Do You Dare Me? (Petekey Oneshot)

Do You Dare Me?

I'm reluctant to say that Pete and Mikey's first meeting tainted their subsequent encounters but it certainly shaped Mikey's opinion of the smaller boy.

The very first time Mikey Way ever laid eyes on Pete Wentz was in the neighbourhood park. His older brother Gerard was playing D&D in the shade of the big oak tree with his three friends but naturally he didn't want his 5 year old baby brother cramping his style. So Mikey had been resigned to playing with Brendon and Ryan, from next door and across the road respectively, in the sandpit. Ryan had constructed a beautiful four towered castle and, after Brendon had nearly knocked it down for the third time with his wiggling, had instructed him rather sternly to find sticks and stones for decoration. Mikey and Ryan sat back to appreciate the masterpiece before them. With the walking disaster that was Brendon Urie out of harms way they didn't expect the catastrophe that nearly befell them. A small dark boy running past nearly mowed right through their creation. Ryan shrieked and shielded the castle with his body looking thoroughly shaken.

But Mikey was having none of it. "Hey! Watch where you're going. He spent ages on this sand castle and you nearly stepped on it!"

The boy came to a halt next to them plonking himself down in the sand.
"Oops sorry! Hey, that's a really cool castle!" The boy grinned and Ryan smiled tentatively back. The boy was fidgeting and leapt up a only a minute.

"Guys, do you dare me to lick that swing?" He asked excitedly.

"No." Mikey and Ryan answered simultaneously, frowning in confusion. But the boy was already running to the swing set where he promptly licked the seat and looked back to where the other boys were sitting triumphantly. A woman, presumably his mother yelled something at him from across the park and he gave a theatrical wave before running off to her.

"Wow, did he just lick that swing?" Brendon had apparently returned from his quest for pebbles and was gazing after the boy.

"Yeah," Mikey rolled his eyes but the other boys were already focused on decorating Ryan's sand castle.

♦

The next time the mystery boy appeared in Mikey Way's life was five years later.
As a ten year old Mikey was finally old enough to hang out with Gerard's friends. Towards the end of a particularly engaging D&D session Mikey a figure sidled up to them.

"Do you dare me to climb this tree?" He called.

"No." The boys chorused. But he was already hoisting himself onto the first branch.

The short version of the story was that he was still stuck up nestled in the top branches when Donna came out to call the boys in for the night. When they were eating their dinner a fire engine whooshed past but their mom wouldn't let them out on a school night to watch the palaver.  Somewhat reassuringly the boy was nowhere to be seen the next afternoon.

♦

Mikey was not looking forward to highschool one bit. All those big corridors and new students were really intimidating when your only friends are two boys who had only recently realised that gay is a thing you can be, and with Ryan's newly discovered style and Brendon's newly liberated forehead, they didn't do things by halves.

So that's how Mikey Way ended up sat alone at a desk behind two half hippy, half emo, and wholly homo, lovebirds. He was praying that the six foot tall lacrosse player walking past wouldn't decide to sit next to him when a familiar face slid into the seat beside him.

"Hi, can I sit here?" He asked.

In the time since their last encounter he'd not grown an awful lot but he had discovered hair straighteners and eyeliner, apparently.