Open RP Post

[ombranera]

SFW, NSFW, AU, OU, etc. Drop a prompt like it's hot and let's go!

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[ombranera]

He could plead. He could argue. He could beg-

It wouldn't matter. There is always something else, someone else, and Zevran has long since resigned himself to this fate. For Alistair it has ever been and shall ever be The Wardens. He honestly should not be so surprised but it cuts a little all the same. Not so much that he tries to twist away but. It cuts.

"What makes you think they can?"

[byblow]

"Corypheus. He's one of ours—we caught him ages ago, but we can't kill him. He can control any Warden who gets too close. It's too much of a coincidence, for someone like that to show up at the same time we all begin hearing..."

It's sleepiness that makes him trail off as much as sadness. But he rallies and goes on.

"I've been thinking about it. It's his name that made them chase me out. I said, no blood magic, my friends, we're not thinking this through, and they said, oh, Alistair, you're so naive, sit down. But after I mentioned him they lost their minds." He curls a little. Not quite enough to make the offer to watch Zevran's flank very literal. "I don't want you to die, either. I'll cover for you while I can. If you're going."

[ombranera]

"I need to leave the hand behind." It's the most obvious mark of who and what he is. He can live without a hand.

Probably.

He'll make do.

"Pretend you didn't hear me plan or see me leave. Leliana will continue to keep you safe and see to it the Wardens are considered as they move forward." He's leaving. He's leaving and nothing is going to keep him here. Not Leliana, not Alistair, not anything.

[byblow]

Alistair is silent for a few beats, trying to gear up to not sound disappointed, which for him means trying not to be disappointed. He doesn't fully succeed before saying, "All right," acceptance laced with the barest hint of I expected better and—something. Fear, maybe. But not enough to warrant making Zevran stay if it will kill him, not enough to try to make him feel guilty for leaving. There's still Leliana. He wouldn't be entirely alone.

An exhale. He moves his hand from Zevran's middle to his shoulder, then his cheek. Blindly. He nearly misses, covers it with an equally blind attempt to affectionately smooth the hair tucked behind his ear.

"If I don't see you again," he starts, and doesn't know how to finish.

[ombranera]

It's still there, in his voice. Zevran can feel the disappointment, feel the sting it causes, the hurts it draws into being- and resents the whole of it for happening. He shouldn't care. This is not his fight any longer. He has done his part! The Inquisition needs an army, needs politicians, needs some manner of leader in the faith and he is none of these things.

Anyone can do them. He does not need to.

"I have done enough." He doesn't know if he is arguing with Alistair or himself, here. "Twenty five years I lived as someone else ordered. After the blight I swore never again. If I stay? That is all that waits for me here."

Does it mean never seeing Alistair again? Leliana, the rest? His fists clench uselessly in the blanket under him, jaw locked tight. "Life was so much simpler before you made me feel as though I had a conscious."

[byblow]

A pause, then, "Sorry." Insincere. A little proud—of Zevran, not himself, as counterweight to the disappointment. He drops his hand again. "They need you. And I know it isn't fair, but I need you, too. Not just your hand. They listen to you."

[ombranera]

"They listen to Cassandra." And Cassandra does not listen to him so much as humor him. "..."

He slumps backward, twisting and tucking himself against Alistair's ribs, face buried in his shoulder. He wishes to leave. Everything in him screams it-

But those cold stones and that familiar shield. That disbelieving, crackling smile and wry twist of humor even as his voice was warped by red lyrium. That is a world without him.

That is a future where he walks away. "...until we sort this business with the wardens. Then- then you help me remove this hand and we both go to Rivain."

[byblow]

While he shifts and turns to accommodate Zevran's press against his chest, Alistair thinks about it. Really thinks about it. Leaving the Wardens—saving them, first, but then leaving them—and following Zevran north. It's a nice daydream, even laced through with the old gods' song. In Rivain there are no rifts, but he could still kill darkspawn, now and then, to keep from feeling too terrible. In Rivain he would tan again. It would be too warm for anyone to wear shirts. He thinks about Zevran sitting in front of him again, in the sand instead of in the snow, the graceful lines of the tattoos and his spine, and sweeping his hair to one side to expose the back of his neck—

"All right," Alistar says, cutting that short. "Deal. But I get to choose your hook."

[ombranera]

"Deal." He mumbles, brandy forgotten, hiding forgotten. Everything falls away under the steady thud of Alistair's heartbeat under his ear. He's here. He's alive. He's fine. That strange, brutal fate will not befall him. Something stranger and worse will, one he's walked over the bones of in the past. "It has to be a fancy hook."

If he is to lose a hand? He needs a stylish replacement.

[byblow]

"Of course. Jewel encrusted."

Maybe. One jewel encrusted, one more practical for daily use--

Alistair wraps both arms around him, one low on his waist and the other bent up to cup his neck with a thumb against his jaw. It's a hug, sort of. A hug that goes on for a while. He can't promise this won't kill him ever, at all, but it won't while Alistair is breathing.

"Thank you," he says, at first quiet from the sincerity of it, how glad he is not to be facing down the end of everything without Zevran and how happy he'd be to follow him into it if necessary, then louder as he jokes: "If they're going to make someone their savior I'm glad it's someone with some sense."

[ombranera]

"Don't let them make me sound noble." He clings, hands fisting in Alistair's shirt. "Don't let them make me out to be something I am not."

Alistair would live to see the end of this, Zevran is certain. But with the thing on his hand, the Crows, Corypheus? He would not. And he would rather someone know him honestly and have some record of it than let them paint him into some sort of saint. He is no such thing. He would never be such a thing.

[byblow]

He could argue--don't let them yourself, you'll outlive me--but Zevran's conceded enough as it is. It's his turn. He nods. "I'll make sure everyone knows you talk to dogs and cheat at cards," he promises, "and you tried to flirt with Cousland while you were bleeding, and you wanted to run but didn't because you're a sucker for pouting warriors."

[ombranera]

"You were going to cry." He could tell. Somewhere, deep down, there's a twinge whenever he knows he's hit a point that makes Alistair truly sad. He does not like that twinge, he's been stabbed before but hates that twinge more than being stabbed. "I was flirting with you both, you know."

Ten years ago. He was flirting with anyone that would keep him alive, or at least kill hi quickly. "Cousland spoke up first."

[byblow]

"Those strong leadership qualities at work," Alistair says. Maybe with a little resentment. But not much. Alistair certainly didn't want to take charge, didn't want the throne, didn't want to marry Loghain's terrifying daughter, and Cousland is Maker knows where now while Alistair is here with Zevran. And Leliana. So it's worked out in Alistair's favor, so far. "He had to speak up first so people wouldn't be confused by my broader shoulders and stronger jaw and think I was in charge."

[ombranera]

"You've always been prettier than him." It's an easy joke, a familiar one. Something to make his hands unclench and the tension in his shoulders ease. Some things are the same. Not many but- some.

[byblow]

"And you've always been prettier than all of us," Alistair says, not any less sincere for the rote and dutiful tone he takes on. He skritches his fingers against Zevran's neck as a reward for his loosened grip and slackened shoulders. "That's the story they'll tell. The Herald of Andraste stepped out of the Fade and tossed his beautiful hair over his shoulder, the odd glow of his elegant, tapered hand casting light onto his perfectly formed face..."

[ombranera]

"This is true." He says, relaxing further still- be it from the praise ore the scratching, who can say? But this is- easy and warm and far from all his fears. For a few hours, perhaps, he might ignore them. "Mmm. Go on. Tell me how handsome I am."

[byblow]

Alistair laughs silently, chest shaking under Zevran's head, and tugs on his earlobe. "The most handsome. Women faint in your wake. Men lie awake questioning everything they thought they knew. The Maker is testing us, with you, to see if we're truly ready for the return of the beauty he'll bring."

[ombranera]

"This? This I like much more than saying I am a herald for my faith." Being well known and well liked because he is PRETTY? That is familiar. That he can use. That he can shoulder without buckling. He twitches a bit at the ear tugging, tipping his chin up to peer muzzily at the underside of Alistair's jaw. "All the more reason, I suppose, to continue to be seen with Dorian in public. We are both of us too pretty for words."

[byblow]

Alistair makes a disgruntled noise before he's decided why he's making it and, upon hearing it, has to decide the cause. Dorian's a decent man, as far as mustache-twirling villains from the Imperium go. Alistair likes him. He seems like he'd be able to make Zevran laugh. And it isn't as if they're getting married—

jealousy. The disgruntled noise was jealousy. Alistair closes his eyes in exasperation at himself—maybe Dorian makes him laugh, maybe there's a sex thing, but he doesn't get this, the uncertainty and vulnerability and clinging, probably, maybe, and anyway Alistair wants Zevran to be so happy with someone suitably pretty and long-lived—and doesn't announce it.

"I thought my words were all right," he says instead. Offended, see, that Zevran must think that he didn't do him justice. "I know I was a little vague, but I didn't have time to prepare in advance or anything."

[ombranera]

"Mmm. Have something ready for the next time I wish to flee. It will happen again." Because he has too much sense to remain- except for the pleading of a Grey Warden. Maker preserve him if Cassandra and the others find out what keeps him here. They'll use Alistair against him in some way- much as he loves Leliana? She'd do it in a heartbeat.

They need him, or at least they think they need him. And her cause is righteous. It doesn't matter that she's bending him to benevolence, he is still a blade in her palm and it rankles.

"You know I'll always like you best, yes?" He tips his chin up to peer at Alistair, smiling. "You are my favorite human."

[byblow]

Exactly the right thing to say, exactly the right expression to say it with. Any lingering moodiness clears from Alistair's face like it was only smoke instead of a storm cloud. Which is not the case. Unchecked he could totally have thundered about for weeks.

"Are you sure?" he says anyway, milking it, drumming his fingers lightly on Zevran's back. "Because I can grow a mustache if I need to. It comes in thick enough now."

[ombranera]

"No, no beards." He reaches up to pat Alistair's cheek, smooth and only somewhat stubbly. "This little bit of fuzz under your lip is more than enough."

And change- change is unnecessary, there is more than enough change in his life. Let this one thing remain constant, let this one thing remain the same.

[byblow]

"More than enough? More? I'm wounded, Zev."

He's not wounded. He's pleased and petted, which isn't Zevran's job right now—a thing Alistair realizes, after a moment, and he frees his hand from Zevran's neck and hair to recover Zevran's hand from his face and transfer it to his chest for safekeeping, weighted down by Alistair's palm.

"You know you're my favorite, too," he says. "Let me sleep for a little bit and I'll come with you to see what the Seeker wants. If you want."

[ombranera]

Anyone else and this would be too intimate. Would be too much like being lovers, too much like sentiment that Zevran flees from for so many reasons-

But it is Alistair, and they are friends, and it means nothing. This is simply how they are. Why, exactly, he doesn't know. But he doesn't question. Merely steals these moments and saves them for when the nights are dark and the world is cruel. "I do."

A beat.

"Want that. She might wish to kill me and I would like to have a second on hand just in case."