Don't call it love, yet.
WHO: Zevran Arainai (niceassassin) and Captain Jack Harkness (comesback)
WHERE: Zevran's apartment in the MAC.
WHEN: Backdated forever, or at least to the night of October 6th.
WARNINGS: Innuendo and mentions of violence.
SUMMARY: The problematic concept of the relationship is dealt with in the wake of Ianto's arrival.
FORMAT: Prose.
Pretending to be fine comes naturally to him, Zevran would say with a laugh, which means that it isn't exactly true. It's actually rather unnatural for him. He's just trained himself very well at it. So when he waits in his apartment at the MAC, he refuses to let himself show any signs of the worries that plague him--who this Ianto is, and what his appearance means for his relationship with Jack, and the dangerous fact that it means anything at all, that there is a relationship.
So instead, he mixes drinks, and he pretends that he's not waiting too eagerly for the noise of Jack's approach at the door.
* * *
Jack arrives soon after getting in touch with Zevran, he hadn't wanted to stay at House TARDIS any longer than necessary, for fear that the urge to punch the Doctor in the face would grow even stronger. Honestly, he wasn't at all sure what to do about the arrival of Ianto. Even for him, it's not often that a future lover arrives unexpectedly.
So he knocks upon his arrival, looking a bit nervous. He's not sure what he's going to say, he just knows something needs to be said. They've been dancing around the issue for too long, now, and it's grown into something that the both of them are hesitant to put a name to. Now, they might have to.
* * *
They might have to, but Zevran will resist the whole way. It's so much easier to try to push Jack away, even if he's oddly unhappy about the thought. None of that shows on his face as he swings the door open, however: just his usual suggestive smile. "Jack. My door is always open to you." A slight tilt of his head and quirk of his mouth impart far more meaning on that comment than it really needed. "Come, I've made us drinks. There is no need to face the night without intoxication, or that slight thrill of excitement and danger that comes from knowing a man trained in the art of poison has prepared the contents of your glass."
* * *
"I don't think I've pissed you off enough recently to have you poison me, handsome," Jack replies with a slight grin. "Even if it would only be temporary." He heads inside, then, and straight for the offered alcohol. Tonight is one of those nights where alcohol is definitely welcomed, no matter how the evening will end up going. "Thanks, by the way, a drink sounds perfect right about now."
* * *
"No? Perhaps I hold a grudge." Zevran follows him to the table where the drinks are set down. "I hold many things, as you so well know." But he's still smiling, even as he cants his head a little dubiously at how quickly Jack goes for the alcohol. "Your Doctor truly has you bothered tonight. You know, if you wish me to poison him..." He laughs: see, it's a joke, he would never hurt the Doctor, he isn't jealous at all.
* * *
"It's not *him*," Jack says, and waves a dismissive hand. "Not really, anyway, it's more things he never told me about that are rather important now that someone else from home has arrived." Never mind the fact that Jack would probably have done the exact same thing in the Doctor's situation, this is fresh enough to still have some sting to it. He stares at the glasses in front of him for a moment or two, frowning.
"And what sort of grudge would you hold against me, anyway? I think I like the other things you hold against me." He shoots Zevran a little playful smirk and takes a long drink, sighing with relief.
* * *
Zevran leans on a counter and stares at the glasses for a moment too--but never long before his gaze flickers back to Jack's face, searching it for any hint of approval or disapproval. All he gets is that smirk, which he accepts and returns as he walks over to place a hand against Jack's chest before he can raise the glass again. "I much prefer that as well, my friend." He leans up to kiss him--
--pathetically aware, unable to suppress the realization any longer, that it might be the last time, and that for some reason this actually matters to him when it shouldn't.
There's only the faintest uneasy flicker in his eyes to show that, though. He steps back again and finally lets the smile fade into a more thoughtful expression. "What things from home are these? Would they happen to concern an Ianto Jones?"
* * *
"I was going to ask if you'd seen that," Jack nods, and shoots him a slightly hesitant look. "I don't know --" He starts, frowning, and pauses to consider his words carefully. "He's from my future. I'd never met him until he showed up here." There's a pause for another quick drink, then he continues, just a trace of bitterness in his voice now.
"The Doctor knows him, though, he knows all about whatever happens between me and Ianto. All I know is that -- well, me in the future, I suppose, is -- seeing him. That's all he told me." He falls silent, then, watching Zevran carefully for any flicker of response.
* * *
"The Doctor is a cunning liar." The same glimmer of bitterness echoes in Zevran's voice, even though it's not the Doctor who's lying right now. "But I saw how this Ianto reacted to you. In this, your Doctor does not lie." He leans forward to pick up his own glass, takes a bracing drink from it, and leans back again. "Ianto loved you, and you loved him, and then he died. Now he is here, and he has another chance to be with the one he loves. You have a chance to be with someone you cared for, or will care for--time travel is messy, no? My point is, I have enjoyed the time we've spent together, but if you wish me to step aside, I will do so gracefully." His voice betrays just the slightest unsteadiness.
* * *
"He is," Jack agrees. "Normally I would appreciate it, but this is ...hard to appreciate. It'd be easier to just punch him and be done with it." It's a poor attempt at a joke, but he does chance a slight grin.
Once Zevran finishes, however, he sighs and settles back on his feet. "I don't know him. I'd like to know him, I wouldn't mind it at all, but -- right now, I don't. It's a mess, like you said." Jack takes a deep breath and steps a bit closer, tentatively taking Zevran's hand. "I cared -- I will care for him. The thing is, I care about you, too." There. Now he's said it, actually let it out, and nothing horrible has happened. Yet. He's not so sure that that will remain true, however, and doesn't move his gaze from Zevran, though it is now a good deal more nervous than Zevran's ever seen before.
* * *
Zevran can't quite look away; he's trapped by those eyes on his. He shouldn't be. He shouldn't owe anything to anyone but the Warden, and she isn't here. So when he responds, for all that he tries to keep his tone light, the seriousness in his gaze gives him away. "And I...appreciate it, Jack, truly. But do you think for a moment he will be all right with that? It wouldn't be very fair." And it isn't remotely fair how he's handling this, either, but that's all right. He was trained to play anything but fair a long time ago. Or so he'd say if he were called on it, which means that his training has nothing to do with the passive-aggressive display he's putting on right now. "If you wish to take up his affections--again, from his perspective--it would be best if you cast old diversions aside first."
* * *
"You aren't a diversion," Jack says fiercely. "I don't know what I can tell you other than that, Zev, you are someone that means something to me; I don't care what your bloody opinion of yourself is. If you want to end whatever we've got, then go ahead and do it, but I think you're as scared as I am right now." He breaks off to take another long drink, and rubs his forehead for a moment. "I wouldn't mind -- seeing the both of you. If that's even an option. It would be where I'm from.""
* * *
"I have no desire to end it, my dear," Zevran says, and he isn't sure how true that even is, because every thought in his head is screaming at him that it's wrong for him to feel this way, that it's only ever ended in pain and it's going to hurt now if he walks away from it but surely it'll hurt less than if he doesn't make the cut clean and quick. He knows about that sort of thing, doesn't he? He knows how to hold the blade so there's almost no pain at all and how to administer the dose so that there's perfect agony before it ends and what kind of person thinks about this while discussing their relationship?
The ice is melting in his drink and he's starting to wish, pettily, that he'd poisoned both glasses.
"You come from a world and a life that have little in common with mine," he says slowly. "I am a lover, a murderer, a son of a whore, a very good hand with a blade, but I am no traveler of time and space. Perhaps our paths were only briefly meant to cross."
* * *
"Maybe, but I'm a number of those things, too," Jack answers quietly. "Though I suppose I could stand to be better with a blade." His heart's not in the joke at the moment, however, and he sighs and looks into his drink again.
"I don't want to lose you," he says, suddenly, and now his eyes are back on Zevran with something that is very close to desperate longing in them. "I don't know what -- " He never has been good at talking about his feelings, not like this. If anything, he's good at showing them, but this is more complicated than just a kiss or a hug. It is something more, and he is used to it, but it hasn't happened in a very long time. "I don't know what I'd do without you," he finishes, a slight tremor in his voice.
* * *
Silence, for a long and strained moment, as Zevran stares at Jack. No one has ever said anything like that to him before. He's been expendable his whole life, someone who people can do just fine without and are rarely shy about telling him as much, through their actions if not their words (and sometimes their words as well). The Warden did her best to show him that it didn't have to be that way, but in the end she had much bigger things to deal with, and she could do it all without him too, even if she chose not to some of the time.
So this isn't what he expected to hear. It is what he wanted to hear, though. He's still frightened, but he can't walk away. Not after those words.
Which isn't to say that he can reciprocate in kind. That's asking too much. Instead, he gives a soft and slightly embarrassed laugh. "Ah, but we are fools." He picks up his drink and finishes off most of the rest of it without much apparent effect, then walks around the table and reaches for Jack's arm to guide him to the sofa. "Let me tell you something, Jack."
* * *
"Yes?" He quirks a polite eyebrow at Zevran and sprawls across the sofa. Now that the big things have been said, he is a bit more at ease. "If you're going to make a Shakespeare reference about mortals being fools, I've heard it." A beat. "Then again, have you heard of Shakespeare? You might like him, actually. Lots of sex and fighting." Yes, excellent, change the subject, Jack. It won't get him out of this, of course, but at least he is slightly more relaxed."
* * *
A wave of his free hand. "Indeed I have. Tank Girl told me about him. They do free shows of his work in the park, you know. I saw one. All's Well That Ends Well, it was called. But that isn't what I wished to tell you."
Zevran drops onto the couch, not quite leaning towards Jack now, but neither is he leaning away. And he hesitates. He wants to explain himself to Jack, try to make some gesture to indicate that he cares, that he's willing to open up (even though he isn't, not entirely). But he doesn't know how to do it. Finally, he says, "You know what I am, of course...what I did, back home. What I haven't told you is that being an assassin was, shall we say, not a career path of my own taking." A small, awkward shrug. "Oh, I did it well, and I don't regret it. I enjoy the job itself, for what it's worth." Mixed messages all the way down: love me pity me need me, despise me turn from me leave me. He doesn't know which one he's trying to send harder. "I told you I parted from my employers on poor terms. That doesn't begin to do it justice, I'm afraid."
* * *
"So you killed people," Jack says with a shrug, reaching for his glass. "I've done it too, I don't particularly mind if you have." There's a bit of a pause. "I've enjoyed it myself," he adds, quietly, and takes an absent drink. "I --" He trails off, looking thoughtful, and turns back to Zevran. "I never told you why I left the Time Agency, did I?"
* * *
A low chuckle. "We would not be here, you and I, if you minded." Zevran would have drawn away a long time ago. Most people mind. Most people he draws away from.
He glances aside to Jack and lifts a brow curiously. "No. You did not." And he'll listen, now, because anything Jack wants to tell him is important--and also because it gives him a chance to step away from his own story for a moment.
* * *
There's just a trace of bitterness in his smile, now, and he lifts his shoulders in a half-hearted shrug. "They took two years of my memories. Two years, I don't know what I did, who I may have killed, nothing at all. They're just -- gone."
That smile turns into something self-deprecating, now, and he looks back at Zevran. "So don't worry, handsome. Whatever you're going to tell me, I've probably done worse and I can't even remember it."
* * *
Surprise flashes through Zevran's face as he takes in this new information. The thought's alien to him--taking memories? Can someone even do that? Hard on its heels is the knowledge that he could easily lose two years out of much of his life and barely even notice. That's the kind of life he led, after all. The kind of life he has to choose whether he's going to go back to, when the 'Porter takes him again.
It's not going to be a difficult choice, he realizes--not for the first time, but perhaps for the first time consciously.
He reaches out to touch Jack's face. "Ah, perhaps so, but I'm certain you would do worse better than I ever could." It's glib, but there's a grain of truth to it. He is positive that no matter what Jack does, he'll still be more important in the grand scheme of the multiverse.
He pulls his hand back and looks away. "The first thing you must understand is that I was no common hired killer. No, I was part of something special." There's still pride in his voice, even now; it was trained into him too hard. But it's scathingly bitter after everything he's been through. "The Antivan Crows are the best, the most skilled assassins in Thedas. Special indeed, yes? That's what I thought, anyway."
* * *
He settles back and turns his attention to Zevran, frowning thoughtfully. "Yes, you've mentioned that." It's similar to Jack, too, though the time agents were hardly assassins. They were, however, something special. The bitterness in Zevran's voice gives him a bit of pause, though, and Jack leans to press a reassuring kiss to his cheek. "Go on, then, you've got me all intrigued, now."
* * *
Zevran draws away from the kiss, for once, briefly caught in memories that make him think of himself as anything but desirable in any way (anything but valuable, but worthwhile, and of course that's all tied up with "desirable" for him). "I believed it all, for a time. They bought me when I was seven, raised me to believe it, but there came a time when perhaps I was a little too eager. More than most." He sighs, but the breath escaping him takes with it none of his insecurities, his worries over how to say what comes next. "There was another Crow, a woman, an elf like me." He doesn't know if Jack understands what that would mean in Thedas, but he's mostly past caring at this point. "She was--different than the others. Truly special. I...felt something for her, though I knew I shouldn't have. But when we found evidence she was a traitor, I let another Crow kill her. Of course...the evidence was wrong. Ha, for some reason I thought that mattered. I didn't realize--not until the guildmaster told me that they'd known all along she was innocent, she would die anyway. We all would, you see, when it suited them. I was not so special after all."
But he holds up a hand, quickly, to forestall any sympathy. "Say nothing. I would have been happy to go on killing at their whim, had it not been a gilded cage."
* * *
He is silent, listening, and nods. "I won't if you don't want me to. So you met the Warden, and you left, and --what else?"
* * *
Zevran does want him to, of course. He wants all the pity and comfort he can get. But he has to pretend. That training doesn't go away so easily, after all.
A self-deprecating smile flickers onto his face now. "I made it sound so very simple. But it was not. You know how I met the Warden, of course, but what I did not tell you was that taking the contract to kill her was widely considered a suicide mission. I did not disagree. I expected her to defeat me and slit my throat. She...defeated me, but the rest of that? Not so much." He falls silent. "I have not known what to do, since then. It's been some time since I wished to die, yes, but...where to go instead? I was uncertain. No more."
* * *
Jack tilts his head a bit. "I'd hope you don't want to die, it's -- not the most pleasant of things." That's an understatement, of course, but that is hardly the point at the moment. "Where do you want to go now?"
* * *
The smile hesitantly returns to Zevran's face. "Well, you say you do not know what you'd do without me. It would hardly be considerate of me to leave, in that case. I think I want to go where you go--for now." He tosses off the comment cheerfully, like it doesn't mean anything, but he can't completely keep his eyes from turning serious.
* * *
He smiles and takes Zevran's hand, a little tentative. "I'd like that. I can't say I'd be very good at it, but I'd like it." --And now, Zevran's getting the kiss that Jack has been waiting to give him since this conversation started, long and deep, with one hand twined in Zevran's hair.
WHERE: Zevran's apartment in the MAC.
WHEN: Backdated forever, or at least to the night of October 6th.
WARNINGS: Innuendo and mentions of violence.
SUMMARY: The problematic concept of the relationship is dealt with in the wake of Ianto's arrival.
FORMAT: Prose.
Pretending to be fine comes naturally to him, Zevran would say with a laugh, which means that it isn't exactly true. It's actually rather unnatural for him. He's just trained himself very well at it. So when he waits in his apartment at the MAC, he refuses to let himself show any signs of the worries that plague him--who this Ianto is, and what his appearance means for his relationship with Jack, and the dangerous fact that it means anything at all, that there is a relationship.
So instead, he mixes drinks, and he pretends that he's not waiting too eagerly for the noise of Jack's approach at the door.
* * *
Jack arrives soon after getting in touch with Zevran, he hadn't wanted to stay at House TARDIS any longer than necessary, for fear that the urge to punch the Doctor in the face would grow even stronger. Honestly, he wasn't at all sure what to do about the arrival of Ianto. Even for him, it's not often that a future lover arrives unexpectedly.
So he knocks upon his arrival, looking a bit nervous. He's not sure what he's going to say, he just knows something needs to be said. They've been dancing around the issue for too long, now, and it's grown into something that the both of them are hesitant to put a name to. Now, they might have to.
* * *
They might have to, but Zevran will resist the whole way. It's so much easier to try to push Jack away, even if he's oddly unhappy about the thought. None of that shows on his face as he swings the door open, however: just his usual suggestive smile. "Jack. My door is always open to you." A slight tilt of his head and quirk of his mouth impart far more meaning on that comment than it really needed. "Come, I've made us drinks. There is no need to face the night without intoxication, or that slight thrill of excitement and danger that comes from knowing a man trained in the art of poison has prepared the contents of your glass."
* * *
"I don't think I've pissed you off enough recently to have you poison me, handsome," Jack replies with a slight grin. "Even if it would only be temporary." He heads inside, then, and straight for the offered alcohol. Tonight is one of those nights where alcohol is definitely welcomed, no matter how the evening will end up going. "Thanks, by the way, a drink sounds perfect right about now."
* * *
"No? Perhaps I hold a grudge." Zevran follows him to the table where the drinks are set down. "I hold many things, as you so well know." But he's still smiling, even as he cants his head a little dubiously at how quickly Jack goes for the alcohol. "Your Doctor truly has you bothered tonight. You know, if you wish me to poison him..." He laughs: see, it's a joke, he would never hurt the Doctor, he isn't jealous at all.
* * *
"It's not *him*," Jack says, and waves a dismissive hand. "Not really, anyway, it's more things he never told me about that are rather important now that someone else from home has arrived." Never mind the fact that Jack would probably have done the exact same thing in the Doctor's situation, this is fresh enough to still have some sting to it. He stares at the glasses in front of him for a moment or two, frowning.
"And what sort of grudge would you hold against me, anyway? I think I like the other things you hold against me." He shoots Zevran a little playful smirk and takes a long drink, sighing with relief.
* * *
Zevran leans on a counter and stares at the glasses for a moment too--but never long before his gaze flickers back to Jack's face, searching it for any hint of approval or disapproval. All he gets is that smirk, which he accepts and returns as he walks over to place a hand against Jack's chest before he can raise the glass again. "I much prefer that as well, my friend." He leans up to kiss him--
--pathetically aware, unable to suppress the realization any longer, that it might be the last time, and that for some reason this actually matters to him when it shouldn't.
There's only the faintest uneasy flicker in his eyes to show that, though. He steps back again and finally lets the smile fade into a more thoughtful expression. "What things from home are these? Would they happen to concern an Ianto Jones?"
* * *
"I was going to ask if you'd seen that," Jack nods, and shoots him a slightly hesitant look. "I don't know --" He starts, frowning, and pauses to consider his words carefully. "He's from my future. I'd never met him until he showed up here." There's a pause for another quick drink, then he continues, just a trace of bitterness in his voice now.
"The Doctor knows him, though, he knows all about whatever happens between me and Ianto. All I know is that -- well, me in the future, I suppose, is -- seeing him. That's all he told me." He falls silent, then, watching Zevran carefully for any flicker of response.
* * *
"The Doctor is a cunning liar." The same glimmer of bitterness echoes in Zevran's voice, even though it's not the Doctor who's lying right now. "But I saw how this Ianto reacted to you. In this, your Doctor does not lie." He leans forward to pick up his own glass, takes a bracing drink from it, and leans back again. "Ianto loved you, and you loved him, and then he died. Now he is here, and he has another chance to be with the one he loves. You have a chance to be with someone you cared for, or will care for--time travel is messy, no? My point is, I have enjoyed the time we've spent together, but if you wish me to step aside, I will do so gracefully." His voice betrays just the slightest unsteadiness.
* * *
"He is," Jack agrees. "Normally I would appreciate it, but this is ...hard to appreciate. It'd be easier to just punch him and be done with it." It's a poor attempt at a joke, but he does chance a slight grin.
Once Zevran finishes, however, he sighs and settles back on his feet. "I don't know him. I'd like to know him, I wouldn't mind it at all, but -- right now, I don't. It's a mess, like you said." Jack takes a deep breath and steps a bit closer, tentatively taking Zevran's hand. "I cared -- I will care for him. The thing is, I care about you, too." There. Now he's said it, actually let it out, and nothing horrible has happened. Yet. He's not so sure that that will remain true, however, and doesn't move his gaze from Zevran, though it is now a good deal more nervous than Zevran's ever seen before.
* * *
Zevran can't quite look away; he's trapped by those eyes on his. He shouldn't be. He shouldn't owe anything to anyone but the Warden, and she isn't here. So when he responds, for all that he tries to keep his tone light, the seriousness in his gaze gives him away. "And I...appreciate it, Jack, truly. But do you think for a moment he will be all right with that? It wouldn't be very fair." And it isn't remotely fair how he's handling this, either, but that's all right. He was trained to play anything but fair a long time ago. Or so he'd say if he were called on it, which means that his training has nothing to do with the passive-aggressive display he's putting on right now. "If you wish to take up his affections--again, from his perspective--it would be best if you cast old diversions aside first."
* * *
"You aren't a diversion," Jack says fiercely. "I don't know what I can tell you other than that, Zev, you are someone that means something to me; I don't care what your bloody opinion of yourself is. If you want to end whatever we've got, then go ahead and do it, but I think you're as scared as I am right now." He breaks off to take another long drink, and rubs his forehead for a moment. "I wouldn't mind -- seeing the both of you. If that's even an option. It would be where I'm from.""
* * *
"I have no desire to end it, my dear," Zevran says, and he isn't sure how true that even is, because every thought in his head is screaming at him that it's wrong for him to feel this way, that it's only ever ended in pain and it's going to hurt now if he walks away from it but surely it'll hurt less than if he doesn't make the cut clean and quick. He knows about that sort of thing, doesn't he? He knows how to hold the blade so there's almost no pain at all and how to administer the dose so that there's perfect agony before it ends and what kind of person thinks about this while discussing their relationship?
The ice is melting in his drink and he's starting to wish, pettily, that he'd poisoned both glasses.
"You come from a world and a life that have little in common with mine," he says slowly. "I am a lover, a murderer, a son of a whore, a very good hand with a blade, but I am no traveler of time and space. Perhaps our paths were only briefly meant to cross."
* * *
"Maybe, but I'm a number of those things, too," Jack answers quietly. "Though I suppose I could stand to be better with a blade." His heart's not in the joke at the moment, however, and he sighs and looks into his drink again.
"I don't want to lose you," he says, suddenly, and now his eyes are back on Zevran with something that is very close to desperate longing in them. "I don't know what -- " He never has been good at talking about his feelings, not like this. If anything, he's good at showing them, but this is more complicated than just a kiss or a hug. It is something more, and he is used to it, but it hasn't happened in a very long time. "I don't know what I'd do without you," he finishes, a slight tremor in his voice.
* * *
Silence, for a long and strained moment, as Zevran stares at Jack. No one has ever said anything like that to him before. He's been expendable his whole life, someone who people can do just fine without and are rarely shy about telling him as much, through their actions if not their words (and sometimes their words as well). The Warden did her best to show him that it didn't have to be that way, but in the end she had much bigger things to deal with, and she could do it all without him too, even if she chose not to some of the time.
So this isn't what he expected to hear. It is what he wanted to hear, though. He's still frightened, but he can't walk away. Not after those words.
Which isn't to say that he can reciprocate in kind. That's asking too much. Instead, he gives a soft and slightly embarrassed laugh. "Ah, but we are fools." He picks up his drink and finishes off most of the rest of it without much apparent effect, then walks around the table and reaches for Jack's arm to guide him to the sofa. "Let me tell you something, Jack."
* * *
"Yes?" He quirks a polite eyebrow at Zevran and sprawls across the sofa. Now that the big things have been said, he is a bit more at ease. "If you're going to make a Shakespeare reference about mortals being fools, I've heard it." A beat. "Then again, have you heard of Shakespeare? You might like him, actually. Lots of sex and fighting." Yes, excellent, change the subject, Jack. It won't get him out of this, of course, but at least he is slightly more relaxed."
* * *
A wave of his free hand. "Indeed I have. Tank Girl told me about him. They do free shows of his work in the park, you know. I saw one. All's Well That Ends Well, it was called. But that isn't what I wished to tell you."
Zevran drops onto the couch, not quite leaning towards Jack now, but neither is he leaning away. And he hesitates. He wants to explain himself to Jack, try to make some gesture to indicate that he cares, that he's willing to open up (even though he isn't, not entirely). But he doesn't know how to do it. Finally, he says, "You know what I am, of course...what I did, back home. What I haven't told you is that being an assassin was, shall we say, not a career path of my own taking." A small, awkward shrug. "Oh, I did it well, and I don't regret it. I enjoy the job itself, for what it's worth." Mixed messages all the way down: love me pity me need me, despise me turn from me leave me. He doesn't know which one he's trying to send harder. "I told you I parted from my employers on poor terms. That doesn't begin to do it justice, I'm afraid."
* * *
"So you killed people," Jack says with a shrug, reaching for his glass. "I've done it too, I don't particularly mind if you have." There's a bit of a pause. "I've enjoyed it myself," he adds, quietly, and takes an absent drink. "I --" He trails off, looking thoughtful, and turns back to Zevran. "I never told you why I left the Time Agency, did I?"
* * *
A low chuckle. "We would not be here, you and I, if you minded." Zevran would have drawn away a long time ago. Most people mind. Most people he draws away from.
He glances aside to Jack and lifts a brow curiously. "No. You did not." And he'll listen, now, because anything Jack wants to tell him is important--and also because it gives him a chance to step away from his own story for a moment.
* * *
There's just a trace of bitterness in his smile, now, and he lifts his shoulders in a half-hearted shrug. "They took two years of my memories. Two years, I don't know what I did, who I may have killed, nothing at all. They're just -- gone."
That smile turns into something self-deprecating, now, and he looks back at Zevran. "So don't worry, handsome. Whatever you're going to tell me, I've probably done worse and I can't even remember it."
* * *
Surprise flashes through Zevran's face as he takes in this new information. The thought's alien to him--taking memories? Can someone even do that? Hard on its heels is the knowledge that he could easily lose two years out of much of his life and barely even notice. That's the kind of life he led, after all. The kind of life he has to choose whether he's going to go back to, when the 'Porter takes him again.
It's not going to be a difficult choice, he realizes--not for the first time, but perhaps for the first time consciously.
He reaches out to touch Jack's face. "Ah, perhaps so, but I'm certain you would do worse better than I ever could." It's glib, but there's a grain of truth to it. He is positive that no matter what Jack does, he'll still be more important in the grand scheme of the multiverse.
He pulls his hand back and looks away. "The first thing you must understand is that I was no common hired killer. No, I was part of something special." There's still pride in his voice, even now; it was trained into him too hard. But it's scathingly bitter after everything he's been through. "The Antivan Crows are the best, the most skilled assassins in Thedas. Special indeed, yes? That's what I thought, anyway."
* * *
He settles back and turns his attention to Zevran, frowning thoughtfully. "Yes, you've mentioned that." It's similar to Jack, too, though the time agents were hardly assassins. They were, however, something special. The bitterness in Zevran's voice gives him a bit of pause, though, and Jack leans to press a reassuring kiss to his cheek. "Go on, then, you've got me all intrigued, now."
* * *
Zevran draws away from the kiss, for once, briefly caught in memories that make him think of himself as anything but desirable in any way (anything but valuable, but worthwhile, and of course that's all tied up with "desirable" for him). "I believed it all, for a time. They bought me when I was seven, raised me to believe it, but there came a time when perhaps I was a little too eager. More than most." He sighs, but the breath escaping him takes with it none of his insecurities, his worries over how to say what comes next. "There was another Crow, a woman, an elf like me." He doesn't know if Jack understands what that would mean in Thedas, but he's mostly past caring at this point. "She was--different than the others. Truly special. I...felt something for her, though I knew I shouldn't have. But when we found evidence she was a traitor, I let another Crow kill her. Of course...the evidence was wrong. Ha, for some reason I thought that mattered. I didn't realize--not until the guildmaster told me that they'd known all along she was innocent, she would die anyway. We all would, you see, when it suited them. I was not so special after all."
But he holds up a hand, quickly, to forestall any sympathy. "Say nothing. I would have been happy to go on killing at their whim, had it not been a gilded cage."
* * *
He is silent, listening, and nods. "I won't if you don't want me to. So you met the Warden, and you left, and --what else?"
* * *
Zevran does want him to, of course. He wants all the pity and comfort he can get. But he has to pretend. That training doesn't go away so easily, after all.
A self-deprecating smile flickers onto his face now. "I made it sound so very simple. But it was not. You know how I met the Warden, of course, but what I did not tell you was that taking the contract to kill her was widely considered a suicide mission. I did not disagree. I expected her to defeat me and slit my throat. She...defeated me, but the rest of that? Not so much." He falls silent. "I have not known what to do, since then. It's been some time since I wished to die, yes, but...where to go instead? I was uncertain. No more."
* * *
Jack tilts his head a bit. "I'd hope you don't want to die, it's -- not the most pleasant of things." That's an understatement, of course, but that is hardly the point at the moment. "Where do you want to go now?"
* * *
The smile hesitantly returns to Zevran's face. "Well, you say you do not know what you'd do without me. It would hardly be considerate of me to leave, in that case. I think I want to go where you go--for now." He tosses off the comment cheerfully, like it doesn't mean anything, but he can't completely keep his eyes from turning serious.
* * *
He smiles and takes Zevran's hand, a little tentative. "I'd like that. I can't say I'd be very good at it, but I'd like it." --And now, Zevran's getting the kiss that Jack has been waiting to give him since this conversation started, long and deep, with one hand twined in Zevran's hair.