375 reviews! Wow, that's... astonishing. Thank you, everybody, for taking the time to give a few words. They really are appreciated.
Thanks, REB-ART! Glad you're liking the (very) slowmance.
OK, this is... fluff, for me. There's no other word for it. Probably ridiculously romance-ish, but complicated character worries will perhaps - likely - resume soon.
Insomnia
Alistair
Usually, once the nightmares are over, he sleeps like a log, but tonight he finds himself staring at the ceiling of his tent, gritting his teeth. The false words of affection still ringing in his ears, he claps his hands to them almost in order to drown them out. It doesn't help, of course - the lies are all inside his head.
He runs a hand down his face with a sigh, but suddenly his head is full of her, in a way that makes him dizzy, and they're the real memories.
The way she smiles every time it rains.
Every shy touch on his arm, his hands; every time her face twists in concern at seeing him injured, and her murmured words and little assurances as she heals him. The cracked, slightly heartbreaking apologies every time he hisses in pain. He realizes abruptly that, with the way she heals, she's probably feeling it most of the time as well.
Slender hands, pale lips, the brief little smiles she never seems to give anyone else.
The cry that ripped itself from his chest when he nearly lost her, the others' looks of shock, running blindly towards the water...
His fists have clenched, he realizes.
The morning after, when he found her by the river, the quiet, tentative song winding its way through the air that she hadn't wanted anyone to hear. He hasn't heard her sing since, but it was... lovely.
The way she looks at him, half-cheekily and half-hopefully, when he manages to best her in sparring again, eyes sparkling; the way they instinctively reach for each other in battle.
The time they lay and watched the stars together in the silence and the stillness; the time he woke up next to her in the Brecilian Forest. He'd stayed with her to protect her, he remembers, and then... Even now, the memory brings the trace of a blush. The way she'd looked with the day's first light on her face and all her defences down; the fluttering of her eyelids and the smile on her lips in sleep. Maker, he'd wanted to see her dreams. The way she was close enough to hear her breathing, just a hand's length away...
His words from soon after that day return to him. He'd called her... beautiful, he remembers. He remembers her wide eyes, the way she'd looked at the ground.
Maybe, even then, he'd...
He swallows. He misses her presence beside him, he realizes, her warmth and her occasional questions; the crackling of pages as they keep watch together and she buries her head in a book, a small frown line appearing between her brows; her laugh, small and a little rough, but there.
He sucks in a tight breath, and he knows, knows exactly what the warmth blooming in him is. He can't find the strength to deny it anymore.
Oh, Alistair, you idiot.
What in Andraste's name is he supposed to do? Oh, he doesn't know what she'll think, but the Chantry training...
What if she thinks he's still a templar?
"I trust you, remember?" Her words, the way she'd stood and let him smite her. His head is a little clearer than it was, and maybe, just maybe, he can dare to believe that there's hope there.
What about his... inexperience?
"I understand - it needed to be the right person..." The way she'd stuttered her way through a similar confirmation, how familiar her words had sounded... No, neither of them have ever done that.
If she doesn't feel the same way?
She's never shown any interest that he's seen...
He has no idea. Put a brave face on it, and pretend he wants to be friends? The thought makes his chest ache uncomfortably, his breathing a little more difficult.
He looks to his side to see his hand stretched across his bedroll, searching for something... some... one... that's disappointingly absent.