Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Ariane pressed her head against the passenger side window watching the raindrops chase each other, picking favorites and rooting for one to win, watching as they collided together and became one. That was the only good part about rainy days… everything was so dreary, wet, and pitiful when the clouds cried. Today just didn’t feel right to Ari… her breakfast was cold when she woke up, her father forgot to say good morning, and her mother didn’t pack her favorite snacks.

Truly, Ariane knew these things weren’t that bad but combined with the grey clouds that hung over her head it just made her… melancholy. The pop radio station was playing some Christina Aguilera song she didn’t like, maybe they’d play some Jay Lo or Brittney. Though with her school coming up into view Ariane knew she wouldn’t be hearing any song she liked.

Her concentration on the raindrops broke when her father spoke

“Hey Ariane, I hope you have a good day at school.” He reached out and rubbed her shoulder in a comforting way.

“Don’t forget, you have piano lessons today. I can’t wait to hear that piece you’ve been practicing, Swan Lake was it?”

Ariane shifted in her seat and picked her backpack up from the footwell “Yup, I’ve been making good practice. I think my recital is next week… I’d have to check up with my teacher.”

The car slowly pulled up to the curb, standing waiting for Ariane were her two friends. Alina and Ita. They were only friends with Ariane because of their upper-class status, truly she didn’t want to hang out with them… but all their parents were friends. She didn’t want to upset the balance plus they were kind… enough to her that she didn’t mind.

Ariane popped the door open and slid out of her seat, she plopped down onto the wet sidewalk before turning towards her father. He was smiling back at her. He looked so proud.

“Have a great day, Ari!”

“You too, Dad.”

She HATED when her father called her ‘Ari’ ugh it was such a stupid nickname, she tried hiding her blush from both family and friends. Speaking of friends, they approached Ariane with Isa holding an umbrella and Alina standing to her left. Alina was the first to speak out.

“Heeyyyyyy Girllll.” She shouted in an obnoxiously loud tone, this was how she greeted Ariane. Every. Single. Time. They met. Not much got on her nerves but this was one of them… Ariane was better than succumbing to simple teasing. Her response was simple: A hug.

“Sup girlie.” She responded to Alina whilst embracing her, moving on to Isa afterward.

“Getting soaked! This rain is abysmal! I forgot to pack my umbrella but thankfully Isa here shared hers’.” Alina said, notably dry

“That’s what I call girl power, bestie!” Isa responded before the two of them bumped their hips together. One of their many secret gestures that Ariane couldn’t keep up with.

“Let’s get out of this rain, I don’t wanna get any more wet than I already am.” Ariane said with the group turning around and walking towards the entrance of their school. It was one of the best in the city but it wasn’t a private school, Ariane’s parents made it a point she’d ‘interact’ with other people… despite them policing who she could be friends with.

Though she thinks the reason is Isa’s mom is the school principal, who happens to also be friends with Ariane’s mom. Her mom wanted someone she could trust to look out for her baby girl, they were so easy to read…

All of her life was influenced by what her parents wanted her to be, Ariane still had hobbies and interests that were hers’ but her parents were over-supportive to the point they would dictate what she did… so were they her hobbies? She didn’t know and frankly knowing wouldn’t help the situation in the slightest!

Ariane was deeply invested in thought, thinking about her whole situation, school, and what the future had in store. She began to lag behind the group with Alina saying “Bestie better catch up!” in a teasing manner, but not even her voice or the raindrops lightly pitter-pattering down on her face could break Ariane’s thought. Nor could the sound of skateboard wheels rolling on con-

Ariane was quite violently thrown from her train of thought when someone crashed directly into her sending her and the perpetrator barreling toward the ground, thankfully Ariane landed on her backpack saving her from great bodily harm. Ariane was, of course, furious. Whoever this delinquent was must’ve not been paying attention! Even worse… they could have destroyed her Tomagachi!

Ariane was quick to perk up and begin berating this individual… until they locked eyes. Fixed upon her head was a red baseball cap, fitted snuggly like a crown for a queen. Around her neck was a pair of headphones playing a song at ear-shattering volumes. Adorning her chest was a grey t-shirt with a white horse galloping loftily across its canvas.

Her jeans were ripped in many different places, the dirty vans barely clung to her feet. And those eyes… when Ariane locked eyes with her… everything changed. She could feel it. What she knew from then on was… different, completely and utterly different.

The girl spoke, like doves fluttering in the wind.

“Yo, sorry about that. Let's get you up.” She moved gracefully towards Ariane and tucked an arm underneath hers, picking them both up off the ground. The girl brushed herself off and proceeded to kick her skateboard up into her hand, she smiled at Ariane like no one had before.

“Sorry about running into you.” Ariane just stared, completely transfixed by the girl in front of her “I’m- Shit.” Just then her concentration was broken when yelling from across the way broke her focus.

“GET BACK HERE YOU LIL DELIQUENT!”

Ariane’s head snapped towards the sound and noticed their school security guard, Hunter, running full tilt toward her. Well, not her, the girl who knocked her world down.

Before parting, she leaves Ariane with these words. “Stay safe, see you later?” It felt so open-ended, perhaps she said this to everybody. But Ariane knew… she’d see her late. Just like that, fast as she’d come, she was gone. Bolting off and hopping back onto her skateboard pushing off towards the distance, soon Hunter ran up to Ariane.

“You ok?” The lady, out of breath, exclaimed. Ariane just nodded.

“I’ll get this punk, I promise!” She gave Ariane a thumbs up before bolting towards the direction that the girl went off to. Her friends quickly rushed over to Ariane’s side to make sure she wasn’t seriously injured.

“OH MY GOD, ARE YOU ALRIGHT!” Isa said panickedly as she scanned over every inch of Ariane’s visible skin checking for any cuts and scraps. Meanwhile, Alina tilted the girl's face to the side checking her cheeks for damage. “Don’t worry, my dad is the best lawyer in town! We’ll sue that girl till we own her!” Alina seemed… a bit too excited to say that.

“Girls, girls… I’m fine. No one is getting sued” Ariane said, with Alina looking… quite dejected at the fact. “Let's just… get inside, alright?” Ariane followed up. The girls nodded in agreement and proceeded towards the door of the school. Once inside Ariane realized in the dryness of the establishment, she took a deep breath in and began to refocus… until something caught her ear.

A group of girls were listening to their boombox, a song was playing.

“Why’d you have to go and make things so complicated?”

Chapter Text

Days had passed, but it felt like months… Ariane stood in the lunch line patiently waiting for the line to move, it did so at a crawl. She could hear girls behind her chattering but paid no mind to it… her mind was on that girl, that was all she had been thinking about since their little incident. Not even the smell of freshly baked cheese pizza could grab her mind away from that girl… there was something about her, that grabbed Ariane’s heart and wouldn’t let go.

She was dazed, to say the least, she’d never seen her around the school, and with Hunter chasing her down she wondered what the hell that was about. Well, skateboarding on school property was certainly a crime… plus she had never seen her face, so that meant-

“Cheese or Pepporoni?”

Ariane was suddenly ripped out of her head, and brought back into the land of the hungry, the lunch lady on the other side of the counter looked mildly concerned. Ariane responded quickly.

“Cheese please!”

The lunch lady reached down and scooped up a slice of cheese pizza from the pan, long strands of cheese dangled like in those commercials Ariane would see on TV. She gently placed the slice down on Ariane’s tray, the steam wafted up to her nose and filled it with cheesy goodness.

“You ok, kid? Seems like you saw a ghost.” The lunch lady inquired about Ariane’s blank stare off into the abyss.

“Yeah, just a lot on mind is all” Ariane’s bright and cheery smile reassured the lunch lady, to which she smiled back.

“Just checking in, don’t forget the ice cream cups at the end. 75 cents per. We got vanilla, chocolate swirl, and strawberry.”

“Thank you, ma’am, have a wonderful day!”

“You too.”

Ariane made her way down the line, picked up a chocolate swirl ice cream cup, paid for her food, and began making her way over to where Alina and Ita were sitting. The thought of that girl still floating in the back of her mind, she got to the table and placed her plate down. The moment her ass touched that seat Alina began talking to Ariane.

“Hey, so, Ariane. You know that girl who like ran into you the other day?”

Ariane was mentally flashbanged by that sentence, she just kinda stared at Alina for a moment. Of course, she knew that girl… her face had been permanently etched into every fold and wrinkle of her brain. Ariane shook herself out of the trance soaking that incredibly smug look Alina had plastered all over her face… Jesus Christ, what did she do this time?

“Umm, not personally… but yeah I remember, why?”

Alina only grew smugger with each passing second, Ariane could feel the ‘Mhm’ energy radiating over her and she had absolutely no protection from it.

“Well… me and Ita dig some digging…” She couldn’t contain her laughter, tiny giggles escaping from her pursed lips. Ariane looked over to Ita and she was similarly holding back her laughter… whatever they were about to say was absolutely not funny.

“You’re gonna love this! So her name is Elster Lang, I think she is like 19 or 20? Idk butttt she’s a high school dropout! Lol, can’t you believe that? Apparently, she was quite the troublemaker, they kicked her out for selling cigarettes to Juniors.”

Alina talked with her hands, fork grasped lightly in between her index and middle finger. This all seemed so trivial to her… that fact she just, pulled information on this random person that happened to crash into Ariane. But at least she had a name to that face… Elster, from what Ariane remembered of German, meant ‘Magpie’... interesting choice of name from whoever her mother was.

“Oh, wow.” Ariane said apathetically, she really didn’t care what this girl did… the only crime she ever committed was stealing her damn heart. Ariane went to bite her pizza, it was still warm and the cheese pulled away from her mouth beautifully. The sauce was always her favorite part tangy with a light sweetness to it, and plenty of herbal notes to keep her tongue on edge.

Then it hit her… How the fuck did they get information on Elster? They noticed Ariane did another one of her ‘stare off into space’ looks as Alina spoke out to her.

“Bestie, you alright?”

Ariane wasted no time asking her question, “How- How the hell did you information on her?”

Alina and Ita exchanged looks, and Alina then responded. “Welllll… first we went to Ita’s mom to see if she went here or not. Turns out she didn’t go figures, BUT Ita’s mom did know what school she went to. So she emailed them and they faxed her the record, which she gave to us.

Ita chimed in “Mhm! We also went to Alina’s dad and we asked if he had anything on her, he ended up calling one of his buddies at the precinct and pulled her arrest records!”

Ariane’s jaw was a gape.

“So… you… pulled information on a girl who accidentally ran into me on a skateboard. Including her arrest records?”

They simultaneously responded, “Yup!”

“Isn’t that like… super illegal?! And plus that’s like extra extra, all she did was crash into me on her skateboard!”

Alina stared at Ariane for a moment, you could almost hear the cogs turning in her head as she tried to process what Ariane had just said to her.

“Uhhh… but like what if you took her to court!”

“I’m not taking her to court, end of story!”

“Dawww….”

“She just… she apologized for it and wasn’t rude about it, so why should I take her to court? Besides it’s not even like she hurt me.”

The two didn’t have any response to that, they just gave each other glances before going back to their lunch. Ariane was… surprised actually, that they had shut up so quickly. Usually, it takes half an hour of arguing for her point to get across but here they just backed down… Ariane didn’t wanna think about it too hard. She too just went back to eating her lunch before it went cold.

Fast-forward to the end of the day-

Ariane found herself once again staring out the window of her dad's car, watching as the city scenery passed her by. Ariane found herself playing another little game to keep her mind at bay, this time it was counting every single red car she saw. The number was 38- no make that 39, 39 red cars she had seen on the way home.

Her dad was oddly silent, save for the usual “Hi”, and “How was your day” speech that he did every card ride, the small talk was oddly quiet for the day. Today was his day on the radio which meant dad rock was in full effect, in all honesty, Ariane didn’t hate his music tastes… but it was just annoying that he listened to the same few songs on repeat. Constantly. That CD he burnt must’ve had like 5 songs on it and half of them were by The Who.

Ariane’s dad cleared his throat, a sign he was about to say something, which he did

“Hey Ariane, can I ask you something.”

Ariane stopped leaning on her hand and looked over to her father “Yes Dad?”

“Could you run into the gas station and get me some water? You can get something too, I forgot to bring some with me.”

“Sure.”

Ariane responded quite enthusiastically, she really didn’t like going into the gas station… not that she hated being in there or anything. Ariane wanted to get home and read her books; the gas station was just one more speedbump to her finishing the novel she’d been reading over the week.

The car swung into the gas station parking lot and nestled itself in a parking spot, Ariane’s dad handed her a 5-dollar bill and she made her way inside. She quickly grabbed the water and made her way up to the counter, there was a small line… no big deal. Ariane stood there two bottles in hand her mind drifting over thinking about that girl she saw, her eyes wandered across the store looking at the items and advertisements on display.

Though they froze she finally realized who was standing in front of her. That red baseball cap turned backward… that headphones around her neck, the baggy ripped-up jeans, skateboard gripped in her hand. No… it couldn’t be… it was on queue that she happened to turn around and lock eyes with Ariane once more.

It was Elster. Looking even prettier than the day before.

“Yo!” That Yo shot through Ariane’s chest like Cupid's arrow, she could feel her heart beating like war drums… she couldn’t let herself get embarrassed, she had to say something!!!

“Hi.” She responded back meekly, but to her, it was a major win.

Now that Ariane could get good luck at Elster, she could really soak her in. The piercings in her ear shined bright like diamonds, the rings on her fingers clung tightly to her lightly tanned skin, she had a bandage covering the bridge of her presumably from a skateboard accident, and Ariane noticed Elster was missing at least one tooth.

Elster recognized Ariane, though it took her a moment to realize.

“Hey… you’re that girl from Vineta High!” Elster pointed towards Ariane with a strange black can nestled between her fingers, it had green stripes on it… she couldn’t help but stare at it. “I’m like, suppperrr sorry I hit you the other day. I was getting chased by that security lady and wasn’t watching where I was going.”

Elster could have almost locked lips with her then and there! But that was weird, even in her love dazed she recognized just how weird that was. Ariane pointed to that strange can Elster was holding, deciding to talk about that instead.

“It’s ok but… what’s that?”

“This? Oh, this is just some new drink. I think it’s called… Monster Energy? I heard some of my skater friends talk about it, wanted to give it a try!”

Ariane nodded, she didn’t have much to say after that, Elster was next in line so she put her drink down on the counter. When the cashier scanned her item she interjected, “Oh, and could you scan my friend's drinks here? I’ll be paying for them as well.” Ariane was shocked that Elster would do such a thing, she tried protesting but Elster insisted. After the drinks were paid for the two walked away from the counter.

“You- you didn’t have to do that…”

“I didn’t, but it was the right thing to do. I did accidentally run into you on my skateboard, why wouldn’t I?”

Ariane felt like her heart was about to explode, this girl was so nice how could anyone hate her?!

“Thank you, then… I appreciate it.”

Ariane knew she couldn’t let Elster walk away without getting her contact information… she never knew when she was gonna see her again! Her mind raced and as Elster said you’re welcome and began peeling through the door, it hit her like a ton of bricks.

“Hey! Do you… have a MySpace?”

Elster paused for a minute, she seemingly contemplated on what to say… she turned back to look at Ariane, the anticipation was killing her!

“I… do! Elster Lang is the name, look me up!

Bing-fucking-go. The moment Elster walked out that door Ariane rushed towards the car, getting in faster than she had ever done before.

“We need to go. NOW!” She commanded her father, speaking with such intensity that it startled him, leaving his jaw agape for a moment.

“Ok ok! The speed limit is only 45 through this section of the city, I can only go soooo fast.” He said teasingly, the look on Ariane’s face said that she was not amused by his attempts at teasing. Her dad just put the car in reverse and backed out of the parking lot.

The car ride home took forever, Ariane could feel the excitement bubbling deep down inside of her, she drank her whole water bottle before they had even reached her house. Her heart was thumping the entire car ride home. The moment they pulled into the driveway Ariane threw her door open, yanked her backpack out of the front seat, and bolted towards the front door.

She scrambled up the stairs, barely giving her mom a simple “Hello” as she burst into her room. She threw her backpack down onto her bed and plopped down in front of her purple iMac G3. The computer slowly began booting up as she waited impatiently tapping her foot in eager anticipation! She clicked on the browser, quickly typed in MySpace.Com, and searched for Elster Lang.

The mechanical clank of the enter key sent a shiver down her spine, the computer slowly loaded the page, it was exactly what she came to expect. The background was skull and crossbones wearing skateboarding helmets, the picture of Elster showed her big goofy smile accented by the missing tooth, and she had a side section called “Elster’s Top 5 Albums” alongside a photo of Elster doing a cool trick on her skateboard.

Ariane stared in awe… before squealing in joy and jumping onto her bed, kicking her feet back and forth in utter contempt joy. It was her. It was really her! SHE WAS BEAUTIFUL! Ariane quickly stood back up and added Elster as a friend. She couldn’t believe her eyes.

What an amazing day it had been.