Stars

Chapter 9

"Pete? Pete!" Mikey whispered, shaking the motionless boy whose head rested on his shoulder. "Pete!" he almost shouted, laughing when Pete groaned, opening his eyes slowly and turning his head to look up at Mikey, who smiled at his tired face. "I thought you weren't going to wake up for a second there."

"I'm not gonna die on you, Mikey, don't worry." Mikey just smiled, and pulled Pete closer to himself. The night had reached what was almost its darkest point, the sky filled with the shattered light of stars and wisps of thin clouds. The slightly green, dark brown tiles were amazingly cold by now, regardless of the warm breeze flowing through the air.

"C'mon, we can't stay out here all night. It's freezing." He put out a hand, which Pete took and used to get to his feet, slipping slightly on the cold tiles. Mikey caught him by the elbow, linking their fingers and not letting go until they were both safely through the window.

After replacing the fly screen and dragging the window closed again, Pete flopped down on his bed, laying diagonally across it while Mikey sat, slightly awkwardly, on the edge, looking around the room. Pete lifted his head up slightly,

"You wanna watch a movie?" he asked, leaning over and pulling a laptop from under his bed, moving to sit on the bed with his back against the wall, and pulling up Netflix. Mikey moved to join him, and shrugged,

"Sure." The corners of Pete's mouth twitched upwards,

"Cool, you wanna watch Nightmare Before Christmas?" he asked, attempting not to let his face break out in a grin as Mikey raised an eyebrow, smiling,

"You emo fuck," he moved over next to Pete, who let his head rest on the taller boy's shoulder as the movie began to play.

Only half an hour later, Mikey looked over to see the face of a sleeping Pete Wentz, smiling gently and peacefully on his shoulder. That smile was contagious even when he was asleep, and Mikey couldn't help but break into a smile purely from just how adorable Pete was. He was almost completely peaceful when asleep, not troubled by thoughts of family, school, or judgement. Black eyeliner, though slightly smudged away, still ringed his eyes in typical Pete fashion.
Letting out an involuntary yawn, Mikey closed the laptop, and carefully moved Pete's head onto the pillow rather than his shoulder before placing the laptop on the ground. He cautiously reached over and pulled the constellation patterned comforter to cover Pete, before grabbing another pillow and curling up on the floor towards the middle of the room.
After an hour or two, Pete woke with a jolt, unsure of why until he felt the constricting material twisted around his chest. "Shit." He whispered, pushing off the comforter that he could only assume Mikey had placed over him. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, and began to stumble around in the darkness until he felt his foot catch on some kind of cord or wire and- "Fuckfuckfuckshit ah motherfu-"

"You okay?" Mikey croaked, his throat still riddled with sleep. Pete nodded, then realized that it was pitch black, and that Mikey did not have night vision at all,

"Yeah, I'm good, just tripped. Sorry for waking you up, I just need to go to the bathroom," he said, a little hesitantly, picking his way over books and various space magazines to get to the bathroom. When there, he wrestled his way out of the black binder he had forgotten to take off, and made his way back to bed.
"Hey Mikey?"

"Yeah?"

"You need a blanket?"

Mikey sat up, "Uh, yeah, please." Pete nodded, and grabbed an incredibly soft dark blue blanket from the shelf of his closet.

"Well, night." Mikey smiled,

"Night."

A dreamless sleep fell over Pete as he curled onto his side, pulling the covers up to his chin so that he was almost drowning in the comforter. Mikey, however, lay awake, staring up as he let the blanket lay over himself carelessly. The painted constellations, white stars glowing faintly in the darkness, almost hypnotized him until his eyes drifted closed, and a peaceful sleep endued.

Pete was woken abruptly the next morning by the buzzing of his phone on the bedside table. He quickly dismissed the call, and sat up, bleary eyed from both sleep and the excessive amount of eyeliner now having clouded over his eyes. He sighed heavily, then clambered out of bed and towards the bathroom, bringing with him his phone and binder.

When in front of the mirror, Pete lifted up his shirt to just above his belly button, inspecting the patches of skin that had been rubbed raw from wearing a binder for too long. Dried blood was spattered around the shallow wounds, and Pete winced as he put his shirt back down. Sighing again, he picked up a pack of makeup wipes due to the fact that what was once 'edgy' emo eyeliner had become what looked like the after effects of a terrible experiment with a raccoon.
Staring back at his blank face in the mirror, Pete pulled the binder back over his head, holding his breath as it touched the blistered skin. The doorknob rattled, causing Pete to fall backwards into the towel holder, knocking it off the wall and falling with it.

"Pete? You okay?" Mikey croaked through the door, sleep still plaguing his voice.

Picking himself up off the floor, along with about 4 towels, Pete looked down dejectedly upon the fallen towel rack.

"Uh, yeah." He said, throwing the towels into the dry shower, picking up his phone, and leaving the bathroom.

After changing into a pair of black skinny jeans, an extremely faded t-shirt that had a logo on it at some point, and outrageously odd socks, Pete sat on his bed, flopping backwards and laying there until Mikey came out of the bathroom. He still didn't move until the taller boy came over, sat down on the corner of the bed, and looked Pete directly in the eyes.

"Don't you fucking dare," Pete warned, before curling up in uncontrollable laughter as Mikey began to tickle him mercilessly, Pete punching him weakly in the arm until he stopped, interrupted by the loud ringing of the galaxy cased phone on Pete's bedside table. Without looking at the caller ID, the tattooed boy who was now gasping for breath from laughter picked up the phone and answered the call.

He froze in fear as a scarily familiar voice came over the speaker,

"Ashley?"