Except he just. Kept. Fucking. Jabbing. Because North had gone apeshit twice. Because, even though Shaw had liked North’s protectiveness for all these years, today there was something off about it. There was something wrong about it. It was so fucking primitive. It was so fucking possessive.

“Owwwwwwwwwwww. Enough.” North squirmed off the toilet and backed away so fast that he almost fell into the bathtub. He raised both hands. “I’ll talk. I’ll talk. I’ll tell you when the Allies are planning their attack. I’ll give you the plans for the nuclear space laser. I’ll have your babies.”

“You.” Shaw stabbed a finger at North’s chest. “Fucking.” Another stab. “Suck.”

“Jesus, all right.” North swiped at Shaw’s hand and caught it, his calloused fingers wrapping tightly around Shaw’s, the touch just rough enough to send the old, familiar chill down Shaw’s spine. But the bandage across the back of his hand, where the leather strap had split the skin, only sparked Shaw’s anger all over again. “I suck,” North said. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lost my temper.”

“Not when we’re in the middle of an important interview.”

“Not when we’re in the middle of an important interview.”

“Not when a suspect is obviously trying to push my buttons.”

“Not when a suspect is obviously trying to push my buttons.”

“Not when we’re running up against dead ends everywhere in this fucking case.”

“Not when we’re running up against dead ends everywhere in this fucking case.”

“Will you stop that?” Shaw tried to wrest his hand free. “And let me go.”

North clung on. “Will you stop that? And let me go.”

With a sigh, Shaw tossed the Q-tip into the trash and stared past North. They had opened the bathroom window, and the April air carried in the smell of maple trees blooming and rust from the fire escape and, because today the breeze had shifted, the hops from the Anheuser-Busch brewery. It all mixed with the iodine and with those typical North fragrances: Irish Spring soap and American Crew and the animal leather smell of his Red Wings. It smelled like home.

Shaw tried again to get his hand back, but North didn’t let go. “You know, a lot of guys have insulted me, ok? It’s not like I’m made of glass. It’s not like I’m worried just because a few people make fun of how I look.”

Shaw waited for North’s echo, but North didn’t speak this time.

A pigeon fluttered down, and the fire escape chimed under its talons. North released Shaw’s hand.

“That’s because,” North said, pinching Shaw’s cheeks like some kind of manic grandmother, “you know you’re just such a pretty boy. Don’t you?” He gave a playful shake of Shaw’s head, still pinching his cheek. “You do, don’t you? You do. You know you’re a pretty boy. You do, you do, you do—”

Shaw was laughing—against his will, but laughing—as he pulled back and slapped away North’s touch. “You are an absolute idiot, you know that?”