The Mildenhall Meadery Sex Pollen Fiasco

SI:7 mission report: #45-653-23
Directing agent: M. Shaw
Involved parties: █████ ████████, ███████ ████
Location: Mildenhall Meadery, Stormsong Valley, Kul Tiras
Summary of events:
█████ ████ ███ ███████ a mutated variety of which the pollen ██████ ██ ███ concentrated in the honey and therefore the mead. ███ ███████ ███ ███ ███████ heightened arousal ███ ███████ sticky ███ ███████ █ ███ attempted to ███ █████. ████ ███ ███████ did not alleviate his condition. █ ███ ███ ███████ ███ █ ███ was more successful, however, ███ ███ ███████. ███ ███ █ ███ ███ ███████ multiple times before the symptoms abated. ██████ █ ███ suffering dehydration and chafing.

Strongly advise that area is quarantined until further notice.

Addendum: reminder that speculation or discussion of a superior officer's personal life is grounds for disciplinary action.

"Another?" Flynn says the moment Taelia tips her head back to drain the last of her ale. His timing is, as always, impeccable, and she smiles around the edge of her tankard, eyes sparkling in the warm sunlight that falls through the tavern windows and lies in golden squares over their table.

"It's barely gone midday!" she says with a laugh, thumping the tankard down. The noise is loud in the Snug Harbor's early stillness, but Wesley the barkeep barely spares them a glance, intent on polishing a hole through the same glass he's been cleaning for the last half hour. "One's enough for now, don't you think?"

She's playful, but the chiding is real enough. Not that Flynn cares—it's a notch after noon, sure, but that just means it's not busy at the bar. It's a totally legitimate perk to drinking at improper hours that he's never managed to impress on her, despite his repeated demonstrations.

"One is absolutely not enough," he says. "Not after the morning we've had. I was this close—" He tugs the lapel of his coat where one of the Scrimshaw Gang had shorn its lining with a swing of his blade. "—this close to dying."

"Well, I wasn't."

"Good for you! Oh, look at it," Flynn says, mournfully running his fingers over the gouge in the fur. "What a tragedy. It should have been me, you know."

It hadn't been his closest call. In fact it'd be generous to say it was a call at all, since the guy had already been on his way to the ground courtesy of Tae and her warhammer, but his coat has a war-wound and Flynn is prepared to milk that for all it's worth.

"All right, so I have things to do today," Tae says, obviously realising this. She leans over the table to kiss him on the cheek. "I'll leave you two alone to work through it."

He snags her arm before she can take off. "Come on, Tae, just one more. Something sweet to give you a buzz, only a tiny sting in its tail end. Go on. For me?" Flynn ignores the roll of her eyes and swings around in his seat. "Two Mildenhall Meads if you will, my good sir," he calls out to Wesley. If Tae won't drink it, he'll just have to take care of both himself. The things he does for his friends.

"Mead's off," Wesley says.

"What!" That's outrageous. He'd suggested it on a whim, but as it happens he could really go for a pint or two after all. This is a most egregious turn of events.

"Barrel's dry, bottles all sold." Wesley shrugs apologetically. "Ain't had a delivery this week. Figure things are weird over at the meadery again."

"That's a sign." Taelia fetches her hammer from the rack by the door and tosses Flynn's swordbelt and steel to him. He catches them against his chest.

"You're damn right it is," he says as they step out onto the promenade. The sun beats down and the ocean is a muted rumble against the sea wall. The air is tangy with salt. A good day for not dying, but a better day for honey ale. "Let's investigate."

"I meant it's time to get back to work. I haven't finished my rounds yet."

"Finished my round happily enough." Flynn pauses halfway through buckling his cutlasses at his hip. "Well, you do what you like. There's mystery afoot!"

"The only mystery around here is how you get away with not paying your tab!"

"I'm a highly valued customer, I'll have you know," Flynn informs her with middling confidence. "Hey, if you're saddling Galeheart anyway, do you mind dropping me off in Brennadam?

When Flynn said 'drop him off' he actually meant 'land and let him disembark in a civilised fashion', but he supposes Taelia must be as busy as she says. He picks himself up and dusts off the seat of his trousers then gives the spectating townsfolk a wave. On seeing he isn't going to perform any further acrobatics, they mostly return to their business.

Stormsong Valley is nice this time of year, if you like that kind of thing. The fields are lush and smell like green things growing. Wildflowers burst with colour, birds take wing, butterflies flit, etcetera. Trees cast dappled shade over the path towards the meadery. Flynn doesn't see any cattle, but if he did, he'd bet it would be grazing contentedly. A solid nine out of ten on the bucolic romance scale, if he had to ballpark it.

He ambles past the shipyards and over one of the many small bridges that cross the many small rivers that make fretwork of the land. The afternoon sun drapes its golden haze on everything and the air has a particular indolent thickness to it that you don't find out on the sea. It's an earthy thing. Loamy. Not his favourite, but it's not unpleasant, either. He is feeling increasingly sticky and hot though, so he shrugs out of his duster for the time being, rolls up the sleeves of his shirt and lets his mind wander while he walks.

It's not long until he crests another idyllic rolling hill and the meadery comes into view. It looks unremarkable save for the complete lack of industry going on. Perhaps Flynn's not the only one who's indulged today. Tides know he'd not have the willpower, working there.

No lively ale elementals or sentient honey globs to be seen, at least. A worrying baseline to have, but a baseline nonetheless. Locals call it the Mildenhall Madness. Frankly, the Mildenhalls are lucky their beer is so good.

The trees around the apiary sway in the breeze. Pollen shivers from the bloom-smothered boughs and settles delicately in Flynn's arm hair. The air is full of the smell of hot sugar.

"Ahoy," Flynn calls out, and sticks his head into the nearest building. Nobody home, nor in the apiary out back. He considers that he should possibly be experiencing an inkling of suspicion over this. Perhaps a hint of misgiving. A tiny dash of trepidation that something isn't right.

He'll investigate in a moment. Right now, he's parched.

Fortunately for him he finds an open barrel of mead when he investigates one of the storage sheds. He takes another glance around, then dips the wooden tankard that's hung on the barrel's side. It goes down a dream. Sweet and light on the tongue with a lingering fruity aftertaste. Just what he'd been craving, and more than a bit moreish.

He refills the mug that he's decided is his now, slings his duster over one shoulder and wanders out into the sun.

The hives buzz cheerfully; warm smells of wax and honey saturate the air. Some enterprising but confused workers have built comb between the exterior of a hive and the boulder it's butted up against. Flynn brushes the busy little things aside and breaks off a chunk of it.

Honey runs down his fingers, shining like precious gold in the sunlight. "Thanks, ladies," he says, but the bees just crawl back over what's left of their comb, antenna twitching. The mead must have gone to his head because he feels a bit bad for them, but not so bad he won't take a mouthful now that he has it. The comb bursts in his mouth, flooding his tongue with such sweetness his back teeth ache.

That seems to go straight to his head, too. It's probably strange, but he can't put his finger on why, so he doesn't let it bother him. The sky is a delirious blue, as deep and vast as the ocean, and he feels perfectly, beautifully intoxicated. A low warmth hums through him. It's a languid feeling that he almost wants to do something about, but what that thing is escapes him.

Perhaps he'll take a nap.

That sounds about right, so he sits himself under a tree and does just that.

He's barely aware that he's fallen sleep before someone rudely shakes him awake again, and he's quite prepared to be put out about it. The villainous individual is haloed by the brightness of the sun, so it takes Flynn a moment of squinting and blinking to pick out who's about to get a tongue-lashing.

"Oh," he says, and his annoyance evaporates. He lets a smile trickle across his face. "Hullo, Spymaster."

And that's strange, too, Master Shaw being here. Usually he's either off on hush-hush business or bossing people around on the ship, but Flynn's concerns are swept away by a zing of pleasure at his presence. It's the same feeling he gets when the dice fall just right and he's about to win a bet on long odds, or when he sees something shiny that he'd like to make his own. A little flurry of anticipation.

"What are you doing here, Fairwind?" Shaw says. "My agents cleared this area for a reason."

"Don't know anything about that. Something the matter?" Flynn finds it's harder that it should be to get his mouth around the words. They slip and slur. He licks his lips. They still taste sweet.

"Raimond Mildenhall has been experimenting again. Light knows what he's concocted this time."

Ever a difficult one, Shaw. Not much give, but Flynn lives for the way he ricochets off him. Maybe a little too much, if the fact he often says things purely to get a reaction means anything.

So. "I like your eyes," Flynn tells him.

"Excuse me?" Bewilderment flits across Shaw's face, there and then hidden just as quickly.

"They're green."

"That's hardly relevant to anything," Shaw says, as though he doesn't know just how green they are. He wedges a hand between Flynn's arm and the tree bole in an attempt to get him onto his feet.

The soft leather of Shaw's glove is warm against Flynn's bare skin. It's nice, so Flynn leans into it. Shaw sighs in frustration, and Flynn watches the rise and fall of his chest with interest.

"If you could work with me here, Captain."

"Oh, sure," Flynn says. Then, because nothing in the world makes more sense to him in this particular moment, he leans up and kisses Shaw on the mouth.

Shaw inhales sharply and pulls back with a soft 'ah'. The lines in his face turn graver and his brows draw down. Under the twist of his moustache, tension strains at the corners of his mouth.

He's so damn rigid. Go on, Flynn thinks. Bend a little.

Shaw holds Flynn fast against the tree with a hand on his shoulder, licks his lips, and then curses under his breath. Flynn watches with fascination as his pupils dilate, the green of his eyes eaten up.

"You tasted the mead," Shaw says. "Didn't you."

"I was thirsty."

It occurs to Flynn that he should mention the combful of honey he helped himself to as well, but Shaw speaks before he can get another coherent sentence in order.

"You're a disaster always about to happen," he says. Flynn watches his tongue dart along his lower lip. "Sometimes I think you do these things just to spite me."

"I know," Flynn says dreamily. He is sorry, he really is. He just can't find the right words to convey it at present. Or the right tone. Or the right look on his face. Or even figure out what he's sorry for. He knows he's grinning but sees no reason to stop, and that's okay because Shaw's leaning in to kiss him anyway. That's sweet.

Shaw kisses like he means it, and that's even sweeter. He leans forward out of his crouch to rest on his knees in the long grass. One of his hand spans the back of Flynn's neck; the other cups his jaw and tips his head against the tree, and—blimey, he's not being too shy about it.

He pushes Flynn's lips apart with his tongue and dips into his mouth, inhaling sharply through his nose as he does. Immediately things turn deep and dirty and so far out of the bounds of what Flynn had imagined from him that it makes his head swim. Flynn's fingers rake over his poncy uniform, catching in the straps and lacing and he kisses Shaw back as though he might not get another opportunity.

They break apart, and Flynn wavers at the bounds of propriety and then topples over, brushing his hand over his lap where the front of his trousers is rapidly tenting. Feels good, so he does it again. He watches Shaw track the movement.

Shaw swallows twice, then says, "We have to get you out of here."

"But it's nice here," Flynn says. "Don't you think?"

"It's a tree in a field, Fairwind, and you're compromised."

"I feel great, actually."

"And," Shaw says, ignoring him. A flush spreads across his face, the sweep of his cheekbones sheened with sweat. He frowns up at the sky and makes an urgent, frustrated sound. "And now, thanks to you, so am I."

"Nice." Flynn considers the repercussions to this as best he can. "Feeling pretty good, then?"

Shaw's mouth is a thin flat line. "Get up."

"If we go somewhere else, are you gonna kiss me again?"

"Yes," Shaw says, after slightly too long a pause.

"Ooh, that's a lie. I didn't know you were a liar, Master Shaw."

"Of course you did. Get up." Shaw shakes Flynn's shoulder with a grip that's just this side of rough. "Light damn you, we're not going to do this here."

"Fine, all right." Flynn decides to be magnanimous and lets Shaw pull him onto his feet. "But I get to choose the spot."

The brewery storehouse is dark and cool compared to the blazing sun outside. It takes a moment for Flynn's eyes to adjust, so he's only barely aware of the wall before Shaw shoves him into it hard enough to makes his teeth clack. He doesn't seem to care, too busy holding him firm by one lapel and pulling his kerchief free.

"Hello," Flynn says warmly as Shaw buries his face into his neck. His moustache tickles, but the sharp sensation of him sucking a bruise into Flynn's throat keeps him from dissolving into laughter. He ruffles Shaw's hair, because he's always wanted to do that.

Shaw makes a tetchy noise against his neck and nips him, and not particularly gently. His hands are everywhere—one moment under Flynn's shirt, the next tugging at his belt, pulling him awry.

"Strip down," he says. "Get it all off. We need to decontam."

"Yes," Flynn says, imbued with sudden purpose, and unbuckles his belt. It drops to the ground. "Great idea." He shrugs out of his coat and kicks his boots off at the same time. "We should definitely do that."

He shimmies his trousers down, and the next thing he knows Shaw has him by the balls. Some things are a constant and Flynn will take solace in that. His grip is tight but not uncomfortable, though Flynn's halfway sure it's not even possible for him to feel uncomfortable at the moment.

It feels great. He groans loudly, a perfectly honest sound that also feels great to make, then, like a cannon being fired, he comes in his underwear, copiously enough to leak through the fabric and over Shaw's gloved fist. The recoil slams him so violently against the brewery wall he might've got a splinter in his arse.

"Oh, what the blazes," he pants. He felt that one right in the back teeth.

"Hm." Shaw's words are puffs of warm air against Flynn's neck. "This isn't what your reputation led me to expect."

"You don't believe everything you hear, do you, Spymaster?" Flynn says, then his brain kindly catches up with his mouth. He guffaws. "If this is what you've been after, you only had to ask, you know. Give me ten minutes and I'll be good to go again."

"Ten?" Shaw says, and Flynn feels his dick throb and twitch in his grip, rawly sensitive against the wet fabric of his underclothes, and yet determinedly stiff as a board.

And getting stiffer. Flynn is feeling significantly less foggy about things, but all kinds of dizzy. "Or, two, apparently. What did you, ah. What did you say the problem with the mead was?"

"I think that's apparent. Turn around."

There are sounds in the dark. Leather and buckle sounds. A dozen concealed knives being dropped to the floor sounds. Promising, promising sounds. Flynn yields to Shaw's authority just this once, divests himself of his sullied unmentionables and braces himself with anticipation against the rough wooden boards of the storehouse's walls.

Shaw's not one to mess around. Ever the romantic, his fingers probe between Flynn's arsecheeks without preamble. He's striking a lot off Flynn's sexual bucket list whether he means to or not, and adding new items by the moment—he still has his gloves on, for a start. And while being slicked up with his own come is not something Flynn had factored into his wide and varied fantasies, it's only because he hadn't thought about it until now.

The leather of Shaw's gloves is warm and supple, but the seams are rough. He works his fingers inside him insistently, first one and then another, relaxing him enough for a third, but only up to the first knuckle. For all of Shaw's tender mercies, Flynn fairly sure he's in safe hands here.

He groans encouragingly. Shaw rests his forehead at the nape of Flynn's neck. His thighs tense and shove against the back of Flynn's, and he takes a quick sharp breath. Something warm soaks Flynn's shirt.

Flynn laughs. What the blazes indeed.

"You're supposed to put it in first, mate," he says.

"You're one to talk."

"Take the edge off?"

A grunt from Shaw. "Seems not."

Good. Worrying, to be sure, but also good. Shaw's fingers press in deeper; Flynn dips his back to take him, shudders working along his spine with the incremental yielding of his body.

"All right," he says. "That's got to be enough—tides, don't try to tell me you're any bigger than this."

"I'll let you be the judge of that," Shaw says into his ear, slips his fingers out of him in a rough and ready slide, and then gets his cock inside him in one long punishing thrust. It's like he hasn't got his dick wet in a million years, the way he tries to push every last millimetre in all at once. He's not much more than average by the feel of things, but he is very determined, and that goes a long way, in Flynn's experience.

"Manageable," he says, but it's too late; Shaw knows exactly what he wants out of this and how he's going to go about it, which is apparently to get it over as quickly as possible by seizing Flynn's hips and fucking him like he might die if he doesn't come in the next five seconds.

Flynn gives passing thought that this might be true, seeing as there are likely specifics that haven't been divulged here. Best let him go for it just in case. Shaw drives his cock into him firm and fast and completely, each brisk thrust slapping against his backside and echoing in the storehouse. He has to be going up onto his toes to manage it. He is a man who fiercely dedicates himself to any task he sets himself to, no matter how awkward, and Flynn decides he can appreciate it in this instance.

He's feeling cooperative, as someone in the midsts of receiving the pounding of the year is wont to, so he leans against the wall and widens his stance so Shaw doesn't have to work so hard. Somewhat less than appreciative, Shaw huffs and kicks his feet out further, roughly angling him in such a way that his thrusts turn into a grind, his hands and his sharp hips digging into Flynn's arse. Flynn can feel the lacing of his corset leaving tally-marks on his back.

Oh, the bruises tomorrow will be beautiful. Shaw was here, and here. What a thought. His orgasm barrels through him without a heads up, his dick jerking untouched between his legs as he spills all over the floor. He clenches hard around Shaw's cock and loudly curses his way through it.

Behind him, Shaw makes a strangled noise. He slams into Flynn, pulling him up by the hair and flattening him against the wall, holding him there in a vice grip. He's coming too, and Flynn will swear on each of his several pre-dug graves that he can feel every hot pulse of it.

"Did you just," Flynn pants, "in me?"

"I could hardly... with the way you..."

"Without asking? Is that how it goes on the mainland? Not very polite, I must say."

"None of this is polite, Fairwind," Shaw says from what sounds like between gritted teeth, but he eases himself out of Flynn's body in a manner he can construe as apologetic.

Flynn peels himself off the wall. Come slides down the inside of his thighs. His dick, still standing proud, twitches appreciatively at the sensation. He's not sure what the post-coital etiquette is after being angrily fucked through the wall by someone who generally seems like he wants to choke him out with his bare hands, but he's fairly sure that said person might be struggling to maintain his dignity right now.

"How are things looking back there," he asks, politely not turning around.

"Ah," Shaw says. Flynn hears the click of his throat as he swallows hard. "How to describe." His gloved thumb brushes against Flynn's arse.

"Tides, I didn't mean—not back there-back there. I meant what's the situation with you, Spymaster."

Shaw hasn't moved his thumb. Flynn pushes back against it. More, every part of his body demands. It feels like he's been edging himself for hours even though he's somehow already come twice, and there's still the chance the slightest touch might set him off. There's an aching tight throb in his groin that suggests he's going to come like a geyser, though there can't possibly be anything left. Can't possibly. Surely.

He risks a glance over his shoulder. Shaw's mouth is set in its usual hard, tight line. The rest of him is also hard and tight, though the line there is slightly curved to the right.

"Sorry," he hisses, fumbling at himself, and he's inside Flynn again in one rough thrust. "I can't—"

"No, it's—it's the mead, yeah?"

"Obviously," Shaw says. "Should have known you'd drink it, you sot—"

Flynn cuts him off with a chortle, that is cut off in turn by Shaw dragging him away from the wall by his ponytail. "So it's honey but horny. Ow—brilliant. Horny mead. Drink as much as you like without getting whiskey dick? Brilliant. Love it. Ow."

"This isn't funny." Shaw punctuates this by yanking Flynn's head back. He just laughs harder, especially when Shaw collapses onto his backside and ends up propped against a barrel. Finally, some leverage. Flynn sits himself on his cock, gets the angle right and rides him headlong towards orgasm number three.

"It's all right, you may as well," he says, when he feels Shaw trying to pull out. "Keeps things on a smooth glide, eh?"

"Please don't say things like that," Shaw mutters, and wedges his face between Flynn's shoulder blades while he loses it. This isn't Flynn's favourite position, preferring some stimulation where it counts, but Shaw doesn't seem inclined to switch it up. A reacharound would improve matters but that doesn't seem on the cards either. Flynn makes do with jerking himself while Shaw gets his second, or fourth, or whatever wind.

"So, what should we expect from the rest of the evening?" Flynn says. Shaw has let go of his hair, which is a shame, but on the plus side he has snaked both hands around Flynn's chest and is squeezing like he's never met a stressball in his life, all the while screwing him with a slow upward roll. "More of the same?"

Shaw grunts and jerks his hips, nailing Flynn in that perfect spot that makes his dick gush precome, if it can be called that at this point. "You're sounding more lucid," he says. "Might be over soon enough."

Flynn sucks in a sharp breath as Shaw pinches and tugs at his nipples. "Nah. Think I just sobered up. Still feel like I could fuck for Azeroth. Oops, gonna come."

It's just as vigorous as his first and second. He leans back and catches the thick jets of it on his belly and chest. Some of it lands on Shaw's gloved hands. Tides, there's a lot of it. "No way this isn't dehydrating," Flynn says. "I'm going to get a drink."

He gasps as Shaw clamps down on his nipples to hold him in place, and gives them a series of mean yanks for emphasis. "Touch any more of that mead and I swear on the Light and all that is holy I will break into your home and murder you in your sleep," he grits through his teeth. "Are we clear?"

"Yep," Flynn says, somewhat strained. "Yep. Coming again. Pretty sure it wasn't the mead this time."

With a disgusted noise, Shaw shoves him off his lap mid-orgasm. Flynn shudders to completion all over the meadery floor, then flops on to his back to catch his breath. It feels like he could boil water with his dick. "Seriously though," he says. "How long do we think this'll take to wear off?"

"We don't know," Shaw says tartly. "Now shut up and fuck me."

"Come again?" Flynn says, which is a fantastic joke that he will laugh at without shame.

In a feat of multitasking the likes of which is beyond Flynn at present, Shaw rolls his eyes and strips off his armour at the same time. The mystery of his overly-elaborate corsetry is solved with a hidden zipper down one side. Flynn finds he is faintly disappointed by this, but it's mostly eclipsed by his fascination with the ungenerous practicality that is Shaw's physique. He could crack a lockbox with those abs. Or crack it with a different crack, for that matter; Shaw tosses his leathers aside and gets to his hands and knees.

It's probably not invitation to ogle, as such, but Flynn's restraint is over the hills and far away. His tight breeches don't leave much to the imagination so Flynn already knows his backside is as flat as his affect, but having the pale thing bobbing in his eyeline really drives it home. He gives a cheek an affectionate squeeze nonetheless. If there's one thing he has learned in this life it's that you can't have everything, so appreciate what you get.

Now, Flynn's personal proportions are something he takes pride in, but as he nudges his dick into the crease of Shaw's narrow arse, he has his misgivings about it. The imperative is to spread his cheeks and hammer himself in there and come entire buckets—he would really, really like the secret ingredient for whatever is going on here—but it'd be a dangerously tight squeeze at present. Seems the sweetest aphrodisiac in the world can't loosen Shaw up where it counts.

"All right, you uptight bastard," Flynn says, and gives his sorry excuse for a booty a hearty slap. "We're going to have to take this a step at a time."

"Just get on with it," Shaw says. "I've seen your files, extensive list of romantic entanglements unfortunately included, so I don't know why you're suddenly finding the concept so difficult."

"It's just that I'd split you like firewood, mate."

Flynn watches in fascination as Shaw's balls draw up tight at the suggestion.

"I'm not some delicate specimen," he says, after a moment.

"Perish the thought, but we have to be realistic here. You're not built like a Kul Tiran either."

Flynn paws Shaw onto his back so he can't keep trying to push himself onto his dick and do himself an injury. Shaw glares up at him like this is the most egregious slight ever made against his person, so Flynn holds up his hands placatingly. "All I'm saying is you're not going to die if we go with some fingers first."

Shaw fastidiously refuses to make eye contact.

"Wait," Flynn says, consternation claiming the honour of being the first emotion to battle its way through his incendiary honeylust. "Er. We aren't going to—"

"No," Shaw says. "No, it just. Feels like it. So would you please stop arguing with me and start pulling your weight."

"I'm not arguing. Oh, trust me, I am absolutely not arguing about anything going here." Flynn flattens his hand to Shaw's thigh and pushes his leg to the side, throwing some of his weight onto him in case he tries to eel his way out of it. He sucks on his fingers, and because apparently everything is an erogenous zone now, gets distracted doing that.

Shaw sighs and hoofs him with a heel like he's a stubborn pony. "Captain," he prompts.

"Oh, yeah, right." In a stroke of ingenuity even if he does say so himself, Flynn sets aside the idea of fingering him open and dives in face-first instead. He feels Shaw's thigh tense under his palm. His hips rock clean off the ground like a ship cresting a wind wave when Flynn gives him a long firm flat-tongued lick from arse to balls.

As expected at this point, Shaw hisses from between clenched teeth and comes like a champ. Flynn feels the pull and release of it against his mouth and tongue, rhythmic violent spasms that seem to paralyse him with their force. He waits for him to go limp again, intending to get to work properly—is rather excited at the prospect of feeling him go off like that around his dick, in fact—but Shaw, of course, has other ideas.

"Light burn you," he mutters, hooks Flynn around the waist with his leg and flips him over in some kind of assassin wrestle move, probably. It's nice that they're beyond affording each other any kind of respect at this point. Some successful team building, you could say. A somewhat scandalous take on the informality Flynn's been trying to tease out of him for some time now, but like he said—definitely not complaining.

He gazes up at Shaw, who is looming over him with intent, and is struck by what feels like a profound revelation but would probably just be common sense if his brain wasn't soggy with lust. This is precisely—

All right, not precisely. Sort of. In the vicinity of.

Fine, loosely. Very loosely.

—very loosely of the kind of scenario Shaw has reams of paranoid contingencies for, from containment and extraction plans down to a dose of some antidote or poison or other that'd deck any individual who persisted in making untoward advances.

And yet he's decided his best option is to ride it out. Emphasis on ride.

For an instant Flynn thinks he's going to straddle him, somehow force his dick into that lean body of his until it's all the way in, oh—Flynn is distracted for a moment thinking about how deep he could get into him, one sweet inch at a time—but then Shaw backs off and eyes him assessingly.

Flynn can practically see him measuring himself up. "Comparison is the thief of joy, Shaw," he says, which garners him the result he wants, which is for Shaw to shoot him a defiant glare, open wide and swallow him down.

Well, mostly. Partially. As far as head goes it's average, but at least he isn't using his teeth, and frankly, even the most sub-par blow job would feel transcendental at the moment. The muscles in Shaw's jaw tighten where his mouth is strained around his dick, and his shoulder flexes as he fucks his own fist at the same time. He looks like he's concentrating. He does seem the type who'd prefer to have someone on their knees rather than the other way around, and so Flynn gives passing thought to the idea that he might not have done this before.

Genuinely edifying.

He makes some incoherent noises and swats Shaw on the head by way of warning, but he must have felt the quake of his oncoming orgasm well enough. He pulls off with a sloppy noise just as Flynn shoots yet another load. Seriously, where is it all coming from. It spatters Shaw's cheek and brow, and Flynn watches in utmost rapture as it slowly drips into his devastated moustache.

Shaw wipes his face with the back of his hand like a surprise facial is simply to be expected these days, and glares at Flynn's determinedly still-hard dick. He can't wilt it into submission any more than he can Flynn himself.

"You're still not done?" he says tiredly.

"It's my legendary Kul Tiran stamina." Flynn gets himself up on his elbows to survey the damage. "I see you mainlanders can't stay the course."

Shaw's softening up. It looks like a relief. Flynn never thought he'd be envious that he had a hard-on and someone else didn't, but life is a never-ending strange and wondrous experience.

"I took a much smaller hit," Shaw says.

"Whatever makes you feel better." He collapses flat onto his back again and thinks about all the orgasms he's going to have on his lonesome before things wear off. His dick sadly dribbles precome. He pets it consolingly but it only twitches and dribbles some more. He sighs. What a tragedy.

He's midway through a self-pitying wank when he hears a splash that, speaking from personal experience, is reminiscent of someone dipping their face into a barrel of beer. Tastes like it's the case when Shaw slings a leg over him, his soaked hair dripping mead onto his overheated skin. It feels like it should sizzle.

"You didn't," Flynn says delightedly.

Shaw makes a face that’s slightly more constipated than is usual. "Shut up."

"You did!"

"Shut," Shaw says with both hands on Flynn's dick, which Flynn would assume were for positional purposes if he didn't keep teasing his foreskin with his thumbs, though he doesn't seem to realise he's doing it, so maybe it is, "up."

"Okay," Flynn says, pitched high as Shaw sinks halfway onto him all at once. He has to fight to stop his eyes rolling back in his head. The man is tighter than his margin for error. "Just one more thing."

"What."

"I sincerely hope it's not a surprise to you at this point, but I'm about to—"

Shaw lets out a breath. "Fine, I suppose."

"Thank you," Flynn says, syrupy, and fires at will, gasping when Shaw clenches deliberately. "I think. Hey, you're taking me pretty well. You've definitely done this before."

"Rest assured, Captain," Shaw says, "I am taking none of this well."

As if he expects Flynn to believe that, with his skin wet and honey-sweet and his hands all over Flynn's chest. He had his opportunity to cut bait, but here he is fishing. Flynn slides his own hands over Shaw's hips and slowly pulls him the rest of the way onto him. He is so poundingly hot around him; it feels like his heartbeat is squeezing his dick.

Shaw dips his head and sucks in a breath through his teeth. Mead trickles stickily along his collarbone. He shifts side to side then leans forward a tad, then takes a firm double handful of Flynn's chest and sets about riding him like he's Norwington's champion showjumper.

"Zeppelin out," Flynn says. His laughter is on the verge of becoming a hysterical giggle. Tides. What a day.

Shaw rocks forward over him and halts, both hands braced. He looks as baffled as he's ever done. "What?"

"Nothing. Might still be a bit squiffy after all." Flynn cranes his neck for a sloppy kiss, then gives him a brisk slap on the arse. "Don't let it stop you."

Shaw shudders at the impact, gasps into his mouth, comes in a long wet streak over Flynn's belly, then leans back and switches to determinedly grinding down on him without even missing a beat. His cock is an angry slick red against the pale skin of his stomach, constantly streaming as he works himself on Flynn's dick.

Seeing as he's taking care of things quite all right on his own, Flynn folds his arms behind his head and enjoys the view. The light that sneaks through the planked walls is beginning to fade from honey-gold to a dim rosy glow. Night falling. Flynn acknowledges this with a dreamy kind of indifference. They must have been going at it for hours. He can feel the rough texture of the meadery's floor beneath his bare arse, now that he thinks about it, and each slow, hard pivot of Shaw's hips brings a raw sting alongside the buzz of pleasure.

Yep, that's some chafeage all right.

He's long lost track of how many times he's come. He's stopped noticing it at all, really. It's not like he didn't know you can have too much of a good thing, but he's never had to wonder what an orgasm hangover might feel like. Something to worry about in the morning. Along with all the rest.

With grim determination, Shaw wrings another climax out of himself, thighs drawing taut and trembling as he slicks himself with yet more come. Flynn's stomach is plastered with it. They look like the survivors of a freak accident in a creamery. It's cold and his muscles ache and his arse is numb and he's all sweaty and sticky, his throat is parched and a light throb has set in at his temples, and for all of their efforts he's still bloody hard as a rock.

"All right," he says. "Actually starting to feel pretty gross now."

"Starting?"

"I have an idea."

"Terrific," says Shaw.

"It's good one."

"Why do I get the feeling I'll want a second opinion on that."

"I think," Flynn says, "we should go outside."

Shaw sighs.

By outside, Flynn means to the river.

He takes a breath, tosses a few prayers out to whichever saucy gods and goddesses might've been listening in on their honey-addled rutting, and plunges in before he can think about how tit-freezingly cold the mountain snow runoff is this time of year. His balls immediately try to climb back up into his body, but as it happens, even this cannot kill his boner.

Flynn throws his head back and stops his teeth chattering long enough to bellow some very inventive curses to aforementioned gods/goddesses. Like a smith quenching a blade, his steel has been tempered by this icy tribulation. The swift river current is enveloping him in silky cold caresses, and if he all he gains from this escapade is an urge to throw himself into frigid bodies of water for sexual gratification, he'll never forgive himself.

Speaking of frigid bodies, Shaw is an ornery shadow on the bank of the river, observing his theatrics with his hands settled modestly over his junk like Flynn hasn't seen it all and then some.

"You coming in?" he calls, sluicing himself clean with cupped hands. "Or are you gonna stand there scowling like a dowager who's lost her bonnet? Nobody abroad, mate, and even if there were you're already giving them an eyeful of your scrawny arse."

It's dusky enough that Flynn can't make out the precise expression on Shaw's face, but odds are good that it's some variation on deeply resentful. "That's not my main concern," he grumbles, shifting on his feet with a loud quelch of river muck. He's gone from covering himself to idly stroking his cock; he keeps noticing with a mutter and making himself stop.

"Afraid of a bit of shallow water, then?"

"Hardly afraid." Shaw's hands are already unconsciously on the move again. "It's just entirely una—ah. Ah. Light." He pauses, hunches over with a flash of bared teeth, then lets out his breath in a long gust. He shakes his hand over the water, sending out scattered ripples. "Unappealing."

"Oh, don't get me wrong, it's bastarding cold and a half. You get used to it quick enough, though."

Flynn leans back and floats to prove it, steadying himself against the gentle pull of the river's current. Great seas, it's glacial. His nipples are like rivets. His dick bobs above the waterline, its ruddiness turned a rather alarming shade of purple, though who can say if it's from the cold or because, unlike someone, he's gone a whole five minutes without blowing his load.

Shaw abandons his wavering and plunges in. He makes a noise like a kettle on the boil, swears as comprehensively as any sailor, then, bizarrely, laughs.

"Told you," Flynn says, as Shaw wades unsteadily over and bunts into him, then hauls him up when he flails and starts sinking. Bloody river water. The stuff's like ale-piss compared to the dense buoyancy of the sea. He declines to make the obvious comparison re: saltiness and levels of viscosity, and helps Shaw shed himself of his own coating of salty viscosity instead.

He's shivering but warm beneath Flynn's cold hands. Flynn scoops water over his shoulders and his sticky collarbones, and rubs the congealing spunk out of his sparse scattering of chest hair. He's sinewy and rawboned and pitted and scarred, and with the way he's going pink and blue, he kind of reminds Flynn of a gnawed-on leg of mutton that's undercooked in the middle. He really does like the stroppy bastard, so reckons he probably shouldn't share his observation, and grins at him instead.

Shaw's watching him with that stare that could mean he's either heard his thoughts and is about to dispatch him, or he hasn't and is about to kiss him; there's a quirk to the corner of his mouth visible beneath his deconstructed moustache.

"What?" Flynn says, his smile spreading.

Shaw leans in, and in his usual precise tones, says, "You have something in your hair."

What could it be? O mystery of mysteries. Flynn guffaws. "Lemme take care of that," he says, pulls his hair the rest of the way out of its mostly-undone tail and dunks himself.

Underwater, the current is more insistent; he steadies himself against its tugging with a hand on Shaw's thigh. He runs his other hand through his hair until it's free of its usual tangles and less-usual suspicious clumps, then decides that while he's down here he may as well suck Shaw's cock.

He licks up his shaft, still ferociously hard, a friction to his skin from the freshwater. Shaw makes a fist in Flynn's hair when he gets the head into his mouth and holds him under while he thrusts erratically into his mouth. The rush of water around Flynn's ears transmutes into the rush of his blood but thankfully Shaw goes off in about three seconds flat, before the black spots that started whirling at the edge of Flynn's vision can take him over.

Shaw pulls him out of the water by the hair, gives him a moment to heave in a blessed breath and to swallow, then steers him to shore and promptly undoes their bathing efforts by shoving him onto all fours and fucking him into the mud.

The susurration of leaves and low, warm buzzing lures Flynn toward wakefulness. The early morning sun on his back is nice, but there's earthy, slick mud between his toes and thighs, drying in his arm hair, crusted up his nose, and yes, taken up residence in his arsecrack. With a wiggle and an appreciable squelch, Flynn confirms he doesn't still have Shaw's cock wedged up there along with half the riverbank, since as far as he can recall, they must've dropped stone cold unconscious mid-banging. Property of the drugged ale, maybe, to believe you could fuck forever, right until you couldn't.

Still, not the worst place Flynn's dossed down, though Shaw is probably his most unlikely bed companion to date. He crowbars his eyes open. The man himself stares back, wild-haired, his moustache hopelessly smushed out of shape. There's a muddy handprint on one side of his face, a thumbprint on the other.

Flynn casts around for the most appropriate sentiment for the circumstances.

"Please don't kill me," he says.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn't."

"I'm too handsome to die."

Shaw's eyes flick over his mud-caked body. Flynn self-consciously tucks his hair, dangling wet and ratty in his face, behind his ear, and gives him his best big-eyed kicked-puppy pout.

"You've looked better," Shaw says.

"Wait—I have to settle my tabs first or Boralus' economy will destabilise," Flynn says. "And don't forget you Alliance boys need me to freight your Azerite."

"Azerite," Shaw mutters. He frowns, eyes unfocusing and his head cocked as though listening to distant voices. "Of course. Light-bedamned stuff."

"So we're agreed. Raincheck on the bumping-off til I meet my quota."

"Mm," Shaw says, still frowning over some thought or another. He seems set on expending his remaining energy making sure any conversation Flynn tries to start promptly meets its death. It's something he's good at, professional death-arranger that he is, and Flynn is by all measures spectacularly hungover, so he chooses what is always the most ideal option in such trying times, which is to turn over and go back to sleep.

It's full morning when he comes round again properly, and this time halfway up the bank and facedown in a tuft of stiff long grass that's poking him in all sorts of places. Truly, this caper is an ever-giving cornucopia of tactile delights. Flynn shifts about to ease the worst of it, strained muscles complaining, and encounters Shaw, warm against his back—and then a different kind of stiff, poky thing.

Shaw grunts, perhaps an apology, though undermined somewhat by the compulsive press of his hips into the back of Flynn's thighs.

"Have you been hitting the booze again, Master Shaw?" Flynn says with a stretch and a yawn. Blimey, his back and knees ache like he's been scrubbing the deck all day. "Sun's hardly over the yardarm, mate. I think you might have a problem."

"No." He sounds perfectly alert, but then Flynn imagines his hypervigilance would object strenuously to him snoozing naked in a field with another naked man, and he did roll uphill into this tuffet of prickly grass somehow. "I'm experiencing some residual, ah, bolstering, but as it stands—"

"And it is definitely standing—"

"—my problem here, as is increasingly the case," Shaw continues over him, "is you."

From him, that's downright sentimental. Flynn's heart does a weird sideways lurch in his chest. Damn it. He chews at his lower lip a moment. "If it means anything, I'm sorry," he says. "Honestly, this wasn't how I was gonna make my move."

Shaw takes a long, deep inhale, and lets it out just as slowly, a warm ghost across the nape of Flynn's neck. "Apology accepted. Not that I imagine something you'd planned would be any less..."

"Sticky."

"Chaotic."

"Energetic."

"Reckless."

"None of these are mutually exclusive," Flynn says. "You underestimate the finesse of my game." He laughs when Shaw gives him a light pinch on his hip and catches his hand, moving it further up to encourage him to menace his nipple instead. His dick gives a halfhearted twitch at it, but the poor sod's tuckered out. This is one for a different morning's EMHO log.

Still, the little throbs of pleasure are nice, even if they aren't contributing to any greater purpose. So is the hot solidity of Shaw's cock as he nudges it between his thighs. He tenses up, squeezes his legs together and thrills at the breathy groan that gets out of him, but he's feeling pretty lazy so he mostly leaves Shaw to it.

That is, until he tugs Flynn's legs apart and shifts the angle of things. The wet head of his cock rubs him somewhere more intimate.

"Don't do it if you don't want to," Shaw says, oddly pensive.

"Nah, go on," Flynn says dreamily, eyes closed. His pulse beats pleasantly in his groin and the rhythm of things has him welling with precome even if he's out of action on the whole.

He hears Shaw spit, and after a brief pause, the steady burn of him pressing inside shivers its way through him.

Bit sore after all their antics after all, but it's a sharp, good, not-quite hurt. Still makes his breath falter and hiss out through his teeth, so he arches before Shaw can change his mind, pushing all the way onto him. It'd be just like him to get squirrely, but gratifyingly, he grabs Flynn's hair at the scalp and pulls his head back instead, drawing his body taut like a bow. It makes Flynn groan out loud, and Shaw must have been waiting for it, because that's when he starts thrusting into him in earnest.

It's quite something, the raw burn of it, and Flynn's dick is making a heroic, if futile, effort to stiffen. He palms at its tender softness, as much as he can bear. It'd be nice if he could—

Oh... what do you know. He can. His orgasm laps over him like warm water, dick throbbing valiantly even if it only gives up a weak spurt or two into his hand. Dragged into cahoots, Shaw's not far behind, and from the sound and feel of it, it's a gentle end for him, too.

It's tempting to let them both enjoy the moment, but in the end mischief wins out.

"Did you just," Flynn says. "In me?"

"Ah. I thought that, in the circumstances, it'd be... all right."

He can almost chew on the discomfort Shaw's putting out. It's more intense than he expected, which makes him feel a bit bad, really, and that's no fun.

"Fine," Flynn says, letting some laughter into his voice. "It's fine, Shaw." He turns his head and reaches back, encouraging him to lean over so they can kiss. Not a lovey-dovey smooch and all that would entail. More just a smack on the lips.

The casualness of it seems to do the trick. Shaw cracks an actual legitimate grin, albeit a small one, and shakes his head.

"Don't think I've not got the long and short of you, though, old man. You're a bit into that, eh?"

The smile vanishes, though Shaw's eyes gleam tellingly. "I think that's enough out of you."

"Oho. Enough into me, more like—"

"Must you?"

"Yes," Flynn says, and laughs when Shaw winds an arm around his neck, half hug, half sleeper hold, and kisses him firmly behind the ear.

It's nice.

So nice, in fact, that he decides to have another little snooze.

"What happened to you?" Taelia says, cackling. She gives a hank of Flynn's tatty wet hair a good tug.

He'd taken a dip into the river again after waking alone with his clothes heaped beside him, not that it did much to help. Would have been nice if Shaw had stuck around to wash his back for him, but it's no great surprise that he'd taken off either. At least he'd tightened up the perimeters so no poor unsuspecting apiarist had stumbled upon him in slumbering nude repose.

Small favours, he supposes. He's fielding askance looks from the Brennadam folks instead. Though if he's being truthful, they always look at him like that.

"Nothing," he says brightly, hopping with one foot in Galeheart's stirrup and quite stymied about the rest. One of the various humiliations Flynn will have to put up with hearing about for some time, judging by the look Tae is giving him.

"Did you find out what happened to the ale?"

"Yep." With a helping heave from Tae's shoulder he manages to get astride, though lands his arse in the saddle a tad too heavily for his liking. "Tidemother's clamshell brassiere," he mutters under his breath.

Tae vaults up with ease, flaunting her non-achy parts and full range of movement like a right flaunty thing, hustling him back a bit so she can take the reins. He rests his chin on her shoulder and sulks quietly.

"Are you going to tell me about it?"

"Nope."

"Well, suit yourself," she says amiably, and takes them into the sky.

The thing about Shaw is that he's a slippery bastard. What's worse: he's a slippery bastard with allies.

Every time Flynn spots him on the Redemption's deck, by the time he's made his way aboard he's vanished below, deploying Wyrmbane to immediately buttonhole him for some nonsense errand or other. It's hardly subtle, and it doesn't take an intelligence operative to figure out Shaw's avoiding him. Flynn can't be too sore about it; the evening keeps coming back to him in vivid flashes that leaves even him a bit red in the face, so it's probably acute mortification delivered every hour on the hour for Shaw.

And so he just wants to see how he's holding up, and give him a little peace offering. Something he hunted down special. Is it in bad taste? Only one way to find out.

If Wyrmbane will bloody let him, that is. Flynn's already politely tolerated his requests for chemlight batteries and a long weight and striped paint, but today's fool errand is actually over the line. Asking a seasoned sea captain to fetch this is a jape too far.

Plus, it's raining. Cuts his inclination to head off on a wild goose chase by a good eighty percent.

"Green oil," he says to Wyrmbane.

"If you would." There's a faint apprehension to Wyrmbane's tone, as though he realises that not only is the jig up, but that it may be about to break into interpretive dance.

Nothing so drastic, but Flynn isn't one to let an advantage pass him by. He folds his arms and scowls dramatically. "Green."

"Yes."

"For the starboard lamp. Green oil for the starboard lamp."

"That's right," Wyrmbane says. He sounds profoundly ashamed of himself. As well he should.

Flynn raises his finger as though he has a point to make and is about to expound upon it at length and quite furiously. Wyrmbane squares his shoulders. Deep breath, chest out, bit more glower—and Flynn bolts for belowdecks, rattles down the stairs and slams into Shaw's cabin door.

Then he opens it and steps inside.

"Were you born in a barn?" Shaw says without looking up from his tiny wobbling deskful of reports.

"I was born in a bar," Flynn says, closing the door behind him. He may be escorted elsewhere any minute, so he puts his hands up like it's a fair cop and reels off his opener while he still has the chance. "Look. I know what you're thinking. Oh, that Flynn Fairwind, you're thinking—that cad, that bounder, he'll give you the tumble of your life, you're thinking, and then he never comes knocking again."

Flynn Fairwind lacks a certain social nous. He knows that much. But then so does Shaw, being a mess of contradictions who thinks he has it all figured out. If he wants to draw a line under this, then Flynn will offer him a way to do it that doesn't involve some terminal hermit-crabbing.

The pen scratching across Shaw's report falters. His brow furrows, then he sets his work aside with a sigh.

"Not through lack of trying," he says, managing to aim the reproach in the right direction, at least. He's simultaneously as neat as a pin and yet looks like he's weathered these past few days through judicious application of coffee and nothing else. One knee bounces of its own volition.

"Look, I get it." Flynn politely edges a stack of scrolls over so he can rest his backside on the corner on his desk and gaze earnestly into his face. He goes with a sympathetic tone, resting a consoling hand on Shaw's shoulder. "A night of passion with the infamous Captain Fairwind—it's a life-changing event. Watershed moment. Everyone reckons with it differently. I mean, look at Keelson, she completely lost her mind. But I want you to know... you're handling it all right. Hang in there."

Shaw sits back in his chair and fixes him with a look that is equal parts incredulity and scorn, hands raised in some universal gesture of defeat. He's gone a lovely shade of puce. "Captain. I say this to you in all sincerity. You are full of it."

"Yeah," Flynn says fondly. "And who should I thank for that? Okay—haha, calm down, mate. All right, all right, sorry. I'm just yanking your—look, I mostly came to check in on you, that's all."

Shaw relaxes the fist he has bunched in Flynn's coat collar, and leans back enough to return the teetering desk to stability. "I'm fine," he says, like he's trying to sound reasonable. He actually sounds fairly murderous.

Flynn beams at him. "Good! In that case, I got you something." He dips into one of the voluminous inner pockets of his coat and fishes out his gift. "It wasn't too hard to track down on the bla—ah, secret special market, but cost me an arm and a leg, I hope you appreciate. Very much in demand all of a sudden. Can't think why. Must be the vintage."

He thumps a bottle of ale onto Shaw's desk. Life is the accumulation of many tiny and subtle decisions, and so, in one of his frequent fits of naked self-interest, he'd spent a morning carefully amending the label from 'honey mead' to 'horney mead'.

Shaw stares at the bottle like it's a primed explosive, then at Flynn.

"That isn't how you spell horny," he says.

"Worked with what I had." The more nervous he is, the more stupid his jokes get. Flynn can only shrug. "But if that's your main concern here, I'd say we're doing okay."

Shaw lifts the bottle and cradles it in his palm, thumb rubbing slowly along the seam of the label. A recollection flashes through Flynn, burning up like gunpowder in the pan: the memory of his hands converging to a hot white point, focused and sharp.

He's wavering, thinking on something similar if the deepening colour to his face is an indication. A poor padlock invites a picklock. Flynn swallows. "How's your schedule. Up for some, uh. I dunno. Crisis training in a controlled environment?"

"It might be wise," Shaw says after a moment; when he peers up at him, his eyes are alight in a way that makes him seem younger. "In order to avoid a shambles in the future."

"Exactly. Especially such a sticky, chaotic, energetic, reckless shambles."

Shaw uncorks the bottle with his teeth, evidently trying to make a point—and so, Flynn thinks, the polite thing to do is to let him.

"Bottoms up," he says.