Foreign Notions

Drustvar existed as though always on the brink of night, no doubt rendered such by the generations of witchery that was its heritage. The blood spilled onto its earth in strange ritual had soaked it to the bone, twisting its trees and wildlife and unsettling its people, and conferring upon it a character that Shaw could only describe as ominous.

An impending storm did nothing to alleviate this impression as he made his way towards an unmarked village, long abandoned and left to collapse under the weight of the land's dark magicks. The setting sun burned behind heavy low clouds, staining the sky a vicious red. The wind was rising to a howl. It felt like a portentiously bad time to be ferreting out Heartsbane artefacts for containment.

Shaw had suggested to Jaina that it might be a mission more suited to someone with an affinity for magic, but apparently this was a task that required light fingers and, to paraphrase, a thoroughly paranoid approach to absolutely everything. Which was reasonable enough. What was not reasonable, however, was the smile in her voice when she'd told him who was to accompany him on this venture.

"Next time you invite me somewhere, remind me about this," Captain Fairwind said as they approached the first homestead on the outskirts. His ebullience had proven to be inversely proportional to how eerie his immediate surroundings were. At present he sounded almost meek.

"I don't intend to make a habit of it," Shaw said. "Be on your guard. Watch where you walk, be careful what you touch, make as little noise as possible."

"Aye, aye." Fairwind pulled up the collar of his duster, gave a theatrical shiver, and like the most sinister omen of all, did as he was told.

The homestead had been warded in the recent past, but the scorched floorboards and a spray of ash against the far wall suggested it had already been tripped by a hapless adventurer. Convenient, if regrettable. The door hung off rusted hinges and the walls inside were thick with a creeping green mould. The furniture that had fallen to ruin included an old chest in one corner. Fairwind knelt by it, skimmed his fingers around its lock, then wedged in his torsion wrench and deftly sprang a poison needle trap without managing to injure himself.

"Not bad, Fairwind," Shaw said.

"I'm not just a pretty face, you know." Fairwind unrolled the rest of his lockpicks. "I also have a fantastic backside. It's one of my better qualities."

That was likely true if Shaw's experience of his other qualities was any indication, and he felt a certain amount of resentment at that. He left him picking the lock proper to scout the rest of the building. Mostly clear, give or take an oversized spider or two that were minding their own business. When he returned, Fairwind had successfully opened the chest and, contrary to Shaw's extremely clear instructions, was examining a silver hand mirror he must have found inside.

Shaw froze.

"Hey, check out this not at all suspicious-looking knickknack," Fairwind said, and held it up in Shaw's direction.

The mirror caught the slivers of setting sun and reflected its light into Shaw's eyes. The world seemed to jump off its bearings; his head swam strangely and luminous afterimages flurried across his vision. He felt himself teetering inexorably backwards.

He tried to correct himself but somehow failed to find an equilibrium, and he landed on his ass with a brisk thump. He didn't seem to have fallen far, as though he had already been hunkered down and not standing. He sat there wrestling with faint confusion, attempting to decipher what his physical trajectory had been over the past few moments while his vision slowly cleared.

Then Fairwind said, "What the blazes was that!"

Only it wasn't Fairwind's voice saying it.

Shaw stared up at him—at himself, halfway in the shadows cast by the fiery sky, at his own damn face with Fairwind's wide-eyed expression on it, and alarm ripped through him. He looked at his hands, and they were Fairwind's hands, big and blunt-fingered, rope-burn scarred. He brought one of them to his face and found a strong jaw and a rough-shaven cheek.

It was clear enough what had occurred, whether he liked it or not. Shaw allowed himself a moment to catastrophise—he knew the damage that could be done with his face alone—and then forcibly calmed himself. Fairwind had come to the same conclusion if his colourful exclaiming was any indication. He took a few quick paces then turned on his heel, flushed with nervous energy and unable to find a useful direction for it. None of Shaw's careful body language was in evidence.

"Okay. Let's not—let's not panic," he said, obviously panicking.

Hearing himself sound that way immediately got Shaw's back up. "Be quiet," he said, but even with a Stormwind accent Fairwind's voice lacked command; his sunny timbre didn't snap the way his own would've. Well, there was nothing to be gained in being angry at him. Shaw shouldn't have left him unchaperoned even for a moment. He sighed. "Come here. Show me what you did with the mirror."

"I just picked it up, mate." Fairwind came to crouch by him, still thoroughly startled. Seeing his own face in profile, and with that expression, was thoroughly disorienting. "Oof. What's with your knees."

"Welcome to your forties," Shaw said. The mirror lay face-down in front of him. It looked unremarkable: a decorative silver frame and teardrop handle, much like any you'd see on a noble's dressing table. He turned it over. The mirror itself had cracked and spilled sharp fragments on the floor. They reflected Fairwind's usually pleasant face back at him a hundredfold, now made dark by Shaw's scowl.

"Well, that's just great," Fairwind said, his sarcasm rendered flat by Shaw's more subtle inflection. "Let me guess. It's all cursed out."

"A reasonable assumption." Shaw pinched the bridge of his nose, found it strange, and stopped. He gathered up the shards of mirror instead, wrapping their keen edges in Fairwind's kerchief and pocketing them. If they had any hope of reversing this, then the offending item ought to be of use even if its magic had been spent. "We should return to Boralus. Lady Jaina will be able to help, or will know somebody who can."

He rose to his feet more unevenly than he'd like. Fairwind's center of balance was substantially different; his body felt unwieldy in Shaw's hands, and judging by the throb in his temples and the queasy gnaw of his stomach, Shaw suspected he'd also inherited the tail-end of a hangover along with everything else.

"Steady as you go," Fairwind said, bracing him with a hand on his arm. "I want that back in one piece."

Shaw looked at him, at his own face with Fairwind's uneasy grin on it, and experienced such a fresh and jarring sense of wrongness that he took a grip of his—Fairwind's arm above the line of his glove, hoping fervently that the skin-to-skin contact would be enough to correct things. It only made spots of colour rise on his cheeks.

"Oh, sure, now you get all touchy-feely," Fairwind said. "Bit self-involved, isn't it?"

At this point he'd learned to let Fairwind's commentary roll off his back, but he dignified it with a snort this time, and let his hand drop. "Let's get moving," he said. "I'd like to be at Arom's Stand before the storm breaks."

They made decent time. Fairwind had a longer stride than Shaw, which made the going marginally easier, somewhat offset by the fact his bootsoles were worn so thin his feet soon felt bruised. Fairwind loped along beside him, forced into a half-jog just to keep pace. To his credit, he only complained once before realising this was what Shaw put up with all of the time.

The storm hit just as they reached Arom's Stand, the wind buffeting fit to blow them off their feet and the rain pelting down so hard it churned the earth into mud. They ducked into the small inn so they could talk without shouting. Shaw clipped his shoulder on the door frame on the way in, a sharp unexpected pain that made him hiss.

"Gryphons'll be grounded in this weather," Fairwind said. "Looks like we're staying the night." He went to wring out a ponytail that wasn't there, and made a small sound of bemusement.

Shaw took in a breath and wearily sighed it back out. He knew from experience that there was very little that could bribe a gryphon handler into endangering their birds, so there was nothing for it but to wait the night out, hope the weather would be on their side tomorrow, and strike out to Boralus at first light.

It would be less of a trial if Northwood Home had more than one room available, but many of Corlain's citizens were here, having yet to return home. Shaw climbed the curved staircase to his fate, Fairwind on his heels. The room itself was decently outfitted: a table and two chairs, a threadbare rug, several bookshelves—though only a single, if generous, bed. No hearth. It was lit by a cluster of tallow candles and an oil lamp.

"Cosy," Fairwind said, pushing past him and dropping his pack with a thump. "I call the bed."

"I don't think so," Shaw said.

"Look, mate," Fairwind said, sitting on contested territory and tugging Shaw's boots off one after the other. "You've slept on worse floors, I promise. And I think you'll find you've got the padding for it, unlike me, who currently has much give as a bag of crowbars."

"And if we weren't—" Shaw paused a moment, trying to find a suitable way to describe their predicament, "—interchanged. Would you have offered me the bed?"

"Nope," Fairwind said without missing a beat. He broke into laughter, then abruptly stopped and covered his mouth. "Blimey. Never thought I'd hear that."

"Enjoy it while you can."

"Hmm." Fairwind fell quiet for a moment, and then his face took on an expression of mischief that Shaw was certain he'd never before made in his life.

"Whatever it is you're thinking—" Shaw began.

"Flynn Fairwind," Fairwind said in Shaw's voice. "Now there's a devilish fellow."

"No." Shaw raised a warning finger. "Stop that immediately."

"That Flynn, he gets me all atwitter. What a cad, what a rake—"

Fairwind misappropriating Shaw's person for his own sordid ends was a facet of this unmitigated disaster that Shaw hadn't thus far considered, but was quickly becoming a concern. It didn't help that Shaw was increasingly conscious of Fairwind's physicality: the solidity of his thighs and arms; the broadness of his shoulders; the span of his rough palms whenever he touched anything, or himself. Foreign notions of desire.

"Such a charming scoundrel, how could anyone resist him? Well—" Fairwind petered out on a note of brittle cheer. "Never mind."

Shaw ignored the drop of his stomach, choosing to believe he'd lost a round in his ongoing struggle with Fairwind's hangover. If he was in the mood to be maudlin, Shaw'd rather he did it elsewhere, and after a brief risk assessment decided there was only a limited amount of trouble he could get into at the bar.

"Why don't you go downstairs and have a drink." Shaw could always drag him out again if things got rowdy.

"Really?" Fairwind's eyebrows shot up. Shaw's face was never supposed to do that. Light, there really was no end to the indignity of seeing himself this way.

"If you promise to be reasonable about it," Shaw said. "And—please, don't talk to anyone."

"Deal." Fairwind paused in the doorway. "You know, I've always wanted to get you drunk."

Fairwind trudged back into the room not an hour later. "Just for your information, there's something wrong with your mouth," he said, and flopped morosely onto the bed. "That, or the ale here tastes like piss."

"Interesting." Shaw looked up from the book he'd taken from one of the shelves. It hadn't proven all that engrossing so far, or perhaps he'd been distracted by the craving that had swept him at the first mention of alcohol. Their bodies learn, and they remember. "I don't have much of a liking for it, true."

"Now you tell me." Fairwind made a disgruntled noise and adopted an exaggeratedly pompous, entirely terrible Eastern Kingdoms drawl. "I'm Spymaster Shaw and I don't like beer."

"I don't sound like that."

"I'm too uptight to drink, but I've got a dossier on your wanking habits." Fairwind shook a scolding finger at the ceiling. "And don't go thinking you can fart without me knowing about it."

Shaw rested his elbow on the table and then his forehead in the palm of his hand, once again a deep breath away from being fantastically annoyed. It had no doubt taken Fairwind a few drinks to confirm he wasn't enjoying himself, and his body's less... seasoned response to alcohol had clearly caught him out.

"Wretched," Fairwind said of a sudden, and sat up on the bed to look down at himself. "This is wretched." He ran a hand up the front of Shaw's armour, fingers catching on the laces. His voice was unsteady. "I don't like it, Shaw. I think I'm just gonna go to sleep."

For all his bluster, he was more shaken than Shaw had first thought. Coming face-to-face with someone wearing your body was an existentially upsetting experience, but this wasn't the first time Shaw had weathered it—and in that instance, he'd had a lot of empty days to work through it and come to some kind of acceptance. Fairwind hadn't such a luxury. If one could call it that.

He left his book and his temper at the table and came to stand beside the bed.

"Bastarding thing. Who let you leave the house dressed like this," Fairwind muttered, fumbling with the corsetry of his armour. Shaw moved his hands aside to loosen it for him with a series of brisk yanks, Fairwind watching with a furrow to his brow. "Thanks," he said, strangely distant, and continued to undress. He'd gotten his thumbs into the waistband of Shaw's smallclothes when Shaw made a sharp noise of rebuke.

"What? I sleep in my birthday suit."

"I don't, however."

"Fine, fine." Fairwind laced his fingers and stretched his arms above his head. Shaw heard his joints pop. They both winced. "You're gonna have to let me take a leak at some point, though."

"You don't need my permission for that."

"Well, good, because on second thoughts, those ales aren't hanging around." Fairwind rummaged through his pack and threw on some clothes that were far too big on Shaw's frame, then wandered downstairs, presumably to find the outhouse. He returned a reasonable amount of time later and had the gall to tip Shaw a suggestive wink.

Shaw decided that removing himself from Fairwind's company before he actually said anything would be optimal, and he'd do well to get this out of the way himself. He headed to the outhouse, where he looked as little as he could and touched only as much as he had to, but was unavoidably left with an... impression of Fairwind's manhood. For the first time in his life Shaw considered that there might be such a thing as too much information.

Fairwind, of course, was altogether too interested in his thoughts on the matter.

"I'm not going to discuss this with you," Shaw said.

"There's nothing to be embarrassed about," Fairwind said. His grin was decidedly unwholesome. "You're allowed to be impressed."

"Light help me," Shaw muttered, and laid his pack at one end of the rug as a pillow. Fairwind's duster would serve as a blanket. "I'm going to sleep now. I don't expect to be disturbed."

"Hey, wait. Let me sort you out first." Fairwind patted the bed next to him. "Sit here a moment."

Shaw raised an eyebrow.

Fairwind raised his right back and patted the bed again. "It's not a cunning ruse."

"Yes, I can tell. What is it you want?"

"Nothing funny." He held out a soft-bristled hairbrush, handle-first. "Look, if you won't let me do it, would you at least do it for me?"

Shaw's hand went to his hair—Fairwind's salt-coarse hair, to the back of his head where it was pulled into a tail and secured with a length of leather thong. On consideration, it would be uncomfortable to sleep on. He assumed brushing it out was hardly a science, but Shaw had always kept his own hair short on practical grounds. It seemed reasonable enough to let Fairwind do it himself.

"All right," he wearily said, and sat himself on the bed facing away so that he didn't have to look at the satisfaction on Fairwind's face. He felt him untie the thong. His hair fell loose and brought with it release from a tension he'd barely realised was there. A sigh escaped him before he could corral it.

"Nice, isn't it." Fairwind's fingers ran through his thick hair, fanning it out over his back and shoulders. "When you took your armour off me before—same feeling, I think."

Shaw grunted noncommittally. He wasn't blind to the fact that Fairwind's constant agitating was because of an inexplicable fancy he'd taken to him, but this was a step beyond provocative backtalk. It made it harder to deflect him, and that made Shaw cautious. He tipped his head back to encourage Fairwind to get on with it, only to find the first drag of the hairbrush against his scalp was more affecting than he had anticipated.

He found himself breathing deeply to modulate his response, as it seemed rude to bite the inside of somebody else's cheek.

As if that wasn't enough, Fairwind, being a torment of a man even when he didn't intend it, followed each stroke with a rake of his fingers that sent a shiver over Shaw's skin. He made pass after pass, sometimes smooth and sometimes in gentle tugs that made Shaw clench his jaw, and when Fairwind shifted around so he could brush out his bangs, Shaw kept his expression as neutral as he could.

A thought arose, insistent enough that it verged on intrusive: that should Shaw have occasion to wind Fairwind's hair around his fist and pull his head back, now he knew exactly how it would feel for him. He throttled the idea mercilessly.

"Better," Fairwind finally said, and gave Shaw a pat on the cheek. "There you go, handsome."

"Thank you," Shaw said with sincerity. It would have been easy for Fairwind to have turned things into something indecorous with a misplaced hand or comment, but all impropriety had been his this time.

Perhaps Fairwind was rubbing off on him. Shaw throttled that idea, too.

"What for? Just looking out for myself. Don't want to come back to a tatty mess." Fairwind flung the brush aside and lolled onto his back, one arm tucked behind his head. Shaw took the hint, snuffing the candles and dimming the lantern before retiring to the floor.

Outside, the rain continued to pelt the inn's slate roof. Shaw put his head down. He could smell the ocean in Fairwind's hair. "Sentiment stands," he said into the darkness, but his only answer was a gentle snore from the direction of the bed.

The air of the hold was stiflingly humid, so hot and wet that it was difficult to breathe.

Its slick obsidian floor offered only temporary reprieve before it began to leach Shaw's body heat where his skin contacted it, leaving him sweating and shivering. Sulphurous water condensed and dripped from the vaulted ceilings and trickled into his cage. It tasted overpoweringly metallic, probably fel-tainted, but it was the only water he had. Food was intermittent and often made him sick. He'd taken to gnawing on his gloves to stave off the hunger cramps.

He slept with his knees against his chest as his cage wasn't big enough to let him stretch his legs out. Often he was numb when he woke, unable to immediately recognise his body.

That was the case now, as he came abruptly awake and found his limbs did not move the way he expected them to. In the darkness all he could hear was the drip drip drip of water. The ground was bruisingly hard and his body was not his own, disobedient, wrong. His heart arrested to find himself here again. He struggled to sit up, the memory of a cry aching in his throat.

A warm sphere of light bloomed, and his own face hovered over him, frowning. He clutched furiously at himself—at Detheroc—

"Hey, hey, Shaw, shh." Fairwind. It was Fairwind, grabbing his wrists and easing him back. "You all right, mate? You're shouting the place down."

Shaw's surroundings resolved themselves into the inn room, lit by the oil lamp. The rain drummed down outside, in time with the wild beating of his heart.

"Just a dream," he muttered, and was perturbed all over again to hear Fairwind's voice come from himself.

"How about you take the bed," Fairwind said, still clasping his wrists.

The lamplight pooled a dark shadow in the hollow of his throat; his collarbone was prominent beneath the loose neckline of his shirt. Shaw looked away. Recovery was ongoing.

"Come on, up you get."

"I'm fine where I am."

"Yeah, but I'd rather you didn't wake me up again if it's all the same to you. You definitely need your beauty sleep."

Shaw harrumphed, but relented when Fairwind insisted on tugging him to his feet and hustling him to the bed. The blankets were enticingly warm and much more forgiving than the floor, and so he yielded to them in a slow surrender. That left Fairwind standing by the rug, considering Shaw's pack and his crumpled duster. He went to dim the lamp again.

"There's room," Shaw said, driven by the part of him that insisted it was always worth repaying a kindness, no matter how inconsequential. There was space enough for them both, awkwardness be damned. It wasn't as though they weren't familiar with their own bodies. "If you want it."

He turned over, putting his back to the middle of the bed, expecting either a sarcastic retort or a sly one. Instead, he waited long enough that he drifted towards sleep, and was pulled back awake when the mattress dipped and the blankets shifted over.

"So," Fairwind said in a low murmur. His back pressed along Shaw's spine; the bed was large enough for two, but not that large. "What's the deal with the death rock?"

Fairwind knew it was fine to ask questions because he knew Shaw wouldn't answer them if he didn't want to. Shaw could wall this one up by pretending to be asleep, but instead he found himself saying, "Detheroc. He was an agent of the Burning Legion. A dreadlord."

Not the answer Fairwind was expecting, if his sharp intake of breath was any indication. "Sounds like he made an impression."

"You could say that."

"Give you a good thrashing, did he?"

If Fairwind was trying to sound casual, he'd failed. Shaw found that he would rather present an extended critical evaluation of the contents of his trousers than talk about this any further.

"No," he said.

The mattress jostled as Fairwind turned over. A searching hand found Shaw's arm in the dark, then crept up to his shoulder and squeezed. Perhaps another time the contact might have registered as undesirable, but he was overwhelmingly conscious of this body and how it wasn't his. He touched Fairwind's hand briefly, uncertain himself whether it was thanks or reassurance or something else entirely, but feeling a familiar old scar under his fingertips was uncanny enough to discourage him from lingering.

"I'll pull the reports when we get back. You can see for yourself."

"Unredacted?"

"No," Shaw said. After a moment, he added, "but I will tell you the cipher."

Fairwind snorted at that, gave his shoulder another squeeze and then retreated, turning onto his side. Shaw listened as his breathing became slow and even, softly rasping in his throat, and waited patiently for his own lapse into sleep.

It would have been some considerable wishful thinking to hope their situation might have resolved itself while they slept, so when morning brought no change, Shaw wasn't particularly alarmed.

He was, however, slightly more alarmed at where he had shifted to in his sleep. Waking to his nose brushing the back of his own neck was certainly an uncommon experience, and he found he was also in possession of—well. Apparently Fairwind liked to welcome in the day standing to full attention. He lay unmoving with the expectation that things would subside of their own accord, and doubled down on playing dead when Fairwind stirred next to him. Discretion had always been his watchword.

Fairwind grunted and slid out of bed, carefully enough that it was clear he thought Shaw was still asleep and was trying not to wake him. It was considerate, for him. Enough that Shaw felt a warm regard kindle in his chest. And also between his legs. There were some aspects of youthful vigour that he hadn't missed.

After a series of quiet groans and stretches and a jaw-cracking yawn, Fairwind vacated the room and Shaw could see about setting himself to order. Sounded as though it was still torrential outside. He pushed the window open and a frigid wet gust of air put paid to his most immediate problem. Now it was just a case of the rest. He leant an elbow on the sill and watched the dawn ripen through the rain, running his fingers over Fairwind's rough cheek while he thought. Conditions weren't agreeable, but he was confident that he could bribe a gryphon into the air come full daylight.

A creak of the stairs heralded Fairwind's return. He had a towel slung over one arm, and carried a basin and a pitcher of steaming water that he set on the table. "Oh, good, you're up. Morning, morning," he said. "Things are still awry, as I'm sure you can tell."

"It hadn't escaped my notice," Shaw said. He fished his wash kit out of his pack, set it on the table next to the basin and water, and came to size himself up. Fairwind stared amiably back. The frown lines and dark shadows under his eyes were immutable, but his sleep-dishevelled hair and moustache he could do something about.

The morning whiskers he could probably let go. He already knew that he wasn't going to. In his wash kit was soap and a razor, and a small pot of wax. His belt hooked over the ear of the chair did for a strop.

"Hang on minute," Fairwind said, watching as he laid out his kit and sharpened the razor. "That's some hand-reared free-range stubble I've got going on there. If you touch so much as a hair on my chin—"

"It's not for you." Shaw pulled the chair up. "Sit."

"Oh. Oh. Okay." Fairwind pulled his shirt off over his head and dumped himself in the chair. He watched as Shaw worked the soap into a lather with a splash of the hot water. "For you information, I could do this myself."

"I don't trust you near my face with sharp objects."

Fairwind grinned broadly enough to press creases around Shaw's eyes. "I've managed to not accidentally off myself so far."

Shaw shook his head, hesitating only a moment when it came to applying the soap. It was interesting how his boundaries had so swiftly reconfigured themselves, allowing him small concessions that he would've otherwise found difficult to make. Perhaps it was because they were almost for himself.

So here he was, touching not Fairwind's face, but his own. The soap crackled as he spread it, Fairwind watching him with an expression verging on quizzical all the while. He tipped his head back so Shaw could coat his neck, and Shaw felt him swallow under his hand. When he brought his head forward again, his eyes were closed.

"You know, it's—" Fairwind began, but Shaw shushed him so he could enjoy the first crisp pass of the razor over his cheek. Fairwind inhaled, long and slow. "You know," he said again when Shaw lifted the blade to rinse it. "It's unfair."

"What is?" Shaw leaned in close, paring away soap and stubble in short, meticulous strokes. From this angle, it was much easier to be thorough about it. It would be the best shave he'd ever given himself.

"You hovering this close, hands all over my face, only it's me staring back. It's like wanting to kiss yourself in the mirror."

Shaw paused with the razor resting lightly at his jawline. For all of his overtures, Fairwind had never been quite so straightforward about his intent. This strange alchemy had a lot to answer for.

"I thought you would leap at the opportunity," he said, tipping up Fairwind's chin and scraping the soap from his neck. For once he didn't nick the same spot on his throat that he usually did.

"Well, it's not like I haven't thought about—hey, wait. Are you calling me vain?"

"I am."

"Have you seen your moustache?"

"I'm not vain." Shaw handed him the towel. "I'm particular."

"Hate to break it to you, mate, but you're a fop," Fairwind said, patting his face dry.

"Oaf," Shaw said, far more fondly than he intended. He took some wax and smoothed his allegedly fussy moustache with his thumb, neatening the ends with a pinch of his fingers. He wanted to linger, perhaps excuse himself by pretending to check the closeness of the shave. He'd rather Fairwind thought it vanity than leave himself in enfilade.

Fairwind grinned up at him, holding eye contact with intent. "You know," he said again, this time taking on a conspiratorial tone. "One thing I'll say for this nonsense. It's much easier to tell what's going on with you."

"Oh?"

"Oh indeed. Don't have much of a poker face, do I?" Fairwind hooked his fingers into the neck of Shaw's shirt and coaxed him into leaning close. He clearly intended to kiss him, and he'd surmised well enough that Shaw, at this point, wouldn't object.

And, practically speaking, witches tended to be traditionalists. Breaking this damned ensorcellment might be that simple. But Fairwind brushed a soft kiss to Shaw's mouth and nothing happened except that Shaw's morning predicament returned with a swift and steely vengeance. He exhaled sharply, his hands flying to Fairwind's bare shoulders in order to keep him at a steady distance.

"Okay, yeah." Fairwind laughed under his breath. "That was weird."

"Agreed."

"Not bad weird, though," Fairwind said. "Hey, how about this. I'll pretend I'm you, and you pretend to be—actually, no, that's even weirder. How about we just kiss again."

"I... could be persuaded."

"Well, I'm your man for that," Fairwind said and kissed him again, still far more sweetly than Shaw would've. He slid a hand beneath Shaw's shirt, up the soft slope of his stomach and over his chest until his thumb grazed a nipple, and Shaw bit down on a groan when the sensation jolted straight downward.

The rapidly unavoidable truth of this was that they knew their own bodies more perfectly than they could ever know anyone else's. And Light help them both, Fairwind was willing and eager to take full advantage of the fact.

He tugged Fairwind up out of the chair so that he could kiss him without being bent over. There was no escaping the sheer oddness of this, the fact that he was kissing Fairwind at all somehow being the least of it, so he closed his eyes and imagined his face instead of having to look at his own dark-eyed expression. Fairwind's hands roamed, and there was an exasperating pleasure in the way he touched him. He was doing it not just for himself, but because he knew intimately the responses his body would make. Each brush of his hand was deliberate, and exhilarating.

As far as Shaw was concerned, there were other benefits he could exploit here as well, being taller and broader than he was accustomed. He hefted Fairwind over and onto the bed with minimal resistance, and kneeled across his thighs

"Hey, come on," Fairwind said, spread under him in a dissonantly hedonistic sprawl. "That's rude, considering I've put a frankly heroic amount of effort into not manhandling you on a daily basis. Er, because I'm considerate, I might add, not because you'd stick a knife in me if I dared."

"Feel free to try, in future," Shaw said.

"What, manhandle you, or stick—"

Shaw cut him off with another kiss, followed by a sharp bite of his lower lip, and rocked the heel of his hand over the bulge in Fairwind's breeches more roughly than he would usually treat a new bed partner. He was aware that he was effectively teaching Fairwind how to get him off, but Fairwind was grinding so beautifully against his hand it was difficult to see why that mattered.

"Oh, that's—that's good," Fairwind breathed.

"I know." Shaw wondered at the level of egotism involved here, that he found such satisfaction in the blotchy flush that Fairwind was developing on his neck and cheeks.

"I know you know." Fairwind took a hitching breath, then laughed giddily and arched his hips off the mattress. "Just out of curiosity, when was the last time you, ah, did this."

"Technically speaking, never."

"Okay, but not technically—you know what, never mind. What I'm trying to say is, we might wanna get these off sooner rather than later, unless you brought spares."

Fairwind's hands were already at the waistband of his breeches, and Shaw hooked his thumbs in to help tug them and his smallclothes over the sharp dip of his hipbones. His cock bounced free, full and startlingly red against the pale skin of his stomach. Fairwind let out a relieved sigh.

"Not sure of the etiquette here," he said. "You want to do the honours, or should I?"

It was nothing Shaw hadn't seen before, but the perspective was new. He reached out to touch, and the sight of Fairwind's tanned fingers running up the underside of his cock challenged his comprehension. The disorientation tugged at him like a tidal pull, an intense shift that felt as though—

As though it could physically untether him. Well. If a kiss wasn't good enough, he suspected this might just be. Simultaneity may be key here, and with that in mind he unfastened his trousers, to Fairwind's unyielding delight.

"Okay, good plan," he said, taking Shaw in a loose grip. Shaw jerked involuntarily at the warm contact, aching from being hard or halfway there since he'd woken. Fairwind, of course, noticed. "Hey. You got me pretty het up."

"This is entirely your body's fault," Shaw told him.

"In that case, this is flattering." With his free hand, Fairwind touched the tip of his own erection; his finger came away wet.

"That's almost certainly your fault as well."

Fairwind laughed. "You stubborn bastard," he said. "Just admit that you like me."

Shaw glanced down, pointedly drawing Fairwind's attention to what their hands were doing. "I thought the cat was already out of that particular bag," he said, and then kissed him before he could say anything artlessly frank-hearted in return, though as far as he could tell, all he seemed to be muffling was a string of curses.

Fairwind stroked him in what should have been an infuriating fashion—a slack grip with light pressure that turned firm only as his hand passed over the head—but proved to be exactly what he needed. Shaw squeezed his eyes shut as he began the steady build toward climax, one hand spread over Fairwind's belly, the other relentlessly jerking his cock until Fairwind's rhythm faltered and he began to pant and thrust erratically into Shaw's hand.

"Okay, okay—tides—" Fairwind gasped, then groaned as though the air had been punched out of him. That was about the precise limit of what Shaw could bear, and every muscle in his body locked tight for an unbearable, teetering moment before his orgasm thundered through him. Light, Fairwind felt everything to a ludicrous degree. His blood rushed hard, prismatic light sparking in the periphery of his vision, and his world tilted on its axis.

Shaw opened his eyes and, for a moment, was profoundly startled to find himself flat on his back with Fairwind hovering over him, red-cheeked and short of breath, his hair hanging in his face.

"I have a philosophical question for you," he said.

Shaw didn't think he could be more glad to hear him sounding like himself. The relief of it was palpable. "No, I don't know if that counts as masturbation," he replied, and Fairwind—or Flynn, Shaw supposed, since there wasn't much that could've put them on more familiar terms than this debacle—collapsed next to him in a fit of laughter.

"Oh, that's so much better!" he crowed, running his hands over his face and through his hair, then over Shaw's face too, and then, because he truly had a gift for obnoxiousness, gave Shaw a noisy, wet kiss on the cheek. "It's good to see your sour mug again, mate."

"It was nice to be ten years younger for a while," Shaw said dryly, "but I suppose you're a sight for sore eyes, too." He stretched and rolled his shoulders, settling back into his bones.

"Only ten? Well, whatever makes you feel good about yourself." Flynn tucked an arm behind his head and regarded Shaw far too speculatively for his comfort. That damn grin of his never let up, and when he spoke again his voice was bursting with delight. "I knew you liked me more than you were letting on."

Shaw sighed and propped himself onto an elbow. "Against my better judgement," he said. As someone with no political agenda and not much in the way of theoretical underpinnings for doing the things he did, Flynn was the most straightforward person in his life, and one of the most difficult. "But you frustrate me no end. You know that too, I hope."

"It's because you never know what I'm gonna do next," Flynn said with smug certainty.

"No, it's because I can always tell exactly what you're going to do next."

Flynn laughed. At some point his hand had migrated from resting lax on his own thigh, to resting on Shaw's. "Fine!" he said. "If I'm so predictable, then you know what I'm gonna suggest. So?"

Shaw took in Flynn's half-lidded eyes, and the dirty cast his grin had taken on. "I'd say you're about to kiss me with your own damn mouth this time."

"Actually, rain's stopped, so I thought we should see about catching a gryphon home," Flynn said, patently lying through his teeth. He flattened a hand against Shaw's shoulder, leant his weight on it until Shaw fell back against the mattress, then followed him down. "But your idea is good, too."