Winter [Harry Styles AU]

fifteen

winter // fifteen

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Lena's second house is painted a tan color with auburn shingles, and stretches out across an wide, green lawn. Palm trees and vases overflowing with exotic flowers line either side of the entryway, marking a path up to the expanse of stairs. Like their Ohio home, Miami home is over the top and underused.

She thanks the driver before shouldering her bag and making her way up the steps to the front of the house. The heavy wood door creaks as she pushes it, opening up into the light-filled foyer, a clean, lemony scent wafting out. "Beth?" Lena calls hesitantly. "Where are you?"

"Kitchen! Jesus, please tell me you know where the salt is? I'm trying to make margaritas and everything is here but salt." Beth is standing in front of the pantry, hands planted firmly on her hips. Instead of being tied up in a ponytail, her dark hair is chopped just above her shoulders, revealing the black ink on her neck.

"Top shelf, a bit to the left," Lena says. She drops her bags on the floor. "Did you cut your hair?"

"No, Lena, half of it just fell off randomly in the middle of the night." Beth picks the package out of the pantry and finally turns around, already smiling in that smug, sassy way that is also somehow fond. "Now stop asking dumb questions and hug me, yeah?"

Lena practically jumps on her. She smells like chlorine and sunscreen and a little bit like sweat, and her skin is warm to the touch. It's this sense of belonging, almost, with Beth, that makes Lena think about curling up on Harry's lumpy mattress under a heavy quilt. 

"You smell like the pool," Lena hums, hugging her just a bit tighter. 

"Well, I'm not just going to sit around and wait for your ass to get back from the other side of the pond," Beth deadpans. "How was your trip, by the way?" 

"Longer than the Hundred Years War."

"Lena..."

"Which was actually 116 years long. Fun fact."

Beth pulls away. "Cut the bullshit, Lena."

"Listen, I'm here to get a tan and maybe sleep for more than four hours a night and read, like, fifteen books that have been on my to read list for way too long. It's the holidays." Lena gives her a pointed look. "Not right now."

"Hon, you either need to start crying or stop talking about history to avoid the subject."

Beth might as well have raised Lena. She knows Lena from the way she likes her eggs, to her weird obsession with shitty pop music, to the three random freckles on her right arm. She's been the only person to call Lena out on her bullshit for years, and sometimes it feels like she knows Lena better than Lena knows herself.

And Lena has been trying really, really fucking hard to keep control for the past week. She tutored people and worked her regular shifts and studied more than she ever has in her life and listened to Harry declare his love and maybe, Lena thinks, this is exactly what she needs - someone else to be in control for just a bit. 

So she sits down on the kitchen floor and lets herself break down.

Beth is right beside her immediately, rubbing soothing hands across Lena's heaving shoulders, pulling her hair out of her face, whispering that it's all going to be okay, hon, just let it all out. Lena isn't sure how long she cries for, but after a while, she picks her head up and stares at Beth in silence.

"Is this about your parents?" Beth asks gently, frowning when Lena shakes her head. "Do you miss home?"

Lena thinks cold bathroom tiles and lumpy mattresses and tacos at least three times a week and I'm falling in love with you. "I feel like I'm losing control of everything. I don't - I don't know what I want anymore, I don't think. And it's really fucking terrifying, Beth. It's terrifying."