Work Text:
It was the simple touches that surprised him the most.
From all his experiences and what he’s witnessed, he knew little of relationships other than you generally only have sex with that one person, and upon occasion you say “I love you”.
The reality of the situation far exceeded these expectations. The Warden would often reach out for him, gently touching his cheek or placing his hand on his lower back, for no other purpose than just that; to just touch him. They’d be walking through the streets of Denerim, heading towards the resident whorehouse, and they would reach down and interlock their fingers.
Years of fight-or-flight nagged in Zevran’s brain, telling him to run, this dangerous, you could not escape of they pulled out a dagger , but a more recent aspect of him, the one in love, told him that you love the warm feeling their hand in yours, lean into their side, be happy , and it frightened him.
Beyond the public displays of affection, there were the public display of devotion. He had heard Wynne warn them off him those many months ago, and had almost truly thought her right. But now, he heard his name mentioned in their conversation again, and his Warden stood up for him. “I have seen it, ” his lovestruck, awful gaze, “From the beginning.”
Why? he always thought, what have I done to inspire such devotion ?
Love was a concept as foreign to him as all the Fereldan customs were. Asking for him to love someone was like asking him to willing invite a filthy dog into his bed.
(The fact that their ever faithful mabari was often found trotting happily out of their tent in the early hours of the morning was neither here nor there)
They never spoke the words, not after the first kiss, not after parting or even when reuniting.
Te amo.
Je t’aime.
I love you.
But they hung over them like a cloud, a warm enveloping, dangerous blanket that made him want to curl up in it and never climb out, to just live in this state of warm contentment. The mere thought both sickened and enticed him.
During the Blight, he could shelve these feelings neatly in the back of his brain where they didn’t keep him up at night. He could lose himself to slaying darkspawn and corpses and mercenaries and whoever else decided to sign a death wish and attacked his Warden.
His Warden.
But when the Blight was said and done and the Warden a hero, those feelings could no longer be ignored like a ruined pair of undergarments. He had someone, a Grey Warden, a saviour, willing and wanting for him to run into their arms, to stay with him.
When they asked him, eyes full of want and desperation, if “You’d please stay with me...” , instead of words, Zevran simply reached his arm out and intertwined their fingers, a smile playing on his lips.•