonna stay for now?"

"That's classified," Shaw said, which, like most things, Fairwind found disproportionately entertaining. "But I'll be in town. I still need to keep an eye on the state of affairs. This war isn't going to wait for me to feel better."

"Oh, don't tell me you're getting an inn room. Not very restful, is it?"

"Options are limited."

"There'll be carousing," Fairwind said. He looked out over the sea, at the dwindling light on the horizon. The wind was picking up, blowing in heavy clouds and pushing waves against the ship, making its timbers creak and groan. It would rain again soon. "You know what, you should stay at mine instead. It's small but it's cosy. And peaceful, apart from the gulls."

"What?" Shaw said. Hopefully this was to be the last surprise of the evening. "I don't think so. Thank you, but no."

"Drunken revelry into the early hours."

"I appreciate the offer—"

"Puking. Shouting. Fistfights. Singing, Shaw."

"I'll deal with it."

"Amorous escapades the next room over, all night long. Oh, oh, oh!" Fairwind thumped the deck with his heel, rhythmic like a bed slamming against a thin tavern wall.

Well, Shaw wasn't going to get that out of his head anytime soon. He rubbed at his eyes; his tiredness, temporarily forgotten while they'd been talking, swept back over him like a wind wave.

Fairwind peered at him. "Right, about time for you to repay that favour," he said, clapping the top of his thighs. "Get your stuff, I'm putting you up."

"That's doing me another favour."

"Not from the look on your face," Fairwind said. "Listen, I'm not gonna get into another slapfight with you over it, but—" He broke off in order to grimace, guilty enough that it would have had Shaw raising an eyebrow if he hadn't already found Fairwind calling in his chit over this eminently suspicious.

"But?" Shaw prompted.

"Couple of my crew sacked it off lately. Well, more than half my crew, if you want to be precise about it, which you probably do."

"Sick."

"Yep."

"The same thing we're dealing with."

"Yep." Fairwind leant forward with his forearms slung over his knees. He picked at a thumbnail. "Some pretty grim work in the island chains last week. I suppose it's what you'd expect from somewhere called the 'rotting mire'. It smells exactly like it sounds, by the way. Long and short of it, it's probably my fault after all."

"Well," Shaw said. He expelled his mounting frustration on a long sigh. He didn't have another fight in him today. "Hardly a turn-up for the books."

"Sorry. And sorry for, you know. Always getting in your hair. Just trying to be friendly."

"Your methods are questionable." Shaw glanced sidelong at Fairwind to make it clear it wasn't intended entirely as rebuke. Fairwind looked back at him with a rueful twist to his mouth, then shook his head and heaved to his feet, unfolding like a rusted pocketknife.

"What a sorry pair of sods we are," he said, stretching with a wince. "But I can make it up to you with a bed and a fire. What do you say, Spymaster. Truce?"

Fairwind held out his hand, and Shaw made his a decision: it would be wise for him to quarantine himself, lest he bring the rest of the Redemption's officers to their knees. A private space would be extremely welcome. He might even have taken it with Fairwind in his usual fettle.

"Truce," he said, intending to shake but instead finding himself hauled to his feet, caught unawares and unwieldy with his reflexes dulled. Not for the first time, Shaw considered if it would be less stressful to proclaim Fairwind a force of nature and let him do as he would. As it was, he did his best to look unimpressed.

Fairwind only winked at him. "Oh, you know what," he said suddenly. "I don't think I know your name. It's been all Shaw this, Shaw that."

Shaw hesitated briefly. "It's Mathias," he said. "Though Shaw is fine."

First-name terms were often precarious, and there was a good chance he would come to regret this. Certainly, the first instance of 'Mattie' or the like would ensure Fairwind's privileges were revoked.

But Fairwind only cocked his head to the side and said, "Oh, yeah. You look like a Mathias."

Shaw wasted a few seconds he'd never get back wondering what exactly he meant by that, then a few more wondering if they should have disengaged from this handshake a good half a minute ago, but Fairwind's grip was as unrelenting as everything else about him.

"The name's Flynn," he said.

"I know." Shaw gently reclaimed his hand before either of them could start ascribing significance to it. "And by the way, Captain Flynn. You owe me ten gold."

"Ten!" Fairwind said with heartfelt outrage. "That cheeky bastard—I told her three!"

---

Chapter Four

They had to pass the Wind's Redemption on their way into town, so it only made sense that they stop off and Shaw collect what he needed. Shaw seemed vaguely annoyed by the suggestion, insisting he could sort it out once he knew where he was to be based, but Flynn was reluctant to let him out of his sight now that he'd successfully wheedled him into staying with him.

Some petulant part of him was sure he'd vanish off and find somewhere else to hole up and be sick instead—and that would be fine, really. It's not like he couldn't take care of himself, even running a fever. Shaw was a frighteningly capable man. It's just that there was something appealing in the thought of having him around, being an ordinary person, and Flynn wasn't ready to forfeit that just yet.

Well, maybe if he turned out to be a terror of a houseguest, but even then he'd probably manage. He was already sure Shaw wouldn't be a morning person, since he wasn't much of an any-time-of-day person.

The ship was sounding four bells as he followed Shaw aboard. Earlier than Flynn thought. The day had dragged on and he'd been dog tired for what felt like forever, no matter how hard he tried to sleep it off—which he had, very hard. It took a lot of effort, in fact, which was probably why he was feeling so exhausted.

Belowdecks, there was a goblin in Shaw's cabin, sitting at his desk and rifling through his paperwork. An actual little green goblin man with pointy ears and a nose like a bowsprit making himself at home.

"Uhh," Flynn said, one hand going to the hilt of his cutlass. "Er. There's a goblin in here."

Shaw just nodded at the goblin, like it was normal that a member of the Horde was filing his intelligence reports for him. Flynn had a certain amount of indifference to all this interfactional hostility, Kul Tiras having opted out of the whole shebang up until now, but Shaw was usually pretty zealous about it. It could be that he was even sicker than Flynn had realised.

"Goblin," Flynn said, again trying to impart this vital fact to him because apparently Shaw was not trafficking in conventional cues tonight. He grabbed at Shaw's arm. "Shaw, there's a goblin."

"What's up, boss. Who's this yahoo," the goblin said. He gave Shaw the once over, his ears twitching back. "Yeesh, coastal life don't look like it's doing you any favours."

"Indeed. Neither is Captain Fairwind here, for that matter," Shaw said, who still hadn't gone for any of the significant number of knives he had on his person. He seemed altogether too calm about the situation. "Captain, this is my second in command, Renzik."

"Heeee's a goblin," Flynn said.

"Well observed," Shaw replied.

The goblin ignored him. Instead, he wagged a rolled-up letter at Shaw, who was dragging a sea bag from beneath his berth. "Came on account of this being a buncha garbage and not a new cipher like I thought. What's the dealio?"

"I'm indisposed," Shaw said, stuffing his wash kit into the bag. "I need you to take point for a while."

"Huh." The goblin, Renzik, unrolled the letter and squinted at it again. "Yeah, probably should lemme handle things for now. You wanna be kept conversant?"

"Please."

Renzik gestured at the papers on Shaw's desk. Shaw nodded at Flynn. Flynn stared back, and when it looked as though neither of them were going to fill him in on what he was supposed to be doing here, gave a helpless shrug.

"If you could put down your address," Shaw said, as though wearied at having to explain something so obvious. "My agents will need to know where to find me."

"You do know how to write, doncha?" Renzik said.

"Of course I know how to write," Flynn said, and before he could stop his righteous indignation from running away with him, proudly added, "I can read, too."

Renzik lolled his head in Shaw's direction. "Where'd you find this guy?"

Shaw had his back to Flynn as he tied up his sea bag, not that his face would have told him anything, but when he spoke, there was a note to his voice that struck Flynn as odd. Maybe it was just his stuffed nose, making him sound pensive. "He persists in finding me," he said. "He has potential."

That was news to Flynn. He paused with his pen hovering over a sheet of paper with the intention of putting his address down in the fanciest hand he knew, and stared at Shaw, but Shaw still had his attention on his bag.

"Oh, gimme a break," Renzik muttered.

He leant over to watch Flynn write, which was more than a bit off-putting what with his breath smelling like sharp cheese. The pen wobbled across the page without Flynn's permission.

"All right, pal, listen up," Renzik said, friendly but not. "It ain't my business to second-guess the boss, and he ain't in the habit of distributin' his loyalty to every handsome idiot what stumbles into his path, so you get the benefit of the doubt for now. A guy's known by the company he keeps, so's if I catch a whiff of anythin' fishy from you, we'll be having words, ya get me?"

"Right," Flynn said, wondering what Renzik's company said about Shaw. All cats were grey in the dark, he supposed. "Not the best pep talk I've ever had."

"Okay, try this," Renzik said. His beady eyes glittered. "Keep your nose clean or I'll gut ya like you're catch of the day."

Flynn tipped his hand back and forth. Not bad, not great.

"That'll do, Renzik," Shaw said with what was, in Flynn's opinion, very mild reproach.

Renzik shot Flynn a razor-toothed grin and relaxed back into the chair, front legs tipping up off the boards as he swung his feet onto the desk one at a time. Flynn tried to ignore the protracted stare he was giving him and instead concentrated on not misspelling his own name. He finished things off with a flourish that didn't improve the aesthetics a whole lot, blotted it dry and folded it, then held it out it to Renzik, who plucked it from him between stubby green finger and thumb.

"Anything of note from the mainland?" Shaw said, getting to his feet and taking an unsteady half-step back as he did. His fingers went to the bridge of his nose, and then the back of his wrist to his mouth.

"Ehh, just the usual," Renzik said, eyeing him. "And Jorach askin' after you."

Shaw snorted and slung his sea bag over his shoulder. "Let him ask. If it's important, he'll make a fuss." He touched two fingers to his forehead. "You know where to find me."

"Laters," Renzik said, returning the salute. "Don't get too bored."

"Uh, nice to meet you?" Flynn offered.

"Yeah, yeah. Pleasure's all yours, kid." Renzik tapped his nose, and then the paper. "Don't forget I know where you live."

---

Flynn spent the short walk between the ship and the promenade in such a state of bafflement that Shaw kept shooting him concerned looks. It felt like a fever dream already, and if it weren't for the ink on his fingers, Flynn might have written it off as a hallucination. Usually it was the dancing fey dragons that clued him in. Being lambasted by a goblin would be a twist.

"Don't mind Renzik. He's like that with all the new fish," Shaw eventually said, which raised more questions than it answered, and maybe Flynn would get around to querying that at some point, but for now he was still stuck on the same small detail.

"Yeah, but," he said, "he's a goblin."

"Most goblins are neutral parties. More profitable for them," Shaw said. "Only the Bilgewater Cartel is allied with the Horde."

Flynn made a face. "Imagine choosing that as a name. Sound like a right bunch of scalliwags."

"To say the least. Renzik is more agreeable."

"Uh, sure. Sure. I bet he's great when you get to know him."

"He's consistent," Shaw said, though didn't seem inclined to expand on that, whether lapsing into his usual taciturnity or because he simply didn't have the spirit. He was putting a lot of work into keeping his sea bag from sliding off his shoulder, and when they came to the stone steps that led up onto the promenade proper, Flynn caught his arm.

"Here, let me," he said, and insinuated his fingers under the strap. He might look about to keel over, but Shaw's grip was strong enough when he caught Flynn's hand.

"It's all right," Shaw said, shivering and sweating both.

"We need to head a ways over town," Flynn insisted. He was feeling like warmed-over fish innards himself, but it was obvious Shaw was flagging more significantly. "Lighten your load before I end up having to carry you as well."

"Fine state of affairs that'd be." Shaw was apparently too worn out to apply the necessary sarcasm, but he relinquished his bag anyway, letting it slip down his arm and to the ground. He stared at it there on the cobbles and said, "You're a better man than I give you credit for."

That put a strange ache in Flynn's throat, but he was happy to push an advantage when one presented itself. "Nope. I think you've just about got the measure of me," he said, and tugged off his glove to touch the back of his hand to Shaw's cheek, then laid it to his forehead. "You keep your luff, eh? Don't get sappy on me now."

Shaw regarded him far too placidly for his liking. His forehead furrowed under Flynn's palm.

"Your hands are clammy," he said. "Are you all right?"

"I think you'll find it's your face that's clammy. You're burning up, mate." Flynn swung the bag onto his shoulder. It wasn't all that heavy, but it was still going to be a long hike back. "Come on, let's go. The sooner we can rest, the better."

---

Home was… well.

Flynn didn't spend a lot of time here, if he was honest. He preferred his ship: wood, canvas, rope, wind, waves, the salt of the sea on his tongue—though lubberly life got a bit more tempting this time of year. There was plenty to be said for a fire crackling in the hearth while the rain was coming down in three different directions outside his window.

The window that was, in fact, stuck half-open. Seeing as he didn't keep anything worth stealing here, he'd not got around to fixing it. Nor the leak in the corner where he must be missing a tile off the roof, but he had an old cook-pot sitting under it, doing a bang-up job of catching most of the rain.

He emptied said pot out of said window while Shaw stood in the centre of the room, taking stock.

"It's not much," Flynn said. "But make yourself comfortable."

Shaw nodded at the window. "Does that stay open?"

"Yeah, sorry." Flynn leant his weight on the sash; it groaned a little but hardly budged. "It's stuck."

"It's fine. Leave it."

Funny idea of fine. Shaw didn't seem unhappy about the place, even if he had yet to do anything but stand there and make his assessment. It was functional and not much more, which he probably appreciated. A caboose of a kitchen in one corner, a table piled with junk that Flynn was gonna sort out any day now, and by the fire, a beat-up old wing chair bursting its stuffing that was half as comfortable as the bed but that he'd fallen asleep in just as often.

Flynn hunkered down by the hearth to set some tinder and kindling. A wintery chill had permeated the room's stone brick walls, but a proper fire would chase that out, and maybe a good sweating was what this sickness needed. There was enough wood for tonight, but he'd have to venture out tomorrow for provisions.

A clatter came from the table, and he glanced over his shoulder. Shaw was idly inspecting the stuff heaped there—some seized and rusted blocks, a couple of lockboxes that needed picking, parrel beads, mostly-empty bottles, a tangle of fishing lures, a shiny rock some guy had claimed was a fragment of Val'anyr, which was obviously a load of bollocks but Flynn had bought him a drink in exchange for it anyway.

"Feel free to punch out if you're tired. I had nothing planned for the evening," Flynn said. He blew gently on the kindling until the flames grew hot enough to be fed more wood. As an afterthought, he added, "You hungry?"

He hadn't been in the mood for much lately himself—had barely thought about it, despite plying Shaw with whatever he could find. Judging from the fit of his britches, he might've even lost a pound or two. It's not that he wasn't hungry, it was that he couldn't taste anything, which ruined things considerably. And he wasn't hungry.

He abruptly remembered the sausage in his coat pocket. Should probably do something about that at some point. Maybe chuck it in a stew. Seemed a lot of effort, though. Everything seemed a lot of effort.

"I'm fine," Shaw said. He was more hazy than curt, like constructing a meaningful sentence was just out of his grasp but he was doing what he could.

"Drink, then?" Since full sentences were overrated, as was coherency, and Flynn reckoned a tot of rum might actually get him relaxed enough to take his boots off.

Another negatory from Shaw, though this time in the form of a halfhearted wave of his hand. He finally sat himself in the armchair, leaning on one elbow as he watched Flynn prod at the fire with the poker. The flickering firelight didn't do much to improve his pallor; his skin shone with perspiration, and maybe it would've set the copper of his hair blazing if it weren't dampened and dark, pushed carelessly back from his face.

Flynn had never seen Shaw looking anything less than respectable, and all this worried him in a way that couldn't be reasoned with. It wasn't right.

Shaw regarded him somewhat blearily, then let his head rest against the back of the chair, closed his eyes and took a deep, labouring breath. He let it out again, and the tension went out of him like a wave pulling back from the shore.

"Oi," Flynn said, and nudged his knee. "Bed's over there."

Shaw blinked his eyes open, then let them slide closed again. "I'm not taking your bed, Fairwind."

"Then at least get some of that armour off. It can't be comfortable."

"It's—it usually is." Shaw shifted in the chair, muttering as though Flynn drawing attention to it had made him conscious of his discomfort, and he wasn't about to thank him for it. He ran his hands over the taut leather of his chest armour, unfastening its straps and loosening it by touch, then caught his gloves in his teeth and pulled them off. His belt and then his spaulders slid to the floor with a series of heavy thunks. He laid back again with a rough sigh.

Flynn gave him ten minutes or so of moist snoring, the skin of his arm and the side of his face gradually reddening in the fire's heat, then prodded him awake again. "What do I have to do to get you horizontal?"

"Is that what you want, then," Shaw mumbled.

"Yes. That's what I've been saying."

"Hmm?" Shaw was brought more fully awake by a breathless cough. He jerked upright and then over his knees, covering his mouth until it passed. "I said I was fine."

"The thing is, it's just that I prefer the chair."

Shaw's narrow stare was lacking its usual sharpness, but that didn't mean he was going to go over easy, apparently. "I don't think you do," he said. "I think you're being contrary."

"It's like you don't know me at all." Flynn put a hand to his chest as though gravely offended. "The very idea. Come on, get your arse out of my spot."

"Gracious host," Shaw said, but stood by increments, stiff-limbed and with a grimace on his face. Flynn was happy to let him think he was being difficult; he could grumble all he liked if it meant he could take the soft option with his pride intact.

Shaw looked at the bed, then looked back at Flynn, who had sprung into the chair as soon as he'd relinquished it. Flynn gestured for him to get over whatever his problem was this time, but Shaw just looked at him with increasing affront.

"What?" Flynn said. "Blankets are clean. Ish."

Shaw shook his head and bundled up the topmost blanket so he could toss it to Flynn, who caught it, though didn't quite prevent it from bunting him in the face. He shook it out and a pair of old socks tumbled to the floor.

"I said the blankets are." He picked up a sock and gave it a tentative sniff. Probably all right for another wear or three, actually. He draped them over the arm of his chair and hoiked another log onto the fire. A gust from the window made the flames leap high and bright, embers flurrying up the chimney. Shaw sighed heavily and finally got onto the damn bed.

The rain was torrential outside, a constant hush of white noise beneath the crack and pop of the fire, and it wasn't long until Flynn felt himself on the threshold of sleep. He hitched the blanket up to his chin and let it happen, only to jolt awake when a snore ripped through the room. For a moment Flynn thought he'd woken himself up with it, but then it happened again. He shuffled over to the bed where Shaw was flat on his back with an arm flung above his head.

"Hey," Flynn said, but Shaw didn't stir. "Hey, Snoremaster Shaw."

Yep, definitely out cold. Flynn flopped his arm back down and slowly rolled him onto his side, where his breathing immediately became less coarse. He mumbled a bit and grasped at Flynn's sleeve, though didn't wake any more than that. He was lying atop the blankets, which left Flynn in a conundrum, but after a minute or two trying to ease one out from beneath him and, when that was unsuccessful, standing there scratching at his beard in thought, he folded what he could over him and called the job done.

"Suppose that'll have to do. Sorry," he said, patted Shaw's narrow shoulder, and retreated back to his armchair to curl up until morning.

---

Flynn woke with one blocked nostril, which was somehow more irritating than if he'd been stuffed up completely. He flattened his clear nostril with his thumb and blew, but that just made his ears hurt. So far so good. He inhaled with a monstrous noise instead, which he regretted pretty much straight away. He spat the results into the fire's ashes with some difficulty since his mouth was dryer than a cork leg.

His head gave him a gentle drubbing over standing up, but settled down after a minute. Shaw was sleeping with his back to the room, breathing shallowly enough that he barely moved with it. Flynn slouched over to check on him, half-concerned he might have expired in the night. That'd be pretty upsetting in itself, even aside from the unimaginable amount of shit he'd be in if the Alliance's Spymaster General happened to kick the bucket under his roof.

He touched his fingers to Shaw's neck and felt the rise and fall of his breathing, the quick beat of his pulse, the slick sweat he was drenched in. He probably felt hotter than he truly was since Flynn's hands were so cold, but that didn't prevent a jag of concern that all but squeezed the breath out of him. He wondered if he had the gold to find a healer with ten minutes to spare.

Outside, the sky was struggling towards morning, though it looked as if it would be another day of raindark and then a dip straight back into night. Flynn squinted up at the heavy bank of clouds, and when he looked down again there was a dwarf standing in front of him. He took a startled step back before he could help himself.

The dwarf frowned up at him; one eye glinted in the shadow of his deep hood. "You the idiot?" he asked.

"That doesn't do much for my self-esteem, to be honest," Flynn said. "Did Renzik send you?"

This seemed to be enough to satisfy the dwarf, who held out a message scroll without further comment. Flynn took it, turning it over in his hands to examine its blue wax seal and the Alliance's lion crest pressed into it. When he looked up again, the dwarf had vanished.

So that's how it was going to be. Flynn fetched it inside. Shaw had rolled onto his back again, still sound asleep. It would be the first thing he'd want to see when he woke up, so Flynn made sure it'd be the case by balancing it carefully on the bridge of his nose.

He would probably get that disapproving set to his mouth if it got crumpled, but that just meant he'd be awake, and hopefully sharp enough to have read it, by the time Flynn returned from his errand.

---

Chapter Five

Flynn had drunk his cotton mouth into submission and was filling a couple of canteens at the fountain when Taelia found him, her green scarf pulled up over her chin to fend off the wind's vicious bite. She managed to look cosy, which just made the fact Flynn was freezing his balls off all the more tragic. The cold water, while refreshing, had not helped on that front, but at least the rain had held off for a while. The crisp taste of impending snow was in the air.

"Where have you been?" Taelia said, prodding him in the chest. "You're supposed to be recuperating."

"I, er, had some business to attend to." Flynn offered her an arm, and she looped hers through as they headed up to the market. He was glad to see her as rosy-cheeked and vivacious as ever. At least he hadn't passed this damned illness on to her.

"Really? Your ship's not left the harbour for days."

"Not that kind of business. Personal business."

"If you're trying to sound less suspicious, it's not working." She grinned up at him. "What have you been up to?"

"Oh, you know, this and—just a second." He stopped and sneezed so hard he was pretty sure his brain slapped the inside of his skull. "This and that."

"Suspicions rising!"

"All right, all right. I'm still sick as a dog, thank you for asking, and—fine, I've been bothering that poor fellow again."

"I knew it," Taelia said, far too jubilantly for Flynn's liking. "You know, you spend an awful lot of time trying to get his attention."

They headed into the heart of the market, thronging with bartering townsfolk and mainlanders alike, and were thankfully jostled apart before Flynn had to account for himself. Warm savoury smells drifted from the food stalls in billows of steam: herbed and buttered frying fish; roasting skewers of spiced goat; fragrant root vegetable stew. Flynn's stomach sloshed emptily but he couldn't decide on anything he wanted to eat. Couldn't go far wrong with the staples, so he loaded his pack with potatoes and carrots and onions, and on a whim, a fresh-baked loaf of bread, still springy and warm.

The crowds were thinner around the woodmonger's stack, and Taelia caught up to him again there. "I got you this, and this," she said, stowing some soft goat's cheese and a jar of Mildenhall honey along with the bread—luxuries he wouldn't have indulged in himself. Flynn made thankful hungry noises at her, and she flashed him a pleased smile.

"So hey, how'd it go down at the foundry?" he asked.

"Don't change the subject," she said. "First, I want to know what business you had with the spymaster. Come on, you can tell me."

"Nothing important," he said, hefting the bag of firewood onto his shoulder. "There's just something about getting him all red in the face, you know? He makes for a fantastic straight man."

"Right," Taelia said with a laugh. "Isn't he a little, I don't know. Unavailable?"

It seemed to Flynn that some significant part of this conversation had passed him by. "I'm sorry, what?"

Taelia looked at him as though waiting for him to come to an obvious conclusion, which, with a bone-shuddering impact like a ship running aground, Flynn did. He immediately doubled over in a furious coughing fit.

"It's not like that," he said, trying to fend off a terrible sense of inevitability and more than a little incredulousness at himself. He coughed one more time and sniffed wetly. "You think I—huh. Me and guys? Never really thought about it."

"Well, you are always flirting with Reed Fisc."

"I think you'll find he's always flirting with me."

"And Wesley at the Snug Harbor."

"Just trying to get out of settling my tab."

"I saw you kiss Franklin last Winter Veil."

"He was drunk, I was drunk, there was mistletoe. It's tradition!"

"Pretty sure you actually slept with him!"

"That is dreadful slander and I won't have it."

Taelia gave a disbelieving snort. "Then what's all the secrecy about?"

"Nothing!" Flynn insisted. His heart was thumping as though they were having an actual argument, which didn't help the general sensation of lightheadedness he was experiencing. "He's sick, and it was sort of my fault and by extension I might have scuppered the entire war effort, so I'm trying to do right by him. Just fetching some provisions for us, that's all."

"For you both?"

"Yeah, he's—" Flynn rubbed his hand over his mouth, stubble rasping against the palm of his glove. "Look, this isn't what it sounds like, but he's staying at my place."

Taelia's eyebrows shot up. "Sounds like a lot to me! How'd he end up there?"

"I, er. Made him come with me?" Flynn slowed his pace. "He needed someplace quiet to rest up."

"You made him, did you?"

"What is this, an interrogation?"

"It shouldn't have to be," Taelia said.

"Oh, no," Flynn said. His heart was going all-out against his ribcage. He could feel himself sweating, a proper cold chill of a sweat, not the clammy heat of a fever. "Oh, no. Tae."

"What? What is it?"

"I put him in my bed. I had him take his armour off and I put him in my bed."

"Oh, Flynn, you didn't." Taelia burst into laughter, her shoulders hitching while she muffled it behind her hands. It took her a frankly ridiculous amount of time to get a hold of herself, and when she managed to straighten up her cheeks had gone pink. She patted his shoulder consolingly, still snorting. "Well, I can admit when I'm wrong. He must like you well enough after all."

"Don't you make light of this!" Flynn said. "He took his gloves off with his teeth! Who even does that?"

"Everyone who didn't cut the fingers off theirs. Come on, let me carry that firewood back for you."

He clutched the bag of wood like it was the only thing keeping him afloat. "I can't go back there! Oceans drown me, Tae. How am I going to look him in the eye—"

"Calm down. You'll be fine! As far as he's concerned you're helping out a friend, right?"

"He must know. How could he not know. It would be absolutely typical of him to know," Flynn said miserably. His head was pounding something terrible. "Ugh, I need a drink."

"Hey, sun's not over the yardarm yet, sailor."

"There is no sun. I'm in the clear." Flynn delved into a pocket for his flask, and after some issues getting the cap off with his numb fingers, took a fortifying gulp. The burn of it in his throat only set him off coughing again.

"Oh, that doesn't sound good," Taelia said.

"Put me out of my misery," Flynn moaned, bracing his hands on his knees. "Go on. Mercy killing."

Taelia shook her head instead of doing him in with her warhammer. In most ways she was kind, but sometimes she was too honourable for Flynn's good.

"How about instead, you—oh!" She turned her face to the sky as the first few flakes of snow alighted in her hair, and all of Flynn's woes became second fiddle to her excitement. "It's about time! I've been waiting for this for weeks!"

"Great," Flynn said. "Fantastic. Just wonderful. What a perfect day."

"Oh, don't be such a wet blanket," she said, and stuck her tongue out, ostensibly to catch a snowflake but mostly at him.

"Not the worst pep talk I've had lately." Flynn brushed some snow off his shoulder before it could melt. The warmth of last night's fire would've long dissipated from his room, and it was only going to get colder. He took a deep breath. "Right," he said. "I'm heading back. Wish me luck."

"I'll come with you," Taelia said.

"Nope!"

"I can be moral support," she said, leaning on his arm.

"You just want to watch me embarrass myself," Flynn said. "Seriously though, Master Shaw's not looking so fancy. He probably wouldn't like it."

Taelia took a long, considering look at him, her brow furrowed up. "All right," she said. "I'll let Cyrus know you're out of action for a while. And watch out, because I'm going to check up on you if I don't see you around in the next few days."

"Thank you, please don't pry," Flynn said, as she stood on her tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. "Give Galeheart a scritch from me, and you take care, Taelia."

"You take care," she said with playful combativeness and a soft punch on the arm. She turned to leave, her scarf fluttering behind her in the bitter wind.

"No, you!" Flynn called after her.

"You!"

"You!" he hollered, his voice cracking into nothing, which made her laugh and wave and mime eating soup.

---

Flynn didn't like to think of himself as a cut-and-run kind of guy these days, but since he spent most of his walk back wondering if he could get away with living on the Middenwake for the foreseeable, maybe a little soul-searching might be in order. Something to look forward to after a pint or four, which was about when the introspective epiphanies tended to hit. In the meantime, he concluded that he was not a brave man, but not so lily-livered he could just bail like that.

He opened his door as softly as possible. He needn't have worried; a battalion of orcs probably wouldn't have woken Shaw up. He'd migrated over to the table, where he'd cleared a space and then proceeded to fall asleep in his paperwork.

Shaw's hands rested over a letter and his face rested on his hands, knuckles pressed into his cheek. His hair was curled with sweat. Flynn was cool with that and absolutely not tempted to brush it from his forehead.

"Comfy, are you?" he said to Shaw's slumbering form instead, setting his pack down amid the table's heaped detritus. "Most people prefer a bed when there's one in the offing." He thunked the jar of honey on the tabletop.

Shaw started awake with a sharp intake of breath and a hand to the dagger at his hip. For a moment it looked as though he was about to pretend he hadn't been caught passed out in a pile of half-unwound message scrolls, but then resigned himself to yawning behind his hand and squaring his shoulders.

"You're back. Good," he said, part accusatory, part plaintive, and certainly sounding rough. His face was the colour of curdled milk. He cleared his throat repeatedly before he spoke again. It didn't help him much. "Do you have a pen and ink I could borrow?"

"Probably. I'll see what I can find in a sec." Flynn pulled up a chair and carved off a hunk of bread. His stomach gurgled uncertainly as he slathered it with cheese and honey, but he really needed to eat something if he wanted to shake his lightheadedness and the accompanying limp-limbed wobbles. He felt entirely composed of damp seaweed.

"You sound terrible," Shaw said. For all his appearance, he was much sharper than last night. Flynn welcomed it, idle criticism and all.

"Yeah, well, you sound like a yard of rusty chain and look half as pretty." He took a mouthful of bread and spoke through it. "But it's not a competition. How're you doing?"

Shaw watched him chew for a long moment, a crease deepening between his eyebrows. About to prevaricate, Flynn thought, but he shook his head and said, "I've felt better." He took a missive and laid it alongside another, and gave them a quick drum of his fingers. "There's increased Syndicate activity in the Alterac foothills, and movement throughout Arathi. I don't think that it's coincidence. I want more eyes in both places."

"I thought Renzik was taking care of all that," Flynn said, then figured Shaw had nothing less than a white-knuckled grip on every aspect of his work, so he followed up with a muffled never-mind noise, still chewing. It was due a swallow but his throat wasn't cooperating. He held the bread out to Shaw. "I don't want this. You want it?"

"No, thank you," Shaw said automatically. Flynn waved it at him insistently, and he sighed and accepted it with a grateful curl to his mouth—though grateful or not, it didn't stop him eyeing the bite Flynn had already left in it. He turned the bread and nibbled from the opposite end.

Outside the window, the snow was coming down in an ever-denser white scrim, heaping up on the sill. Flynn got up and cleared it off with his sleeve before it avalanched into the room, then knelt shivering at the hearth to get the fire going again. Just doing that made him feel weak and jittery, like he'd overdone it with the coffee. Bread paste had cleaved to the roof of his mouth, and when he glanced over his shoulder, Shaw was absently sucking honey from the edge of his thumb while he read.

Oh, this was miserable. Flynn gave in to the urge to write the rest of the day off.

"Right," he said. He ferreted out his writing implements and slapped them onto the table. "There you go. There's more food and water in my pack, help yourself. Be a pal and chuck a log on the fire when it needs one. I'm going to sleep."

Shaw shot him an alarmed look, and another at the sky outside the window. "What time is it?"

"Not even midday, mate," Flynn said, shrugging out of his duster. He was too hot in some places, not warm enough in others so he took his shirt off to see if that would help. The chill from the window was sublimely cool and made him shiver furiously. He gave his chest a brisk rub with both hands so that the friction warmed his palms.

Shaw watched him do this with a vaguely hunted expression, then turned intently to his messages. "Whatever you need," he said, shaking the bottle of ink.

"Ugh," Flynn said, flopping face-down onto his bed and pulling his blankets over him in a heap. "This is by far the worst thing that's ever happened to me."

"Didn't you get beaten senseless by your pirate crew not so long ago?" Shaw said without looking up.

"Former crew." Flynn coughed pitifully into his pillow. "What's your point?"

"Just making conversation."

"Ugh," Flynn reiterated, took a deep, snorting breath and then turned abruptly onto his back.

With his half-a-nose pressed into the sheets, he'd detected that they smelled of someone who wasn't him, and after an extremely brief process of elimination, could only be Shaw. Flynn hadn't thought about it before now, but it would make sense that the Alliance's complement of spies used a hunter's soap.

Well, it had bloody well worn off.

This was definitely the worst thing that had ever happened to him. Flynn squeezed his eyes shut, wrapped himself in a blanket and did his best to pass out.

Chance would be a fine thing. Shaw cleared his throat incessantly and tapped his pen nib against the inkpot every minute or so. Even when that became background noise enough for Flynn to drift off, Shaw broke into a series of unrestrained sneezes, or moved his chair to get up and stoke the fire, or leant over the windowsill to confer with someone in low, brisk tones.

He was too hot. He stuck a foot out of the blankets. His toes froze. He lay all sorts of ways trying to get comfortable then flung an arm out experimentally. His fingers froze instead, but that seemed to do the trick.

Flynn blinked awake to see Shaw with his arms bent above his head, changing out the last of his uniform for a loose cotton shirt, the shifting definition of his back and shoulders stark in the firelight. Through the window, the sky was clear of snow and the clouds were a deep pink. Strange long shadows cast themselves across the room. Late afternoon, then, Flynn thought, as Shaw put another log on the fire.

The next time he woke it was dark except for the hearth's orange glow. Shaw was at the table still, leaning back in the chair and rubbing slowly at his face. Some correspondence sat on the windowsill.

Flynn closed his eyes a moment, and then Shaw was by the stove, setting a kettle on the heat. The sky was black and clear, pricked with stars, a fresh inch of snow on the sill and no messages set there.

The water reached a boil. Shaw was stood by the bed, close enough that he might have been checking Flynn's temperature. Close enough that Flynn could move his hand and rest it against his thigh, if he wanted. He didn't. He slept again.

He perked up properly when he smelled coffee. "Hope you don't mind," Shaw said, when he saw Flynn was more awake. He was looking peculiarly everyday, all very civilian in thick wool trousers and leather boots, his shirt damp and sticking from the room's heat or his own fever. Behind him, two messages sat on the sill.

Flynn swung his feet to the floor and sat up. He was lathered in a sweat that cooled immediately and made him shiver. A shirt seemed both too much and not enough, so he slung a blanket over his shoulders as a compromise.

"Not at all." He was as parched as the Vol'dun desert, and sounded just as gritty. "Glad you're feeling at home."

Shaw said nothing for a while, busy with his preparations but pausing every so often to sniff into a handkerchief. "It's a welcome change from ship living," he eventually said.

He brought a mug of coffee to Flynn and the honey to sweeten it, and looked increasingly pained as Flynn stirred in spoonful after spoonful. Let him judge. He obviously hadn't tried it yet, and was about to find out it'd been pilfered from the Admiralty's stores. It was effective if he needed to sober up, but Flynn otherwise approached it with caution. He watched avidly as Shaw took a sip.

Shaw's face schooled itself into something perfectly composed. "Well," he said in diplomatic tones. "I can warm my hands on the mug."

Flynn laughed, or tried to. It was mostly snorting that culminated in a choking cough. Shaw regarded this performance with that same careful expression, set his mug down at the table, and then himself.

"You may as well go back to sleep," he said. "It's late." His voice was beyond gruff and firmly into rasping territory now. Flynn knew it must feel raw.

"Nah, not tired," he said. More like exhausted, but no amount of sleeping had fixed that so far. His sides ached from the rough jolt of his coughing so he pulled up a chair, and swapped out Shaw's mug for his own.

"That's more honey than coffee," Shaw said, as though that wasn't the point of it, and Flynn caught his tongue before he could make an offhand crack about trying to sweeten him up. Instead he leant on an elbow and tried to read some of the messages. Shaw had left them in plain sight, so they mustn't be too much of a secret.

Or—they're ciphered, of course. Shaw appended a dozen nonsense words to one of them, rolled it up and sealed it with candle wax, pressing the lion-head pommel of his dagger into it. It went on the windowsill with the others.

"So, uh, how's the war going," Flynn asked. "Good?"

"There's no such thing as a good war," Shaw said in a low murmur. "The best you can hope for is a short one. I'm doing everything I can to that end."

Flynn watched him yawn and scrape his fingernails over the stubble on his jaw, then break the seal on a new message. He skimmed it with a progressively irritated frown.

"Love letter?" Flynn said, his head propped in one hand.

Shaw shot him a strange look. "More Syndicate heckling," he said. "No doubt they mean to take advantage of the Alliance's divided attention, but they always were too fractious to mobilise effectively. Jorach's men have been slapping them down and calling it a favour."

The message could just as likely be intelligence on troop movements as far as Flynn knew, but Eastern Kingdom politics weren't an immediately sensitive subject. Seemed reason enough for Shaw to bring this Syndicate business up twice now—satisfying Flynn's curiosity without compromising whatever the Alliance's current strategy might be, since as far as Flynn had gathered, Shaw considered him reliable in only limited ways.

Could be the truth, could be a load of codswallop. Either way, Shaw could have pulled his top-secret-classified inscrutable act instead, so Flynn happily considered the pretence a compliment, if not an invitation.

There was a flicker of movement in his periphery; he glanced at the sill to see the correspondence had vanished.

"So, what's this Syndicate and what's their deal?" he said. His hair had come half-undone at some point, probably while he was raking around in his sleep. He combed it back, blew an errant strand out of his face.

"Remnants of the Second War," Shaw replied. "Alteraci renegades with a chip on their shoulder. Turncoats, every one of them."

"And Jorach?"

Shaw reached for his coffee and in the same instant thought better of it. "Lord Jorach Ravenholdt," he said, as though that were explanation in itself. The clipped edge to his words were more of a giveaway. Sounded like some interesting tension there.

"Ah," Flynn said. "You go back."

"Youthful folly. Though I don't know what Jorach's excuse was."

Oh. That kind of tension. Flynn felt his eyebrows climb and could do nothing to stop it happening. At least Shaw sounded pretty unsentimental about it.

"I don't want to hear your thoughts on either his proclivities or mine."

"I'm not one to judge, mate," Flynn said. "I'm more surprised that you told me."

"Mm." Shaw rested his elbow on the table, fingers pressed to his forehead in something like self-reproach. He closed his eyes. "My judgement has been lacking of late."

"Well, no repercussions here," Flynn said, and tapped a finger against his lips. And if it means anything, he could say, if it makes you feel any better—

No, it probably didn't, and it probably wouldn't.

Besides, Shaw was leaning heavily into his own hand, eyes still closed. His elbow slid an inch on the tabletop and he startled upright.

"Bed's free," Flynn said.

Shaw sighed. "Are we going to have this argument every time?"

"Only if you keep on being stubborn about it."

"You could stop badgering me instead."

"Nope. Come on, up you get."

"I don't think much of your hospitality," Shaw said, as Flynn hoisted him to his feet by elbow and underarm. He was fiercely hot, radiating into Flynn's side.

Some terrible sentimental part of Flynn imagined doing the same for him five years from now, or ten years, the lines in his face deepened and grey touching his hair, and him still grousing just like this. Flynn immediately succumbed to a wild cough, which handily disguised whatever expression might be on his face—and hey, what was a detour into wistfulness without ultimately choking on it. The gap between ideal and reality had always been a cavernous one.

"If you cough on me, Captain, I won't be happy," Shaw said.

"Yeah, when are you ever." He dodged Shaw's flinty look by getting ambuscaded by a second round. He did his best to catch his breath, but each inhale he dragged in set him off coughing again until he was gasping for mercy while Shaw half-heartedly patted him on the back like that'd do anything.

Finally it abated, no thanks to either of their efforts. He could feel his nose running. His eyes were streaming so badly his cheeks were wet. His headache had resurged, pounding like the ocean against a sea wall. In fact, everything sounded underwater. He held his nose and blew. His ears popped. Delightful.

"I think I might be dying," he informed Shaw, who shook his head.

"You're not dying," he said tiredly. "Unless you want to, then it can be arranged."

"Let me sleep on that." Flynn's voice had gone thick and indistinct, muddy to his own ears. His eyes were sore so he pressed the heels of his hands to them, and—damn it, Shaw was absolutely going to use that against him.

Sure enough, Shaw nudged him towards the bed like he didn't need it more with his two days of stubble, the shadows under his eyes developing their own shadows, the visible argument he was having with his own aching body.

"If I lie down I'll drown," Flynn said, and flopped into his chair instead, his arms dangling over the sides.

"Suit yourself," Shaw said. "You should think about taking it, though. You're worse off."

"Aah, that's a load of bilge. I just complain more."

"Can't argue with that."

"About the only thing you won't argue with," Flynn said, folding his hands over his stomach and letting his eyes slide closed when all Shaw had to say to that was a dismissive snort.

Not long after that, Flynn heard the mournful creak of the bed frame.

"It seems you bring it out in me," Shaw muttered, though at least he sounded more annoyed with himself than with Flynn.

---

Chapter Six

From the missives Shaw's agents had brought him, the war was continuing apace. The foray into Warport Rastari had succeeded and the munitions were set, but for all the managing of logistics and battle plans and assignments, it felt to Shaw as though time was slipping through his fingers at an alarming rate. It was only his confidence in the steady stream of intel he had at hand that'd held him from gearing up and getting back into the thick of things.

That, and he was patently still off his game.

"Fairwind," he said, frowning at his fourth attempt to decipher the most recent communication.

An indistinct sound came from the armchair by the fire, where Fairwind was sprawled in limp repose, barely distinguishable from his laundry pile.

Time had passed strangely. Sleeping for long stretches was a dangerous habit, particularly during the day, and without his work to attend to Shaw's life might well have descended into unstructured disorder. At the very least, the regular missives helped him keep track of what day it was.

Fairwind, however, seemed to have no such compunction, dozing for hours at a time in that uncomfortable chair of his. Shaw had noted a slight shift in his demeanour lately, though he couldn't put his finger on it. He was just as mulish and just as deliberately contentious, so perhaps it was that Shaw had become inured to his company. Quite the thought.

Either way, two things were apparent: Shaw had developed expectations of him, and he was getting steadily sicker. His sleep was fitful, restless, and yet still he wouldn't take the blasted bed. Shaw had been reluctant to cede that ground in particular, but Fairwind had been so insistent that he'd relented before he could exhaust them both.

"Fairwind," Shaw said again, and once again got no response. He leant over the chair and nudged Fairwind's shoulder persistently until he stirred.

"Ugh, come on. Nothing can be this important," he groaned, then rolled his eyes and said, "Okay, what is it," before Shaw could form a suitably biting retort.

"I need you to decipher something," Shaw said.

"What?" Fairwind squinted at him. "Want me to do your job for you now?"

Fairwind had found his nap invigorating, if that was any indication. He sounded well on his way to losing his voice, but unfortunately wasn't quite there yet. Shaw took a breath and let it go.

"I need a second opinion on the content."

"Why. And how. And why."

In lieu of an answer, Shaw encouraged him to the table where he'd set his volume of Lothar's A Treatise on Strategy. Fairwind eyed it with trepidation.

"I'm not reading all that," he said.

"It would be in your interest to do so," Shaw said. "But not today. This is the key. Pay attention, if you would."

"I'll do my best, but no promises."

"Deciphering a message is fairly straightforward when you know how," Shaw said. He leant over Fairwind's shoulder and set the missive that'd been giving him trouble on the table in front of him. "This number in the corner here. It's not a date. It refers to a page, paragraph and word. That's where you start."

"Right. So anyone who has the book can decode all your top-secret messages? Gotta say, I expected something more sophisticated."

"I wasn't finished," Shaw said with a tolerance that came far too easily. "Only this particular edition works as the key. There's a high occurrence of errors in the text, and there aren't many copies extant. Truly sensitive information uses a different cipher and key entirely."

"Oh, which one?"

"That's none of your concern."

"I bet it's Waves of Desire. Read it?"

"Certainly not," Shaw said.

"What about Stormy Seas?"

"No."

"It's an absolute corker. I'll lend you my copy."

"If you must," Shaw said, rather than refusing on grounds of good taste and having to endure an impassioned defense of Fairwind's choice of reading material. He handed him the pen. "Pay attention. This is written in a shifted cipher. The first letter of the key word corresponds to 'a', and the rest of the alphabet follows. When you reach a punctuation mark, it shifts again—the second letter of the key word becomes 'a'. Do you follow?"

Fairwind cast his eye over the missive, then tipped his head back to look up at Shaw. "Nope," he said with all of his usual confidence.

While Fairwind may play the fool, he was far from stupid. "Yes, you do," Shaw said.

"All right, all right. Bet this isn't going to do my headache any good." Fairwind fastened his hair out of his face, thumped Treatise open, leafed through to the appropriate page and then ran his finger across it until he found the correct word. He licked the pen nib. "Stop hovering over my shoulder, would you? It's distracting."

"Let me know if you need help with it," Shaw said, thereby ensuring that he would do no such thing. He seemed off to a reasonable start, at least. It shouldn't take him long.

The fire had burned down. There were enough logs to last the morning but not much beyond that. Shaw sat by the hearth and agitated things until the flames roared again. He soaked up the euphoric heat, but his fingers remained stubbornly cold, and still he shivered.

Now that he didn't have anything to focus on, his thoughts aimlessly unwound, sliding between the war at hand and more personal battles of attrition until drowsiness swamped him, and he found himself thinking of useless things, repeating like the same half-line of a song. Fairwind atop the mast; the way they'd shaken hands. He struggled to keep his eyes open. Frustrating. The last thing he needed was more sleep.

He stood and stretched, which did little to ease the deep ache in his shoulders, and thought about heading to the market. They needed wood and food, and while the chill would do him no favours it would certainly wake him up. He could do with seeing more than these four walls, besides. He dug through his pack for a heavy cloak and swept it on.

From the table, Fairwind's pen-scratching stopped. "Going somewhere?"

"Out," Shaw said, pulling on his gloves. "I need some air."

"Looking like that?"

Shaw raised his brows in question. He would hardly be the first man to go stumbling around a city at war looking like death risen. Among the walking wounded, he'd barely warrant a second glance.

Fairwind pinched the end of his own moustache in mime. "It's looking a bit sorry for itself, mate. Just saying."

Shaw's fingers went to his face before he could check himself, brushing at the hair that straggled against his lips. He closed his eyes and took as deep a breath as he could manage.

"Like a depressed walrus."

"Yes, thank you, Captain," Shaw said on an exhale.

"What are friends for," Fairwind said warmly. Then, "Running errands, of course. Get some top secret wood for the fire while you're out on your highly classified constitutional, would you?"

"I can't confirm or deny if I will," Shaw said, and let Fairwind's hoarse laugh chase him out into the cold.

---

Winter drew on him like a blade, vividly bright and crisp against his face. The air was so cold that it hurt to breathe. It was briefly relieving after the room's drowsy heat, but quickly cut deep, and Shaw pulled his cloak tight around himself to fend off a shiver. The sun was low and blinding though jealously guarded its warmth.

Shaw's boots sank ankle-deep into the snow as he made his way around the side of Fairwind's home. Here, it had been compressed into slippery ice. His agents had taken care to not step too close to the window and so it looked like nothing more than a well-used shortcut. A clean bank of snow lay against the wall, punctured by water droplets from the icicles that hung from the eaves. From here, Shaw could see Fairwind at the table. Despite his complaining about it, he seemed intent enough on his task, his attention moving between the book, message and his transcription, his lower lip caught between his teeth. Shaw watched him until he could think of no good reason to continue to do so, and turned towards the market instead.

The blacksmith's hammer rang through the air, heard long before the rest of the market's bustling. Shaw lingered at the forge to warm himself, only to spy Fordragon's girl waiting nearby. Presumably it was her breastplate the smith was beating the dents out of. By all accounts, Harbourmaster Cyrus had raised Taelia Fordragon well. Fairwind certainly spoke of her in unconditionally glowing terms. She was principled, disciplined, forthright and brave: everything her father had been. Shaw saw her father as well in the slope of her nose and the set of her jaw, and it stirred some foreboding in him.

She would no doubt want to know what became of Bolvar Fordragon, and it would be Anduin's duty to tell her. All deaths without a body warranted investigation, doubly so when it was a person of significance, and so it was a secret Shaw had unpicked over the years. King Varian had confirmed it only when Shaw had asked him directly. For a long time, Varian had not wanted Anduin to know—Bolvar's apparent death had stricken him enough—but he hadn't the luxury of ignorance now that he himself was king.

Shaw had faith that Anduin would make the correct decision when it came down to it, but in the meantime he had no intention of forcing that particular hand. He watched the coruscation of the forge's coals and shuddered.

"Spymaster Shaw?"

Well. Shaw took a measured breath and turned away from the heat. He had not anticipated drawing Taelia's attention, much less for her to engage him in conversation. For an inauspicious moment he feared she would ask him about Bolvar. After all, he was supposed to know that kind of thing.

The thought of navigating that conversation made him profoundly weary. He steeled himself as best he could. "Lady Taelia," he said, bowing his head in greeting.

"I thought it was you." Taelia sounded hesitant, as though uncertain how to address him, or perhaps what register to take. It was often the case. "Flynn said you were sick."

At that, Shaw's apprehension abated a small amount, even if Fairwind's lack of discretion had him thinning his lips. Perhaps this would be smalltalk and pleasantries, tiresome rather than tiring. Who'd have thought Fairwind would be a welcome neutral ground.

"Did he now. Hmph. I suppose there's no denying it."

"It's good to see that you're on your feet. How's Flynn doing? Not being too much of a handful, I hope."

She broke into a grin, her eyes soft with an affection that made Shaw's chest tighten uneasily. He realised he'd responded with nothing but a long flat stare only when she snorted and looked out to the market instead.

"Yeah, I know. He can be like that," she said with long-suffering fondness. "He means well, mostly."

Shaw acknowledged that with a nod, and made an effort to return Taelia's smile, as she'd done nothing to earn his disregard. She and Fairwind often worked together at the Harbourmaster's behest, and by all reports they were an effective, if unpredictable, team. That they cared for one another a great deal was quite apparent.

Of course. Shaw hefted any further thoughts he might have on the matter out into the cold.

"He's been very generous," he said blandly, which was the truth, even if Fairwind's generosity had come with more pitfalls than he'd anticipated. The man was a habitual flirt. Shaw was very aware of that, but he hadn't realised to what extent he'd let himself lean into it. He could remind himself it was human reflex to gravitate into kindness and warmth, but Light—he was too old for this kind of foolishness. It was the sort of feeling he wanted to dig out with a knife

"Oh, really. Is that why you're out running errands for him?" Taelia said, a laugh in her voice.

"A small favour, in the scheme of things. And I want some drinkable coffee."

They'd stood for too long; Shaw stamped his feet to get some feeling back into his toes, then set off towards the market proper before he could start shaking bodily with the cold. Taelia strode alongside him, her boots squeaking and crunching in the snow, her breath misting in the still air. Shaw could sense there was something she wanted to say but had the good judgement not to. He only hoped it would last.

"You want Upton Borough for the really good stuff," she said, "but the market does drinkable, if you know where to look."

Shaw did happen to know where to look, but asking small favours of people had a way of building their trust. He gestured with one hand. "Lead on," he said.

She beamed at him, clearly pleased to help. The snow began to fall again, silently swirling downward. Shaw took as deep a breath as he could without it irritating him into a cough and discreetly wiped at his nose. His head ached dully.

From one stall he bought coffee that would pass for decent, and from another, a brace of roasted wildfowl. From the apothecary, a restorative draught that had been watered down considerably even if the price hadn't, but such resources were scarce and Shaw would take what he could get. Taelia was amenable enough company but kept glancing at him as he went about his business. He had to bite down on the urge to curtly ask if there was anything he could help her with. It wouldn't do to speak to her in such a fashion, and she might give him an answer, besides.

"I could carry that if you like," she said at the woodmonger's stall, as Shaw hefted a bag of split logs onto his shoulder. It awoke an ache there, a hot radiating pain that wasn't unlike the usual complaints he endured except for the way he couldn't seem to ignore it as easily.

"Thank you, but no need," he said, regardless.

Taelia gave a snort and a quick shake of her head. "You're as stubborn as Flynn is."

This left Shaw feeling unreasonably cornered. He clenched his jaw, which in turn sent a fresh spike of pain through his head. This was building trust, he told himself, and not a fit of contrariness, and gave her the damn wood to carry.

It was, admittedly, a relief.

"We're sailing in strong winds these days, Spymaster." Taelia inclined her head towards Fairwind's home, then turned in that direction. "Everyone needs to work a little harder and be a little stronger. Stand together a little more."

"Noted," Shaw said dryly.

"Oh, not that you don't." Taelia flushed and took a moment to marshal her words. "That is, I didn't mean to suggest—"

"It's all right," Shaw told her. "I am accustomed to… self-sufficiency, let's say." After walking on further, the snow thickening in the air and the wind picking up, he added, "Thank you."

"Any friend of Flynn's."

"Really?"

"Within reason," she amended, pulling her scarf up over her mouth, but not before Shaw caught her grin. Still some naivety to her, then, that she would consider him any more palatable than Fairwind's other associates.

She left him at the door of Fairwind's home, pleading an abiding concern for her own health even when the place wasn't a sickhouse, which Shaw could agree was reasonable enough.

"Lady Fordragon," he said, and bowed; the hem of his cloak swept the fresh drift of snow on the steps.

"Oh, please." Taelia set the sack of wood down and shuffled it to one side of the door. "If that scoundrel can call me Tae, so can you."

"Hmm. Very well." He settled on a minor compromise. "Good day, Taelia."

"And to you, Spymaster." She returned a bow of her own, and took her leave with only a quick glance over her shoulder.

Inside, Shaw was struck with a wall of heat that sent the blood rushing to his head. The air was thick with steam; on the stove a pot was simmering away. Smelled like a broth of vegetables and herbs. His stomach made an ambivalent noise.

Fairwind had draped himself sideways on the armchair, his legs hanging over one arm and his head tucked in the wing of the backrest. He sniffed and cracked one eye open, and by way of acknowledging Shaw's presence, stuck one arm out from his blankets to shake a sheet of paper at him.

"Gorilla tactics," he announced.

Shaw sighed and took the paper from him, skimming Fairwind's blocky handwriting. The rest of his decoding was sound. And so, gorilla.

"I was afraid you were going to say that."

"Maybe it was a spelling error. Maybe Steelspark meant guerrilla tactics." Fairwind was sounding increasingly hoarse, some words rasping, the others dropping out to almost a whisper. Shaw was experiencing some mixed feelings on that.

"So unlikely as to be nigh impossible." Shaw pressed at his eyes with finger and thumb. "Gnomes," he muttered. "I need to have a word with her about this."

"Now?" Fairwind said, and lolled his head back to look out of the window.

The snow was coming down in a thick white wall, flurrying at wild angles as the wind speared through it. That same wind howled a gale down the chimney breast and scythed in through the window in frigid gusts. Shaw had done more gruelling things in worse conditions, and they had taken significantly less willpower than stepping outside of this warm room would right now. He needed to take stock, once he was more capable of doing so, and shore up his resolve.

"Ideally." He set down his pack with a sigh, and allowed himself a stretch of his back and shoulders. Fairwind all but rolled out of the chair in his curiosity, hovering as Shaw unpacked his goods. Not long until Winter Veil, he idly thought.

"Oh, these'll do perfectly," Fairwind said when he saw the wildfowl. "Look—if you insist on frolicking off into the wild white yonder, at least eat something first. I've been slaving over a hot stove, you know."

"Have you now."

"Okay, I threw some vegetables in a pot. But I did peel them first!"

"Impressive work."

"Not bad with a knife and all that." He spirited the fowl away to the stove and set about pulling the meat off the bones. He looked prepared to eat one in its entirety before it got anywhere near the broth, so Shaw loudly cleared his throat.

Fairwind glanced over his shoulder, his grin more mischievous than sheepish. "So," he said, ladling out the broth. "Do all your agents carry a big old book around with them everywhere? Mite impractical if you don't mind me saying."

Shaw frowned at the veer in the conversation, then abruptly caught up. "No. They each have their own page memorised by rote. It's how I know who the message is from."

"Let me guess, you're page one." Fairwind served the bowls up one at a time, whipping them briskly from stove to tabletop chanting hot hot hot as though it were a protective spell.

"Page one is left intentionally blank," Shaw said.

"So that's a yes, then," Fairwind said, blowing on his fingers.

"Very funny."

Fairwind's laugh fell only just short of a cackle. He cast about in the small kitchen, rustling up yesterday's loaf. "Page two?" he grated out, once he'd gotten a hold of both himself and the bread.

"Page two belongs to my... predecessor."

"Huh." Fairwind paused in the midst of cutting a generous slice of bread. "Still kicking then, is he? Fancy that."

Hopefully Fairwind's voice would give out any minute and let him eat in peace. While Shaw didn't find a little companionable conversation objectionable, it was already edging into a territory whose borders he closely guarded. He certainly wasn't inclined to correct that assumptive pronoun. Instead of answering, he took his bowl from the table. He still wore his gloves; the broth's heat radiated comfortably through the leather. "This smells good," he said.

Fairwind only sniffed loudly, still making himself busy over by the stove. Shaw watched him less than surreptitiously devour most of a drumstick, then deposit the leg bone along with the remainder of the wildfowl's carcases into the simmering pot.

"It's just broth," he said, and handed Shaw a hunk of bread to go with it.

"Still." Shaw stood there with Fairwind's roof over his head, holding food that he'd prepared for him, rendered boneless by the heat he'd provided, and was momentarily defeated by everything about his current circumstances.

Even when speaking with Taelia he'd thought of himself as enduring this by virtue of his own fortitude. Happy to think himself a boulder, only to find he was a pebble carried in Fairwind's pocket. Light, but he'd drawn deep from that well of hubris. Next time he'd just throw himself in. His sudden gratitude was overwhelming, though his dignity might never recover.

"Don't take this the wrong way, but if you go back out there tonight I reckon I'd have to dig you out in the morning," Fairwind said, breaking into his mood like the sun through stormclouds. He'd moved to the window, making a fair shield from the icy wind that thrust into the room. He'd put his bowl down on the snow-laden sill. Meltwater slowly dripped onto the floor.

Shaw about managed an ambivalent noise, spooning the broth into his mouth as quickly as its heat would allow while Fairwind's attention was elsewhere.

"Mind if I shutter things?" Fairwind said, apparently oblivious to Shaw's sudden humbling. "Just for tonight. Sounds like it's going to be a wild one out there."

"It's your house."

"Well, yeah, but." Fairwind glanced over his shoulder and shrugged, then pushed the sash up with a tortured squeal, leaning out to bring the shutters over. The room dimmed, lit by the glow of the fire and the oil lantern set on the table, soft light that flickered over the few pieces of junk that hadn't migrated into a heap against the wall. It laid warm over Fairwind's face and hair.

With slow resignation, Shaw knew that he wasn't going to take another step outside today. Duty was a taskmaster that would never cease in its demands on him, but Light, he was tired. The heat of the room and its quiet ambience, the sense of being ensconced from the world—it was a dangerous lure, and a successful one. So much so that he startled when Fairwind took his empty bowl from him.

"Hmph," he muttered, shaking himself into a more wakeful state. "That was a poor show of vigilance."

"You don't have to be on high alert all of the time, you know. No wonder you always look frazzled." Shaw shot Fairwind a dark look, but he seemed as unconcerned about that as he ever was. He grinned in return. "I'll take first watch," he rasped. "How about that."

Shaw snorted. "I expect you'll be asleep before I am."

"Is that a bet." Fairwind hopped into his chair, perching in it like a particularly recalcitrant parrot. "Care to place a wager?"

Too late, Shaw recalled long watches at sea, hours spent with eyes on a monotonous horizon. "Hardly. You still owe me ten gold."

"Unbelievable." Fairwind sounded affronted, though he hardly looked it; the corner of his mouth slanted up. "A shakedown is what that is. Don't they pay you enough, Spymaster?"

"Not when it comes to dealing with the likes of you."

"And here I thought you'd warmed up a bit. Oh, I'm wounded."

"It grieves me to hear that," Shaw said, dry. Fairwind grinned broadly at him, and—Light, Shaw would not let himself be drawn in any further. Of the various concessions he would have to make here, he decided to choose the most comfortable for a change. His neck was stiff, his shoulders all but screaming at him, and it felt as though his knees were about to start any minute.

Fairwind continued to smile like a fool as Shaw climbed into bed and pulled the blankets over himself, so he turned to face the wall instead. He closed his eyes and willed himself desperately to sleep, schooling himself to ignore the hollow ache in the pit of his stomach.

---

He was jostled awake some indeterminate time later. The room was dark, the lamp dimmed and the fire burned down to coals. Outside, the wind howled like a beast unleashed. Despite his sticky sweat-heat, Shaw shuddered just to hear it.

"Budge up," Fairwind whispered, one knee on the bed. He sounded ghastly. "You want to be the big spoon or the little spoon?"

Shaw squinted at Fairwind while he tried to generate a not unreasonable response, or at least fully comprehend the situation. Perhaps his fever was high enough that he was delirious—or Fairwind's was, that he though this was an appropriate position to put him in.

"Big spoon then, okay." With that, Fairwind insinuated himself into the bed, mercifully leaving some blankets between them. He turned his broad back to Shaw, who, wedged between the cold wall and Fairwind's wild heat, did the only thing he could.

He slept.

---

Shaw awoke later in the evening to find his forehead pressed between Fairwind's shoulderblades, his breath trapped hot and moist in the man's shirt and against his own face. His hands were tucked in the small of Fairwind's back.

It was human nature, he reminded himself, failing to turn over or move away or do anything but let his eyes drift shut again. Human nature to gravitate into warmth.

---

Chapter Seven

The morning brought no further clarity to things. Shaw woke up sweating, his back slick where it had been pressed against Fairwind's. His face had been acquainted with the wall during the night if the impression on his cheek was anything to go by. He rubbed at it, made a quiet suffering noise and extricated himself from the tangle of blankets as delicately as he could.

There was no option to simply roll out of bed. His intention was to stand and pick his way over Fairwind and to the floor, but his thudding headache, his sinuses full of fluid and the sag of the mattress all made for unstable footing, and he'd never hear the end of it if he took a tumble onto his unanticipated bed companion and woke him that way.

He made do with clambering over him instead, not taking a terrible amount of care with where he put his elbows and knees. Fairwind only groaned and retreated further under the blankets.

Once safely delivered from his predicament, Shaw took a moment to cover his face with both hands and press at his closed eyes until a field of stars burst behind his eyelids.

"Light," he muttered, ran both hands back through his hair and turned to the bed.

Fairwind had his chin tucked to his chest, his shoulders hunched under the blankets, long strands of his hair stuck to his forehead. Between that and his laboured breathing, he was not looking his finest.

"Light," Shaw muttered again, though a different kind of despairing. "Look sharp, Fairwind."

Fairwind sighed, or perhaps just wheezed faintly. His eyes twitched beneath their lids, but he didn't get as far as opening them. When Shaw went to shake him by the shoulder, he was shivering. Concern stirred in Shaw's chest. It was frustratingly inconvenient. He had business to attend to and so couldn't stay here and play nursemaid, yet he was reluctant to leave Fairwind on his own in his current state.

The room smelled of wood smoke and broth, and under that, a mellowing sickliness.

He glanced over at the table, at the pen and ink and his stack of messages. An elegant solution presented itself. He set about his morning tasks and by the time he'd boiled the kettle, Shaw had composed his instructions and thrown the shutters open, laying the message on the sill. Icy sunlight lit the room, stridently cold. He made himself a mug of coffee and poured half of the remaining hot water into a handy basin.

He scooped a handful of snow from the sill and deposited it into the water. This cooled it enough that he could dip both hands and clean his face and hair with the stub of soap from his wash kit, then his chest and under his arms. Doing so meant he had to feel the slat of his ribs. He had better things to do than rummage through the dark silhouettes in his memory, so that would have to be sufficient for now.

He dropped his washcloth into the basin and topped it up with fresh hot water, and hauled the blankets back, unearthing enough of Fairwind to judge that he would benefit from this. He stirred when Shaw first touched the cloth to his face, but soon lapsed back into his heavy slumber, his breath rasping in his throat.

Took a turn for the worse in the night, Shaw thought as he worked the grimy sweat from his neck. The collar of his shirt was yellowed, though whether that was from night sweats or because Fairwind could be more conscientious about his laundry, Shaw didn't care to hazard.

He wrung the cloth out and dipped it in the water again. Halfway to Fairwind's face, a disagreeable thought occurred to him and he dropped it back into the basin. Only a small selection of Fairwind's miscellany remained on the table, among it three old brown glass bottles all with a half-inch of rum in the bottom. He'd seemed sober since at least the turtle broth incident, and Shaw couldn't recall seeing him take a drink since.

"Trust you to decide to quit cold when you're already in a state," he grumbled, picking up the cloth again. He slapped it across Fairwind's brow.

"Just didn't fancy much of a drink," Fairwind said, still with his eyes closed. His voice was a raw-sounding throaty hiss, stripped of its usual pleasant timbre. "More a symptom than anything else, I reckon."

"Oh, so you're awake."

"I am now." Fairwind grimaced, hunching his shoulders against the water that dripped down his neck. "Why are you up, is the question."

"I have things to do today."

"Like getting back into bed."

"Even if I weren't busy, you're already in it." Shaw hesitated a moment. "The reason for which is something I'm not entirely clear on."

"It's my bed, I don't need a reason."

"I know that. However." Shaw hoped his increasingly furrowed brow would serve as the rest of the question.

"I was cold and uncomfortable and my bed is warm and comfortable, even with your pointy elbows in it," Fairwind explained with exaggerated patience. "Why are we whispering?"

"Some of us have indoor voices," Shaw said, committing to aforementioned whispering even though he hadn't realised he'd been matching Fairwind for volume along with everything else. He did, however, lean back.

"Not my fault I was raised by sea-wolves." Fairwind's laugh was more like a bark. It fast degraded into a harsh cough that had him lifting his shoulders from the mattress in its savagery. "Ugh, feels like I swallowed a sword sideways."

"I have a solution for you."

"Gonna kiss it better?" Fairwind said, thumping his head back down onto his pillow with a groan.

"Shut up," Shaw said mildly.

"I like my idea better."

"I will stuff your own socks in your mouth if I have to, Captain." Shaw froze at the fondness that had once again seeped into his voice without his leave. This persistent inflammation of his emotions was almost as wretched as his damn cold. He abruptly stood before things could devolve further, though Fairwind had turned onto his side to laugh-cough himself to the point of tears instead.

He retrieved his armour from its neat pile in the corner, shaking out the cords and straps. While he'd long perfected the art of getting in and out of it efficiently, the task loomed like a trial this morning. He stripped out of his shirt and pulled on the first layer of his leathers, and was promptly interrupted by more attention-seeking noises from Fairwind.

"Er, what do you think you're doing?" Fairwind's reprimanding tone was somewhat undermined by his voice breaking into a squeak along the way. He sniffed and casually wiped his nose on the corner of the blanket.

Shaw gave his head a shake. There was nothing about this state of affairs that wasn't hopeless. "Like I said, I have things to attend to."

"You're under orders, if I'm not mistaken. Get your backside in front of the fire if you aren't going to lie down."

"I'm not under your orders," Shaw retorted, turning his back so that he could change his breeches with a modicum of privacy. "Nor do I need coddling. Now, do us both a favour and be quiet a while."

"I can't believe you're bossing me about in my own home." The bed groaned alarmingly as Fairwind made some inroads into sitting up, supporting himself on his elbows. His shirt had twisted around his midsection in the night and he grunted in his attempts to straighten it out. "Ugh," he said again, and gave up.

"No need for you to be up and underfoot," Shaw said when it looked as though Fairwind was set on heaving himself out of bed. He tugged his chest armour into place, pulling the laces tight enough to keep it in position while he strapped on his tassets. It wouldn't to do be half-clothed if it came to wrestling him into submission.

Wouldn't do at all.

"Can't be underfoot if you aren't here."

"That's besides the point."

"And what point is that?"

"That you look almost as bad as you smell, Fairwind."

"Ooh, bloody cheek. I should toss you out onto my doorstep."

Shaw pulled on his boots, contacting the table with his hip to keep his balance, though which one of them was supporting the other was anyone's guess. "I'll take myself out, thank you," he said. "As for you—put some effort into getting better so we don't end up passing this thing between us indefinitely."

At that, Fairwind swung his feet to the floor and with all the grace of a drunken elekk, half stood, half-swayed there with his eyes shut. His face drained of what meagre colour it had. It took two paces for Shaw to be at his side, grabbing his arm before he could stagger about and do himself some damage.

"For Light's sake, lie down."

"Maybe you should just tie me to the bed," Fairwind suggested, apparently having reserved enough of his strength to be an insolent lech at the first opportunity. He sat back down with a thud. "You know, to be sure."

"Please," Shaw said in tired entreaty, pressing him to the mattress by one shoulder. "I have enough things to deal with. I don't want to be concerned about you injuring yourself in some idiotic fashion the minute I turn my back."

"You manage most days."

That had been true enough in the past, and the fact that it no longer was left Shaw at a loss. Instead, he flung the blankets over Fairwind's head rather than have to answer, or look at him, or have him look right back with a question on his lips.

No need for the pauldrons today. Shaw pulled his cloak on instead, and while Fairwind was occupied in disentangling himself from the bedding, took a swig of the restorative draught he'd procured at the market. He topped up his lukewarm coffee with the remainder. Already the effects were glowing through him, dulling the relentless pain in his muscles enough that he could move without wanting to hiss through his teeth.

"Here," Shaw said, thrusting the mug into Fairwind's hands.

Fairwind finished wrestling down the blanket and accepted it with tousled hair and indignant expression. "Thanks," he said gracelessly when he got his hands around it. Hardly the piping-hot coffee he'd have been hoping for. He took a sip anyway, then smacked his lips and frowned. "Tastes funny."

"Because it's actual coffee, not warmed-over harbour mud."

"Hmm, no, it reminds me of something—"

He was interrupted by a knock at the door. It opened a crack; the winter wind knifed in, along with a voice calling, "Are you decent?"

Taelia, with some fortuitous timing. Thank the Light.

"Of course," Shaw called back, just as Fairwind belted out, "Never!"

"Oh," he said, clear as a bell, then coughed, his voice cracking again. "That was weird. Tae? Hi, what are you doing here?"

Shaw moved to open the door fully. "Thank you for coming," he said in low tones.

"Of course," Taelia murmured back. She stomped the snow from her boots and with a warm smile and a nod, went to Fairwind's side.

Shaw pulled the hood of his cloak about his face. His intention was to make his exit while Fairwind was distracted, but instead he found himself lingering in the doorway, watching them. Already Fairwind had slumped back into the bedding, tired even after inflicting such a short burst of his usual self on Shaw. Taelia took the coffee from him and set it on the floor by the leg of the bed, and Fairwind's gaze tracked its journey. He glanced up again and met Shaw's eyes. The look on his face was startlingly opaque.

Taelia put a hand to his forehead and exclaimed at his temperature. With that, Shaw turned and stepped out into the snow.

---

"What's this about a gorilla?" Shaw said.

"Oh, haha, right!" Kelsey Steelspark, on her perch atop the bookshelf in Wyrmbane's stateroom, licked her thumb and turned the page of the book she was reading. Her pink hair was bright in the cabin's warm lighting. "I'm in the middle of drafting you a full overview, all the deets. Bu-ut, I got distracted."

"No matter. I'd rather discuss this in person."

Kelsey marked her place on the page with a finger and tugged her goggles up onto her head. "Okay, then! What is it you want to know? Ask me anything."

Shaw grimaced, pressing a finger and thumb to his eyelids then drawing them together until he was pinching the bridge of his nose. It did very little to focus him. "Is that Wyrmbane's diary?" he asked instead.

"Yeah," Kelsey said with overly-saccharine contriteness. "Don't worry, I couldn't find yours."

Her chirpy amiability was partially an act, but not entirely. It was fortunate for her that Shaw had an abiding fondness for gnomes and their eccentricities. Nobody produced ingenious spy gadgets like a gnome on a mission.

"Anyway!" She shoved the book under her arm and hopped down from the bookcase, using the shelves as a ladder. The diary she slid back into its spot, nudging it with her head tilted and tongue between her teeth until it was presumably as she had found it. "Anyway—the gorilla."

"The gorilla," Shaw said tiredly.

Kelsey put her hands on her hips and looked up at him. "Let me present to you Project: Monkey Business! My colleagues stationed in Zuldazar have invented a device that can make animals… big." She gestured widely. "Bigger. Embiggened to what you might call an excessive degree. They've enlisted a smart cookie by the name of Grong. He's the gorilla, by the way."

"Yes. I got that."

"Good! You're not as woobly as you look, then. Long story short, he's agreed to let us zap him with our Embiggifier til he's a huge, snuggly, formidable part of our arsenal, then we're going to send him rampaging through Dazar'Alor."

"I see," Shaw said. The headache that had ebbed to a mostly-bearable background thud reared back up and beat its chest. "That is… a plan. I'm going to leave it in your capable hands."

"Of course." Kelsey snapped a smart salute. "If you'd tried to meddle I'd have tattled to High Commander Wyrmbane."

"Bold move after I caught you reading his diary."

"You can't prove that!" she cheerily said. "But you're here clear as day when you shouldn't be. Ipso facto, I win."

---

---

"Bored?"

"Nope."

"How about now?"

"Not at all," Taelia said for the dozenth time, automatic now as she turned a page of A Treatise on Strategy. Her warhammer leant by the door, her scarf she'd slung over the back of the chair she was sitting on.

She'd brought more wood with her and set the fire burning fiercely. Comforting, but also suffocating. Flynn kicked the blankets down to the end of the bed and shifted his position two inches to the left in search of a cool bit of mattress to sweat into, and butted up against the wall instead.

It was nice for about half a minute and then abruptly gave him the shivers. He squirmed away and into the vaguely damp centre of the bed, pressed his cheek to his pillow and sighed deeply. He was too wrung out to get up, too uncomfortable to sleep, his shirt was twisted around him awkwardly and he couldn't seem to straighten it out, and worst, absolute worst of all—he was bored.

If he annoyed Tae enough, maybe she'd clock him out cold with Treatise and improve the situation for the time being. Or maybe she'd read a page to him. Same result. "How's your book?" he asked.

"I've read it before, but it holds up very well to re-reads. I didn't know you had a copy."

Flynn turned his face so it was shoved into the pillow and lay like that a minute.

"It's Shaw's," he said, muffled,

Shaw, who was up and about and doing things, which meant he was feeling better, which meant things would be back to normal soon. Who, Flynn figured out after a brief bit of problem solving, had sent for Tae to come babysit. He'd have to be back for his stuff, but otherwise his odd little sojourn into Flynn's life was probably about done.

Well, it had to be at some point, and no doubt the sooner the better as far as Shaw was concerned.

Back to the old routine of Flynn finding excuses to swing by the Redemption and bother him, then. Once he was back on his feet, that was. He sighed again and let his arm flop over the edge of the bed. His fingers landed in the mug of cold coffee.

"Ugh." He shook his hand like a cat who'd stepped in a puddle. "Ugh!"

"Is there anything I can get for you?" Taelia said, not unkindly, but without looking up. She turned another page.

Flynn dried his fingers on the blankets and rolled over onto his back, his eyes squeezed tight shut. He didn't have a headache at that moment, but it felt like he should. "Nah. I'm just going to kick the bucket if that's all right with you."

Taelia's page-turning ceased, and instead she made a horrific sound dragging her chair across the floor to settle by the bedside instead. "All right, what's wrong."

"Eugh," Flynn told her feelingly. He shoved the pillow over his own face. He could barely breathe anyway, and it meant he wouldn't have to think about what expression he might be making. "Nothing. I just feel rotten."

He heard her shift in the chair, leaning forward probably, and the scuff of her lifting the mug. He peeked from beneath his pillow to see her sniff it. "Then you should drink this," she said.

"It's cold and it tastes how siren's pollen smells on wet days. You drink it." He thought about that for a moment, some connection sluggishly making itself in the back of his brain, then threw his pillow aside. "Oh, for crying out loud."

Taelia laughed, holding the mug with both hands and out of the way while Flynn flailed himself partially-upright. Once he'd got himself reasonably stable, he took the mug, held his nose and downed the whole sorry lot in as few gulps as he could manage.

"Yep," he confirmed. "Awful."

It sat uncomfortably in his stomach for a long minute, then a soft warmth began to diffuse through his gut, spreading along his limbs and tingling down his spine. He took a full, deep breath for the first time in what felt like weeks. He'd pay for this later—cramming days of recovery into a few minutes always had a cost beyond the exorbitant fees the healers and alchemists commanded.

His ears popped and stayed popped, and he groaned in relief. Immediately he wanted to sleep, but the coffee component of that nasty little potion was doing its own work. "Where'd it come from, anyway?"

"Master Shaw bought it at the market. I'm surprised you hadn't polished it off already."

"Wait. Hey." Flynn sat up taller. "How'd you know that?"

"I bumped into him there. Didn't he say?" Tae leant over to pull his blankets back up the bed, one hand resting on his shoulder.

"He did not! Oh, rocks and wrecks, what did you tell him?"

A cold sweat broke at the nape of his neck. He attempted to backtrack over the conversations they'd had since for any clue that he had Flynn pegged, only he kept getting stuck on the whole climbing into bed with him thing. He'd genuinely been cold and miserable, so perhaps it wouldn't be enough to damn him.

"We just made smalltalk, Flynn," Taelia said, easing him back down and layering the blankets over him in a big stifling heap. "He said you were a generous host, but I think he was being polite because I'm your friend. How are, er, things going, by the way?"

"I'm very tired," Flynn immediately said, yawning noisily and so widely his jaw cracked. He burrowed deeper into the blankets. "Gosh, I think I might sleep for a week. Good night!"

"That well, huh?" Taelia laughed softly. He felt her fuss with the blankets some more, then stroke his hair, tucking it away from his face. "All right, but you can't ignore me forever."

Flynn said something deliberately indistinct but fond and snaked a hand out of the blankets to catch hers and squeeze. Despite laying it on thick about being tired and his cocoon of blankets having a swamplike humidity, he found himself dozing off anyway.

A few minutes later, or maybe an hour, maybe several, he roused to a book thumping shut. It was nebulously dark. His body thrummed with steadily-easing pain and he felt warm, sodden, suspended—he came to the surface with that impression in his mind, and an idea with it, seeded in idle fantasy.

He thought of glimmering hot pools, a night sky, vigorous mountain air.

A shadowed figure prowled from the table and to the bed and hovered there, uncertainty in its stance and reaching hand.

"Come on then. Can't stand there til morning," Flynn slurred, sleep-drunk and bursting with warmth. He threw the blankets back. "But I want to be the big spoon this time."

---

Chapter Eight

Flynn was awake, but he couldn't say the same for his arm.

He gave his fingers an experimental wiggle. They prickled to life with pins and needles, though the biceps of his left arm remained completely numb. He was extremely aware that this was because Shaw's head was resting on it.

Well, Flynn thought.

Well.

The dawn was creeping in around the edges of the shutters, turning his rooms a muzzy grey. Shaw's hair was muted in this light, his skin sallow. Even asleep, he looked tired. The less said about the travesty that had become of his moustache the better.

Shaw's breath came in warm slow waves against his skin. Flynn's arm ached. It was a sensation as unresolvable as a phantom limb; there was no way he was going to move for fear that it would wake Shaw up. So Flynn lay there and watched him sleep, and eventually decided he was out soundly enough that he'd never know if Flynn were to brush his hair from his forehead.

So he did that. And while he was there, Flynn thought he might as well take the opportunity to touch the uncompromising sweep of his cheekbone. So he did that, too.

A fierce ache struck him in his chest, damming his breath in his throat. He swallowed with difficulty, only for Shaw to stir. His leg slid alongside Flynn's. He'd not entirely peeled out of his tight leather getup last night, but that didn't make a whit of difference as far as Flynn's dick was concerned and might even be a feature, so he shifted his hips aside, trying to maintain some level of decency.

Shaw's eyes blinked open. His forehead creased in a moment of unguarded disorientation, and Flynn was presented with two choices. He could yank his arm out from under him, or he could kiss him.

He yanked his arm out.

This jostled Shaw to the edge of the mattress. For an instant he balanced there with a startled look on his face. He made an abrupt grab for the sheets and then toppled, taking most of the blankets with him, landing in a heap with a soft oof. He proceeded to lie there like a netted manatee.

The blankets rose, and from beneath them emerged a long, heavy sigh.

"Good morning," Flynn said.

"Perhaps for you," came Shaw's muffled response.

Flynn laughed. Elation bubbled up in him, like back in the day when he used to come up from a salvage dive hauling a sea-chest full of possibilities, rising fast and breaking the ocean's surface with an ecstatic breath. The lightheadedness, the thrill and anticipation—he'd always thought it had felt a bit like love.

"What are you grinning at?" Shaw said, conducting himself with stiffer than usual dignity as he got to his feet.

"Nothing. Sorry. My arm was asleep."

"So was I." He looked determined to be surly, but Flynn's buoyancy was obviously undermining that. He shook his head, and when he spoke his voice was warm. "Feeling better, I take it."

"Yes," Flynn said decisively. Still with the urge to sniff, but that was probably habit at this point. A general lassitude, but that was just the effects of the healing draught. A couple of days more rest and plenty of hearty food in him and he'd be back in the pink. "You didn't have to spike my drink, you know."

"Hmph." Shaw ran his hands back through his hair. Stress still pulled lines into his face and the shadows beneath his eyes were as dark as bruises. "I assumed you'd be contrary about taking it. You are always set on making my life more difficult than it has to be."

"So you went in for some casual drugging. All right, not totally surprised but still kind of alarmed. Anyway, what are you banging on about—you've had it easy here, mate. Unless you'd rather have sweated it out in some dingy inn room and paid through the nose for the privilege."

He expected a stony response to that, or at least the pleasure of watching Shaw struggle to not be irritated by him being right, but instead a strange expression flitted across his face, as though there was a variable Flynn hadn't accounted for.

"Yes, well."

Shaw appeared twice as tired as he had a moment ago, his jaw tight with tension, and it occurred to Flynn that he must have taken very little of the draught himself to still be looking like that. Flynn opened his mouth to begin the laborious process of cajoling a reason out of him, but Shaw was already moving around the room, opening the shutters, putting the kettle to boil, fetching his wash kit.

"I apologise," Shaw said, mostly addressing his kit as he set it out on the table. "That was ungracious. I owe you for this."

"Nah. Consider it evens for all the times I got up your nose." Flynn watched him bustle about with a casual familiarity that brought that ache back behind his ribs. Tides drown him, he might've really done himself in this time.

Shaw stared down at the shaving items he'd set out, lips pursed. He lifted the straight razor, unfolding it and testing its edge on the pad of his thumb. It caught the clear morning sun in a blaze of brightness.

"I'm fit enough to return to active duty," he said, light bouncing off his face. "Wyrmbane is planning to push into Arathi soon. We've retaken Stromgarde, but the surrounding lands are yet to be secured. I'm to aid in the offensive."

"Oh," Flynn said.

Shaw's hand fell, then his shoulders. He let out a defeated sigh. "May I borrow a mirror?"

"Yes," Flynn said. "No charge."

Shaw snorted, a smile tugging at the corner of his bedraggled moustache. Everything he did was in service to the Alliance except this, Flynn thought, watching him strip to the waist and begin to soap his face. The particulars of his style—a harmless concession to himself amongst all the unfaltering dutifulness.

Flynn kept a small mirror tucked in a box next to his bed, in with his own razor and soap, a hairbrush and some cologne he'd stolen probably ten years ago and had never worn because it smelled like goat, but that he'd kept because the bottle was nice.

Harmless concessions. Flynn dropped the mirror. It exploded into shining splinters over the stone floor.

Shaw's head snapped around.

"Whoops," Flynn said, gesturing expansively. "Butterfingers."

"No matter." Shaw let out another tired exhale. He seemed to wilt further in a way that Flynn wasn’t certain he was supposed to see. He reached for a towel. "I have one on the Redemption. I can neaten up there."

"Or, and hear me out with this, you sit yourself on the table instead, and let me do it." Flynn made a stack of the larger fragments of glass and dragged his threadbare rug over the rest.

"Excuse me?"

"Sit," Flynn said. "Table."

"I heard you the first time."

Ah, must be stubborn bastard hour again. Flynn took the straight razor from him and patted the tabletop. "Look, I know you don't really want to go trekking across town just to make yourself look all pretty. Not when I can sort you out. Oh, don't make that face, I have done this before, you know."

"Pretty," said Shaw with delightful incredulity.

Flynn shrugged cheerfully and waited to see whether Shaw's practicality or his paranoia would win out. For a moment Shaw didn't react except for the slight deepening of his frown, then apparently decided there was no use in further interrogating Flynn's logic, which Flynn regarded as an excellent turn of events.

Shaw hitched himself on the table as if under duress, giving him the eye all the while.

"Promise I won't make a mess of you," Flynn said, but that only made his scowl darken and Flynn's own smile grow wider.

He poured a basin of hot water, situating himself between Shaw's knees, all but laughing at himself and this wilful act of self-indulgence—and then not laughing in the slightest when he realised just how much of one it truly was, hovering inches from Shaw's lean chest and freckled shoulders.

The efficient muscle of his arms stood taut where he'd braced them; his fingers were curled white-knuckled around the table's edge, skin in goosebumps from the window's cold air. A delicate lacework of scars laid across his forearms and over his prominent collarbone, and one across the ripple of his ribs, an old snarl of a wound that looked as though it had been stitched and left to heal on its own. He was the picture of a man winnowed down to his essentials, but it was Flynn's opinion there was room in him for a little tenderness. There were a hundred things he wanted to say to him, and each and every one of them was filthy or sentimental or utterly indefensibly both.

"Was it a gorilla after all?" he asked instead, bringing the razor to the curve of Shaw's cheek.

Shaw only closed his eyes and hushed him. His brow pulled down in a furrow; not concerned or worried, but not particularly happy either. Well, hardly a surprise, but Flynn had committed to some kind of duty of care here and he was determined to see it through. He angled the blade and guided it over Shaw's cheek. His eyes pressed more tightly shut, relaxing again when Flynn lifted the razor away to rinse it clean.

"Yes," Shaw said. "It was a gorilla. Don't ask, because I don't think I could adequately explain."

"Not sure what I'd do with the information if you could. Probably just take up space in my brain where something useful could be."

Soap shifted next to the razor's edge; the corner of Shaw's mouth twitched.

"Go on then," Flynn said in mock affront. "I know you want to say it."

Shaw shook his head minutely, stilling when Flynn made another pass with the blade. That was definitely a smirk under all the lather, and Flynn was faced with a challenge in keeping his grin to reasonable levels.

"Oh, no doubt there are plenty of useful things in that head of yours," Shaw said. "Even if I'd give good money to know what in the world is going through it sometimes."

"I will merrily tell anyone who asks," Flynn said, finishing up one cheek and starting on the other. "And, once enough liquor is administered, plenty of people who haven't."

Shaw fell silent, likely deciding if it was worth his time to pursue whatever line of questioning he had in mind. He'd relaxed an inch; his eyes stayed half-lidded as Flynn worked, if only to look at him askance.

"What?"

"Hm?" Shaw's forehead creased. "Nothing."

Flynn gave a small shrug, lightly touching the underside of Shaw's chin with his fingertips. His face changed in a subtle rearrangement of mood—they called it a cutthroat for a reason, and that was something Shaw would know all about—but he tipped his head back without a fuss. The morning sun poured down the arch of his neck.

Flynn turned aside a moment. He hadn't needed to cough, but did anyway.

"So, Arathi. Off back to the mainland, then," he said as evenly as he could. He touched the razor to the knot of Shaw's throat, etching away the soap in short meticulous strokes and leaving smooth skin in his wake, pinked by the keen edge of the blade.

"For a while."

How long's a while, Flynn wanted to ask, when will you be back, but he already knew the answer he'd get. Classified. Need-to-know, and Flynn didn't need to know. Perhaps he'd say it with an eyebrow raised at Flynn's eager questioning, or perhaps with his calm and even inscrutability.

Flynn pared away the last of the soap from his neck with a barely-steady hand. "There we go, that's better," he said, sluicing the razor through the cooling basin of water, soap residue on its surface like sea swash. He gave Shaw's cheek a brief, light stroke. Just checking the smoothness of the shave, of course. "You look like yourself again, give or take some primping."

"... I'll have to take your word for that, but much obliged."

"No problem. Couldn't send you off to the front lines looking a state, now, could we?" Flynn handed him a towel, easing back with some reluctance. "What would Jorach think."

Shaw stiffened. "I didn't tell you about that so you could make a joke of it."

And Flynn had worried for a moment that he hadn't sounded flippant enough. "I wasn't!" he said. "I just assumed that—never mind."

"Well, you oughtn't." Shaw shoved the towel to his face, wiping away the last flecks of soap. "Assume. Take nothing as absolute proof."

"Teach that in spy training, do they?"

"I teach that in spy training, yes." He slid from the table, a muscle tightening in his jaw as he cast about for his shirt.

"Does that usually come before or after the crash course in basic cipher?"

Shaw shot him a look that was almost surgical in its sharpness, then relented in a way that told Flynn his gaffe was some way to forgiven, if not forgotten. He ran his hand over his face, then thumbed at his moustache, trying to push it into shape.

"Looking less like a Tuskarr now, don't worry," Flynn told him.

"I'll choose to take that as a compliment."

"Suppose it's no worse than any of the others I pay you."

"Those aren't compliments, Captain, those are provocations."

"Well, it's hardly worthwhile unless they're both." Flynn winked at him, and he looked away with a shake of his head and an amused tut.

He shrugged on his shirt and retrieved the rest of his armour from where he'd slung it at end of the bed. Flynn watched from the corner of his eye as he laced himself in.

"One more thing," he said. Shaw was fond of saying no, but Flynn never said never. "If you can find your way to bunking off for one more day—there's somewhere we should go."

Shaw, tightening things up with a thumb hooked into a loop of lacing, paused and raised an eyebrow.

"It's not a tavern," Flynn added.

"Hmm. What is it you have in mind?"

---

---

"Not far now," Fairwind said, breaking off from the refrains of a shanty he'd been humming. He was slouched in his saddle and rocking with the steady trudge of his horse, reins slack and hands resting on the pommel as they made their way up a winding mountain path. The wind had bitten his nose and cheeks to redness and tousled his hair about his face. He looked well, and it did Shaw's heart good to see it.

A pity that he wasn't feeling quite so invigorated, but he only had himself to blame.

He'd let his mind wander while they'd travelled, fielding Fairwind's volley of conversational gambits almost reflexively and in a way that made the man laugh, but not stop. It was pleasant, despite the chasm of uncertainty Shaw teetered over every time he had to contend with his casual familiarity.

Fairwind had invited him into his bed and proceeded to do nothing more indecorous than snore. The morning ejection he would accept was an accident, but the shaving was perhaps some kind of sublime reward for a past deed, or punishment for any number of sins.

Shaw considered himself solitary by nature and by necessity; he'd not taken a lover since—he'd taken no lover for years upon years. Perhaps this would have proven more straightforward if he had done so. Truly, there was no fool like an old fool.

Tiragarde Sound sprawled out its estuaries and docks below them, snow heaped on the roofs and trodden into mud on the roadways. Shaw had asked where they were headed only the once. Fairwind had flashed him a grin and tapped a finger to his lips, and so, for now, Shaw would trust that he wasn't riding them headfirst into disaster.

They reached a divergence in the mountain path. Fairwind tilted his head, dug a heel and with a whistle, swung his horse onto the narrower track as it split away. It was soon apparent they'd begun a descent; the air grew thicker again, and the sparse excuse for tree cover became reassuringly denser, the branches snow-laden.

Shaw nestled into his cloak. The wind might be at their back, but it still drove its fingers relentlessly into his bones.

"Nearly there," Fairwind said.

"Thank the Light. Aren't you cold?"

"Despite my superior Kul Tiran constitution, I have to admit I'm freezing my arse off." He sniffed and hunched his shoulders, pressing the fleece lining of his coat's lapels to his ears. "Don't worry. I promise it'll all be worth it."

"It's my sincere hope that there's a roaring fire waiting for us."

"Oh, I can do you better than that," Fairwind said as they navigated a switchback crowded with low-slung tree branches ready to shed their load of snow onto them. After that, the track widened, became gravelly and finally swept them into an open space corralled by evergreens. A small lodge sat near the treeline, and before it a sign.

WELCOME TO FIZZSPRINGS RESORT

CLOSED FOR REFURBISHMENT

Of course. The hot pools. Light—

Fairwind swung from his saddle and led his horse towards the lodge. Shaw followed. "It's closed," he said.

"Well, yeah." Fairwind hitched his horse and then tried the lodge's door handle, without success. He blew on his fingers, rubbed his hands together and fell into a half-crouch, patting at something in his coat and muttering to himself, then fishing his lock-picks from an inside pocket. "Don't try to tell me you're afraid to break a rule or three."

"I don't give a tinker's damn about that."

Fairwind flung an open-mouthed laugh over his shoulder, tampering with the door's lock until it sprung open.

"Smartly done, Captain."

"You know it, mate."

Fairwind vanished into the lodge and Shaw ducked in after him, relieved to be out of the wind finally. It was dim inside but he could make out a counter and shelves stacked with towels, and Fairwind stuffing a couple of them into his pack. He left a handful of coin, shrugging somewhat embarrassedly even though Shaw hadn't so much as raised an eyebrow. He might be a sneak thief, an opportunist, but despite his own opinion of himself, he was hard pressed to convince anyone that he entirely lacked a conscience.

"All set." He shouldered his pack and barrelled past, altogether more eager to be back outside than Shaw was. "Come on, then," he said with his boundless spirit. "I'm not getting any warmer here!"

---

The sun was a hazy smear across the crisp blue sky, diffused among the wisps of clouds and distorted by the steam rising from the hot pools. The water was as clear as a fresh-wiped pane of glass and saturated with minerals, vibrant.

"Nature provides," Fairwind said, unbuckling his swordbelt and shrugging off his longcoat. "Some azerite erupted here a while back. Your lot mined it away sharpish, but it made for a bit of a steamy situation with the local elementals. It's fine, it just means nobody else'll be here."

Shaw vaguely recalled skimming the report. He could see the residue now—a golden shimmer on the water's surface and settled in the ripples of sandy soil at the edge of the water, clinging to the struts of the boardwalk that edged the far side of this particular pool.

"And now," Fairwind said, pulling his shirt off over his head, "the water is extra toasty. Which is lucky, because I'm perishing cold."

He threw his shirt on top of his coat. Shaw tracked it with the knowledge that any moment he would have to look back and behold Fairwind in his disrobed state.

"Are you going in like that?"

Shaw took a deep breath and turned. Fairwind stood with his hands on his hips, every bit as broad and bare as Shaw had feared he would be. Hair trailed up the thick curve of his stomach and over his chest, and Light—he could put a grizzly in a headlock with those arms.

"Just that it's leather. It'll probably chafe," Fairwind said, unbuttoning his trousers, at which point Shaw set about undressing himself briskly, methodically and with no particular expression on his face.

"If I'd known, I would have worn something more suitable," Shaw told him, glancing over only to get an eyeful of Fairwind's backside as he waded into the pool. He bit the inside of his cheek and unfastened his belt with more vigour than was strictly necessary, despite his numb and fumbling fingers.

"I know," Fairwind said smugly. He'd sunk into the water up to his shoulders, arms sweeping just under the surface. "Kit off, mate. Nobody's gonna catch you skinny dipping, I promise."

"And for good reason."

Fairwind might be comfortable with flagrant nudity, but Shaw drew the line at taking his smallclothes off in public. The ground was soft underfoot, kept thawed by the warmth of the pools, and his bare feet sank into it as he approached the water's edge.

The water rippled smoothly as he dipped a foot in. It felt on the brink of scalding to his icy toes. He lifted it out again. His skin had turned red up to his ankle, a clean line marking where it'd been submerged.

"Come on in," Flynn said, his voice soft, water sheeting off his chest and arms as he reached back to loosen his ponytail, and Shaw found his resolve well and truly unhooked.

The air shimmered with steam. The sky above was so blue a man could drown in it. He skimmed off his smallclothes and plunged into the water after him.

---

Chapter Nine

Shaw was under no delusions. He knew exactly what kind of man Flynn Fairwind was, and so he was not in the least surprised when the first thing he did was dive under the water and try to dunk him with an ankle-grab.

He took a breath and allowed Flynn to pull him under, letting him crow over this brief taste of victory before countering. SI:7 training was rigorous and comprehensive and encompassed a wide variety of environments in which an agent might find themselves under attack. Shallow water was far from the most challenging of these, and Shaw's free foot easily found Flynn's thigh. He pushed off, sending him floundering away with a laugh.

Shaw dug both feet into the silty pool bed and lunged for him before he could second-guess himself, the resistance all the water's and none his own. Instinct said go low. He ducked under the bright surface, light-flecked gold shimmering in his vision, and wrapped both arms around Flynn's knees. He felt them buckle, heard his sudden shout and tumultuous splashing as he went over backwards.

Flynn righted himself, sputtering, then burst into a loud laugh that seemed to bounce off the mountainside. His hair was soaked, a shining weight against his shoulders and sleek against his scalp, ears peeking through. The rest of him was an unavoidable expanse of bare wet skin and rough blue sailor's tattoos.

"All right, fair play," he said, sluicing water from his face, grinning as widely as Shaw'd ever seen him. "Hey... come here, I wanna show you something."

In their current state, there was only a limited number of things that could be. Shaw pushed his own hair back with both hands and gave him the eye.

"Dare you," Flynn said with that abiding mischievousness of his. He slowly backed towards an outcrop of rocks that rose above the water near the centre of the pools. Shaw followed, reeled in as surely as if he'd been hooked on a line.

The ground sloped here, the water deepening. It came up to the hollow of Flynn's throat, and almost to Shaw's chin. He flattened a hand against the warm rock. He thought he felt it vibrate under his palm and found that he couldn't tell if it was some tectonic restlessness or if it was his own blood shaking through his veins.

Flynn crooked a finger. Shaw leant in close. His breath caught in his throat at the thought that Flynn might kiss him here, having found some determination in being wet and naked that he had somehow lacked while Shaw had lain clothed and half-asleep, all but in his arms.

"What is it," he asked, rougher than he'd intended.

Flynn caught his lower lip between his teeth, a pensive frown on his face. He held up a finger.

"What," Shaw said again, insistent but soft, his guarded desire like a hot coal in his chest. Flynn's smile grew broader, eyebrows rising, his eyes wide in something like anticipation.

The silt underfoot shifted unexpectedly. The rock shuddered under his hand. Shaw took a sharp breath. Another azerite eruption, or Horde munitions detonating nearby? Could be an incursion of rock elementals, or ettins. Here he was utterly vulnerable, his weapons cast aside, defenses down, stupid—

"Captain—"

The rest of what he was going to say was lost to a great crashing roar as a column of water erupted from the rocks, spouting skyward. A thick blanket of steam engulfed them both.

Shaw staggered back but Flynn caught his arm, his face turned up to the sky as it came back down on them in droplets that glinted in the westering sun like a rain of gold coins. It soaked them both anew and struck the water in a hiss of white noise, thunderously loud at first but lessening to a soft patter until there was no sound but the ripple of the pools and Flynn's gasping laughter.

A trick, then, but not the one Shaw had wished for. He thinned his lips and hoped his expression spoke more of irritation than disappointment.

"Goes off every hour, give or take. Oh, tides, you should've seen your face!"

"So much for relaxing." Shaw shuddered as adrenaline aftershocks flushed through him. "You've been here often, I take it."

Flynn lay back in the water, idly floating out towards the edge of the pools. "Now and then. Taelia lives for a good soak. Not so fond of the dunking, though."

Of course. Shaw blinked down at the shimmering surface of the water, watching its coruscations. He should be accustomed to handling failure states by now. Surely he had a contingency that was more than just his heart beating fruitlessly on.

"Of course," he repeated out loud, for want of anything better.

He closed his eyes a moment, centering himself with brute force, and then waded over to join Flynn at the pool's bank. No need to be morose and spoil the trip for both of them. However Flynn might feel about him, he was good company, and Shaw would enjoy that as much as he was able.

The edge of the pools had a shallow gradient that plunged suddenly into deeper water; it formed a shelf that Flynn was resting an elbow on while he delved into his pack. With a small exclamation, he pulled a bottle of ale from beneath the borrowed towels.

Truly, he was made of immutable stuff. "Is there no end to your intemperance?" Shaw said to him, opting for a fond amusement that he immediately regretted when it encouraged Flynn to turn the full force of his smile on him.

"You didn't think the coin was for the lend of the facilities, did you?" Flynn uncorked the bottle with a squeak. "Got five more in here. If you want one, it's yours."

"If I say no, will you drink all six?"

"Now, what kind of a question is that?"

"A reasonable one, I thought."

"Really? Sounded a bit judgy to me."

"Was it?"

"What next, expounding on the dangers of smoking anchor weed?"

"… do you smoke anchor weed?"

"No-oo," Flynn said, very convincingly.

Shaw snorted and took the drink from him before he could take the first swig. Flynn made a sound of minor protestation, but then shrugged and pulled out another bottle.

The drink smelled like a dark malty ale, and strong. As if dallying naked in the outdoors hadn't left Shaw compromised enough, was he going to inebriate himself as well? He'd never countenanced such dereliction of duty before, but then he'd never found himself feeling so wretchedly beholden to his own emotional state, either.

Even with Edwin, he'd done what had been necessary. Light help him. Flynn Fairwind might be the ruin of him, and yet he couldn't see how he could disentangle himself from the man.

He tipped his head back and downed a good third of the bottle.

"Saving me from myself, eh?"

"Something like that," Shaw replied, sinking down so that his shoulders rested against the bank of the pool, shifting until the gritty loam molded comfortably to the curve of his back. The rest of his body was a pale blur in the steamy water. The sun had crept toward the horizon while they'd horsed around. Not long until dusk, when he could get out and dry off and dress again with his modesty intact, insofar as he had any left to maintain.

At some point his shoulders had unknotted without his permission. His left hip was not currently aching, nor were his knuckles. For the first time in a long time only one part of him hurt.

He took another long drink and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand.

"Where'd you get that beauty?" Flynn said.

"Hm?" He made himself glance over. Flynn's brow was creased.

He laid a finger on Shaw's collarbone and followed the line of a scar that bisected it. It was the nature of Flynn's friendly demeanour; it often led him to touch people casually like this. Shaw carefully measured his breathing.

The scar was from a lucky shot a Twilight's Hammer assassin had gotten in years ago—while Shaw could hold off four enemies, he couldn’t do it without turning his back to a knife. One had gone between his ribs. Didn't hit anything critical, but his reaction had slowed just enough for one of the bastards to kick out his knee. The next strike had been meant for his neck. It had been unfortunate for them that they'd missed.

"Teaching a lesson," Shaw said.

"Right," Flynn said, obviously unimpressed. "Not one for war stories, eh?" He lifted Shaw's wrist instead, turning it to take a closer look at a crescent of puncture-wound scars on the back of his hand. "This one, then?"

Felsoul Hold. His hand had fallen between the bars of his cage while he'd slept. A patrolling felhound. He shied away from the rest of that memory.

"Finding something out the hard way," Shaw said.

"All right, steady on, I didn't ask for your life story," Flynn said with a grin. He turned Shaw's hand over, finding the long thin scar that ran up the inside of his wrist. Shaw tried and failed not to catch his breath. He remembered that sudden bright edge, his blood dripping onto Stormwind's cobblestones.

"From a friend," he said, before Flynn could ask.

Flynn's mouth turned down. "Some friend."

"He was. But we had a falling out." After a lengthy pause, Shaw rolled his head back to stare up at the sky. He'd barely noticed it was snowing again. The flakes were melting long before they reached the water. "It was my fault."

"Happens." Flynn settled back as well, idly pulling the cork out of his own bottle of ale with his teeth as though it was anything less than devastating to watch. His gaze flicked to Shaw's as he spat the cork into his palm. "Was he…?"

"Yes," Shaw said tersely, and attempted to sever this line of conversation as efficiently as he could. "He's dead."

That sent a flicker of tension across Flynn's face, but unfortunately didn't stop him. "Really your fault, or do you just feel responsible?"

"One doesn't preclude the other." He'd bared far too much of his underbelly today. The knife was in deep, so he might as well change the subject with ruthlessness. "How long have you known Lady Taelia?"

"Lady Taelia," Flynn repeated in a half-decent imitation of Shaw's accent, and snorted out a laugh. "Oh, ages. Tae vouched for me when nobody else would've. Got me work with Cyrus. Proper honest work. Well. Mostly." He tipped his head back to drink, his hair spreading weightlessly in the water. "I'd probably have seen the rope if she hadn't stuck her neck out for me. If you'll forgive the pun."

"No, I don't think I can do that."

Flynn found that far too funny, and between that, the obvious life debt Flynn owed her and the sudden intrusive visual of him being hanged, Shaw was unable to gauge what his own expression might be. He brought his bottle to his mouth but it was empty already. He pushed up onto his elbows, sighing when his chest and shoulders left the water's encompassing heat. The top of one thigh breached the surface as he attempted to maintain his equilibrium.

He rubbed at his face, an ache still pressing up against his ribs, and at Flynn's questioning tilt of the head, asked, "May I have another drink?"

"Ah!" Flynn said, cheeks dimpling with his smile. "Now you're singing my song."

---

Shaw hadn't realised he'd fallen asleep until the muted thundering of the geyser woke him again. Flynn was humming an old strong sea-song, a big hand caught over Shaw's shoulder to keep him sinking under the water. His fingertips rested against the rise of his collarbone. There was nothing particularly deliberate about any of it, and Shaw decided it wasn't in his best interests to dissect it further.

He closed his eyes. When he opened them again the sun was setting, fiery blades of clouds ignited in the hot copper sky. Flynn was half out of the water and sitting further up the bank, still keeping an eye on him, a bottle dangling between his knees. Heavy bare thighs and wide bare back and hair backlit red. The pool's caustics danced over him in shimmering lattices. Shaw's head swam.

"Dark soon," he said, just for the sake of something to say.

Flynn blew over the throat of his bottle, a deep mournful sound that echoed out into the ripening dusk. "We can stay a bit longer, right?" he said. "It's hardly late."

Shaw raised a hand out of the water. The cold air bit at it, and he retreated back into the heat again. He made a noise of agreement and Flynn shuffled himself back down into the water next to him. His arms were rough with goosebumps, and Shaw absolutely failed to not look at his thick chest, nipples tight with the chill, and—Light, he had no doubt the long groan Flynn let out when he slid back into the heady warmth of the pool would feature in his early morning contemplations for some time to come. He squeezed his eyes shut and resolutely did not think about Flynn pinning him down in the shallows, sinking him into the loose pool bed and then sinking into him in turn with that same pleasured noise. Did not imagine him astride his hips, head thrown back and limned by the sun, or how his wet thigh would feel tensing under his hand, or any number of such fanciful scenarios. Even growing as dark as it was, he was far too naked to dwell on such impropriety, and that was the least of it.

He abruptly lost patience with himself and ferociously bundled it all up: this frustration and wounded desire and this incessant pointless yearning. He set it aside to be shuttered away with the rest of the tender futilities life had inflicted on him. What use was it, after all? Even if Flynn had cared that way, the war would be over eventually. If both of them made it through they'd still have to part ways at the end of it. Too many ifs to endure. These things—they only ever ended in farewells, or worse.

"Silver for your thoughts."

The broken silence was something of a relief. Old habit, that tendency to fold his already convoluted thoughts and feelings in on themselves until they were unnavigable. Shaw opened his eyes. The dusk sky was clear, spread above him in all its infinitude.

"Feeling flush, Captain?"

"Well," Flynn said, planting an elbow and shifting onto his side. His hair fell in damp tendrils over his shoulder. "Yours are more valuable than most, I expect. What with all those secrets rattling around in there."

"Flattery won't get you the last beer."

"I already drank the last beer while you were taking a nap," Flynn said, his grin bright in the pool's rising glow. "You snooze, you lose, mate." He shrugged with one shoulder, and the ink scrawled over his burly arm caught Shaw's eye.

"Don't I know it," Shaw muttered under his breath. Then, given it was a suitable deflection: "I was wondering about your tattoos, as it happens."

"What about them?"

Shaw reached for his wrist, and Flynn let him stretch his arm out for a closer look. Some were cruder than others, both in execution and subject matter. Shaw ignored the considerably-endowed siren and the flaming dice, interested instead in the more traditional designs.

"What do they represent?"

"That I was drunk and suggestible or I lost a bet, as a rule," Flynn said lightly. He leant over, as though inviting Shaw to touch his arm. "But pick one and I'll tell you a story about it. Might not be true, but I guarantee it'll be better than the ones you tell about your scars."

"No doubt." Shaw tapped the nautical star that dominated the swell of his biceps, careful not to linger. It looked older than the rest, the lines spread and faded. "This one, then."

"Ah, now. That one's supposed to be lucky," Flynn said. "Well, they all are, but as far as a sailor's concerned, always being able to find his way home is the kinda luck he wants to court the most."

Shaw nodded, settling back and listening to the long cadence of Flynn's accent, how it carried in the night air. Easy to imagine him on deck of an evening, swinging the lamp with his crew. Conversation was never hard to come by with him around.

"I used to kick about with a certain crowd when I was younger—before things took a turn for the, uh, piratical, I mean. One lad in particular goaded me into getting this one. Towheaded rascal, that Tand. We both got 'em done."

"Tand?"

"Tandred."

"... Proudmoore?"

"That's the fellow." Flynn laughed. "Didn't realise it for the longest time, what with him spending his days grubbing about on the boardwalks with us Fairwinds and Followseas. Anyway—I like to think Lady Katherine went spare when she saw it."

"You have matching tattoos with Tandred Proudmoore," Shaw said flatly, trying to decide what to make of that. Absurd enough that it must be a tall tale, he decided, but he'd play along. "As far as luck goes, it didn't seem to help him a great deal."

Flynn hummed low in his throat; a regretful sound. "Maybe not in the short term. Pleased as all sorts to see him back, though."

He fell silent a moment, then abruptly pushed away from the side and into the deeper water. It rippled in his wake, luminescing brightly. Shaw realised it had fallen into night already and the full dark he was always unconsciously waiting for wouldn't come to these pools and their infusion of azerite.

"Heh. Pretty," Flynn remarked, drawing his hand across the surface and watching it glisten. "Happens out at sea sometimes. Not azerite though, just some kind of algae I think. Still, feels like you're sailing through the stars."

An unsubtle change of subject. Shaw reassessed and then glided over in his own swirl of golden effervescence. He ignored a petty bitterness that rose like bile in his throat. No doubt Flynn wasn't short of exes. Another knife with which to carve himself.

"Was he…?" Shaw prompted.

Flynn gave him a halfway sheepish look, as though he'd been caught doing something that wasn't strictly forbidden but probably wasn't proper either.

He shrugged. "I'm fond."

"And what does Taelia think of that?"

A flicker of bemusement crossed Flynn's face. "Well, I don't know. You'd have to ask her, wouldn't you?"

He blinked at Shaw, his expression growing ever more baffled, and then he glared down at the water and made the strangest sound: a drawn-out, shaky, almost horrified sigh as though could scarce get air in his lungs. Shaw could only assume he'd hit a nerve that neither of them knew was there, a theory borne out when Flynn ducked away from eye contact and waded to the edge of the pools. He hauled himself out and briskly cocooned himself in one of the pilfered towels, shivering.

"All right, shall we go?" he said. He sounded odd, his usual levity brittle around the edges and not just because his teeth were chattering. "Don't know about you but I'm wrinklier than a Drustvar witch."

Shaw followed. The towel from the lodge was rough and chafed his skin warm. It was a sorry alternative to the silken comfort of the water. He pulled his clothes on as soon as he was dry enough that they wouldn't cling to his skin.

Flynn was already fully dressed, apparently having flung everything back on without towelling himself down first. His shirt stuck to him. His hair left dark damp patches where it dripped. He'd brought the horses around while Shaw dressed. "Feels later than it is," he said, cheerful. He fumbled his pack before managing to sling it over one shoulder. "If we make good enough time we might get back before last orders."

"I see," Shaw said, even though he didn't, and took his horse's reins.

The trip back to Boralus was unpleasantly cold. Shaw couldn't stop shivering no matter how closely he wrapped his cloak, and Flynn couldn't seem to stop talking, bouncing from topic to topic frenetically—from a quite literal blow-by-blow recount of a barfight he once started, to detailed instructions on how to most effectively repair a fraying forestay, a detour into the vagaries of winter surface currents, how one might go about brewing his own ale should circumstances require it, and even a brief and quickly abandoned mention of his first time in Tol Dagor.

This was the buoyancy of a man trying to keep afloat. Shaw hunched his shoulders and listened and tried to make sense of it.

"Are you all right?" he asked, once, just as they came into the city.

"Yep," Flynn said, then began a new anecdote halfway through.

Once they stabled their horses, Flynn made a beeline to the promenade and the Snug Harbor. "Staying for one?" he asked. "No? … well, okay—okay. Good night."

"It was a good night," Shaw said, and despite the uncertain turn to the evening, meant it. For the most part. "Captain." He laid a hand on Flynn's forearm, who stared at it as though he were witnessing a scene of great tragedy, and with that, Shaw left him to the remainder of his evening.

He took perhaps a dozen paces towards Flynn's home. Then he stopped, turned back around and made his way to the harbour and the Wind's Redemption. The deck was empty save for the watch keeper. She saluted in acknowledgement of his presence, then left him to make his way belowdecks and to his quarters, and if not to the comfort of his bunk, then to reacquaint himself with the rigidity of it.

The water had left him feeling slack and loose-limbed, worked into a different configuration. He should be able to sleep easily, untethered from his usual form as he was. He turned onto his side and caught the faint glimmer of azerite in the creases of his knuckles.

He turned onto his other side. And then onto his back. The ship rang eight bells.

Shaw thought about what might help, then thought about the noise Flynn had made as he'd slid into the water, thought about the swell of muscle under the soft bulk of him, thought about his laugh and how the immediacy of him, of everything about him, was too much for Shaw to not have for himself, and worked his hand beneath the tight waist of his breeches without loosening them. He squeezed his eyes shut and clenched his teeth.

"Light," he muttered. "Light damn it all."

Then he got up and put on his boots and left.

Flynn was no longer at the Snug Harbor. Nor was there light shining from the window at his house, flickering fire or otherwise. Shaw blew out a frustrated breath, misting white in the dim ambience of the street lanterns. There were any number of taverns he could have moved on to.

Back to the harbour then, and his bunk. Or—

---

He'd approached the captain's cabin of the Middenwake with silent care, though he suspected that he needn't have bothered. Through the door, he could hear the noisy thump and scuff of Flynn pacing back and forth.

Shaw could, given sufficient time, say, two to three years, possibly compose something that might be suitably elegant and carefully evasive enough for this situation, but the truth of the matter was that he could not give another moment over to this torment.

Thus, desperately unprepared, he rapped on the cabin door.

---

Chapter Ten

Some people thought Flynn wouldn't know how to pour piss out of a boot with instructions on the heel, and that was the way he liked it.

He played it up often: smiling in the face of a backhanded compliment, appearing drunker than he was, engaging in spectacular pratfalls, taking calculatedly idiotic risks. It meant he was perpetually and significantly underestimated, at least by those who didn't know him well. They didn't expect much of him, and that was rarely anything but an advantage.

But if he was honest with himself, sometimes he was genuinely a dumbass. If Taelia were here he had no doubt she would agree heartily. She was solid like that.

He took the five and a half paces to the other side of the captain's cabin, turned on his heel, and paced back again. Solid. Taelia was one of the best friends he'd ever had. Of course he'd had a crush—who wouldn't—but eventually she'd given him a gentle cuff around the ear and told him to stop giving her puppy-dog eyes, and that had been that.

But, oh, Shaw didn't think so, did he?

And why would he. Take nothing as absolute proof, except when Flynn opened his big mouth to sing her praises at every opportunity. And if he rearranged things around what conclusion that Shaw, for all his astuteness, was likely to draw—

He thought about how Shaw had stood in the doorway of his home, watching as Tae had pressed her hand to his forehead and murmured soft sympathetic words, and framed her as she must have been in Shaw's mind: a lover as much as a friend. Then he thought about how that self-martyring idiot must have gone and fetched her believing that, and wanted to immediately fling himself into the ocean at the sheer absurdity of it all.

He flung his hands up instead and let loose a loud, frustrated groan. He could probably have been kissing him a week ago.

He should clear the air. Go, right this instant, and squirrel him out of wherever he'd gone to ground. Not at home. Flynn had been home and had needed to leave because Shaw's things were there and his sheets smelled like him and it was downright unbearable. Back on board the Redemption, probably, or—

Tides—he could have kissed him in the hot springs like he'd wanted, instead of observing that last bit of distance Shaw had seemed determined to maintain, and then utterly bottling it when all of his questions had suddenly coalesced into a single boot-piss-pouringly stupid answer.

He was interrupted from that particularly unhelpful train of thought by a brisk rap at his door. Flynn only knew one person who knocked like the door was an imposition, and nerves swam in his stomach like shoaling fish. If he didn't open up, Shaw would eventually leave. On the one hand, it'd give him more time to steel himself, but on the other, Flynn couldn't even guess what that would make him think. Nothing good, that was for sure.

He took a deep breath, opted for balling the jack and flung the door open. There Shaw was, looking like a shipwreck in progress, hand half-raised for another knock. Flynn's heart stuttered just to see him.

"I'm trying to sleep, you know," he said, patently still in his boots and duster.

Shaw dropped his hand, frowning down at said boots, then back up at Flynn. "So am I," he said. He sounded exactly like himself. "There's something we need to discuss."

"You know, I think there is. In fact, I've been meaning to—"

"Let me speak," Shaw interrupted sharply. A pained look crossed his face, maybe at his own tone, maybe at Flynn in general. "Please."

With an amiable shrug Flynn stepped back from the door, but it looked like Shaw wasn't in any hurry to come in. He stood on the threshold, shifting with the ship as it slowly rocked on the evening tide. Ah. Exit strategies.

Shaw ran a hand over his moustache and then clasped his hands behind his back as if he were about to deliver a report. "I'm not in the habit of making a fool of myself," he began, then stopped. His brow furrowed. The pause stretched out as Flynn watched him select then discard any number of follow-ups, inclined to be as tactical about this as he was about everything else.

"That's okay. I do that enough for the both of us," Flynn said encouragingly.

That seemed to help, after a fashion. Shaw's shoulders dropped and he loosed his hands so they fell at his sides. His moustache twitched.

"All right," he said, and took a long, resigned breath, the way he might if he'd been assigned a task that was arduous yet critically necessary. "You're a kind man, Captain, and an intelligent one, despite what you'd have people believe. That said, you either know why I'm here, or you don't. And if you don't, then all I ask is one last kindness."

Flynn blinked at him. Shaw's brow developed an exciting range of brand new creases.

"If you don't know why I'm here," he said again, slowly, as though trying to explain something very, very obvious to someone very, very oblivious. He stepped into the room, raising his hands as though some rigorous gesturing might help—then his nerve clearly broke, all his careful neutrality evaporating. "Light, man. If you're not going to be smart, at least be kind. Tell me to leave."

There was, of course, no possible way Flynn was going to do that, but he made a thoughtful sound under his breath and chewed the inside of his lip as though deep in contemplation. After as many moments of this as he could bear and probably a few more than Shaw deserved, he extended an arm over Shaw's shoulder, laid his hand flat to the cabin door and pushed it firmly shut.

"That was kind of adorable, not gonna lie," he said.

Shaw bristled. "If you could be serious for—"

"My turn," Flynn interrupted, "and I'm gonna be straightforward about this, so brace yourself. Listen. If you haven't figured out by now that I'm entirely pitchpoled headfirst arse over damn tit for you, spymaster, then maybe you should think about retiring."

"I see," Shaw said, after a moment. Then he put his hand over his mouth and made a noise like he was taken with a coughing fit. It took Flynn a moment to realise he was trying not to laugh. "Ah. Truly, the poets have nothing on you."

He sounded unsteady, a bright edge to his voice as though releasing the tension had left him all but trembling. Flynn couldn't say he didn't feel the same. He wanted to smile stupidly at him, so he did. He wanted to take Shaw's hand in both of his, so he did that, too.

Shaw stared at his hand in Flynn's as though he didn't quite comprehend it.

"You want poetry? I'll write you poetry." Flynn cleared his throat. "There once was a grumpy old spy—"

"Please don't." Shaw's horror was so readily apparent that Flynn could only laugh. Looked as though his guard wasn't down so much as it'd sailed off into the sunset.

"Oh, fine, be like that," Flynn said, grinning and unable to stop. "Thought you liked a good allusion. A clever intimation. You know, artfully dancing around a subject." A limerick of his crafting was unlikely to include any of those things, but that was beside the point.

"It's... habit to be circumspect in all things," Shaw said, regretful in a way that made Flynn's throat tighten. "I should have been more grand."

"You were very grand. My heart skipped a beat. Keeps skipping, if I'm being honest, so if I happen to drop dead don't take it personally."

"I will," Shaw said, "take it personally. As I will if you don't kiss me very soon."

Kissing him sounded like a good plan, one that put a warm glow in Flynn's stomach and elsewhere, but then, so did teasing him some more. He decided both were an inevitability, so he might as well enjoy himself.

"My responsibility, is it?" he said. "I've been throwing myself at you for weeks, mate. How about you pick up some of the slack."

Shaw looked briefly startled, and then laughed, short and frustrated and absolutely genuine, and with a smile that pushed creases into the corners of his eyes, as promising as the open sea. A glimpse of the man he was twenty years ago, maybe. A glimpse of who he could be again, if Flynn had his way.

Shaw shook his head. "You're exasperating."

"I know, I know, but it's only because I like you so much." Flynn beamed at him without apology. "Tell me all the ways I'm a problem for you."

"You know exactly how." Shaw seized him by the belt to pull him close, thigh to hip, realising that the best path forward was the most direct route and on the verge of acting on it—then immediately drew back to give him a look that was almost comically impressed and somewhat on the daunted side.

It took all of Flynn's willpower to keep a straight face. "I know what you mainlanders say about Kul Tiran men, and while I don't mean to dash your hopes," he said softly, earnestly, "that's not what you think it is."

He patted his coat pocket and came up with the cured sausage he'd got at the market a lifetime ago. It was looking somewhat linty, but had otherwise survived its travels with aplomb.

Shaw looked at the sausage, then at Flynn, staring at him like he'd gone half mad.

"You are a dreadful man, Flynn Fairwind," he said with absolute sincerity.

"Well, obviously." Flynn tossed his magnificent charcuterie to one side. "What else have you got?"

That was all the encouragement Shaw needed to start counting his grievances off on his fingers. "You're overconfident—"

"Just confident, really."

"Loudmouthed—"

"I'll give you that.

"Sloppy—"

"Oh, you have no idea."

"You know, Captain, I'm starting to think this is dirty talk for you."

"You're finally getting it. Hate to break it to you, mate, but you've been saying absolutely filthy things to me from the moment we met."

"Light," Shaw said with a sharp laugh. "You're incorrigible."

"Hey, don't look at me. You're the gruff disciplinarian, what did you expect?"

Shaw ran a hand over his face, smoothing his moustache down and not quite meeting Flynn's eyes. "Light," he said again, more softly. "I don't know. I don't know. But I've come to want you more than I've wanted anyone in a long time." He paused in order to look thoroughly baffled. "How did this happen?"

"Beats me, but I'm not complaining."

"I didn't expect this." Shaw was beginning to sound a little desperate. "I came here to fight a war. I didn't expect… you."

"Yeah, sorry about that," Flynn said, sounding absolutely not sorry about that at all.

"I don't know why you ever bother apologising," Shaw said, then grabbed Flynn by the collar and pulled him down, intent on a kiss, his nose bumping Flynn's cheek in his haste—but there was still one more thing he wasn't off the hook for.

"Hey, just wondering," Flynn said, lips a hair's breath from Shaw's growl of frustration. "Did you really think I was with Taelia?"

"Fairwind."

"That's me. Come on, fess up."

Shaw sighed, his grip loosening until his hands were laid flat over Flynn's shoulders. He gave them a resigned pat. "It's my business to know everything. It's my job to be an observer." He frowned. "And it's my job to never be afraid to see things. As far as that last is concerned, I've not been very conscientious."

Flynn laughed. "You've been a useless bastard, no offence."

"Offence entirely taken. Get your licks in while you can, Captain."

"Oh, I intend to," Flynn said, and decided this was the ideal time to finally kiss him.

True to his word, he went straight in with tongue. If there was ever a moment for a tentative brush of the lips, it had, in his esteemed opinion, long since passed. This ambitious move was the right decision if the breathless noise and the sudden buckle of Shaw's knees was anything to go by. To be fair to him, withstanding this kind of interrogation probably didn't feature prominently in his spy training.

Flynn cupped the back of his head, wound an arm around his waist and pulled him in close, while Shaw kissed him back as though he'd been starved his whole life. His hand grabbed at Flynn's waist, fingers digging in—then, quite superbly, groped along the valley of his hip in confident exploration, feeling him out through his breeches.

Shaw pulled back again, flushed and breathing shallowly, and gave Flynn another of his capital-L looks.

"Now that," Flynn said, "that is definitely me. Didn't you take a peek while we were in the hot pools?"

"I have a lot of self-control."

"Too much, if you ask me—oh, I take it back." Flynn laughed as Shaw attacked his belt, yanking the leather through its buckle with a noise like a whipcrack. He pulled Shaw's shirt open in return, both thankful and a little disappointed that he wasn't wearing all of his usual getup, but quietly confident there'd be occasion to slowly untruss him from it some other time. For now he was more than happy to get a hand under his collar and mouth a line of kisses up the side of his neck. It made him inhale sharply through his teeth.

"How about we, er," Flynn said into his ear.

Shaw hustled him in the general direction of the cabin's bed, backwards, stop-starting in order to shed a piece of clothing or to divest Flynn of some of his, or to keep kissing him with an acute hunger, teeth scraping his lip. "Yes."

"How would you like to, I mean..."

"Yes," Shaw said again.

"All right, not much to go on, but I'll try not to mess this up," Flynn said as Shaw shoved him down onto the mattress hard enough to make him bounce.

"I don't think you can go wrong at this point."

"That's optimistic of you."

"It wasn't a challenge, so please don't take it as one."

Flynn had only a laugh for him, a daft guffaw that he couldn't care less about sounding the way it did, especially when Shaw was pulling his shirt all the way off and leaning over him, knee dipping the mattress, that tight quirk to his mouth that meant he'd found something funny and didn't care enough about not letting on.

It was too much, really. Flynn touched his face, palm along the sharp line of his jaw, thumb brushing his cheekbone, marvelling that he could do so without pretence or resistance—and that Shaw was leaning into it, even, turning to kiss Flynn's palm. He reckoned he was halfway there just from the novelty of touching him with honesty.

The way Shaw was hooking his thumbs into the waistline of Flynn's trousers and inching them off was definitely contributing, mind. He lifted his hips to help things along, though Shaw abandoned his efforts right after Flynn's dick sprung free from its confines, leaving his thighs caught in the bunched-up material of his breeches.

"Look here, how am I supposed to—" he began, then decided there was no need to continue when Shaw grasped his dick and gave it a firm squeeze. His legs jerked and he tried to part them at the contact, his breeches under tension and digging in. He visibly twitched against Shaw's palm. "Oh, okay, okay, yeah, all right, I can work with this."

"Hush," Shaw said absently, as though he didn't expect any compliance on that front. Maybe he was thinking it'd be eminently more practical just to shove something in Flynn's mouth. One might hope. Perhaps a treat for later.

Flynn decided to be sensible and save the fantasising for when he wasn't in the process of being bedded by the person he was fantasising about, especially when said person licked his palm and drew his hand up the full length of Flynn's dick. He was slow about it, but ungentle, tugging in a way that was borderline uncomfortable right until it wasn't. Some observant part of Flynn's brain piped up to suggest that this was probably how he touched himself.

"Is this how you touch yourself?" Flynn's mouth said, entirely of its own volition.

Devastatingly, Shaw stopped what he was doing. "Problem?"

"Nope. Just wondering if I should be making notes." Flynn bit back a grunt when Shaw slid his hand down again, the going made easier by the copious amount of precome Flynn was putting out. He couldn't pinpoint how long he'd been turned on, but judging by that, it must have been a while. A week, at least. A month. Forever, since he'd first spied Shaw all gussied up and crying out for someone to yank his laces.

"You know how much I value attention to detail." Shaw did something with the angle of things and a press of his thumb that made Flynn dig his heels into the mattress and arch into his hand.

"Paying attention, then," Flynn said, strained. He collapsed back, panting, as Shaw relented, his strokes becoming lighter and brisker. "Not one for a gentle handy, eh?"

"If it's too much for you, say so."

"Ha." Flynn swallowed. "Give me all you've got."

"Very well." Shaw braced an arm beside Flynn's head, observing him as he jerked him in earnest. He approached this with the focus and determination he did everything else, cataloguing Flynn's every gasp and lip-bite, every flex of his thighs and buck of his hips, and adjusting his technique accordingly. It was thrilling to have his undivided attention, if a tad daunting. Flynn couldn't ask for more, really. Except he was going to.

He caught Shaw by the hair, pulling a beautiful groan out of him, and tugged until he got the hint and slung a leg over his thigh, and when Flynn splayed another hand in the small of his back, got the hint some more. He leant over and let Flynn feel how hard he was in his half-unfastened leathers.

"Ooh. Is that for me?"

"If you insist on talking, at least come up with something original," Shaw said, and Flynn laughed, lifting up to press a kiss to the underside of his jaw, into the crook of his shoulder.

"Does that mean you're not gonna tell me to be good for you?"

"Hardly seems worth the effort." Shaw looked as though to say more, but only wet his lips.

"What," Flynn said, grinning at him.

"If you're going to misbehave, this would be the appropriate time for it."

Well, that went straight to Flynn's dick, and more powerfully than he'd like to explain.

Shaw bowed his head and rolled his body against Flynn's, resting his forehead on his collarbone. His breath ran hot over Flynn's nipple. This, and everything else about Shaw in this moment, tides—the press of his cock against Flynn's hip, his ruthless grip, his warm skin under Flynn's palm, the unguarded smile and rare humour that were just for him—

Just for him, and the most precious treasure was to have something nobody else did.

"Ah," Flynn said, patting his shoulder. "Ah. Hey, how about we hold up a sec."

"Can't handle it, Captain?"

"It's just a hand job," Flynn said, which did nothing to relieve his heart of its fullness. Shaw gave him an affronted tut and brushed a kiss to his cheek, and Flynn came before he could think better of it.

"When I said to misbehave," Shaw murmured, a hitch to his words each time Flynn jerked up into his fist and slicked his fingers. He was red across his cheekbones, hair in his face and moustache once again taken one for the team. "This wasn't strictly what I meant. Perhaps you've gotten ahead of yourself."

"Oh, that. That's. Keep saying things like that. I mean, sorry if you're not getting the—the level of finesse you're accustomed to, but—"

He had no real follow-up, but luckily Shaw took his chin and kissed him quiet while he rode out the rest of his orgasm so he didn't have to come up with anything. Shaw stayed like that a while after Flynn was done, caught up in kissing him, testing to see what he responded to best in that methodical way of his. Flynn hoped he realised the answer was literally everything because it was him, and not nothing in particular.

He pulled Flynn's hair loose and ran a hand through it, curled his fingers and tugged his head back, and Flynn shivered against him when he bit at his lower lip and drew it through his teeth. Shaw nudged at him in response, the hot solidity of his erection pushing against Flynn's thigh.

"All right, then," Flynn said into his mouth. "Let's do you. Any requests?"

Shaw's eyes slid shut and he took a slow breath. Flynn watched the heave of his chest, thought about him thinking about all the things he'd like to do, and wondered pleasantly if he was about to set a new record for shortest refractory period in a human male.

"Sit up. Back against the headboard. You've got hands," Shaw said, low and professional in a way that was all but guaranteed to cause Flynn trouble next time Shaw needed him for official business. "And a mouth, as we're both well aware. You're resourceful when it comes to using whatever means are available to you." He rose up onto his knees as Flynn got himself positioned as instructed, and straddled Flynn's chest. "So get to it."

"Speaking of dirty talk. Was that meant to be some?" Flynn said as he ran his hands up Shaw's lean thighs, then scooped his cock free of his leathers. Shaw was rigid and straining, a deep red with how worked up he was—how Flynn had got him worked up. Looked as though he'd do himself an injury if Flynn didn't make him come immediately. It was his grave responsibility, he decided. His duty. For the Alliance.

"No."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," Shaw insisted, but in a way that made Flynn think he didn't intend to be believed.

"Lovely. Keep doing what you're doing, then," Flynn said happily, then slipped his mouth over the head of his cock.

Shaw made a sound like someone had punched him in the kidneys and grabbed a double handful of Flynn's hair. In retaliation, Flynn cupped his backside, which was a perfectly reasonable response and, as far as Flynn was concerned, one he'd been given express permission for. He relaxed his throat and pulled him in until his nose was pressed against the neat flat muscle of Shaw's belly.

Old party trick. Usually went down well. Shaw seemed to be appreciating it, if the uncontrolled groan and the way his hands slid from Flynn's hair to bracket his face was any indication. His thumb stroked the stretch of Flynn's lips.

"Oh, Light damn you," he muttered with heartfelt sincerity. Then, when Flynn hummed his approval, bit out an equally sincere, "fuck."

Beg pardon, Flynn tried to say, but he sounded exactly like he probably looked right now. Shaw must have got the gist because he shot him a glare as sharp as any blade, pulled out a couple of inches and came in a hot pulse against the roof of Flynn's mouth. A long sigh spilled from him just as freely.

Flynn drew him all the way out again, tilted his head enough that Shaw's cock bumped his cheek, and let him smear the last few spurts on his face. Shaw's expression went from precisely cutting to wild and wide-eyed, and he might have fallen over entirely if it weren't for Flynn holding him up by his arse.

"Now who can't handle it," Flynn said to him, wiping his cheek clean with his thumb and licking it. Shaw exhaled through his nose and let Flynn lower him onto his back, wrongways on the bed and in a tangle of bent knees and half-stripped trousers.

"I'm fine," he said.

"It's gonna sound like a lie if you say it like that." Flynn kicked his breeches the rest of the way off then dealt with Shaw's significantly clingier ones. They were looking a bit of a mess, but Flynn considered that any staining they'd incurred was entirely not his problem. He laid alongside Shaw and propped himself on one elbow, taking in his rumpled state with a deep sense of satisfaction and a glow to his very being, until Shaw tugged him over by the hair and distracted him with a slow and messy kiss, slack, wide-mouthed, uncaring about it.

"That was a bit all right, wasn't it?" Flynn said between a lazy exchange of tongue. "I mean, not the best sex I've ever had, but that's because it only took about, mmm, six minutes. Next time, though—"

"I don't need a post-mortem," Shaw said a bit defensively, then turned the kiss sweet and shallow, gradually easing back until he was dropping small pecks on Flynn's lips. He stretched with a crack of his joints and settled down to rest his head on Flynn's shoulder.

"Just want to make sure it looks good on my dossier."

"I don't keep a dossier on you," Shaw said, eyes closed.

Flynn lifted his head off the mattress. "And why the blazes not, may I ask?"

"Your rap sheet is sufficient."

Well, Flynn had some thoughts about that. He blew a raspberry.

"Oh, grow up," Shaw said without heat. He pushed Flynn down again, resettling his head and weathering Flynn's laughter with a half-smile, groping about for the blankets. He dragged them over as best he could with both of them lying atop them. Flynn curled an arm around him. There was something comfortably familiar about it all, and his heart beat like a bird taking wing.

"And get old and cranky like you? Never."

"Time comes for us all, Captain."

Flynn sighed. "Imagine me all grey-haired and weatherbeaten, though. Criminal."

He'd thought Shaw had already been lying still, but he managed to go stiller. After a moment, he reached up and pressed his hand firmly against the side of Flynn's face. No keen remark to go along with it. Flynn swallowed thickly.

Shaw's hand dropped from his face and tucked across his chest instead.

"Didn't have you pegged for a cuddler," Flynn said just for something to say.

"It's cold. You're warm." Shaw's voice was a low rumble against his chest.

"Mmhm?" Flynn said doubtfully, as Shaw hooked a hand into the crook of his knee, hitching Flynn's thigh over him.

"Mm. Now, go to sleep."

The ship rocked evenly on the ebb of the morning tide. Lying this way around on the bed, Flynn could see the diffuse glow the twin moons cast through the opaque leaded glass of the cabin. The distant noise of the rousing harbour reached his ears: a hove-anchor shanty; the distant clatter of freight being shifted. Probably only two or three hours until first light, so he tucked Shaw's head under his chin and listened to his breathing deepen and slow. He let his own eyes drift shut, and through virtue of having nothing else to do, did as he was told.

---

Chapter Eleven

Through some persistence, Shaw managed to get Flynn's cock most of the way into his mouth before he stirred. It had been a simple enough task to begin with, him being only halfway firm in his sleep, but as he filled out under Shaw's attention it had presented more and more of a logistical challenge. His determination outweighed his concerns, however, and Shaw set about handling things to the best of his ability, pleased enough to add jaw ache to his list of physical complaints.

Flynn came fully awake with a loud, breathy inhale. "Oh," he sighed, sleepy and decadent. "Good morning, Master Shaw."

Shaw ignored the unexpected frisson at the casual use of his title. He might have to come back and examine that before it caught him out in less appropriate circumstances, but for now he pinned Flynn by the hip so he wouldn't choke him with any sudden moves, and slowly, very slowly, slid him from his mouth.

"Oh," Flynn sighed again. "That's nice."

"Enjoy it while you can," Shaw said, mouthing at the underside of his cock. "There are things to be done today."

"Starting with me." Flynn lifted his head to catch his eye, grinning.

"Temporary rearrangement of priorities. Don't get used to it."

Flynn let his head fall back to the mattress with a thump. "Aw."

The threshold of morning meandered through the cabin. Things felt liminal, interstitial. Shaw decided he would think of nothing but what he was doing in the moment, for as long as the moment lasted. His duty would assert itself soon enough. His deployment to Arathi loomed.

He went about things leisurely, hands charting all they could of Flynn's substantial self, occasionally breaking off from blowing him to press openmouthed kisses to his hip or stomach. Flynn invited intimacy and was unashamed about taking it, only to return it tenfold, greeting each new touch with murmured encouragement and the tug of his fingers through Shaw's hair.

Shaw hadn't thought to find himself here again. He could hardly bear some of the things Flynn was saying, filthy or sweet, whether he meant them or not. While his quickening breaths and the tremble in his thighs meant the inevitable end to the morning, it was something of a relief.

A gag might come into play at some point, should this continue. Shaw tried and failed to be surprised by the thought.

Flynn was barely done coming before he dragged Shaw up on top of him, face flushed and skin slicked with sweat, his cock a wet stamp of heat against Shaw's hip. Shaw kissed his pleased grin and felt the rapid drum of his heart against his own sternum, and could think to do nothing else but kiss him again and again, so he did.

"Are you sure I can't convince you," Flynn slid in between a press of lips, "to make this a regular part of your morning routine?"

"Ask me again when I get back," Shaw replied, then distracted him by bearing down with a firm roll of his hips, sliding himself against the inside of Flynn's thigh and into the crease of his groin.

Flynn groaned approvingly and splayed a hand in the small of Shaw's back. "How long will you be gone?"

"It's not certain. A month, at least."

The pleasant warmth that had been steadily gathering in his belly guttered, a bleakness encroaching on his mood. His movements faltered and slowed. He felt Flynn's hand curl against his back, implicit acknowledgement that it would be a month or more of feeling his absence, unspoken in a way that Shaw appreciated. For all his foibles, he was perceptive, and Shaw trusted he would change the subject to something befitting the situation at hand.

"When you get back," he said directly into Shaw's ear, completely lacking in self-consciousness or hesitation, "I'm going to sling your legs over my shoulders and fold you in half. How's that sound."

Shaw closed his eyes and breathed, a shiver taking him from head to toe.

"Interesting."

"That all you have to say about it?" Flynn said. "All right, maybe you're more about wrestling me to the ground and nailing me til I see stars."

"Also interesting," Shaw said, edging ever closer to finishing when Flynn's body shuddered under him in silent laughter.

"You're hard work, mate," he said, disastrously fond.

"I'd like to say you've seen me at my worst, but I can't guarantee it. Now, are you going to get me off or not?"

"Oh, you can't say that, can you? Is that allowed?"

Shaw shot him a dry look, but Flynn was already running his big hands up his flanks and to his chest, pinching and thumbing his nipples and giving no quarter. He ducked his head to kiss one, then lick, then roughly fastened his teeth around it and tugged.

Things didn't take long after that.

Done for, Shaw fell onto his back. Flynn immediately rolled onto him, heedless of the mess and intent on flattening him with a sumptuous kiss. Exhilarating to be sure, but somewhat rib-cracking. Shaw elbowed him until he eased up and lay against his side instead.

"I need to collect some of my equipment from your place," Shaw said.

Flynn made a disgruntled sound. "Right this second?"

"Ideally in the next hour or so."

"Ah, that's ages." Mollified, Flynn burrowed his face into the crook of Shaw's neck.

"There's something else. I need you to listen carefully." Shaw spoke low and soft, absently stroking Flynn's hair, barely thinking about the familiar way it twined between his fingers.

"Sounds ominous," Flynn said.

"It is."

"Oh, good. I hate to be the one to tell you, but you're really bad at pillow talk."

"I thought you would realise this about me."

Flynn laughed again, as though it didn't matter how true it was. "All right, get it over with so we can go back to snoozing."

"As I told you, I'm due in Arathi imminently. It's a territory contested on many fronts. Horde forces. Ogres. Trolls. Syndicate agitators. Pressure from all quarters. I have a difficult job to do there, and the integrity of the mission is utmost. The safety of my agents comes second. I hold myself to the same. Do you understand what I'm saying to you?"

"If you're planning on getting shanked by some two-bit rogue, I'm free, you know."

"If you could be serious for a moment."

"All right, but just for a moment." Flynn propped himself up on one elbow, regarding him evenly. "Yes, Shaw, I understand. I do know there's a war on, you know. End of the day, any one of us could wind up under a sheet."

"Some more likely than others," Shaw muttered.

"No need to be melodramatic. I could just as easily peg it out there on one of those islands. Ever met an undead vrykul? Really mad about it. But, see—death's just a handing-over ceremony. Ship spills its cargo, the ocean accepts the offering. We all go overboard in the end, and maybe we get to see our loved ones again in the peaceful depths, eh?"

It wouldn't be fair to think of Edwin while harboured here in Flynn's arms, so Shaw was careful not to. Some mortally wounded part of him howled about it, but Shaw refused listen to its frantic insistence that to not dwell on him here was a betrayal of his memory.

"That's a nice thing to believe," he said, halfway to meaning it. He pulled Flynn down into a kiss.

"Mm. Now, not to ruin the mood, but I was wondering something."

"Yes?"

"Ever had someone bury their face between your arsecheeks and go to town?" Flynn asked in perfectly solicitous tones.

Shaw closed his eyes and sighed. Well, that certainly was effective in getting his mind off more emotional subject matters. Obviously the intention. He gave it about as much thought as he dared.

"I'm not saying you can't say that, but you probably shouldn't."

"Too late, already did."

"At least rephrase."

"Are you sure you want me to do that?"

"... I suppose there's no delicate way to put it."

Flynn laughed, manhandling Shaw without further ado. "All right. On your front, now," he said. "Quick as you like, we don't have all morning, you know."

---

"You can leave a few things here if you want."

Shaw glanced up from the single missive that had been left on Flynn's windowsill. He hadn't needed to decipher it to know it was a check-in request from one of his agents, which was fortunate as Flynn was currently trying to wrestle Treatise into his sea-bag, though without much observable success.

"I mean," Flynn said, trying the book on its other edge. "In case you need a safe house. A place to lay low, if circumstances, er." He tugged one of Shaw's shirts out of the bag and made another attempt. "In case there are circumstances. How did you fit this in?"

Shaw gestured for Flynn to hand it over to him, then sat at his table and reached for the pen and ink. "There's a trick to it," he said, but didn't elaborate further. He jotted down a quick response for his agent—returning to active duty, discontinue drop point & redact all record of location—then opened Treatise at an early page and began to transcribe it.

"There always is," Flynn said. He sat in the other chair and watched Shaw write. "What are you doing?"

"What does it look like I'm doing?" Shaw said, not unkindly.

"Writing out half the blasted book."

Shaw blotted the sheet, gave it a quick check over for any obvious errors, then rolled it and stood, handing it to Flynn. He took it with a gentle furrow of his brow, then looked up, questioning.

"In case you need to contact me," Shaw said. "While I'm gone. That's your page."

Flynn unrolled it and folded it instead, turned it over in his hands, then tucked it into one of the numerous, possibly bottomless inside pockets of his longcoat. A smile played at the corners of his mouth. "Is it now," he said.

Shaw nodded. In honesty, he expected a slew of nonsense messages from him. No doubt some, if not all of them, unprofessional at best and wildly inappropriate at worst, but—it might be nice. Irritating, but nice. But, hmm. Signal to noise was always a concern.

He drew one of the hidden daggers that were strapped beneath the tassets on his thigh and turned it, holding it out to Flynn hilt-first. This put the blade pointing squarely at his chest, but he did not allow himself to flinch. "Here. If there's something urgent that requires my attention," he said, "use the crest on the pommel as a seal. Important things only, Flynn. Understood?"

"You're giving me one of your daggers?"

"I'll want it back."

Flynn grasped the hilt and lifted the blade from Shaw's palm. He hefted it, eyebrows raising in approval at its balance. "Then you gotta come back and fetch it."

"I will," Shaw softly said. Then, a thought having occurred: "I expressly forbid you from committing any felonies with it in the meantime."

"Ah," Flynn said consideringly. "But not any felonies, full stop."

Shaw shook his head, unable to find the will to hide his smile. He put a hand to Flynn's cheek and leant up to kiss him. It was easy and straightforward, as though he'd done it a hundred times before. He took a mildly bewildered step back.

Flynn only beamed at him. "That wasn't a no," he said. "Right then. All set?"

Shaw rummaged in his pack, pushing some of his clothes aside so he could slot Treatise in on a diagonal slant. That garnered a disbelieving groan from Flynn, followed by his eternal amusement at all things. Better than him being melancholy at their imminent parting, or worse, surly feet-dragging or beseechments for him to stay.

Perhaps, Shaw let himself think, this was something that could actually work.

"All set," he said, and hefted his pack onto his shoulder.

---

Flynn had a habit. Well, several habits, like most folks are wont to, and some more agreeable than others depending on who you asked, but in his estimation this was a fairly innocuous one. When he was feeling a bit unfortunate, maybe a bit sorry for himself, he'd go sit somewhere and look out over the sea for a while and let his thoughts percolate.

Oh, and drink.

Boralus was decked out to the nines with bunting and bundles of sea holly, seashells and dried starfish painted gold and silver and woven into wicker wreaths. There were candles and candied fruit and glittering fish scales heaped inside of windows. It'd been some days since Shaw had disappeared through the mage portal with a single, long glance over his shoulder, and now Winter Veil was bearing down on him with a vengeance.

If it were only Kul Tiran custom everywhere he turned he might feel all right about it, but the mainlanders had brought their traditions along with them. Every time he saw something inexplicable but somehow festive, like an orange studded with cloves, or popcorn on a string, he found himself wondering what Shaw was doing—and what the blazes a normal Winter Veil was like for him when he wasn't in the middle of a war.

"Aren't you freezing?"

He looked up to find someone who was possibly Taelia under all the layers of cloaks and scarves. She lowered herself to sit on the sea wall ramparts next to him, wincing as the wind blustered sleet into her face.

"Snug as anything." Flynn held up his flask by way of explanation. It wasn't strictly true; while the rum was keeping him toasty on the inside, if someone told him his nose had frozen right off he'd believe them without trouble. "Want a sip?"

"No thanks. That stuff's rotted your brain."

"What brain?" Flynn said.

"Exactly! It's awful out here." She tugged his arm. "Come on, the taverns are all full of festive cheer. Why don't you come try some of this eggnog the mainlanders are getting squiffy on instead of… whatever it is you're doing out here."

"Thinking," Flynn said, then before Taelia could grill him on that remarkable feat, "Eggnog. Eggnog. Does it have actual egg in it?"

"I think so. I expect that's why they put so much alcohol in it. To make it drinkable."

"Why don't they just not put egg in it in the first place?"

Taelia shrugged and, from the squint of her eyes, grinned somewhere under her woollen scarf.

Flynn got to his feet and eagerly pulled her up along with him. "Sounds revolting. Count me in."

This, apparently, wasn't enough joviality for Taelia's liking, as mere minutes into their stroll towards the promenade, she said, "You're quiet."

"Just a natural pause in the conversation."

"Yeah, right. You've never heard of such a thing."

Flynn mirrored her astonished expression, hands and all, then grinned and shook his head. Nothing much else to say on the matter, though. Apparently the best way to get him to shut up was for Shaw to make himself scarce. Pity he wasn't here to appreciate it. Flynn thought himself in circles over that for a while and then sighed.

She leant heavily on his arm. "You can mope at me, you know."

"I'm not moping, I'm… ruminating."

The Redemption was still in the harbour same as ever—and wasn't that a problem, the way she'd become a permanent fixture in Flynn's mind? The day would come when her berth'd be empty. The war would be over sooner or later, one way or the other. The Alliance would up sticks and bugger off home again, and Shaw would go with them.

And Flynn had best get used to the idea. No doubt Shaw would be back to dealing with nonsense—all right, nuanced—political shenaniganry once his current assignment was over. He was hardly going to pop across the ocean just to see Flynn's face in particular. And, of course, there was the matter of that whacking great sword impaling the planet like it was a cosmic pickled onion on a cocktail stick.

Could be Azeroth was about rupture and bleed out anyway. Then every last one of them would be gone.

"Really?" Taelia said. She gave his arm a squeeze. "You're looking like it's the end of the world."

The Snug Harbor was busy enough to be spilling its clientele onto the street, sailor and soldier alike with drinks in hand and rowdy with cheer. It was only early evening, but most looked set to prop the tavern's walls up for the rest of the night.

Usually Flynn would have joined them with enthusiasm, but something was itching at him, a feeling that there was somewhere else he was supposed to be, something else he was meant to be doing. He'd perfected the art of ignoring this annoying imperative in favour of bunking off a long time ago—but this might be the first time it'd urged him to go ahead and do just that.

"In a way," he said, then swung Taelia around to face him, holding her at arms length with a hand on either shoulder. "Listen, I have to go for a while. Probably not for that long, but long enough that Cyrus might get his ballast in a bind seeing as I'm supposed to be back on the schedule this week."

"You don't want to try the eggnog, then," Taelia said. "Darn."

"No, you knock yourself—wait. Were trying to trick me into drinking it?"

"Well, obviously." She laughed, then caught his hands from her shoulders and tugged him in to a hug. "I'm not going to ask what you're up to, because I'd rather plead ignorance and have it be true. I'll tell Cyrus you're had a relapse of the sniffles."

"Er, extremely deadly sniffles, thank you," Flynn said, resting his chin on her head a moment, then stepping back. "Tell him I'm on death's door. If I sneeze too hard there's a chance I won't make it."

"What a way to go." Taelia stood on her tip-toes and kissed his cheek, then gave it a pat. "Take care, all right?"

"I will."

"And say hello to—"

"Ah-ah!" Flynn slapped a hand over her mouth, to a barrage of muffled cackling. "What happened to plausible deniability? Honestly."

"Mmph!" she rebutted convincingly, and poked him in the ribs until he relented. She wiped at her mouth and pulled a face, then gave him a friendly shove. "Go on then, get lost."

"There's not a small chance I will." Flynn gave her one last squeeze then set off towards the Sanctum of the Sages. Portal travel and inebriation were likely going to be a rough combo, but too late to do anything about that now. At least he'd not sampled the eggnog, though from the sounds of things it'd be more appealing coming up than going down anyway.

"Hey, Flynn!" Taelia yelled from halfway down the promenade. "Happy Winter Veil!"

"No, you!" Flynn hollered back, and she laughed and waved and mimed kissing someone under the mistletoe.

---

Shaw found himself staring at a half-read missive, his thoughts a hundred leagues away.

He blinked and sighed then returned his attention to it once again. After gamely giving the sentence he'd already failed to read a half-dozen times one more attempt, he set it on the pile with the others so he could rub at his face instead.

The mortar between the bricks of his assigned quarters was barely cured. The walls were cleanly-built and uniform, the stonemasons' precise corners and edges yet to weather and round out. He stared at the crisp brickwork for a long moment and then let his eyes unfocus. He could do with some fresh air before tackling any more of the reports accumulating on his temporary desk.

He stood, sweeping his cloak over his shoulders, and made to brave the busy industry of Stromgarde. Its reconstruction was coming on swiftly.

The place was packed with masons.

When Stormwind had been rebuilt after Deathwing's rampage there had been nowhere for Shaw to turn. He'd endured barely any time at all before deciding his return to fieldwork was long overdue and assigned himself to the Twilight Highlands, as far across the continent as he could get.

Now, as he made his way through the scaffolding and toward the wooden palisades at the gates, the billows of stonedust illuminated by winter lanternlight and the familiar tap tap tap of chisels at work didn't leave him quite so heartstricken. Curious to realise. Uncomfortable, almost, the way it let him think on Edwin without being overwhelmed.

He supposed that Flynn and the buffer of his earnest affections were to thank for that. Being one step closer to laying an old ghost to rest was the last thing he expected out of all this, but it stood to reason. The man did have a habit of handing him more than he'd bargained for.

He'd received several letters from him in the short period he'd been away. They were as expected.

Shaw found himself smiling as he saddled up. Usually that wouldn't do, but there was nobody about to see it. Still, a small pang struck him as he passed the towering conifers outside the northern gates, their lower branches decorated with baubles. There was no question his duty here took precedence, but Shaw couldn't help sparing an indulgent thought for how it would've been to spend a Winter Veil evening with Flynn, whiling it away in a Boralus tavern, or along the seafront, or in his rooms.

His mood sobered. Perhaps next year, all things willing.

The Dabyrie's farmstead was a hazy silhouette in the distance. This might be superfluous recon but it was still work, and that required him to focus on the task at hand.

The reports he'd received on the Syndicate's activity in the area indicated they were gathering in numbers, but the leadership was as inclined to internal brinksmanship as ever. The likelihood of them organising well enough to pose a significant threat to Stromgarde was slim; nonetheless their harassment was a distraction the Alliance could do without. Spates of banditry was poor for morale. The best course of action would be to drive them back to Strahnbrad to squabble with the ogres.

A chilly dusk had settled over the highlands, the dwindling sun glinting off the wet shale on its hillsides. Shaw left his horse to crop grass amid the bracken and slid into the deepening shadows of a nearby copse of trees, hunkering down with his night glass to observe, and to wait.

The constellations turned overhead. The night-time soundscape settled and rose, insects and animals and the wind undulating through the grass. He watched the movements of Syndicate footpads around the farm. They were irregular and without reason, no doubt driven by the individual's boredom threshold as much as anything else.

Eventually, a twig crunched nearby. About time he made himself known.

"I thought you would have taken care of this rabble by now," Shaw said.

"It's not as though I have much left to defend," a manicured voice replied. Jorach Ravenholdt always did enjoy that old-fashioned Lordaeronian affectation. "My meddling here is driven primarily by vindictiveness, and because it's always useful to be owed a favour. You're looking well, Master Shaw. The coastal air has done you good."

Not that it was a high bar, considering the state Shaw had been in last they'd met. He shot Ravenholdt a sidelong glance, confirming that he wore a crisp sardonic smile beneath his beard.

"Indeed. I've half a mind to retire there."

"It seems to have helped your sense of humour as well."

Shaw returned a tight smile of his own at the rejoinder. The notion that men of their disposition did things like retire to the seaside was somewhat amusing, he supposed.

They lapsed into a not quite companionable silence. Shaw had the impression that Ravenholdt was expecting something from him, but he wasn't in the mood for intuiting what it might be. He was content to play the waiting game, or, preferably, to never find out.

Ravenholdt was looking at him as though he were a safe that needed cracking. "Singer," he said, at length.

Shaw tilted his head.

"The current overseer. Of course, take her out and they'll merely promote another, but it will take a day or two of squabbling amongst their ranks."

"There's always squabbling amongst their ranks," Shaw said, then stood, brushing off the soil and leaf litter that clung to the knees of his breeches. A cadre of Alliance vets could scatter the Syndicate with ease; it was the Horde moving into the territory that was always going to be the problem. "But I appreciate the intel."

"Are we leaving so soon?"

"By all means, stay if you like."

Ravenholdt chuckled, also standing. "I never did quite manage to thaw you out, did I?"

"I wouldn't say that." Shaw took a deep breath of the evening air and gathered his manners. "It was pleasant to see you, Jorach."

He might have been young and foolish, but it hadn't been the worst period of his life. And once they'd parted company, it had certainly spurred Edwin into action. No, not the worst time he'd had.

"But not pleasant enough for you to allow me to escort you back, I presume," Ravenholdt replied.

"Oh, Light, no," Shaw said. After slightly too long a pause, he added, "no offence," and in his mind, heard the echo of it in a Kul Tiran accent. He shook his head at that, and at Ravenholdt's genteel laughter. He'd think Shaw's half-smile was for him but that was fine. Shaw recognised this for the game it was: Ravenholdt pushing and pulling at old dynamics to see where Shaw might bend. He'd at least had the decency to not try it after—after.

Ravenhold took a long look up at the stars, then to Shaw. "I suppose I shall hie myself back to Dalaran, then. Though I trust my interference here will be remembered favourably by the brass back in Stormwind."

"It's been noted," Shaw said, being amongst the ranks of said brass. Ravenholdt nodded firmly and stepped back, melting into the descending night until he was only shape and motion, raising a hand to Shaw's returning nod of farewell.

---

The door to Shaw's quarters was ajar a half-inch.

He stopped short in the keep's corridor and drew the daggers at his hips. His quarters were small and for all of his skill, the probability of the intruder detecting him would be reasonable, especially if they were also a rogue. Considering the unperturbed air of the keep, that was likely.

Small space, close proximity engagement. Shaw dropped into a low combat stance, and with a turn of the wrist, reversed his grip on his blades.

He swept the shadows around him and soft-footed over to the threshold of his rooms. The new door had smooth, oiled hinges. A detriment, usually, to not hear anyone coming, but in this instance it was working in his favour. He silently eased the door open a few more inches.

Then let out a loud sigh and stood up straight, sheathing his daggers. After minor struggle to fend off a rush of gladness, he managed to maintain a neutral expression.

"Ah, there you are. I was about to doze off," Flynn said, no manners to forget as he lounged on Shaw's cot like he owned it, an ankle resting over his hitched-up knee.

"Please remove your boots if you're going to do that." Shaw nodded to Flynn's foot where it rested on his blankets. "Flynn, this is a warfront. Why are you here?"

"Urgent message for you." Flynn sat up, though made no progress towards discarding his regrettably muddy footwear. He patted down his coat and extracted a rolled-up scroll, sealed with royal blue wax. He held it out.

Shaw took it, broke the seal, unwound the message, and read it. He looked up, one eyebrow raised. "This just says 'I'm coming'."

"It's a heads-up and a prediction," Flynn said, obviously pleased with himself. Then he frowned. "You have my cipher page memorised already? Can't need you that badly out here if you've had time for that."

"I already have it by heart. It's also my page." Before Flynn could make any kind of remark on that, he rolled the message up again and swatted his ear with it. "And this is my note paper, and my sealing wax. You wrote this after you got here."

Flynn grinned, batting the message away and rubbing his ear. "Had to do something while I waited for you to get back from wherever you skulked off to."

"This is brazen disrespect," Shaw said warmly.

"That's my favourite kind of disrespect." Flynn got to his feet, sidling in close to rest a hand at Shaw's waist. "I just wanted to drop by, you know."

"Are you going to follow me everywhere like this?"

"Yes," Flynn said resolutely, and apparently without having to think about it. "Is that all right?"

Shaw studied his face: the honest delight in his eyes, the soaring possibilities of his smile. He so rarely met a person who was pleased to see him, never mind one who would seek him out purely for his company. And it had been a long time since he had felt so ordered, emotionally speaking. He couldn't imagine he would have countenanced this even a year ago, but here he was, slipping his hands to the back of Flynn's neck to pull him down into a searching kiss, drinking in the familiar leather and sea-salt tang of him.

"I suppose I'd better get used to it," he said.

Flynn laughed and nuzzled his nose against Shaw's. "Sour old bastard."

If anyone else talked to him like that he'd have words. In this case, he was more inclined to act. He pulled Flynn by his coat, who gleefully allowed himself to be steered over to the cot.

"Miss me, did you?"

"It's been six days," Shaw said noncommittally.

"Oh, blimey, six whole days," Flynn said, and laughed while Shaw methodically stripped him bare then set about bending him into appealing angles against the mattress.

---

"What about Stormwind?"

It was a scant half-hour until Shaw was back on duty, and another three until the sun would rise. Untended, the fire had burned down to ashes while they had been occupied and then slept; without it the air had cultivated a vicious chill. He would have welcomed Flynn to stay warm in his bed, but he seemed more interested in helping Shaw dress, his deft hands currently tugging the lacing of his armour into place.

There was a peaceful intimacy to it, standing so close with their heads bowed together, and perhaps it was this that spurred him to ask such a hasty question, but if he couldn't be impetuous with a man like Flynn, when could he?

"What about it?"

"Would you follow me there?"

"Don't see why not. My assets are easily movable," Flynn replied, not without suggestiveness, but he settled into more considered tones as he went on. "Once you lot ship out of Boralus there'll be no more azerite freighting anyway. Could go back to running around for Cyrus, but the danger pay's not half as good. Sounds about time to look for new opportunities, eh?"

Instead of its usual bow, Flynn fastened the lacing of Shaw's chestpiece into a reef knot. Hardly regulation, but Shaw said nothing, only touched it briefly.

"I might have an opportunity for you," he said.

"Have you now?"

"I can always use more agents."

"So, what you're saying is," Flynn said with a sly grin, "you want me working under you."

"You really are insufferable."

"Ah, you love me."

Shaw gave Flynn a fond pat on the cheek rather than answer that, and got a wide smile for his trouble. He turned away with a shake of his head and sat on the bed to pull his boots on.

"You already know SI:7 field cipher, and I've no doubt that you can master more advanced encryption if you apply yourself." Shaw paused a moment, considering the diplomatic approach, then decided Flynn would just as readily accept him being blunt about it. "However, I wouldn't let you within a hundred yards of a stealth operation."

"Best make it two hundred." The mattress was ungenerous, but it still dipped as Flynn sat next to him. He slid inexorably against Flynn's side. "If you'd have me codebreaking behind a desk all day, I gotta turn you down though. Sorry."

"No, no," Shaw said, reaching for his gloves. "You have a particular skill that would make you a valuable asset."

"Asset." Flynn snorted. "All right, what's that then?"

"You're easy to trust, despite—well. All evidence that a person shouldn't." Shaw kept his attention on his glove as he tugged it on, flexing his fingers in the soft leather. "It feels natural to tell you things. Certainly against one's better judgement."

"True. I do know a lot of juicy gossip. Do you want to know my secret?"

"Remarkable alcohol tolerance."

"Er, excuse me, I think you'll find it's my boyish good looks and irresistible charm." Flynn gave him a nudge with his elbow. "But I doubt that'll help once word gets out I'm the spymaster's bit of rough."

Just a throwaway remark, but Shaw frowned at the implication nonetheless. "Don't say that."

Flynn just guffawed in that unselfconscious way of his. "What's wrong, don't want people to know this privateer's been plundering your booty?"

"It's not—Light." Shaw shook his head and gave in to a wicked impulse. "On second thoughts, say what you like. It'll put any rumours to bed as soon as you open your mouth."

Flynn gasped, perfectly indignant except for how thoroughly it was an act. "Hey, now. What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nobody would ever believe you're my type."

"Oh, ruthless." Flynn slid a big sturdy hand along the inside of Shaw's thigh, to regrettably powerful effect. "But you're forgetting something: I'm everybody's type. Say—have you got six minutes?"

A distant bell sounded out the hour, warning Shaw that he was running late already. He felt curiously calm about it, and any comment it might elicit. Flynn's fingers traced out the strap and buckle of his leg armour. He'd gotten to his knees to fasten them in the first place.

Thinking about that didn't help matters.

"I might," Shaw said after a brief struggle that, from the grin on his face and the flush riding up on his cheeks, Flynn was well aware of. Such delight for being inopportunely inappropriate. He was an unprecedented distraction. Shaw decided he might as well resign himself to the fact that it was going to be the case, regardless of where he was, or what mischief he was perpetrating.

"Terrific," Flynn said, and bowled him over flat, the bedframe shaking with his laughter and his shifting around to kneel over him.

"On the proviso," Shaw said as Flynn scraped his teeth over the corner of his jaw, "on the proviso that you give my offer real thought. Don't just say yes because you think I'll let you get away with this kind of behaviour when—whenever you—Flynn, are you listening?"

"Yeah, yeah. I whu—" Flynn's breath hitched, and again, and he suddenly sat upright. His face scrunched as he took a faltering breath.

Shaw shot him an alarmed look.

"Huhh," Flynn said, then, of all the Light-damned things, jackknifed over to sneeze into the crook of his elbow. He covered his lower face with both hands and again sneezed, then looked at Shaw, the corners of his eyes creased by the smile he must be hiding behind his fingers.

"Don't you dare," Shaw said.

"It's nothing." Flynn wiped his nose on the back of his sleeve, roundly ignoring Shaw's sceptical eyebrow-raise. With a terrible wet sniff he descended upon him once more, clearly intent on resuming his amorous attentions.

Shaw turned his face aside, pouring a wealth of disapproval into his expression. "If you get me sick again," he said, "I shan't be responsible for my actions."

Flynn, insistent, caught Shaw's chin. For his sins, Shaw let him, his battered old heart as full as it had ever been, and never so boundless. While he was certain that falling in love with Flynn Fairwind would bring nothing but trouble down on his shoulders, it hadn't been enough to discourage him from doing just that.

"It's nothing," Flynn said again, and with all of his good nature and all of his insolence, smothered Shaw with a warm, openmouthed kiss. "Just mainlander germs, probably."

---

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