winter // twenty one
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April showers bring May flowers and Lena hopes there's something fucking truth to that statement because April has only been showers so far. That's probably a simile or a metaphor for her tears or something, but Lena isn't an English Major for a reason.
That's what Harry deserves, Lena thinks. An English Major. Someone who can write sonnets about his green eyes and haiku's about his curls. Someone who can help him come up with new puns to tattoo on his body or something.
Lena's in the middle of creating a list of Possible Pun Tattoos for Harry that are all quite pathetic (funny bone? no harry is too clever for that...waist of time? rule of thumb? shoulder blade?) when her phone rings. It's probably fortunate considering her next list was going to be Reasons I Should Buy Harry Styles a Cat.
She plans on hanging up, expecting another call from Kate. Her thumb is already hovering over the end call button when she sees Beth's name on the caller ID. Lena almost drops her phone in her eagerness to answer, bringing it up to her ear so hard that she bangs herself in the cheek with the edge of the metal case.
"Hello?" Lena chokes out, rubbing at her already bruised face. "Beth?"
"Hello, is this my favorite nineteen year old inhabitant of London?"
Lena blinks. "Yes?"
"Nineteen, isn't it?" Beth continues. "I was going to call you yesterday but things were absolutely hectic with the airport and whatnot. Plus, you don't really get good service when you're fifty thousand feet in the air on a plane for nine hours."
Lena blinks again. "A plane?" she asks, voice a bit high.
There's a sound of muffled laughter on the line. "Kidding. I, unfortunately, am unable to drop everything to fly to London. Now get out of bed." It's so ridiculously motherly and familiar; Lena misses her with an ache for a moment.
Lena pauses, curls a little bit further into her bed. "I'm not in bed," she says eventually.
"Brooding isn't helpful," Beth points out. "Sorry, I mean."
"You're not."
"I'm not," Beth agrees. "Are you out of bed yet?"
"No."
The thing is, she hadn't even told Beth told Beth that she and Harry sort of kind of broke up because she knew for a fact that Beth would call her immediately and make her do something insane. Like actually get out of bed or brush her hair or something. Insane things like that.
So the fact that Beth is now waiting on the phone patiently for Lena to speak means that Kate had called in reinforcements.
Like, when American was basically getting destroyed by Britain in the revolution and they kept begging for France to help and then France finally got their asses over to help at the Battle of Saratoga. So Kate is America and Beth is France and fuck that's a really shitty metaphor and Harry deserves an English major.
"I hate Kate," Lena says, and then hates herself for rhyming, so she turns her head into her pillow and tries not to scream.
"You should get up."
"It's April. Classes are out in a month. I have no reason to get up. Or do anything, for that matter. I'm like Napoleon after Waterloo. Everything is over."
Beth sighs. "I know. Sometimes it feels like that."
"And then what?"
"Nobody knows," Beth says, and Lena just sort of falls miserably into her and wishes Beth were here to comfort her like she's done so many other times since Lena was eight years old. "But this bullshit of sitting around and wasting time is a stupid. You're not just going to have an epiphany."
"I don't need an epiphany," Lena says into the sheets. "I know what I did and why I did it. I just want it to not feel like this."
"So why'd you do it?"
"It's not logic, Beth. It was meant to be casual. It wasn't...shit, it was never meant to go anywhere, Harry and me. And then by some fucking miracle, we did. It started to happen. And then suddenly he's talking about moving in and, and..it scared me."
"Why didn't you tell him?" she asks, and Lena considers suffocating herself with the bed sheets.
"You have no idea what kind of person he is to let down. He's wonderful, Beth. He was so happy and, like, I couldn't do that to him. I was so scared and I was out of my depth and he's the most wonderful person I've ever met. I don't want to hurt him. Ever."
"So instead you broke up with him. Because that wasn't going to hurt him, right?"
Lena smiles at that tearily. "You asked me why. It doesn't make sense, but...that's it. That's all. I don't ever want to let him down."
"That's shit logic."
Lena rolls her eyes.
"Yeah, well, so was literally everything Caligula did and yet he still was somehow emperor of Rome."
Beth makes a frustrated noise and Lena doesn't need to see her face to know that she's rolling her eyes. And right, yeah. Can't deflect with the woman who knows Lena better than she knows herself. She forgets that sometimes. Lena sits up slowly, wiping the corner of her eyes with the sleeve of one of Harry's sweaters.
"He dropped out of uni, Beth," she says, "and all I do is study. He's a stupid hipster with stupid hair and stupid dimples who wears flamingo shirts and the only colors in my closet are black and grey. Why would the future ever be good to us? What kind of future would we even have?"
Beth pauses, and Lena can hear her grabbing a drink out of the fridge like she does when she's settling in for a serious conversation. It's both soothing and terrifying. "Look how can I make this not offensive?...Just, throw everything you know out of your head. It's wrong."
"That was offensive," Lena points out.
"Throw all that future shit out of your head. I know that's hard for you considering you focus on the past to avoid the present while simultaneously doing everything to make sure you have a future, but all that's ever done is fuck you over. Stop denying yourself everything that'll make you happy right now because you're scared of your future."
"Maybe we're not even supposed to be together. I just...shit. I can't even think about it. I don't know."
Lena really needs for Beth to say something, for Beth to tell her otherwise, but she doesn't. Instead, Beth makes a disapproving sound. "What do you want right now?" she huffs.
Harry, Lena supposes. Always Harry. Fan-fucking-tastic. She lifts her head and bites the inside of her cheek and keeps trying not to scream. "Harry."
"Then go," says Beth, sounding god awfully smug. "Give Harry my love, too, yeah? Tell him I'm actually your favorite person in the entire world. Proper amazing, I am."
Lena hangs up.
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The message board says if you think niall is anything but a hufflepuff then dont even consider walking in here and Lena misses them so much that for a second, she forgets why she's even at flat 4B.
The she remembers, so she closes her eyes and tries not to scream as she stands there. She can hear footsteps against the floors through the thin walls. For the first time in two months, Lena is about to see the only person she wants to see and it takes all of her strength not to run away.
But she knocks on the door and fixes her shirt and manages to take at least one normal breath before the door swings open to reveal Louis, wearing a Vans t-shirt and no shoes. He grins at Lena, a little feral, but mostly amused. Louis always seems to be unfairly amused.
"Well fina-fucking-lly," he says.
Lena swallows. "I was expecting Harry to open the door. I had, like, a plan - "
Louis slams the door in her face. Then she hears him yell from the other side, a bit muffled, "Zayn! I really need to go get some pants or some shit like that. Let's go! Right now!"
A pause. A distant response from presumably Zayn.
Another pause. Then, louder, "Malik, I swear to God if you don't get your beautiful British-Pakistani arse to this door in the next thirty seconds then I'll straight up level five burn all of your shit!"
Thirty more seconds pass in silence before the door opens again and Louis reappears, this time followed by a slightly disgruntled Zayn. They look a bit off, sort of slightly unhinged, and it's not until they breeze past her and Zayn pats her on the back before shutting the door behind her, that Lena notices.
Harry is standing there, all six feet plus of him; Harry, in half-buttoned up plaid shirt that Lena is sure he's already worn twice this week; Harry, with his jeans that have holes in the knees and his boots that have holes in the toes; Harry, with his dimples and his curls and his stupid smile; Harry, who looks like everything Lena's been missing these past months; Harry, Harry, Harry -
"My bed is really cold," is the first thing that comes tumbling out of her mouth.
Harry's jaw clenches. "It's summer, Lena."
"But I have air conditioning and it's really cold and... I'm so so sorry, shit, I'm so sorry Harry."
Harry just searches her face, expression unreadable, and Lena takes that as silent permission to go on.
"You're right," she begins breathlessly, "I'm terrified and can't fucking - I don't - I care about you so, so much, like, more than you can even imagine, and I'm so scared, but that's not - that obviously isn't want important right now, God, Harry, and I'm just - I'm sorry I'm awful and you're perfect and I'm sorry I left, or whatever, but mainly I'm sorry that - "
"Lena."
Lena shakes her head. "No just - just, I don't know what the future holds for us, or if we even have a future or if you - God, if you even want a future with me, but I'm in. I'm all in, Harry. I don't want a future if it's not with you."
Harry squints down at her for a second more with a blank expression. She's never seen Harry like this, because all of Harry's emotions usually play out on his face like a book, that's just who Harry is, but Lena can't read a thing off of him right now.
She has no idea what's going on, and if Harry sends her away, she thinks maybe that'll be the end. Because she'll never be able to do this again, to bring herself to the edge like right now, if Harry sends her away. She has no idea what the fuck is going on, and she has to shut her eyes to block it out.
It's an agonizing few seconds, in which Lena braces herself for everything but the sound of Harry's boots clicking as he takes a step closer.
"Lena, baby, look at me," Harry whispers, and his tone is so gentle that it's enough to make Lena open her eyes slowly. His green eyes are rimmed with red and his cheeks are damp but he's smiling this soft, understanding smile just for Lena. "What do you want?"
Lena pauses and thinks about what she's meant to say because this seems important, the two of them standing in the doorway of Harry's tiny flat. "I want a shitty mattress on the floor," she decides eventually. "I want only one pair of gloves so that we have to share. I want a bed that is never, ever empty. "
"Is that all?"
"No," Lena tells him. "I want bathroom tiles that are too cold to stand on in the winter. Do you realize you always let me do that? You let me stand on your feet so that it's not too cold for me. I want to keep doing that."
Harry's right up on her. He smells like smoke and fabric softener and home, like Harry. His curls are wild and mussed around his head. He brushes a soft hand over Lena's jaw, then places the other on Lena's waist and holds on. "Is that everything?" he murmurs.
"I want you, obviously," Lena says. "If you'll have me."
"You can have all of that."
"Are you sure?" Lena asks, voice barely there, and Harry smiles slightly and looks down. "Because I know - "
"Hush, it's my turn," he cuts her off with an odd, nervous little laugh. "I spent three years skipping between majors before I decided none of them were for me. I change my outfits, like, four times a day. I've had to get at least four tattoos covered because I changed my mind about them. I'm never sure about anything." He takes a deep breath. "But I'm so, so fucking sure about you."
Lena isn't sure if she's allowed to touch yet, so she tries to be subtle about tilting her chin upwards closer to Harry. "I don't care where you end up. As long as I end up there too."
Harry spreads his hands across Lena's waist. "I want to take you on a proper date, and open doors for you and pay for dinner and like, hold your hand and stuff."
Lena would like that very much. "And stuff."
"I wanted to do that. I still want to do that. A proper date, I mean." His hands slide over her stomach, around her back, and Lena leans into it, tangles her fingers into the soft curls matted against his forehead. "But we're already dating. Like, a lot."
"We totally are," Lena admits, and Harry nods, nosing at her cheek.
"We messed up the order a bit. I think you're supposed to date, make out, then fall in love. I don't think any of that really went according to plan."
Lena chokes out a laugh. None of this was part of the plan. They didn't take the normal route at all. "Well, neither did Operation Barbarossa, but that was probably for the better. "
"I still want to take you on date. But right now I just - " His curls tickle Lena's face as he draws her even closer, nuzzling her cheek, nosing her jaw. "But right now I just kind of want to kiss you?"
He actually fucking asks it, like it's a question as to whether or not Lena wants to be with him, like it's a question as to whether or not anyone would want to be with him, and Lena can't help laughing out loud at the absurdity of the notion that she could ever say no.
"What?" Harry sounds almost defensive.
Half-laughing, half-crying, Lena shakes her head, raises herself up on her tiptoes, and kisses Harry right there to answer his question, and, well.
Fuck the plan.
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