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Dave hears the door behind him creak open and he puts down the guitar. "When can I start the audition?" Dave asks, his hair flying around his face as he turns around.
"You're hired," Lars beams, rushing to Dave's side and putting a firm hand on his shoulder. "You're so fucking hired."
There's another boy walking into the room behind Lars—tall, skinny, wavy blond hair that frames his face, a short, rounded nose, blue eyes. Must be James, Lars told Dave about him. He's...
Those blue eyes roam all over Dave's body, the thin lips parted open; when the eyes meet Dave's, he looks away, startled, violent red creeping up on his acne-ridden cheeks. That fascination in James' stare—that's new, that awakens something strange in Dave's stomach, something that twists and turns.
Dave swallows, hard. Watches his hand reach out, a wordless automatism.
To his surprise, James takes it. His hand is warm to the touch, the fingers wrap around his and gives a hesitant handshake.
"Dave," he says, his own name rolling uneasily on his dry tongue.
"James," he gets back, in a voice deeper than Dave thought it'd be. James' hand lingers on his for far longer than it needs.
+
He's got his skin all over James like he always does when they're this drunk and alone in a room. James teases too much, like he pretends that Dave won't do it, won't hold him like he's just another hot chick after a show, his little waist exposed when he's pushed on his back against the mattress, fine wrists, held tightly in place, and then he pretends that there's no tenderness there. And really, Dave knows there isn't supposed to be, that it's just something he'll have to feel guilty about later down the road, but he feels it anyway.
There's tenderness in that fascination that hasn't left James' gaze, his eyelids heavy from pleasure; in the way James pulls him closer, presses his lips to his, needy, desperate. Dave would kill for James, eradicate nations at the touch of a button just to save that big smile, that playful attitude, that energizing feeling of playing with him, on stage, in that cramped room together where James laughs too much and Dave only wants to hear it over and over again. There's tenderness that they would never dare to talk about, never put words to, the one sitting between stolen glances at parties, something special that only Dave gets to have about James.
He curls into a barely conscious James, spent and satisfied, stuffs his face in the other's hair. He feels James' pulse, the warm blood pumping through his jugular against his lips, and when he's sure, a hundred percent certain that James can't hear him, he whispers "I love you" against the pale skin. Forever, he adds in the back of his mind, and it's cheesy—but he means it.
+
The walls close in.
Everything's blurry.
Lars' voice, he remembers that. Probably forever. Forever is a long fucking time ahead. Forever probably stops at the end of this bus ride.
Whatever.
The walls close in, brush his shoulders.
There is an end in sight now, when yesterday he was young and immortal. He feels sick for ever believing in it.
He stares, stares at the grey fabric of the seat ahead, barely sees it. Sees James, doesn't see his eyes, they're avoidant. Feels for what will be the last time, feels that James doesn't protest, just goes along, does as he's told, traitor, feels the blond hair, a gentle caress to his jaw. Feels the arms around him, the hands curving in a little, conforming to his body. Feels the lips brushing against his neck briefly. Maybe he didn't even mean that.
He flips, facing the wall, buys himself a few more seconds. They press against his chest. His ribs start giving in.
He'd vomit all over himself if he had anything in his stomach.
He doesn't die, he doesn't get the release of anything, lives on, conscious, crushed into a fine paste of gore—whatever. In front of strangers.
The fucking indignity. Whatever. Forever stops at the end of this bus ride. Probably.
+
And yet Dave persists anyway. He's got his own band, it's even better than the last one, he boasts to any interviewer, any mirror he comes across. He picks the blondes out of the crowds, after the shows where he wasn't playing next to James, making small talk with the crowd for him, fucks them like he's out for blood, pulls on their pretty long curls. He finds refuge in every substance that'll keep him away from himself for even just a short period of time, watches the contours of his face becoming sharper.
It's Lars who has the time, it's only Lars who seems to fucking care about him. Dave feels like he's owed this a little, the least they could fucking do was check up on him after ruining his damn life, and he's nice but he bites back the words he really thinks. He feels bad anyway because Lars seems genuine. Maybe he even feels a little guilty about what he did.
"Wait," Dave calls out, when Lars has one foot out of the door already. He turns around, wide eyes locked into his.
Dave swallows. Looks away. Looks back to the other man. It's quick, but Dave is deathly afraid that it'll tick Lars off, that he won't just tell James that he sends greetings, that they'll laugh at him and he won't even be there to know.
"How's James?" he finally asks. It sounds casual enough. He hopes.
Lars just waves it away in dismissal. "Ah, you know," he drawls. "He's doing alright."
The rage comes back, white-hot liquid dripping through his core. Still, maybe Lars doesn't know what he did. Maybe he doesn't know what to feel bad for.
"Ah... Nice." He can't say anything, can't really push any further. "Tell him I said hi. G'night Lars. See ya."
Lars gestures at him playfully and leaves without another word.
+
When the phone rings, that day, it's not James' voice on the other end, in tears, in shock, in pain, telling him of Cliff Burton's death. Dave hates the fact that it really does make the ache that pulses in his throat down into his stomach that much worse.
+
He's not sure how he got there, but James' facing him again.
Different.
Dave imagines a long thread tying him to James, and that if he focused really hard he could see it and follow it back to where he belongs. He imagines the thread appearing thicker or thinner, the light brighter when James was close, and he almost sees it, how bright it is, through the membrane of reality. Dave doesn't run to him, he just follows Lars along, slowly, not sprinting like the muscles in his legs were tensing to do. He hates this, that Lars is keeping him behind a glass screen, that Dave can't just be with James, but maybe—
"Dave. Hey."
The man who stands in front of him is not as awkward anymore, he doesn't avert his eyes, now. Got a haircut, Dave knew that, he'd at least seen him on the front page of magazines, on the television, performing for an audience of millions. He resented those crowds because they didn't know, they missed some crucial knowledge of James that only the two of them had. Dave reaches for his own hair, tied back, still long. Age starts to show on James' face, the faintest wrinkles beginning to form, adding to his old acne scars, still there. Dave is okay with this. He was prepared. But there's nothing really in his eyes, no surge of warmth, does he even remember? did Dave even matter? no shame, no guilt, anything. He would have taken honest indifference before his plastic politeness. James just smiles for the cameras.
"It was nice to see you again," James shakes Dave's hand. Professional. Rehearsed. Like an annoying relative you brush off when you accidentally meet them at the grocery store. He excuses himself, doesn't look back.
—Maybe it's for the best.
+
Dave supposes that his thing for blonds finally found its limits at Lars because that bleached short cut looks like a war crime. He tries to ignore the cameras, Lars, the empty spot where James should be.
The fucking cameras.
He says something too personal.
He wishes James were here.
When they finally let him go, when his brain feels heavy as lead and he feels that empty space harder than he feels the beating of his own heart, and he staggers out of the door—and he nearly falls, "forever" is shaken, for, oh, just a second, the time he straightens up. For that single second it's hard to keep the faith in that empty space.
What could he have said, anyway?
When he falls asleep that night, Dave doesn't think of the middle-aged man who wasn't there; he thinks of the nineteen year-old boy sneaking in through his window with a beer in hand, and he almost wonders if he's too old for this.
Almost.
+
Dave likes waking up with the sun, these days. When it rises high enough to crack through the dark curtains, he sits up, painfully, stretches out the best he can. His joints protest loudly, a worrying crack along his spine—ouch.
Dave has a simple task this morning, one he executes barely out of bed, phone in hand. He opens his texts. Closes them. It may be too early in the day.
Maybe he is desperate, maybe death herself is putting pressure on him. The years almost escaped him for good, recently—yet he persisted. Some days he thanks God for waking up still, for not giving up on him, for forgiving the sin he could not commit for all these years, for keeping the object of desire so far away.
...Eh, fuck it. He's too old to care, now. He does persist, he lives on—maybe out of spite, something nags at him. He reopens the app, types something into the text box, slowly. Checks the date again, just to make sure.
Happy Birthday, James. :-)
He squints at his spelling, presses the little blue button, deliberately, with the tip of his index finger.
And he doesn't ever receive an answer, a call, a sign from the universe that someone on the other end is listening, whoever he's become, anything; but he sends it out anyway.