Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/600159.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      Multi
  Fandom:
      Dragon_Age, Dragon_Age:_Origins, Dragon_Age_(Video_Games)
  Relationship:
      Zevran_Arainai/Warden_(Dragon_Age), Zevran_Arainai/OMC, Zevran_Arainai/
      Rinna
  Character:
      Zevran_Arainai, Original_Female_Character, Original_Male_Character, Rinna
  Additional Tags:
      Child_Abuse, Childhood_Sexual_Abuse, Dubious_Consent, Gore, Blood,
      Backstory
  Stats:
      Published: 2012-12-20 Words: 3512
****** Damaged ******
by alienchrist
Summary
     Blanked-out memories, his reason for leaving the Dalish, and a
     predatory merchant prince. A dark little story about Zevran's past,
     and his hope for the future when he gives away the golden earring.
There were rooms in the brothel that didn’t exist to Zevran as a child. Blank
spots in his mental map, doors he never looked at as he walked past them. These
rooms were huge in their nonexistence, like great empty mouths gaping wide to
suck in light, time, and memory. He could not remember them. He did not think
they were strange. When someone pulled him by arm, dragged him by the hair or
even led him by the hand into one of those rooms, he could not recall it
afterward. The strength of these rooms’ strange spells was such that they even
stole the moments that brought him inside them. Zevran remembered the bawdy
songs, the clink of glasses and the slurred secrets of workers. He remembered
the time one of the human children stole a string of pearls, and being beaten
so soundly for the crime, sneaky, dishonest elf that he was. He couldn’t sit
right for weeks.
But there were a multitude of aches and pains Zevran never could quite account
for. Perhaps it was the bad ale they had to drink, cleaner than the water,
sometimes, or stale and moldy bread. Sometimes awakened in his bed with no
memory of bathing, dressing, and falling asleep there. Zevran knew many things
at the age of seven, though he didn’t know a sword pommel from the pointy end.
He knew what men and women looked like naked, he knew how give massages, draw
baths, braid hair, sweep up, cook food, water down ale. He knew money,
haggling, even how to steal a coin now and then. He knew what a man looked like
when he thought someone owed him money, when he planned to pay no money, and
when he planned to blacken a whore’s eye and get thrown out. Without being
conscious of it, he knew the power of those rooms, too. He tiptoed around them,
and ignored every sound they made. But he didn’t understand what they were, not
till later.
 
If Zevran had to pick an exact moment when he realized joining the Dalish
wouldn’t work out, it would have to be when he broke a girl’s nose. There were
a myriad of complaints about him already, and Zevran had complaints of his own.
He disliked the unfamiliar smell of wilderness and animals, the scarce meat
their hunters found frequently made him ill. He held a deep distrust of
communally cooked and served meals, and the way he slept, to quote the other
children, was very creepy.
The Dalish carried few possessions, but a few of their youngest slept with
little dolls of rags and sticks. Zevran slept with knives. It was the subject
of many arguments, yet he could not be dissuaded.
The girl, Miriah, had a crush on him. That is what everyone said. She also
liked to creep up behind him to grab his arm and cling, despite the fact such
personable behavior was frowned upon. He warned Miriah exactly twice that if
she continued, he might forget to restrain the reflex and break her nose in
retaliation. She thought he wouldn’t, but he did so without thinking, and could
not muster a damn to give about the scene she caused about it afterward.
Children who did not take direction died quickly in the Crows. For all the
Dalish warned him their life was harsh, did they not understand such simple
concepts?
“Miriah was fortunate,” he told the the Keeper without a shred of emotion,
“That it wasn’t her neck, or her bow-fingers.”
The Keeper of their tribe was well-known for not being fond of children. She
always looked at Zevran like she never knew quite what to do with him. “Many of
the People from the city come to us hurt, or afraid, and cause nothing but
imbalance when they join a tribe, thinking we can help, somehow,” the Keeper
said carefully. She always drew up such careful words for him. Zevran could see
it in the way she moved her lips so slowly. The Keeper was the one who was
afraid, Zevran thought. “They have been damaged by the abuse of shemlen.” He
could see how it disgusted her, the thought of taking in an elf who was thus
damaged.
(In his mind, a sudden image of himself: laying on a bed naked, covered in
sticky filth. Crying openly, when was he ever stupid enough to do that?
Damaged. The word resonated.)
“I’m not afraid of anything,” Zevran interrupted, all crossed arms and
obstinate looks. “I’m an assassin. It’s a bad idea to sneak up on assassins.
She was warned.”
He thought of being grabbed, of a hand on the small of his back and a mouth on
his shoulder like the slime-trail of a big, black slug. Zevran shuddered. A
sliver of fear pierced his chest. The pain made him so angry he could barely
speak.
“You are safe here with us, Zevran, understand at least that much,” said the
Keeper.
“But are you safe with me?” Zevran replied. The Keeper tried not to flinch at
his smile.
He slept with the halla that night. No one asked him to, but Zevran knew the
children, like the Keeper, were afraid of him.
Before he slept, Zevran remembered staring at an oil painting in a mostly-
darkened room, lying on his back, naked. The painting was a drab, poorly-
crafted little thing portraying a bamboo bridge and some flowers, with an
indistinct figure in the distance. Sometimes Zevran thought the figure was a
fellow rogue, or a warrior with a giant ax or sword, or a mighty sorcerer with
a staff. His favorite fantasy, though, was that it was a Dalish hunter, a long
sibling or aunt or uncle who would emerge from the painting and take him away
to a grand hunt. The reality, much like the dull color palette of the painting,
was far muddier.
Miriah was in charge of feeding the halla that morning. He heard her calling
after him just as he slipped away in the dawn light. He didn’t care to reply.
He didn’t look back once.
Zevran thought he understood, but in the years after, he succeeded in putting
it out of his head. It was better to never acknowledge those rooms, let alone
revisit them. Instead, he became a Crow.
 
Zevran’s first solo assignment with the Crows was a Rivaini merchant prince. He
laughed aloud when he went over the dossier. The prince had a fondness for his
valets. Several servants, mostly blonds, all young elves, quit the job after a
short time. One of them was the son of the alienage elder, who brought
complaint to the city guard, perhaps mistaken that the position held meaning.
The report was quite sordidly detailed, but unsurprisingly, nothing came of it.
The merchant prince bought off the captain of the guard and the investigation
stopped. It would have been particularly satisfying if the elves hired Zevran
in revenge, but they could not afford the Crows. No, Zevran’s errand was on
behalf of the businessman’s competitor, seeking to grab his corner of the
market upon his demise.
It was almost too easy. Playing the part of someone who trained all his life to
bow and scrape to powerful humans came naturally. Zevran was the epitome of
grace, could pick out clothes and tie up doublets with deft and inoffensive
fingers. His cover story was believable, and more importantly than that, the
merchant prince liked him best.
The merchant prince was actually rather handsome, and younger than Zevran
thought he would be, considering his shameless behavior. He interviewed Zevran
personally, which was taking rather more interest in his servants than most
people found tasteful. At the end of the interview, he leaned forward and
grasped Zevran’s chin.
“Now look up at me.”
“Messere, you’re hurting me,” Zevran said, his voice weak with uncertainty. He
kept the city guard report in mind as a loose outline for tonight’s script. He
would have to be careful not to follow it completely. He also needed to add
just the slightest air of seductiveness, to be certain some other poor sop
didn’t get hired and violently ravaged as a result. Zevran looked away and bit
his lip.
“Look at me when I’m speaking to you,” the merchant prince said sharply. “Tell
me the real reason you want this job. Spare me the crap about what an honor it
would be. If you wanted to kiss up you’d try this at one of the royal houses.
You’re here because you want my money. I know your kind.”
The merchant prince meant to intimidate him, to trap him with mind tricks.
Zevran could kill him now, but there were a lot of servants about in the house
at this hour, and guards right outside the open door. He could do it, but it
would not be ideal. It would be a sloppy murder, not an assassination. This was
his first job alone. He needed to make an impression.
Besides, he was sort of having fun. The bastard was really into this role of
his: a predator, and a man with more money than sense.
“My older sister, Yemena,” Zevran stammered, “She is with child. There’s no
money…”
“And so she sends her little brother into the world to line her purse? What
about the father of the child?”
Zevran swallowed an imaginary lump in his throat. “She was r - it was against
her will. She cries all the time. Our father turned her out, and I went with
her. The baby will come soon. I need a job now.” He let his voice tremble and
quake, since clearly the merchant prince wanted him to be afraid. Wanted to see
that he was stupid enough to stay in the grasp of a hand that could snap his
neck. “Please, messere. I know I’m young, but no one else would take me on.”
“Just how young are you?”
“Fifteen.” Zevran did a convincing fifteen.
“I love your hair. Such an unusual color with your skin tone. You really are a
fine one.”
“Messere,” Zevran’s voice jumped upward, cautious and seeking approval.
“You start tomorrow morning. Just call me Senior Damon.” Damon provided a
condescending smile.
More like Senior Estúpido, Zevran thought. He gave his own name as Luis, and
the job began.
It was a few weeks of inappropriately long touches and looks before Damon made
his move. He did it while Zevran was helping him out of his clothes for the
day, one of the last duties of the night. It was clear that Damon had
intentions for the night. He claimed to want a quiet house to sleep in, and had
his guards stationed only at the doors downstairs. Perhaps he feared that even
the most well-paid guards might not ignore screams or cries from his bedroom.
“Are you a virgin, Luis?”
Zevran cleared his throat. “If you don’t mind me saying, Senior Damon, that’s
between me and my eventual betrothed.”
“I thought we were becoming friends. Friends get privileged living
accommodations, a nice apartment for both the valet and his wife - or perhaps a
sister who’s down on her luck. Valets, I might get bored with and fire after a
time.”
“I’m a virgin,” Zevran whispered, perfecting the affectation of shame while
thinking, Not even close.
“Ever seen a human cock before? They’re much bigger than elves’s.”
“No, I’ve rarely met human men, I’ve been in the alienage my whole life,”
Zevran lied again. Damon missed the note of humorous irony in his voice, too
busy following his own script in his head. Zevran’s heart raced. He wanted to
throw up. He wanted to run. But more than anything else, he wanted to laugh at
how easy this was going to be.
“Get on your knees,” Damon said, and shoved him downward. Zevran’s vision went
white, and he realized, suddenly, that he was one of those rooms, a room he
always tiptoed past and never looked inside. He often glanced over his shoulder
at the room, on his way to a brothel or crawling into the bed he sometimes
shared with Taliesin, but paid it little more mind than that. Today, he walked
into it of his own volition. This kind of panic got assassins killed, but in
this moment, Zevran feared another fate far more. In fact, he was trembling.
He was face-to-face with an uncut penis. It was flaccid, but waking up,
apparently enthusiastic about the prospect of dominating a terrified elf boy.
“You poor thing, you’re scared of it, aren’t you? It’s okay, just give it a
little pet.”
Zevran did, but quickly withdrew his hand like he was afraid of being bitten.
“I can’t do this, messere, please,” he whispered, with almost-real tears in his
eyes.
“Oh? And what about Yemena? If you lose this job, how will she feed that baby
on the way?”
Zevran winced, scooting backward on his knees.
Damon pushed forward, pushing the tacky tip of his dick against Zevran’s cheek
and lips like a puppy would its nose. Zevran considered the razor in his
sleeve. He imagined slicing the thing clean off in a single motion, and that
poor, silly dick wiggling about like a worm on the floor while the blood
spurted absolutely everywhere. Zevran would dance and laugh in the spray like a
joyful Chantry sister in a holy fountain, and Damon would die screaming in pure
agony.
Of course that was not the reality of it. Even the sharpest razor would require
a little sawing motion, and oh, the mess and the screaming. Not really worth
the effort.
Zevran’s world suddenly snapped back into focus. He wasn’t in one of those
forgotten rooms. He was in the bedroom of Senior Estúpido, his mark, and he
didn’t have to damn thing he didn’t want to. He stood up.
“Very well,” Zevran said slowly, “If that is how it’s going to be, I’ll… do
this thing that you ask.”
Senior Estúpido, who was destined to die tonight, said, “Good. Take your
clothes off.” Zevran worked hard not to smirk.
Though he was young, Zevran knew plenty about sex. Fortunately, not only the
bad things. He knew some people liked to play games, even dress up in little
costumes. There was some kind of thrill in taking on another identity, or
perhaps the thrill was seeing a lover get lost in a fantasy. He did not know if
this was similar, but he was quite certain it was a kind of game.
He watched Damon leer at him. The man was thrilled down to the tips of his toes
about hurting an innocent young man so thoroughly. Not just an idiot, but a
wretch. But Zevran performed a clumsy strip tease with great satisfaction.
Damon did not suspect his dear Luis even a little, which was a very dumb thing
to do in Antiva City. Zevran would almost pity the man were his intentions not
so wholly despicable.
Instead, he decided to use Damon. His body was nice enough, and the enthusiasm
he demonstrated was strangely pleasing. It was the thrill of puppetry, a
bizarre and potent sense of control. Damon thought he was taking everything
away from his dear Luis: dignity, security, happiness, comfort. The merchant
prince had the time of his life with the elf’s young, flexible body. He
whispered little threats in Zevran’s ear, unaware each one was entirely
meaningless. Damon pounded, doubled his his thrusts when Zevran whimpered.
Zevran was intoxicated, savoring the power like a thick, sweet brandy. It
continued only because he wished it to. He had his victim completely at his
mercy, and the fool didn’t even know it. Damon scraped with teeth, he shuddered
and penetrated, but he was barely a person to Zevran at all, just a vessel of
life and sex delivered to Zevran in a handsome but pathetic package.
He rode Damon in the end. When he brought himself off, he came so hard he saw
spots.
Then he dismounted, still straddling the man, stretching his arms out over his
head in a yawn.
“I’m not finished,” Damon wheezed, glaring. He grabbed Zevran by the hips.
“I am,” said Zevran, stretching just a little further to retrieve a dagger he
hid in the mattress frame. Oldest trick in the book, really. He pressed the
weapon to Damon’s throat with one hand. With the other hand, he picked up
Damon’s fine shirt, examining it in a bored manner. “Go on, beg me for your
life. Offer to beat whatever price I was paid. Offer me diamond mines and silk
farms. Offer me beautiful new boots.”
“I’m the richest man in the city,” Damon said, in the halting tone of someone
struggling to remain rational. He was spooked like a horse, his eyes showing
too much white. “I’ll give you whatever you want. And what we did just there -
that was fun, right? You could keep me around for that.”
“You may be the richest man, but you are not the cleverest,” Zevran said. Damon
opened his mouth to shout for his guards. Zevran cut his throat in one smooth
gesture, holding up Damon’s shirt so the blood wouldn’t spoil his clothes. He
pressed the bloody blouse to the gaping wound. “And for all your talk, your
cock is below average. And, hm, has anyone ever told you this shirt really
isn’t your color?”
Damon gurgled and twitched. Zevran hopped off, pulling his clothes back on with
a thoughtful sigh.
“That was perhaps the strangest thing I’ve ever done, and that is saying
something. I’d go so far as to call it a little disgusting. Perhaps I should go
to confession. What do you think?”
The lack of reply could be attributed to the death of the only other person in
the room.
Zevran may not have been impressed by Damon’s choice in clothes, but he saw a
little gold on his ear, gleaming, and smiled.
Why not help himself? It’s not as if Damon wouldn’t have returned the favor.
Besides, he suffered through plenty to get to this point. He earned himself one
more little treat.
 
Rinna once asked him it wasn’t a little coarse, sleeping with his marks. Zevran
made no secret of his habits. Crows, like all birds, loved to gossip and assign
undue meaning to their opinions.
“You know I’m a fan of you, Zevran, but it’s definitely messed up. You have the
power of life and death over them, and you’re kind of using it to sleep with
them. You just don’t seem like the type to take that kind of advantage when you
don’t need to.”
Because you are so moralistic by comparison? Zevran nearly asked, but didn’t
let the sarcasm through. He wanted to impress her, so he was actually somewhat
honest: “I only sleep with people who are interested, I don’t force myself on
them. In a way, we both get what we want.”
Rinna had a wonderful chuckle. It was a low, dirty thing, rich and dark like
swamp loam. “I think if you asked any of them what they wanted, it would
probably involve not being murdered.”
“No one gets everything they want,” Zevran said reasonably. “No one gets to
choose the path their life takes. Or when it ends, for that matter.”
“Hmm,” Rinna said in that tone she used that Zevran could not chart at all. He
put an arm around her waist.
“Have I told you that you’re simply ravishing tonight, darling?”
She smiled at him like daylight breaking. “I hope it’s not because you’re
planning to kill me.”
 
Damon’s earring grew heavier after Zevran faced the Crows with his Warden
friend in Denerim. It was the only thing he carried with him from Antiva that
he treasured. It was not only a part of him, but a symbol of the life he
embraced, the person he chose to become. He saw in this piece of jewelry every
deed mapped out in his warped reflection, staring back at him. He no longer
knew what it meant. After years of barely thinking of it at all, it suddenly
seemed like far too much to carry.
He couldn’t put the importance of giving away the earring into words, let alone
to someone who meant so much to him.
It was a token he stole from a room he no longer cared to visit. It was a
symbol of someone depraved, powerful, vicious, and terrified. Someone a little
damaged, but also, when it came right down to it, very together. A survivor,
sharp as a blade and ten times as deadly. When Zevran first gave his friend the
earring, he couldn’t tell the whole story. But looking at it every day, hanging
from a chain around his lover’s neck, he knew someday he would have to.
Perhaps eventually, Zevran could give that longed-for confession.
And he could open the door to other rooms with company.
I do not know why this is difficult to say, but I was…
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