Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/78490.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Dragon_Age:_Origins
  Relationship:
      Zevran_Arainai/OMC
  Character:
      Zevran_Arainai, OMC, OFC
  Additional Tags:
      Non_Consensual, Underage_-_Freeform, Angst
  Series:
      Part 1 of Zevran/Alistair_'verse
  Stats:
      Published: 2010-02-11 Words: 1246
****** Birthday ******
by theLiterator
Summary
     He shouldn't have a routine for this, not at this age. But he's
     pretty, and Mistress Catarina likes money more than anything in the
     world.
Notes
     Warnings: CHILD ABUSE. NON-CON. ZEVRAN IS SEVEN. YES I WENT THERE.
     Feel free to click the back button on your browser if this squicks
     you. I don't mind.
Cold hands run over Zevran's back, leaving goosebumps in their wake, and Zevran
flinches away, even though he knows he shouldn't. They all say he shouldn't,
say that if he is very, very good he can stay here, that they won't turn him
out. But he hates this part of being good so much that it is hard.
The man's breath is hot and heavy near his ear, pants and sighs and all those
things humans seem to do when faced with Zevran, like this. He wonders if it is
the same for the other boys, if it is the same for Ricardo, who is human. It
must be, he thinks. Or why would they make Ricky come back here with the men
too?
"It's okay if you don't like it," the man says against Zevran's ear, still
round with youth. "I like it better if you squirm." He chuckles, like it was a
joke, and Zevran feels sick inside. He isn't supposed to struggle, they all
said he isn't.
Lips press against his, wet and hot and slimy, overwhelming him with the sweet
taste of spit and the sensation of suffocating, even though he knows,
logically, that he can breathe. The hand, warmer now, trails down lower,
touches him in sensitive places, makes him shiver for different reasons this
time.
He keeps his eyes shut tight, so he doesn't have to see the man, or the look on
his face, as the caresses turn hard and harsh and painful, as he wrenches
pitiful cries and keening whines from Zevran.
Zevran hates the mess afterwards, the sticky remnants of the men that cling to
his skin, the smell of their sweat, the taste of their saliva. He has a
routine.
He heats the water in the pitcher on a brazier until it's steaming, pours it
into the basin, uses the soaps that the whores use, lathered into rags and
steaming and hot, and rubs it all over. He scrubs until there isn't any soap
left, until the water no longer steams. He heats the pitcher again and uses it
to rinse off. His skin is always raw afterwards, but he thinks it might be the
men's fault and not the water's.
Zevran made sure to snatch the silver that had been left on the table. He made
it dance along his knuckles as he crept down the dark hallway, pleased that he
could do it better now than even Raoul, who'd shown him how. He'd have to give
the tip up, of course, or they'd beat him, but he liked to pretend sometimes.
At the long bar, he looks up to see a pleased look on Catarina's face, and
flinches away. When she was happy, he was probably about to make her more
money. She liked money best of everything, beyond even people obeying to her.
And she liked that a lot too.
He hands her the silver dutifully, and she pats him on the head, stroking the
long, blond strands that were his best selling point, or so she said.
"Ronya found someone for you to meet, darling," she coos in her sweetest tone.
He ducks his head, waiting quietly for her to continue. "She said it's her
birthday present for you, you lucky little boy." Ronya always remembered his
birthday, but he didn't see how anything Ronya could think of as a present
would make Catarina happy.
"I don't want it," he says.
Catarina cuffs him hard. "You'll do as I say, boy."
"Hey," a husky voice warns from somewhere to his left. "Easy on the merch. Or
the price goes down."
He was beginning to doubt that Ronya was behind this at all. He knew what he
was supposed to do though, and looked up towards the voice, an expression of
wide-eyed innocence on his face.
The man wore all black, and Ronya was hovering several steps behind him, face
buried in her hands.
"I've been told you like to play games?" the man asks, hunkering low to talk to
him. Zevran tentatively edges within grabbing distance. He glances up to see
Catarina's smile of approval.
"I like making the money dance," he confesses, and Catarina was nearly
giggling.
The man draws a bit from his purse, and offers it to Zevran. Zevran stares at
it.
"Go on, son," he says. "Show me."
Zevran does, even though his palms are sweating. He's never had to do anything
like this for the strangers before, and Catarina has always scoffed her
disapproval and snatched the coins away.
After a few moments, he stops, hands the money back.
"You said he was seven, but now I hear it's his birthday. If he's too old..."
the man trails off, casting threatening glances over his shoulder.
"I'm only just seven," Zevran says. "Please, Ronya doesn't lie."
The man smiles at him, and takes his hand. Zevran wishes he could have wiped it
off on his trousers first, it's so sweaty with nerves. "The agreed price was, I
believe, three sovereigns."
Zevran expects Catarina to dicker, because while it's a lot of money, Zevran
knows she'll want more. She doesn't, and the man pulls the coin out of his
purse, tosses it on the counter. He flings some silver in Ronya's direction
too, saying "Finder's fee," when she gives him a startled look. Zevran's last
view of the closest thing he ever had to a mother is of her staring at the
money in her hands, face tear-streaked and pale.
 
Zevran has rarely stepped outside the closed world of the brothel, and he
doesn't much like it. He clings to the man in black's hand and tries to avoid
looking at anyone. People on the street give them a wide berth, and it is with
little trouble that they arrive at a giant building, weathered wood and
windowless. Zevran learned later that it was just a warehouse, that there were
many in Antiva City, but it seemed immense and unique to him then.
Inside, a coarse man with thick hands greets the man in black, a kiss on each
cheek. He focuses his attention on Zevran, reaching down to tilt his chin up,
to look him all over. "Pretty, isn't he?" he growls.
"I got him at the Goose Girl."
"Ah, another whoreson. Better get him cleaned up, or everyone here'll be
rolling in lice and Maker knows what else."
"You do that. You said you only needed the one—but there's another likely lad
up in the markets. Beggar child, hasn't been picked up by a gang yet."
"No, no. One's enough for this class."
 
They stripped him naked, tossing his clothes into the large fire at the end of
the huge building. Zevran was expecting that. But then the coarse man took a
razor and a strop from a crate, and Zevran flinched, hunched his shoulders in
and curled his knees up tight against his chest.
The man ignored it, just tilted his head this way and that, running his fingers
through Zevran's hair and muttering to himself. "It's a shame it'll have to go,
but-- best to be safe. Last thing I need in here are fleas and lice and an
outbreak of the fever."
Then he took the razor to Zevran's head, and shaved all of it off. His hair
fell to the floor in long hanks of bright platinum. Zevran stared at them
numbly.
And so his training began.
***
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