winter // twenty three
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Harry is waiting outside when Lena finishes her biology exam.
He's leaning against a wall, hair tied up in a bun, bright red balloon in one hand and Cass on a leash in the other. The collar of his shirt is stretched out. It shows off his collarbones and tattoos well. He looks really good. When he sees Lena walking towards him, he flushes pink and bites down on a smile that's already spread to his cheeks. She loves him more than she hates biology.
"Hey," Lena says. She feels small and dumb and silly. After an afternoon of crying over an exam, she would like nothing more than to keep crying. Harry looks sympathetic. "What're you doing here?"
"I brought you a balloon to celebrate," Harry says.
"Why? Because you knew that I'd blow that test?"
"Because I was hoping you'd blow me."
"These puns are kind of hard to swallow," she deadpans.
Harry blinks. "Oh my god, kiss me."
"No, don't do that," Lena frowns. "Let me be in a bad mood."
Harry pouts. "Honestly, Lena, what kind of person doesn't kiss their boyfriend?"
"Someone who thinks balloon and blowjob puns shouldn't be rewarded with a kiss?"
"Oh, so you mean like a loser?"
"No, I mean like the person who's controlling whether or not you get laid tonight."
Harry pouts even harder. "Kiss me," he repeats.
Lena sighs, hopelessly smitten. She's helpless in the face of his curls and lips and weirdness. It's probably the most inconvenient thing to ever happen to her, falling in love with this hipster. "Okay."
Harry pulls Lena in close and kisses it all better. "You made it, baby. So stop being sad about school and let's celebrate summer."
He's right. She made it. They all made it, sort of. Lena and her hopeless, ridiculous, wonderful friends made it through a year of uni by burning things, eating tacos at least four times a week, and never actually figuring out what they really want to do with their lives, and so obviously it's time to salute their successes and begin summer.
"It's like Pax Romana until school starts again."
Harry chuckles into Lena's ear. "Puns and historical references? How did I get so lucky?"
"Zayn," Lena murmurs into his shoulder, face burning.
"I like you, Lena Lawrence. You made this probably the best year of my life. I mean, I don't actually remember the first five, but I'm pretty sure they weren't this great."
"You should've rhyme great and celebrate," says Lena. Harry nods, nosing at her cheek.
"Always rhyme when possible." He pulls away. He's trying to look unaffected but he just looks pleased and sort of flattered instead. It's really sweet. Lena wants to kiss him again. Harry hands her the red balloon. "You're great and I want to celebrate and maybe ejaculate. Let's not procrastinate because I can't wait. Don't let the balloon deflate."
"It's a date."
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When Lena and Harry get back to flat 4B, the message board reads 'fight to the death winner gets to be the next kool-aid man: zayner vs nail' which Lena knew was probably a disaster in the first place, but she definitely wasn't expecting whatever the hell this is.
All of the boys are crowded into their tiny bathroom. Liam and Zayn have stacks of papers and books in their hands. Niall has a bottle of champagne and his turtle. Louis has a self-igniting propane torch.
"You should grab your notebooks," Niall says in lieu of a greeting. "Actually, just grab any school-related materials."
"Don't have any," Harry replies. He tugs on Cass' leash so she stops sniffing at the lighter. "I'll borrow some of Lena's."
Niall eyes him seriously. "That'll do. Go get them. Lena is psychotic - "
"Hey," Lena says, frowning.
"- so she should have plenty."
"How does this work?" Louis asks, and Liam grabs Harry and hauls him into a crouch as the lighter Louis' holding goes off. There's a distinctive hissing sound and a small hole is melted into the plastic shower curtain where Harry was standing. Louis clears his throat. "Oops."
Liam stands up and takes the torch. "I'll hold this until we start."
Louis grins. "When do we start?"
It takes a few trips back and forth to gather all of the notebooks, flash cards, books, and study materials that Lena has amassed throughout the year. They pile all of it, plus the other boys', into the bathtub. Liam hands Louis his lighter back as they toss the last of the schoolwork on top.
"A moment of silence for the past school year," Louis says solemnly. The torch starts up with a hiss. "Let us never forget the time we lost Niall for three days, or the time we tricked Liam into eating deodorant, or the multiple times we cheated off Lena's test. So. Yeah."
He leans down and lights the assortment of books in a few places. The fire spreads throughout the pile slowly, picking up speed as it grows. The whole situation is unsafe, most likely illegal, and very, very cathartic. As Lena watches her biology binder go up in flames, she suddenly gets why Louis is a pyromaniac.
"This must be how Nero felt when he watched Rome burn for five days," she says, awed.
It's too warm, the crappy air conditioning thrumming in the background and the flames burning before them in the bathtub. Harry pulls Lena in close anyways. He kisses the top of her head. "See, I don't even need to go to school when I've got you."
Lena laughs helplessly against Harry's shoulder and he grins, running his fingertips up and down the curve of her back as they watch the fire blaze. Zayn pops the bottle of champagne. Niall uses an old calculus study guide to light a joint. The whole situation is somehow normal.
That's when shower curtain catches on fire.
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"We're still going to have a party, right?"
Liam looks like he's about to cry. "Louis."
"Thank God I disabled our fire alarms when we moved in," says Louis, looking extremely calm, and hands the fire extinguisher over to Zayn. "It'd be a real shit show if I was arrested for arson."
"All of our plans would have gone up in flames," says Harry, and leans across the bathroom to high five Lena.
"Yeah, I wanted to get blazed," says Niall cheerfully.
"Niall," says Harry, sounding absolutely delighted.
Liam buries his face into his palms. "We set the bathroom on fire. We're not having a party."
"Actually," Louis muses. "I'm fairly sure you don't live here any more, Liam. So guess who doesn't get a vote?"
"Me and Zayn?"
"Zayn always gets a vote. Refer to Official Zayn Treaty #32. It's hanging on the fridge."
Zayn gives them an indulgent smile. "We're obviously still having a party."
"We just set the bathroom on fire," Liam says in disbelief.
Zayn shrugs. "Be reasonable, Liam. It was only the bathroom."
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Lena clutches her drink closer to her chest and stands on her tip toes, searching for a familiar face in the flat. There are people pressing against her from all directions, but she can't seem to recognize any of them. Lena doesn't care much, though, because she's drunk and warm and she loves this song. Everything is glowing. Lena is happy.
Unsurprisingly, she finds Kate being introduced to Craic Baby Ho by Niall, who is introducing his fucking turtle to everyone like John Adams introducing John Quincy Adams, and Lena originally goes over to make that historical reference, but in minutes she's sat down in their little circle, watching Craic Baby Ho crawl around and laughing at a story Zayn is telling them about Harry flirting with a waitress to get their meal for free.
They end up playing True American until they all get too drunk to keep climbing over rickety furniture. After that it's more shots and a few joints, and after that it's a lot of bad dancing to bad music, and sometime in between an impromptu yoga session and another small fire started by Louis, Lena loses Harry.
"Where's Harry?" she asks, and no one answers besides Greg saying ahoy! like a pirate, but only because it's too loud for anyone else to hear her. "I'm going to find Harry," Lena announces to no one. "I love him."
Her Harry Scavenger Hunt is interrupted a couple of times by hugs and a turtle race and a very persuasive Perrie and Louis who convince her that she needs another shot. For a few minutes every now and then Lena forgets the mission, but then she remembers Harry, and she loves Harry, so she takes another shot and excuses herself.
It shouldn't be that hard to find a six foot boy with a wide-brimmed hat in a tiny apartment, but it's absolutely packed with drunken people and Lena may or may not be a tiny bit (very) drunk herself, and then all of the sudden there he is - Harry, standing in the middle of a circle laughing, his long hair pulled up in a bun, fedora lost, shirt hanging on by the last two buttons, lips flushed with liquor, pun tattoos on full fucking display.
God. God. That ridiculous, beautiful, wonderful boy. Lena is so in love that she's smiling before she even reaches him. "...I just don't really believe in labels," Lena hears her boyfriend saying as she gets within earshot. "But if I had to, I'd say it's more of a post-modern alternative with a folk twist. I was into them, like, two years ago."
"I really like Beyonce," Lena says, squeezing in the circle between Harry and his boss, a older man with quiffed hair named Nick. "But, you know. Everyone likes Beyonce."
"Lena!" Harry cheers immediately. He hauls her into a hug. He smells like smoke and beer and he looks so good and stupid and feels so good and familiar that Lena can hardly bear it. "My love!"
Lena focuses all of her efforts on not kissing his face off. "What are we talking about? Nothing hipster, I hope?"
"Never that," Harry promises, grin still taking up his face, never moving his eyes off of her.
"Just what I like to hear," Lena replies with approval, feeling Harry's grip tighten around her waist that much more.
Together, they stumble around the room, joining conversations long enough to drop in a few puns and rhymes and history references before wandering away again. It's exactly like old times in 4B, except now it's warmer outside, and Harry's hair is longer, and Lena and Harry are more than friends who like to kiss a little.
(They're a couple who like to kiss a lot.)
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"The ratio of Kardashian posters to football posters is all wrong since Liam and Zayn moved out," Harry ends up saying at about two in the morning as they turn in little circles, trying to avoid knocking elbows with everyone dancing to the happy hipster music around them.
"Totally," Lena agrees.
"I highly suspect Zayn has a few posters of Khloe hiding in their new place somewhere," says Harry. "Sneaky bastard."
Lena loops her arms around Harry's neck and he wraps her up in a warm hug, arms tight around her middle. They're not even dancing anymore, just swaying in the middle of the floor likes idiots. Lena might be drunk. Probably. What with the beer and the little vodka shots and Harry.
It's really unfortunate that she's never too drunk for a historical reference. "Maybe he snuck some posters out in a carpet like Cleopatra. But, like, spell Cleopatra with a K. Get it? Like a Kardashian. Kleopatra. "
Harry gives her a lopsided grin. "Bedroom?"
Lena has no idea why these things work as pick up lines, but she'll take it. Harry pulls her through the crowd, ignoring Niall shouting, "I told you that you always unbutton your shirt when you're trying to get laid!" after them. They stumble down the hall and stop abruptly in front of their room.
"Locked it," Harry mutters. "Didn't want strangers - might steal a plant or socks or something. Need to unlock it."
Yes, that is clever. And smart. Clever, smart, lovely boy, and he's Lena's boy, which makes it that much better. "You should probably do that, then."
"Right. Key." Harry fumbles through the pockets of his stupidly tight skinny jeans for the key while Lena laughs and kisses his shoulder. He's got nice shoulders, on account of all that yoga. He's got nice everything. No one can judge her for wanting to touch him whenever, wherever the chance presents itself.
It's what makes Lena lift up onto her toes to kiss the line of her boyfriend's jaw. Also, like, alcohol. But mostly the fact that she loves him. "A key for you and me," she whispers. "Always rhyme when possible."
In a brilliant display of drunkeness, or maybe natural clumsiness, or maybe eagerness, Harry falls through the door as the lock clicks into place. He seems to require a few seconds to gather his bearings. Once he collects himself enough to actually shut the door, he pins Lena against it and kisses her.
"This must be the Room of Requirement because you're all I need," he says seriously.
Lena doesn't miss a beat. "You're a wizard, Harry."
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The next morning Lena wakes up with a very clingy, very naked Harry attached to her back, a leg fitted in between hers, deep breaths warm on her bare neck. She has no clue what time it is, but she knows that it's Thursday, which means that they'll both have to get up and go to work eventually.
Lena turns in Harry's arms, making him grumble unhappily before he throws a leg over her hip and settles back into her neck, kissing the skin there to let her know that he's at least halfway awake. Lena sighs, taking a look around as Harry's lips wander over her skin.
The bedroom is lovely, with slightly worn cream carpet and white wallpaper and the mattress piled high with blankets. The ground is littered with the few unburnt textbooks (Lena) and CD's ranging from the Steve Miller Band (Harry) to Nicki Minaj (also Harry). Photographs featuring friends and family are placed randomly throughout.
Since Harry is a hipster, there are little plants on the windowsills and Christmas lights hanging from the walls. Glow-in-the-dark stars are taped to the ceilings in their own creative constellation shapes, such as Penis Majora and Boobius. They like to add more designs when they're high and bored.
"What are you thinking about?" Harry asks after a minute. His voice is still rough with sleep, his mouth still warm against her neck.
"How John Locke's political theories influenced the Founding Fathers during the writing of the U.S. constitution."
Harry lifts his head and makes a face. Lena makes one back. "What are you really thinking about?"
"I like our flat," Lena says.
Lena never thought she would be the type of person to have a home with glow-in-the-dark stars forming constellations of genitalia on the ceilings, but here she is in this flat with this boy, and when Harry's sleepy smile lights up his face like the summer sun, Lena knows that she never wants to stop being this person.
She wants to be this person, but not because of where she lives or who she wakes up beside. Those things aren't guaranteed; neither logic or love can change that. Lena wants to be this person because it's the best person she can be. Because she gets to wake up and finally like who she is. Lena wants to be this person because she finally loves who she is. It's because, well.
It's sleeping in late on Sundays, and it's coffee with too much cream and sugar. It's the way old books smell, and it's deep dimples, and it's tracing tiny tattoos on warm skin. It's sharing gloves because you only have one pair, and it's the burn of cheap liquor and it's winter mornings standing on someone else's feet because the tiles are too cold. It's corny rhymes and historical references. It's a small flat in a big city, it's running in the rain, it's summer and winter and spring and fall, it's the past and the future, it's Harry, always Harry, it's the person Lena wants to be now and forever, it's everything Lena wants now and forever, and it's okay if they're late for work.
The seasons will change and people will leave, but right now Lena isn't in a rush to be anywhere but here, in this flat, with this boy.
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❄ ❄ the end ❄ ❄
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author's note: epilogue will be up shortly xoxoox