Work Text:
“Space Dyke!” Some girl yelled at Janis while walking by, slamming the books Janis was carrying out of her hands.
Holding back tears, Janis knelt down to gather her belongings. No one helped. At best they just pointed and whispered and snickered. At worst, people were stepping on and kicking her things as they walked past, despite Janis’ protests. Normally she’d have Damian with her, but since it was Friday he had choir after school, and so she had to deal with all this alone.
It had been like this the past few days, ever since Regina George had accused her of being a lesbian. Of course, responding that she was a space alien with four butts hadn’t exactly helped the situation, but Janis knew Regina George. Denying it wouldn’t have made things better. And saying it was true would’ve made things much, much worse. So she’d panicked.
Most of the other kids had already left school as Janis finally finished picking up her belongings and returned to her locker, which was now covered in cruel graffitied insults. The hallways were a ghost town — everyone eager to get out of school and start their weekend. As Janis put her books away, the only sounds were the clunking of the hardcovers against the metal locker.
“Space-Dyke!” Someone yelled from behind Janis. Janis spun around, startled, she hadn’t heard whoever it was coming. Standing there was Kristen Hadley, part of the clique that Janis had dubbed ‘the sexually active band geeks’, as well as one of North Shore’s star lacrosse players.
“What do you want—?” Janis started to say, only for Kristen to reach out and push her. Kristen was much bigger and stronger than Janis (she’d even heard that several new students had mixed her up with a teacher that year), so Janis immediately lost her footing, stumbling and falling backwards right into her locker. Before she could so much as get her bearing, Kristen had slammed the locker door shut and pressed Janis’ lock shut.
“Hey!” Janis yelled, fruitlessly shaking the locker door to try and free herself. “Hey, let me out.”
“You shouldn’t have come on to Regina George, Dyke,” Kristen snapped. “Now this is what you get. No one will find you all weekend.”
“I swear I didn’t come on to Regina!” Janis denied.
“You calling Regina a liar?” Kristen growled.
“Yes!” Janis exclaimed. “But I’ll let you know what she really thinks of you if you just let me out.”
As Regina’s (now ex-) best friend, Janis had heard just about every insult that existed directed at every other girl at Northshore. If Kristen knew half the things Regina had said about her then she wouldn’t have pushed Janis into a locker on Regina’s behalf.
“I’m listening,” Kristen crossed her arms.
“Regina thinks you’re a frumpy giraffe bitch who’ll still be a virgin in your 40s,” Janis mumbled, kind of glad she was safe in her locker as Kristen curled her hands into fists and scoffed, her nostril’s flaring. Janis had started with one of Regina’s more milder insults — that was barely scratching the surface of what Regina had said about Kristen.
“Regina would never say that about me, you liar,” Kristen grunted, punching the locker door. “She literally told me that she loved my shirt the other day.”
“And then she turned around and told me that it was ugly as fuck the moment you were out of earshot,” Janis said, trying not to let desperation slip into her voice. “You shouldn’t be doing Regina’s dirty work for her.”
“Shut up, Regina didn’t ask me to do this. Though she and I are going to be best friends now that I have.” Kristen pulled out her phone and snapped a pic through the handful of striped holes the locker had, showing Janis trapped inside. And then she started walking away.
“Wait!” Janis called out. “Wait, you said you’d let me out if I told you what Regina thought of you.”
“I never said that.” Kristen smirked. “Have a good weekend, Dyke.”
“Kristen, get back here,” Janis demanded, but the taller girl was already disappearing around the corner. Mere days ago, when Janis had been best friends with Regina George, girls like Kristen Hadley were practically lining up to do what Janis asked of them.
But now… Fuck, what was Janis going to do?
She tried shaking the locker some more, hoping to somehow unlock it that way, but obviously that didn’t work. No one even seemed to hear the rattling. The small gaps weren’t big enough for her to poke her fingers through, and even if she could have the lock was too far from the gaps for her to enter her combination and get it undone.
“Help!” Janis tried calling out, but no matter how loud she yelled no one could hear her — or if they could they were choosing to ignore her. “Someone please let me out!”
Finally with a sigh, Janis slumped against the metal door, the clunk signalling that she'd given up her struggle. Damian or her parents had no way of knowing where she was. If she was lucky perhaps someone who did choir may have forgotten something in their locker, and may stop by once the extra-curricular activity was let out, but even in the off chance that happened she wasn’t sure they’d let her out. Not when every single fucking person in the entire school — except Damian — was treating her like she was garbage. Most likely, she was going to be stuck here the whole weekend. She had no food or water. Her parents weren’t rich enough to have bought her a phone yet. She was fucked.
It wasn’t fair.
When Janis had first realised she had a crush on Regina George, she had tried to deny it. When those stupid feelings wouldn’t go away, Janis had no choice but to accept that she was a lesbian who was in love with her best friend, but she in no way acted on those feelings. They were buried deep down where no one could find them. But somehow Regina had seen right through her, and now look where Janis was. Heartbroken, being pushed and shoved in the hallways and thrown into lockers.
And Janis was fucking angry.
She hadn’t done anything wrong. She didn’t deserve to be treated like this. And it was all Regina George’s fault.
“Janis?”
Janis gasped as she heard someone yell her name. Relief flooded through her as she realised she recognised who it was — Damian. She had thought he would have still been at choir right now.
“Damian!” she yelled back, “I’m so glad to hear your voice. Kristen Hadley trapped me in my locker!”
“I know,” he said. “I came running as soon as I found out… and then changed to walking because I ditch P.E. for a reason and you can wait another 30 seconds.”
“You found out?” Janis mumbled. Kristen must have spread it around, which was very mortifying and humiliating, but at least Damian saw it and came to let her out instead of Janis spending all weekend trapped. “Kristen posted about it?”
Damian pulled out his phone and began multi-tasking, one hand spinning the combination of the lock — he already knew the code — and the other scrolling through and switching between various social media apps. “I don’t think so.”
“Then how did you know?” Janis asked.
“I got a text from an unknown number,” Damian shrugged, pulling up the text thread. “Told me you were trapped in a locker.”
Kristen must have had a change of heart and texted Damian. Perhaps being Regina’s lackey wasn’t working out for her, she’d probably realised that Regina was just a bitch who shit-talked Kristen (and every other girl at the school) constantly.
With a click, Damian finished inputting her locker combination and undid the lock. Janis stumbled forward as the locker door burst open, with Damian catching her before she could fall down.
With Damian, everything was instantly better. Janis could not be more grateful that Damian had decided to remain her friend through all this. Karen and Gretchen had instantly cut all contact when Regina had turned on her, but through it all he’d supported her. Janis felt herself tear up as she wrapped her arms around him.
“Hey, don’t worry, everything is going to be okay,” Damian reassured her. It didn’t feel that way, how could it? “I’m going to do everything I can to keep you safe. We’ll always stick together in the hallways from now on, and, why don’t you join choir so we can spend time together after school on Friday too?”
“Me? A singer?” Janis scoffed.
“Your voice is pretty good,” Damian grinned — he’d insisted they duet ‘I Just Can’t Wait to Be King’ every time he’d made them watch a bootleg of the Broadway version of the Lion King - one of Damian’s go tos during movie night.
“Okay,” Janis relented. She really didn’t want to be in the hallways alone again, even with Kristen’s so-called change of heart.
“So it was Kristen who texted you, right?” Janis asked. If not, she’d have to be extra careful around the taller girl.
“Dunno,” Damian said, pressing the number he’d received the text from to give it a call.
It rang for a while before going to voicemail. “Hewwo! This is the phone of Kywie George, pwease weave a message.”
Janis and Damian exchanged a look. Obviously Regina’s four year old little sister, who already had a phone despite her age, hadn’t sent the message. That little toddler didn’t even know how to write yet, let alone text. But then who? Could Regina have sent the message from Kylie’s phone and helped set Janis free…?
No.
Regina George was a scum-sucking life ruiner. Regina was the reason she’d been thrown in the locker in the first place. The reason she’d been called slurs and shoved around and treated like garbage by everyone other than Damian.
Janis scoffed at herself for even entertaining that thought for one second.
Kristen must have won Regina over by trapping Janis in a locker. She must have been invited over to Regina George’s mansion, and then grabbed the phone off Kylie to send Damian a text to let Janis free — Kristen had gotten what she wanted, so it didn’t really matter whether Janis stayed in the locker or not at that point.
And yet, when Janis and Damian were eating lunch together in the cafeteria on Monday afternoon, Kristen remained at the ‘Sexually Active Band Geeks’ table, and not at the Plastics' table. Hm…?