If it wasn't one person driving him crazy, it was another. Snarky witches, prattling bards, big scary qunari, dangerously sexy… errr, dangerous sex-crazed… assassins. He'd learned to live with them all in time, snarking back at Morrigan, and telling even bigger whoppers than the bard did. Sten wasn't as scary after you'd discovered his sweet tooth and seen him cramming three cookies into his mouth at one time, then intently licking every single tiny crumb off of his fingers. Oghren was pretty fun after about the third or fourth drink, if you managed to stay upright and aware that long, and his face when you told him the one you'd thought up about schleets! And, all right, the Commander's elf could still make him blush pretty much on demand, and he missed Wynne and her nagging about the state of his socks and the cleanliness (or lack thereof) of his smallclothes since she'd left, and even sort of missed Shale, who'd at least been consistent in her dislike of squishy beings and outright hatred of anything that flew.
He'd thought it would be different, finally getting to meet the other Grey Wardens, now that Anora was secure enough on her throne to not want to keep the most obvious source of potential competition for it close at hand. He'd been so thrilled to finally head off to the Arling of Armaranthine and rejoin the Warden-Commander. And at first it had gone well; seeing Aedan and Oghren and Zevran again, meeting the new elf – a prickly sort of elf, but really no worse than Morrigan had been – and the new dwarf, who was all bounce and enthusiasm and sharp axes, and already his next-best friend after the Commander. The archer had worried him for a while, being Howe's son and all, and having apparently wanted to kill the Warden-Commander at first, but after a day or two of feeling all stiff-legged around him, like a dog or a cat wondering if it was about to get into the fight, he'd decided the man was all right after all. Quiet, but with a sneaky sense of humour, and good at companionable silences. The corpse guy… spooky. Scarier than Sten, and without the sweet tooth. He kept his distance from that one.
And then there was the apostate. The man who seemed to combine in one body the worst of every person Alistair had ever had problems with before now. Snarky, and often embarrassingly flirtatious, and given to making up stories. And then all prickly and let-me-just-lob-this-fireball-at-you because he'd learned that Alistair had once almost been a templar. And he'd apologized for that one time he'd accidentally silenced Anders mid-battle, having forgotten the mage was there as he was rather busy dealing with not one but three genlock emissaries all at once, but Anders certainly hadn't accepted it gracefully. The snark had reached levels that had drawn Aedan's attention and brief ire, and then the mage had been sulky about that for days afterwards.
Anders drank, sometimes, but unlike Oghren his stories became even more pointed and cutting the more he'd had to drink, not a friendly sort of drunk at all, except when he suddenly tipped over into far-too-friendly territory, like Zevran but without the good humour and charm. Or the sense of timing. Or any ability to keep his hands to himself. The closest to a cute weakness he had was his fondness for cats, and Alistair already bore the scars from his one attempt to be friendly to the blighted beast. The one tall tale of Anders' telling that he was now willing to believe was that the cat had severely injured some darkspawn in the Deep Roads once.
But the worst part of it all – the worst – was that the biggest reason Anders drove him crazy was because he had actually rather liked him, at first, and hoped the mage would be his friend.
He liked Anders' stubbornness, that saw him escaping from the Circle Tower again and again, refusing to give up on his freedom, no matter what punishment his multitude of escapes had earned him. He liked the apostate's snarky sense of humour, when it wasn't directed at him anyway, and his irreverent attitude towards everything. He liked how kind and gentle the mage was when healing children and the poor, how waspish he was when the Grey Wardens managed to get themselves injured in some foolish fashion. He liked the tall tales the mage told, when relaxed and at ease, and the way he carried his cat everywhere with him, hidden somewhere in his robes or riding openly about on his shoulder.
He had even, while he would never have admitted it, sort of liked it, at least a little, when the mage had been so flirtatious at first, before he'd learned about Alistair's history of near-templarhood. It was nice being complimented, even if the source and nature of the compliments made him feel a little uneasy at times. Though not too uneasy, the mage being second-place to Zevran when it came to flirtatiousness, and he'd survived in Zevran's close company for over a year during the Blight. Not that Zevran flirted with him much any more, the elf being close enough with Aedan these days that he kept his flirty ways confined to special occasions. Such as any time he thought it would amuse Aedan for him to turn Alistair as red as a poppy-flower.
Zevran had done so this evening, peppering Alistair with flowery compliments and little sometimes-handsy attentions until Alistair was bright red and stuttering and had to leave to regain his composure. He left the dining hall, where they'd all been sitting around talking and gaming and drinking, and thought first of heading upstairs to his room, then changed his mind and headed out of the Keep, around the side to where the stables were. He liked stables; the smell of clean straw and warm horse was a comforting thing, reminding him of his childhood as it did. And Zevran, who had an acquired dislike of horses – unless he needed to travel somewhere, in which case he liked them very much more than shank's mare – was generally unlikely to come out to the stables.
The stables were dark at night, open flame and dry, dusty straw not being something that combined very well, though with the full moon out and a number of the windows propped open to allow the breeze through, it wasn't too dark to see. Alistair filched a saddle-blanket from a pile of them, and let himself into an empty stall, spreading the blanket out on the clean straw and then stretching out on the improvised bed. It was peaceful here, nice and quiet, and the smell of the place was soothing, even if not to everyone's taste. He soon felt himself relaxing, drifting toward sleep.
A sudden scrape of leather sole against stone floor was the only warning he had that someone else had entered the barn; he startled back awake to see the dark silhouette of someone leaning on the stall door.
"Zevran…?" he asked, sitting up.
A low chuckle. "No. Were you expecting him?" the mage asked.
"Oh. Anders. No, I wasn't… and what are you doing out here, anyway?" he asked suspiciously.
Anders snorted softly. "I might ask you the same thing," he said, then made a gesture with one hand. A tiny wisp flew up from his fingertips, casting an eerie green light as it rose to circle lazily in the air over Anders' head. A horse nosed over the dividing wall for a moment before lowering its head out of sight again; a hoof banged once against a wall somewhere nearby. Anders stood still, head lifted and looking around, waiting for the horses to settle again.
"If you're not waiting for Zevran here, than what are you doing? Hiding from him?" the mage asked, turning his attention back to Alistair, sounding amused.
"No! I'm just… I like stables," Alistair said, and flushed. How could he explain it, without explaining so much about his childhood back in Redcliffe first? "What are you doing here?"
"Believe it or not, I like stables too," Anders said, then opened the door, stepping through it and settling down in the thick straw near Alistair, his back against the wall. The wisp flitted around, casting distracting shadows everywhere, then settled to a slow circling just below the ceiling, moving back and forth between the two of them. Anders tilted his head back, watching it. "I was a farmer's kid before I was ever a mage," he said.
"Oh," Alistair said, and found himself relaxing slightly. "I was a stable boy, before I got sent off to the chantry," he explained, shyly, finding his eyes watching the pale column of Anders' throat, where it rose from stiffly upright collar to the scruff on his jaw and chin. Anders' head lowered again, and Alistair quickly looked away.
"Why does he fluster you so much?" Anders asked. "Zevran, I mean. You certainly never turned so red so fast when it was me saying things like that to you."
Just the memory of some of the things Zevran had said or hinted at this evening made Alistair flush beet red again. "Well… it's Zevran. I know that he'd really do those things, if he thought I'd said yes, and if he wasn't so close with Aedan."
Anders gave him a curious, slightly surprised look. "Does that mean it didn't fluster you when it was me because you didn't think I'd actually go through with any of them, given half a chance?"
Alistair's flush deepened. "Yes. No… I mean…" he stumbled to a halt, feeling all tongue-tied again, feeling his face burning with the heat of an even deeper blush.
Anders grinned. "Oh-ho! You do think I would, then," he said, then suddenly pushed himself up and away from the wall, closing the space between them with a single stride before dropping down to kneel in the straw beside Alistair. "You'd be right, you know," he said, voice low and husky in a way that sent a shiver right down Alistair's spine. "I might not be as widely experienced as the elf, but I've had more than a few men in my time. A lot of them templars, actually," he added, leaning closer to Alistair, his eyes dropping, breath gusting warm against Alistair's skin. He lifted his hand, bringing it close to Alistair's cheek, then paused. His head tilted just slightly to one side. "Have you never had a man?" he asked curiously, voice a low enticing purr, just the slightest odd edge to it.
"N-n-no," Alistair managed to stutter out. This wasn't happening… was it?
"Really?" Anders asked, sounding surprised. "No stolen kisses in a corner somewhere? No lifting your skirt and tassets for some sweet mouth to suck on you? No discrete groping of someone's tight little robe-clad arse with a promise of a good fucking later?"
"No!" Alistair exclaimed, mortified. "That… that… no!"
"You wouldn't be the first to have done it, you know," Anders said, then his hand knotted in the collar of Alistair's shirt and he pulled him close, their mouths mashing painfully together, bruisingly hard.
A kiss, Alistair recognized, but not like any kiss he'd ever wished for… there was no gentleness in this, no affection or caring. Revolted and angry, he shoved Anders away, hard, sending the mage over backwards in the straw, before scrambling away from him and swiping at his lips with the back of his hand. The hand came away wet with more than spittle; his lip was swollen and split from the kiss. He was shaking with anger as he stared at the mage. Was this why Anders had been so hostile to him ever since finding out his past? Because of the unwanted actions of real templars he'd known?
"I'm not like that," Alistair said, shakily, staring at the mage. "I'd never… I haven't even…"
He had to turn away. He couldn't stand to look at Anders any more. He squatted down in the straw, arms folded across his knees and face buried against them, feeling tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes, angry and embarrassed and upset.
There was a long silence, then the rustle of straw as Anders moved. A hand touched Alistair's back; he flinched away from the contact.
"I'm sorry, Alistair," Anders said, voice hoarse and cracking. "I shouldn't have done that."
"No, you shouldn't have," Alistair agreed miserably.
"I'm sorry," Anders repeated, voice cracking, and then wrapped his arms around Alistair's shoulders, hugging him. "I'm sorry. I can't tell you how sorry I am."
Alistair hunched up tighter, wishing Anders would just leave him alone and go. But the mage didn't; he stayed where he was, hugging Alistair tightly and apologizing, over and over again. Anders sounded so miserable himself… Alistair finally relented, lifting his head enough to turn it sideways on his arms and peer at the mage. He wasn't crying, though he looked close to it, the expression on his face as miserable as how Alistair felt. He fell silent as their eyes met.
"Sorry," Anders said again after a short silence.
Alistair drew and released a single deep breath. "All right."
"Can I at least heal your lip?" Anders asked softly, voice remorseful.
"Yeah," Alistair said, and lifted his head from his arms. Anders reached out, brushing his thumb lightly across Alistair's lips. The touch of his thumb, the tingle of magic in its wake… Alistair shivered, and finally relaxed again, legs dropping to a crossed position instead of drawn up against his chest. Anders' arm was still around his shoulders, the mage leaning against him, which felt… all right. Almost all right.
"I'm sorry," Anders said again, and leaned forward, resting his forehead against Alistair's shoulder. "You didn't deserve anything like that."
Alistair nodded tiredly. They sat like that for a few minutes, both of them silent. After a while Anders lifted his head again, then touched Alistair's cheek, turning his head to look at him. They studied each other's face for a while, lit by the spell wisp still bumbling around overhead. Anders bit his lip, then slowly leaned forward, stopping with his face just inches from Alistair's, eyes half-closed. "May I?" he asked, the merest whisper of sound.
Alistair swallowed, then nodded. Anders leaned closer, his hand moving from Alistair's cheek to slide around to the back of his neck. It was a gentle kiss this time, soft and tentative, testing at first, and then teasing, just a little, and then a deeper tasting, at the end. A sweet kiss, leaving Alistair feeling a little sad, after everything that had preceded it, but a better sad now, a regretful sad instead of an angry one. He smiled, a little, and Anders smiled back, then leaned forward again, pressing a single kiss to Alistair's temple, mussing his hair with one hand. Then the mage rose, dusting bits of chaff of his robe, and left, shoulders hunched and head lowered.
The spell wisp remained behind for a while, circling over Alistair as he sat in the straw, tired and confused and just the littlest bit happy, only finally fading away long after Anders had gone.