Alistair's eyebrows go up as his shoulders slump down—that is a low bar, and a relief—but a second later he's smirking, shrugging, tilting his head with a wincing one-eyed squint, like weeeeeell. He isn't truly worried, only teasing and self-deprecating, but it has been a year or two. The flush on his face is spreading down to his chest; the muscles in his abdomen twitch against Zevran's hooked fingers; he's hard, increasingly far from only half so, and it's just caution and willpower keeping him from being hungry and grasping.

Managed expectations are good.

"Yeah," he says, and then, "Yes," the way he was raised to speak, and, "Zev—"

I love you, he almost says, like a reflex or a nervous cough, but he doesn't want to make Zevran lose his footing again now that he seems to have found it. He kisses him instead: on the cheek first, a firm press of affection in place of words; then the mouth, firmer, hand sliding around to the small of his back. I want you is probably safer territory than I love you.