Chapter Text
The assassin is flirting with him.
Alistair doesn't have a lot of experience with such things, but he hardly needs it: the broad wink and the deliberate way the assassin's eyes scan him from head to foot are all so blatantly sexual Alistair flushes. His face and ears feel like they're burning, and he scowls, fingers tightening on his shield grip.
"Ah, and you blush so prettily," the assassin says with a grin, as cheerful as if he isn't swaying on his feet, one hand pressed to the wound in his side. His own blood is oozing through his fingers and Alistair's blood is still bright on the knives at their feet--knives Brosca intends to give back--and suddenly the whole thing makes Alistair ill.
He turns away and almost trips over Brosca, who's come up behind him as silent as ever. "This is a terrible idea," Alistair snaps, though he said it before and it gained him nothing.
Brosca grins, but unlike the assassin's grin, this one has an edge to it. "Nothing good ever comes from keeping an assassin around, hmmm?"
Alistair's ears burn hotter, and he stumbles over an apology Brosca doesn't stay to hear.
Now even angrier, Alistair looks back over his shoulder, only to find the assassin watching him. There's a moment where those brown eyes are serious and watchful, studying him as intently as ever Alistair studied an opponent's movements on the battlefield.
A chill crawls up Alistair's spine, but then the inviting smile is back, the intent look gone as if it was never there, and Alistair decides he was imagining it.
###
"Why do I have to share a tent with him?" Alistair demands, aware of how whiny he sounds and unable to care. Any day that begins with an assassination attempt and ends with him having to sleep beside the assassin in question is a day when he's allowed to whine a little.
"You were the one who said this was a terrible idea," Brosca says, wearing the same toothy grin as earlier.
"Exact-"
"So now you can keep an eye on him." There's a glitter in Brosca's eye, half amusement and half challenge. "Protect the rest of us while we sleep. You can even share your watch shift, to be sure he isn't slitting anyone's throat when you're not around."
Alistair draws in a deep breath through his nose and lets it out slowly. A hundred arguments crowd his thoughts, but he only needs to look at Brosca's face to know it's pointless.
"Fine," he says ungraciously, flinging his pack through the tent door without bothering to check if the assassin is in the way. Alistair rather hopes he is.
Of course he isn't, because it's been that sort of day, and of course the pack lands in such a way that Alistair has to shove it awkwardly to one side before he can crawl inside after it. The assassin has better sense than to laugh, at least, and if he's smiling, Alistair can't tell: his back is to the tent flap and he appears to be focused on straightening his bedroll.
There's silence between them for a while, Alistair setting out his own bedroll while trying to keep one eye on the assassin. Moving is made harder by his refusal to take off his sword, and while he's worn a sword for more than half his life, it's one thing to walk around with it at his hip and another to crawl around in the confined space of a tent. He comes close to tripping several times, and he doesn't manage to avoid knocking it against the tent frame with a sharp clack.
The assassin sighs dramatically. "Put aside your sword, my friend. I promise your throat is safe enough from me."
Alistair makes a noise of deep suspicion. "I'm not your friend."
"Are you not, then?" the assassin says, grinning over one shoulder at him. "I've promised not to kill you, and your charming leader has promised on your behalf that you will not kill me. Among the Crows, we would call ourselves the best of friends."
"You're not with the Crows," Alistair says, deliberately harsh to avoid thinking too hard about the assassin's words. What kind of life is that, where "I won't kill you today" is considered friendship? No matter how little Alistair cared for the thought of being a templar, he'd had a few friends among his fellow recruits, and he'd always trusted that any of them would defend him without hesitation. "You said they'd kill you, if they learn you're still alive."
The assassin's face goes too still for a moment, then the grin comes back. "So I have all the reason in the world to ensure your survival. Otherwise, who will protect me from the Crows?"
Alistair refuses to feel any sympathy for someone who tried to kill him less than a day ago. "The Crows can have you," he mutters.
The grin doesn't flicker this time. If anything, the assassin is almost laughing now. "Well, you are certainly broad enough that I could hide behind you, should they come for me." Another look like the one from earlier, a too-warm gaze that runs up and down the length of Alistair's body. "Such lovely broad shoulders," the assassin adds, as if musing aloud.
Alistair resists the urge to try to cover himself. "Stop looking at my shoulders," he says, then flushes at exactly how stupid that sounds. "Stop looking at me."
"It would be a shame to give up looking at such a handsome man," the assassin says, the laugh clear in his voice, "but as we are friends, I will do my best. And as we are friends, I promise not to slit your throat in the night." His eyes drop to Alistair's throat, and his smile changes, becomes seductive rather than teasing. "That would be a waste of such a beautiful throat. There are so many better things I could do with it."
Another flush crawls across Alistair's face, burning his skin. The assassin's voice promises all sorts of things Alistair's body wants even as his mind struggles to imagine them. Without any experience, he doesn't know enough to even guess what someone might do with someone else's throat. Are throats actually that interesting? He's never considered his beyond making sure it's protected, and he's certainly never considered anyone else's as anything but a target.
"I could show you," the assassin offers, his voice dropping lower.
That jolts Alistair out of his thoughts, and the blush deepens so much it's painful. "No," he says forcefully. In case that isn't clear, he adds, "I'll let you touch me when the Maker Himself comes back."
The assassin tries to look serious, but there's a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. "Your loss, my friend." Then he sighs again, mock-sadly. "Though mine as well. You do have very nice shoulders."
###
Alistair doesn't sleep at all that night, unwilling to close his eyes for so much as a moment. He sleeps on his side, though it makes his hip ache by morning, watching while the assassin sleeps peacefully.
The next night is no better, Alistair watching the assassin and hating him more than ever. How does Brosca expect him to sleep, trapped in a tent with an elf who tried to kill all of them? It's only a matter of time before someone offers the right amount of coin, and then the assassin will do what he's paid to do, killing not just Brosca and Alistair but also any hope of saving Ferelden from the Blight.
The following day passes in a blur, Alistair struggling to keep up with the hard pace Brosca sets. It's no harder than any other day, but after two nights with no sleep, Alistair's body feels wrung dry. Brosca watches him with a tight frown, and that night when they make camp, Brosca corners him.
"You need to sleep." The words are hard, uncompromising.
"I can't sleep with him right there," Alistair complains.
"Then sleep on the ground by the fire," Brosca says. "I don't care, just get some sleep before you kill yourself."
"But then no one's keeping an eye on him!" Somewhere in Alistair's sleep-deprived brain, this is all perfectly logical, that Alistair needs to stay up at night to keep them all from being killed, even if it means he'll be useless in a fight.
By the look Brosca gives him, it's not a compelling argument to someone who's been sleeping just fine the last two nights. "In the tent or by the fire. I don't care, but get some fucking sleep tonight." It sounds like a threat.
Alistair sulks off, not sure he cares anymore if the assassin does stab him in his sleep. At least then he wouldn't have to face an irate Brosca in the morning.
For a wonder, though, he finds himself nodding off over dinner, and unlike last night, the sleepiness doesn't disappear when he lies down in his bedroll. His eyes close almost instantly, and he sleeps hard, not even darkspawn dreams to disturb him.
He wakes to sunlight glowing through the tent canvas, surprised to realize he's slept well into the morning. It's a wonder Brosca didn't roust him long ago, and Alistair doesn't doubt there will be jokes at his expense for sleeping so late, but it's worth it. He feels better than he has in weeks, since long before they met the assassin.
The tent flap opens, and the assassin looks in on him, smiling when his eyes meet Alistair's. "Ah, I see you've woken at last!"
Alistair scowls at him. He's feeling better; that doesn't mean he's feeling any more kindly disposed toward people who tried to kill him.
"And did you sleep well?" the assassin asks, a tiny smirk curling the corners of his mouth as he sidles into the tent.
Understanding hits Alistair like a punch to the gut. "You poisoned me!"
The assassin makes an offended noise and crawls across the ground to his own bedroll. "Had I poisoned you, my friend, we would not be speaking now. I merely saved you the embarrassment of facing our charming leader in the morning, after disobeying such a pointed order. A favor for a friend, you might say."
"I don't need favors from you," Alistair says, reaching for his clothes to avoid reaching for the assassin's throat. He's pretty sure that's not on the list of interesting things people do with other people's throats, but it's the one he most wants to try right now.
When there's no witty response, Alistair looks over his shoulder to find the assassin watching him and smiling faintly.
"What?" Alistair demands.
"A thing you might consider, my friend: where I can put a sleeping potion, I can as easily put something that will ensure you never wake again." His smile is all innocence. "None of you saw me, and no one suspected. I could have done much worse."
"And that's supposed to reassure me?"
The assassin shrugs. "Whether it does or not is entirely up to you. I merely offer it up for you to think on later, when you fight to stay awake to keep watch over me."
For something that could easily be a threat, Alistair finds instead that it is oddly reassuring. If nothing else, it absolves him of responsibility, because if he has no hope of spotting an attempt on their lives, then losing sleep over it is foolish. And it's painfully clear now that he wouldn't spot an attempt. The assassin was nowhere near the food at any point last night, and he was never close enough to touch Alistair. When and how he applied his poison, Alistair hasn't the faintest idea.
He has no intention of giving the assassin the satisfaction of hearing him say it, though.
Instead, he finishes pulling on his coat of plates, leaving the armored greaves for later, and crawls toward the tent flap. As he's reaching for the canvas, movement from the corner of his eye catches his attention, and a warrior's instinct has him turning before he thinks.
He curses that instinct in the next moment, even as the rest of his brain is reduced to incoherence. The assassin is putting on his own armor, but for the moment, he's shirtless, his trousers hanging low on his hips. Tattoos swirl across his back, echoing the one on his cheek, and those ink lines draw Alistair's eyes down, down, down to where they disappear.
It would be less distracting if the assassin was naked, Alistair thinks distantly. As it is, all he has is a hint, a promise of more that he can fill in however he wants, and after years living in the barracks as a templar recruit, Alistair can complete the picture in a number of interesting ways. He may not have enough experience to know what he would do if the assassin was naked, and Maker knows he's never been interested in men, but his mouth goes dry and his cock stiffens anyway.
The assassin glances back and catches him staring, and Alistair almost falls over in his haste to get out of the tent and away from that knowing smile.
Brosca doesn't say anything about his abrupt appearance, offering only a dry, "Do you want some lunch?" as a comment about Alistair waking at nearly noon.
"Lunch would be good," Alistair says to his feet. He knows his face is red, and it's a minor miracle he doesn't stutter.
No one comments on that, either. Leliana hands him a bowl of stew, and food is suddenly the only thing on Alistair's mind. He eats it so fast he barely tastes it and is in the middle of getting himself a second bowl when the assassin emerges from their tent.
He's fully dressed now, all those intriguing tattoos hidden under his armor. Except for the one on his cheek, and as soon as Alistair glances at that one, he's knocked breathless by the memory of the others.
His face turns scarlet again, and the assassin smirks, that same smile that says he knows every thought in Alistair's head and can make every fantasy come true.
Distracted, Alistair pours stew onto his hand instead of into his bowl and swears as the heat scorches through him. The others turn to stare at him, but all Alistair can see is the assassin, smiling that wicked smile.
###
So of course the assassin teases him mercilessly. Every day on the road, his conversation is littered with jokes and hints that Alistair doesn't understand, and the assassin takes deep delight in Alistair's blushes. Often the words are innocent on the surface, and it's only his sly glances that reveal some double meaning to make Brosca laugh and Leliana giggle.
The whole thing makes Alistair feel stupid and alone, and sleeping beside his tormentor doesn't help. He no longer worries about being killed in his sleep, but there are plenty of nights where he thinks seriously about making an assassination attempt of his own.
Brosca wouldn't be happy, though, and Alistair isn't prepared to risk all of Ferelden, not to mention his last connection to Duncan and the Grey Wardens, just for the satisfaction of killing one aggravating elf.
He endures, because it's the only thing he can do, but he doesn't have to like it.
###
The assassin has been with them three weeks when the darkspawn dreams turn ugly. They're never pleasant, but Alistair has grown accustomed to them, and they rarely do more than wake him momentarily.
This one grabs him by the throat and won't let go, the archdemon soaring over Ostagar the way it never did in real life. Loghain calls the retreat while Cailan is dying, Duncan is dying, everywhere Alistair looks people are dying, and he's trapped at the top of a tower, unable to help, useless-
"Alistair!"
He wakes with a gasp, lashing out at the shadow hovering over him. His fist connects with the shadow's chest, and the assassin makes a startled "oomph!" as all the air is forced from his lungs.
For a moment, the dream tangles with Alistair's hatred for the elf looming over him, and he almost strikes again, wanting nothing more than to make someone else hurt as much as he does.
"Alistair." It comes out wheezy, the assassin still trying to catch his breath, but he hasn't moved away.
Guilt mixes in with the anger, and Alistair tucks his hands under his arms to restrain any further impulses toward violence. "You startled me," he mutters. It's the best apology he can manage under the circumstances.
"I had come to that conclusion, yes." The assassin is still a shadow, but Alistair can hear him breathe, a little too loud. "It was not my intent, but you were...ah...quite clearly unhappy. I thought it better to wake you."
"Sorry if I disturbed you," Alistair says with as much sarcasm as he can muster. "I'll try to keep my nightmares quieter from now on."
"Very little disturbs me," the assassin says cheerfully as he moves away, toward his bedroll.
Maybe it's the darkness, forcing Alistair to listen to his voice rather than watch his face, but the cheer sounds forced, overlaying an unhappiness Alistair has never heard before. It's a struggle, but guilt wins over anger just as the assassin finishes settling himself down to sleep.
"I'm sorry," Alistair says again, with sincerity this time. "I shouldn't have...that was..." He doesn't know how to finish either sentence, so he gives up and repeats, "I'm sorry."
"It is forgotten," the assassin says. For all the lightness is his words, he still doesn't sound happy.
Alistair swallows, too loud in the darkness, and adds in a whisper, "Thank you."
Zevran sighs. "Consider it a favor for a friend."
Silence, then, weighted with something other than Alistair's distrust. It keeps him awake long after the memory of the dream has faded.
###
If Alistair thought the teasing would stop after that, he learns otherwise quickly. The assassin acts as if the conversation never happened, as if there was never that hint of loneliness in his voice. For a few days, it annoys Alistair to have the whole thing so summarily dismissed, until he begins to notice that something has changed.
The jokes are still there, yes, but the assassin turns toward him now, drawing him in, telling the joke to him rather than at his expense. Alistair still doesn't understand more than a tenth of what's being hinted at, but he learns to laugh when Brosca does, to pretend he knows intimately things he doesn't know at all. If he's not fooling anyone, at least he feels a little less lonely.
Then they reach Kinloch Hold, and none of them feels like laughing anymore.