Stars

Chapter 17

Tuesday came entirely too fast for everyone's liking. The oncoming drudgery of school was only slightly outweighed by the anticipation of seeing friends again, and the promise of music during 3rd period. At only 6am, Pete stood in front of the bathroom mirror, pulling his binder down as he stood sideways until he was satisfied. He bounced on the balls of his toes, clenching and unclenching his hands into fists while he looked over at the shirts laid out on his bed. He grabbed one and pulled it on, along with a pair of new black jeans and the space socks Mikey had bought him.

The clock only read 6:30am by the time he stood by the doorway, a pair of black combat boots and black jacket adding to his already mainly black outfit. He paced from the kitchen to the door repeatedly before putting his backpack down on a chair and opening it. He skimmed through the folders, notebooks, and binders he was so sure he would forget.

"MIKEY! GET UP, YOU EMO PIECE OF SHIT!" Gerard's caffeine drenched yelling woke Mikey, who scrambled out of bed, yanking his phone from its charger. The time read 6:47am.

"Shit shit shit shit shit shit," Mikey ran to his closet and grabbed the first shirt he could find, along with a pair of worn in black jeans. He ran to the bathroom, attempted to make his hair look half decent, and perched his glasses right at the end of his nose. He swung a plain black backpack over one shoulder, grabbing an assortment of tangled earbuds in the process, and made his way downstairs to a cup of coffee that was quite literally shoved in his face by a suddenly apologetic Gerard.

He chugged the coffee and winced at the overwhelmingly bitter taste before jumping into Gerard's car, and clutched his backpack as they began to drive.

He arrived at school to find Pete tapping on the blank screen of his phone with ragged, freshly bitten nails. He flinched almost unnoticeably as Mikey called out to him, and as his head snapped up, he relaxed into a smile.

"Hey Mikey," even from a distance, Mikey could see the bags under Pete's eyes. Whether they were from stress, sleep deprivation, or a mix of the two, he couldn't tell. Nevertheless, he smiled and made his way over to Pete, who immediately leaned into Mikey, resting his head on the taller boy's shoulder.

"I am so fucking tired, you have no idea," he mumbled. "I woke up at 4 fucking thirty and I don't even know why." Mikey laughed awkwardly, and wrapped his arms around Pete,

"You fucking idiot." He smiled, waved goodbye to Gerard, and made his way into the school.

Before they reached the main entrance, Mikey took his arm off Pete and whispered a hesitant 'sorry.' People wandered into the school hallways, phones and bags in hand. The lemony smell of cleaning supplies was already overpowered by excessive amounts of perfume and spray on deodorant. Mikey walked silently, unbothered by the vast amount of people in the corridors. Pete, however, was craning his neck to take in as much of the school as possible, one of his fingers linked with Mikey's so they could stay together without being called out before the first day of school had even started.

"Mikey!" his head whipped around as he heard his name called, and saw a boy in a thin dark red t-shirt and blue jeans waving at him. Mikey smiled and waved back, then mouthed 'see you in class' before turning back to Pete.

"Bob. He's kind of a dick but he can be really cool sometimes. He's a great drummer too."

Pete just nodded, engrossed in the piece of paper in his hand. Mikey glanced over, and read the timetable carefully. He pulled his own crumpled paper from his back pocket, but was jabbed in the ribs by Pete's elbow before he could finish reading it.

"World History and Geometry together. And the same lunch period, nice." Mikey smiled and let Pete lean into him as he continued to read down his schedule.

"What the fuck classes are you taking? I didn't even know we had classes on aerospace engineering," Mikey raised an eyebrow at his grinning boyfriend, who just shrugged, "A gay's gotta do what a gay's gotta do."

Mikey hit him on the arm, "Sh, not so loud. People at school don't know, and I don't want to know what they would do if they found out." He looked around at the laughing groups of people minding their own business and became slightly less worried. Pete nodded, and looked down,

"Sorry Mikes."

"No, it's okay, let's go to class. I'll show you where everything is." Pete nodded, before hitting Mikey n the arm repeatedly,

"Wait, wait wait, look!" he said, and waved over the heads of high schoolers to where Ray had just entered the building.

"Way! You actually cut your hair" Ray's oddly loud voice reached the two, and Pete looked up at Mikey's hair as Ray began to make his way over to them.

"It looks really good, I was gonna say something earlier but I kinda forgot I guess," Pete laughed.

Only twenty minutes later, the three were in class, Pete and Mikey in homeroom together, while Ray was on the opposite side of the school, barely having made it after a rushed, "Hello, FUCK," and a sprint down the hallways, hair bouncing wildly.

Mikey and Pete, however, sat at two desks next to each other and watched as the teacher wrote his name on the board.

"The fuck kind of a last name is Skanski?" Mikey muttered.

"Dunno, but he looks like he's definitely on something." Mikey nodded, and went back to listening to the routine, 'have a great year and learn' speech.

When it came to attendance, Pete sat up a little straighter, unintentionally scraping his chair against the ground.

"Michael Way?"

"Here."

"Peter Wentz?"

Pete tried his hardest not to grin like an idiot when he replied to his name. He leaned over to Mikey and whispered,

"I've never been called Pete at school before. I like this so much more."

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Hey sorry it's been about 8 years since my last chapter. Stuff has been happening and like is busy. I'll be uploading more regularly from now on though.
Thanks for 1k reads! -Planetary