Work Text:
Arnold sat in his second maths class of the day thinking over what he was doing after the hour was up
His first ever friend, David Lister, had invited him to get milkshakes after school and hang out at his house afterwards.
He had never done anything like that before, never even thought about doing such a thing.
Mother and father told him spending time not studying was a one way trip down the road of teen angst
His head began to spiral out of control, next thing he knows Dave will be convincing him to get piercings and tattoos, maybe even take him to parties with drinking and smoking and dancing…
The satisfying ring of the bell sounded and he quickly packed his books and supplies away, after a check that he had his flat key and wallet he was on his way to meet up with Dave behind the bike shed.
He walked through the halls like it was a ghost town.
Hardly any other kids were around, they all scrambled out of the school like the place was on fire.
They might as well just replace the bell with a massive siren that screams ‘evacuate the premises immediately!’.
He only saw one other kid in the hallway
One he didn’t particularly like, a violent boy called Sonny Gaites. According to the gossip around the school he had ‘apparently’ been involved in the murder of his fathers girlfriend when he was 12, he could never be convicted and his father took the blame. He was known all around town, Dave apparently knew him even before he came to this school
Sonny was leaning on the lockers smoking a cigarette, leaning on Arnold’s locker.
What in the smegging high school drama is this!?
Arnold’s art book was in there, he needed it.
He breathed in enough courage and false confidence to walk up to Sonny
“E-excuse me but c-can I access my l-locker please”
Sonny gave him a dark look and got off the locker standing next to it instead, continuing to stare at him.
“Thank you!”
Arnold went into his locker and got his personal sketchbook out, the front had been decorated by him and Dave in a recent art class.
He shut his locker and was suddenly pushed into it.
“YER MATES WIT THA FOCKING LISTER BLOKE AINT YA!”
Sonny looked pissed and Arnold couldn’t stop himself from telling the truth as he got major flashbacks to his time in Io house, he could feel his eyes welling with tears and his knees start shaking as he began to talk
“I-I am y-yes wha-w-w-what’s the problem?”
Sonny let him go and stood a few feet away, clenching his fist into a ball “Tha rat bastard fucked my girlfriend-”
Arnold started racing down the corridor to the exit, Dave hadn’t told him of the stories about Sonny, he didn’t want to know Dave’s beef with him.
He ran all the way to the bike shed and found Dave sat on the floor playing on a DS 07 ‘original style’ they were much cheaper than the newer ones and according to Dave ‘run even better’
Dave looked up at him with clear confusion and a small dose of worry in his eyes “What’s wrong with you?”
It was better not to tell him, he wouldn’t want to cause a-
oh smeg it
“I almost got the life beaten out of me by Sonny Gaites!”
Dave’s face dropped as if Arnold had just told him they had teleported 3 million years into the future and all of humanity was dead except for them.
“Sonny’s in this school? He can’t be… no… NO NO NO NO NO WHAT DID HE SAY!”
Arnold was a bit frazzled at his reaction, he knew Sonny and Dave had issues with each other but he didn’t think it was this bad, he was unaware that Dave didn’t know that Sonny had moved to this school around the same time as them
“He just told me that you slept with his girlfriend?”
Dave looked confused for a second but then his eyes started to shine “Yeah he almost killed me… it was horrible… Come on, let's get going!”
Dave put his DS in his musty bag and legged it to the front gates, Arnold following closely behind.
There was a normal safe path that all the other students used to get to the high street but Dave, in the short span of 4 weeks, was able to find 8 other paths to use that were much quicker and had better scenery
Their favourite path was through a forest, it had everything they could ever want.
An abandoned tree house, park and railway line was always fun to hang out in when you’ve never been on earth before.
Arnold doesn’t like to be alone too much and Dave likes hanging out with him so they normally just hang around in the woods on the weekends.
Arnold’s shoulder was shook, he looked up to find Dave looking down at him from a tree stump and holding his shoulder
“Did Sonny scare you that much?”
He shook his head, Dave let go of his shoulder and jumped off the stump “You haven’t heard a single word I’ve said have you?”
He shook his head again.
“I thought you were just ignoring me, so I know that you’ve never played any of the zero g football games, and I don’t wanna repeat what I just said so I’ll teach you when we play!”
Dave smiled at him, Arnold smiled back.
“That sounds great”
They finally got onto the street and started to make their way through the noisy streets that led to the milkshake parlour, one of Dave’s favourite places (definitely not higher than the tree house but pretty high on the list)
By the time they reached the shining pink and purple doors there were only a few other children around.
“Let’s go, come on!”
The parlour was a whirlwind of smell and colour, it was a tad over stimulating for Arnold.
You're a man, stop acting like such a baby!
The voice of his father was interrupted by Dave “You go sit down at the table in the corner and I’ll get our cups!”
He nodded and walked to the instructed table and automatically began staring out the window.
He enjoyed watching other people, it was always easier than interacting with them.
He took notice of the small café across the street, and specifically the boy that was sitting at one of the tables outside, he was in his and Dave’s engineering class.
He sat alone drinking from his cup and writing in a small notebook, he had wispy curly brown hair and a very expressive face
Robert something. Kryla? Krypton?
Arnold was never able to listen to the register because Dave was constantly begging for his attention in any lesson they had together.
His attention was once again focused on David Lister as he placed a glass cup on the table in front of him.
“I'm getting mint chocolate chip!”
Arnold knew he had to be the responsible person between them “Please do not give yourself a sugar crash Dave.”
“Ay it’s me birthday I want to drink as much milkshakes as I can!”
Dave’s smile could replace the earth's sun and no one would notice a difference
Despite this Arnold knows that he’ll lose that sunshine smile in due time “It won’t be a very good way to end your birthday”
“Meh meh meh meh meh they’ve got cookies and cream, raspberry ripple and Napoleon flavours so I think that you're gonna come out with sugar crash as well!” He smirked at Arnold, very proud of his comeback
“Neapolitan ice cream?”
“Yeah!”
“You said Napoleon?”
Arnold stared up at him confused, Dave pushed the glass cup towards him “Oh just go get some smegging milkshakes, I bought refillable ones so we can have as much as we can handle!”
They went to the base section to get his first round of milkshake
Around 3 rounds later Dave was starting to feel extremely sick
“Can we go home, Arn?”
“Of course…”
Dave was curled into a ball, hugging his knees “I don’t feel too good.” He did look very ill and Arnold was quite worried about him but despite his worry he just had to gloat “That’s exactly what I warned you of earlier!”
Nevertheless he helped Dave off his chair, out the parlour and back home with a soft hand and quiet whispers of comfort
Eventually they made it to Dave’s house, a woman was gushing about in the kitchen.
Dave was finally able to walk on his own but couldn’t bring himself to lift his arms “Just ring the doorbell”
Arnold did just that and a second later Dave was wrapped in his grans arms and hoisted off the ground “I told you not to drink so much!”
That's a phrase she'll be telling him for the next 4 years
She suddenly pulled Arnold up to and gave him a big hug “Hello Arnold!” She put him down next to Dave on the couch “I’m so shocked a nice smart boy like you is hanging around with Dave!”
Dave, suddenly cured of his illness, hid his face under a pillow “Grannnn”
She put some dishes into their dishwasher “What it’s true! That Olaf boy was definitely more your type of friend.”
“Olaf moved back to Denmark!”
“What about those other two boys you liked?”
“We had a big argument, Gran, just leave it!”
She smiled softly at him “Just saying… I’ll order the curry when you boys are hungry again”
The TV changed to some random reality show
“Ohh my show is on!” She poured herself a glass of red wine “boys go upstairs and play”
Arnold followed Dave to the attic where his bedroom was “My rooms a bit of a mess.”
“That’s alright”
The room was definitely Dave’s style.
The walls were covered with badly hung posters, the small shelf he had was covered in music and game cartridges, there was a few clothes on the floor and many pieces of paper covering his desk
When Dave saw him looking at the desk he automatically pushed them into a pile before putting them in the desk drawer “ignore all that!”
Before Arnold could push to see what he had drawn he was pulled to the floor to sit on a beanbag with him, it was a very large beanbag but that didn’t mean they weren’t still pushed together on it
Arnold ignored the warmth in his face as Dave slotted the game cartridge into his janked up machine “Ok let’s playyy~”
Dave won almost every round they played apart from the first 2 and the last one (because he was distracted in helping Arnold learn how to play and didn’t want to stop playing until Arnold could beat him fair and square)
They had their curry while watching the reality show with Dave’s gran (she refused to change the channel because “Rebecca and indigo are fighting over the same man even though they’re mother and daughter”)
Dave blew out his candles and they sat watching a doctor who rerun.
Arnold woke up the next morning on the beanbag with Dave’s head in his lap
He felt the warmth in his cheeks return and while trying to understand why he was feeling it he suddenly realised something
“WE HAVE SCHOOL!”
He looked at the zero G clock on Dave’s wall
“WERE LATE TO SCHOOL!”