Archive of Our Own ^beta

Erina dressed herself in the casual change of clothing she brought to the lake, trying not to let the night’s events get to her. Maybe he was not feeling well. Maybe she botched that interaction, but there’s no way he’d hold that against her. Gods knew she’d been awkward and uncomfortable around him before.

By the time she returned to camp, everyone had retired to their tent except Shale, who stood in the distance as the night watch, and Zevran, who sat poking a stick at the dying flames of the campfire.

“Hey,” Erina said quietly, standing behind him. “I didn’t mean to freak out back there.”

Zevran shrugged, offering her half a smile as he turned to face her. “It is nothing. A miscommunication, I am sure. I should not have offered… no, we shall let it be.”

She nodded, letting out a breath she was not aware she had been holding. Tilting her head to gesture back to her tent, she asked, “Want to join me?”

Something in Zevran’s eyes hardened, and the half-smile died on his lips. “No. I think not.”

A chill passed through Erina, though the leaves nearby were still. What was happening?

“Are you… okay?” she asked lamely. There were a thousand thoughts whirling through her head, and she was starting to feel dizzy.

“I am fine,” he said shortly. “I just do not wish to join you tonight.”

“Zevran,” her voice was quiet, unsure. “We can talk about what happened at the lake, if you want. I said I was sorry, I really didn’t mean to assume…”

“I do not wish to talk about it!” Zevran’s voice was raised for a moment, but he lowered it again to sigh, turning to face the fire. “Just leave me be, please.”

Erina took an instinctual step away from him as he raised his voice, so she simply continued, wordlessly, confused, on the journey away from him to her tent.

As she settled in her bedroll, questions would not stop brewing in her mind. Zevran had been acting strangely since they had defeated Taliesen, but they had been getting along better than ever, it had seemed.

Erina turned on her side, noting how she had grown too familiar to the presence of her assassin at her side, at all times. In battle, they operated like a machine, like two minds in sync. In passion, they were unbridled and shameless, as though their fingers and mouths knew the dirty secrets and desires of the other’s mind. Over the past month, their unions had grown increasingly frequent, as the demands on them both grew, and Erina began to feel more of the weight of her mission. Lately, Zevran had not bothered to leave once they were both satisfied. Neither of them had asked the other about it, but one night his cheek found her chest, his arms found her waist, and they silently cooled down from their work together, both too afraid to speak and ruin it.

The memory made Erina’s blood run cold.

She had spoken, hadn’t she? She had made the first move by thinking he had – she had assumed that he had feelings for her, and she had reacted suspiciously, defensively. Even now, the thought of being handed a token of his affection made her stomach roil in discomfort, in uncertainty, in fear.

That fear threatened to tear Erina apart for the first time, as she realized it was not fear of being asked to feel, or fear of being asked to trust; it was fear that he might leave.

Who was this handsome elf to barge into her life, to become the only bright spot in a life of pain and agony? To be so easy in a world that was so fucking hard? Who the fuck did he think he was? Was this all part of a game to him?

The bitterness came to a sudden halt as a single truth registered with her: Maybe it doesn’t matter.

Maybe it didn’t matter if it was a game. Maybe it didn’t matter if he was playing her. Maybe it didn’t matter whether he felt something or not. Maybe it was time to admit that feeling… feeling was dangerous. And there was no way to avoid it without losing everything she was fighting for. She had tried, for so long. Assuming the worst in people kept her feeling only one thing: Angry.

Zevran made her feel. He made her feel happy, he made her feel sexy, he made her feel hopeful, he made her feel safe.

She thought back to a late-night interaction they’d had, the first week he joined the team. He told her that life is a gamble, and if you never play, you can never win. What was she fighting for, if it wasn’t a win? Could it really be that being vulnerable was required to even have a chance?

Erina let out an exasperated sigh and rolled onto her back, staring at the ceiling of her tent.

A week passed.

A fucking week.

More accurately – a week with no fucking.

The strange thing was that Zevran pretended everything else was fine. They still fought well together. He would still smile at her when she did something he found amusing. But when it was late and the fire was dwindling, he left to his tent without a word to her.

Every night that week, Erina thought she’d work up the nerve to stop him. To apologize. To say what was really on her mind. And every night that week, she had bowed out and let him walk away.

Had she been watching someone else behave this way, she would have called them a coward. A weakling. But then, a year ago, she would have called someone weak for having feelings in the first place. Perhaps things change after all.

But nothing changed the fact that a week of being a coward was too much.

So as the adventurers finished feasting on some freshly-caught fish and wild fowl and each of them retired to the corners of camp they favored, Erina swallowed her fear (and her pride), and she followed Zevran.

In the seclusion of shade where he stayed, he finally stopped, sighed, and turned to face her. “Yes, Warden?”

Anger bubbled up inside of Erina, and as much as she longed to snap at him for playing cute when he knew he was being a little shit, she took a moment and played it close to her chest.

“Zevran,” she began, politely. “You’ve been acting… different, lately.”

Pain and exhaustion wrote themselves across his face instantly, and the façade faded. “I… I know. But I don’t know how to speak of this to you, and I am not certain now is the time.”

“It’s the time,” Erina assured him, with some force behind her words. “What better time could there be?”

“Never?” Zevran asked hopefully.

“Look, I’ll make this simple. If this isn’t anything to you, and you’re just not interested in me tent-wise any longer, that’s fine. Ridiculous, but fine. I mean, we got together pretty well in there. Regardless, I’m more than capable of taking care of myself until I find someone else to spend some time with. But if…” the words began faltering, and her guts began to turn cold and sour. “It just seems something changed, and I want to know what.”

Zevran tilted his head, parroting her words back to her slowly. “’If this isn’t anything to you…?’ So, my Warden, for you this is something?”

Erina felt blood rush to her face, and her hands balled into fists at her side. “I—I don’t mean… well, I do mean… Look, I don’t know what I’m doing here, okay? But you don’t just get to walk into my life, change everything all around, and then walk out when you choose.”

“And why not?” There was a sad smile on his face when he asked, but it was clear he wanted to hear something from her.

“Because… Fuck.” Erina grit her teeth, fighting against the walls that were telling her to let it go, to stop trying.

Zevran let out a deeply-held laugh. “Because fuck. Well, when you put it that way…”

“Shut up,” she growled, glaring at him intensely. “Let me finish.”

His demeanor and his posture stilled immediately as he bowed his head to her. “Continue.”

Long seconds of silence felt like years as Erina’s brain worked to establish connections it had never been asked to do before. There was a sensation in her chest like one she had never experienced, and she was searching for the words to describe it. This was all so foreign, under-used, and if you had told her a year ago that she’d be trying to link her brain and her heart together for a sly Antivan elf assassin, she would have laughed and then punched you in the face.

The words that came to her were only half the battle. The other fight was letting herself say them. Exposing her emotional throat as a strategy, not to win, but to cooperate. To make peace. To restore.

It wasn’t easy. Yet Zevran didn’t push, nor did he laugh or distract. He simply stood, silent, waiting. Though when she began talking, she noticed his body jump and straighten to attention.

“I,” she started, congratulating herself on one step forward. “I… need you.”

She anticipated derisive laughter. She anticipated a comment letting her know that wasn’t enough, that she was failing at even this simple task. What she got instead were warm, honey-glazed eyes that met her gaze and held it, as Zevran’s mouth turned upwards into the slightest smile possible.

Zevran took a small step toward her. “Erina, I have been behaving, erm, something like a child. And for that, I apologize.”

Terrified to make any sudden movements, lest this fragile moment be shattered, Erina simply nodded and remained caught in his gaze.

He continued, “Do you remember when we killed Taliesen and the other Crows sent for me? We talked then about the nature of an assassin… how we are taught to treat everything as fleeting, momentary, so that nothing may have hold over us. Death is nothing to fear, but pleasure is nothing to hold onto. I was taught to assume nothing more from pleasure, no matter how frequent or with the same individual. This… this is how I thought we were to be. Distracting, enjoying each other’s company for a time. And yet…” his sweet voice trailed off.

Erina recognized all too well the disconnect he was struggling to bridge. In an instant of courage she didn’t know she had, she closed the distance between them, placing her hand on his chest.

“I understand,” she whispered, looking up at him for some sign that this was… okay. Acceptable. Something they could work together on. She didn’t know much about feelings or relationships, but she knew that she would break if he retreated now, and she would fight to keep that from happening… So maybe relationships weren’t entirely foreign after all.

Zevran’s warm hand glided over hers, holding it steady against him. “Everything I have been taught says that what I am feeling… is wrong.”

Words became stuck in Erina’s throat, pressure telling her to ask, pressure telling her to never ask. Time to be brave.

“What are you feeling?”

Zevran shrugged, gesturing hopelessly with one hand while his other remained firmly on hers. “How could I know? I was trained to make my heart cold. There was no room for feeling in a machine that must kill without pause. Yet… since I have become your companion, since we joined in your tent, since I have been at your side… I have been nothing but confused.

“When I offered you the earring a week ago, I think I wanted to find answers, but I was only ready to agree to the distance. When you thought you saw more in my offer, I felt exactly as I had when I was training and my mark spotted me in the shadows. I was caught. Made. And, if I may say, your response to my possible… affection… was not terribly positive. So I ran.”

Erina winced. “I’m sorry, I just, I felt like I was being ambushed. And I was scared that you were going to ask more of me than I knew how to give.”

Zevran’s laugh came from deep within his chest, and the warmth of it spread to her own. His tongue clucked, a gesture of frustration at the antics both of them were engaging in, and he let out a slow breath which tickled the stray hairs of Erina’s ponytail against her ear.

“So are we at an impasse, my dear? Assassin and prey? Caught in each other’s stare, too proud to retreat, too scared to move forward?”

Erina shook her head firmly. “I’ve had a week to think about that night, Zevran. I was a coward, and so were you.”

“The truth, it hurts,” he agreed, his face a grimace.

“But we are not cowards. Not in the end.”

“Oh?” Zevran tilted his head to the side, an adorably curious expression in his brows. His free hand found Erina’s cheek, brushing it with his thumb. “Then what are we, in the end?”

Erina furrowed her brow, reaching the end of her expertise. “I… don’t know, yet. But I know what I feel. And I know what you feel. And that’s… something. Gods, I’ve never done this before, Zevran.”

“Nor I,” he agreed.

“But if you’re willing to try, then so am-“

The last of her words disappeared into Zevran’s lips as they pressed against hers, filled with a vigor she had never felt from him. His enthusiasm magnetized her body against his, clinging tightly to his waist as she once had to keep herself from drowning.

When they parted for breath, Zevran’s forehead came to rest against hers.

“I missed you,” he admitted, and she saw a blush darken his cheeks.

“No, I think you found me,” she replied, immediately hating how cheesy the words sounded coming out of her mouth. “Ugh, forget I said that. Please.”

Zevran chuckled. “And pass up the opportunity to let those words haunt you at every turn? I think not.”

“You’re gonna get it,” she groused.

“Yes, I suppose I am.” Zevran’s lips found her cheek, then her neck, and then her ear. His words were hot against her. “Perhaps I long to be punished.”

Blood became fire rushing south of her waist. “I… think I can arrange that. You little shit.”

Zevran’s teeth nibbled at her earlobe, and his long blonde hair tickled her exposed throat. “I cannot believe I almost let you go,” he murmured.

“You’re kind of an idiot,” she agreed, her tone light. “But, then, I guess, so am I.”

Zevran lifted his mouth to grin cheekily at her. “I… know this may seem pointless now that we have aired our truths, but… I still have the earring. And I would like to give it to you, as a token of affection this time. If you’ll have it.”

Erina tried to smile fiercely, but she knew it looked sheepish. This was just all too new for her to look confident. “Of course I’ll take it, Zevran.”

“And me?” he asked coyly.

“Oh, that wasn’t even a question. Now where is it?”

“In my tent. I suppose we will have to tear it apart looking for the earring, as I stowed it somewhere and I cannot remember at this moment...”

Erina pushed against his chest, sending him a couple steps toward the tent. “Get naked.”

He beamed. “As you wish, my sweet.”