Spin,

[ethan]

"Don't act like you're the first one, treated like disease"

Laughing, Ethan handed her the cloak, effortlessly making a move to place it on her shoulders. At least there was some visible progress. Indigo was a proud witch, and the fact that she was asking for the cloak back was huge. Or without exaggeration, it was something of a progress. But where had he heard, with progress there were two steps backward? Why couldn't he just accept some positive things without having to question every single little detail of it? Perhaps it was in his nature to be skeptical. Or perhaps he wasn't used to give other people second chances. Why was it that he always had to block himself out of something that was potentially joyful? And since when did he ask so many questions? Relax, Cartier, that tiny voice inside his head commanded. Take it easy, go with the flow, just relax. It was easy to think, another one to react. More so when your emotional conducts were crazily haywired to your responsive system. So, as he placed the cloak back on Indigo's shoulders, he let his arm wrap around them tightly for one short moment before he let her go again. He had to stop those impulses soon. They would be his downfall sometime. Yes, going with one's instincts could never prove to be that bad, but the problem here was that he wasn't going with his instincts. Au contraire.

And he was messing with his head. Slightly shaking his head, he tried to smile down at Indigo, managing a weak smile only though. Grateful for the dim lighting his wand provided for the moment, he wondered what would happen tomorrow. Or the day after that, and the next... Or if someday, he would be able to stop questioning himself and the decisions he made. He'd been taught to follow through with the decisions he made, no matter what. Making them involved too much effort to back off them at the last moment, so of course he had to pull through. He always had, hadn't he? But still, that didn't mean he didn't have a right to question what he did or what he thought. Maybe he took that right too personally, or overused it to some extent, but that was his way of making up for all of his supposed 'self-assurance'.

"You know," he started casually, his eyes everywhere but on Indigo's face. He wasn't sure if he'd be able to finish that sentence if he looked at her. Some things were just too hard to say out loud, no matter how true they were, or how confident you were in the other's presence. That was just the way things were. And even though he knew Indigo understood that perfectly, it didn't make it any less harder for him to be able to mutter the ending of the sentence.

"It's always been tug'o war between us; every day, every remark, whatever. Some days I was just too ready to give up, you know?" Perhaps Ethan was rambling now. He wasn't even sure if Indigo would get what he was trying to say, because hell, he wasn't even sure himself. But some things were better to let them flow out in the open, so they could be pieced together and finally make sense. So if he ended the thought, maybe he'd be able to understand what had been in the tip of his tongue all night? "And sometimes I did. Whenever I passed you on a corridor and didn't even look your way, it was easy to pretend you weren't there sometimes. Simply because it made more sense for us to be enemies than me having this..." He gestured vaguely with his hand, at a loss as to how to express himself. Not verbose. No, he wasn't. Or if he had ever been, those moments had been utterly forgotten at the face of this situation. Which, had been created by him and no one else. "Well, this," he concluded, somewhat frustrated for his lack of adjectives. "And then I could not not look at you. And then...here we are." He sighed, obviously at his wit's end.

[Indigo Grace]

ooc: wow, I didn't realize how slow I was to reply, sorry


Yes she was freezing, and she half wished she were someone else at this exact moment. Because with anyone else it wouldn't have been such a big deal just to ask to be warm, but since it was Indigo, it was tremendous. It meant that she knew she'd been rash, and she was willing to take the very smallest step towards humility to get there. She had to pretend she didn't enjoy his arm around her for that split second nearly as much as she did. Oh, this was bad, bad, bad, bad. Indi didn't like the feeling of...feelings. She'd discovered way too many in one year, especially this early on in the year. She was supposed to be on the same exact mindset she was on the other day. That it was useless, and almost bothersome to have to flirt or be near any other boy besides Regulus. Well, she'd certainly been like a horse with the blinders on. Because she knew in the end, that Ethan would always be the exception to that case. To anything but her heart, he was the exception. Good god, the only solution to all of her life dramas would be to be shipped off to an all girls boarding school. Then again, that'd be a whole new set of problems.

The moment that she looked at him she felt even less reassured than before. Similar things were going through his mind, obviously. His smile said it all, despite what he may think. She gave him a half smile in return, pulling the coat over her more tightly. There was another thing: she was in a hurry to find her owl, and therefore hadn't cared much about what other people thought. Now that she was going back, she wasn't much up for the idea of them seeing her in her bare nightgown. She certainly wasn't sure about anything anymore, and this night was giving the girl quite the awful headache to put up with. Although she usually hated the thought of sleep, as it invoked the most cruel memories, she was looking forward to it a bit. Because maybe the now reality wasn't quite worse as they yesterday's reality. She'd been through it again and again, and was more numb to it. If nothing came of her and Ethan, though she secretly hoped it would, she had the vain hope that Regulus wouldn't mind.

He had several girls flocking after him anyway, they'd be more than happy to take away his 'pain.' Indi involuntarily narrowed her eyes at this, she could make herself angry at times. They'd better keep their nasty paws off of him. Uh. This wasn't quite as easy as it may have originally sounded. You know. Indigo snapped out of it, starring at the ground as they began to walk, her owl flying up ahead, overjoyed at the thought of a warm room. He didn't make sense when he began talking, but at the same time, he did. Because Indigo would come up with the same words, and they would both not make sense together. "I took the long way to get to some of my classes." She admitted, eyeing him. "I actually didn't study in the commonroom until after lights out." She shrugged, biting her lip, and scoffing a bit at herself. They lengths they had taken to avoid the other. "I do know what you're trying to say, as shocked as I am. It's like, it doesn't make sense for us to be together, but it's even worse not to be." Indigo reached out and grabbed his hand. "We tend to make everything confusing don't we?" She smiled at him slightly.

[ethan]

"You're as swift around the edges, its the only thing you see"

Ethan started walking, his hands fisted deep into the pockets of his robe. It was an open signal that he was hellbent on trying to contradict his mind with whatever positive thing it could come up with. Since when was he such a sucker for teenage drama. Things were either there, or they weren't. They existed, or they ceased to exist. Ghosts were the only exception. Because Indigo was no longer an exception. He used to classify her as that. As the exception to his rule. Because she sometimes was there, and sometimes she wasn't. But tonight? Tonight Ethan had to discard that option. Because there had never been a night when someone had felt so real, so obviously there. And he was past the avoiding stage.

Kicking some dirt with the tip of his shoes, Ethan bit the inside of his cheek as he looked at Indigo out of the corner of his eye. He knew that she knew that this was too good, and tomorrow it wouldn't be so. Not because anything had changed, but because there would be real things to face. And this was real. But it was the reality that managed to coexist with fantasy to intimately that the boundary was blurred, totally forgotten and ignored. Obvious? Yes, indeed. Logical? Not so much. But there wasn't anything else to do but accept it. No, he wasn't being a pessimist. Sure, he'd played the part several times, but now they were just going in circles, and for it to stop, he'd have to be brutally honest. With himself at least. Because there was no way he'd be hurting her again. If he ever had hurt her. With Indigo you were never sure. But after all the time they had spent together and not together, there was bound to be some marks left. Painful or not, that was for her to know, and for him to try to find out. If he succeeded or not, that would bring out another set of problems entirely.

Smiling as they neared the edge of the Forest, and recalling the errand he had not done, Ethan pulled his hands out of his pockets and ran one nervously through his dark curls, trying to at least do something. He didn't care if he was fidgeting. They were all out in the open. The least thing he should worry about was embarrassing himself. Weren't they supposed to be beyond that? There wasn't anything that Indigo ignored about him. Except the most intimate of details that nobody knew. And if nobody else knew them but him, they didn't exist in this bizarre semi-realistic world.

"Yes, we do. We apparently enjoy it. I think Lily once mentioned something about masochism, though I've never been entirely sure about that episode. She refused to repeat it, since the first time was mumbled." Ethan narrowed his eyes as he remembered that one occasion, and shook his head to clear his thoughts. He needed to stay focused, now. He really, really, really needed that.

"I don't know what it is. Maybe it's the fact that we don't enjoy the things that come too easily." Biting his bottom lip in a sign of reluctance as he stopped his steps, he placed his hands into his pockets again. He could make out the twinkling lights of the castle not so far away, and Gryffindor Tower looking particularly inviting after all the emotional stress of the past few hours. He needed to sleep. He didn't care for nightmares at the moment. He just wanted peace.

How?

An entirely too good question.

[Indigo Grace]

"The further I go, the closer I get back to you"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Frustration. That's what she felt. But not the kind that made a person angry, made them one to scream at them. It was that kind where all you could do was stand still and try to breathe, because that's all there was. It was difficult to get yourself out of a situation you didn't even know you were in, let alone try to patch up all the mistakes and wrong words you had done and spoken. Indigo and Ethan had said the worst things to each other, out of anger. It's like they had to keep going; once they started they couldn't stop, as if they were rolling down a hill and picking up speed. It was exactly like that, because there was that crash at the bottom. And she wished it wasn't so, because usually her annoyance and pain wasn't from him, it was just directed towards him. From spending so much time with one another, he was her easy target. He was the person she could pick on when there was no one else to take it out on. And how could you do that? Do it over and over again to a person you care about? Indi still didn't understand everything, and probably never would.

Tomorrow-she really didn't even want to think about it. It would most likely go back to 'normal', the way things had been. If you didn't want that? Too bad, life was far too complicated just to ignore what was right in front of you without consequences. She noticed Ethan peek over at her, because she did it at the same time. Indigo sighed and looked up at the sky through the thick leaves of the forest, the night was so dark there were hardly any stars out. Pity. Maybe Marlene was right, maybe she should be more......real. It was a request that wasn't at all simple, and she worried that people wouldn't like what they really saw. An insecure Gryffindor who knew about as much about love and relationships as her own father. And now she had the understanding that that was where it all came from. She didn't want to end up like them . They had to stop this, they had to stop repeating the same thing over and over again. It felt to Indigo like she and Ethan were just on a merry go round, they had a very short cycle that repeated its self, but in the end they never really got any closer from where they started. She watched him run his hands through is hair, a constant habit of his when he really had something on his mind. She found herself wishing she was the one with her hand in his hair, and Indigo bit her tongue. Pah. Wishful thinking darling.

Though trying to control her own awkward expressions, she found herself pursing her lips and looking around, straightening her clothes. Lily. Oh yes, he and Lily were almost best friends. Indi kept her mouth shut, trying not to show any sign of jealousy about that girl. She really was rather nice, maybe too nice perhaps, she tried too hard. "Her sweet word for what she was really thinking: prideful." She answered back absentmindedly, they'd both been called it before. She listened to him carry on and looked down at his coat she was wearing, playing with the buttons. "Well that's just down right stupid." How ridiculious to not be satisfied because it was easy. Even more so because that was probably the case, for both of them. She sighed again and ran her hands over her hair, trying to smooth it out. "I'll tell you what it is, this is a mess. This whole thing, with you and me" She pointed between the both of them. "It's like one never-ending chain that keeps right on going. Because neither of us have been able to say how we really feel."

[ethan]

“You're as swift around the edges, it’s the only thing you see”

Ethan sensed the end of their conversation was swiftly approaching. After all, they had been going at it for a couple of hours now, and ignoring where they were, and the time it was, it had been too confusing, too draining, too exhausting…too much of everything to keep it up for long. Besides, the twinkling and inviting lights of the castle were fast approaching and it wouldn’t be long before they would have to tiptoe up to the Gryffindor common room, and after that, each their own separate way. After that…well, Merlin help them.

Smirking self deprecatingly, Ethan arched an eyebrow highly, defiant. “Oh please do tell me something new.” And it wasn’t in him to be irksome, but being called a mess, even if the words did ring true, was something nobody wanted to hear. And he knew Indigo didn’t mean it that way. Because if she had had, then they would both be the worst for each other, and well… That couldn’t be, right? That was inconceivable.

Yes, yes, yes. Everything she was saying, he already knew. Because he had thought the exact same things. And yet, not one of them could stop it, even when they knew what was going to happen next, or even what was happening in that exact moment. How could they? Almost an expected and received torment, if you will. Because it wasn’t a torment, per se. It was more of an acquired taste, something you had learned to revel in after the first few bitter tries.

Because that was how it worked, that was how the world functioned and you did not contradict it.

“Please do tell, how you really feel.” And there was curiosity in his voice, even if he had said it somewhat spitefully. Not in expectations of hurting Indigo—no, never her, but in a general dislike for the whole situation. Ethan was tired of always going back to the yesterdays never happened. They did happen, godammit. They were just too weak and petty to acknowledge them one day at a time. They couldn’t live with their consequences, they couldn’t be fucking mature about it for once.

His blood was boiling through his body, and his fingers kept clenching and unclenching in angry fists. He could feel the energy behind the fury, and he knew that he must, at all costs, finish this off once and for all. Whether the results be positive or negative, it all depended on Indigo’s answer. Because it all came back to her, always, wasn’t it so?

Self-mocking and dependant.

There was nothing but tiredness in his expression as he finally looked up to meet Indigo’s eyes. There, it wasn’t as if his eyes didn’t say it all already. There was never a more open look than the one Ethan was giving at the moment. She would be able to read him like an open book if she weren’t so damn afraid.

“Do tell,” he insisted, his eyes searching. “Please.”

What else did she want?

[/color]

[Indigo Grace]

"All I can hear in the silence that remains, are the words I couldn't say"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Oh, and what exactly do you want me to say? That everything is grand and fine, and there's nothing wrong and confusing about it?" She barked. God, she couldn't hold her tongue, not for the life of her. Even with the guy she cared about. Indi had to see his side of it for once. After all, how would she have reacted if someone said she was a bit of a mess? Yes, she wouldn't have been very pleased. She shifted and tried to correct it immediately. "Perhaps I shouldn't have said it that way. It would have been better to say, is that neither of us really know where to stand on the matter." Much more correct, and much more appropriate. The last thing Indigo wanted to do was get into another fight, ending with one of them storming off. Which generally speaking, was her. Besides, she hated not seeing Ethan for weeks on end, and only seeing him again by some random chance encounter. It certainly wasn't enough. She'd see him every day if she could, but pride, that stupid influential trait, had always gotten in the way. It was like a disease, that kept spreading from one person to the next until everyone was inflicted with it. And then, it was nearly incurable. And oh, how she adored him, she should just say that. But how did you go from blantantly pretending you thought you were better than a person, to saying that you admired almost every step they took? In fact, how in the name of all that is holy did you say it at all? If someone could solve that one for Indi, she'd greatly appreciate it. Besides, she was always worried it would make things weird or akward between them. Then again, you couldn't get much weirder than this.

They repeated the same stuff over and over again to one another, you'd almost wished they had gained new material. It's because there wasn't much more to say until it was solved, was there? And since Indigo and Ethan never budged in their ways, that would always be their number one challenge. Her thoughts strayed for a moment as she wondered who he was going to the ball with. Of course he was going with someone, there were plenty of people to pick from, and plenty of people who would say yes to him. It was just a matter of who. If it was a Gryffindor, that poor little girl's days were numbered. It was unfortunate, but she should know better than that, being in their house. Ethan was totally off-limits. For a girl who could never make up her mind, Indi definitely had some set opinions about things. Including, however, some very shaky ones. She glanced over from her fumble of thoughts, noting that Ethan was becoming angry. He had every reason to be, she was quite an untolerable person. She watched in now timid fascination as his fingers clenched and unclenched, a very normal habit of his. She followed his face, every expression that he let flow out of it. He was looking at her freely, much more than he had ever really done. And she wanted to admit to herself that he felt the exact same about her, especially when his look was so obvious of just that.

But the doubts in her were just so incredibly stubborn that they fought it. And it was true, that really was exactly what she and he both wanted. To know what was behind every carefully sketched word and motion of the other. He seemed to be willing to give her that, and at the moment that Indi felt she could have done it, she just couldn't. She was immediately furious with herself, she wanted to say that she loved him, that fighting with him was merely a passtime. That even fighting with him was better than nothing, and she would take what she could tell. Oh hell! What was the matter with her? Indigo's tongue felt like it was tied up in knots, and the part of her that wanted to scream it was being held back by something. Fear. There it was, it wasn't the fact that she didn't believe in love, it was the fact that she was afraid of it. That was it really. The battle she was having with herself was very evident on her face, but she didn't care, if that was all she could get out. At least Ethan would know that she was trying. Indi bit her lip and looked at him once again. "I can't. I'm so sorry" You could tell that she meant it. "I just, I can't say it." She shook her head at herself and stepped away from him, running off as she always did when things were no longer safe, things that were cracking through her wall. "I, I have to go." She wanted to curse herself for suttering so. Her face looked hurt and remorseful as Indigo turned and followed off after Rebel at a quick pace.

[ethan]

"Don’t act like you can’t see me, darling"

So much for making progress. As Indigo took off, Ethan had half a mind to go after her and just…demand answers. Tempting as it was, though, he knew he had to resist. Running away from it could only mean one thing, and that was that Indigo Rena Grace was not ready for it. For what? For anything that involved the word ‘Ethan’ attached to it, trailing like some heavy weight that would settle on her shoulders if she so much as piped something remotely associated to feelings.

And he had to stop thinking in run-on sentences.

Watching her back as she walked away, Ethan’s expression shifted from one to confusion into one of utter disappointment. He knew it was difficult for Indigo to acknowledge things like these out loud. But he had never thought it would prove to be so impossible. He used to have more faith on this… And what was this?

Was he actually in love with Indigo?

The pause in where his mind refused to fill the void of the answer was really enough. When he didn’t want to hear it, there it was. And when he needed answers, all he got was stony silence?

He literally laughed out loud.

Now, what a brilliant revelation to have when said girl has just walked away, leaving you in the Forbidden Forest at night, after some heated discussion that went on for more than two hours relating to your own personal thoughts in said relationship…that could be non-existent if you counted the fact that said girl was going out with some other bloke, who even if he was totally wrong for her, was the one she’d picked.

Really.

He’d have to stop with the run-on sentences soon. He was out of breath just thinking them.

Shaking his head to clear his thoughts yet again, Ethan looked up, Indigo’s form barely distinguishable now as she approached the castle. They’d have to face each other soon, but after this, it was for certain that it would be as if nothing had happened that night. Ethan was almost grateful for the Yule event that was coming up. And for the fact that he already had a date. Out of respect for Anette, his date, he wouldn’t do anything crass or stupid when he saw her with Regulus. Because they had to be attending together, no? Yes, probably he wouldn’t have it any other way. And had she told him about…well, them dating last year? It was probably that was easy discarded to a stranger, but did he know for a fact, that it wasn’t over yet?

Oh no, by far it wasn’t.

If there was anything Ethan was sure about, this had to be it. His jaw set stubbornly as he made up his mind, Ethan waved his wand and he was on total darkness once again. He set out for the twinkling lights of the castle, resolute in his decision. Indigo Grace had not heard the end of this yet. She could run and hide like a coward she was not, but she’d have to face the music.

Sooner rather than later.