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The first time Pete Wentz meets Mikey Way, it's 2003 in Chicago, right after My Chemical Romance had played at the festival. The whole of Fall Out Boy had driven out there to check them out, all varying degrees of obsessed with and envious of their first album.
They command the crowd like nobody Pete has ever seen. "We're gonna play some new songs that we're working on right now," the lead singer says.
Halfway through, Pete turns to Patrick and mutters, "holy shit."
"Yeah," Patrick nods. "holy shit."
When they go up to them afterwards, it's more nerves than charms that leads Pete through his babbling request to give them his CD of FOB demos. MCR is sweet. Pete had zeroed in on their own bassist – this lanky, long-limbed dude named Mikey who quietly plucked at his bass guitar on stage and crouched down from time to time like a funny little video games character. Pete shoves the CD in Mikey's face and promptly forgets how to carry a conversation.
"You guys were insane up there, man, and uh, I don't know if you have the time, but me and my band here, we're based in Chicago, and we, uh..."
Mikey's hands gently pull the CD out of Pete's hands. Their fingers touch, just a little.
In addition to looking cool, Mikey turns out to be kind, too. "Sure thing," he says.
"My email's on there," Pete says. His throat is so dry.
Must be the Chicago heat. A month later, he's at home, fanning the sweat off of his body when an email drops into his inbox.
hello this is mikey from my chem.
U got some sick songs!! i was jamming to grand theft autumn. hopefully will see u on tour some day.
mikey
It's a dream when FOB goes on tour in 2004. By then, Pete and Mikey had been emailing, sporadically, every time they saw each other in the news – MCR's new album had taken the world by storm; Pete saw the way every music executive's eyes glimmered when they mentioned Revenge. FOB was not doing so badly themselves, the new album selling like hot cakes. When they finally meet each other on tour, Mikey pulls Pete into a hug before anybody else, and that little hint of preferential treatment sparks something glittery up Pete's spine.
He stands up straighter the entire day. He makes inside jokes with Mikey in front of everyone's faces. Later, Patrick asks, "since when were you this close with Mikey Way?"
"Dude, I've been telling you that we've been emailing."
"Yeah, but, you're, like..."
He trails off and shakes his head a little, clearly amused.
Somewhere in the back of Pete's mind, he remembers to be offended - but by what, exactly, he can't put his finger on. It all ends up being a blur. The tour, the screaming crowds, the after parties, the way Mikey looks at him through the top of the rim of his white glasses, like he's always waiting for him to say something funny. He watches MCR from the side of the stage and feels something indescribable rise up in his chest.
The way they play on stage scares the shit out of him. It's envy, he tells himself. That's what keeps him awake at night when he's worried sick over this uncontrollable engine that’s running his life. That and the stickiness of summer sweat, which wraps around him like cellophane.
The thing is, Pete Wentz is capable of being the life of the party. He very often loves nothing more than being the life of the party. And he's good at it: the sweet talk, the smack talk, the antics that are so glaringly attention-seeking that they circle back to being funny because it's all so self-referential. Only very rarely does he stumble home in the early hours of morning, feeling like he just cannibalised his own organs in front of strangers.
He finds out that Mikey Way is a natural at partying. It's like he stands there, drink dangling from one hand, and people just flock to him. The full force of his attention feels like finding an oasis in a desert. Nothing like the usual, at these music industry parties, full of men with glazed over eyes slapping you on the back talking, "How's it going, man? I love Helena," which Patrick was smart enough to not be offended by from Day One. Mikey's eye pupils will actually focus on you and even contract and dilate, appropriately, according to where you're at in the story you're telling him.
When Pete finds himself feeling witheringly stupid (having just licked a line of table salt and lime juice off of his own bass, or something, to the cheer of four people at best), it's Mikey who goes, "how does your mouth feel?" and goads him into margarita-ing as many dumb things as possible with him. The kitchen countertop: cold. Decorative rug: way too absorbent. Mikey's hair: silky. Pete's nose brush against the nape of his neck for a second and then gone.
"Wait a second," Pete says, and pats a little sprinkle of salt into Mikey's cheek. Then he makes a show of it, licking Mikey’s face, the skin so soft that it makes his brain white-out like a broken TV. He goes back and kisses Mikey there with a loud smack. It makes people laugh more than anything he'd done on his own. Emboldened, he goes back and kisses Mikey's other cheek, while Mikey is trying to kiss him back. They're moving their heads in very European ways, Pete exaggerating the "muah, muah!" as he goes.
He can't tell who started it, but someone somewhere goes, "look at these sweet little dudes." It stays. They're now a gang of sweet little dudes, and Pete repeats this, drunkenly, to anyone who will listen.
Patrick is not impressed. "Okay," he simply says.
Months later, when he sees Mikey again in the Fueled By Ramen lobby, he sits his ass down besides him like playing dibs at the school cafeteria. He can't concentrate on anything, except how Mikey's burning his way into the corner of his retina.
Warped tour, 2005: hot, hot, hot – the summer rolling across the Midwest like an avalanche. Fall Out Boy: officially a Big Deal. MCR shares a stage with them, and it's all well and good; Pete and Mikey swap in for each other whenever they feel like it.
They're always squirrelling off somewhere to learn each other's bass lines. The rehearsals blur into meandering conversations; stories about their bandmates, girlfriends, and heated debates about video game qualities. It does not escape Pete's notice that Mikey is currently single. Sometimes Mikey disappears with a girl in the middle of a party, and that doesn't make Pete feel weird at all.
Pete is, uncharacteristically, having a dry spell. It’s driving him a little crazy. Some days he feels the gaze of a cute merch girl grazing into his back, makes a mental note to hit her up later, and abandons it, promptly, the moment it becomes too real. He confides this in Mikey, one day, whose eyebrows scrunch up in (very cute) concern.
“We’re getting you laid tonight,” Mikey decides.
“It’s not that easy,” Pete says. “Like, not to brag, but girls slip me their numbers so often I had to get into recycling. It’s not that, it’s just…”
He sighs. He has no idea what it is.
“I’ll be your wingman,” Mikey says, “and that way you can get out of your head. You’ll just have to follow my lead.”
He does end up following his lead that night. There’s a hot sound tech sipping a beer in the kitchen, and Mikey grabs Pete’s shoulders and pushes him forward like he’s ushering a little kid. Mikey talks to her first, and he’s so good at this – so funny, so personable, so sweet to a fault – that it somehow makes Pete want to vomit. The sound tech’s eyes shift between them, and finally sticks the landing on him.
“So, Pete, you want my number, huh?”
Pete manages a lopsided smile. “Your number, your AIM, hell, I’ll even take an email.” It’s going well; she keeps looking at his lips.
“Well, you’ll have to earn it,” she says. “Kiss him,” she points at Mikey.
What?
Pete’s throat is officially drier than any Sahara desert. He looks over at Mikey, but Mikey just shrugs back, and purses his lips, as if to say, why the hell not?
Fuck, there’s no way to back out of this, Pete thinks bleakly to himself. Then Mikey leans over and kisses him.
His lips are soft and warm, nudging into and opening Pete’s mouth. The tip of his tongue grazes the inside of Pete’s lips. Then it’s over. Mikey pulls back and looks at the girl, and he has a hand on the back of Pete’s neck, when did that happen.
The girl is cackling. “Well, you’ve earned my number.”
Half an hour later, they’re in the back of a yellow taxi cab together, neon lights smearing ribbons around the dirty windowpanes. Pete probably looks as ashen as he feels. He’s taking big gulps of air like his shrink once told him – in: one, two, three, four, hold: one, two three, four… – and it’s not any better at all, fuck that guy.
He rolls the windows down (putting his head out and earning a “HEY GET BACK!” from the driver), dry-retching into the murky night air. Mikey’s hand is rubbing his back. Jesus Christ, this is worse. He sits back down and tries not to feel the way Mikey is glancing at him from behind his glasses.
“You good?” He asks, quietly. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”
Pete is not getting laid tonight. He had told the girl some bullshit about feeling under the weather, and not passing the bug that was going around. Then he told everybody that he was going home, and Mikey, bless this sweetheart, hailed a cab and hopped right in with him.
By now it’s hard to ignore that Pete is having a sexuality crisis.
Pete is not gay. He's an attention seeker. He's a sweet little dude who loves other sweet little dudes. And yeah, he’s kissed guys before, for attention. This is what rockstars do. They’re gay above the waist. They kiss men to piss people off and then go home to have sex with their girlfriends. It’s not like they’re turned on by it. It’s not like they want to do it when other people aren’t looking.
Pete stops staring out of the window, turns around, and is immediately faced with Mikey’s lips, which are in the process of forming various words. Pete’s distracted by the way his teeth and tongue twinkle a little bit, under the fuzzy lights of the city.
“What?” Mikey says.
“Huh?” Pete says.
“Nothing,” Mikey says. “I’m just saying, what do you need?”
His eyebrows are scrunched up again. He’s worried, Pete suddenly realises, blisteringly sober. He’s his friend, and he’s worried.
Pete turns to look out the window and then looks back at Mikey.
“I think I’m bi,” Pete says.
A beat. Then Mikey’s forehead smooths out, and he snorts out a laugh.
It’s like Pete’s body doesn’t even catch up to his brain enough to blush. How obvious had he been? Was he the dumbest motherfucker on the planet? He’s preparing himself for the ribbing, but Mikey only fixes his eyes on Pete and tilts his head, like a villain working out a plan.
“Things just got a lot easier, then,” Mikey says.
It’s Pete’s turn to say, what.
Mikey’s eyes drop to Pete’s lips. “We can still get you laid tonight,” Mikey replies.
Oh.
When Mikey kisses Pete again, Pete’s brain lags so hard that he’s almost convinced that Mikey can hear the Windows pop-up warning sound emanating from his head. Mikey’s tongue tastes real good inside of Pete’s mouth. Mikey’s breath is warm, and sweet, somehow, fanning across Pete’s face before one of them leans in again to slot their lips together, Mikey’s teeth tugging at Pete’s bottom lip or Pete licking stripes inside Mikey’s hot wet mouth.
They pull apart and the upset feeling from earlier is totally gone. Pete must look crazy right now, but he doesn’t care, only lets Mikey help him tug his shirt over his head, and watches as Mikey strips off his own. Then they’re back to the mouth-on-mouth, and Mikey squeezes a fistful of Pete’s hair as he leaves a trail of pecks from Pete’s mouth to jaw to the bottom of his earlobe. When he leans back, his glasses are honest-to-God foggy, and Pete nearly trembles from how much he is bricked the fuck up. He reaches down and checks: okay, thank God Mikey’s feeling the same way.
The touch elicits a moan from Mikey, who says, “hold on,” and then Pete’s hearing the fumbling clattering of belt buckles. He chases those fingers with his own hands to get Mikey out of his pants, relishing the way his fingers could now dip inside Mikey’s boxers and pull the waistband with a snap. Then Mikey’s hands are on Pete’s own belt, and Pete tries his hardest to not black out.
“Oh my god,” he breathes. “Oh my god.”
“Shhh,” Mikey says, and Pete knows he means it’s okay. He goes in to kiss Pete again at the same time he slides his hand down inside Pete’s underwear, and if Pete died today, it would have been a life well-lived.
Mikey’s got a nice face and nice hands and a nice dick. They end up on the bed, grinding against each other, and Pete feels sentences ringing through his head like I wish you were inside me right now that he has to try very hard to not say out loud, so instead he bites down into Mikey’s shoulder and then sucks hickeys along his collarbone. He hears himself moaning, anyway.
“Wait, hold on,” Mikey lifts himself, and the sudden absence of pressure makes Pete whine in frustration.
Turns out he’s taking his glasses off. He folds the legs and puts it on the bedstand, then goes back to face Pete, who, like a girl in a YA novel, lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.
“You’re so hot, Mikey Way,” he says.
“Oh yeah?”
He dips down on the bed and wraps his lips around Pete’s dick, and that freezes every open tab in Pete’s computer-mind and shuts the damn device down for good.
Afterwards, they’re both lying in bed, Pete watching the swell and fall of Mikey’s chest with every breath. They’ve both got shows tomorrow. Sweat sticks them to the bedsheets.
“Wanna learn the bass line for Cemetery Drive?” Mikey asks.
“Hell yeah,” Pete replies.
So, that's how the rest of the tour is gonna go.
“You’re kidding me,” Patrick says. “Another one about him?”
“Shut up,” Pete says. “Is it a good song, or not?”
Patrick rolls his eyes at him. “You gotta move on, at some point. Or what? I’m gonna sing about the same guy for twenty years?”
“All for the arts, man,” Pete says. “All for the arts.”