Prompt: #24 Indifference

Summary: It would be better to have one or the other, not this.

A/N: This is from the Adventum Aduro verse.

Indifferens is Latin for "neither good nor bad".

Indifferens

To say that their conversations were cryptic, was definitely an understatement. She does not think there have been any exchanges between them that had been completely straightforward. Well, maybe once or twice, but they never seemed to be able to say exactly what they meant to say to each other. She was guilty of it as he was guilty of it. They were both entirely guilty for it. Of the many loaded statements that she had heard uttered from his lips, this had to be the winner. They had been talking. Well, maybe talking was not the right word as they had not actually been speaking. They had been looking at each other rather awkwardly before she decided she needed to speak in order to fill the silence.

"You say you left because you had wanted to protect me," she stated.

"Yes," had been the simple reply.

"You wanted to protect me," she continued.

"Yes."

"Was there another reason?" she asked. "You had to have known that I would have been...I would have been upset for your long silence."

He nodded very slowly in return.

"What if I had been angry?"

"I would have tried to win you," he said factually.

She knows she had been frowning at him in response. It was rather arrogant, to say the least, but also a very blatant confession. She could respect blatant.

"My feelings did not matter to you?" she had asked with a little bit of resentment in her voice. The majority of it had been hurt.

He stilled at her accusation. They both knew that he had not really thought of her emotions when he had left. Though his intentions had been good, more than good, he had made a mistake by leaving her with nothing more than a "this is not good bye" relayed by Cal. Then he had looked remorseful when he had replied and she had warmed just a little towards him.

"That was a mistake," he said and it had looked as if he had wanted to reach for her but caught himself at the last second. "I would not have done it if I had known how much it would wound you."

Another loaded statement, but this time she knew what it meant.

"How could you not have?" It had been an honest question. Noctis was not insensitive, but he had said that night, that he was just a man and that he made mistakes. She was just a woman. She made a lot of mistakes too.

Another long moment of silence followed between them where she could feel the tension building. This tension that was always building between them. Sometimes it was so thick that she thought one day, she might just choke from it. She could see thoughts as they flashed through his mind and the stiffness in his shoulders that told her that he had been restraining himself from stepping closer to her. It had greatly surprised her when he suddenly he went very still and then swiftly turned his back to her. She did not think it rude, for it looked as if he had wanted to avoid her eyes for the next words that were going to come out of his mouth.

"Anger, resentment, hatred. Anything would have been better," he said at last and it had been the most frustrating thing he could have said. To make matters even worse, he had walked away with a polite nod of his head, leaving her there to want to cry out in frustration.

Better? Better than what?

No matter how many times she ran that through her head, she did not understand what he could have meant. If it had come from a joker like Cal, she would not have given it much more than a chuckle and a shake for her head. For there were many things that her cousin would say that she did not understand. However, this was Noctis. He had certainly not been joking and he certainly would not have said it just to be contrary. At least, not at that moment. He had sounded so sincere and sure of his answer and he had known she would not understand. Which made it all the more tempting to ruffle his impossible hair just to be a nuisance herself.

There was nothing for it. The next time he haunted her shadow, she was going to ask him. The thought did occur to her that maybe he was taunting her like this to keep her on her toes. Perhaps to make her as fascinated with him as he always confessed he was by her. Which was completely unnecessary given the fact that there was nothing about Noctis that she did not find fascinating. She does not think anything about him could be considered boring. He merely had to walk into the room and he had her undivided attention. Just the image of him sitting down, had her captivated in a very annoying sort of way. It was thoroughly distracting. He was thoroughly distracting.

Her frustrated thoughts still lingered through her mind later the same day as she was walking back to her rooms. Since she had agreed to stay with Noctis, he had moved to her own rooms within the castle as a very special guest. "VIP" according to Cal, who had been given the set of rooms directly across from hers. That thought, at least, caused a faint smile to cross her lips as she finally caught sight of her door. The presence in the shadows had been noticed for awhile now and she finds herself sighing aloud as it continues to follow behind her.

"Is this how things will be?" she asks a bit sadly as she stops to stand in the middle of the hallway. This had become a habit of his of late. It was almost as if he needed the constant assurance that she was there.

To his credit, he does not even try to cover his efforts now that she has caught him outright.

"I just need to make sure," he answers.

"Of what?" she asks, turning around to see him fully. How he can take her breathe away was beyond her, but seeing him like this, only made her heart race. There was no fear, though fear is what others must feel when they see him like he is now. All black and dark, with just a hint of light that shined across his face but left the rest of his body in the darkness of night. He was temptation itself. He exuded temptation and danger.

"Of this reality," he says.

"Why?"

"I was too long without you," he admits, stepping closer to her with that intensely hot and needy expression in his eyes. The expression he often gave her. It was the look that always hit her like a blow to the chest and a gush of feeling would go shooting directly through her veins.

Even his words, so carefully put together, had her feeling weak and strong all at the same time. Despite herself, she cannot deny the flush of desire that burns within her upon hearing them. Intense. He had told her that in order to activate the lifeless crystals, they needed to be intense. Well, they had an overabundance of that. So she is quite confident that they had enough to give countless crystals the life they needed. He had mentioned a cave full of them. Well, they would certainly have enough for the whole cave and then some. If he touched her now, she is sure they could light up the entire city. It is when he takes another step closer that she manages to find her voice again.

"What did you mean earlier?" she needs to ask this because the look on his face is turning predatory and she instinctively knows that his eyes will soon turn red.

It has the desired effect. He blinks his eyes and now they are that deep, crystal blue that they should be right now. Then his eyebrows furl as if he does not understand what she means.

"That anger and hate were better," she elaborates for him. "Better than what?"

He nods his head with a small sigh.

"Indifference," he answers.

"Indifference?" now it is her turn to frown.

He hums an affirmative and nods his head.

"Love and hate call forth equal amounts passion in a person," he explains. "I could not hope for you to love me then, but I could hope that you could hate me. You could resent me and you could curse me. It would have been what I deserved."

She tilts her head as she processes this and bites her lower lip.

"But I could not have born your indifference. That lack of feeling would have killed me," he adds, taking that final step to stand right in front of her.

"So, you would rather I felt something for you, regardless of what it was because you could not bear for me to feel nothing at all?" she asks, moving her eyes to meet his.

He nods and he has that look in his eyes again. His eyes meet hers a moment to see if she understands before lowering them to stare at her lips. Specifically, where her teeth are biting into her lower lip. Her lips begin to burn as if he were actually touching them with his eyes and she feels her breath quicken in response.

"I do not believe," she starts, to distract him from his thoughts because she has to control the situation before he acted on what he desired. Not yet. He could not act on them yet, no matter how much she wanted him to. "That there will ever be a time I could be indifferent to you."

"You believe this?" he asks and if she did not know better, his tone had almost sounded shy along with hopeful.

"That depends," she responds with a playful tilt of her head. He makes a move to grab her and she skips out of his reach to a safer distance from him. "Are you going to keep me interested?"

The scalding look he gives her in response makes her think that perhaps challenging him is not a good idea.