ombranera | Open RP Post

"They smell better than fish."

He pauses. Not because he's realized that they're arguing about fish and farms and it's ridiculous—it's not, it's very important—but because he's concerned about Zevran's wound, which he tips his chin toward questioningly, as a reminder.

"I'm fine." Going back to stitching like he'd never meant to stop, twisting thread through skin in neat, parallel lines. It will hold. He'll bleed when he peels out the elfroot, but it will hold and he will be good to fight another day.

"Clearly," Alistair says, and restlessly half-turns away to run a hand through his hair and try to remember what they were actually arguing about and why he was angry.

He needs a moment. It kills his momentum—and reminds him, tracing back, that half of the problem is that Zevran gives a shit about him. So he doesn't drag it back up.

Still obviously annoyed, visibly exhausted by all of it, he says, "Can I sleep here?"

"No." It's out before he can correct himself but that same fear where he'd tried to dissuade rumors of his and Alistair's involvement after Haven remain. No matter what he cares after his name-

It is dangerous, involvement with him. All the more so now that he would have to judge the wardens whenever they do catch up.

He cannot have that fall down on Alistair's shoulders. Nor does he truly wish the man in his tent when he is so quietly, sullenly angry. "I do not think it wise, no."

"All right."

He isn't surprised enough to look or sound like a kicked puppy. It was a big ask. He's no more bothered than if Zevran told him he couldn't rename all of the Inquisition's horses things like Bunny and Wilbur.

"Then I should go."

"I will see you in the morning, Alistair." There are other holes full of Darkspawn that need tending. Other missions where a warden may, perhaps, be of use.

Nevermind the knowing looks given him by Dorian and the Bull the next day. Nevermind Sera's rather fluid and obscene gestures- or the quiet aside from Dorian about, maybe, there are some things he might deserve to know?

The next march down is exhausting- catching a moment alone is almost impossible, but begging leave to search for one of those veilfire rune bullshit things that Solas soils his drawers over seems reason enough to let him stand with the flickering torch and no audience for sagging against the nearest wall.

Alistair should leave him alone; if he didn't want to be left alone, he'd have invited company. Probably Dorian. But Alistair is shockingly terrible at leaving anything alone, so Zevran is not left to sag very long before there's the creak and clank of armor in the dark, and, "When did the dragon decide it'd had enough to eat?"

There's a beat. It isn't long enough to allow for a guess, however, mostly because he's fairly sure Zevran has heard this one before. From him. And will steal his punchline.

"About mid-knight."

Armor and he straightens, squinting at the wall like that was all he'd been doing- but the voice makes up for it.

Alistair.

He squints, instead, into the darkness where Alistair hides, the veilfire torch causing his eyes to glint and glimmer. "That joke was awful ten years ago."

And yet Oghren had nearly pissed himself laughing.

"I was hoping it would age like wine. No luck?"

No luck. Another day, another cave, he might have covered Zevran's eyes for a moment. This day and cave, he leans one shoulder against the wall at the edge of the torchlight and inclines his head to peer at him.

"They wolf whistled when I left to come after you."

"None." There's a shade of a smirk in his voice all the same. A terrible joke can still be somewhat funny, depending upon the context.

It grows into something a little closer to normal until the mention of whistling. Then, he scowls.

"How many times must I explain that is not what we are? Dorian was beside himself when he saw you stalk out of my tent last night. 'I can stand aside if it's true love' he says, The Bull looks at you and looks at me and asks if we can't bring you in to join." He scrubs a hand through his hair, more vexed than usual.

Alistair, unvexed, tilts his head the rest of the way to rest the top of it against the wall. "I don't think I would survive that," he says, sounding as if he is actually thinking about it, which he is not. He wouldn't survive thinking about it either.

His fond smile fades a little, though. Not jealous, really not jealous, he refuses to be jealous. Not bothered by the gossip. Maybe a little bothered that Zevran is so bothered, but on that note:

"Last night, when I--I wanted to hug you, but I was afraid I'd hurt your ribs, so--" So he was weird. He substitutes a sheepish grimace for saying so. "And you did that thing where you don't move. I'm sorry."

"Ah, but what a wonderful way to go, mm?" Much better than fighting to the death in the deep roads. It'd be marvelous fun and Zevran will admit- there have been moments when he wondered. When he' thought about it-

But Alistair does not care to share the bed of men and it makes him safe. At least when they are not fighting.

"...You were angry." He says, wary. "And leaning."

And weird, that goes without saying. "Taliesin would...rest there, often. When he was making a point. Normally there were knives involved. Or I was naked."

Zevran rarely says anything about Taliesin that doesn't make Alistair want to bring him back to life and kill him again, so he doesn't say it out loud. He only frowns and nods, swallowing hard. Even if it hadn't been weird and sort of embarrassing in hindsight, it won't happen again.

"I'd never hurt you, you know," he says. He couldn't even hurt him when Zevran was nothing but a man who'd just tried to kill them and was too unconscious to be endearing. "You can be a difficult, infuriating bastard all you want. I don't stop caring about you when you're annoying." Mild teasing turns into full teasing as he reaches out a boot to nudge Zevran's. "That's true love."

"So asking you to wield the cleaver when I get rid of this-" A finger waggle from his glowing hand. "Is out of the question?"

He wouldn't make Alistair do it. The hand is his, it will be his choice, his blow to remove the damn thing from him once this business has been settled. After all, he still means to leave. This is not his mess to fix. He refuses to be dragged through more than what Alistair asks of him, and as this has been his only demand? This is all he sees to.

There are things he can ask. Demand. True love means-

He doesn't know what it means. And thus, says nothing. "If you say so."

He considers it. Considering it makes him wince, mouth open to try to offer to do it if necessary but not quite able to agree. He couldn't, no. He shuts his mouth and shakes his head. No cleaving. But, "I'll clean up afterwards," he offers for the sake of being supportive.

It might still make him a bit sick--not bothered by blood generally, but by Zevran's specifically--but it won't give him nightmares. He's had enough of those.

"I do say so," he says, and for a moment--safely restrained by those nightmares, the song, his potential impending death the gossip, Zevran's vexation, Dorian and Bull, the countdown until Zevran flees for Rivain and Alistair has to watch him go; comfortable in the certainty that it would be the stupidest thing he'd ever done--he lets himself really, really want to kiss him. It's a nice moment. It passes and the door shuts behind it. "Do you want to shout at each other some so they know we're not having sex? If you tell me I need to lose weight I can probably work up a real sulk."

"It's been too quiet for them to assume we've been having sex, Alistair." Zevran manages a smirk, some of the old humor settling in as he pushes away from the wall, walking past him with a pat to the shoulder.

"You would be crying for the Maker long before I was through with you. Trust me. They would hear us all the way back in camp with how a voice carries down here." Bull and Dorian know well how he works to wring out gasps and sighs from his lovers- and neither of them are terribly put out by his bedding one or the other. The first threesome had been quite entertaining, if he did say so himself.

Another reason why Alistair remained above. Sparing him that. "They know you are jealous, but explaining the why of it is difficult. Sex is simply the easiest assumption. And you do not need to lose weight. When you put it on it rounds out your ass nicely."

There's nothing new or unusual about the way that--all of that--makes Alistair's eyes go as round as their squinty shape can manage, but it's just as well he's trailing behind Zevran and the torch as they do. And as he grazes a hand over his own armored ass in self-conscious curiosity.

"I'm not jealous," he says, and he doesn't think he's lying until he's said it, and heard himself say it, and knows it sounds like a pouty ridiculous lie.

"You are." And it's fine. "I took them down and trusted them with my safety and that bothers you. And I take them with me into the field more often- but this does not change how you are my favorite."

He glances back over his shoulder. "Even when I am angry with you, yes?"

Alistair's face screws up in consternation, gearing up to hopelessly argue or to silently search his own soul or both, until Zevran looks back and says that and Alistair smiles, instead, and takes a few longer strides to catch up and drape his arm around Zevran's shoulders. This may be his new favorite dark, dank, spawn-infested cave.

***

Adamant does not go well. Demons, dead Wardens--plenty meeting that death at the end of Alistair's sword--and now the Fade, raw and shifting and sickly green. But he keeps his chin up, in his own tired and sarcastic way, through everything. The fearlings. The eerie echo of the Divine guiding them through. The flashes of memories, Zevran's memories, of Corypheus and his Warden lackeys and his strange orb.

It's only the Nightmare's taunting that gets to him. He's not afraid; he growls back at it. But at the same time he flushes pink from the shame of having his fears and failures laid out for everyone there to hear. And as they press forward through a quiet canyon of rock, he moves closer to Zevran. Uselessly. He can't stop it from talking. But he's more afraid of what it might announce to the party about Zevran than anything else it might be able to dig out of him.

Who will you hide behind, it wanted to know. He's still pink. He's also still himself, though, so he puts his hand on Zevran's shoulder while they walk and gives him a measuring look, head to toe and back up, before deciding, "Mm. Too short. I need a Qunari."

He may or may not have been thinking about not cutting off his hand. But this? Opening a rift, falling into the fade? This clinches the idea. He plays his part as best he can, cracks wise, nudges Hawke and Alistair forward along with Bull, Dorian, and Sera. None of them seem to be handling this well. He cannot afford to fall into a scrabbling pit of self loathing.

His nightmare? He is living it, day to day, anything this demon might rumble out in it's oily voice goes ignored or mocked. It is nothing. He has heard worse- he has said worse of himself regularly.

Alistair is called up and Zevran expects the sass. He does not expect Sera to grumble 'that dinnit stop you, did it?'. Before anything more can be said Zevran nudges Alistair with his elbow, tipping his head back to Bull. "I am certain he would not be overly bothered. He might even flex if you ask."

Humor. Humor he holds like a shield against their fears, against his own.

"Can I hide behind you, Iron Bull?" Alistair asks.

"Can you keep the fucking demons off my back?"

The Fade makes him edgy. Alistair can't blame him. "Probably not," he says, earning a grunting, scoffing sound, and turns his attention back to Zevran while in the background Hawke is saying, incorrigibly, Perhaps I might be of assistance with your back.

"She's unstoppable," he whispers with admiration. Even if she is mad at him right now. He'll deal with that later--after the massive, multilegged demon taking shape through the haze ahead.

"We'll arrange the wedding once we're out of here. May you have many fat children and dogs." There's some sort of commentary from behind that he doesn't pay much attention to-

Due to the massive demon.

Massive demon.

For the first time since they'd fallen in, Zevran's shoulders slump. The mask shifts, slides. Cracks. "You have got to be shitting me."

Alistair's grip on Zevran's shoulder tightens, then releases. He needs his shield. There's still a distance to cross, but it makes him feel better. "It's..."

It's standing in front of the rift. It has pincers and at least eight legs.

"It's all right."

It's not all right.

"We just need to get it away from the rift long enough for everyone--" That's optimistic. "--to slip through."

"Is that all," Hawke pipes up, but she has her staff ready.

"What's the call, boss?" Axe at the ready, Sera tense and about to skitter out of her skin, Dorian just as bewildered by the sheer size of it-

Someone could stay behind. Pull it away. Give everyone else a chance to get through.

Or.

This thing. This thing has been taunting them for hours, it seems. Has twisted through and played with all of their minds, has given Zevran more than his fair share of headaches. It is massive. It is dangerous. But it looks as though it has a heart that beats and if it has a heart, it can bleed.

And if it bleeds, Zevran can kill it.

"I am taking an eye." The tone is droll, vaguely cheerful- and utterly foreign to Bull and Sera and Dorian. None of his Inner Circle have heard the Assassin step out in truth- but Alistair has. It is the voice he'd use before leaping onto an Ogre's back, before gutting a Drake that was twice his size easily. It matches the cocky twist and flick of his daggers as he pulls them from their sheathes- and the saunter in his stride as he starts walking forward.

He could protest. He opens his mouth to do it. To remind Zevran that he isn't as young as he used to be, that nothing was ever this large, that Alistair will kill him if he dies. But he sees Sera from the corner of his eye before he can form any of the words, glances at her more fully and finds a mix of impressed skepticism and growing confidence on her face, and he can't do it. He isn't going to undermine him in front of them.

But he is still going to kill him if he dies.

"Right," he says, and swings his shield sideways toward Hawke to make her block it with her staff, like a high-five. She's used to it. "I'll take a leg."

"I'll take four," Bull says, going after Zevran.

Alistair waits until they're all following him to mutter to Hawke, "Make sure he gets out."

"You make sure he gets out," she counters, and that's as close as they come to arguing about who has to die, because she twirls the staff and throws a fireball without allowing him any additional time to bicker.

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