Stars

Chapter 16

Pete stood, leaning against his doorframe as he ran a hand over his newly cut hair. Pulling at the front of his binder through his dark red shirt, he took a deep breath and made his way downstairs.

The clattering of plates and silverware welcomed him into the dining room, where his uncle was laying out dinner, glasses of water already set out by his aunt. She looked up from her phone briefly to acknowledge that Pete had come downstairs, her head snapping back up again only milliseconds afterwards,

"Pete what the FUCK?" Pete flinched backwards before his aunt stood up and walked over to him. "Turn around, let me see." He did as told, letting his aunt see his brand new haircut, while cringing slightly.

"Please don't be mad," he whispered, ear splitting screams over his last haircut, over a month ago resonating in his head.

"Hmm," his aunt raised an eyebrow, lifting a piece of hair from the back of Pete's neck. "After dinner bring the razor downstairs, you missed a spot in the back. Now come sit down and stop worrying. It looks good."

Pete let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, a well-needed smile building up as he sat at the table, happiness welling up inside him. The clattering of utensils and quickly melting ice against glasses filled the silence as the three ate.

"How was... whatever you were doing with your friends earlier?" Pete's uncle swallowed the mouthful of spaghetti he had previously been attempting to speak around and looked up at his nephew, who was picking at the last few pieces of pasta on his plate.

Pete looked up from his plate, glancing at the fork he was twirling between his fingers. "Yeah it was... It was good, yeah. We went to Hot Topic and I got some like Iron Maiden shirts and stuff. Gerard and Frank and uh Mikey were there. It was fun!"

His aunt raised an eyebrow, but changed the subject almost as quickly as she shrugged off her suspicion. "Any thoughts on school courses for this year yet?" Pete rushed to swallow his mouthful of food, burning his throat as he did so, yet his eyes lit up when he began to speak.

"Yeah, actually! I wanna do, uh, mechanical and aerospace engineering, I looked it up on the school site and they have a shit ton of courses." Pete waved his hands around animatedly as he spoke, accidentally dropping pasta sauce onto his shoulder as he did so, a glint still in his eye. "I'm also gonna try to take Computer Science and calculus because then I have something to fall back on so I can still get into the internship program at NASA." He leaned back in his seat, taking another forkful of spaghetti.

His uncle nodded, eyebrows slightly raised. He hesitated before speaking, "That's uh, a lot of work, you sure you'll manage it? You're gonna have to take regular classes too, on top of the extra clas-" Pete felt stress build in his stomach as his uncle continued to talk.

"I'll be fine," His voice held more doubt than he wanted to let on, and he ran his hand over his head, the feeling of the short hair calming him. His aunt looked over at his uncle through the corner of her eyes,

"He has a whole 2 weeks to get organized, he'll manage." She directed the second half of her answer to Pete with a nod, "You'll be fine, promise, you got plenty of time."

The two weeks of 'organization' became a blur of discussing everything from gender identity to memes with online friends, hours of extra research and prep for NASA Internships, and nights spent awake until 4am or whenever Mikey stopped responding to his texts, always somehow ending up on the 'weird side' of YouTube, blacking out earlier in the night after 5 days of the same fucked up sleep schedule.

~~~

The all-too familiar sound of a phone vibrating against the wooden table next to his head woke Mikey from his quickly forgotten dream. He fumbled for his glasses, then his phone, only to open it to 57 unread messages from the group chat that consisted of him, Pete, Frank, Gerard, and the rarely present Ray.

The conversation seemed to be along the worrying mixed topics of haircuts and... "MIKEY!" He could hear Gerard from his bedroom, all the way at the end of the hall. "You're finally up!" He yelled. Mikey groaned loudly in response, scrolling up through the chat to attempt to make some sense of the situation.

"Are you fucking.... GERARD! YOU BETTER HOPE YOU AREN'T SUGGESTING I CUT MY HAIR." Mikey sat up, blearily shouting through a sleep coated voice to his brother, throwing off the covers and tiredly blundering his way to the door. The cold morning air on his face and arms brought an extreme change from the warmth of the blanket he had been lying underneath. He walked down the hallway to Gerard's room, where he stood, leaning with his head against the door as he heard his brother laughing on the other side. He soon joined him in laughing, until the two of them were sat leaning against either side of the door.

"Mikes, we're kidding," Gee chuckled, after the laughter had died down. His voice was muffled through the wooden door but Mikey could still hear the smirk in his voice.

"Gerard open the fucking door before I kick it down, you piece of lying trash."

At he requested opening of the door, Mikey was greeted by a grinning, black-haired Gerard, who bowed mockingly as his brother entered the room and sat down on his rarely-made bed. Mikey looked around the room that seemed to have some other thing in it every other week, whether it was a skull candle, band poster, or in today's case, a new drawing. He sighed, moved backwards, and crossed his awkwardly long legs.

"Ok. If you were joking then why are you and Frank discussing the health of my current hair, and why have you sent three... four pictures of hairstyles with the caption 'Maybes for Mikey(s)'?"

Gee laughed, mirroring Mikey's movements. "Look, your hair is not fuckin healthy, and they would look good on you!" he shifted to face Mikey, "Pete cut his, why won't you?"

Mikey raised an eyebrow slowly, "Just because Pete did something and it looked amazing, doesn't mean it'll look good on me too."

Gerard pulled up another picture on his phone, "Mikeeeyyyy come on, that second one I sent would look so good on you. I'll even cut mine at the same time if you want."

Mikey shook his head, "Gee, my hair is like... 4 inches long now, and that cut wouldn't even work, there's no way it could defy gravity like look." he pointed at the second picture set sent by Frank. "It's just fuckin... tall."

Gerard just stared at his brother "You'd be a shit lawyer, Mikes." He stood up, then quickly walked out from his room, turning back to face Mikey as he did so. "And you are getting your hair cut tomorrow Mikes. Ever since you tried to bleach it, it's been dead as shit."

"Fine. And only because of that. And even then, I'm choosing the hairstyle." Gerard kept walking away, nodding sarcastically.

"Okay Mikes, don't forget school starts Tuesday!" The enthusiasm in his voice was as forced as the smile on his face.

Mikey groaned, "Shit."
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Hey
This took 2 weeks, sorry. I've been stressed and away but here's your chapter.
(Since no one responded to the last AN I'm making a book called Maps to the Stars with all my inspiration)
Also huge shoutout to Tyler, who has been helping out with inspiration for this fic so much, and is the one making sure I keep writing
-Planetary