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Shades of Grey	By : myghinmin Category: +A through F > Dragon Age (all) > Dragon Age (all) Views: 3772 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Dragon Age: Origins, and I do not make any money from these writings.

Chapter List
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Title: Shades of Grey
Story Rating: M (mature). NSFW (not safe for work) due to sexual content in chapters five, seven, and eight, and for torture in chapters eleven and twelve.
Chapter Rating: T (teen).
Chapter Warnings: Mild slash (male/male) action.
Word Count: 1890 words.
PC: Fem!Amell, deceased.
Pairing: Zevran/Alistair.
Spoilers: End-game spoilers. Set post game.
Summary: She made him swear to keep Alistair on his feet until he could stand alone. Maker help him, Zevran will honor that final promise, even if it kills him.
Notes: Remember, if you like the story enough to favorite it or add it to your alerts, please leave me a review and let me know! Reviews are life's blood for any writer, and it encourages us (well, me) to write more! Also, it doesn't have to be simply praise; constructive criticism is welcome. See something I did poorly? Tell me!
[[ ... Pre-Chapter ..... ]]
It was in Redcliffe that he betrayed her; that he broke her heart. She had stood there, shocked as he made his confession. Not a Warden, not really. He was the prince. A bastard prince, but a prince all the same. She had run from him, not literally, but emotionally. He couldn't be trusted if he wouldn't even tell her something this important before it was absolutely necessary.
How could she ever trust him now? She didn't look at him as they entered the town, as they set to making things right. She divided up the jobs, sending Wynne and Leliana to the smith, Sten to fetch the dwarven warrior, and Alistair with her hound after the missing child. That left herself and Zevran to deal with the knights. She glanced over at the elf and couldn't stop the smile from spreading over her face.
He was brushing his hair back from his face. The motion was endearing, because no matter what happened, he managed to come out looking flawless. To see him disheveled at all was a treat, and she was seeing it more and more often since he had joined them after the Tower. She was glad to have him. It gave her someone new to talk to, someone new to laugh with. He had sworn himself to her, and she was doing her best to prove that he hadn't been wrong to trust her.
She wanted to be worthy of such a promise.
[[ ... Chapter 2 ..... ]]
Zevran was beginning to annoy Alistair, and what was so thoroughly upsetting was the simple fact that he didn't know how he would have managed without the Antivan. Somehow, he had informally managed to become second in command, his words outranked by Alistair's alone in the eyes of the recruits. They were down to six-- out of the twenty-five Anora had sent with them-- since the two Orlesian Wardens, Clovis and Julien, had come and started the Joinings. It was disappointing, but it bothered him that ... well, that it didn't bother him as much as he thought it should.
The elf was also far more diplomatic than Alistair could be. He managed to seduce just about everyone, noble or not, who came to Soldier's Peak into committing funds to rebuilding the order or committing men to the Warden's cause. He was just as slick and charming as--
No, he didn't let himself finish that thought. The wound should still be too raw, too open. It had been two months, and once again, he hated the simple fact that the wound didn't hurt as much as he thought it should. He was numb, had been since he'd heard that she was gone. It was ... not real. She shouldn't be dead; couldn't be. She was immensely strong, able to survive the worst that the world had been able to throw at her, and still laugh and shove right back.
He scowled, throwing his sword across the training room with a horrific clatter. At this time of night, no one else was here; it was why he was even down here. When the keep was awake, he was secreted away in his quarters, unable to face anyone. Only Zevran had the nerve to disturb him up there; only... Zevran.
It was as though thinking too much about him summoned him. He knew those light footsteps, that slight scratch of fingertips over the stone walls. When it was this quiet, everything seemed loud, even things that normally couldn't be heard. As soon as the Antivan was visible, he bristled. He couldn't pinpoint what about Zevran put him on the offensive, but something did; something always had.
"Don't you ever sleep?" He frowned at the Antivan before he moved to fetch the sword. It had cleared the room, managing to embed itself into a target on the other end. He hadn't realized he'd thrown it that hard. He put a foot on the target to keep it still while he wrenched the blade out.
There was a moment while Zevran watched him and leaned in the doorway before he answered, "Sleep? With you clanking about down here? I think not." The Antivan accent was still very noticeable, and it was oddly comforting. Alistair liked knowing that in spite of all the horrific things that had happened, some things didn't change. Things like Zevran tended to stay the same. "Did the sword perhaps insult you in some way?"
Alistair blinked, an owl in the torchlight, then he growled as he studied the weapon in his hand. It was a clumsy piece of work; little more than a training weapon. All of the proper weaponry they had collected through the Blight was put up in the armory. Here in the training room, they kept only wooden and blunted weapons so as to minimize accidents.
"A weapon like this is an insult in itself," he said absently, putting it back on the rack. He didn't mention that he didn't care what sort of weapon it was; he had simply wanted something in his hands to go through the motions. It was all he seemed to have left, the motions. It was all he did anymore.
"Be that as it may, there is no reason to abuse it. It does still serve a purpose, after all." It was the tone. He could understand how the recruits viewed Zevran as someone in power if he used that tone frequently on them. No matter that they all knew he wasn't a Warden, he was still someone to be respected. He could have been a Warden, were he willing to go through the ceremony. Alistair would never ask him of that. The ceremony had already destroyed too much.
The Fereldan looked back at the other man, studying him in the torchlight. It was the early morning hours, before the sun rose, but long after anyone had come by to replace the torches. They were burning low, and the light was getting faint. There was enough that seemed to caress them both, gave them shadows that the sun didn't. Made them both look as old as they felt. He knew, without asking, that Zevran had been through as much as he had, but he couldn't find it in himself to do anything about it.
The numbness was driving him mad. He couldn't feel anything, could barely think. He just sat and remembered all day. And at night, when he couldn't take the remembering, he came down to the training room and did drills until he couldn't stand up any more. Sometimes, he passed out down here. He always awoke in his quarters though; probably thanks to the man standing there staring at him. He swallowed thickly, knowing that he should say something, anything, but... What was there to say at all?
A sigh escaped his companion, and the distance between was closed. "Come on, Alistair; let's get you back to your room. You are about to fall down, and wouldn't that be good for morale?" An arm wrapped around him, and for a moment, there was something between the two of them. Their eyes met, and the two men hesitated. Zevran recovered first however, and he was soon dragging the warrior back up to the quarters he locked himself in during the daylight hours.
He scowled the whole trip, although he didn't struggle to get away. It was only when they reached the door that he reacted at all. Before he could stop himself, he had the elf pinned, trapped between his own body and the wall. There was the slightest intake of breath, and then nothing. But Alistair wasn't standing for it. He was sick to death of nothing, and he was going to have no more of it. His annoyance and irritation with Zevran was something, and it was something better than the numbness.
He knew when Zevran got uncomfortable; he knew it was strange with him leaning in so close, with the aggression and that something sparking between them. Neither of them ever yielded to the other, and neither of them were about to start now. It was something he'd always admired about the Antivan, no matter how loudly he complained about him. He didn't know where he was going with this; he just wanted to see something other than pity on the elven face so close to his own. It was then that Zevran shocked him.
Slender hands lifted and buried themselves into his hair, longer now from lack of attention and then lips pressed against his and dear Maker... It had been too long. He gasped just slightly against the kiss, and the elf took advantage of that, plunging into his mouth with heat and wetness. His arms trembled just slightly, and he found himself wrapping them around the Antivan, drawing him closer.
His hand fumbled for the doorknob, and he wasn't entirely certain how he managed to get the door open. But the next thing he knew, they were in his rooms, and the door was shut. They peeled themselves from one another slowly, reluctantly, and for a heartbeat, Alistair couldn't breathe; he was simply staring at the elf in his arms, at those kiss-bruised lips. He had the taste of the assassin in his mouth. His hand lifted to touch that face, and Zevran jerked back as though burned.
It hurt. ... It hurt. A low growl escaped the former prince; he had asked the Antivan for nothing since her death, since he had been stripped of everything. And now that there was actually something he wanted to do, the elf would deny him? He stopped though, as it really began to sink in what he wanted to do. What he was really asking for.
"Get out, Zevran," he said, his voice pitched low. He couldn't be held accountable for himself if the blond stayed, and for just a moment, he thought that he might get to see what he would do. Then the elf slipped out the door, only shooting him one of those looks. Those looks he had never learned to decipher. Alone in his rooms finally, he locked the door and turned to glance at the window. The sky was greying with the coming dawn, and he was in no mood to see it.
Was that why she had favored Zevran so? Had he drawn her in and kissed her breathless, leaving her aching and the taste of him still thick in her mouth? Alistair swallowed, and he reached to draw the drapes closed. Had she kissed him that way? The way that Alistair had kissed her so many times? It was dark hole that he was rabbiting down, but he couldn't help it. The questions just kept pouring into him, making his chest tight and his body ache as he fell back over the bed.
His head hung off of the far edge, and he stared at the wall upside down while the most important question of them all hit him: why did these thought not hurt the way it once had? He didn't like the thought of Zevran touching his Amell, but it wasn't just Zevran touching her that was upsetting him. It was the thought that she had touched him that was getting to him know.
He was going insane. It was the only explanation.
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Shades of Grey