Disclaimer: Not mine, not mine, not mine. Even the basic plot isn't mine. It's based of a musical titled "Mary Lou" (only in Israel ;)), with a change of some things to suit the plot and characters better.
A/N: This is an AU (Alternate Universe) story. Some characters are not where they are supposed to be or not how they're supposed to be or not in the place you're used to see them at. You'll see.
Lost and Lost and Found
There was a disco ball hanged down from the middle of the ceiling.
It was big. Huge. If it fell down, it was sure to squash about half the people on the dance floor. Oh, and let's not forget the dance floor. You know those cube-parted floors that were randomly lit by numerous colorful lights? This one wasn't less cheery.
He almost wished for the ball to fall and squash half the people on the dance floor. It was all Lily's friend and some other people who were looking for a 'good time', anyway. Good time. Funny. It made him wish to stand under the ball and ask someone to drop the ball on him.
He still had no idea why he was there. It was masochism. Pure masochism.
She had no idea why he brought her there. She kept sending glares at him through the evening. He was a masochist, and she was his partner in crime.
"I think I'm ready to fully embrace my religion." Lane said nonchalantly.
"Meaning?" He frowned.
"I'm going to sneak into the bathroom and pray. And pray and pray. And pray some more." She states.
"Can I tag along?" He perked an eyebrow at her.
"… With me to the bathroom?" She crossed her arms, frowning.
He shrugged. "Makes no difference. I'm sure both the girls' and guys' bathrooms are painted pink." He rolled his eyes.
"I'll take you up on that." She nodded, as someone went past her, pushing her aside.
"Jess!" Lily called with fake excitement, wearing something small enough to be inspired by a Shpritney video. "You're here! Super!" She kept faking her excitement, as a bunch of girls rushed to stand behind her.
"I'm dancing out of joy here." He said coldly.
Lily giggled. "Well, that's great." She turned to glance at her friends. "You…" she pointed at Jess, "Get the first drink for free." She smiled. "You have to pay 5 bucks." She told Lane.
Before Lane had the chance to comment, Jess commented with a chuckle of his own. "I'm sure she'll now proceed to take out a five dollar bill and shove it up your panties." He said in a high-pitched voice, tilting his head.
Lily let the smile fade off her face. "Yeah, well." She said, turning to walk away, the girls following close behind.
Jess stared after her with mild disbelief. He learned to realize that this was his stepsister's nature. Such a freaking shame.
"So, I see that Lily's people skills are improving." Lane commented, walking to Jess's side again after being pushed away.
Jess chuckled quietly. "She's being tutored."
"Must be one cheap tutor." She smirked.
"Must be." He nodded.
The stood there in silence, scanning the crowd with their tired eyes, both of them silently wishing for a pistol.
"So." He finally turned to her, trying to have his voice cover the horrible music that was blasting through the speakers. "Got five bucks?" He asked, and she nodded in reply with a sly smile.
"After you." She gestured to the direction of the bar, and followed as he headed over.
"This is so Cosmo." Said a tall blonde who entered the club, her arm linked with a brunette's arm.
"This is so chic." The brunette replied with a nod.
"This is so… pink." Added the girl who was standing behind them, hints of disgust in her voice.
She was there with Madeline and Louise. Madeline and Louise. Shelly and Barbie. Joey and Jen. Okay, enough with the references.
She had no idea why she was there. Well, she had an idea, but she had no idea.
Even Paris interrogated her about it. Her 'party in New York' speech really outlasted itself.
And she didn't want to go alone. And Paris went crazy just from the fact that Rory considered her arrival as a possibility. So she had to call Madeline and Louise.
There's no need to add that Madeline and Louise whispered over the phone for about 20 minutes after she called them. They eventually agreed for her to tag along.
And now she was standing in the opening of a club named 'Glitter'. 'Glitter'. Referred to the movie, she knew it couldn't get any worse.
But it surprised her. There was pink everywhere. And disco lights, and a disco ball, and… a flashing dance floor. She felt sick.
"This is so going on my list." Louise – Blondie – said with a hand gesture.
"You're gonna come here every week?" Madeline asked her.
"Every week." Louise confirmed with a nod.
"Who's gonna drive you?" Madeline frowned.
Louise pondered. "Alan has a nice car." She grinned.
"A very nice car." Madeline emphasized her friend's point, but stopped as a thought came to her mind. "But I thought Alan hates you because of what happened in Ivory's party."
"Oh." Louise paused, thinking it over. "Well, we'll just have to ask Ivory." She nodded.
"Us in a Peugeot?" Madeline pointed out in disgust, to which Louise responded with her own disgusted expression. "Besides, didn't you dump Ivory two weeks ago?"
"Three weeks ago." Louise nodded. "And, yeah, that might be a problem."
"We should buy a car." Madeline suggested, sighing.
"Together?" Louise furrowed her brows.
"Well…" Madeline thought about it, "No."
"Then how?" Louise asked curiously.
"Ask your mom!" Madeline announced excitedly, as if she just found a cure for cancer.
Louise frowned. "Nah, she spent all our money on my father's bail."
"Oh." Madeline cringed, pulling Louise towards the bar.
And Rory was left there alone. She looked around what she remembered as a beautiful bookstore and sighed. And she didn't see him anywhere.
She took the bottle he placed in her hand and stared at it ungratefully. The cold glass was making her shudder, wishing she was wearing gloves or that she had thermal hands.
"So, first you take me through the gates of hell and now you're trying to get me drunk?" Lane frowned, moving the bottle to her other hand.
"Yup." He replied bluntly, taking a sip from his beer.
"Mama's just going to love this." She said, her voice cynical.
"Just smile pretty and thank the lord it's not vodka." He smirked.
She cast another glance at her bottle. "Yeah, whatever." She sighed, taking a small sip of the liquid. "Refreshing." She said with a small grimace.
He chuckled at her response. "You'll learn to love it. Trust me."
"Trust you?" She snorted. "Like I'll ever do that."
He rolled his eyes and draped his arm around her shoulder, guiding her to the supposedly 'quiet' area, a little away from the speakers.
They sat down, leaning against the wall in the corner of the huge hall. He looked around.
He didn't remember the place to be that large. It always looked smaller with the all the storage rooms they had in there. It was nothing like he remembered it to be.
It hurt. There was nothing left of the bookstore. No memory of his father, non-whatsoever. It made him look around with a bitter feeling.
He caught a glimpse of Sasha. She was sitting in the other side of the room, on a pink fluffy loveseat, near that Mr. Gleason guy that made his life even worse than it was before. She looked deliriously happy, with her champagne and the million-dollar vision. He wished to shatter it. He craved it so much. He unconsciously drank half of the liquid in the bottle he was holding, that's how much he craved it.
Lane followed his gaze. She recognized the familiar expression on her friend's face and decided to take action, taking his face in her hands and turning it to her direction.
He sighed at her. "Lane…"
"I look better." She justified herself, dropping her hands to her knees.
"I'd like to hear you say that to Sasha." He said, taking another swing of the bottle to his mouth, and she smirked.
"I don't my blood fits all the pink." She joked, casting a glance at the same woman.
"She'd get someone to paint over it." He rolled his eyes, looking into his bottle, spinning it so its content was swirling.
She pulled a thoughtful expression over her face. "Spending Sasha's money. It's an honor." She said, copying him by taking a sip of her own liquid.
He chuckled quietly and brought the bottle to his mouth, only to find that there was only little left in there. He downed it quickly, then tried to balance himself, as he was ready to stand back up.
"I need a refill." He announced, giving him a light intentional kick in the knee as he walked away. She shook her head at him, a smile crawling to her lips.
She needed a drink. Something strong. Really strong. Something like… Liquor or Vodka or Whisky or Jell-O Shots or…
"One Coke, please." Rory asked the bartender, her feet shuffling back and forth.
She took another look around. He was still nowhere to be found. Why did she even think he would be there? So what if it's the location of his family's bookstore? Assuming that Jess would come to the grand opening of a fairly pink club named 'Glitter' was the stupidest assumption she had ever made.
The bartender, dressed in a disturbing pink vest, handed her the drink she requested, and she accepted it with a smile. She stared into it for a few moments.
Why did she order a drink? She didn't want a drink. She wanted out. She wanted away.
She kept staring into her bottle. It got her interest. She had no idea why. It was so… not smooth. So sparkly, so bubbly.
But her illusion was shattered as something made her drop it. She jumped from the noise it made, meeting the floor, and rushed to get away in order not to step into the sparkly, bubbly puddle of coke that was glowing in different colors, thanks to the very stylish floor.
"Sorry." Mumbles a person, and she rolled her eyes. Sorry. That shall do it.
"Don't worry about it." She said indifferently, looking up. And she froze.
And he froze.
And she said nothing.
And he said nothing more.
And she was staring.
"Déjà vu, huh?" He asked, quietly, and she replied with a smile. A really, really, really happy smile.
"Yeah." She said quietly, dreamingly. And he smiled back.
They both gazed at the floor. He was supposedly mad at her. She was supposedly taken and had moved on. They didn't seem that way.
"They told me you called." He said. "Saying that you moved on."
"I was told you didn't want to speak to me." She sighed.
He clenched his fists. He figured what this was about. He was an idiot to not figure this out earlier. "Sasha." He said with a chuckle, trying to restrain the anger that was building in him.
"I guess." She shrugged. "So, you didn't… I mean, you did…" She started.
"And you didn't… move on." He cut her off, nodding knowingly.
She shook her head. "No." She sighed.
It took them a moment to realize what was happening. They met again. They met after months of absence, after missing each other, wanting each other. And they both smiled.
"Hey." He said softly, feeling more relaxed all of a sudden.
"Hi." She replied quietly, smiling as widely as she could. Before they knew it, their hands were entwined. She felt drawn. He felt like he was drowning.
They stared at each other, only their hand content to pass the streaming electricity from one to the other. It seemed like minutes had passed. Hours. And they were still there.
And he remembered something. Someone.
"Wait here for a second, okay?" He asked her, his eyes practically begging. He had missed her, more than he expected to miss her.
She nodded as he disappeared into the crowd. Their hands lost contact. She felt like she was not whole. She craved for his touch, for his hand in hers. Will she really have it now?
She was watching them from distance. Disgusted. Depressed. Disappointed. The info she got about that girl – the one Jess told her – was one to praise her and describe her as beautiful as she was to him. But she saw her as nothing but a distraction. From her. She was a thing keeping Jess from seeing what's in front of him. And she sighed, drinking the rest of the beer left in the bottle she was holding.
She looked away. And then there was a tap on her shoulder.
"Lane." She heard her best friend calling. She turned to him, her gaze as cold as it was when she watched them. But the lights were too crazy for him to notice.
"I saw." She said simply, before he got a chance to explain. She saw him smiling softly in return, trying to cover for it with something that made it look like he was actually sorry for what he was about to do.
"I'm sorry." He said, to match his facial expression.
She faked a supporting smile. "Go." She said. He took it as encouraging. She took it as dismissive.
She smiled again, gratefully, placing a light kiss on Lane's temple. And then he was gone. Back to her.
"Finish what we started?" He asked Rory as he came behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist.
She slipped out of his embrace and with an approving smile, she took his hand, leading him out of the hideous club.
Lane felt like shattering her bottle against the wall.
"Vodka looks pretty good right now." She muttered to herself, leaning her head backwards in frustration.
