RP: Alistair (fereldens_king) (NSFW content down the way)

[daylen_amell_fadewalk]

Daylen hadn't slept well in years. Demons had tried to play their games, and when they weren't toying with him, nightmares of all the ways he'd failed Alistair all those years ago plagued him.

Figures it would take a botched grab for his own death, spurred by what he'd now been told was a false Calling, and a bizarre side-trip into the Fade to bring him a little peace.

Peace that had everything to do with the warm bulk of this impossible man beside him. Behind him? He wasn't sure as he came awake by bits and pieces. He was sprawled on his stomach, rolled there from his side in the... night? Did it count as night? He thought it might actually be darker now than it had been when they'd climbed into the bed.

And now that he was awake he could think about all the things he'd done yesterday since falling out of the Deep Roads and to this strange place that he shouldn't have.

Probably including climbing into bed with this Alistair, this strange mirror of his own Voice who he'd been aching to follow into death for years and now... He sighed raggedly, burying his face in the pillow under his head and tried to grapple with the sudden twist of loathing he felt for himself.

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[fereldans_king]

Alistair came awake slowly, like rising to the surface from deep water. He resisted waking - he was warm and relaxed, a comfortable weight against his chest, pinning one arm to the bed. When the weight next to him moved, he rolled closer, clinging. A grumbled noise of protest escaped him.

Eventually, he cracked one eye open to look at the man next to him. Daylen seemed tense...Alistair's hand raised without any conscious thought, and ran his fingers through Daylen's hair.

[daylen_amell_fadewalk]

The hand in his hair sent a shower of sparks down Daylen's spine. Luckily he was in control enough that they weren't literal sparks. He didn't want to set the bed on fire. The sensation settled low in his gut, and he had to fight not to moan and arch into the hand.

There was no way for this to be happening, the strange dampened echo of the tug of his Voice becoming stronger, clearer... how? How could he have found some kind of... replacement?

He stretched slowly, pushing up off the mattress and settling back on his haunches, letting the arm he'd had pinned under his chest go. "Suppose you'll want that back before it falls off from lack of blood flow." He knuckled his eyes, and shot a small smile toward Alistair, though he didn't try to meet his gaze.

[fereldans_king]

Alistair slid closer to Daylen, curling around him slightly. "Mrr...silly blood flow. It's not necessary." He buried his face in Daylen's side and wrapped his arms around the man.

Being curled up with Daylen felt almost sinfully good. He had not realized just how starved for attention he had been before being here, with the mage. A tiny thread of guilt worked it's way into his thoughts - this seemed self-serving. He hoped, silently, that Daylen was enjoying himself as much.

[daylen_amell_fadewalk]

Daylen had never had a pet, but he remembered Pounce, at Vigil's Keep, the way the cat had rolled in the sun near Anders preferred window for reading. The sight of the cat basking in the warmth, it was the image Alistair called to mind, chasing contact, languid with simple pleasure.

He let himself run fingers into his hair, brushing the curls back over his ear, trailing over the nape of his neck, watching the reactions he had. He dragged his fingernail lightly up the edge of Alistair's ear, a place the Alistair he had loved and been bonded to had been particularly sensitive.

[fereldans_king]

Alistair shivered as under the ministrations of Daylen's fingers. The gentle touches caused the warmth in the pit of his stomach to spread, and he felt himself stirring with the beginnings of lust. When Daylen's fingernail traced the edge of his ear, Alistair could not hold back a breathy moan.

[daylen_amell_fadewalk]

That was a sound that coiled into Daylen's gut and grew heavy there. He returned his fingers to Alistair's hair, carding back with the pads of his fingers rubbing firmly into his scalp.

"I could pet you all day," he murmured softly. He could spend the rest of his life doing it, honestly. Thought he might die if someone told him he had to stop. That thought stilled his hand. What was happening here, if it ended, would he go back to his empty, gutted life, and Alistair back to his kingdom alone?

[fereldans_king]

"I wouldn't object." Alistair leaned into Daylen's touch. When the hand touching him stilled, he cracked an eye open to look up at Daylen's face.

"You are thinking too much." Alistair unfurled from Daylen's side in order to sit up, and then wrapper an arm around his shoulder, pulling him close again. "I know that no one will ever accuse me of thinking too much, but I know the signs."

[daylen_amell_fadewalk]

"You said something last night." Daylen went where Alistair's arm drew him, unable to resist the draw of his warmth, his touch, the way it gentled his pain. Too bad it couldn't clear his mind as well. "About it being like singing. What did you mean?"

He twisted enough to be able to watch Alistair's face, a faint frown between his eyebrows. "And yes, I'm thinking. I do that. A lot, you'll find. Brood too. I have a surprisingly grumpy disposition."

[fereldans_king]

"Well, my sunny nature will just have to compete with that." The arm drapped across Daylen's shoulders tightened in a hug, and that hand tracked small circles across Daylen's upper arm.

Alistair's brow furrowed as he thought back to the previous night. He'd said a number of things but...singing? After a moment, he cautiously offered, "Do you mean my comment about your magic?" What had he said... "Alcoholic music, is what I think I said..."

[daylen_amell_fadewalk]

Daylen smirked slightly at the comment about Alistair's disposition. "Yes, you're sunny until your socks are wet and there's mold on the cheese and Morrigan has been turning into a spider to stare at you when your back is turned." He winced. He had to stop doing that. "I'd warrant anyway. That would make most people grumpy."

He let out a little sigh and then nodded, resting his forehead against Alistair's jaw for a moment, trying to ignore the disappointment he felt. "Right. Magic. Because you've got Templar training and of course you'd be able to sense my mana since it's constantly draining out of me like a hemorrhage." That was overstating how it had felt since he'd been in Skyhold, but it was still an open, seeping wound.

[fereldans_king]

"Somethings don't change. I told Cousland that I thought she was staring at me out of spite. And then she insisted that she wasn't staring if she was only using some of her eyes to look at me." Alistair shivered dramatically, only partially in mock disgust. Morrigan's spider form had been exceptionally creepy.

Alistair tilted his head into Daylen's, a thoughtful look creeping across his face. "No, that's not quite it. I mean, yes, I can feel something odd about your mana;" and he could if he focused, feel the slow trickle away from Daylen, bleeding sluggishly into the Fade. "But what I meant was when you used it." Alistair paused to try and put the right words together to describe it.

"Cousland asked if I would continue my Templar training to further our cause; I sought out Knight-Commander Greagoir, and worked to finish my original training. I can...feel when a mage casts a spell, can sometimes tell what is about to be cast before it happens." Alistair grinned at a particularly satisfying memory of Morrigan stomping away in anger after he had dispelled her cloud of gloom as she tried to cast it.

"Your magic, thought....it's like a tuning fork, or a Chantry bell, humming in my head. Even the tiniest bit of magic - the warming spell you used on my shirt, and the bed, for example - it's like...a glass of warm spiced wine or a song that captivates or..." Or the warm spill of arousal, but Alistair blushed and cut himself off before blurting that out.

[daylen_amell_fadewalk]

Daylen snorted as Alistair spoke about Cousland and Morrigan, rubbing a hand over his side at the shiver. When he began speaking about his sensitivity to Daylen's magic he listened closely, very still, and heart suddenly beating very, very hard.

He cleared his throat softly. "It makes you want to press nearer?" He tipped his head back so that he could see Alistair's eyes again. "Does it intensify when you touch me?" He drew Alistair's hand up to cup against his face, eyes searching.

[fereldans_king]

Alistair's eyes slipped closed as he focused his attention to his sense of Daylen's magic. He nodded slowly, caressing Daylen's cheekbone with a thumb as he did.

"It's louder, not unpleasantly so, but more...present when I'm touching you. It feels..." His voice trailed off as he luxuriated in the warm thrum of Daylen's magi, all around him but more intensely focused where he cupped Daylen's cheek.

"It feels...good." Those three words carried an immense amount of desire with them - Alistair's voice was rough, deep, rumbling in his chest as he spoke.

[daylen_amell_fadewalk]

"You're reacting like an unbonded Voice, and I don't know how that can be possible." Daylen sounded upset, frustrated, maybe even scared? He rested there, staring at Alistair's face, the way he just seemed to know how to touch Daylen, to make him better.

The strength of his desire made Daylen flush, and want, and despite all his instincts telling him to press forward he felt like he should draw back, leave it, even if he worried it might kill him to do so. Maybe not like falling into a pit of lava with a horde of darkspawn dogpiling on top of him, but reopening the wound that was partially staunched now? He swallowed his dread, and asked, so gently, "Does that mean anything to you?"

[fereldans_king]

Alistair opened his eyes at the upset, frightened tone of Daylen's voice, a look of concern on his face. His hand fell still, still touching Daylen, but no longer caressing his face - this conversation sounded as if it would quickly become too serious for such pleasant touches.

"No. I've never heard someone referred to as a Voice before." He frowned, and then shook his head after a moment. "No, wait...you said that I looked like your Voice, when I was still trying to convince you I wasn't a demon." Alistair looked serious and thoughtful.

"Which means that a Voice...is that soulmate you mentioned before." He raised an eyebrow at Daylen. "You said it was complicated magical stuff..."

[daylen_amell_fadewalk]

Daylen smiled at the way Alistair's mind worked, sifting through the bits of conversation they'd had the day before, putting it together. People acted like he was stupid, but he'd never been that. Naive, sometimes. Too willing to hope for the good in people, perhaps. But not stupid.

"Right," he agreed, expression turning serious. "Where I'm from, a mage has a Voice. Soulmate is what some people call them, but it's only mages who have them. We are called to them in the Fade. If you're lucky you can meet them there, and visit their dreams. I used to watch a boy playing in the dirt in his dreams, a pile of puppies in his lap, until his mother would call him away for dinner. She never had a face. Later he was a young man who was trying to find someone in hallways inside the Chantry monastery, searching empty room after empty room, and when he'd see someone around the corner he'd call out and had no voice."

Daylen rubbed a hand over his eyes, voice grown thick with emotion as he spoke of the dreams Alistair had suffered in his loneliness as a child. "The Chantry keeps us from them, teaches us they're a heresy, a distraction from the Maker. They keep us safe from demons, they complete the part of us that can be possessed." He tired to meet Alistair's eyes but couldn't quite make it, didn't want to see fear or rejection or disgust there.

[fereldans_king]

Alistair remembered those dreams - remembered nights of running through empty halls being unable to call out to anyone; remember the dreams of a young boy who only ever wanted to be held and treated with kindness.

"Why would the Chantry deny someone the opportunity to be free of that nightmarish possibility. Oh, I forgot." Alistair's voice was sarcastic and sharp. "The Chantry only wants what keeps people in line." He shook his head in disgust.

The disgust faded into thoughtfulness, and he looked at Daylen, pondering. After a moment, he spoke, "And you are saying that my ability to feel your magic, my sensitivity to it, has something to be with being a Voice?" 'Your Voice' was unsaid, but heavily implied. "But...our mages don't have Voices...and soul mates are simply a romantic fantasy...like love at first sight."

Alistair, seeing the worry in Daylen's expression, leaned into the man, and once again stroke Daylen's shoulder in slow, gentle circles. He tried to exude calm, an attitude of willingness to understand - this was strange to him, but then again, much had been strange over the course of defeating the Blight and ruling a country afterwards.

((OOC: I apologize if I fall asleep! If I do, we can continue tomorrow.))

[daylen_amell_fadewalk]

"I don't know. Maybe?" Daylen didn't want to say he hoped so, but he really hoped so. Sort of. It was hard to think when Alistair's hand was moving on him like that. "You haven't wanted to leave my side since you saw me in the great hall. You found me when I was in a broom closet. You've been touching me every chance you get."

He cleared his throat trying to push the huskiness back. "And I've wanted you to. At first it was like this weird, muddy echo, I thought I was imagining it because of how you look, but as you've stayed close there's a sort of resonance? It's getting stronger."

And if it was getting stronger, it might mean irreversible things for Alistair if it went on long enough. "Maybe if it had been one of those other Alistairs in the journal who found me I'd be rubbing against him like a cat instead. Maybe it's fucking blood magic that I don't know I'm doing on you because I just don't want to feel like I've felt for the last decade anymore." He tried not to let the bitterness, the despondency creep into his tone.

"I don't know what you want to do."

[fereldans_king]

Alistair tensed as he listened to Daylen's possible explanations. The possibility of unknowing blood magic being used on him was...concerning, to say the least. Except...

"Except I know what blood magic feels like. Up here." He briefly lifted his hand from Daylen's shoulder to tap his temple. "Blood magic does not feel like warmth and cat's purr and..." Alistair shook his head. "It feels awful - like stepping into a pool of cold scummy water in just socks, or slime dripping down the back of your armor."

He paused, and then settled the hand back on Daylen's shoulder. His eyes settled on the far wall, as he thought, and then responded. "At least one of those Alistairs is happy married and head over heels in love with his Lady Warden. He would have been less...forward, but no less helpful, I believe. The other...the other has been hurt, quite badly, I believe, by someone - likely his Hero of Fereldan. I don't think he would have been as pleasant."

He cleared his throat, and flushed slightly in embarrassment, still not looking at Daylen. "And I will admit that my own intentions have been less than altruistic. I..." Alistair fought to get the words out. Daylen deserved to know that he wasn't causing some grand issue, that Alistair wanted to be here and wasn't just drawn by some unknown magic.

"I've hated ruling Fereldan. Not the taking care of my people, or rebuilding the country, or helping make life better aspects. I hate the loneliness. No one is willing to just talk to the King, to treat him like a person instead of some fragile being, to want him instead of the prestige." Alistair's voice was choked with anger. He had long ago decided that if this was the price to pay for a stable country, then he would pay it. Cousland had obviously thought him capable of handling the burden, and the last thing he had wanted to do was disappoint his friend and leave his country to rot in the hands of that bitch Anora.

But that did not mean that his anger, his sadness had simply gone away. Instead, it had festered, quietly, and now...it had an outlet.

[daylen_amell_fadewalk]

Daylen shifted uneasily as Alistair spoke about blood magic. He hadn't any reason to really believe he was doing it without knowing it, but so many mages who lost their voices fell victim to demons if they survived, and if he'd been driven so far around the bend to let that happen, maybe he wouldn't know? But it was a relief that Alistair would recognize it if that were true.

The hand on his shoulder settled him, and he pressed his cheek against it in an absent acknowledgement as he listened to Alistair's claim to being not altruistic just because he was so lonely. He sighed softly and reached up a hand to turn Alistair's face toward his.

"Do you think you're being selfish or something?" He sounded terse, a bit angry. "Everyone you've ever had in your life has tried to use you or abandoned you and wanting someone to treat you like a human isn't altruistic?" He was winding up, getting a little incensed. "I swear to the bloody void, you are impossible."

His own Voice hadn't thought he was worthy of Daylen for a long time, resisted his gentle overtures because he was 'just' him. Now he was confronted with a man who had been made king and only wanted human contact. "You always have been. I imagine any version of you would be, like a facet of a gem that was just too frigging gorgeous and just fucking impossible."

Impossible for Daylen not to love, really. He'd known him only a day, and also his entire life, and maybe it wasn't fair like that, but there it was.

"But here's the thing. It doesn't have to be me. Despite what my magic feels like, or the way I might be pulling on you because my soul is deciding it needs you just as badly as it ever needed him, you can choose something else."

[fereldans_king]

Alistair listened carefully to Daylen's words. But he busted out in a broad, embarrassed and happy grin after a moment. "You think I'm gorgeous?" He nuzzled the side of Daylen's head, pleased.

He sighed, and then took up a serious expression. "Daylen...I am being selfish. If I wasn't, I would be more worried about the retinue of people who were left behind when I disappeared and showed up here. Or trying to figure out a way to get home, to get back to prevent Fereldan from falling apart."

Alistair shook his head. "But instead, I'm here with you. You, who have been in the Deep Roads for who knows how long, bravely facing the Calling head on, heart sore from losing your Voice...and here I am, enjoying your company and the feeling of your magic and your touch...when I shouldn't been inflicting the image of your lost Voice on you."

"I may be able to chose something or someone else...but I am choosing to be here with you. I would call that selfish."

[daylen_amell_fadewalk]

"Hm." Daylen's glare wasn't particularly baleful. He was too busy trying not to have some kind of emotional episode at the thought that Alistair would choose him regardless of the tricks of fate. "I think you probably are worrying about them, and about me, Ferelden, and any number of things, because you aren't a selfish man, even if you feel guilty for taking a little pleasure where you've found it."

He shifted, sitting up, cross legged, looking at the empty fireplace and shivering just at ouch in the cold air, still shirtless. He chewed on the corner of his thumbnail and then looked at Alistair sidelong. "I can't imagine if a rift opened right here that would get you home you'd refuse it because you wanted to cuddle a little longer."

That was bleak, Daylen's face becoming shadowed. Because he, unlike Alistair, was selfish and he was having a hard time caring that Ferelden might be falling apart without its king. He wouldn't want him to go.

[fereldans_king]

Alistair made a quiet noise of protest as Daylen pulled away, but didn't try and prevent him from moving. "...No. I can't lie and say that I wouldn't try to go home. The country needs someone at it's head. And with Anora locked up, and Teagan busy running the Arlington of Redcliffe...the resulting nightmare of politics if I didn't return would be problematic to say the least." Alistair reached a hand out to Daylen, running gentle fingers tips across one shoulder and down his back.

"But I can tell you that I would ask you to come with me. No one deserves to go back to a situation like the one you described - not if there is another choice."

[daylen_amell_fadewalk]

"You don't think appearing with a mage who followed you around like a puppy would cause any problems politically, at all." Daylen's lips twitched but he leaned toward the touch. "I could be the King's apostate mistress. How Orlesian."

Despite his glibness there were layers of yearning underneath. If Alistair actually offered such a thing... well it might not even be possible.

(OOC: phone rep, forgive typos :D )

[fereldans_king]

((OOC: no problem - that's where I was yesterday!))

"Anora walked around with Cailen following her around like a damned puppy. The advisors would just learn to deal." Alistair's voice was firm, decisive. What was the point of being King if he couldn't make at least some decisions on his own? Hadn't more than one Thedaisian ruler had some sort of magical advisor?

"They might even be happy that I was adopting more Orlesian customs. I think some of the older ambassadors and nobles weren't prepared for such a...down-to-earth ruler."