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Sunset bloomed bloody below the mountain peaks by the time Brother Genitivi had led them to the Ruined Temple, so all mutually agreed to make camp and enter in the morning. If the party had trouble navigating in the snowstorm by the light of day, then stumbling in the dark among the dust and debris of the temple would prove impossible.
Alistair found that he was not in rotation for tonight’s watch, so, by all means, he should have been on his way to a peaceful sleep. However, finding a darkness not so different from the one waiting in the collapsed temple, Alistair tossed and turned in his bedroll, disturbing the various furs he had begun collecting since they first entered the Frostbacks.
Whatever they had seen in the house looked an awful lot like blood magic. A knight of Redcliffe lied dead in the store; Alistair had not looked to see if he recognized the man—could not. They had to fight their way through a string of cultists, only to fight Eirik and more goons in the Chantry. Even if Alistair would be the last to call sacrilege, their backwards congregation, as if frozen in time with the rest of the land, unnerved him.
And where in a malnourished village did they learn to fight like that, anyway?
It is with these thoughts in his head that he sat up at every rustle of his tent flaps in the mountain wind. When they actually flew open, Alistair jumped and almost spat his heart onto the ground, reaching for his longsword. If Morrigan, on guard, had died and let those reavers into the camp, Alistair would finally mourn her.
“Ah, a bad day to s—sneak up on a templar, to be s—sure.”
“Maker,” the warrior sighed. Though, the curse tasted of rust so near Haven. Infuriatingly—though not disappointingly—it was only Zevran. His distinctive accent sent a new kind of shiver down Alistair’s spine.
It sounded as if Zevran was impersonating a snake at first. Anything could be within the realm of an assassin’s talents. Then, Alistair squinted before the tent flaps could close, and the sickly sliver of moonlight revealed the elf’s outline shaking violently. “Zevran? Are you okay?”
“Ah? That—that obvious, no?” His teeth chattering almost rattled the tent fabric. “I am, ah, how you say—not w—well.”
“If it’s the flu, then Wynne knows what to do, not me. Is it the flu?” Alistair moved forward as if to put his hand on Zevran’s forehead, but upon realizing he did not even know what it was healers felt for, he grabbed his wrist and flushed.
“Ha! I—if only. The cold is simply d—d—doing me in, I fear. I knew I had signed on for my first winter, but I n—never imagined—well, this.” In the vestigial silver, Alistair could see Zevran avert his gaze to the ground. He did, as well. “I c—came seeking aid from the biggest, m—most well-insulted man I know.”
Alistair, taut on his haunches, only huffed. “That’s a shit excuse for worming your way into my bed.”
“M—my friend, I as—s— sure you—”
Something in the thinly desperate quality of Zevran’s voice, his stutter only worsening, urged Alistair to move forward again. Fumbling a little in the darkness, he managed to wrap a hand around Zevran’s own.
Alistair immediately shot back as if he had been burned. Well, the opposite was true. Zevran’s skin burned like the one time Alistair had stood too close to the edge of Morrigan’s blizzard spell. “Maker’s fucking balls!”
“Yes, I—” Zevran’s visage contorted. “Now, p—please, if you would—”
He was breathless now, spurred into action. “Hold on. I’ll be right back.”
Alistair threw off his own furs to find even more. After shielding his face from the storm, Alistair hopped around the piles of snow in a thick, woolen tunic, trousers, and leather shoes. He knew he could pilfer bedding materials from Isenam’s tent, since his fellow Warden often stole his nights in Leliana’s. Sure enough, when Alistair entered, the bedroll had not even been touched.
Knowing the Dalish elf would forgive him, Alistair wrapped Isenam’s furs around him as he made the trek back to his own tent. If Morrigan could see him at the other end of that blinding white blizzard, she would think him mad.
Perhaps she would be correct.
When he pried his near-frozen tent flaps apart, the moon shone on Zevran, having already pressed himself into a corner of Alistair’s bedroll. Alistair, determined to Heaven and back not to internalize the situation for anything more than it was, could not bring himself to care. He kicked off his shoes and returned with the extra furs. Zevran had brought his as well, which still hung about his thin shoulders.
Adding that to his pile, Alistair arranged them all in a bubble about the two of them. He blushed unbidden when his fingers danced nervously across Zevran’s chest when he tucked the furs under the both of them. The whole time, Zevran only made a vague sound of cognition.
He was certainly as warm as can be, his blood pumping in double-time. When he rolled around as to inquire to Zevran’s condition, flaxen hair from the back of the elf’s head tickled his nose. Alistair whispered tentatively, “Zevran? Are you okay now?”
“A—almost.” As the warmth returned to Zevran, so did the life. His limbs almost creaked as Alistair felt him curl into a ball. At some point, his shivering lessened, at least until it stopped shaking their shared furs.
Perhaps it would be better if his heart was on the ground. A foreign object, as it seemed to be anyway. Cursing Andraste and the Maker—and throwing in the elven and dwarven gods for good measure—Alistair swallowed on a dry throat and wrapped his arms around Zevran. When Zevran did not do it himself, Alistair rolled him over to cradle the assassin’s face in his chest. “Better?”
A hum.
“Much.”
———
Since no one had ever shared his bed, awakening when Alistair noticed an absence was quite the phenomenon. But awake he did.
After rubbing his eyes, Alistair saw Zevran crouched near the entrance, taut as a bowstring. His own fur draped around his frame, Alistair could only see the elf’s hair mussed up, one of the braids having come undone and hanging by a thread.
He cleared away the sleep in his throat, and something else. “Zev? Where are you going?”
Zevran pulled the makeshift blanket tighter about himself.
“Ah, my friend.” He barely turned his face to Alistair, and Alistair could only see the corner of his lips twitch imperceptibly. Zevran’s words were quick and clipped, as if he wanted to be rid of them. “My own tent and then the fire, seeing as I have breakfast duty this week.”
Sitting up with trepidation, Alistair brought the rest of the furs with him. One pelt hid his mouth, drawn wan and thin, reminding him of a better tickle. “I—is that it, then?”
“Of course, you have my thanks for staving off my frostbite for a night longer.” Looking back for but a second, Zevran attempted a discordant smile. “Knowing our Warden friend’s tactics, I will be seeing you in the temple.”
Tent flaps pulled open, the red dawn poured in, revealing more of Zevran’s baby hairs flying. Alistair would have to shake even more off of his bedroll, he thought with an echo of annoyance from a past life. The rest of his tresses were spun into a golden thread. There was another movement of his mouth. Then, Zevran escaped from Alistair’s tent, fur cape spinning behind him and blocking the rest of Alistair’s view.
That was for the best, as his cheeks already matched the sky. Alistair prided himself on his ability to guess Zevran’s quips, even the ones sexual in nature, though Alistair stuttered through those. But none had come, and it felt as if Alistair had been memorizing an entirely different man.
After all, it would be a terrible thing to take advantage of a friend’s kindness. And yet—
Alistair flopped back into bed and threw the furs over his face.
———
Haven was certainly unpleasant for all of them, but at least the Guardian had not told Alistair anything that he did not already know about himself. Watching the other man’s shoulders, jumpy and pinched even for an assassin, he did not think Zevran had fared as well.
Alistair had multiple chances to ask, as Zevran crawled into Alistair’s tent every night they spent descending the Frostbacks. But, afraid that breaking the silence would break the spell of their fragile arrangement, Alistair said nothing.
All too soon, it seemed, the frozen mountains melted way for the gently rolling hills and emerald forests of Redcliffe, gaining unpleasant surprise from Alistair, as if he had forgotten his geography.
After all, these lands were his home, or at least as close as the bastard had ever gotten. He felt no such welcome now, unable to be at home even in his own skin.
The party made their last camp before delivering Eamon the healing ashes, half a day’s march from Redcliffe Castle. As they supped, the winds were fair and the grasses alive, tickling Alistair just below his breeches. Alistair himself retired for the night with a mood as black as pitch.
The furs had been removed, but his bedroll still reeked of cinnamon and sunshine. Alistair avoided sleep like the plague, instead picking off the beautiful threads, little offerings, one by one. It was, he told himself, just an arrangement.
Alistair was not surprised when Zevran did not come.
———
As a stable-boy, Alistair found more nooks and crannies of the castle than its true inhabitants, and he retreated to them when overwhelmed—which was, admittedly, most of the time.
Bringing Eamon back from the dark cliff of death only to begin discussing Alistair’s place in the Landsmeet the very same day was not unlike a childhood rebuke—especially after what shortcomings a centuries old guardian knew to be true, not to mention the people. Despite the silk sheets in the keep, Alistair kept tossing and turning for hours in the black. After a crushing sigh, he stalked down the hall of their gifted quarters and in search of one such spot.
No one ever used this balcony on one of the lower floors because of its placement was about as well-thought out as anything the Chantry did. Any foreshortened view it would have had was darkened by the courtyard trees directly in front of it.
As Alistair approached, the torches brightened a beautiful blond head among the verdant foliage.
“Of course.”
There came a hiccup in his shoulders before Zevran turned around, as smooth as silk in water. “Ah, my friend! The gods are good to bring you to me.”
Zevran’s guiles had returned to his lips, especially after a wayward stop at the local tavern. But if Alistair asked Zevran to leave him in peace, he knew that Zevran would.
Alistair stepped into the oppressive night air and gripped the balustrade for his life. Zevran clasped his hands around something small and unseen.
“Can’t sleep?” the warrior asked by way of conversation.
The corners of Zevran’s mouth curled into a taut smile. “When there are so very many serving girls ready for me to make their night? Not a chance!”
“But you’re not,” Alistair huffed. “Doing that, I mean.” He was standing straight in the night, staring into nothing. Well, they both were.
“No. I suppose that I am not.” His lips twitched. The wind returned, lifting the hairs around Zevran’s face to the heavens. “And what are you doing?”
Alistair sighed. “Thinking.”
When Zevran opened his mouth, the other finished for him, “And don’t say My, what a surprise.”
“I would never,” the elf responded with a new smile.
With a flush, Alistair believed him.
“I must’ve mistaken you for Morrigan for a moment there,” he chuckled despite himself. “I was thinking back on the Gauntlet.”
Zevran lifted an eyebrow in a gilded arch. “Oh? Certainly the part where we all stripped naked.”
A cleared throat. “...Before that.”
“You wound me. Then, surely, the part where I flirted with your double, and he oh so rudely tried to kill me.” Leaning in, Zevran’s body formed a deadly angle with the railing.
Perhaps his double had the right of it. Alistair squinted down at the elf. “The questions, Zev.”
When the light left Zevran’s amber eyes, Alistair glanced behind them to the torches. Though the wind nipped at the flames, they still existed, evident by their crackling filling the pregnant silence.
“Well, you were certainly all too eager to answer,” Zevran jested—or, it would be, on any other night.
As if it would give the other man some semblance of privacy, Alistair turned his attention to the green leaves ahead, trembling as much as his hold on the balustrade. He reached out and let the foliage tickle his palm instead.
“And you didn’t let him—it? no, him—finish at all.”
The elf sagged for support instead of leaning seductively. “You have me there, my friend. But I am not sure that here is the place to finish his thought, either.”
“Where is, then?” Maker, he sounded desperate to his own ears, but the curiosity, tinged with not entirely unwelcome sympathy, had gnawed on his bones for the entire journey. Zevran dropping all quips except for my friend meant that whatever was in his hands was unlikely to be poison, so Alistair stole his chance. “My quarters?”
A sound meant as a melodramatic sigh ended ragged and hollow. “...If there is wine.”
Still, Zevran headed inside and under the archway before Alistair could even respond. Alistair followed, as he was wont to do, and stared openly as the shine of the elf’s hair danced with each pair of torches lining the halls. The same strands darkened his face as Zevran stared into their blood red cups and allowed his heart to spill onto the floor as he described a lost love.
Among the golden threads on the other pillow, when Alistair awoke, lay a stone warrior statuette.
———
Though they hardly needed a night’s watch this close to Redcliffe, Alistair still volunteered, even before they made camp. His bedroll had become more of an arena after Haven.
The vacated fields were blanketed in a velvet black. Sitting at the mouth of camp, Alistair busied himself by whittling a branch with a spare dagger. Not that he knew how to whittle, but it kept his mind off of things Alistair knew even less about.
“For me?”
Although he jumped at Zevran’s infernally silent footsteps, Alistair did not nick himself and bleed all over his breeches. That was an improvement, if there ever was one.
Alistair sidled over on the log he currently occupied. “If you want to start fighting with pointy sticks, then it’s all yours.”
“Your kindness knows no bounds, my friend.” Zevran pressed the wooden point with his fingertip before flailing his hand with a theatrical pout.
Alistair hated that he wanted to kiss it off of him.
The elf continued, “Perhaps it would have helped in the fight against your double. He sent me tumbling, and not in my preferred way.”
Laughing through his blush, Alistair watched as Zevran perched beside him. They were in tight quarters, and the campfire behind them highlighted Zevran’s relaxed shoulders in amber tones. This time, Alistair noticed that his braids were undone, adding a gilded wave about Zevran’s temples.
“We—we’re headed back that way, you know,” Alistair mumbled when he realized that he had been staring. “Orzammar.”
Zevran gave a down-soft smile. “That is a terrible excuse to get me into your bed.”
“But it seems like I have to have one! Why is that?” Turning to Zevran, his tone was almost puerile.
Facing Alistair until their noses touched, the corners of his lips twitched. Alistair stopped himself from reaching out and lifting them back up. “My dear Warden, though most think I have no boundaries at all, that does not mean I disrespect other people’s.”
Alistair only scrunched his brows further. He carved a larger chunk out of the branch than he meant to. “But I never said anything against it. Cuddling, that is.”
“You never said anything in favor of it, either.” After giving a real pout, one that looked wrong, Zevran flipped his hair to the other side, giving Alistair a mouthful.
The warrior only leaned in closer. “Zev, with your Crow training, did I really have to?”
Zevran stayed silent. Perhaps it was just the flickering fire, but Alistair thought that he saw him swallow hard. With a dry throat of his own, Alistair tucked some flaxen strands that had fallen behind Zevran’s ear.
“...No. You were all too comfortable,” he admitted. Then, with a sigh: “As was I.”
Alistair continued to stroke his hair there, offering whatever little comfort he could.
“And my kind should never get comfortable.”
He thought back to Zevran’s story at the castle, and then all of the ones before. Apparently there had been something strong in the Redcliffe wine, for Alistair moved to cradle the other’s head. “That’s not true. You always said that you took your pleasures wherever you could.”
“Ah. Well, pleasures and comforts are not often the same thing.” Leaning into the hand imperceptibly, Zevran’s eyelashes fluttered against a sky full of stars.
Alistair bit his lip. “...I think I understand.”
“Considering your background ”—Zevran’s eyes regarded him with incredulity, though not unkind in their belief—“I am not sure that you do.”
“And if I don’t, then I’ll try!” After tossing the stick and dagger onto the ground, Alistair threw both of his arms around Zevran, locking him in a bone-crushing hug. “But I am sure of this.”
Perhaps a touch too late, Alistair realized that the wheezing below him was Zevran laughing without being able to breathe. The warrior pulled back lightning fast. He stared down dumbly as Zevran grinned with all of his teeth. “Perhaps this is something new for the both of us, then.”
“And we could talk about it all night, if I didn’t have first watch,” Alistair found himself smiling as well.
The elf’s eyes turned to liquid gold. “I didn’t say that I was going anywhere.”
The two men never ended up talking that much, for as soon as Zevran’s blond head hit Alistair’s shoulder, sleep began to take him. Alistair was more than happy to let Zevran rest against him as he whittled. Returning to his bedroll—their bedroll?—did not seem such a daunting prospect this time.
After the hours flew by on crow’s wings, Morrigan stalked to the front of the camp to take her watch. When Alistair looked up without disturbing the elf on his arm, he found Morrigan’s face pinched.
“‘Tis about time.”