Chapter Text
“Your school called me at work again,” Vince’s mum said as she walked through the door, greeting her son by scolding him. “You need to respect your teachers. If they tell you you’re breaking the dress code, you need to fix it. Whatever this… phase is that you’re going through…” She sighed as she abandoned her train of thought. “I just wish you could dress nice and behave like the rest of the boys your age, at least a little bit, Vincent…”
In the height of the glam era, Vince, alongside his fellow outcasts at the Catford Boys school, had grown his hair out and was wearing eyeliner to school nearly every day. His friends, brothers Dave and Steve alongside another classmate Antony, had all been separately ridiculed on multiple occasions for their mode of dress. Even though Vince was a well-behaved, quiet, and intelligent student, the administration of his school had notified his mum several times requesting that he fix his delinquent behaviour. “Those friends of yours are a terrible influence, Vincent,” his mum muttered after a while. “Sure, their parents might be okay with this musician thing that they want to do, but that’s not an option for you. I know you don’t want to go to college or university or anything like that, but you need to get your life together at some point. I can’t and won’t support you forever and I sure as hell am not going to if you get expelled from school.
“Change things around, be like other boys your age,” she continued. “Go out and meet people at those local teenage events. Join a club at your school. See a football game…”
“See a football game?” Vince sneered.
“Don’t give me that attitude,” Vince’s mum snapped. “You know what? I’m taking you to my stylist next weekend. We’re going to get your hair cut and you’re going to start acting like a proper gentleman.”
-
The next day at school during their lunch break, Vince had recalled the conversation to Dave, Antony, and Steve, the former of the two laughing along with him. “I could cut your hair for you, you know,” Dave said. “It’d look a lot better than whatever your mum’s stylist would do on her.”
“Yeah, and then we can attend a football game,” Antony jested.
“First home game of the year’s tonight, innit?” Dave replied, a slight smirk on his face. “Why don’t we go, just to dick around?”
“Ugh, really?” Antony grimaced.
“Yeah, you really want to watch those athlete bastards from our school run circles for hours?” Vince sighed, “If we were drinking age, maybe, but even then you can’t bring alcohol to a school game, can you?”
“It’ll give us something to do!” Dave exclaimed. “Plus, it’ll get your mum off of your back. If you do this one thing, I bet she’ll leave you alone for the rest of the year, Vince. Come on, it could be fun! If it isn’t, we can just go out on the town or something.”
Vince rolled his eyes and Antony shrugged. “I guess,” the latter of the two mumbled. “I would like to see Dave cut your hair at least.”
“Well, what do you think, Steve?” Vince spoke up, eyeing Dave’s little brother, who just shrugged.
“Eh, he’ll go wherever we go,” Dave said.
“Like a little pet,” Antony added.
“More like a little pest,” Dave teased, before ruffling Steve’s hair up. He looked less than happy. “Right, so come round my flat about an hour before the game starts. I’ll cut your hair and then we can go to this game. Sound good?” Antony agreed and Vince sighed, before reluctantly nodding, starting to feel like this was a terrible decision already.