LOVE
The final days of December were spent fairly uneventfully by Lucia and Tom as they enjoyed the castle at its quietest.
It must have been well into the A.M. that night, but Lucia was wide awake. She could feel Tom's chest rising and falling against her back as he slept, his arms draped around her comfortingly.
She turned around in his arms, coming to face him. His face looked so peaceful, even more youthful as he slept, and she couldn't resist brushing her fingers lightly over his cheek.
Tom's eyes fluttered open at her touch, "What time is it?" He queried as he noticed the darkness of the dorm.
"I don't know." Lucia whispered, trailing her fingers down and over his lips.
"Why are you awake?" He asked her, splaying his hand across her back gently.
"I can't sleep." Lucia responded with a sigh.
"How come?" Tom continued, eyes narrowing to meet her gaze. She looked down towards his chest at the eye contact.
"It doesn't matter, can we go for a walk?" Lucia asked sweetly, threading her fingers into his hair.
Tom sighed, rolling onto his back. "We can in the morning, darling."
"Please?" Lucia pressed a kiss against the side of his throat, giving his hair a light tug.
Tom gave her a tired smirk, "I suppose just a short one wouldn't hurt."
Lucia sat up in excitement, then pushed the curtains of the four poster away and got to her feet.
When she looked down at Tom, she saw his eyes unapologetically trail up and down her body only covered by a bralette and underwear. She shook her head and went to pulling on a warm pair of sweatpants, a hoodie and a coat, then stepping into her boots.
When Tom was dressed in equally warm clothing, Lucia laced her fingers into his and dragged him out of the dorm and common room, towards the rest of the castle.
Tom was unimpressed that Lucia didn't just want to walk around the castle, and insisted they walk the actual grounds instead.
She set a brisk pace, dragging Tom along beside her along the snow covered paths.
The bright green of the grass was concealed under a blanket of frost, but it wasn't quite cold enough to freeze over the entirety of the Black Lake.
When they came to a tree beside the lake, Lucia lay down on her back in the frost.
"You'll get sick, let's go back to the castle." Tom insisted, holding out his hand to her.
She smiled at took his hand, only to pull him down to the ground with her. He swore and tried to get back up, but she quickly came to straddle his hips so he couldn't escape.
"Lucia..." Tom warned as she ran her hands up and down his clothed chest.
"Tom... Fuck, you look so hot right now with your hair all messy." She leant down to run her hands through his hair.
"We should go back..." Tom attempted to exercise his self control.
Lucia hummed in response, bringing her lips to his neck and kissing his pulse point.
Tom closed his eyes for a moment as she began tugging at his hair and sucking harshly at his skin.
"Lucia, what is up with you?" He spoke through his shaky breath. The ice beneath him was so cold but her lips were so hot. He could already feel arousal shooting below his abdomen.
When she began to rock her hips against him, he used all his self control to stop this before it went to far. His hands came to grasp her hips to prevent her movements, and he sat up so she was now straddling his lap.
"Not here. Come on, let's go back." He said softly, brushing a hand through her hair to rid it of the snowflakes dusted throughout it.
"Fucking hell." Lucia groaned in annoyance as she stood back up, reaching for her coat to undo it.
"What are you doing?" Tom's eyes narrowed as he stood up.
"I'm hot." Lucia shrugged, pulling off her hoodie as well and stepping out of her boots and sweatpants.
"What the fuck are you doing? Lucia this isn't funny." Tom stepped towards her to try stop whatever insanity she was attempting to set free.
She was standing in her underwear at the end of December in the middle of the night.
"You're being boring." She grumbled as she stepped into the shallows of the lake.
Tom's eyes widened.
"Come in with me, it's not as cold as you'd expect." She beckoned him over with her hand, not looking the least bit phased by the temperature, "Live a little."
"I'm not sure what's gotten into you, but there is no way I'm getting into a sub-zero temperature lake in the middle of the night with you." Tom assured her.
She was acting as an extreme version of her usual traits, so much more stimulated... something he had only seen before when she was...
He put two and two together.
"Lucia, have you taken anything?" He asked her as she completely submerged herself in the freezing cold water with almost no reaction.
"Does it matter?" She rolled her eyes, wading backwards in the dark water.
"For fucks sake." Tom cursed under his breath, pressing his thumb and index fingers to his brows in irritation, "I thought you said you would come to me when you felt like you needed to..."
"I've got it under control." Lucia said sternly, laying back in the dark water.
"What are you on?" Tom asked calmly.
"It's just coke, Tom." She shrugged as if it was nothing.
"I though you stopped that when you got here." Tom sighed.
"I could stop if I wanted to." Lucia spoke casually, "I just haven't wanted to."
Tom cursed under his breath again. How had he not noticed all this time?
He could see under the moonlight that Lucia's skin had become discoloured from the cold, and he could see her teeth were beginning to chatter, but she didn't seem to notice.
"You're angry." She observed, tensing her jaw and attempting to swim further out.
He would never get her out if she thought he was angry at her.
"Darling, I'm not angry. Let's just go back to the castle." He sighed, holding his hand out at the edge of the bank.
She looked at him closely for a moment, and he put on the softest expression possible.
"You're angry." She repeated in a jittery voice, shaking her head.
Tom couldn't think of anything else to do.
He stepped into the shallows of the lake fully clothed, his pants quickly becoming soaked by the ice cold water while he walked towards her as she floated on her back. He hissed as the water crept higher and higher up his legs and to his torso.
When he reached her, she looked up at him through damp eyelashes. Her hair was fanned around her beneath the surface of the dark water, flowing like seaweed and appearing to be almost alive in its movements.
Her skin was not only silver from the moonlight, but almost purple from the cold. Now that he was so close in proximity to her, he could audibly hear her teeth chattering.
"Please don't be angry." She said pleadingly.
"I'm not, I'm just worried Lucia." He sighed, leaning down in the water to pick her up in his arms.
Her arms weakly came to wrap around his neck, her face burying into his chest as he carried her out of the water. Her heart was beating so fast.
He kept an arm around her when he placed her on her feet to put her coat back on, not bothering with the rest of her clothing. Due to her legs being still weak from the cold, he picked her back up, placing her clothes on top of her and carrying her back towards the castle.
When they reached the prefects bathroom, Tom brought her inside the empty stone room.
Lucia was silent still, but her teeth were chattering so violently he was afraid she might bite open her tongue.
He entered one of the shower stalls, sitting her down on the bench meant for clothing while he turned the tap on to lukewarm water.
Lucia just watched him, her skin erupting in goosebumps and quivering under the coat she was enveloped in.
Tom stepped back to her and slid the now soaking coat from her shoulders, leaving her in a pale pink bralette and underwear. He stripped off his own clothing to his underwear and picked her back up in his arms. When he stepped under the waterfall of lukewarm water with only his back first, he shuddered slightly. It was rather cool to him, but as he allowed the stream to rain down on Lucia too, she flinched almost as if it were hot.
"Is it okay?" He asked her as she trembled in his arms.
She nodded lightly and wrapped her arms around him once again, her face resting in the crook of his neck.
He could tell she was beginning to come down from the drug, her demeanour not as frantic and stimulated.
And then she began to cry.
Her breathing was uneven, her back jolting as she sobbed. Her teeth were still chattering so violently and her body shaking.
"Lucia, it's okay." He whispered against her wet hair.
He gradually turned the heat up to warm, feeling she had become used to the cooler temperature now.
"Do you think you can stand?" He asked her gently.
She nodded, so he settled her down on her feet in front of him, still keeping a firm grip around her.
Lucia looked up at him with red eyes, her pupils not as dilated as before.
"I'm so sorry, Tom." She whispered, "I'm so fucked up, I'm so sorry."
"Stop apologising." He responded, brushing soaked strands of hair from her face, "Stop acting like you don't deserve someone to be there for you."
"I'm so fucked up." She repeated, her teeth distorting her voice as she continued to cry, "Why do you stay with me, Tom? I'm so fucking broken." She dropped her head.
"Stop saying that." Tom insisted, brushing her hair from her face frantically and turning up the temperature slightly again.
"It's the truth, and you're so much better than that. Why do you stick around?" Her breathing was uneven and she was almost hyperventilating.
"Because..."
The sight before him was so completely fucked up. There was this beautifully twisted girl standing in front of him that was such a slave to her own feelings. She was impulsive, emotional and everything he usually hated in a person. But she was also fucking beautiful and wore her heart unapologetically on her sleeve. She trusted too easily and cared too much, and he hated that she made him weak. She had changed him, she had warped him into this man that he would have fucking despised in the time before. But he didn't mind at all, because this was the only time in his entire fucked up life that he had felt so much as a grain of real happiness, and it felt fucking amazing to be alive.
"Because I love you."
The moment the words left his lips he knew he couldn't take them back.
But he didn't want to take them back.
It was supposed to be impossible, given the nature of his conception. But magic had done stranger things before, and he knew firsthand how powerful love could be against magic.
"Tom..." She spoke through ragged breath.
"Lucia, I fucking love you." Tom breathed, "I don't care that you're not perfect, or that you make mistakes, or that you don't listen to me when I know what is right for you."
Lucia's hands cupped both his cheeks.
"I have never felt more strongly and surely about anything in this fucked up world." His eyes were on the border of insanity, "And I think I was hesitant to say it because I know it's supposed to be impossible. But I swear to Merlin that I am completely and utterly, absolutely and irrevocably in love with you."
They stayed cradled in each others arms for so long that the water began to run cold. The stained glass window of the mermaid that was mounted in the wall began to allow a kaleidoscope of colours to wash over the room as the sun began to rise.
Lucia was no longer chattering and shaking, but was incredibly exhausted. Her legs were still barely holding her up, but her skin had returned to a mostly normal colour.
"Let's go back to bed." Tom mumbled in her ear, summoning two white fluffy towels from the other side of the room. He dried her off first, removing her soaked undergarments and replacing them with her fortunately still dry sweatpants and hoodie. As she sat and waited, he dressed himself before pulling her back to the dorms with him.
Almost as soon as her head hit the pillow, her eyes closed and her breathing slowed. Tom lay beside her, wrapping the covers over them both and pulling her into his arms.
Maybe Lucia had been wrong that night when they were high on ecstasy in the club. Because Tom was sure that this feeling of contentment despite the lack of perfection in his life, was how it felt to be alive.
And it was perfectly imperfect.
author's note
oh shit he finally said ittttt
also wanted to clarify that I am absolutely not intending to romanticise addiction, given my own experience of its presence in my life and how it really fucked things up. however, I want to highlight the struggles of loving someone who struggles with it, because as much as you want them to stop because they love you, that's not how it works. trust me, I wish it was.
sorry if this was kind of heavy, especially for my younger readers, but her struggle with it is a big part of this story. I'm not just going to show the fun parts of drugs because they also make you really messed up too.
I know wattpad had kinda gone to shit right now, but I have everything backed up so if it got taken down I'll just go to ao3 or inkitt. don't stress guys!