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.

Comments

[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."

[daylen_amell_fadewalk]

The look Daylen gave Alistair was full of warmth, fond and tender, smiling eyes crinkling at the corners. It felt strange to have hope stirring in him. Hope for anything other than death, anyway.

"First cheese for dessert, then a court enchanter... what's next? Masques? Silk stockings? Where would the madness end?" He carefully reached for Alistair's hand, brought it toward his face and kissed his knuckles lightly. "They'd say I'd bewitched you, you know. And they can be real shits about mages involved in politics. Amaranthine barely survived Anora conferring the arling to me."

[fereldans_king]

Alistair smiled fondly, the tension and stress lines disappearing slightly with the happy expression. A tiny shiver ran up his arm at the press of Daylen's lips against his knuckles.

"Is it madness to inspire change? We can always imply that I have had a religious revelation and have decided to reinterpret the Maker's command that 'Magic exists to serve man.'" Alistair paused for a moment, and then blushed faintly, muttering, "We just wouldn't announce what sort of service."

[daylen_amell_fadewalk]

Daylen blinked at Alistair's muttered aside and then burst into laughter, sharp and breathless, surprised at his own mirth. When he'd quieted he grinned, full grinned, cheeky, heart hurting with the affection he felt toward the man next to him.

"Well, now I'm curious. What sort of service are you imagining that we couldn't tell the court about?" He turned Alistair's hand over, dragged the tip of his nose over the center of his palm and then kissed it, this time his lips lingering just a moment longer than before.

[fereldans_king]

Another shiver of pleasure, and the warm feeling in the pit of his stomach began to return. It had dimmed due to the serious nature of the conversation, but...Daylen's touch felt too pleasant to ignore. Alistair gently took his hand back from Daylen, and cupped Daylen's cheek in the palm of his hand, his thumb caressing the crest of the man's check. Still blushing faintly, he gesticulated with his other hand.

"Well, you know. Making sure I remember to wear pants, and eat something other than cheese, and distracting me from paperwork..." Alistair ducked his head, the blush creeping further down his neck. "...Kissing, perhaps." He darted a look up at Daylen, cleared his throat. "If you like, I mean."

[daylen_amell_fadewalk]

Daylen's smile was crooked, amused and warm as Alistair cupped his cheek and he leaned into it. His ability to resist, to remember that this was all probably going to end in tragedy and his own death, seemed to wax and wane, and right now he just wanted to give Alistair whatever he needed. His own life, it had already been bought back unforeseen and accidentally, so it didn't matter much to him beyond the cessation of pain.

But Alistair? He was important.

"So a butler, but with kissing?" he asked. "A magic butler. Magic socks that are always warm. And kissing." He quirked an eyebrow, teasing droll and honeyed as he shifted a little closer. "About like that?"

[fereldans_king]

"No! Not a butler. Does a butler do all those things? Oh, I suppose they do. But no, not a real servant! I was thinking more like..." Alistair trailed off and mumbled something that that was probably supposed to be the words "a lover."

Alistair scooted closer to Daylen as the other man leaned in. Daylen was warmth and humor and right, like a puzzle piece slotting into place. Alistair could see how, in a world where soulmates existed, he could have been quite willingly convinced to have stood at the side of this mage.

[daylen_amell_fadewalk]

There was a blush across the back of Daylen's neck, and he shivered a little at Alistair's mumble, but his smile remained and he raised a hand to rest it on the other man's side. "So I was right about the mistress thing?" His blue eyes twinkled as he walked his fingers up the ribs under his hands, just a little too soft to truly tickle, and then back down.

[fereldans_king]

"Is the title still mistress if neither one is married? Or if they are male?" Alistair's comment was a distracted, idle thought. He moved into Daylen's touch without thinking, and found himself wishing that he hadn't kept his shirt on when he had laid down.

"Would you...object to others thinking of you as such?" Alistair pulled his thought together and looked at Daylen with an expression of faint concern.

[daylen_amell_fadewalk]

Daylen wrinkled his nose and shrugged a shoulder. "No, I guess it probably isn't mistress with two men." He looked down at Alistair, still smiling. "Companion? Personal attendant? Lover, if you're being bold. Consort if it's all official maybe."

His fingers walked to the hem of the shirt and skimmed underneath to brush the skin at Alistair's waist, just the barest brush. "I would worry that it would make you a target for censure from the Chantry... if we... And--" He looked down flushing deeper suddenly. "It might have unintended consequences, more personally. If you..." He fumbled a little for a word that didn't include love (too presumptuous) and wasn't rude. "...bed me. Maybe."

[fereldans_king]

"If Celene and Briala can parade about in front of the whole of Val Royeaux, then I can have a consort of my choosing. And the Chantry could stand to learn a thing or two from their own Chant - 'All that the Maker has wrought is in His hand, beloved and precious to Him.' Love one another! Not quarrel over virtue." Lelianna had used that line before, to convince an angry Cousland to spare a starving thief who had made off with their stockpile of elfroot potions.

Alistair's skin jumped beneath Daylen's questing fingers, but he arched into the touch. His blush finally spread from down his neck into his shirt as he realized how...wanton he him appear to be, arching into Daylen's touches like an affectionate cat. He coughed, and asked in a slightly husky voice. "What sort of unintended consequences...?"

[daylen_amell_fadewalk]

Daylen wasn't sure why he was surprised at Alistair's stubbornness. Good natured, sure, and the part of the fool he sometimes played disguised it, but he had a spine. A stiff, steely, proud one actually that he was taught as a boy to bend. It made sense that as king he'd learned he didn't have to, not often, and on his own terms.

His immediate use of the word consort made Daylen ache and he sighed softly, fingers still just barely skimming the skin of Alistair's waist. "That's how a bond between a mage and a Voice is usually formed. It's why the urge to be closer, to kiss and touch and taste and hold." He drew his hand back slowly. It wasn't fair to tease if this was where Alistair drew the line. "So if that is possible, then well, you see why it might not be a good idea?"

Daylen grimaced faintly because he wanted that, wanted the hole inside his heart to be full of Alistair again, and even if it didn't make any sense that it was possible, or even likely that it could happen, it didn't make it any less tempting. Which is why he told him before things moved any further forward with... whatever was arcing back and forth between them, coiling in his gut and on his skin.

[fereldans_king]

Alistair grabbed Daylen's hand before he could pull it back very far, and then looked down at their joined hands with a small look of surprise. As if he hadn't expected himself to do that. He blinked, and then looked up at Daylen's face, before very gently drawing Daylen's hand back to the hem of his shirt and his waist.

"Did I really have so much trouble accepting that a gentle," Alistair's thumb caressed Daylen's knuckles, "careful" Alistair leaned in towards Daylen, "man with such a fire and passion" and he paused to let Daylen back away if he wished "could want me, just plain Alistair?"

And Alistair leaned into press a kiss to Daylen's cheek, a soft brush of lips and stubble.

[daylen_amell_fadewalk]

Daylen let Alistair lead his hand, held very still as he leaned closer, eyes dipping closed as his breath feathered across Daylen's cheek. The press of his lips caused a soft, gutteral noise in his throat and then he said, normally rich, smooth voice hoarse, "Maker, Alistair, anyone, anywhere, Thedas, Fade, and void, would want you."

With a shudder, Daylen turned his face toward Alistair, close enough to feel the warmth of his skin, eyes opening, darting back and forth to try to see both of his at once. He was shaking with the effort not to close the gap between their mouths, the hand resting on Alistair's waist curling slightly, fingers digging as if trying to bring him closer with just the pressure of his fingertips.

But he had to choose, for himself, if he wanted Daylen.

[fereldans_king]

To Alistair, the moment seemed to drag on forever - he and Daylen looking into each other's eyes, breathing each other's air, yearning for the warm weight of the man in front of him to be pressed against him. And then Alistair, his voice as hoarse and wrecked as Daylen's had been, said, "Blast it all." And leaned in to kiss Daylen properly.

He was obviously trying to be gentle - just a chaste press of lips to start, infused with just the hint of his restrained desire.

[daylen_amell_fadewalk]

Daylen's trembling stilled the moment that Alistair's lips met his, free hand moving to curl into Alistair's hair and tug him closer. His whole being had been telling him to do this since he'd woken up to see Alistair standing over him in the closet, reach, hold, have, live.

The hand on his waist slid deeper up under his shirt, palm flat and fingers splayed over the broad muscles of Alistair's back and he scooted closer, even as his mouth stayed soft, yielding, lips stroking gently, barely even parted.