Stars

Chapter 3

"You good Wentz?" Ray asked, as the two walked downstairs together. Pete nodded, and Mikey removed his arm from over his shoulder. Frank threw a flashlight to both Mikey and Pete, missing horribly, and ending up with Mikey's hitting him directly in the eye. Gerard snorted as Frank dashed over to grab an ice pack from the freezer, while Mikey was hunched over, his eyes scrunched shut, one of them watering heavily. Pete had his hand on the taller boy's back, but was bent over in laughter.

The sound of laughter filled the kitchen and Frank, almost comically, slipped on an ice cube that had fallen out of the freezer.

"Shi-ooph," he let out, as he fell to the ground suddenly. Gerard stuck out a hand, but was only pulled to the ground with Frank, all 5 boys weak with laughter. The giggles and splutters of 5 teenage boys collapsed on the floor, all because of a badly thrown flashlight, eventually died down, and one by one, they sat up. Gerard groaned,

"I go to college in a few months and I just spent 10 minutes laughing over a motherfucking flashlight that my idiot boyfriend threw in my brother's eye." Pete sat up sharply,

"You're going to college?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. Mikey giggled at the confused look on his face.

"Yeah, I'm 18, shortass." Gerard replied with a snigger, getting to his feet. "Studying art," he said, his eyes lighting up as he smiled. Frank took Gee's hand and pulled himself up, then suddenly struck a dramatic pose,

"Oh oui oui, I am le artiste, watch me paint, I shall woo all ze women with my vonderful portraits," he said, batting his eyes and flouncing around a disgruntled Gerard in a circle.

"Yeah yeah, Mr. Punk band, get a fucking candle," Gee said, punching Frank in the arm, smiling.

A few hours, 16 candles, and a lot of pizza later, the 5 were on the floor, Frank stroking Gee's hair, whose head was lying in his lap. Mikey lay staring up at the ceiling with Pete's legs laying across his ankles. The silence was broken when Ray, who was leaning against the overstuffed armchair, turned his head towards Pete,

"Hey Pete, tell the others about Chicago!" Pete lifted his head from the floor, raising an eyebrow at the seemingly random request,

"Ok..." he said, moving his arms to behind his head.

"Well, I lived there until like, 2 months ago, but I lived there my whole life before then. My friend Patrick and I, we had it all planned out. I was gonna be an astronaut, and he was gonna sing, and the plan was that I would put a flag of the album cover on the moon." Pete smiled, "Fuckin' stupid idea really. Still wanna go to space though. But yeah, Pat and I knew thee 2 other guys, Joe and Andy. They were awesome, but yeah. I went to this space camp when I was 14, it was awesome, but I couldn't contact the guys for like 4 weeks, which was fucking torture. Me and Patrick had-"

"Patrick and I," Mikey muttered. Pete rolled his eyes,

"Sorry, Patrick and I had a thing for a bit, but after like a week we decided to just be friends. My parents weren't too happy when I came out, they're really fucking homophobic and transphobic, so I put it off forever. But yeah, some stuff happened and then I fucked off to band camp, where I met this ass," Pete gestured towards Ray, "Got my tattoos around the same time too, and I guess you kinda know the rest." He said, shrugging.

"Oh yeah, and did I mention I'm really fucking gay?" Laughter broke out in the candlelit room, and cries of "SAME" came from both Gerard and Frank.

"Looks like you and I are the only straights, Mikes," Ray said with a snigger. Pete made a noise that was probably meant to be nonchalant, but it came out slightly disappointed.

"Yeah, I guess," Mikey said, a little hesitantly. Pete sat up suddenly,

"Shit, what time is it?" Frank looked down at the glowing screen of his nearly dead phone,

"9:48." Pete jumped to his feet,

"Back in a second," he said, and dashed to the bathroom. He returned a few minutes later, threw something into his bag, and crossed his arms over his chest, returning to his original position. Anyone who could have seen his face up close would see the tear tracks across his cheeks, and the puffiness of his eyes.

"Going to sleep," he mumbled, turning onto his side and blowing out the candle in front of him before anyone could get a good look at him.

"You okay?" Mikey asked, moving slightly to face the shorter boy.

"Yeah 'm okay, night." Murmurs of 'Night' came from around the room, and with no phones, or even lights, to distract them, all 5 soon fell asleep.

The next morning, Pete woke up first, a baby blue blanket draped over his shoulders, the work of Ray the night before. He stood up, grabbed his bag, and quickly went into the bathroom to change, attempting to turn on the light at least 5 times before remembering the lack of power in the house. He came out to a bleary-eyed Frank stumbling around the kitchen, trying to find the fridge. Pete sniggered, and opened the fridge door,

"Thanks," Frank mumbled, grabbing the milk and pouring it half into a glass, half onto the marbled white countertop. He took a sip, and immediately spit it out onto Pete's black jeans,

"It's fucking WARM!" he yelled, and a scream came from the living room, quickly followed by a crash, as Mikey jumped up quickly, awoken by Frank's shout, and promptly fell back over, into the DVD cabinet. He groaned, and didn't hesitate to flip off his brother's boyfriend.

Over an hour later, when everyone was finally awake, and eating cereal with questionably fresh milk, Pete's phone began to buzz, and was picked up by Mikey.

"It's your mom," he said, handing the phone to Pete, who flinched as he took it.

"Going to the bathroom," he said, and hurriedly made his way to the bathroom, where he sat on the toilet, took a deep breath, and opened the messenger app.

Mikey knocked on the door when Pete hadn't come out for 15 minutes, and entered when Pete mumbled,

"Come in if you have to." He found the boy sitting with his back against the bathtub, tears flowing freely down his cheeks as he stared at his phone, which had turned off. Mikey sat next to him, and wrapped his arms around Pete's shaking frame. He looked down at the phone,

"C-can I...?" Pete nodded, unlocked the phone, and handed it to Mikey, who looked down at the messages.

'I want you to tell this to your aunt. Tell her 'I'm not playing for Ashley's child support anymore; her medical bills are too high.'

'When are you going to stop this nonsense, and come home? It's been months.'

'You know what, don't try to talk to me again until you've given up all this shit.'

After pulling Pete into a tight hug, in which he was still crying violently, Mikey drew back and asked,

"Pete, who's Ashley?"

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Hi, sorry this took so long, and for the cliffhanger-ish. All will be revealed (if you haven't figured it out already) in the next chapter. ;-) -Planetary