Wanderlust

Ashlyn was fast asleep in Tom’s bed a few silent hours later. He had spent the time holding her close to him on the couch, just telling her as many wonderful things about her as he could. So when she finally fell asleep, he was nowhere near ready for bed and probably wouldn’t be for a while. The mild insomnia that Tom dealt with on occasion was getting the best of him in a foreign country. But he had never been quite as happy as he was in the U.S., at least not in recent times.

He carried Ashlyn to the bedroom and covered her up, shutting the door quietly so that he didn’t wake her up. She was a broken girl and he had never been very good with the opposite sex when they were having a good day so it was a little worrisome that she wasn’t running screaming from the cabin because he didn’t have a clue what he was doing.

So when he sat down at the table, a cup of coffee in one hand and a pencil in the other, he just started writing. When Ashlyn had shown up, he had been hard at work writing nothing because his brain wouldn’t work. He had turned to his music right after Harry Potter had finished. With the series as time consuming as it was, he had very little time to do anything other than promote the movie, study the lines and then shoot the actually scene. It was a constant cycle that he had mixed feelings about leaving behind. He had never really known anything other than the cast and the movie. They had become his best friends and the story line had become a sort of alter-ego for him. Draco Malfoy was an escape from reality. It had been so long since he had starred in his own life that he wasn’t sure how to do it anymore.

But here was Ashlyn, someone who needed him and came to him with her problems after only knowing him for a few days. It was…something. He wasn’t sure what it was. But he was oddly content with being the person that she ran to with things like this. She was an enigma and he wasn’t really sure what to do to get her out of his system. He wasn’t really sure that there was any way to get her out of his system, to be quite honest. Thus far, she had molded in nicely to his much less hectic life in the U.S.

He had left behind a whole slew of problems though. Problems that he wasn’t sure that Ashlyn would ever really want to deal with because, to be honest, he didn’t want to deal with them himself. There were too many to name and not a single one had any hopes of being easy to deal with. And a few of them had the supreme potential to hurt Ashlyn, something that he definitely didn’t want to do.

“You could have woken me up,” A soft voice said from his left, pulling his head up from his thoughts. She yawned, stretching before she continued and sat down across from him at the small kitchen table.

“You needed the sleep,” He said with a shrug, “Want me to put on some coffee?”

“That’s the last thing either of us need, to be honest with you. I’m not the only one that could use some sleep, Tom. You need some too, it looks like,” She said, watching him as he strummed the guitar that sat on his lap. It didn’t look like he even realized that he was doing, “What are you playing?”

He looked surprised at her question but then looked down at his hands that were quietly strumming a tune that he didn’t even know.

“Not quite sure. I’m here to work on some new songs because I really want to play music and not just rely on Harry Potter for the rest of my life, despite me being able to. This is an escape for me, you know? The same way looking at going to all those different countries is an escape for you. The U.S. is an easy country to hide out in for weeks at a time when you don’t want anyone to find you. I feel like London is just a cage anymore. I wanted out. So I left it all behind and here I am, in this lovely little cottage on a lake with a beautiful girl. But I can’t help but think that there’s a trap around here somewhere and the last thing I want is for you to get caught up in a life that you don’t want or need,” He rambled on, standing up and setting the guitar across the table between them, unconsciously trying to make a barrier between the two of them.

“Listen up, boy. Right now, you and I are safe because we are hiding in the woods of a city that no one even knows exists. And don’t you think that maybe, you just might be taking it all for granted? You have so many people that look up to you and that love you, but you ran away from it because you don’t know if you can handle it. But you can, and you have for a long time. So why is right now any different? Because you don’t have your alter ego to keep you company? You’re a bad boy in the movie, not in real life, Tom. Sometimes we just have to let life come to us and see what happens. You can’t have control of everything. And if someone happens to trip over us, so what? I don’t care and neither should you. But if you do, I’ll leave you to deal with whatever issues it is that you have and you won’t have to worry about it,” Ashlyn said, getting angry.

For her entire life she had been told what to do and had decisions forced for her. And here he was, trying to do the exact same thing. But she realized, through that whole rant, that he was just as scared about the future as she was. Who knew what lay waiting for them ahead? Was there even a “them” to think about? In this day and age, a kiss and a date hardly made them a couple. But here they were, sharing a cottage for the time being and getting into fights about something that neither of them could control.

Ashlyn was about to turn around and storm away, in true typical girl fashion, when Tom rounded the table to grab her and pull her to him, kissing her roughly and then holding her at an arm’s length away from him.

“You are entirely too smart and too beautiful and too perfect to waste your time on a fuck up like me, Ashlyn. The only thing that I’m good for is ruining lives and I don’t want you to be one of those that regret being with me,” He said, watching her through his mess of hair that had fallen into his face.

“See. This is your problem. You’re trying to make decisions for me, Tom. And I’m not dealing with it very well. I’m pretty stubborn to a core and the only thing that you’re doing right now is make me want to hang around even more. Because, fuck me if I have any idea why but, you’re the first guy that I’ve ever felt comfortable around. So, unless you plan on jetting off to London and leaving me here, I’m sticking around,” She said and moved her hands up to move his hair off his face so that he could see his eyes and try to figure out what the hell was going on behind those blue eyes of his.

“I’m not sure what I did to deserve you being here, but I’ll not screw it up, or I’ll try not to anyway. Forgive my stupidity, love,” He said, smiling as he pulled her into his arms. He had given up on forcing her away from him. He didn’t want her away from him. And he didn’t know if it was selfish, but he just wanted her to himself for a while. And he would take it in whatever form he could get it. Eventually, the press or some other bullshit would figure out where he was and ruin all the nice, quiet time that he and Ashlyn had. So he would be content for now.

“Let’s get some sleep,” He said softly into her hair and she nodded, smiling at him as he moved away from her, taking her hand so that he could pull her along with him to the bedroom, where they would share a small twin bed for the night.