A/N: One of my favorites, this is a little one shot about unrequited love and the hope for more. As always reviews are love.
~I Want You to Love Me~
"A heart can be broken, but it will keep beating just the same."
Alistair stood in the middle of her – their - room at the Gnawed Noble Tavern, staring down at her, his mouth hanging open in shock as his cheeks flushed hot and red.
The day had been hot, and even though the sun was setting, the room was incredibly humid, making him feel itchy and uncomfortable. He could perhaps blame it on the weather, but he knew most likely that it was she who was causing his discomfort.
And she simply sat there – lounged – in that infuriatingly nonchalant way that she had, one tiny leg on the floor, the other draped over the chair which was much to big for her.
Oh but how I hate her!
The thought fueled his anger. Anger which had arisen from her casual spurn of his attempts at romance. Had she meant to do so? She knew how he felt!
Natia sat, looking out of the second story window that overlooked Denerim Market. The day's heat was waning, although her neck was sticky from the earlier heat.
Her jet black hair, always pulled up in a gleaming ponytail that hung down her back, was held back with a leather tie from which several strands had escaped, hanging across her face.
Her infuriatingly adorable face, Alistair thought.
In spite of his anger and humiliation, Alistair wanted to reach out to brush them away, to feel the softness against his fingers.
The thought lingered, festered, and distracted him from his anger.
How dare she do this to him? How dare she make him so hot and cold, hard and soft all at the same time?
Who was she? Just a castless little dwarf, after all. She had been nothing while growing up in Orzammar, after all. It had been surprising too, that she had passed the Joining, wasn't it? She wasn't a good fighter, she wasn't a mage, she was just a…
Lies, all lies. Lies Alistair liked to tell himself because of the infinite number of ways she was able to get under his skin. Countless, easy ways.
Scratch that. Countless, easy and infuriating ways!
He could see that she had noticed his unrest, could see the tiny little smirk on her lips as she turned her dark, dark eyes up to his face from her position in the chair. Her eyes mocked him. Dared him to feel anything but the scintillating, all encompassing, intoxicating desire she wrought from the darkest parts of him.
She always did this to him. She didn't have to say a word, and he felt the frustration and desire and this stupid need he had for her rear it's ugly head. Literally.
Nothing he had done since the fateful day they had met had done any good.
By Andraste's left tit I need to STOP this sick obsession I have with her!
He nearly shook from the exertion of trying not to want her.
"I hate you," he ground out, his breath heaving.
Narrowed brown eyes betrayed him as they bellied his words, shining clearly with his desire.
Natia gazed at him, raising one eyebrow as she assessed his word and his defensive stance. She stood slowly, stretching as if she had just taken a luxurious nap.
Alistair had a difficult time forcing his eyes to not follow the fluid movements of her arms or taking in the swell of her breasts, or moving down along her waistline and-
His thoughts were slowly teetering towards lascivious, but were interrupted then by her laugh.
It was an infuriating chuckle, and then Natia cocked her head, her hands on her shapely hips, amusement in her eyes as she watched him.
Alistair, in all the time he had spent in her arms, never was sure what color those eyes really were. Chestnut? Or more chocolate? Perhaps leaning more towards a burnt caramel? Or even just a beautiful, delicious melding of all?
Before he knew it, Alistair had plunged once more into the depth of those eyes, losing himself in her gaze. He hardly heard when she began to speak.
"Do you hate me? I daresay, your hate for me never stops you from coming around, does it?" she pointed out in a suggestive way, making his cheeks burn once more as his chain of thoughts became seriously derailed.
"You were in my room at the Pearl the other night, were you not?" she said sweetly, though that sweetness masked the lechery that lay beneath. She took a step closer, refusing to allow him to look away. "And remember that night at the Spoiled Princess?" She breathed, only feet away from him now. She was a foot shorter than he, and looked up into his face, somehow able to look both unassuming and completely irresistible at the same time. "Hmmm?"
His mouth went dry at her proximity.
"That was," she whispered huskily, "quite a night of hate, if I recall correctly."
Her breath tickled his lips and Alistair nearly fell over.
"Time and time again…I find you two steps behind, dear templar. Why is that? Because you hate me so? What of tonight? Right now? Do you not have a thousand other things to do?"
Alistair blinked. Yes. A thousand things to do, and yet he could not remember a one.
"And this flower you brought me tonight," she murmured, motioning towards the fallen bloom that Alistair had offered her in a tone just as endearing as the fumbling presentation.
Endearing and yet just as disconcerting, for Natia was not used to genuine affection and had not an idea in how to respond.
"Does that have to do with your hate for me also?" she asked rather innocently, stepping closer to him, her fingers reaching out to bury themselves in the confines of his soft brown hair. Alistair had to physically stop himself from ripping the leather tie that held back her hair and doing the same.
How he wanted her! It was impossible, was it not? To want like this. So at her touch, he jerked away, almost violently. Natia stared at him, and then swiftly pinned him against the wall opposite the window, pressing her body against his so that there was nowhere for Alistair to move.
He swallowed as she gave him a look of challenge. She was as quick here as she was on the battlefield, and equally as daunting to stop.
"Get away from me," Alistair sputtered in an uneven tone, but Natia only laughed for she felt him unwillingly relenting and then simply melting against her body. She was drunk with the power she possessed over her.
Never before had she had this much power. Perhaps it was why she loathed to end whatever this was between them. It gave her a sense of grounding, of control. For the first time, she was something for someone, and not a nameless, disgusting street dwarf who had to fight her way amongst all those others who had also been forsaken and branded as the decay of dwarven civilization.
Alistair flushed with humiliation once more as he glanced at the fallen rose, confused at hurt as to why she had so harshly refused it. He grew angry and indignant.
"Don't flatter yourself, Natia," he scoffed. He was trying to think of something…anything…to stop his fall into madness. But he could not concentrate with her so close. "I shouldn't have bothered sharing with you, for you are clearly a woman who can't even find the decency to thank someone when they offer a gift. You make me sick," he finished, though it would never be certain if he was angry or simply hurt.
Alistair gave her a hard shove, and she backed off, her face taking on a look of amusement and slight surprise as she watched him. Poor, sweet, deluded Alistair! Natia wondered what she would do without him.
"Come now Alistair, are you truly mad that I turned down a silly little rose?" she questioned with genuine interest. His blush was furious.
"I don't understand you! By Andraste's sword but you will be my undoing!" he growled. "You act like you do not care at all, but I would like to know why you gave me this!" he stormed defensively, fumbling to show her his mother's amulet, the same one she had given him only days before.
He treasured it with his life, not only because it had been his mothers, but because Natia had given it to him.
"If you do not care, why give me a gift?" he questioned, folding his arms across his chest as if this is weak defense would protect him from her. He knew better. He was helpless when it came to Natia Brosca. "If I meant nothing to you, why was it my arms you fell into that night you had the nightmares?" he questioned, his mouth going dry at what had ensured afterwards.
Natia laughed.
"Oh Alistair!" she exclaimed, seeing his face turn bright red with frustration and desire, not realizing that even the way she spoke his name caused him to come undone. "Why must everything about you be so complicated? Why can't we just let this be what it is? We are amidst blight, surely this is not the time for antiquated courtship as if I were some virginal maiden!" she finished and laughed as he blushed even more deeply.
She could see him try to form a response, but he was so overcome that his mouth moved by nothing came out. With tantalizing slowness, Natia reached out, her fingers playing along the edge of his cotton nightshirt as she gave him a cheeky smile.
"You, dear Alistair, are such fun to me! I like to play with you…" she said, her tone low, suggestive and more than a little velvety. "It is an exciting game, is it not?" she questioned, seeing him grow angrier. "Do you not want to play with me?"
Her pout destroyed whatever sensibility he had. He reached out then, pulling her into back into his arms, and then began kissing her neck, losing himself in the scent, the familiar way she responded to him, although his reaction was never familiar, always shocking.
He would never be able to truly get used to the feelings she brought out in him.
"And you, my dearest, protesting templar, love every moment of this," she breathed against his ear, causing goose bumps to break out along Alistair's arms. Everything tingled where she touched him, his nerves rang with desire, his utter core wept for their union, heat built up within him, higher and higher, and he felt his knees go weak.
He tried to laugh, failed, tried to be nonchalant, to not want her, but it was as always, in vain. Somehow between the impossibly delicious caresses, Natia managed to speak.
"Do you want to stop playing? Is what we have not enough for you?" she whispered, kissing his mouth with such tantalizing slowness it nearly made Alistair cry out in frustration and desire. His need manifested itself in a breathy groan as he buried his face against her neck once more. Her fingers had made short work of his shirt, and were now running along his muscled chest with expertise.
Alistair's had fell back as he arched himself towards her.
"How do you know I want to play this game?" he whimpered, still fighting her advances, and he heard her laugh. The sound was infuriating. And it seduced him. Everything about this dwarven woman seduced Alistair. Everything.
"You can quit any time you desire, dear Alistair," she muttered huskily, her fingers running down along his arm, feeling soft skin there, like warmed satin against her own. Skin which was impossibly soft in spite of all the battles he had been through. She allowed him to run his hands down her hips, and around her back. They snaked around to her belly and then along the valley of her breasts. His shaking fingers began to remove her shirt then, and Alistair saw her look of desire and that blasted self assurance.
Maker's breath but I want her!
"Of course, if you quit, that means I will need to find someone else to play with me," she whispered, lips grazing his cheek, his jaw, his neck, his ear. They stopped there, and he felt her soft breath, could almost see the smirk on her face, the one that made him wild for her. "I can't play alone."
Alistair froze, the possibility of losing her, even in this way, too much to bear. How was it that he could love someone who felt nothing in return? How was it that if she did leave, she would take his life with her, leaving him dead?
"And while I am off enjoying the carnal pleasures afforded to me by this beautiful country, you will be hard pressed to find another woman who makes you feel as I do," she finished, her hands now roaming the muscled heat of his thighs. "And who can touch you…"
All of Alistair's protestations where annihilated. He forgot everything he wanted to say. He was only aware of her touch upon the hottest parts of him and that he was groaning against her neck.
"Natia," he rasped, her name escaping his lips over and over again, like a chant, like a prayer. Maker be damned, he knew. Even though it was blasphemous, to him she was goddess, temple, downfall and ecstasy all in one perfect woman.
He clung to her, his eyes closed, but feeling hot tears behind them as he succumbed completely to her once again, desire trumping shame.
She was right, he knew. Why deny that he had never felt this way about anyone else, that no one but Natia could do this to him? Could make him feel so much loathing and so much love all at once. The last of his willpower crumbled, and he gave in to his own emotions, his need, and the unrequited love that always burned within him.
Knowing that in spite of his hopes…she had never shown him love. Taught him much, made him feel much, exquisite pleasure, the deepest knowledge of fleshly desires, but never love. Alistair knew however, that in spite of this, he could not walk away. It was impossible. In the face of this woman, he was rendered helpless.
Every time they did this, each time she touched him, he wanted to walk away, but couldn't. The idea of leaving her made him want to crumble up and die, even as the knowledge she would never truly love him made him want to cry.
Without Natia, he was incomplete. She held the final puzzle to who he was in her tiny, destructive hands. She had power over him. Power to lift him up or to crush him underfoot as she had the rose.
So he continued to turn back to her, every day believing more and more that the heart inside of her was so black, so twisted and destroyed by her life in Dust Town that perhaps she would never learn how to love. That he would never be able to heal her.
He felt her removing the rest of his clothing, and even as her hands stoked the fire within him, he managed to pull away, taking in a breath that was ridden with his unshed tears.
"What?" asked she, a breath of concern crossing her flushed face, disappearing just as quickly as it had come as she gazed at him from underneath a crown of messy dark waves. Alistair took in a shaking breath and his brown eyes filled with glittering tears.
"Natia, will you ever love me?" he implored, his voice a whisper just then, as he was overcoming with emotion.
"What sort of question is that?" she scoffed, suddenly defensive. Natia stepped away from him, taking her warmth, her vitality away, leaving Alistair bereft and aching for her. He didn't move however, watching in a pained away as she crossed the room. She stood silhouetted in the window, her long dark hair cascading down her nude back as she turned from him.
It was no or never.
"I need to know Natia. I need to know if there is anything more for you besides what this is," he said pointing between their naked bodies, feeling scared suddenly. Scared that she would toss him aside as she had his rose.
"I do not trust feeling anything, and I do not trust anyone," she replied, her tone sharp and cold, unlike anything he heard issue from her before. "You know not what that is like. You do not know where I've come from."
She was no longer temptress, she was now…
She still stood facing the windows, the humid summer night without turning to look at him. Alistair felt himself breaking down, the words coming now, rushing on top of each other like a river after the flood.
"I'm in love with you. I need you. Not just now, but forever, Natia. After all this is over, the Blight, the unrest, everything. I'm going to want you. I just…I need to know you feel…"
He felt his throat close up. The same way? Could she ever feel the same way?
For along time, Natia said nothing, and when she did her words were flat, without feeling.
"The same way?" She echoed his thoughts. "You want me to feel the same way?"
Her words made a mockery of everything he felt for her.
"And why would I?" she asked then, her small hands gripping the worn window frame so tightly her knuckles turned white. "When I don't believe that love exists? You've never seen a woman who claimed to love her only daughter sell her out for a few pints of ale. You've never seen the castless of Orzammar begging in the streets, have you? You've never seen the upper crust in the city ignore us because we weren't good enough. There's no such thing as love or compassion, Alistair. Don't be a fool!"
She turned from the window to face him and her beautiful eyes were ridden with pain and muddled with confusion.
"Tell me you hate me, I can understand that. I understand anger, hatred, desperation, passion…there is nothing like those to make you feel something. To drive you, make you feel alive. But love?"
She let out a bitter snort. Alistair's heart cried out to her, wanted to help her, to heal her, if she would only allow it.
Alistair took a step towards her then.
"But Natia," he managed to whisper. "If you feel those things, can you not say the same for love? What I'm feeling right now…I've – oh Maker – I've never been so alive!" he exclaimed, his hands going to cover his thundering heart. He had bared his whole soul to this woman. "I only wish you could feel even a fraction of what I'm feeling right now," he finished, his eyes locking with hers.
Natia refused to move, a look of fear in her eyes now.
"Y-you do?" she asked wondering why this man cared so much. Her eyes widened as he approached her in the now growing darkness as the sun had begun to set. She had never seen anyone gaze at her the way Alistair was, though she could not find it in the iciness of her heart to believe him.
He nodded. "I want you to love me," he murmured, his voice swelling with the emotion of being with the one he loved.
Their hands joined in the darkness, fingers laced tightly together.
"I don't know what love is," she uttered finally, her voice low. Alistair believed in that moment, that perhaps she had been lost to him from the beginning, and that all of this had been in vain. All of the love and the hope, the aching, pining, the thoughts that would not let him go. All in vain.
All he could see in her eyes was helplessness. In the velvety darkness she spoke, and Alistair could hear her heart in each word.
"But if I ever did know how, it would be you I would love."
Her whisper was his salvation. His renewed hope, his reason for holding on. No other words were possible, and none were necessary. Alistair wondered if in the end, his love would be enough. It was a risk he would have to take, for he found it impossible to believe he could love anyone else.
It would have to be enough.
Natia stepped into his arms, seeking that which he gave so freely and that which she didn't believe existed. He wrapped his arms around her, and gazed down into the eternal depths of her eyes. He lost himself then, feeling the ever present uncertainty that soon became ecstasy.