Alistair's jaw works with arguments he manages--barely--not to open his mouth and let loose: that it's isn't them, it's himself, his integrity and honor and tainted blood; that he hasn't had to choose between Wardens' lives and Zevran's and doesn't intend to; that if for some mad reason the Wardens came for Zevran, they couldn't have him.

It would only make it worse. Kissing is better. It might give him time to think if he could think about anything, but not thinking is fine, too--just teasing swipes of his tongue on the odd press of his mouth and his hands finding the softer skin on Zevran's sides, just beneath his ribs, until Alistair is smitten and dazed enough to insist on smiling, when he shifts back, with none of that melancholy.

"We're going to end this right, so I can live with myself," he says, "and then--" they're going to Rivain, and Alistair will braid his hair every morning and hover uselessly in the kitchen while Zevran ruins dinner with spices and tell him he has to pick out a birthday if he wants a threesome, and they'll get as old as they're able "--I'm naming the dog Furlock." Maybe that's not the sort of thing he should say while hooking his fingers into the front of someone's trousers. Too bad. "Or Arfdemon."