[ Thirty one or not, Alistair is still so much that laughing boy who'd given him a begrudging hand up on the dirt road. Who'd glared and muttered and sulked and joked and eventually trusted, laughed. Who teased without wanting or expecting anything. Many in the Warden's party treated him as a person, not a possession, not a thing. Not a weapon. Even Alistair's suspicion had been deeply personal. You tried to kill us- not The Crows tried to kill us.

It'd been deeply satisfying to stand at their side.

More satisfying still to maintain this odd friendship, this strange twist of sentiment he has no name for. Anyone else he would have bedded by now. That is his world, how he works. Not sleeping with Alistair- well. Not fucking Alistair is as confusing as it is a boon. Alistair has no need of him as a lover. Only a brother. As he's never been that before it is a fun role to feel out. ]

You do realize that most of the gifts I was given on the road, save for certain exceptions, were not gifts at all? [ Bars of gold, bars of silver. ] They were payment.

[ Which, honestly, he understood better than the boots or the gloves, the little things Alistair would find to point out to him, the scarf Wynne eventually knitted for him that he still carries, the few flowers he'd pressed from a crown Leliana wove him-

Much as he says he loathes sentiment, Zevran finds himself terribly sentimental. ]

I know, Cucciolo. I know.