27 bandshirts || a metallica fanfic

19 - Terms & Conditions Apply:

Home, to me, was the Bay Area.

The actual Bay Area, where the sea-salt clung to the oxygen you inhaled and the sound of the ocean's waves greeting the shoreline substituted the sound of silence.

Before Lars even started calling me Bugz and before I imagined any sort of blossoming romance between Kirk and I, the boys and I spent most of our weekends together at the beach. I'd go surf, James would skateboard, Lars had the perfect excuse to devour icecream cone upon icecream cone, all Cliff would do is sit on his ass and complain about sand getting in his jeans. Kirk would sit next to Cliff and convince him that it can't be so bad, while he watched me conquer wave after wave. That was us before Ride The Lightning turned them into thrash heroes.

It wasn't long after the release of Master of Puppets that I realized Metallica was destined for great things. The dynamite had been ignited and it was a matter of moments before the explosion would occur. I wanted to enjoy the calm before the storm for as long as possible.

When they asked me what I wanted to do for my birthday, going to the beach was my only suggestion. I just didn't expect the first half of the afternoon would be spent in a cramped up booth in a Ben & Jerry's while they made me feel as though my and Kirk's relationship was a mistake.

"Since there's no contract yet, y'know, nothing's set in stone or whatever... I thought it would be a good idea for us to negotiate some terms. We could do this with the managers present, but we're all friends here, right?" Lars began, his dramatic hand gestures not allowing him to appreciate his cup of fro-yo.

Many people wouldn't want to talk business on their birthday, but I didn't mind at all. My induction into the band was meant to go as smoothly as possible and I was willing to comply with just about any demand to achieve that goal.

"Of course! Yeah, I have no problem with that. Can we just make this short and sweet, please Lars? I did invite other people who I also need to entertain. And you like to go on and on and on and on-"

"If you say 'and on' one more time then you're the one going on and on and-"

"Alright, children!" James jumped in, because Kirk obviously wasn't going to, "Settle down. Let's get serious for just 5 minutes, okay?"

I directed a smirk at James. He was almost black-out drunk the night of Cliff's funeral, but he remembered my little speech about him being a father now. The trunk of his car was still loaded with beer and whiskey for the beach evening, but at least he could sit next to Lars again without expressing a desire to strangle him through facial expressions alone.

"Serious face, Dove." Kirk tried to iron the smirk out of my lips with his fingers and I pushed his hands out of my face.

To make up for my rudeness I held my icecream cone out to him, and he helped himself to a lick.

"Alright, first order of business!" Lars clapped his hands together, "You're not allowed, under any circumstances, to scare our groupies away."

Kirk immediately cracked up in laughter.

"Jesus Christ, dude... Really? I thought we're supposed to be serious right now?"

"Oh, this is serious! You scare our girlfriends away, we can't let you rob us of our groupies as well. We already don't have much to offer them now that Cliff's gone and took his big donger with him."

"Hey, Cliff's not the only one with-"

"Be quiet," I slapped Kirk's arm and he obediently went back to his frozen yogurt, "if I scare girlfriends away, why is your girlfriend on the beach right now, catching a tan with my baby brother's chick?"