Who walks among the famous living dead
Drowns all the boys and girls inside your bed
And if you could talk to me, tell me if it's so
That all the good girls go to Heaven?
~ My Chemical Romance, This is how I disappear
~o0o~
The dreams came to him in many forms. Some nights, she was on her knees before him, sobbing and begging for her life before he cut her to pieces. Some nights, she was angry, screaming at him, fighting him blow for blow, until his blade sank into her heart. Sometimes Taliesin was there, holding her down, trying to gag her as she proclaimed her innocence. Even when Taliesin made an appearance, in his dreams, he was always the one to kill her.
But those were not the worst nights.
The worst nights were when the dreams were not so violent; when he dreamed of the times they had before, of what was and what could have been. When the dreams were full of easy banter and careless laughter, of soft hands and warm skin, of long, lazy lovemaking, basking in the warmth of the Antivan sun.
The worst nights were nights like tonight.
She laughs as he chases her across the house, her laughter echoing through the empty rooms. He runs after her, after the sound of her laugh, until he has her cornered in a sunlit bedroom and she slowly backs up towards the bed, smiling, her hands raised in surrender. She falls back on the bed, lying naked in a patch of sunlight, bronze skin striking against white sheets, and he follows, crawling over her, skin sliding against skin. She laughs again as her hands come up to caress his chest. She's all white teeth and dark skin, black hair over the white sheet, her fingers on him driving him mad with desire. Her legs wrap around his hips as he straightens up, kneeling on the bed between her thighs. Her back arches as he grabs her hips and easily slides inside her. She gasps, raises her arms towards him, begging. "I need you, Zevran, please…"
A flash of light, then she's down on her knees on the cold hard ground, in a dark, dirty room, her arms raised towards him in supplication, and she's crying. "Zevran, please, I need you to believe me…"
Then she's laughing, her head thrown back, silky black hair spilling across the white pillow, and she wraps her arms around his shoulders. "Harder," she breathes against his ear, and he thrusts harder inside her. She's so warm and soft under his hands, moaning softly through her laughter, biting at his earlobe. She whispers, "Harder, please, Zev, so good, please, hurt me…"
A flash, again. She sobs, her face half-hidden in darkness, her eyes boring into his, pleading. "Please, Zev, please don't hurt me…"
She's begging for him, her eyes shining in the sunlight pouring in from the windows, her fingernails scratching at his back. Their movements become frantic, his pleasure building as he thrusts harder and faster. Her breathing is ragged, she moans as she bucks and trashes under him, her hands grasping the sheets.
"Zevran, please… I love you…"
He reaches down and slashes her throat with the blade in his hand. She stares up at him, mouth open on a silent cry, white teeth, bronze skin and dark hair against soaked, blood red sheets…
He woke with a start, panting, and threw the blanket aside, clenching his teeth as bile rose up in his throat. After a few deep, calming breaths to fight through the nausea he sat up, rubbing his hands over his face.
They always threw him, these physical reactions, these concrete manifestations of his feelings of guilt, of want, of need. His body should not betray him so. It had been trained not to. That he had slowly been losing the control of his mind was enough.
It was no use trying to go back to sleep, he knew. He stretched carefully in the small enclosed space of the tent and then strapped his armour back on mechanically. Whoever was on watch, he could use the company. He took a minute to compose himself, then exited the tent.
It was still dark outside, so morning was still some time away. Tara was sitting by the fire, wrapped in a blanket, her eyes following his movements with no small amount of amusement.
"Oh, it's just you, Sexy," she said, laughter in her hushed voice. "For a minute there, I thought it was a dangerous assassin sent to kill me in my sleep!"
"Ow! Your words, my Warden, they wound me." He sat by her and she quickly shifted closer. The night was quite chilly. "I assure you, if I ever intend to kill you again, you would not see me coming."
"Oh, you mean this time you wouldn't drop a freakin' tree on me? 'Cause that wasn't subtle."
"And totally ineffective, I might add, although it was mostly meant to bar the way, which it did... But do not worry yourself so. I swore an oath to you and I intend to keep it. Besides, you are more of use to me alive, now, yes? You protect me, I protect you. It is a mutually beneficial partnership."
"Right. Also, I like you. Just saying. It's not so down-to-business, but there it is." She smiled at him, bumping her shoulder to his lightly. "Having trouble sleeping, Sexy? Something bothering you?"
"Ah, it is these dreams, you see. I keep dreaming of creatures of all genres and forms trying to insert various large, hard things in specific body parts. It is quite distressing."
"Hm. The naughty kind or the deadly kind?"
"Ah, but what difference does it make, hm? I find myself awake all the same."
She chuckled, shaking her head softly.
"Yeah, I know what you mean. Dreams can be…" Her smile faded as she stared into the fire, "… they can be pretty bad." Zevran waited to see if she would elaborate, but seconds passed in silence.
When she spoke again, apparently changing the subject, she didn't look at him, keeping her gaze on the fire, "You said you were from Antiva. Would you tell me about it?"
She asked this in such a small voice, wrapped up in her grey blanket, her eyes wide, the pale blue of her irises darker than in the light of day, her hair shining bright red in the firelight, and it hit him how young she was, how… inexperienced in the ways of the world. She'd never been to Antiva. She'd never been… anywhere, probably.
"Oh, you wish to know about Antiva, do you? The only way to truly appreciate it would be to go there. It is a warm place, not cold and harsh like this Ferelden. In Antiva, it rains often, but the flowers are always in bloom… or so the saying goes."
"And it has assassins."
Ah, so she was curious about the Crows after all. Talking to her alone in the stillness of the night and the strange intimacy created by the firelight was not the same experience as talking to her in the light of day, in front of everyone else. It was like talking to a completely different person, in fact: a much less assured, much more sincere person.
"Every land has its assassins. Some are simply more open about their business than others."
He was expecting her to be shocked, to deny it. Instead she just nodded, looking even slightly… unimpressed. Well he couldn't have that, now, could he?
"I hail from the glorious Antiva City, home to the royal palace. It is a glittering gem amidst the sand, my Antiva City. Do you come from someplace comparable?"
"I'm probably not from any glittering gem, no."
"No? That is too bad. If you were, then surely you would spend as much time boasting about it as I do!"
"I have no clue where I'm from, Sexy. Thanks for pointing that out so thoroughly, though."
He heard no bitterness in her tone. She sounded… amused, of all things… at peace with the ugliness of her past life? He knew the feeling well. His own less-than-stellar upbringing did not diminish his love for his homeland. When one found himself surrounded by ugliness, one learned to appreciate what he had. Maybe she'd like to hear about…
"Hmm. You know what is most odd? We speak of my homeland, and for all its wine and its dark-haired beauties and the lillo flutes of the minstrels… I miss the leather the most."
He could see her eyes sparkle in the firelight as she repressed a giggle.
"Is that some kind of euphemism?"
He laughed – a surprisingly loud, sincere, uncalculated sound.
"It may as well be! But not this once, no. I mean the smell. For years, I lived in a tiny apartment near Antiva City's leather-making district, in a building where the Crows stored their youngest recruits, packed in like crates. I grew accustomed to the stench, even though the humans complained of it constantly. To this day, the smell of fresh leather is what reminds me most of home, more than anything else."
"You sound like you've been away from home forever."
'So do you,' he thought.
"Oh, not so long, I know. It is my first time away from Antiva however, and the thought of never returning makes me think of it constantly."
"Ha! I actually know what that feels like, if you can believe it."
Ah, there it was, the bitter sadness. That seemed like a slippery slope he was engaging on. It would be safer to come back to Antivan leather, surely.
"Before I left, I was tempted to spend what little coin I possessed on leather boots I spotted in a store window. Finest Antivan leather, perfect craftsmanship... Ah, but I was a fool to leave them. I thought, 'Ah, Zevran, you can buy them when you return as a reward for a job well done!' More the fool I, no?"
"The job being killing me, right?" she laughed.
"Yes," he sighed, "and now here I am."
"Oh, you sound exasperated with me, Sexy. Are you tired of me rubbing your failure in your face with my continued existence?" She ran a hand through her hair to push back the locks hanging before her eyes, her expression more serious. "Your home is still there, Zevran. One day, maybe you'll be able to go back."
"I know," he sighed. "That is a comforting thought."
"Of course," she said with an uncharacteristic harshness in her voice as she poked at the fire a bit too violently, "maybe when you finally get to go back, it's possible that your home will be overrun by monsters wearing your old friends' faces and you're going to have to kill them all to survive."
"As a matter of fact, my dear Warden," he said, unable to keep his own tone as light as he would have wanted, "it is highly probable."
They sat in silence for a while, then Zevran shook himself slightly.
"One simply never knows what is to come next. How could I have suspected I would end up defeated by a beautiful Grey Warden, a woman who then spares my life? I could not."
The compliment had the desired effect: she smiled.
"Beautiful, is it?"
"I say you are beautiful because it is true! Should I not?"
"No, by all means!" She was laughing.
"And glad I am to hear it." He smiled seductively.
"I mean, of course you'd say that! Just look at me!"
"Oh, believe me, I am. Luridly."
She chuckled softly, shaking her hair.
"You're really one of a kind, Sexy. Maybe… I guess you need to make the most of where you are."
"Quite right you are. I see the Grey Wardens do not recruit fools."
"I don't know about that," she breathed, her smile vanishing slowly.
Suddenly she didn't seem so young. It made for a striking contrast, he decided, the way the light of the fire kept shifting on her face, revealing two different visages. She was young, younger than him, probably, and was lacking in several of the most basics of human experiences, but then she was so old, with a terrible burden upon her shoulders, bitter lines around her mouth. She had witnessed things too horrible to speak of, had experiences a vast majority of people would never have to face in their entire lifetime. Then she was shaking her head, smiling, and she was young again.
'She would have loved Antiva,' he suddenly thought. He could imagine her there, her skin tanned, her hair burning like fire under the sun. He imagined her in the market, curious about all the new foods the merchants had to offer, or sitting on a terrace, listening to the minstrels, or even in his tiny Crow apartment, sipping coffee, complaining about the smell… the thought filled him with an inexplicable sadness.
"Now, if it is all the same to you, I would prefer not to speak more of Antiva. It makes me wistful and hungry for a proper meal."
"Ouch! Was that a jab at my cooking skills? Hitting me where it hurts, Sexy!" She chuckled, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Maybe you should go and get some sleep, then. Don't worry, I'm staying right here. I'll keep the large-and-hard-object wielders at bay. All kinds, sadly."
"Ah, well, sometimes the good comes with the bad, no? I bid you good night, my Warden."
"Good night, Zev."
It wasn't before he was lying on his back in his tent again that he remembered why he had left it in the first place. It hit him like a punch to the stomach that, for a few precious minutes, he had forgotten. The cold, black hand that was constantly around his heart had released his grip, ever so slightly. She did this to him. He had let that happen. She had even made him laugh. He had felt like his old self for a small moment, and that was simply not allowed. Inexcusable!
But… beneath the guilt, if he was honest, he was feeling… relief. Just before he finally fell asleep for the second time that night, he decided that he would chase that feeling again. He would be able to return to his old ways, to be his old self.
And then everything would be fine.