"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."
"That's what I'm for." He rolls his head to the side and then around to press his nose to Zevran's cheek without knocking him loose. "Make them move their big table and their maps up here, and you won't have to get out of bed except when a rift needs closing." It would never happen, for a lot of reasons. Not least because they'd both go mad. But it's a nice thought, for a moment, in a way that makes Alistair slide his free hand under Zevran's shirt—not too sexily. Checking for a scar where the shriek caught him. Alistair won't lose him if he never leaves the room. "And then you can have the bed carried to Rivain."
"What about dancing?" It would drive him crazy to have to stay here in this room with it's too fine furniture and too soft bed. Having Alistair would make it bearable but- he'd throw himself off the balcony in short order. For a moment he things 'ah, now we get to the fun part and he gives his hips an idle roll-
And then feels where Alistair's hand is headed and crackles a soft laugh instead. He sacrifices the hand braced by Alistair's shoulder to take him by the wrist and move his palm to that stretch of skin, the scar long since healed over. "Even then, yes? When I was being a shit."
"On warm days," Alistair says, ever accommodating and generous. "We can call Maryden up from the tav—"
He would have kept elaborating on that scenario (which would end with Zevran throwing himself off the balcony and Alistair following close behind) if not for the shift of Zevran's hips. His jaw goes briefly slack before it can reach the ern and he doesn't really see the point in continuing.
Even then. He nods first—distracted by the scar under his hand, with a somber line between his eyebrows—then looks up and smiles. He slips his other hand down and up under the fabric as well, grazing over his side on an unhurried upward path and dragging fabric up along with it. "Mm? You mean you stop sometimes?"
"You chose the wardens over me." He murmurs idly, sitting back on Alistair's thighs to help with peeling off his shirt. It gets him that much more naked and obscures his face and view of Alistair's expression after he drops that particular nugget.
Alistair always will place the wardens first. If he was not the kind of man that had that particular noble lean, Zevran would not adore him so.
It does not make the hurt sting less, of course, especially at a time when everyone was placing everything else before him and what he might wish. Shirt tossed to the side he loops his arms around Alistair's shoulders to pull himself in close once more. "Of course I stop. I have stopped now."
But this isn't the time to argue. He knows that. This is—
"That's not fair," he says.
It is at least quiet, subdued, more sad than irritated. He still helps with the shirt as carefully as before, a glance at Zevran's face reproachful but not lingering before he ducks his head down to—not his neck and shoulder.
He remembers at the last moment. Even if he isn't angry in a way that frightens. His head jerks back up more quickly than it lowered and he tries pressing his forehead against Zevran's instead, nose next to nose, looking down at his cheeks. He really does have the best skin Alistair has ever seen. The hands that settle flat on his bare back rub in a way that's meant to be more soothing than exploratory, but. Maker.
"I thought something was off," he says, teasing—more weakly this time, distracted. He's going to kiss him. He does kiss him. Slowly, but not chastely; he doesn't know how to be worth ten years of wanting, however idle it might have been, but he makes a go of it.
"You will always choose them over me." The smile he offers isn't particularly kind- but the sharpness of it is turned inward. Selfish, perhaps, to wish to be first for someone. To be the most important thing. He knows better, Alistair knows that he knows better, and it is entitlement of the highest regard to expect Alistair's love, his desire to change this. "And that is- I will not always be alright with this. But I will try."
He can do that. Promise to try. To accept his place as something less important as though it is a great struggle. It isn't. Alistair knows it isn't.
It is the norm. To be expected.
Even with Bull, with Dorian, certainly with Michel-
He puts it from his mind, focusing instead on the press of their foreheads, the pass of Alistair's hands, the slide of his lips. In this he lets Alistair lead- not wanting to delve into tricks and practice. Wanting to try, perhaps, being natural.
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."
"Rivain." It isn't skilled, the kissing. It isn't artful or deep or particularly moving. But it feels somehow more earnest for it. He needs no tricks (though he will pull them out later all the same), he needs no posturing. He might wish to for the familiarity but-
this is good. Whatever this is, wherever it goes.
Zevran's hands skid under to tug at Alistair's shirt, brows raised. "You are overdressed."
"Oh, now I am for sure," Alistair says, contrary eyebrow raise and all, while he more cooperatively loosens the lacing at his collar. He reaches behind his neck to grab and shuck out of his shirt. It only gets caught on his chin for a moment. "Arfie—"
Disentangling.
"Arfie for short."
He drops the shirt aside and slides down against the couch beneath Zevran—not too far, only stretching his legs out and freeing his hips so he can try valiantly to squirm his feet out of his boots without untying them, but low enough to grin up at Zevran by an inch instead of down at him.
"Maybe just Archie." He lifts his chin up to kiss him again. "Archie isn't bad, right?"
It should be absurd- and to be honest it is but somehow that only makes this all the more charming. Enough so that Zevran makes no attempts to help Alistair. Watching him fumble is far more satisfying, after all.
For the moment he is content to sit back on his heels and slowly unknot the lacing at the front of his trousers, nodding along as though what Alistair has to say is of great import.
It is, a little.
A bit.
"Archie." Mmm. He combs his fingers through Alistair's hair, considering. "Compared to the alternative? Archie is perfectly acceptable."
"Archie." Decisively. It's settled. Boy or girl, mabari or mutt, no changing it now. He gets one boot off and the other half there before he notices what Zevran's hands are doing and goes still underneath him to—look. Really look, like he'd been afraid to before, with his jittery half-manic stubborn cheer settling down into something warmer and quieter.
One hand comes to rest on Zevran's thigh while his eyes make a stumbling journey from his navel to his chest—flat, but still something Alistair would appreciate in a wet shirt, something he appreciates now, flattening his other hand against the plane of muscle to swipe a reverent thumb over his nipple.
And his face. If he weren't Zev, looking him in the face would probably set those nerves off again, because it's arguably the best face in the known world, zero bias. Even with the familiarity Alistair still probably looks disgustingly enamored, for just a moment, before he smiles wider again and tries not to be clumsy about brushing some hair back from his face.
"I don't love you because you're a looker," he murmurs, protective of Zevran's worth even when he's protecting it from himself—"but Maker's breath, Zev."
He knows that look well enough. Admiration, attraction- tinged with affection and that is somewhat new. It is less strange to see it on Alistair's face than it probably should. A natural extension of every other look he's ever been given from frustrated to amused to manly feelings. Zevran does pose a little, now, out of habit and a desire to preen. He knows he's pretty.
Even now he's taken pains to ensure he is presentable at the very least- one cannot save the world and be anything less than dashing after all. His hands slip from Alistair's shoulders to link behind his own head, tangling in his hair as he arches his back and stretches. All the better to show off the lean line of his body, the curl of his tattoos, the flex and arc of his muscles-
Not that he needs to. Alistair is thoroughly enamored already.
There's a little hitch at the swipe of his thumb, a drag of his teeth over his own bottom lip as habit comes knocking at the door enough to demand he level Alistair with the smoldering bedroom eyes he gives most lovers. "You are no slouch yourself, Bello."
It has what's likely the intended effect: Alistair stops breathing for a second, eyes and nose-to-navel blush both going a little darker. But then his eyes narrow above his smile. A bit too much, he'd said to Leliana once a very long time ago, and Zevran's too-much bits have grown on him like all the rest, but still—
"Don't you Crow me," he says, "or I'll start talking about the dog again." He kicks off his remaining boot and slides his hands down Zevran's sides again until they're on his hips, pushing his trousers lower and holding him steady while Alistair scoots back up on the seat beneath him.
That makes him stop breathing for a second, too, but once he's managed to inhale he's not shy or hesitant about untying his own trousers. The laces are starting to strain.
"We could move," he says. "I'm not—I don't have a thing for sofas or anything like that. I just didn't want to be too forward, in case you wanted me to get you dinner first."
"What?" The smolder shatters, Zevran blinking in surprise. People aren't supposed to know it's an act. Bull and Dorian certainly never called him on it, too busy enjoying the result of his years of training in and around the bedroom. Of course Alistair would notice, of course he would care-
And of course Zevran drops his hands to cross his arms over his chest, fake pouting. "You have me half naked on you lap, Alistair. If you start talking about the dog I'm going to be offended."
Seriously. Sexy elf, all this skin in his lap, wanting him? Wanting to be wanted back? And he'll talk about a dog? He opens his mouth to say something else wry and amusing when Alistair shifts and drags and- "Ooh."
Ok. No Crowing. He slips forward enough to curl his arms around Alistair's shoulders, bumping their noses together. "Then move us."
Through Zevran's pouting Alistair only smiles, endeared but unapologetic. He'd been prepared to spend the rest of his life lovesick and silent if it meant Zev could relax and be himself when they were alone. He's not giving that up over an erection. It doesn't matter how well Zevran's tattoos complement the lines of bone and muscle.
Which is very well. For the record. When there are less pressing (get it) concerns he'll look into that further.
"Ser," he says, only not thumping a fist to his shoulder in salute because his hands are busy slipping from hip to ass to drag Zevran closer for—for practical purposes, preparation to hoist him up, but he loses the thread, pupils blowing wide from the friction and hands, ass. He's never—not horse playing, not in jest—
It's a good ass. He needs a moment. And he spends that moment kissing Zevran on the cheek, stubbornly sweet even if he's rubbing his cock helplessly up against him at the same time.
"Okay," he says, "okay, I'm—" picking him up, in one motion that isn't quite fluid, that requires releasing him with one hand to brace against the arm of the sofa, but it's only three steps to the bed. And there's a moment of warning—the same glint in Alistair's eye that he gets before a terrible joke—before he leans over and drops Zevran down onto it from a height that verges on ungentle.
"You are ridiculous-" To the sir, to the kiss to the cheek, to all this breathless wonder and care being shown that isn't an act. Isn't a ploy or a power play or a rare treat. This is...how Alistair is. How he would be as long as it suits him.
There's a calming certainty in knowing this, as much as his own skin darkens with desire from that helpless little grind. He may or may not (totally does) help it along with another slow roll of his hips, eyes slipping closed to savor the friction.
"Is what you are. Ridiculous." And he enjoys that more than he can really say.
Which is a red flag if there ever was one, truly.
"...Don't you-" he dares. He does. Zev drops gracelessly in a heap, bouncing on his obscenely soft mattress in a sprawl, hair a mess about his shoulders and in his eyes and a little in his mouth. Hardly the usual pretty picture. "I am going to get you back for that."
It's the prettiest picture he's ever seen—if only because he's yet to see Zevran mid- or immediately post-coital. He's beaming through his own blush, obviously pleased with himself, while he kneels against the edge of the mattress and pulls Zevran's boots free of his feet.
That leaves trousers. And it's ridiculous to be shy now, in the middle of everything, but here he is anyway: his hands pause where they're ready to pull Zevran's trousers off by the legs, and his gaze sticks on Zevran's ribs instead of quite being able to rise to his eyes. "You'll have to tell me what you like."
"Of course." He grins, teeth and eyes glittering with mischief until-
Well. That question. No one ever asks and means it in the way Alistair does and for a moment he considers the usual 'whatever you like, whatever you want, I enjoy so many things don't you know?' before he breaks away and coughs. "Ah- I prefer to be above? Sometimes I enjoy the sensation of being pinned but- more often than not I would rather not feel restrained."
That. Is much harder than he thought it would be to say. When he'd been with Bull and Dorian- that's why he would go to them. But for the normal things- without ropes and without names? Being able to roll away quickly is something he needs.
"You mean you don't want--" Alistair begins, raising his chin to smile, and then stops there--a stuttering pause while it sinks in that there's probably a reason for that preference, possibly a reason that would make Alistair want to kill someone. The smile falters and then comes back smaller. "I'd smother you."
It's close to what he'd been planning to say before anyway--you mean you don't want an enormous sweaty human to crush you while you're trying to have a good time--with an illustrative pat to his. abs. there are abs under there somewhere.
But that's good. It's something Alistair can do, easily; he's wound up beneath his women, too, much more often than not, whether through personal preference or a tendency to fall in with ladies who like to push him around. One thing he knows he can do right. Confidence enough for him to go ahead with the trouser removal, carefully. He doesn't try not to stare. "What else?"
"I can think of worse ways to go." It's easier to joke and make light than it is to linger on those memories. Those reasons and habits. None of those shadows belong here where it is warm and at least somewhat light from the windows and lanterns.
It does throw Alistair into sharp relief, burnishing his hair more copper than usual. Copper and marble, rough hewn and worn and familiar. "What else, what else? I- have never had to talk about this."
Lifting his hips and working off his leathers takes more of his focus- though it probably does not help Alistair much at all that he is without smalls. Surprise, Bello. "I like knowing that I am pleasing my partner, I like to be taken so long as care is taken in the taking, I like to tease and be teased so long as satisfaction is promised- what more would you wish to know?"
The lack of smalls doesn't help at all, but Alistair manages to get his trousers off without his jaw coming completely unhinged or anything. He's listening, too, filing the information away on a mental shelf labelled How To Not Ruin This. (As if it would ever be anything less than glaringly obvious when he was pleased, as if he'd do anything involving sensitive bits of Zevran without care, as if they're ever in the same room for five minutes without teasing... maybe not the teasing Zevran means.)
What else—he stops staring at Zevran's cock,with difficulty, and gives his big toe an affectionate wiggling tug before taking his knees off the bed and stepping back. "Do you love me?"
Teasing. Not the sexy kind. Or maybe a little bit the sexy kind, while he's pushing and stepping out of his own trousers, smirking like he already knows. Because he does.
As comfortable and settled in his skin as he had become (this is far more familiar and easier to navigate than sentiment), it vanishes in an instant. Such an innocuous question, that.
Four words.
One teasing lilt.
All of Alistair to look at and- dancing around it is easier. Implying, hinting, saying so with actions- that is his way. There will be a gesture in time, a token with a lock of his hair but to simply come out and ask? Quite opposite than typical Fereldan Prudishness. Ask Zevran about sex and desire and he shall answer.
Ask about love and his voice is caught in his throat. "I-"
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no subject
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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Date: 2016-07-19 06:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-07-19 06:50 am (UTC)And then feels where Alistair's hand is headed and crackles a soft laugh instead. He sacrifices the hand braced by Alistair's shoulder to take him by the wrist and move his palm to that stretch of skin, the scar long since healed over. "Even then, yes? When I was being a shit."
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Date: 2016-07-19 03:00 pm (UTC)He would have kept elaborating on that scenario (which would end with Zevran throwing himself off the balcony and Alistair following close behind) if not for the shift of Zevran's hips. His jaw goes briefly slack before it can reach the ern and he doesn't really see the point in continuing.
Even then. He nods first—distracted by the scar under his hand, with a somber line between his eyebrows—then looks up and smiles. He slips his other hand down and up under the fabric as well, grazing over his side on an unhurried upward path and dragging fabric up along with it. "Mm? You mean you stop sometimes?"
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Date: 2016-07-19 07:20 pm (UTC)Alistair always will place the wardens first. If he was not the kind of man that had that particular noble lean, Zevran would not adore him so.
It does not make the hurt sting less, of course, especially at a time when everyone was placing everything else before him and what he might wish. Shirt tossed to the side he loops his arms around Alistair's shoulders to pull himself in close once more. "Of course I stop. I have stopped now."
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Date: 2016-07-19 09:07 pm (UTC)But this isn't the time to argue. He knows that. This is—
"That's not fair," he says.
It is at least quiet, subdued, more sad than irritated. He still helps with the shirt as carefully as before, a glance at Zevran's face reproachful but not lingering before he ducks his head down to—not his neck and shoulder.
He remembers at the last moment. Even if he isn't angry in a way that frightens. His head jerks back up more quickly than it lowered and he tries pressing his forehead against Zevran's instead, nose next to nose, looking down at his cheeks. He really does have the best skin Alistair has ever seen. The hands that settle flat on his bare back rub in a way that's meant to be more soothing than exploratory, but. Maker.
"I thought something was off," he says, teasing—more weakly this time, distracted. He's going to kiss him. He does kiss him. Slowly, but not chastely; he doesn't know how to be worth ten years of wanting, however idle it might have been, but he makes a go of it.
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Date: 2016-07-19 09:13 pm (UTC)He can do that. Promise to try. To accept his place as something less important as though it is a great struggle. It isn't. Alistair knows it isn't.
It is the norm. To be expected.
Even with Bull, with Dorian, certainly with Michel-
He puts it from his mind, focusing instead on the press of their foreheads, the pass of Alistair's hands, the slide of his lips. In this he lets Alistair lead- not wanting to delve into tricks and practice. Wanting to try, perhaps, being natural.
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Date: 2016-07-20 02:52 am (UTC)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."
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Date: 2016-07-20 04:11 am (UTC)this is good. Whatever this is, wherever it goes.
Zevran's hands skid under to tug at Alistair's shirt, brows raised. "You are overdressed."
A beat.
"And you are not naming the dog Arfdemon."
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Date: 2016-07-21 12:56 am (UTC)Disentangling.
"Arfie for short."
He drops the shirt aside and slides down against the couch beneath Zevran—not too far, only stretching his legs out and freeing his hips so he can try valiantly to squirm his feet out of his boots without untying them, but low enough to grin up at Zevran by an inch instead of down at him.
"Maybe just Archie." He lifts his chin up to kiss him again. "Archie isn't bad, right?"
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Date: 2016-07-21 01:06 am (UTC)For the moment he is content to sit back on his heels and slowly unknot the lacing at the front of his trousers, nodding along as though what Alistair has to say is of great import.
It is, a little.
A bit.
"Archie." Mmm. He combs his fingers through Alistair's hair, considering. "Compared to the alternative? Archie is perfectly acceptable."
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Date: 2016-07-21 05:49 pm (UTC)One hand comes to rest on Zevran's thigh while his eyes make a stumbling journey from his navel to his chest—flat, but still something Alistair would appreciate in a wet shirt, something he appreciates now, flattening his other hand against the plane of muscle to swipe a reverent thumb over his nipple.
And his face. If he weren't Zev, looking him in the face would probably set those nerves off again, because it's arguably the best face in the known world, zero bias. Even with the familiarity Alistair still probably looks disgustingly enamored, for just a moment, before he smiles wider again and tries not to be clumsy about brushing some hair back from his face.
"I don't love you because you're a looker," he murmurs, protective of Zevran's worth even when he's protecting it from himself—"but Maker's breath, Zev."
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Date: 2016-07-21 08:29 pm (UTC)Even now he's taken pains to ensure he is presentable at the very least- one cannot save the world and be anything less than dashing after all. His hands slip from Alistair's shoulders to link behind his own head, tangling in his hair as he arches his back and stretches. All the better to show off the lean line of his body, the curl of his tattoos, the flex and arc of his muscles-
Not that he needs to. Alistair is thoroughly enamored already.
There's a little hitch at the swipe of his thumb, a drag of his teeth over his own bottom lip as habit comes knocking at the door enough to demand he level Alistair with the smoldering bedroom eyes he gives most lovers. "You are no slouch yourself, Bello."
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Date: 2016-07-21 09:23 pm (UTC)"Don't you Crow me," he says, "or I'll start talking about the dog again." He kicks off his remaining boot and slides his hands down Zevran's sides again until they're on his hips, pushing his trousers lower and holding him steady while Alistair scoots back up on the seat beneath him.
That makes him stop breathing for a second, too, but once he's managed to inhale he's not shy or hesitant about untying his own trousers. The laces are starting to strain.
"We could move," he says. "I'm not—I don't have a thing for sofas or anything like that. I just didn't want to be too forward, in case you wanted me to get you dinner first."
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Date: 2016-07-21 09:37 pm (UTC)And of course Zevran drops his hands to cross his arms over his chest, fake pouting. "You have me half naked on you lap, Alistair. If you start talking about the dog I'm going to be offended."
Seriously. Sexy elf, all this skin in his lap, wanting him? Wanting to be wanted back? And he'll talk about a dog? He opens his mouth to say something else wry and amusing when Alistair shifts and drags and- "Ooh."
Ok. No Crowing. He slips forward enough to curl his arms around Alistair's shoulders, bumping their noses together. "Then move us."
no subject
Date: 2016-07-22 12:27 am (UTC)Which is very well. For the record. When there are less pressing (get it) concerns he'll look into that further.
"Ser," he says, only not thumping a fist to his shoulder in salute because his hands are busy slipping from hip to ass to drag Zevran closer for—for practical purposes, preparation to hoist him up, but he loses the thread, pupils blowing wide from the friction and hands, ass. He's never—not horse playing, not in jest—
It's a good ass. He needs a moment. And he spends that moment kissing Zevran on the cheek, stubbornly sweet even if he's rubbing his cock helplessly up against him at the same time.
"Okay," he says, "okay, I'm—" picking him up, in one motion that isn't quite fluid, that requires releasing him with one hand to brace against the arm of the sofa, but it's only three steps to the bed. And there's a moment of warning—the same glint in Alistair's eye that he gets before a terrible joke—before he leans over and drops Zevran down onto it from a height that verges on ungentle.
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Date: 2016-07-22 12:43 am (UTC)There's a calming certainty in knowing this, as much as his own skin darkens with desire from that helpless little grind. He may or may not (totally does) help it along with another slow roll of his hips, eyes slipping closed to savor the friction.
"Is what you are. Ridiculous." And he enjoys that more than he can really say.
Which is a red flag if there ever was one, truly.
"...Don't you-" he dares. He does. Zev drops gracelessly in a heap, bouncing on his obscenely soft mattress in a sprawl, hair a mess about his shoulders and in his eyes and a little in his mouth. Hardly the usual pretty picture. "I am going to get you back for that."
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Date: 2016-07-22 01:53 am (UTC)It's the prettiest picture he's ever seen—if only because he's yet to see Zevran mid- or immediately post-coital. He's beaming through his own blush, obviously pleased with himself, while he kneels against the edge of the mattress and pulls Zevran's boots free of his feet.
That leaves trousers. And it's ridiculous to be shy now, in the middle of everything, but here he is anyway: his hands pause where they're ready to pull Zevran's trousers off by the legs, and his gaze sticks on Zevran's ribs instead of quite being able to rise to his eyes. "You'll have to tell me what you like."
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Date: 2016-07-22 02:04 am (UTC)Well. That question. No one ever asks and means it in the way Alistair does and for a moment he considers the usual 'whatever you like, whatever you want, I enjoy so many things don't you know?' before he breaks away and coughs. "Ah- I prefer to be above? Sometimes I enjoy the sensation of being pinned but- more often than not I would rather not feel restrained."
That. Is much harder than he thought it would be to say. When he'd been with Bull and Dorian- that's why he would go to them. But for the normal things- without ropes and without names? Being able to roll away quickly is something he needs.
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Date: 2016-07-22 10:30 am (UTC)It's close to what he'd been planning to say before anyway--you mean you don't want an enormous sweaty human to crush you while you're trying to have a good time--with an illustrative pat to his. abs. there are abs under there somewhere.
But that's good. It's something Alistair can do, easily; he's wound up beneath his women, too, much more often than not, whether through personal preference or a tendency to fall in with ladies who like to push him around. One thing he knows he can do right. Confidence enough for him to go ahead with the trouser removal, carefully. He doesn't try not to stare. "What else?"
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Date: 2016-07-22 07:17 pm (UTC)It does throw Alistair into sharp relief, burnishing his hair more copper than usual. Copper and marble, rough hewn and worn and familiar. "What else, what else? I- have never had to talk about this."
Lifting his hips and working off his leathers takes more of his focus- though it probably does not help Alistair much at all that he is without smalls. Surprise, Bello. "I like knowing that I am pleasing my partner, I like to be taken so long as care is taken in the taking, I like to tease and be teased so long as satisfaction is promised- what more would you wish to know?"
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Date: 2016-07-22 08:25 pm (UTC)What else—he stops staring at Zevran's cock,with difficulty, and gives his big toe an affectionate wiggling tug before taking his knees off the bed and stepping back. "Do you love me?"
Teasing. Not the sexy kind. Or maybe a little bit the sexy kind, while he's pushing and stepping out of his own trousers, smirking like he already knows. Because he does.
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Date: 2016-07-23 07:02 am (UTC)Four words.
One teasing lilt.
All of Alistair to look at and- dancing around it is easier. Implying, hinting, saying so with actions- that is his way. There will be a gesture in time, a token with a lock of his hair but to simply come out and ask? Quite opposite than typical Fereldan Prudishness. Ask Zevran about sex and desire and he shall answer.
Ask about love and his voice is caught in his throat. "I-"
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