Chapter Text
Shaw had managed to avoid him for six hours. Six hours of dodging Flynn Fairwind through the streets of Stormwind, ducking into alleys, hiding behind doors, and, on one rather embarrassing occasion, climbing up a tree.
Six whole hours of putting his abilities of stealth and guile to the test, because, as it turned out, Flynn was exactly as competent as he hadn’t seemed during their first mission together. He managed to track Shaw down every single time, and always with a question on the tip of his tongue.
“What’s your favorite color?”
It wouldn’t have mattered, had Shaw not been magically compelled to answer every single one.
“Orange.”
“I truly expected you to say blue.”
“Why can’t you just let this be, Fairwind?” Shaw asked. He was beyond exasperated. His only consolation was that Flynn was equally compelled to answer his questions. Not that it helped much.
“I’m amused by how much it bothers you,” Flynn said honestly.
“I already knew that,” Shaw growled. “Go. Away.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m worried you might ask me something either crucial to my work or potentially embarrassing.”
“Which one worries you more?”
“Embarrassing. Damn it, Fairwind!”
Flynn chuckled and bounced up on his toes. “You’re free to ask anything you want of me, mate. Don’t forget that.”
“Why would I want to know anything more about you than I already do?”
“Because I’m interesting.”
Shaw froze. “You genuinely think that, don’t you?”
“I do!”
Throwing his arms up, Shaw turned on his heel and stalked away, back toward Old Town, where at least he could rely on his agents to keep Flynn out of his hair.
Most of them, anyway.
Less than twenty minutes later, a squat and deceptively disagreeable green face abruptly materialized on the other side of his desk. “What is this?” he asked Renzik, who had passed him a folded note.
Renzik only shrugged and promptly disappeared back to the dark corner of the building that he called his office.
Shaw opened the note, expecting a request for a meeting—one of his more reliable informants, perhaps—or intel on the whereabouts of a particularly evasive target. He half expected it to be bad news. What he didn’t expect was another damn question from Flynn Fairwind.
What’s your favorite food?
He balled up the note and threw it to the floor with a snarl. Bad enough the man had all the free time in the world to pester him when he was out and about, Shaw was not going to be subjected to every curious notion that crossed his deranged mind while he was working. Not that he was working, per se, but Flynn didn’t know that.
But the longer he sat there, the more he tried to ignore the short, sloppy scrawl in the crumpled up note, the more it felt like an itch crawling up the back of his skull. And then the itch became little pin pricks, and suddenly he was up on his feet and striding out of the building.
Damn him. Damn him.
He found Flynn sitting on a stump by the training yard. “Hullo,” he said with a grin.
“I don’t know how you figured that out—I won’t—damn it—chocolate,” he ground out sharply.
Flynn’s face lit up like a child’s at Winter Veil. “Chocolate, Spymaster Shaw? Chocolate?” He clapped his hands and actually had the audacity to giggle. “You know, I thought this curse would be nothing but frustration, but it’s actually turned out to be quite a blessing in disguise.”
“For whom, exactly?” Shaw demanded.
“Well, me for starters. I don’t know about you. No, that’s not true, you’re hating every second of this, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Delightful.”
Shaw curled his fingers tight and reached for Flynn’s throat, but some miraculous thread of restraint stopped him from actually strangling the man. “You are insufferable,” he snarled. “Leave me alone!”
“Why?”
“Because this curse is humiliating enough without you making a game of it!” he shouted. “I am tired of seeing you everywhere I turn!” Why couldn’t he just let the damn thing run its course and go back to his life of drinking and carousing and bedding anything with two legs and a halfway decent backside? Shaw had enough to worry about without the fear of having his darkest secrets exposed for the amusement of an ex-pirate with too much time on his hands.
Flynn actually looked a bit hurt by that answer. He flinched back, dropping his grin and tugging his eyebrows down along with it. “Do you really mean that?”
“No!” Shaw said without thinking. He froze.
On the tree stump, Flynn had perked up considerably. “Sorry, what was that?”
“I said no,” Shaw repeated, hoping that would be sufficient. He shut his eyes and prayed to the Light that when he opened them again he would be somewhere else. Or dead. He would take either one at that point.
“Are you saying—” Flynn began, but he was cut off by a sharp ssst from Shaw.
“No. No more questions. We’re done here.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that.” Flynn jumped off the stump and hastened to follow as Shaw turned and headed back in the direction of SI:7 headquarters. “You don’t mind me popping up all over, am I hearing that right?”
“No,” Shaw answered, and oh, that was interesting. He stopped walking. The curse demanded that he answer, but evidently it wasn’t terribly picky about how clearly.
“No?”
“No.”
Flynn scratched the back of his head and squinted. “Sorry, I’m confused.”
“Good.” Shaw started walking again. Another hundred feet or so to the door, and then all he had to worry about was Renzik passing him more notes. Which he might do simply because it amused him, actually.
“Come on, mate, it’s not like I’m asking you for royal secrets here! Humor me! That archmage what’s-his-name said this would take about twenty-four hours, right? You can find out everything you’d like to know about me in twenty-four hours. Surely there’s something, some bit of intel you haven’t gotten your grubby little hands on yet?”
Shaw stopped walking again. That wasn’t exactly a question, but he still felt compelled to answer—just not magically. He tried not to think about why that might be. “There are one or two things I might possibly wish to know.”
“Aaaand?” Flynn sang.
With a sigh, Shaw gestured Flynn along with him. “Follow,” he said, sparing no effort to be polite about it. He certainly didn’t owe the man any manners after all the trouble he’d caused. “One for one, Captain. Until we run out.” Or they killed each other.
“Can’t imagine I’ll run out of things to ask you, but I’m certainly game to try!”
Shaw pinched the bridge of his nose and tried to focus on where his feet were moving.
Just over seventeen hours to go.