dalishstorm

Response to the various reading lesson/voice!kink prompts on the kmeme. Fenris/M(age)Hawke, set sometime during Act III after things have been mended.

( Reading Between the Lines )

It appeared like an innocent enough exchange from a distance, Zevran in his usual sly manner asking Morrigan some question dripping with innuendo--but it was his way, even in simple exchanges. When she tried to slap him, red-faced, and he nimbly dodged, it still wasn't too out of the ordinary, though the others took note and turned to watch at the animalistic sound of rage and indignation Morrigan made.

No, Vanastin decided, it wasn't really obvious anything was wrong until she transformed into a wolf and started chasing Zevran through the camp. He was just nimble enough to keep putting obstacles between them, going so far as to vault over Wynne's tent, which Morrigan simply tore through.

"Er, Van,..." Alistair shifted nervously beside him, "Aren't you going to stop them?"

"Give me that," and the Dalish pulled the little container Alistair was holding out of the not-quite-templar's hands, started snacking on the weird shem food Alistair had been explaining before this outburst. "Five sovereigns says she catches him."

"She's a wolf! Of course she'll catch him! And I thought you two were--"

"Five sovereigns," Vanastin repeated, refusing to take his eyes off the spectacle--they'd knocked over one of the poles on Morrigan's little lean-to now, and the roof came crashing down on her potion bottles. "I'll stop them after she catches him."
----

"Shem wouldn't take the bet," Vanastin said, but Zevran couldn't look up at him, too surprised by the almost tender manner Vanastin took in wrapping his arm.  "He's getting smarter."

"Perhaps I should take a lesson from our Templar friend, since I clearly have not learned my lesson about listening to--ah!"  Zevran flinched, tried to pull his arm away at a careless, certainly deliberate prod to one of the tooth marks.

"Don't piss off both of the mages next time."  The smile curling the corners of Vanastin's mouth wasn't quite his usual predatory grin.

"Sometimes, I think you must do these sorts of things deliberately.  As if you--ah, how do they say it here?--get off on tending my wounds."

"Nonsense.  But I do like having you at my mercy."

RL has really been kicking me in the teeth lately, so I'd like to make a request in the hopes of cheering up...

Zevran is blood-controlled by an enemy mage and ends up seriously wounding the Warden (who he is in a relationship with) while under the spell. This anon would like to see the hurt/comfort/forgiveness/guilt sex that occurs afterwards! (no preference as to which flavor of m!Warden, so long as it's a dude)
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The world disappeared under a red haze and Zevran knew only one thing: a sweet voice whispering, “Kill him,” gently into his ear. And it was all that mattered, that he please this speaker. It was a delicious sort of helplessness, freedom from choice, and falling on the other elf in a rain of blows, watching more red blossom under his knives, was one of the most satisfying sensations he'd ever known.

A hard impact threw him off, landing in a heap some distance away, and back to reality. It wasn't much different, really, his vision going dim for a moment as his skull cracked against the floor, ears ringing. It took longer than he would've liked to gather his senses. Zevran got to his knees, moving slowly because the world was still spinning. He saw Alistair standing over the Tevinter mage, flicking blood from his sword before sheathing it, and Morrigan somewhat nearer, kneeling on the floor, hunched over Vanastin's prone body. Zevran pushed himself up to his feet and stumbled over, almost forgetting his own sword and dagger.

The Warden had let go of the bow, but still held onto one arrow in a white-knuckled grip, his skin gone pale under so much blood. Zevran's strikes had all been true, mostly killing blows, and only Morrigan's meager healing magic kept Vanastin breathing. Dark eyes under half-lidded eyes rolled to him, acknowledged Zevran's presence. “Zevran.”

“Shut up,” Morrigan spat. “You can waste your breath on your fool lover later. Alistair! I need you to carry him.”

Si, amore? He almost said, but just reached down to wrap a hand around Vanastin's upper arm, heedless of the blood—his hands were already dark with it, anyway.

Quick as a flash of lightning, so fast even Zevran could hardly follow the motion, Vanastin wrenched himself up and lunged with the arrow in his hand, driving it into Zevran's arm. The Antivan cried out more in surprise than pain, and jerked away as Vanastin collapsed and tried to curl up around the wounds, gasping weakly but smiling. “We're even.”

Alistair carried the Warden back, but Morrigan kept a hand on the elf, kept pushing as much healing power as she could into him, which was just enough to keep him alive, never quite enough to stop the bleeding. So by the time they reached Eamon's estate everyone was covered in the Warden's blood, and when they entered Wynne happened to be in the front room, talking to Leliana. The elder mage immediately began ordering people around, telling a servant run for this, run for that, led Alistair back to the Warden's rooms all in a hurry—and they shut the door in Zevran's face.

He finally came out of his daze. I did this. He looked down at his hands, the arrow shaft broken off in his forearm and blood up to his elbows. And after we have just come to terms with our desires. This may as well be Rinna's blood.

Leliana's hand on his shoulder surprised him, and Zevran turned to her. “I'll do what I can for your arm,” she said, so he followed her to another room nearby. Alistair's, Zevran thought, but he didn't care at the moment. Leliana sat him down in a chair and carefully removed the arrow, her touch delicate and her hands steady, removed his bracers, then washed the blood from his arms in a basin. “You hurt him, didn't you?”

“There was a blood mage,” Zevran managed. “I could not fight him.”

“And that arrow is his,” she said, frowning a little.

“He said, 'We're even' after he put it there.”

“He'll forgive you,” Leliana said, frown dissolving into a little smile. “Vanastin is cruel, surely, but he is not so cruel. He will understand.”

If he lives. But Zevran said nothing, and let her finish by packing a poultice into the wound before bandaging it. Without magic it would scar, but this was one mark Zevran felt he'd earned. If Vanastin died.... Zevran knew now he would die with the Warden, whether physically or otherwise. They'd saved each other, after all.


He sat up all night, waiting for some word on Vanastin's condition. It was well past midnight when Wynne exited the room, drying her arms with a clean towel, and announced, “He'll live.” She didn't seem particularly pleased, and wearily trudged off to her room. Zevran slipped in as servants finished carrying out the supplies Wynne had used, and there was still so much blood--

None on Vanastin, now. He was pale as the bandages covering him, the tattoos across his face standing out starkly, and moonlight streaming in through the windows made him radiant and ghostly. He looked fragile, too, small against the large bed, but Zevran knew it was a trick on the eyes. Vanastin was anything but--

No, he was fragile. But Zevran had to see that weakness in himself before he could see it in Vanastin. They had so neatly shown each other the night Vanastin killed Taliesen that they were both vulnerable, and doubly strong for seeing it in each other. Standing here, watching his lover (they were now, after all, strange as it seemed) struggle to breathe and shiver in the chill night air, Zevran knew Vanastin would be angry, would probably unleash some of that cruelty their companions feared, but it wasn't the hunter, merely the beast he had become.

Zevran tugged the blankets up to Vanastin's chin, and the unconscious Dalish leaned into the warmth of an accidental touch.


Vanastin woke a few times during the next day, but never for more than a handful of minutes at a time. He was weak, disoriented, and Zevran did his best to keep the others out. Wynne's presence couldn't be helped, and she looked on both the elves, the one in her care and the one underfoot, disapprovingly. Vanastin had an image to keep, and letting the others see him like this would give them the impression he had vulnerabilities—he did, of course, but it would create some sort of sympathy, make him more approachable in their companions' eyes.

The others had just gone to bed, and Zevran decided to check on Vanastin one last time before retiring himself. He found the Warden leaning heavily against the windowsill nearest the bed, breathing hard, dressed only in his bandages and a pair of too-large linen trews. Zevran paused in the doorway, uncertain if he should go get Wynne or talk the Warden into getting back in bed.

Before he could decide Vanastin spoke. “Zevran,” his dark voice breaking on the gravel in it, wavering, but he clearly wasn't so bad off if he had heard Zevran's entrance. “Come here.”

Zevran obeyed, as surely as he had obeyed the blood mage's sweet voice in his ear, closing the door behind himself and stepping up to Vanastin's side. From his posture the Warden was putting most of his weight against the wall, and despite his pallor Vanastin was smiling, eyes bright. Seeing the Warden like this was unsettling, and Zevran was almost afraid to touch him. But he wasn't afraid of Vanastin's wrath any more, didn't care if this was some calculated move to lull him into a sense of complacency before Vanastin struck out.

Reaching out, Vanastin wrapped a hand around Zevran's upper arm, and pulled himself close, shaking with the effort. Zevran had to wrap his arms around Vanastin, afraid the smaller elf might collapse, and Vanastin buried his head in the crook of Zevran's neck, still smiling.

“You must be delirious,” Zevran said, “or playing with me most cruelly.”

“The former,” Vanastin muttered against his skin. “I don't have the energy to be cruel right now. You almost killed me, Zevran. Do you realize what that means?”

“That you will return the favor once you are well enough?” Vanastin just laughed, started pulling Zevran's collar aside, looking for the flesh beneath with his lips.

“I don't have to pretend,” Vanastin said. “You've demonstrated that you're my equal.”

“No more of this wolfish dominance, then?” Zevran asked, twining a hand in Vanastin's loose hair but keeping an arm around his waist to keep him upright. “What if I have grown fond of it?”

“Shut up,” Vanastin snapped, and Zevran grinned—that was more what he expected. “I want you. And I'm in no shape to fight about it, so--” Zevran's mouth closing over the tip of one pointed ear drew a sharp gasp out of the smaller elf, cutting off whatever else he meant to say.

It was too easy to work Vanastin into heavy gasping breaths, his attempts at a returned carress half forgotten, by drawing his lips down the smaller elf's ear, nipping and nibbling along the way, taking the lobe of Vanastin's ear into his mouth and sucking briefly. Kissing his way across the bottom of Vanastin's vallaslin, Zevran found the other ear and repeated his attentions in reverse, the hand in Vanastin's hair slipping down to tease the first ear with gentle strokes.

When he had wrung every soft sound he could out of these attentions, Zevran slid down along the artery in Vanastin's neck, following his thready pulse down to the hollow of his throat, the dip of his collar bone, tasted all this skin as if it were new. For how often they'd enjoyed one another leisurely, it more or less was new. His hands slid down to Vanastin's hips, passing over bandages with a feather touch, and the trews needed no more than a nudge to come sliding off. With his lips Zevran followed the line of a bandage from Vanastin's shoulder down over his collarbone, caught another one high on his breast, ended up teasing a nipple with his tongue.

That was when Vanastin swayed in his grasp, hands suddenly going to Zevran's shoulders in a shaky grip. Zevran's grip around Vanastin's hips tightened, bruising hard to keep him up, and the smaller elf gasped, “Zev....” Not the nickname, but too breathless to manage his full name.

Straightening, Zevran wrapped his arms around Vanastin and hoisted him up, leaving the trews behind, and he carried the smaller elf, who wrapped his legs around Zevran's waist with a wicked, if dazed, smile, eager hardness rubbing against the leather of Zevran's clothing. It wasn't easy, of course, but the distance was short, and he managed to make the transition smoothly, laying Vanastin down on the bed and then drawing back, sitting between the smaller elf's spread knees. Vanastin gave a little laugh, a strange sound, at the sight of Zevran sitting there, such a delightfully predatory look on his face.

Delirious, indeed, Zevran thought, but running his hands down the inside of Vanastin's thighs found the skin cool, not fevered, and he followed the carress with a line of kisses, trying not to think about how very, very red the blood had been, how good it had felt, and how this submission was likely just some strange side effect of blood loss, that Vanastin would be back to himself soon enough. Zevran wanted to take advantage of the situation, wanted to tie the Warden down while he was willing to let Zevran have his way, and to tease him mercilessly, have him begging for an end in the same breath as he was begging Zevran to keep going. The Warden wasn't well enough for any such antics, though, if his breath was hitching so easily.

When Zevran's mouth finished trailing down his thigh and went lower still, a little nudge spreading Vanastin's legs further and exposing his entrance, Zevran's tongue flicked out against the circle of soft skin and the ring of muscle there, testing, tasting, and Vanastin made a little sound of satisfaction low in his throat. He teased like that for a bit, soft flicks of the tongue making Vanastin squirm with an uncharacteristic lack of restraint, but when he began to lap and press for entrance, tongue just barely wriggling in, Vanastin fully voiced a moan, as lascivious as the ones he'd given under Zevran's hands in Orzammar.

It so surprised Zevran that he stopped for a moment, listening to Vanastin gasp for breath. He repeated the motion again, pressing further this time, and though it wasn't quite as loud Vanastin voiced his pleasure again, making no effort to bite back those sounds at all. Once more, and Zevran drew back, earning a whimper. He sat up, looking down at Vanastin, who had fisted his hands into the sheets, ashen skin flushing with new heat, chest heaving with the effort to draw in enough air. When the pause had lasted long enough Vanastin's dark eyes slitted open to return Zevran's gaze, and he croaked, “What--” He didn't have the breath to finish the question, voice breaking on the gravel in it.

Zevran descended on Vanastin's cock this time, offering that same sort of attention with the smooth seal of his lips, working his tongue against the bottom of Vanastin's hardness. In no time at all Vanastin was coming hard, a harsh gasp half-voiced escaping him at the height of pleasure, and Zevran fancied he heard his name in it.

For a while Zevran nuzzled at Vanastin's hip, waiting for the smaller elf's breathing to calm, watching him carefully from his vantage. This whole occurrence had almost been too strange to believe, and it had him wanting to get away from Vanastin. It was one thing to find the same weakness in each other and to become proper equals,but Vanastin's behavior tonight had been wholly disconcerting. As soon as he thought it safe to leave Vanastin alone, Zevran stood to go.

“No,” Vanastin whined, and with some of his usual speed and grace he lashed out, grabbing Zevran's wrist. “Emma lath, stay, please.” He turned to find Vanastin looking at him strangely, dark eyes seeming almost wet, some intense emotion in them.

“Wynne will have my head.” But Zevran was already sitting down on the bed. Vanastin shifted his hand to twine his fingers with Zevran's, and his grip was tight, possessive.

“Don't care. Tell her I threatened you.”

“Have you? Was that a threat?”

“No.” Vanastin all but pouted, or what passed for the stoic Dalish elf, looking away and staunchly refusing to make eye contact again. “But she'll believe it.”

So Zevran stayed until Vanastin was soundly asleep, then slipped away to take care of his own aching need. But it wasn't to thoughts of how Vanastin had seemingly let go, or fantasies of tying the Warden up and making him plead for release. No, Zevran found that he came to the intense look in Vanastin's eyes and the need in his voice when he'd begged the Antivan to stay, and afterwards he somehow felt just as guilty as when he realized he'd nearly killed Vanastin. With a sigh, Zevran threw himself down against his own bed, staring up into the dark.

Vanastin's cruelty had been so much simpler, and Zevran almost longed for it.

Zevran/M!Warden, domestic bliss: M!Warden (preferably elf, but I'm not that picky) and Zevran are living their happily settled post-game life. M!Warden is doing some banal household chore (washing the dishes, doing laundry, wiping the floor, whatever floats your boat!) and Zevran is being more of a hindrance than a help.
A sexy hindrance~
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Lumbering gray clouds blocked out any sign of sun or blue sky, and a heavy mist hung over the hills, the glass of the window under his hand cold—a chill day, for certain, and poor weather by late afternoon. Just thinking about it made him shiver, the long walk in the cold and wet, the mist seeping into everything in their packs and making camp doubly miserable. It was more than a day to the next town, after all.

“Would you stop that?”

Zevran half-turned to look at Cadryn, who stood on the opposite side of the bed from him, very efficiently packing their bags. He never complained about being left to it, and Zevran had noticed it helped keep him sharp, remembering where everything was as if it was all precisely cataloged. “What?”

“If you put some clothes on, you wouldn't be shivering so much.” He said nothing about the window, but green eyes flicked for a moment to look out it, and Zevran knew the blatant exhibitionism of standing in front of the window irked him, however slightly. “I never should've said anything about the bracers,” the mage muttered, and went back to packing, movements exaggerated with annoyance.

Indeed, Zevran was standing there quite nude, save for his armored bracers, dreading the dreary day ahead of them—if he failed in this gamble. Of course, if he succeeded they'd be delayed long enough that he could easily persuade Cadryn to stay here another day, and spend a lazy day making love in the warmth of a well-appointed inn. They were only just out of Ferelden after Cadryn's retirement, and money wouldn't be a problem for a while yet, so Zevran saw no reason not to take this journey leisurely. He turned back to the window, hands against the sill and leaned forward slightly.

“Damnit, Zev!” Broad hands suddenly gripped his hips, warm lips traced his tattoos from neck to one shoulder, and Zevran smiled in victory, looking Cadryn in the eye in their reflections in the glass.

By the time Cadryn had stripped and gently spread him with a practiced, knowing touch, Zevran had to brace himself against the window frame. One of the locals stopped outside to stare up at their third story window slack-jawed, shortly followed by a pair of women who whispered behind their hands. Cadryn took him just like that, on display for the people outside, and Zevran reveled in it, the looks of shock and desire on their faces, this sensation of being wanted but just beyond their reach... teasing them with this vision of ecstasy in the window. A strong, full laugh at the thought dissolved into a moan of pleasure when Cadryn's hand closed around his length.

It didn't take long, and Zevran would've been embarrassed at his own lack of stamina if the orgasm wasn't so shattering. It had been a long time since he'd done something like this, not since Cadryn had come to him in Antiva, a certain night on the balcony of his apartments. Cadryn followed soon after, pressed tight to him and gasping out his own release as Zevran's dripped from his hand and rolled down the window.

“Looks like our adoring public enjoyed the performance,” Zevran said, grinning triumphantly down at the small crowd outside. He caught Cadryn's gaze in the window again briefly, watched him nip at the tip of one ear and slid his lips down along the helix of it, making Zevran shudder.

“We'll give them an encore later,” he murmured, and led Zevran away from the window.

Okay. This thing with "no dwarves". You know what, I don't want to see them in my porn, either, but I've made peace with it, and the chances of someone filling your prompt with a dwarf are almost zero because so few people write them. Stop it. It's like dwarves are guro or something. Just stop it, guys. No need to specify and alienate others by doing so. It's becoming a form of wank, and I'm not going to fill a prompt that says "no dwarves" because of it (or I will start intentionally microfilling with dwarves even though I don't like them either).

That said, I think if people state a preference, that's fine. Just don't say "I exclude this", you should be saying, "I would prefer this." As I stated, the chances of someone filling your prompt with a dwarf are pretty much zilch.

If they bother you that much, then copy/paste, find/replace. Seriously, guys, we're pushing away a talented section of the fanbase, and it's mostly the Zevran and M/M crowds doing it.