. "About you. Us."
His face was scarlet, and he nodded, but kept on despite his embarrassment. "I heard you tell him that you believe I am disgusted by you."
I nodded, unsure where he was going with it. He refused to meet my eyes.
"Mind telling me why you believe that?"
"Because it's true?" Being so close to him, especially after what I'd seen earlier, was becoming difficult. It was making me cranky and curt. Even I flinched at my harsh tone, but he didn't.
"Allow me to rephrase. What specifically did I do to make you believe that?" His tone was polite, curious; not irritated by my attitude, for which I should have been thankful, and wasn't.
It seems I want a fight.
I sighed. "You called me a monster, Alistair. You walked away. And your face...Maker, the expression on your face. I can see it still, in my mind. You made it quite clear I disgust you."
I looked away; I didn't want to be discussing it. Not when now I knew I wanted him back, and yet couldn't have him. I scrunched my eyes shut, trying to banish the hurtful image. The silence stretched, and finally I risked a glance in his direction. He sat, perfectly still, looking forlorn. His eyes were glistening suspiciously, and his lower lip quivered just slightly; it was painful to watch. Almost painful enough to overwrite the image of his disgust.
Finally he spoke. "Sierra, I...Void take me, but I'm an idiot. Everything I do is just..." He hopped to his feet and started to pace restlessly; I flinched, startled by the abruptness of the movement. It occurred to me, as my first reflex was to assume I'd be hurt, that I had been letting trust issues run my life for far too long. Unaware of my internal monologue, Alistair continued, "I wasn't disgusted with you. Truly. I was hurt, thinking that you might have had ulterior motives for being with me, but I wasn't disgusted with you. I was disgusted with myself. For ever thinking I deserved something more, deserved to have someone love me just for me. In my head...of course you had ulterior motives, I should never have expected otherwise. I was disgusted with my own stupid naivety and optimism. And then you were gone, and when everyone found out what happened..."
He sank back down beside me, looking exhausted. "They all made me see what an imbecile I was, that you had no possible ulterior motive. That you'd avoided me for months to prevent me from falling for you. I didn't believe you, when you told me. But they said the exact same things, and it finally sunk in that I was wrong, totally wrong. I didn't realise how badly I'd screwed up until I saw you again.
"I never thought you were disgusting. Even those few hours where I truly believed you'd manipulated me...I was only disgusted with myself." He reached over and touched my cheek, gently stroking it. "Never you."
He dropped his hand, and I immediately missed it; the warmth, the gentleness, the intimacy. I looked away, trying to pull myself together. I'd been trying to get over the mental image for a while, but now the urge was almost overwhelming. At the same time, my heart hurt; it was an echo of the pain I'd felt when he walked away, and I was too scared to let him back in again.
I decided to tell him the entire truth. If I'd analysed it, I'd have realised that I was trying to push him away, but I didn't think about it that hard. The impulse hit, and I just started talking.
"You once asked me to tell you the other things I was keeping from you, from the game. Games." He nodded, I noticed in my peripheral vision. "Do you still want to know?"
When he nodded again, I took a deep breath. "The only things relevant to you are at the Landsmeet. So, I'm going to talk like it was me, as the Warden, with you at the Landsmeet, because that's how I see it, in my head." He nodded. "So, assuming you were in a relationship with me, my character...Hmm. Backing up. My Warden, the one I usually played, was a Cousland. A female Cousland named Elyssa. Anyway, we'd go into the Landsmeet, and blah blah blah with Loghain. Anora would betray us. There'd be a vote, and it would go against Loghain. But of course, he wouldn't back down, so it would come down to single combat between him and me.
"When I defeated him, I had the option of executing him or recruiting him to the Wardens." I held up a hand to forestall the objection I knew was coming. "We'll get to that. Usually I went with execution, and then I had four options. I could declare Anora to be the Queen. We'd stay Grey Wardens together and go on our merry way. Or I could coerce you into marrying her and ruling jointly, despite the fact that we were together. I could declare myself your Queen, entirely without asking you or discussing it with you first. Or I could make you King by yourself, at which point you immediately and publicly broke off our relationship because you'd need to marry a noblewoman who could give you heirs.
"If my character was an elf, dwarf, or mage, I wouldn't have the option to rule beside you, obviously."
His face was pale. "None of those...are good options. Not that I'd probably have minded the getting married part, but I could see it being an awkward thing for you. And I don't relish leaving Anora on the throne, but I wouldn't want to marry her, and I wouldn't want to lose you." Alistair looked upset. I knew it was going to get worse, and I gulped despite the tingle of warmth at his admission he wouldn't mind marrying me.
I nodded. "And it's not like I wouldn't have understood your reasoning in breaking things off, but...it still hurt. And you did it entirely tactlessly, and in front of all of our companions."
"Yeah, that sounds like the sort of dumb thing I would do." I shot him a dirty look, and he flinched. "Sorry. I am sorry. I'd like to say I'm not like that, but..."
I looked away, unable to meet his eye for the next part. "The worse alternative was if I allowed Loghain to be conscripted. Of course, we didn't know about dying to defeat the Archdemon at the time, but Riordan made vague comments about us needing all the Grey Wardens we could get. And if I allowed it to happen...you got upset, obviously, and if I didn't change my mind, you left. Left the Wardens, abdicated your throne...left me. You refused to fight the Archdemon, and ended up a drunk in Kirkwall, living on charity from Teagan and trying hard to kill yourself with alcohol poisoning. You didn't even look back as you walked away, even if we loved each other."
"I just assumed you were betraying me," he stated. I nodded, sniffling. "Like I did, here, only sooner. And for an even stupider reason."
A tear dribbled down my cheek. I remembered the pain of that betrayal the first time I'd played it in game. It had hurt, even as I knew it was ridiculous to be so affected by a fictional character. I'd had to save the game and go cry, like I was now. But it was nothing next to knowing what it actually felt like, watching Alistair walk away from me. I turned away from Alistair, embarrassed to be seen so emotional over what he would assume was a stupid game.
I should have known better; I felt his hand on my shoulder, his arm move around me, and before I knew what had happened I was sobbing into his shoulder as he held me close to him. He settled me in his lap, stroking my hair, not letting go, whispering apologies, and just let me cry. I soaked his shirt with my tears, and he didn't seem to notice, just kept holding me. I pressed my face into his shoulder, and felt a drop of water hit the back of my hand. I'd have thought it was one of my tears, if my face hadn't been buried at the time.
I looked up, wondering if it was about to rain, only to see blue sky all around. One quick glance at his face, and I realised - it was Alistair's tear. I'd never seen him cry before; not in game, not in real life. But there were twin tracks running down his cheeks, and more drops fell as I watched. I put my arms around his neck and he pulled me close; the two of us sat there for probably an hour, crying together without words.
We must have fallen asleep; when I woke, it was close to sundown, based on the angle of the sun, and it was chilly on the balcony. My stomach rumbled, and I wondered if we'd missed supper entirely. I was still cradled in Alistair's arms; he had one hand buried in my hair, the other arm draped around me, his head back, snoring softly.
I watched his face as he slept; he didn't look peaceful, exactly, but it was the most relaxed, least unhappy I'd seen him look since they had found me at Soldier's Peak. Sunlight glinted off his blond hair, making it look even lighter than normal; his mouth was slack, but the deep wrinkle in his forehead was gone. And we'd both slept without nightmares, which was unusual; lately, it'd seemed, we'd both been having frequent darkspawn-laden dreams, or at least I assumed it by how often he looked tired and haggard, and from my own recurrent nightmares.
I regretted telling Alistair about the Landsmeet. Having time to think about it, I finally realised I'd intended to use it to hurt him, to push him away. His eyes opened, while I thought about it, and he smiled softly at me before seeming to realise where we were. Once he did, he gripped me tighter, if anything, preventing me from running away, which was exactly what I'd been thinking about. But when I looked deeply into his hazel eyes, I decided I didn't want to run away. I was sick of running, and I wasn't angry anymore. I hadn't been in a while, if I was honest.
