Chapter Text
Summer had been really intense that year. Today, the sun was shining bright and the air felt heavy, almost too warm to breathe. James enjoyed it, he liked getting tanned and found little clothing to be comfortable. Lars, on the other hand, wasn’t as much of a fan as his friend. He got red instead of tanning and ended up looking like a shrimp, ready to be dipped into some butter. To be honest, they had spent most of the summer inside, playing video games on Lar’s Atari 2600 console, watching movies or playing music. It’d been a kind of uneventful summer, at least Lars’ family hadn’t gone back to Denmark for vacation this year and James was grateful for that. Even if they didn’t do much, just hanging out with his friend was good for his spirits.
Right now, feeling tired of being sitting on their butts all day at James’ house, they were on the front yard playing catch with Lars’ new ball - courtesy of his father who has trying to get Lars into yet another sport, despite the scrawny looking teen not exactly having the physique you’d expect from a football player.
“Met your new neighbors yet?” Lars asked as he grabbed the ball, one second before it hit him square on the face. He’d have to practice on his response time.
“Haven’t got the chance, they only started moving the stuff in this morning I think.” The blond replied, moving his head back to see the truck parked in front of the house beside his own. A woman was carrying what seemed to be boxes full of clothes, an older lady behind her following closely apparently giving her directions on where to put the things she was holding.
James' neighborhood was quiet and nice, had big, lush trees framing the street and bigger sidewalks than most other parts of town. It wasn’t the most expensive nor the cheapest, just as middle class as you could get. The house beside his had been vacant for a while, it was almost identical to his own but it wasn’t in great condition. Rent was cheap and tenants used to come and go, apparently the landlords didn’t care that much who they rented it for and in what condition they left the house. This time, it seemed to be a small family, as James had seen who he supposed was the mother and her daughter, a woman in her late twenties.
“You know, if my dad actually makes me join the football team I might have to fake my death or something.” His friend said, throwing his longish hair back to tie a ponytail. He’d been starting to grow that hazelnut hair of his since last year, together with James as they felt like trying out a new look on their last year of highschool.
“Yeah, or just wait till you get crushed to death during tryouts.” James teased and threw the ball again, this time actually hitting Lars on top of the head. “Man, you had like three business days to react, how can you be so slow?”
“You just throw it too hard, that’s all.” The shorter teen grabbed the ball from the ground and studied it for a second. “This shit hurts more than it seems.”
“Just throw it back and put some actual effort this time, dumbass.” James laughed as Lars stuck out his tongue. The Dane was short and skinny, with a big head and even bigger eyes. James couldn’t help but crack up whenever he made a funny face.
To be honest, it may have been James’ fault. He did tell Lars to put effort into it. And apparently, Lars had taken his advice a bit too seriously, as the ball flew swiftly over James head, all the way to the new neighbor’s house and hit a red haired guy on the side of his face, startling him and making him drop a box full of cutlery.
James didn’t even know where the guy had come from. It was the first time he saw him. He looked around his age, taller than Lars but slightly shorter than him, pale and with fluffy reddish-blond hair. Now that he saw him, he had some similar features with the old lady and the woman he had seen before, so he concluded they must be family. What a way to welcome your new neighbors.
“Sorry, dude, we didn’t mean to.” James said, raising his voice to be heard better. Never really the outspoken kind, James had to make an effort and talk first, given the fact that this was most likely a person he would be seeing often and it wasn’t right to start things on the wrong foot. It had been an accident, after all. It wasn’t like they went around hitting strangers with balls on the street. Certainly the guy understood that.
Well, the guy had a deep scowl when he raised his head after gathering the stuff he had dropped when he was hit. Not a face you make when you understand.
Taking the ball and throwing it up a couple times in the air, he turned to them. “This yours, right?”
His voice was soft, not matching the severity of his face’s expression. It sent a shiver down James’ spine, he sounded way too calm. And he didn’t look calm.
“Yeah, look, it was an accident, we—” James replied but was cut off by the sight of the other guy grabbing a big butcher knife from the box he was holding and sticking it into the ball, which popped immediately and began deflating. James was at a loss for words by the suddency of it, staying silent while he watched in awe as the ball completely shrunk.
“Are you fucking mad?! What do you think you are doing, you asshole!” Lars shouted beside him and began walking with big strides to face him closely. He was the more extroverted of the two and had no problems with speaking up whenever something seemed unfair to him. James was more surprised than angry at the moment, but still considered that guy’s action to be a pretty mean-spirited thing to do, just being a dick for no reason.
The guy just stared at him, not moving but arching an eyebrow and sneering at him like he meant no threat. This ended up angering James more than the actual thing with the ball, he just hated when people had an air of superiority and looked down on others. The thing is, Lars was smaller and skinnier and if he actually went and landed a punch on the guy, who could even know what would happen. This dude destroyed a ball with a huge knife because it hit him once, clearly he was impulsive and easy to trigger. James was annoyed by him now, yeah, but he would definitely have to step in for Lars if he started a fight and he did not feel like it. Not over something so stupid.
“Lars, just stop.” James jogged to catch up with him and whispered. “Just leave it, this isn’t worth a fight.”
“Of course it is, he’s an idiot! Don’t you see he’s mocking us?” Lars scoffed and shot another glance at the guy, still standing in the same place and looking at them with that stupid grin.
“I know and he’s an asshole for it but please just let it go this one time, listen.” James turned around, stopping Lars before he got closer to his new neighbor’s house and grabbing his shoulders. “I don’t want my grandma stressing out about problems with the neighbors, they literally just moved in. You know how much she worries when things like these happen to me. I’ll get you that ball back, I promise. I’m gonna make him give you a new one but not this way.”
Lars held his gaze for a couple seconds before letting out a big sigh and rolling his eyes. He already knew that was a yes from his friend. “Whatever, I’m doing it for Mrs. Hetfield but that fucker is going to pay for this. You heard me?! You better give me that ball back!”
Lars shouted the last part at the guy’s direction, his intense green eyes focused on him, certainly trying his best to look as intimidating as his pretty face allowed him to. The stranger had the audacity to flip him off and step into his house without saying a single word.
The rest of the afternoon was spent with Lars complaining about his ball while they were in James' attic smoking the little weed that was left on his stash. This was their go-to place for smoking when James’ grandma wasn’t home, the window in front ventilated the entire place in no time and it wasn’t a part of the house that Mrs. Hetfield frequented anyway. It was dusty and filled with boxes but there was still some space where they tended to stretch out a blanket and sit when they smoked from James’ little pipe. He had offered it to Lars first, just something to calm him down for the time being and to forget the bitterness of the first encounter with that guy.
James was standing by the window while his friend laid down on the blanket, his stare lost somewhere on the ceiling. He’d finally stopped running his mouth after what felt like ages and now they were both silently hanging out, the Dane having smoked more than him, he was sure he would be spacing out for a while.
From where he was standing, James had the full view of the new neighbor’s house. The redhead had come out again, this time shirtless and with a little cloth hanging from his neck, as he used it to dry his forehead. His torso was the tiniest bit tanned and had some freckles scattered on his chest and back, his complexion lean but not skinny, with some muscles beginning to build up on his abs and arms. He was bringing in more boxes, taking them from the parked truck and getting them into the house. The women James believed to be his sister and mother weren’t there anymore, leaving the task all to him. Under the scorching sun, the stranger’s bright hair seemed to burn like fire and his nose scrunched up whenever he had to look up a little, probably an instinct to cover his eyes as much as he could without sunglasses.
He didn’t know how much time he’d been staring at the other guy, just going in and out of the house, something about the routinary motion was calming for James’ drugged up brain. He began recalling the events of earlier. It was an overreaction by the guy, of course, it made no sense, it was a dick move and his demeanor afterwards was also terrible, not an ounce of regret or guilt for destroying something that wasn’t even his. It would be enough to make anyone mad, Lars was right for lashing out at him and James began to question his own acts. Maybe he should have let his friend fight him or fight himself because, to be honest, it would have been called for. Don’t want problems? Don’t mess with other people’s shit. Simple as that.
However, he couldn’t bring himself to do it, he didn’t feel the anger building up inside him like in some other times in which he had gotten into fights. While it was true that he didn’t want his grandma to worry about him, it wasn’t exactly the main reason. He’d gotten in fights for less. It was something about the guy. Don’t get him wrong, James was pissed about his attitude and was by no means happy with what had happened, but more in a way like “why-do-you-have-to-react-like-that?” and not so in Lars’ way of “I’m-gonna-fucking-kill-you”.
Maybe it was something about the guy’s demeanor, a mix of aggressive and laid back somehow at the same time, or that he looked to be around his same age, maybe the vinyls he had seen him carry on the boxes he was getting out of the truck gave James this spark of curiosity about his new neighbor. Truth is, maybe he really didn’t want to start things on the wrong foot with him. Even if he had decided to, actively, start them on the wrong foot by fucking crushing his best friend’s ball. Maybe James, subconsciously, just longed for a new friend that had potentially the same interests as him.
“Earth to James! I repeat, Earth to James!” Lars said loudly, cupping his mouth with his hands to make more noise. At some point he must have gotten tired of laying down and was now standing next to him. James hadn’t even noticed. “ You've been there for ages, what are you doing?”
“Uh, nothing, just… looking.” It was all James could say. He didn’t know how much time had passed when Lars took him out of his daydreaming. It had to have been a while, as the sun was starting to set and the boxes on the frontyard of the neighbor’s house were significantly fewer than before.
When he lowered his gaze again, he caught the eyes of the guy for what felt like half a second but was enough to make him a bit embarrassed. Had he just noticed or had he been feeling James’ stare all along? Either way, it was enough to make him physically cringe and get away from the window, sliding the little curtain close.
“Can’t believe I’m going to have to see that asshole every time I come here from now on.” Lars muttered and sat on the ground again, turning his head in James' direction, the redness from his eyes more evident than ever. “Dude, I’m serious, I want that ball back or I’m going to crush him.”
“You and I know that’s not gonna happen.” James replied, letting out a tiny chuckle. “Besides, didn’t you want out of the whole football thing? You have no ball, you can’t train, it’s over!”
“Right, like it’s that simple.” The brunette rolled his eyes and sighed.
“Alright, stop being a diva. I was serious when I told you I’ll make it up. He’s giving that ball back to you, told you I promised.”
James wasn’t sure how, though. Or when. But he would come up with something soon. The guy was going to be his neighbor for a while, anyways. He’d have time to figure out something.