Winter [Harry Styles AU]

eleven

winter // eleven

❄ L ❄

It takes a train ride, four cup of coffee, six cups of tea, three bags of pretzels, seven shots of vodka, four beers, a blunt in the bathroom, one porn magazine (Lena isn't naming names, but it was Niall), and seventeen unsolved sudoku puzzles before they finally arrive at the station in Holmes Chapel, Cheshire.

At that point, after over two hours stuck in a little compartment with both Harry and Niall, Lena can't really even speak, so she just shoulders her duffel bag and follows them silently off the train onto the platform. It's almost at the exact moment Harry's foot hits the concrete that he starts running.

Lena watches in amusement as he picks up a girl with white-gray, almost purple hair, and swings her around, stumbling a little bit over his own feet in the process while she screams in what seems to be a mix of terror and delight. "That's his sister," Niall says helpfully.

"No shit." The girl pulls away long enough to squeeze Harry's cheeks, and Lena gets a flash of their matching dimples before they're hugging again. "Are they the same person? They sort of look like the same person?"

Niall shrugs. "As in, like, both too gorgeous to be real human beings?"

"Yes."

"You should see their mum."

Lena swats at Niall's arm. "Niall. You can't say things like that."

"Just did." He gives her a happy little grin, and then he's gone too, joining in on the reunion of brother and sister like he's a member of their family. And, judging by the way Gemma happily embraces him into their cuddle, it seems like he might as well be.

Trying to not be awkward, Lena stands awkwardly to the side and watches them interact in what is probably the most awkward way possible. The two Brits and the Irish lad seem to be happily reuniting, despite the fact that it's only been, like, two months since Uni started and also it's freezing outside.

"Oh shit," Harry says finally, pulling back from Gemma long enough to turn around. "I'm being rude. Lena, this is Gemma...the dilemma. My sister and I missed her." He looks very pleased with himself. "Gemma, this is Lena. And literally nothing rhymes with Lena. I've tried."

Gemma shoots her a grin that is scarily identical to Harry's. "Hi, Nothing Rhymes With Lena. Harry talks about you almost as much as he talks about Zayn."

"To be honest," Lena says, "I'd probably just shut him up and make him talk about Zayn and only Zayn."

"You really are smart. Which doesn't make sense, considering Harry is a blubbering idiot." 

And, like, Lena already likes Gemma probably eighteen times as much as she likes her brother. "I like you more than your brother," she says.

"I get that a lot."

Harry pouts. Because of course he does. "Okay, first of all, I'm clearly the better looking sibling. Second of all, Lena is shivering because she hates the cold and she is too stubborn to admit that she's cold. So. Car?"

"You're so lame," Gemma says. Then they're hugging again while Niall looks on with a fond smile. The Styles siblings are sort of like the Wright Brothers, with Gemma being Orville because she is clearly the cooler one. Orville-Gemma pats Harry's head fondly. "Come on, young one. To the car."

Lena isn't sure if she wants to marry Harry, or be adopted into his family. 

❄❄❄❄

"Niall Horan, you have grown so much! You better not have any tattoos. Do not let them influence you into it." The pretty middle-aged woman that Lena assumes is Anne presses another kiss to each of the Irishman's cheeks. "Now come in, you know where to put your things."