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Flynn wakes to the sound of the rain lashing against the glass of the window panes. It isn’t an entirely unfamiliar sound, especially when a person has grown up in Kul Tiras, an island particularly prone to such moods. The noise of it is almost soothing, especially given that he has nowhere to be and no particular reason to go out in such weather.
Almost.
Rolling over, Flynn cracks one eye open to peer at the empty pillow on the other side of the bed, before heaving a great sigh.
Honestly though. It isn’t all that rare an occasion for Shaw to pull an overnighter at SI:7 – rather the opposite in fact. But he could have at least sent a note, for the sake of Flynn’s sanity if nothing else. Flynn would have dearly liked to march himself across the city to tell him so to his face, and perhaps drag him back home for a decent night’s sleep for crying out loud, if not for the fact that he’d probably have to swim his way there at this rate.
Grumbling to himself about bloody pig-headed spy men, Flynn forces himself up and out of bed and into a pair of trousers, taming his hair into some semblance of decency before descending the stairs bare-footed and shirtless in search of coffee. Shaw may not have much food in the house on any given day, but he knows he can at least always count on the man to have caffeine.
He’s gotten nearly halfway down the stairs when he realizes that he is not in fact alone in the flat after all. A figure sits at what stands for the kitchen table, huddled in a dark, wet cloak.
Flynn freezes.
This is Shaw’s flat. The man is so paranoid that not only do you need two keys to get in the door, but Flynn wouldn’t be surprised if he also booby-trapped the damned thing if you so much as thought about breaking in. For whoever this is to be just brazenly seated in the middle of the room, without so much as a by-your-leave…
Flynn regrets the fact that he hadn’t fully dressed himself and that he has absolutely nothing in the way of a weapon – not even anything in his pockets that he might be able to throw in a pinch – when the figure at the table lets out an honestly terrible wet cough and calls out to him.
"I can hear you hovering up there, Fairwind."
Flynn nearly jumps out of his skin.
"Mat?!" He grabs at the banister, not entirely out of dramatics. "What in the name of the Tides are you doing down here?"
Shaw groans slightly, leaning forward to put his elbows on the table and his head in his hands.
"Dripping," he replies.
"Well, I can see that," Flynn counters, making his way cautiously down the rest of the stairs and across the room towards the other man. "Why are you dripping down here?"
Shaw makes a grunting noise that could easily mean any number of things, but doesn’t make any further movements from there. Flynn frowns at that. Not that Mathias Shaw is a man of many words, but this is decidedly short even for him.
"When did you get in?" he asks, reaching the other man’s side. "I didn’t hear the door. You should have come up to bed. Or – at least taken your cloak off. Bloody hell, Mat, did you mean to scare me half to death, lurking down here in the dark like that?"
Flynn reaches to push the hood away from Shaw’s face, which is when he gets his first good look at him. Short-clipped red hair plastered to his scalp from the rain, his face equal parts too pale and deep, ruddy red.
"Mat…?" Flynn asks, moving to brush the back of his hand against his forehead, then snapping it back as if he’d been scalded. "Bloody hell, man, you’re on fire. Where in the hell have you been all night? Don’t tell me…"
Shaw's fever-bright green eyes flick up to meet with Flynn's for the briefest of moments. The expression in them gives Flynn all the answer he needs.
"I’ll be fine," he replies, gruffly, before adding, "I’ve had worse."
Flynn lets out something of an incredulous noise at that. At the sight of the man before him, obviously ill and making no move to care for himself. I’ve had worse, he says. He doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry at the idea of it.
"That," he decides aloud, "is entirely besides the point. Were you out there – you were, weren’t you? The whole night?"
Shaw doesn’t make a move to respond, merely shutting his eyes and sitting back in his chair. He looks very tired, very wet, and very ill.
Flynn makes another noise.
"The whole night?!" he cries, almost bewildered. "What – what could possibly be –"
"It’s better," Shaw replies stiffly, "if you don’t know."
It’s times like these, Flynn thinks to himself, when he bloody hates the SI:7 and their hold over the man in the chair before him. Some day, he thinks, with a chill that runs straight through him, this job might very well be the death of him.
Well it bloody well isn’t going to be today, not if Flynn Fairwind has anything to say about it.
"Oh for the love of–" he exclaims, more to himself than anything, before reaching for the towel hanging in the kitchen and striding back toward the other man with determination.
"I thought that I was supposed to be the reckless and foolhardy idiot in this relationship," he chides, running the towel through the other man’s hair. "What will people say, when they hear that their Spymaster has come to this?"
"That we need more funding and better recruitment, I would hope," Shaw replies, from within the folds of the towel. Flynn shushes him, setting to work rubbing the water out of his hair and the warmth back into his skin.
"You can argue your case to the nobility when you're feeling better. For now, let’s get you out of these wet things. C’mon, spymaster." He makes to tug the other man up and out of his chair. "You’re the one who decided to have a second-floor bedroom, not me."
Together, they manage to make their way up the stairs, although it’s a near thing, and Flynn is nearly carrying him by the end. All-but-collapsing on the edge of the bed, Shaw’s breath is rasping in his chest and his skin has taken on a whole new flushed shade of red that Flynn really isn’t keen on.
"You look like death, mate," he says, frowning as he watches the other man struggling out of his cloak, tossing it aside on the bed rather than meticulously hanging it on the back of the chair as he might normally do. Shaw seems to take a minute to gather himself before he leans forward to set about working on the laces of his boots. Even this, it seems, is a struggle. Flynn allows him the appropriate amount of stiff fumbling before he finds he cannot take the sight anymore.
"Here – let me." He moves forward to kneel before him, brushing Shaw’s hands away and setting to work on all those laces himself. "You know, when I had imagined peeling you out of all these leathers the next time, this wasn’t what I had in mind."
"Sorry to disappoint you, Fairwind," Shaw retorts, moving to lean back on his hands, letting out a long, slow breath and looking for all the world as if it were a struggle to even remain upright at that.
"You’ll just have to make it up to me later," Flynn decides aloud, wrenching a boot off with a wet pop before going for the next.
The leathers are decidedly more difficult to remove, in the end, wet and clinging to the other man’s skin. Shaw is too tired and too ill to really be much help other than keeping himself standing as Flynn peels them off. As it is, he’s nearly swaying on his feet by the time Flynn works the trousers down across his ankles, gently sitting him back down on the edge of the bed again to finish the rest.
"Right! Into bed with you," Flynn shoos as he tosses the armor aside – he’ll deal with it later, he promises. "Under the covers, that’s it. I don’t care who comes calling for you, no one is stepping through that door until you’re well enough to fight me for it, do you hear?"
Shaw lets out a groan as he finds himself man-handled into bed, but he isn’t truly complaining about it. Not even as Flynn is tucking in the quilting around him and fluffing the pillows behind his head. Flynn reaches out to check the other man's temperature with the back of his hand again. He was fine yesterday, wasn't he? He can't be that ill. ...can he?
A whole new chill of dread runs through him.
"Here, let me – make you something to eat," Flynn decides. "Maybe a stew? I don’t suppose you have any fish sauce –"
"Flynn," Shaw groans again, squeezing his eyes shut tight.
"Right! No fish sauce!" Flynn agrees. "Not about to go out in that hurricane anyway. Could just make do with what you’ve got in. Er. What do you have in, anyway?"
"Flynn," Shaw says again, sounding more desperate this time.
"Yes, yes," Flynn says, pushing himself up. "You’re ill, and in no state to remember the contents of your pantry. I’ll just pop on down then, and I’ll–"
"For pity’s sake, Fairwind," Shaw exclaims, "I do not want you to make me a stew, fish-based or otherwise."
"No stew!" Flynn agrees, which is probably for the best, given the fact that he wouldn’t even know where to begin with that one. "How about – some tea?"
Shaw lets out a noise that might have been a growl in another life and Flynn drops to the side of the bed beside him.
"Fine, fine," he says, feeling overly fussy. It’s just that he’s never seen the other man in such a state, and it’s making him feel…
Something painful twists deep within his chest, filling him with the need to keep moving, to not stay still or else–
"What about I read to you!" he suggests, voice overly-bright as he casts an eye about the room for the sign of – anything resembling suitable entertainment. The titles on Shaw's bookshelf read: The Etymology of the Zandalari Language, The History of Stormwind City...
Flynn's heart sinks.
"Fairwind," Shaw says again, sounding more piteous this time, enough that Flynn turns back to him with a look of concern.
"No stew, no tea, no books," he groans, throwing a hand out to grab at Flynn’s arm and catch him lest he think about popping up and trying something else. "Just – come here."
He tugs weakly, and when Flynn hesitates, tugs again. "Come here."
Flynn finds himself stretching out against the other man’s side on top of the covers, propped up against the pillows beside him. It feels – strange, the amount of care he suddenly feels he needs to pay, when he would normally be draping himself possessively across his lover like a second blanket.
Perhaps Shaw can read into it as well, because he turns to reach for him, tugging him closer.
"I won’t break," he reassures, softly, and Flynn lets out a laugh at that which comes out horrifyingly fragile.
"You aren’t supposed to be the reckless idiot," he finds himself repeating, moving to throw an arm around the other man’s too-warm chest and burying his face against his shoulder. "Making me worry. If anything were to happen to you…"
"Giving you a taste of your own medicine, am I?" Shaw says, and Flynn stiffens slightly in his arms.
"I’m sorry," Shaw says. "That wasn’t." He presses his eyes shut tight and turns his face into Flynn’s shoulder in return. "The fever, I. Am not myself. And that was not fair."
Flynn is quiet for a long moment before he responds.
"No," he agrees. "It wasn’t."
He heaves out a deep sigh. "Life often isn’t, is it?"
Shaw relaxes ever-so-slightly in the other man’s arms, wondering when he had ever gotten so lucky to find this man, this man?
"That doesn’t mean," Flynn continues, "that I’m going to let this go, Mat. Aren’t you the bloody head of the whole agency? Couldn’t you have sent someone else out into – this?"
The shutters on the windows bang ominously, as if to prove his point, and Shaw winces slightly.
"Someone younger?" he asks, defensively.
"Tides, I don’t know. Maybe?" Flynn counters. He presses his face further against Shaw’s fevered skin, taking a moment to breathe deeply, before he responds again.
"I just want you to come home, Mat. At the end of the day… That’s all I want."
Shaw moves a hand up to tangle through Flynn’s hair, cupping the back of his head and simply holding him tight against his body.
So long as he works for SI:7, it isn’t something he can promise. Flynn knows that, he knows that, and he isn’t about to insult the other man by pretending otherwise. But what are the alternatives? He can’t quit now, not with the state of Stormwind what it is, not with the king…
"You are my home, Flynn Fairwind," he says at last. "I may be a stubborn old bastard, but I am not too proud to admit that much. And I – will do my best. For you. For this."
"For us," Flynn insists, pulling back just far enough to look the other man in the eyes. Waiting until he gets a nod before he is satisfied.
"Good," he says, tugging Shaw close once more, bracing the other man against his chest as he moves to sprawl exhaustedly across it. "Now get some sleep, before I change my mind about that stew."