Work Text:
James didn't remember when she met Lars Ulrich. The other girl simply just... appeared next to her one day, and never left. Lars must have approached her first, she thought, because there's no way James would ever make the first step. There had been a point where James stopped sitting alone at lunch, and she couldn't have known, then, to mark it on a calendar, to remember and keep it forever. She was deeply grateful for Lars and her undying loyalty. Lars, even with her weird accent and manners, was talkative and outgoing. She could have been one of the popular girls, the ones always involved in school projects, but she stayed by James' side.
James did remember when she met Dave Mustaine. She remembered hearing about Dave first, actually. All the time. Lars would tell her all about Dave, at lunch. That Dave was older, and that she got held back one year for her bad grades. That Dave had gotten into a fight, earlier, at recess, and allegedly got her arm broken. That Dave had brought a knife to school, that Dave had kissed a boy in front of the bathrooms, that she had stolen some other kid's lunch. James just nodded along, unable to verify if any of this was true, but always noting Dave's absence in class.
She watched Dave, then, over the years. Watched the boys that made up her friend group. Watched the bruises that appeared on her skin. Watched as the rumors, as recounted by Lars, got worse and worse, as words like abuse, drugs, whore! dropped from Lars' lips. Watched as Dave emerged from a bathroom stall before gym class, having seemingly changed in there, just like James.
(James remembered [unfortunately] the last day she ever stepped foot into a changing room before gym class. James remembered watching Lars take off her shirt as she was still talking, so casually, and she remembered with painful clarity the violent rush of blood to her face when her eyes settled on Lars' breasts. She had seen something she shouldn't have, something personal. She felt violated on Lars' behalf. She remembered rushing to get her own t-shirt on, Lars' concerned dude, what's wrong?, her own I just have to piss really badly, grabbing her bag and practically running out of the room to never enter it again.
I'm just insecure, James would later laugh to Lars, vaguely gesturing at her narrow hips and flat chest. That was generally a good excuse. And it was a little bit true. James wasn't pretty. She didn't belong in the changing room with all the pretty girls.
Everything did feel different from then on. Suddenly, her height, which she had always been proud of, felt like another wall separating her from the other girls. Her hands—big and clumsy, not dainty. Her face, her jaw, her nose, they all looked masculine, out of place. She thought that maybe they saw her as a threat. Standing next to Lars, she felt dirty. Tainted. Maybe they were scared of her.)
James got her first detention at thirteen. It stung her ego, even though it wasn't like she was a perfect student. It was bound to happen someday. Lars' shocked expression when she told her didn't help. Lars got plenty of detentions, and James briefly resented her for holding her to such a different standard.
It definitely wasn't surprising to James to see Dave in the back of the room. She checked in with the supervisor sitting at the desk, then walked to the only seat left, the one in front of Dave.
"Now you're following me in here too?"
James' heart jumped in her chest. She whipped her head around, made brief eye contact with Dave, then immediately looked at the floor.
"What? No, I'm—"
"Oh, so you can talk. I thought you were mute."
"Mute?? Also, I'm not following—"
"You have to be." Dave pointed an accusatory pencil at James. "You're always staring at me."
"I'm not—"
The supervisor obnoxiously shushed at the girls, and James locked her eyes onto her math homework.
"You'll explain yourself when we're out of here," Dave whispered to her, and James' blood ran cold. Was that a threat? She just nodded, not daring to look behind her shoulder again.
When the bell rang, signifying the end of lunch, Dave immediately grabbed James' arm—though, not too harshly—to prevent her from running away.
"So what's up with you?" Dave asked while James was haphazardly shoving her homework back in her bag.
"Nothing," James blurted. She really didn't have a good explanation. "Also, what about me being mute?"
"I've never heard you talk until today," the other girl explained. "Kinda assumed you couldn't."
James really looked at Dave's face. She didn't look pissed, or at least, more pissed than usual. Her scowl looked just as permanent as her nose, really.
"I don't know," James admitted. "Just, kinda, worried for you."
"I'm fine," Dave raised her voice, defensive. "...But thank you. I guess not many people are."
James felt a little more at ease, then. Maybe Dave wasn't the mean girl she had been told she was. She walked out of the room with her, happy (but scared) to talk.
"What the hell are you in for, anyway?" Dave questioned her. "You're never in detention."
"Oh. Um, I guess I didn't turn in my homework," James said. She didn't dare to ask Dave what she did, but she got an answer anyways.
"Damn. I called my history teacher a cunt," Dave grinned like it was no big deal, and James decided that she liked her. "Mind if I stick with you tomorrow at lunch? Chris fucking ditched me," Dave grumbled.
"Oh, sure. I'll just tell my friend Lars that you'll be with us," James nodded. "She's really nice. I'm sure she won't mind."
James found it a little funny how her only two friends sort of inserted themselves into her life. (She said she found it funny, but internally she wanted to scream and kill and destroy something. She hated that her social life was entirely at the mercy of others.)
Lars immediately accepted Dave, much to James' relief. James never pointed out how Lars participated in spreading the rumors about Dave, and she felt weak and hypocritical about it.
She learned, over the years, that many of the rumors weren't true. The fighting, though, that was all true—(Swear to fucking God, when boys fight, teachers always turn a blind eye, but a girl gets in a fight and suddenly they're all up your ass, Dave ranted.) James liked that about Dave, that she was an angry girl and an outcast. She liked Dave's leather jackets and cigarettes, she liked that Dave was a doorway, a soft landing into the world of adulthood instead of the deadly crash she'd always been scared it would be.
+
Sixteen's never like in the movies.
Lars got herself a little part-time job at the grocery store, and James just seemed to repel employers. Labor shortage, my ass, she ranted to Lars over the phone. Internally, she wondered what it was about her that pushed people away, like something forever stuck to her skin that she couldn't scrub off, no matter how much time she spent in the shower. She must simply have been unlucky.
It was another dull Friday evening in August when she got a call.
James jumped out of bed, happy that something finally interrupted her Animal Crossing session. Maybe I finally got an interview, she hoped.
"Hey." It was Dave's voice on the other end of the line. "Wanna sleep over?"
Not work. But it wasn't disappointing. James nodded, like Dave could see her, running a hand through her greasy hair. She hadn't really had any reason to wash her hair, recently. Anything was better than rotting in bed here.
"Yeah. When can I show up?"
"Past 6. My mom won't be home for the weekend."
"Okay," James replied. "I'll be there."
"See you, then." Dave hung up on her before James could say bye. James didn't mind, though. That was just the way Dave rolled. She liked it, she liked the fact that she never had to guess what Dave meant by anything. She was always as direct as possible.
The girls had this little system where James would sometimes hang out with Dave, but since her parents didn't want her to, she'd tell them she was with Lars, instead, and she'd call Lars to tell her that she was with Dave but that Lars had to lie and say James was with her, if anyone asked. It wasn't convenient, but she'd never gotten caught. That was her little rebellion. Not sneaking out to party, not drinking, not smoking. She could never shake the idea that she was wasting her teenage years.
Dave was lighting a cigarette outside when James arrived at her place, panting and sweating from the bike ride.
"There's popsicles in the freezer for you," Dave said instead of greeting James. James just nodded and headed inside. She rummaged inside the freezer until she got her hands on a blue popsicle, and went back outside. She unwrapped the frozen treat as Dave kept smoking.
She bit a chunk off, and Dave winced. "I don't know how you do that," she said.
James shrugged. "I've always done it this way." The artificial taste of blue raspberry pleasantly stung her tongue. She tried really hard to ignore the stench of cigarette smoke that wrapped around Dave.
Things were always changing on Dave's street, and the stale air of late summer wasn't enough to slow down the process of houses being bought, razed to the ground, then rebuilt, square and grey and unrecognizable. James wondered if in ten, twenty years, she could drive down this street and even remember that she used to play here, to laugh here.
Past sunset, the two girls were settled on the couch, scrolling through Netflix for something to watch.
"Oh, shit, I used to love watching My Little Pony as a kid," James exclaimed. She grabbed the remote from Dave's hand and hit play on the first season.
Dave stared at her for a solid ten seconds, then spoke with the confidence and authority of God, "Rainbow Dash."
James laughed. "I guess it's pretty obvious, huh."
Dave's fist made contact with her rib cage, softly, playfully. She was looking up at James, laying on her back, her long red mane spilling all over James' thigh.
When James watched anything with Lars, Lars crawled all over her, and James pretended she wasn't thinking anything of the way Lars' heavy chest rested on top of hers, the way she felt Lars' breath in her neck, or the way Lars toyed with her hair. Lars was just affectionate. Touchy. She had had boyfriends before. She giggled into James' ear about cute boys she saw in the hallway. She had no reason to think it would make James uncomfortable (and James would make sure that she'd never know). I'm just unlucky, she had said one day about her non-existent love life.
Lars was gorgeous, and James was a disgusting creep.
My Little Pony didn't hit the same. Of course, it couldn't hit the same. James pressed the pause button a little too hard. It was only 11:23.
"I'm so fucking tired," she sighed. "Can we go to bed?"
Dave didn't protest. She rolled off the couch, directly onto the wooden floor. James laughed, loud, unrestrained, as she grabbed Dave's hand to help her up. The girls ran up the stairs, nearly slipping on the smooth steps.
Dave had already arranged a sleeping spot for James, who was deeply grateful she didn't have to pump air into the mattress by herself (like last time, she thought.) She turned around, pulled down her baggy jeans, immediately slipped under the thick blanket, took in its foreign smell.
She thought Dave had fallen asleep, until she spoke.
"Have you ever had a boyfriend?" Dave's words hit her like a spear in the heart.
I'm just unlucky, James thought. She went for something different.
"Nah. Guys just don't look at me. I'm not really pretty."
"I think you're pretty," Dave simply said.
There was just the low hum of the fan in Dave's room in response.
"You're lying," James replied, her tongue feeling heavy in her mouth.
"Why would I be?"
"Oh, come on. Just fucking look at me." The words came out in anger, because, yeah, she was angry. Angry at Dave for lying; angry at girls for quietly excluding and rejecting her over and over again; angry at herself for being weird, for wanting to be like the girls at all. She hated that her anger came out as punches and screams instead of tears, she hated the face in the mirror, all angular in the wrong places.
Dave's bedsheets ruffled, and her head poked out of the pile. Then, James watched her body emerge from under the blanket, and her heartbeat sped up when Dave slipped down onto James' air mattress. She positioned herself on top of James, bare thighs against her own, and James wanted to die on the spot.
"What are you doing?" James asked dumbly.
"Looking at you," Dave answered.
"It's too fucking dark. You can't even see me."
"Yeah, I can," she declared.
Dave smelled like cigarettes and sweat and the faintest hint of apricot. She wasn't wearing much more than James, just a tank top and underwear.
"You are pretty," Dave affirmed. Her fingers traced James' features, gently.
James didn't dare to breathe.
"D'you want me?" Dave said, blunt as always.
Did she? James brought one hand up to Dave's waist, slipped her fingers under the soft fabric. Yeah, maybe. Dave was warm and heavy on top of her, and James was actually wanted, for once.
"Sure," she almost choked. Dave moved on top of her, soft skin gliding against the top of her thighs, her hands hiking up James' oversized black t-shirt.
Dave grinded against James' crotch, clothed in just her boyshorts. It felt good, but James appreciated Dave's silence, during the whole ordeal, because then she'd have space to think. What would that be like, with Lars? Would she let James on top, would she let her drink up the sight of her soft curves? Would she ask James if she wanted her, would she say she wanted James?
Did James even want Lars in that way? Maybe it was just her stupid hormones playing tricks on her. Maybe she was just—
Guilt and shame rapidly took over James when Dave tugged at the waistband of her underwear.
"Is it okay if I...?"
"Um—" James panicked for a second. "I don't—"
Dave immediately pulled back, sat up straight. "It's okay if you say no," she said. Comforting, but distant.
"Uh. Yeah, I'd like to stop." She tried to swallow, but her mouth felt too dry.
"Okay. I'm sorry, I'll just— I'll go back to my bed." Dave's warmth slipped away, replaced by the breeze of the fan hitting James' exposed stomach. She pulled her shirt down, tried to ignore the ache between her legs.
"Can we please never— talk about... this?" James asked.
"Yeah. Of course." Dave remained quiet for a while. "Please don't hate me," she eventually whispered shakily.
And James really didn't, she could never hate Dave.
When James woke up the next morning, Dave wasn't in the room. Sounds came to her, one by one: the fan, its constant humming, the white noise Dave needed to fall asleep; the birds, their song, the one she'd grown to hate; her own breath, slow but shallow; the clinking of pans and plastic downstairs, Dave making breakfast.
She stared at the empty ceiling. James had always wanted to put those little glow-in-the-dark stars on the walls of her room, at home, but she never got to, and as the years went by, it felt more and more like she had missed a deadline. She'd missed so many deadlines.
James rolled onto her side and began sobbing quietly.