"As a friend." A beat. "Terribly strange, that. There may be offers to join them in their bed in the future that I may or may not accept but- we are friends. None of us are jealous. I, perhaps, might be if I gave weight to sentiment in the same way they seem to."
Love is- it is not for him, not that kind. He had it once and killed it and that went to show how well he knew to care for it. But this? This bloodless, sexless thing with Alistair? This he knew how to mind.
How to care for, how to react to. Loving without wanting. Liking, needing, yes, but no desire. Or- no desire that was so black and so jealous as to unravel the rest. "So they have one another and I? I have you."
Some of the sisters at the Abbey used to hold their hands over candles, close enough to hurt but not to burn, to punish themselves for sin or to prove they could withstand the pain. Alistair thought it was stupid. But here he is with his hands in Zevran's golden hair, listening to him say he gives no weight to sentiment (which is such a thin and fragile-sounding word for a thing Alistair's so hungry for) but he has this, in its place. A line. Alistair renews his resignation not to cross it. There are things he wants more than Zevran's mouth on his skin—his trust, his approval, to be a safe place where he can rest.
It hurts to lean on a stone for too long, Cole told him once while he was trying to get a blighted snack on the middle of the blighted night, so it's good you're soft. After Alistair had recovered from jumping out of his skin, he said, Stop calling me fat.
The braid is all wrong. One strand is too small. It curves to one side. Alistair rakes and ruffles his hands through it to start again. "If you do ever want more, you know there will be line out the door," he says, because he is a stone, and he can hold his palm that close to the flame, and if he beats the wanting into a small enough ball in his stomach then maybe it will go away. "Down the whole mountain."
There's a moment, here, that Zevran can feel a tug somewhere under his ribs. Little hints he's been ignoring, pointed glances and questions he has put from his mind because-
Alistair is not like that. They are not like that. They have not been, they do not need to be, all is well as things are. Neither of them have much time as Alistair is a Warden and Zevran has this thing in his hand that he remains certain shall be the death of him. The hero always dies. And after Adamant, after Halamshiral, what else could he see himself as but a hero? What other ending could there be to his tale? And oh, how tragic to have a lover he might lose or that might lose him in turn.
Something for ballads and songs.
Again there is this moment that he ignored on the dancefloor, that he ignored in Adamant- that never had a chance to come up in the Fade. All the Nightmare would have had to do was lay the broken body of Alistair at his feet.
He still has not spoken of that future where he put a knife to the heart of Alistair as he smiled and joked, blood hard from lyrium. He knew then what he could not say, knew then what he would not be. And yet- standing on a cliff again. On a roof. Waiting for the wind to nudge him one way or another. Cowardice, perhaps, with how Cole looked to him about sparklers- how they had such light and such heat but died too quick. But weren't they pretty while they were lit? Zevran thought he meant Dorian.
But no. Now with a timid hesitance he can't quite swallow he slips a hand back to touch Alistair's wrist. Voice oddly quiet, he murmurs. "And where-"
He swallows. "Where would that put you, Alistair?"
There's a correct and selfless answer here. And it's the answer Alistair gives, even while his heart is in his throat and he's letting go of the strands of Zevran's hair to twist and catch his hand: "Right behind you. Always. I'm sure it will get a little awkward for your lovers, sometimes, having me standing here over your shoulder, but we have a deal."
That's it. That's his line. Reliable and teasing. He squeezes Zevran's hand and lets it go, like he's supposed to, and his fingers return to combing through and parting his hair, like they should. But it doesn't sit right. Alistair's line was perfect but Zevran's wasn't—his voice too small, either trying to brave or trying to be careful of Alistair's feelings, and Alistair doesn't want him to have to do either. He crosses strands of hair once, twice, three times, trying to think, until his fingers brush the nape of Zevran's neck and he drops his hands at once and steps backward to sit on the edge of the desk again, with his palms cupped over his own knees, where they aren't violating any trust.
"No, Zev," he says, riding a burst of impulse, "I'd—I'd be fighting my way to the front of that line. And I'd fight dirty. I'd shove people off the bridge and everything." That's a lie. He'd wait his turn. Stand aside if he was bested. Cry for a few days and then stay, like he promised, except if it hurt him then Zevran wouldn't ask him to—
This is all so stupid. And now he can't take it back.
"I'm all right," Alistair says, "if you're happy. I'm happy. And we have... bigger things..." Now he's talking to himself. And he's not crying, but he rubs one eye with his knuckles, mostly as a precautionary measure. "You have bigger things. I'm sorry."
"Ah." A beat, and he should laugh. Should be pleased with his certainty, with how he knew this to be true, that Cole and Dorian and The Bull had all been mistaken. Alistair is his in this way and only this way and he ought to remain content. He scrapes for that usual composure, that contentment. Aches for his usual nonchalant manner because this? Is expected.
How else should they be aside from this? Friends. Amicos.
They need be nothing more.
Seeing things, that is all. He had been seeing things. The moment has dragged on for to long for that 'ah' to be anything but disappointed and there is a glancing brush of skin against his nape that only causes his eartips to dip lower a hair. His one tell.
"That is-" Fine! To be expected- and then Alistair retreats. Alistair speaks and he has ever been braver than Zevran, ever more willing to put his heart on the line when something mattered. Now it is Zevran with his heart in his throat, Zevran frozen in the moment once more. No longer on the roof but in free fall and terrified of the landing. At least, and this is truly selfish, he is not falling alone. He turns slowly, hands slipping out to rest against Alistair's. To comb through his hair as is their custom and for a brief, blinding moment he wonders how he ever didn't know this thing to be true. How willfully ignorant had he been, for how long? "I am...content. But I could be happy."
Still small, still wary, but so, so achingly hopeful. "With you. I could be happy with you."
"Oh," Alistair says. There's no tickling or falling to blame for the stutter in his inhale this time. There's also no point in blaming it on anything, because in the next breath he's pulling one of Zevran's hands out of his hair and down, back, past Alistair's hips on the desk to drag him a couple of inches closer so Alistair doesn't have to stand up to put both hands on his face and kiss him.
All of that without thinking. He doesn't think at all until his mouth is pressed to Zevran's, and then it's just, I'm going to lose him.
He won't admit it out loud. Out loud they're going to win, Zevran's going to chop his hand off, they're going to retire to Rivain. But silently: he's going to lose him. Usually it's the opposite. A countdown until Alistair will have to leave. Asking himself how willing he is to hurt instead of how willing to be hurt.
It turns out the answer is very. For this. For Zevran. Alistair slides his hand to the side of his neck, thumb on his jaw, and murmurs, "Please tell me this is what you meant."
Joking. He's pretty sure it is. Seventy-five percent sure.
Zevran is not often surprised when it comes to such signs of affection or desire- but everything in this with Alistair is unprecedented. To say he did not see the kiss coming would be quite honest. To say it was inevitable-
Probably true.
That his first thought is not how good or how warm or how sweet this is but Bull is going to be insufferable probably says more as to where his head is at than anything else. That the second is finally goes to show how much he has wanted this without allowing himself to want it at all. It is easy to kiss Alistair- easier to cling, to curl his arms tight around those broad shoulders and drag himself in as though that will make the world less frightening.
For a few moments? It does.
"I- ah." No easy line, no joke, no quick smirk. Just the idle curl of his fingers in Alistair's shirt and a quick nod. "Yes. This is- yes."
"Yes," Alistair echoes, smiling mostly with his eyes, which are very close to Zevran's eyes. The world hasn't changed, really. The ground doesn't shift. But he stops holding all of the want in the pit of his stomach and lets it unfurl all the way out to his fingers and toes, where it's only warm instead of aching.
If he has doubts he'll have them later. Watching Zevran sleep, maybe, or watching him carry on with his friends or disappear into the war room to make important decisions with important people. Alistair will have plenty of time to feel reckless and selfish and inadequate then. Right now is for kissing Zevran's mouth again, one hand falling to hold him at mid-back.
"Your friends are going to be smug," he says, not because he's a mind reader, but because it's a very obvious and pressing concern. "If you want to tell them it didn't work out I can try not to look at you like—"
Like he's been looking at him for months every time his back was turned. While trying not to.
"I could hide somewhere," he amends, rather than pretending he'll have any control over his face.
"Yes." Again, as though the whole of his body hasn't curved to fit against Alistair's like it belongs there just as it always has, as though he has not been saying yes with every gesture and word and look since midway through the Blight. It is so strange now to think he can, that this is and not some manner of dream he takes a moment to rest his forehead against Alistair's to breathe.
Leliana will be smug. Morrigan insufferable. Varric will have a field day but-
This one thing. This one, impossible, inevitable thing he wants and has and will keep without weighing the opinions of others. The hand not in Alistair's slides up to rest against his shoulder, his jaw, fingers smoothing over the curved shell of his ear. Human. He knows so, so much better than to be involved with a human like this. They are large and brutish and selfish and jealous and Alistair is...some of these things but not all. He has never hurt him on purpose.
He never would.
"So?" He leans away smiling- not the grin of the conquering Inquisitor, not the sly smirk of Zevran the lothario or the sharp flinty bite of the Ombra Nera. Something smaller and far more sincere. Far more fragile. "I don't care. They can be as smug as they like- I have you."
A beat.
"I have you. You're not going back to the stables to sleep tonight, Alistair."
"No?" His smile would be confident if he weren't blushing. He is, so it's mildly bashful at best—but his hand sinks to the small of Zevran's back. "You could come down with me. Get the full Fereldan experience—except I'd kick the dogs out of the stall, just for you."
"I have, here, an obscenely comfortable bed that I tire of sleeping in alone." Dorian and Bull had never been up here. Too much risk of seeing them walk out, too much tension in their shoulders. Zevran, himself, never truly liked spending the night with either of them if he could help it.
They did not need the additional scrutiny that came with his favor.
But that Alistair has his favor is well known and documented. What further harm could there be in this? "Perhaps next time."
"Next time," Alistair repeats. As if he'd actually make Zevran sleep in the hay. He might be able to find a way to make rolling in the hay something slightly better than just itchy and unappealing, but sleeping, when there is that obscenely comfortable bed to consider—
Anyway, mostly he just likes the words. And he likes Zevran's hand in his, but he lets go of it, finally, to get both arms around him.
"How long," he says, haltingly—"I mean, when—you don't have to tell me."
Alistair's face does a thing where he's trying to glare but also struggling not to smile, so everything goes a bit crinkly and grimace-y, and he bends one finger to poke Zevran in the back, not what I meant and now he's thinking of him naked and still experiencing that brief flare of guilt before he realizes he probably has permission. Most likely. Under the circumstances.
"—yyyes," he says, with some reluctance. The blushing shifts toward a deeper red. He's not usually one for using people. The only saving grace is that he didn't go through with it. "It wasn't his fault. I thought I was going to do something stupid if I didn't... And I didn't. So here I am, doing something stupid."
Good-stupid, though, probably. His smile comes back.
"I think this is one of the smarter things you have done, Alistair. Giving into the inevitable allure that is my charm." That hadn't felt inevitable until, well. This precise moment. He noses along Alistair's jaw because he can, drags his lips to press against Alistair's- again, because he can and this idle, meandering affection that goes nowhere and needs to go nowhere...
It's wonderful. To have this with someone he trusts.
"If you meant to ask how long I have wanted you? From the first moment I looked up with blood in my teeth. I have a soft spot for gingers with distinguished noses."
He nudges his nose against Zevran's, which is charming without being half so ridiculous. That wasn't really what he was asking, but it's all right. His hand on Alistair's wrist and that quiet, hesitant voice were enough vulnerability for one day.
"I think you'd have broken me, back then. Not in any good way. But you're right. I was always going to end up here." Like being caught in a force mage's pull, except instead of magic it's humor and heart and Zevran's head against his chest at night. "I have a soft spot for heroes."
Zevran nudges back, smiling in a way that is more felt than seen. Every word brushing against his lips and he is content with this distance. They can close it whenever they like. Why rush?
The hand, the Calling, that is why. But this is as new as it is familiar and he does not wish to spoil it by being overeager.
"How long have you...?" He closes the distance, lip to lip, chaste and light before pulling away enough to look Alistair in the eye. "Since Haven?"
Alistair hesitates—because if he's trying to mark a start, there's the moment in the caves in the Western Approach when he admitted what he wanted, or the moment in the stables when imagining life in Rivain meant imagining the back of Zevran's neck—but then he nods. Barely. He doesn't want to put out Zevran's eye with his Distinguished Nose.
"I was going to kiss you," he says, "as a joke, because you were worrying about my reputation. But it wouldn't really have been a joke, so I didn't. I probably should have. But I liked that you were—with me, you didn't have to—" Stuttering. That's what he's been reduced to. He shifts back a couple of inches to get a sheepish handle on his mouth. "I know everyone wants you."
"You liked that I could be Zev." Not the Inquisitor, not the charmer. Just himself in all his flaws and strangeness. He wanted to be somewhere safe for him. Somewhere he did not have to worry half so much about how he was perceived. Gingerly, as though he could be anything but gentle with Alistair in this, Zevran slips a hand up to stroke his cheek. Trace the freckles there.
"It is one thing to want someone more than you love them. You...love me more than you want me, yes? You would have gone on quietly without saying a word until-" Until the calling.
Until this hand killed him.
Until he moved on with someone else, always keeping Alistair close but never giving everything that he could.
Alistair has to take another breath, because he knows where Zevran's hands have been—around necks, hilts, bottles of poison. On more corpses and lovers than Alistair could begin to calculate. And the hand Alistair moved to hold Zevran's wrist is enormous and clumsy and has more calluses than clear skin. But it's gentle, too. They can still be gentle.
After that moment, he answers a little unsteadily: "That was the plan." It doesn't sound like such a good plan when it's said out loud. When he knows for sure it would have meant missing out on the idle kisses Zevran keeps bestowing. He steadies and smiles. "But I wasn't very good at it. Everyone knows. I think Cullen even knows, and he doesn't know anything."
He's only teasing, meaner than he would be if Cullen could actually hear him. He slides forward off the desk and nudges Zevran with his knee to encourage him to move—aiming for the fancy sofa, not the fancy bed.
"I do love you more than I want you," he confirms, in case there was any doubt, "and if you change you mind I won't stop."
"I didn't." He tried not to notice. Tried to forgive those small indiscretions, tried to pretend all was well. That The Bull and Dorian were mistaken. That he could have this thing for a little while longer before he ruined it.
And he would. He has no doubt of that.
But until then he will try to enjoy it. "Alistair, I-"
There aren't words, not really. What does one say to that? To being loved more than wanted- even with Rinna there had been wanting. Even with that small moment he shared perhaps with the Bull and Dorian there had been more desire than affection. He didn't blame them, they did not know him. Alistair did. He follows without question, more dancing than walking with how tightly to Alistair's side he was pressed. "I will not change my mind."
"Mm, I snuck up on you," Alistair says, "because I'm sneaky."
He's not sneaky at all. But this snuck up on him--on both of them, apparently--from sharing body heat because Zevran was shivering to curling up when it was plenty warm, Zevran on his lap for a lark to Zevran on his lap because he fit there. Slow shifts. Inevitability. But all anyone here saw was the end result, which is--this. Minus the kissing. Maybe with slightly less clinging. Slightly.
"Good." Near the sofa he pauses, rocking from one foot to the other--dancing--while he considers his options. "I go all snotty when I cry." Options considered, he ducks down to scoop Zevran's legs out from under him. It's not really that easy, but he isn't really that invested in keeping his balance, happy enough to stumble back onto the sofa without ever recovering it and floomph down with Zev in his arms.
His hair is still down. There's a lot of it.
"If I stop talking and kiss you for a bit, will you think I only want you for your body?" he asks, tucking a strand back. "Because if so--" He leans his head back, all the way over the back of the sofa, to look upside-down out the nearest window. "--decent weather lately, for the middle of the mountains."
"I know, I have seen you cry." He may have, at one point or another, made Alistair cry. He shouldn't have- but sometimes the man earns it or Zevran is mean when he ought to be calm. It will never be perfect, mindless bliss with them. And for that he is quite grateful. They are of two minds about too many things for this to be perfect but it does not need to be perfect.
It simply needs to be.
"What are you-" Legs up and he tucks himself against Alistair's chest with a soft laugh, moving to mantle himself over Alistair once they land. "Mmm...Perhaps-"
And then, oh, the line of his throat is there and he has leave to touch it. Without a second's hesitation Zevran leans forward to kiss the soft skin under his ear, to drag his lips down to the fluttering skin where his pulse is closes to the surface- the angular jut of his adam's apple- all these little places he's touched or licked or bitten on other lovers that now hold that much more wonder simply because they are his.
"You have," Alistair agrees, "snotty and splotchy and you're still willing to kiss me. That's how I know you mean it."
How he knows he means it is really that he's done it at all, that he'd risk it, that he reached back and destabilized ten years of friendship when Alistair is less fair than Michel de Chevin and less elegant than Dorian and much less familiar with the many uses of rope than the Iron Bull. And probably smells a little like dogs. Zevran's lips are on his neck anyway.
"It hasn't, uh." Maker. Alistair doesn't lift his head. He does abandon the search for clouds and shut his eyes. "It hasn't snowed in a while." Because he's not here for his body, see, he can keep talking—he tangles a hand in Zevran's hair, but he can keep talking. "Do you think it's done for the season?"
Less practiced, less familiar, less fair, less broad, less pretty- but honest. Sincere. There is ever an earnest core to all Alistair does even in his teasing. A familiarity born of having seen Zevran at his lowest, at his worst.
No one else would have stood by with a healer while he attempted to lop off his hand.
No one else would entertain the fantasy of running away with him to Rivain to live on the beach with a dog. "Quite possibly."
Lips still pressed to skin and following the spatter of freckles he knows to be there. No need to memorize the lines and shape of him- he knows every scar, every inch, and it makes this more rather than less. "Of course as soon as I am certain we will no longer need the hearth lit is when it shall snow again."
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no subject
Date: 2016-07-16 01:37 pm (UTC)Love is- it is not for him, not that kind. He had it once and killed it and that went to show how well he knew to care for it. But this? This bloodless, sexless thing with Alistair? This he knew how to mind.
How to care for, how to react to. Loving without wanting. Liking, needing, yes, but no desire. Or- no desire that was so black and so jealous as to unravel the rest. "So they have one another and I? I have you."
no subject
Date: 2016-07-16 04:24 pm (UTC)It hurts to lean on a stone for too long, Cole told him once while he was trying to get a blighted snack on the middle of the blighted night, so it's good you're soft. After Alistair had recovered from jumping out of his skin, he said, Stop calling me fat.
The braid is all wrong. One strand is too small. It curves to one side. Alistair rakes and ruffles his hands through it to start again. "If you do ever want more, you know there will be line out the door," he says, because he is a stone, and he can hold his palm that close to the flame, and if he beats the wanting into a small enough ball in his stomach then maybe it will go away. "Down the whole mountain."
no subject
Date: 2016-07-16 08:23 pm (UTC)Alistair is not like that. They are not like that. They have not been, they do not need to be, all is well as things are. Neither of them have much time as Alistair is a Warden and Zevran has this thing in his hand that he remains certain shall be the death of him. The hero always dies. And after Adamant, after Halamshiral, what else could he see himself as but a hero? What other ending could there be to his tale? And oh, how tragic to have a lover he might lose or that might lose him in turn.
Something for ballads and songs.
Again there is this moment that he ignored on the dancefloor, that he ignored in Adamant- that never had a chance to come up in the Fade. All the Nightmare would have had to do was lay the broken body of Alistair at his feet.
He still has not spoken of that future where he put a knife to the heart of Alistair as he smiled and joked, blood hard from lyrium. He knew then what he could not say, knew then what he would not be. And yet- standing on a cliff again. On a roof. Waiting for the wind to nudge him one way or another. Cowardice, perhaps, with how Cole looked to him about sparklers- how they had such light and such heat but died too quick. But weren't they pretty while they were lit? Zevran thought he meant Dorian.
But no. Now with a timid hesitance he can't quite swallow he slips a hand back to touch Alistair's wrist. Voice oddly quiet, he murmurs. "And where-"
He swallows. "Where would that put you, Alistair?"
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Date: 2016-07-17 12:43 am (UTC)That's it. That's his line. Reliable and teasing. He squeezes Zevran's hand and lets it go, like he's supposed to, and his fingers return to combing through and parting his hair, like they should. But it doesn't sit right. Alistair's line was perfect but Zevran's wasn't—his voice too small, either trying to brave or trying to be careful of Alistair's feelings, and Alistair doesn't want him to have to do either. He crosses strands of hair once, twice, three times, trying to think, until his fingers brush the nape of Zevran's neck and he drops his hands at once and steps backward to sit on the edge of the desk again, with his palms cupped over his own knees, where they aren't violating any trust.
"No, Zev," he says, riding a burst of impulse, "I'd—I'd be fighting my way to the front of that line. And I'd fight dirty. I'd shove people off the bridge and everything." That's a lie. He'd wait his turn. Stand aside if he was bested. Cry for a few days and then stay, like he promised, except if it hurt him then Zevran wouldn't ask him to—
This is all so stupid. And now he can't take it back.
"I'm all right," Alistair says, "if you're happy. I'm happy. And we have... bigger things..." Now he's talking to himself. And he's not crying, but he rubs one eye with his knuckles, mostly as a precautionary measure. "You have bigger things. I'm sorry."
no subject
Date: 2016-07-17 01:14 am (UTC)How else should they be aside from this? Friends. Amicos.
They need be nothing more.
Seeing things, that is all. He had been seeing things. The moment has dragged on for to long for that 'ah' to be anything but disappointed and there is a glancing brush of skin against his nape that only causes his eartips to dip lower a hair. His one tell.
"That is-" Fine! To be expected- and then Alistair retreats. Alistair speaks and he has ever been braver than Zevran, ever more willing to put his heart on the line when something mattered. Now it is Zevran with his heart in his throat, Zevran frozen in the moment once more. No longer on the roof but in free fall and terrified of the landing. At least, and this is truly selfish, he is not falling alone. He turns slowly, hands slipping out to rest against Alistair's. To comb through his hair as is their custom and for a brief, blinding moment he wonders how he ever didn't know this thing to be true. How willfully ignorant had he been, for how long? "I am...content. But I could be happy."
Still small, still wary, but so, so achingly hopeful. "With you. I could be happy with you."
no subject
Date: 2016-07-17 04:40 am (UTC)All of that without thinking. He doesn't think at all until his mouth is pressed to Zevran's, and then it's just, I'm going to lose him.
He won't admit it out loud. Out loud they're going to win, Zevran's going to chop his hand off, they're going to retire to Rivain. But silently: he's going to lose him. Usually it's the opposite. A countdown until Alistair will have to leave. Asking himself how willing he is to hurt instead of how willing to be hurt.
It turns out the answer is very. For this. For Zevran. Alistair slides his hand to the side of his neck, thumb on his jaw, and murmurs, "Please tell me this is what you meant."
Joking. He's pretty sure it is. Seventy-five percent sure.
no subject
Date: 2016-07-17 05:01 am (UTC)Probably true.
That his first thought is not how good or how warm or how sweet this is but Bull is going to be insufferable probably says more as to where his head is at than anything else. That the second is finally goes to show how much he has wanted this without allowing himself to want it at all. It is easy to kiss Alistair- easier to cling, to curl his arms tight around those broad shoulders and drag himself in as though that will make the world less frightening.
For a few moments? It does.
"I- ah." No easy line, no joke, no quick smirk. Just the idle curl of his fingers in Alistair's shirt and a quick nod. "Yes. This is- yes."
no subject
Date: 2016-07-17 05:01 pm (UTC)If he has doubts he'll have them later. Watching Zevran sleep, maybe, or watching him carry on with his friends or disappear into the war room to make important decisions with important people. Alistair will have plenty of time to feel reckless and selfish and inadequate then. Right now is for kissing Zevran's mouth again, one hand falling to hold him at mid-back.
"Your friends are going to be smug," he says, not because he's a mind reader, but because it's a very obvious and pressing concern. "If you want to tell them it didn't work out I can try not to look at you like—"
Like he's been looking at him for months every time his back was turned. While trying not to.
"I could hide somewhere," he amends, rather than pretending he'll have any control over his face.
no subject
Date: 2016-07-17 06:45 pm (UTC)Leliana will be smug. Morrigan insufferable. Varric will have a field day but-
This one thing. This one, impossible, inevitable thing he wants and has and will keep without weighing the opinions of others. The hand not in Alistair's slides up to rest against his shoulder, his jaw, fingers smoothing over the curved shell of his ear. Human. He knows so, so much better than to be involved with a human like this. They are large and brutish and selfish and jealous and Alistair is...some of these things but not all. He has never hurt him on purpose.
He never would.
"So?" He leans away smiling- not the grin of the conquering Inquisitor, not the sly smirk of Zevran the lothario or the sharp flinty bite of the Ombra Nera. Something smaller and far more sincere. Far more fragile. "I don't care. They can be as smug as they like- I have you."
A beat.
"I have you. You're not going back to the stables to sleep tonight, Alistair."
no subject
Date: 2016-07-18 01:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-07-18 01:21 am (UTC)They did not need the additional scrutiny that came with his favor.
But that Alistair has his favor is well known and documented. What further harm could there be in this? "Perhaps next time."
no subject
Date: 2016-07-18 02:29 am (UTC)Anyway, mostly he just likes the words. And he likes Zevran's hand in his, but he lets go of it, finally, to get both arms around him.
"How long," he says, haltingly—"I mean, when—you don't have to tell me."
no subject
Date: 2016-07-18 02:48 am (UTC)Oh he means the sentiment.
That is harder still. "How long have you felt this way? Is this why you tried to have sex with 'Your Highness' man?"
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Date: 2016-07-18 03:27 am (UTC)"—yyyes," he says, with some reluctance. The blushing shifts toward a deeper red. He's not usually one for using people. The only saving grace is that he didn't go through with it. "It wasn't his fault. I thought I was going to do something stupid if I didn't... And I didn't. So here I am, doing something stupid."
Good-stupid, though, probably. His smile comes back.
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Date: 2016-07-18 03:33 am (UTC)It's wonderful. To have this with someone he trusts.
"If you meant to ask how long I have wanted you? From the first moment I looked up with blood in my teeth. I have a soft spot for gingers with distinguished noses."
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Date: 2016-07-18 05:20 am (UTC)He nudges his nose against Zevran's, which is charming without being half so ridiculous. That wasn't really what he was asking, but it's all right. His hand on Alistair's wrist and that quiet, hesitant voice were enough vulnerability for one day.
"I think you'd have broken me, back then. Not in any good way. But you're right. I was always going to end up here." Like being caught in a force mage's pull, except instead of magic it's humor and heart and Zevran's head against his chest at night. "I have a soft spot for heroes."
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Date: 2016-07-18 05:32 am (UTC)The hand, the Calling, that is why. But this is as new as it is familiar and he does not wish to spoil it by being overeager.
"How long have you...?" He closes the distance, lip to lip, chaste and light before pulling away enough to look Alistair in the eye. "Since Haven?"
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Date: 2016-07-18 06:16 am (UTC)"I was going to kiss you," he says, "as a joke, because you were worrying about my reputation. But it wouldn't really have been a joke, so I didn't. I probably should have. But I liked that you were—with me, you didn't have to—" Stuttering. That's what he's been reduced to. He shifts back a couple of inches to get a sheepish handle on his mouth. "I know everyone wants you."
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Date: 2016-07-18 06:31 am (UTC)"It is one thing to want someone more than you love them. You...love me more than you want me, yes? You would have gone on quietly without saying a word until-" Until the calling.
Until this hand killed him.
Until he moved on with someone else, always keeping Alistair close but never giving everything that he could.
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Date: 2016-07-18 08:20 pm (UTC)After that moment, he answers a little unsteadily: "That was the plan." It doesn't sound like such a good plan when it's said out loud. When he knows for sure it would have meant missing out on the idle kisses Zevran keeps bestowing. He steadies and smiles. "But I wasn't very good at it. Everyone knows. I think Cullen even knows, and he doesn't know anything."
He's only teasing, meaner than he would be if Cullen could actually hear him. He slides forward off the desk and nudges Zevran with his knee to encourage him to move—aiming for the fancy sofa, not the fancy bed.
"I do love you more than I want you," he confirms, in case there was any doubt, "and if you change you mind I won't stop."
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Date: 2016-07-19 12:04 am (UTC)And he would. He has no doubt of that.
But until then he will try to enjoy it. "Alistair, I-"
There aren't words, not really. What does one say to that? To being loved more than wanted- even with Rinna there had been wanting. Even with that small moment he shared perhaps with the Bull and Dorian there had been more desire than affection. He didn't blame them, they did not know him. Alistair did. He follows without question, more dancing than walking with how tightly to Alistair's side he was pressed. "I will not change my mind."
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Date: 2016-07-19 03:03 am (UTC)He's not sneaky at all. But this snuck up on him--on both of them, apparently--from sharing body heat because Zevran was shivering to curling up when it was plenty warm, Zevran on his lap for a lark to Zevran on his lap because he fit there. Slow shifts. Inevitability. But all anyone here saw was the end result, which is--this. Minus the kissing. Maybe with slightly less clinging. Slightly.
"Good." Near the sofa he pauses, rocking from one foot to the other--dancing--while he considers his options. "I go all snotty when I cry." Options considered, he ducks down to scoop Zevran's legs out from under him. It's not really that easy, but he isn't really that invested in keeping his balance, happy enough to stumble back onto the sofa without ever recovering it and floomph down with Zev in his arms.
His hair is still down. There's a lot of it.
"If I stop talking and kiss you for a bit, will you think I only want you for your body?" he asks, tucking a strand back. "Because if so--" He leans his head back, all the way over the back of the sofa, to look upside-down out the nearest window. "--decent weather lately, for the middle of the mountains."
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Date: 2016-07-19 03:50 am (UTC)It simply needs to be.
"What are you-" Legs up and he tucks himself against Alistair's chest with a soft laugh, moving to mantle himself over Alistair once they land. "Mmm...Perhaps-"
And then, oh, the line of his throat is there and he has leave to touch it. Without a second's hesitation Zevran leans forward to kiss the soft skin under his ear, to drag his lips down to the fluttering skin where his pulse is closes to the surface- the angular jut of his adam's apple- all these little places he's touched or licked or bitten on other lovers that now hold that much more wonder simply because they are his.
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Date: 2016-07-19 05:10 am (UTC)How he knows he means it is really that he's done it at all, that he'd risk it, that he reached back and destabilized ten years of friendship when Alistair is less fair than Michel de Chevin and less elegant than Dorian and much less familiar with the many uses of rope than the Iron Bull. And probably smells a little like dogs. Zevran's lips are on his neck anyway.
"It hasn't, uh." Maker. Alistair doesn't lift his head. He does abandon the search for clouds and shut his eyes. "It hasn't snowed in a while." Because he's not here for his body, see, he can keep talking—he tangles a hand in Zevran's hair, but he can keep talking. "Do you think it's done for the season?"
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Date: 2016-07-19 05:24 am (UTC)No one else would have stood by with a healer while he attempted to lop off his hand.
No one else would entertain the fantasy of running away with him to Rivain to live on the beach with a dog. "Quite possibly."
Lips still pressed to skin and following the spatter of freckles he knows to be there. No need to memorize the lines and shape of him- he knows every scar, every inch, and it makes this more rather than less. "Of course as soon as I am certain we will no longer need the hearth lit is when it shall snow again."
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