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When Alistair was seven, he saw one of the maids hug the groundskeeper’s young son. The boy had found some trinket she’d thought lost forever, and she’d been delighted, heaping him with praise and promising treats from the kitchen.
Alistair no longer remembers the other boy’s name, only the way that moment burned itself into his young mind. It hadn’t previously occurred to him that adults might offer comfort and affection to children that were not their own. It meant he could be treated that way, if he played his cards right. The groundskeeper’s son was only a few years older than him, after all.
He spent the next few weeks obsessed with the idea, following the maids around to try to help with chores and combing the grounds for lost valuables. He got in trouble for bothering the servants eventually, and reluctantly abandoned the whole thing.
He still remembers it over a decade later, when Morrigan digs into her most recent round of mockery.
“You know, I was under the impression that Tabris already had a dog. Does she really need a second pathetic mongrel at her heels, begging for headpats and table scraps?”
Alistair doesn’t quite suppress his flinch.
“Do you have to be awful right this minute? I was in such a good mood.”
“Well, naturally. Your master told you you’re a good boy, didn’t she? Is she going to give you a lovely bone to gnaw on next?”
It’s fairly standard Morrigan fare, but it grates against Alistair harder than it usually does. Mostly because she’s right, in a way.
Well, not about the table scraps, but about the source of his good mood.
He’d finished setting up the tents before Tabris got back from checking the snares she’d set out to catch their dinner. Tabris had grinned at him and clapped him on the back as she walked into camp, and Alistair loves it when she does that. He loves every little gesture of physical affection she offers him.
Actually, he probably loves them too much. Sometimes he craves those little touches so badly it makes his chest ache, and he feels guilty and pathetic enough without Morrigan pointing it out.
“Normal people like it when their friends are happy with their work! You just have a shriveled witchy little heart, so you wouldn’t understand.”
Morrigan opens her mouth to deliver her next cutting comment, but Tabris shouts across camp and cuts her off.
“Hey, Sten! What’re they arguing about now?”
“You,” Sten says simply, barely glancing up from his weapon maintenance. Alistair would feel betrayed if he had any reason to think that Sten’s loyalty extended to him, rather than just to Tabris.
Predictably, that answer grabs Tabris’ full attention. She abandons whatever she was doing on the other side of camp and walks over.
“Whoever’s argument is more flattering is right,” she says, way more relaxed than Alistair would be if he’d heard people were talking about him out of his earshot.
Morrigan scoffs. “You’ve been misled. We were discussing the way Alistair follows you around with more tenacity than your actual dog.”
“Don’t say it like that! I’m-- I’m watching her back, that’s all!”
Morrigan rolls her eyes. Tabris, though, just laughs.
“What, that’s what this is about? Morrigan, leave him be, I like him following me around.”
“Ha!” Alistair says, triumphant for a split second before he realizes what she actually said. “Wait, what? You… you do?”
“Well, yeah, you don’t think I’d have told you to knock it off by now if I didn’t? If you ever stopped it’d just be me chasing you about camp instead.”
“If you two are going to start gushing about camaraderie, I’m leaving,” Morrigan says, and that just makes Tabris laugh again. She steps into Alistair’s space and playfully links their arms together at the elbow.
“Alistair, my dearest friend, would you care to discuss our fondness for each other at great length?”
She’s clearly joking, but it still hits Alistair right between the ribs. He has to fight down the urge to hug her, or cry, or maybe both. He stumbles over himself as he tries to play along.
“Oh, we, uhh, we should write poetry about it!”
That makes Tabris laugh, and Morrigan just shakes her head.
“Whatever you’re doing, do it away from me.”
Once Morrigan has extracted herself from the merriment, Tabris turns the full force of her smile on Alistair. He feels like wax, melting under the warmth of her affection.
“Next time she does that, let’s hug as dramatically as possible. Pretend I’ve just returned from years at sea and you’re my young wife who’d thought herself widowed.”
Alistair laughs, a little shakier than he would like. “Are you going to pick me up and spin me around?”
“I can certainly try. You’re heavy,” Tabris says, and then, after a pause, continues. “All joking aside, though, are you alright?”
Alistair should really play this whole thing off as nothing, but instead, he blurts out--
“Did you mean it?”
Tabris tilts her head. “The thing about picking you up? Yeah, it’ll be funny.”
“Well, yes, but, I mean… it’s really okay for me to just… hug you?”
Something must show on his face, because Tabris’ body language changes. The playfulness drops out of her expression and she studies him for an incredibly anxious moment.
“As long as you don’t surprise me from behind, yeah. Morrigan can give us as much shit as she’d like, but I’d prefer not to accidentally stab you.”
That was not the answer Alistair was expecting. “You’re serious?”
“Come here, I’ll prove it,” Tabris says, and her smile is gentler than it was when she was teasing Morrigan.
Part of Alistair is waiting for the other shoe to drop, but he courageously turns a bit to the right so they’re facing each other. Tabris wraps her arms around his middle and tucks herself into his chest. Alistair feels too big and too clumsy in that moment, but hugs her back nonetheless, terribly aware of his own limbs. The height difference puts his nose in her hair, and she smells like unwashed skin and leather.
When she doesn’t pull away immediately, Alistair starts to relax. She seems perfectly happy to remain where she is until Zevran whistles at them from across camp. Even then, she doesn’t seem embarrassed, grinning as she pulls away to flip him off.
He must look as dazed as he feels, because her grin falters when she turns back to Alistair.
“You alright?”
“Oh, um! Yes! Of course, not flustered at all! Totally fine!”
Tabris laughs, but it’s warm instead of mocking. “Oh, right, of course. As always, my Alistair is a paragon of composure.”
Her Alistair. Maker, he could die happy, right now. Hers! Him!
“If you’re going to smile like that every time, I’m going to have to hug you a lot more often,” Tabris says, looking remarkably proud of herself.
Alistair chuckles awkwardly, not sure how enthusiastic would be too enthusiastic.
“Well, you won’t hear any complaints from me.”