Ruthless Aeducan Warden; Alistair, hardened, exiled after the Landsmeet; Zevran, rejected and sent away after freeing him from the Crows.
Alistair has had it with being abused, mocked, and disregarded, and watching the fallout of the Warden's decisions is enough to make him sick. You know you're in trouble when an assassin has more scruples than the man leading the Grey Wardens! When the Crow - who he has begun developing unexpected feelings for - leaves without saying goodbye, and the Warden cuts a deal with Anora that leaves Alistair exiled, Alistair sets out to find Zevran before leaving Ferelden for good.
But Zevran isn't alone...
NSFW Ali/Zev smut.
This one-shot came to me in the middle of Alistair Appreciation Week on Tumblr. My own prompt, which is as follows:
Duran Aeducan is the ideal Warden; he will do literally anything to end the Blight. He's aggressive, ruthless, and without a conscience. He has sided with the werewolves and killed an entire clan of Dalish elves; sided with Branka and allowed her to begin making golems; allowed blood mages and demons to go free if they had anything to offer in return; allowed Jowan to kill Arlessa Isolde to save her son. He tainted the Sacred Ashes - and had to kill two of his companions when they objected - and then lied to the rest of the group about what had happened. He put his equally ruthless brother on the throne in Orzammar, after securing a deal to be made Paragon. He had casual flings with both Leliana and Zevran, ending things with them both cruelly when he decided to pursue Morrigan instead. He made a deal with Anora to allow her to keep her throne in return for the power and influence Duran craves.
Pushed into an unexpected friendship - initially borne out of horror at the Warden's decisions (and you know you're in trouble when an Antivan Crow finds your means unpalatable) - Alistair and Zevran begin having deeper feelings for each other, not that either would admit it.
Then just before the Landsmeet, after defeating Taliesen, Duran informs Zevran that he should leave the party because he is now a political liability. Zevran disappears without even saying goodbye to Alistair. And then when Duran recruits Loghain and Alistair is banished, the exiled Warden decides to track down the assassin before leaving Ferelden permanently - only to find him partially undressed at the Pearl with one of Sanga's finest.
And that's the last straw.
"Lay down on the fucking bed, Zevran." Alistair's tone was hard, unflinching, demanding...there was simply no way the elf could decline the command.
Zevran had never seen the warrior like this, so serious, so intense. The loveable goof who'd gotten under the skin of even the hardened assassin was nowhere to be seen, replaced by this gorgeous, hard, ominous man - with one hand gripping the hair of a prostitute, holding her at an awkward angle just to clearly demonstrate who was in charge, the other on his hip, posture aggressive as hell.
The kiss Alistair had dropped on Zevran when he'd barged into the room - before he'd noticed the prostitute he was currently holding - had left the elf gasping. Alistair's brows had furrowed, when he'd noticed the woman who'd straightened her dress and stood carefully, eyes down submissively, and then his eyes had flashed with outrage. Zevran had stepped forward, sure that the warrior wouldn't hurt her, but unsettled by Alistair's expression.
The larger man had stopped him with a gesture, before gently putting his hand on the whore's shoulder, shifting her closer. Zevran shivered at the look in the larger man's eyes, cock hardening unexpectedly, and scrambled to comply with his instruction. He climbed up onto the massive four-poster, his head propped up on a couple of pillows, arranging his limbs in the most alluring pose he could manage.
He shouldn't have been surprised he'd been found, he supposed; Zevran's flight to the Pearl and descent into debauchery was altogether predicable given his background. He'd had little idea what to do with himself, and settling into his old habit of fucking his feelings away, he'd spent more than he could comfortably afford on one of Sanya's best whores and gotten himself a room. He'd put very little conscious thought into it, simply going on instinct, trying to keep from thinking about...
From thinking...
He was distracted from his thoughts by the former templar at the foot of the bed. A sudden movement bared the breasts of the woman Alistair was still holding, and the Antivan's eyes widened as a broad, calloused hand reached up to grip one of them, fingers indenting the luscious flesh, thumb teasing across a taut nipple.
"Is this what you want?" The woman gasped as Alistair pinched her nipple, writhing prettily - but Alistair hadn't taken his eyes off the assassin the entire time, despite having his hands on a partially naked woman for probably the first time. His gaze travelled down from Zevran's face, flushed with arousal and alcohol, to his hairless chest and flat abdomen, just visible with his shirt unbuttoned casually, to the visible tent straining the front of his trousers. The former templar's eyes darkened even further, and he released the woman who fell to her knees at his feet, reaching up to fondle him through the fabric of his clothes. "Is this what you were leaving for?"
Alistair allowed the whore to undress him, gaze never leaving the assassin who watched breathlessly, unable to fashion a response. In his wildest dreams, Zevran hadn't ever imagined this day. He'd been physically attracted to Alistair from the start, of course - who wouldn't be? - but the man's innocence and naivety, while making him fun to tease, had been a shield that Zevran hadn't truly planned to bypass, even as the two had grown closer.
I've never had a particular fondness for virgins,
he thought, but he couldn't deny that he had developed feelings for the man, at first respect and understanding, and then admiration...and then perhaps something else, something more - not that he'd ever admit to it. He also couldn't deny the flash of fierce possessiveness that shocked him when he contemplated being the templar's first - something he'd never considered before the warrior had barged through his door.
As much as I fantasized about him, I didn't want him corrupted even more
, Zevran mused
.
Not that he'd had much choice in the matter, with Aeducan making most of the decisions - few of which would allow anyone travelling with them to remain naΓ―ve for long.
Assuming they survive his company,
he thought ruefully, remembering the day In Haven when four people had gone looking for the Urn of Sacred Ashes and only two had returned.
It was odd, Alistair reflected as he helped get himself undressed, that he had managed to develop a friendship with the elf; before the Blight, if someone had told him that he would end up counting an Antivan Crow who'd been contracted to kill him as one of the only friends he'd ever had, he'd have thought they'd been drinking too much. But faced with what they'd been through - not just the darkspawn and the undead and the countless other dangers they'd faced together over the last year, but also the ruthless behaviour and the fallout of the decisions made by the Warden - the two had developed an unlikely camaraderie. And, Alistair had finally admitted to himself only a few days prior, his feelings just might run deeper than companionship, if he was brave enough to embrace them.
Aeducan had forced his hand, though; Alistair was through with being railroaded, ignored, goaded, disregarded, and bullied. Duran had told him he needed to look out for himself more, and while almost everything else the dwarf had ever said had been complete crap, it was one piece of advice Alistair intended to take. And the last betrayal - Isolde dying had been bad; massacring a clan of defenseless elves had been worse; saving Branka after she'd allowed her relatives to be made into Broodmothers to supply more darkspawn for the gauntlet had nearly made him sick; but taking mercy on Loghain, and recruiting the man who'd left his king, his
brother
, to die, who'd hired assassins to kill them, who'd sold elves into slavery and poisoned Arl Eamon, was the final straw - had made it clear that he truly was the only one who would be looking out for his own well-being. And if that was true, if he was no longer to be a Warden, not a King, not a hero, then he might as well get started at taking what he wanted.
And I'll start with this. With him.
Alistair pushed the woman away once he stood completely nude; his body could have made the Maker jealous, Zevran decided, taking in the physique of the man who'd come to find him after the Warden had informed him his services would no longer be needed - that he was now a liability, a witness against Loghain, someone the queen would want removed before he could implicate her father further. He shook his head, pushing aside his bitter thoughts about the warden he'd fought for, fallen for, only to be abandoned when he became inconvenient... What mattered now was what came next, and given the naked man in his room, what came next was sure to be amply distracting.
His gaze triggered a deep flush in the man standing at the foot of the bed, but Alistair didn't move, didn't try to cover himself or hide; instead, his grin grew naughtier even as his cock hardened further.
"So, a woman, a prostitute - is that what piques your interest, then?" Alistair gestured the woman to the bed, and confused, she crawled onto it and began undressing the reclining elf as she had for the standing human. "Not even a goodbye - just a quick relocation to the nearest brothel, and a meaningless romp in the sheets?"