schmerica. a pearl-o and etben kidfic genderswap production

So a couple of weeks ago, I told

etben how wretchedly I wanted a story where Mikey Way was a girl and Pete Wentz knocked her up during the Summer of Like.

*****

Nobody is sure of the exact moment that Pete and Mikey become Pete&Mikey. It's a subtle difference at first, especially on the road, where no one has any privacy or personal space anyway, and god knows Pete's always been a touchy-feely guy. But the shift definitely happens, that subtle but important step from being close friends to something more. They sit around curled up together, intertwined on the MCR and FOB buses, holding hands. Pete's hand is always slipped just underneath the waist of Mikey's jeans, or just touching the warm skin of her back, in the gap her ill-fitting t-shirt leaves above her pants. By the middle of the summer, they've been caught making out in pretty much every room with a door that closes, and several that don't.

They're not public about the relationship, but they don't try incredibly hard to hide it, either. They wear each other's clothes; Pete dedicates songs to Mikey and posts cryptic posts about love on his online journal. They only have sex, full-on intercourse sex, a couple of times; between the limited time and privacy and the amount of eagerness they both have, oral and mutual masturbation are just easier to handle, and plenty satisfying. There are a couple of nights, though, where they manage to sneak off together and find one of the buses to themselves. Mikey drunk is even quieter than Mikey sober, but instead of staying calm and serene, her face bursts into little smiles all the time without her permission. Pete kisses the corners of her mouth and tries to make her laugh, and Mikey pushes him down on his back on the the floor in front of the couch and climbs on top of him. Afterwards, they manage to pick up their clothes and get off the floor and make it to the nearest bunk (which belongs to neither of them) before they pass out.

When they break up, it's completely amicable.

Mikey says, "I think--" and Pete says, "Yeah, me too."

Mikey shuffles her feet and says, "This summer was really great."

Pete says, "Jeez, yeah, it was! But I guess summer's over now, so."

Mikey says, "Yeah." She's silent for a minute and then says, "Just so you know, there's -- there's this girl, and I thought maybe... and I didn't want to you to think that, you know--"

And Pete laughs and says, "Oh my god, it's Alicia Simmons, isn't it? It so is."

Mikey says, "Shut up."

Pete laughs some more and says, "No, seriously, go you! That's awesome."

They hug for a really long time. Pete whispers, "Love you, Mikey Way," into her ear, and Mikey smiles and says, "Best friends."

That would be the end of the story, but a month later Mikey's in the bathroom staring at a plus sign on a stick.

******

The first person she tells is, of course, Gerard. She climbs into bed with him in the middle of night and curls up under the blankets.

Gerard wakes up and is all "Huh? Mikey?" and Mikey is like "So it turns out I'm kind of pregnant."

Gerard says, "Oh. Oh wow."

There's a long pause and then he hugs Mikey a little and awkwardly and sincerely offers to break Pete's face.

Mikey says, "Um, I was kind of involved in the process, too, you know." She tells him she doesn't know what she wants to do yet, and he's the only person who knows, and she needs some time to just think about it.

Gerard is pretty freaked out by her announcement, but tells her he's there for her and will support her no matter what.

There are a lot of vague tangents from Gerard that week about women, and choices, and support, and believing in yourself, and that sort of thing.

Mikey decides she wants to keep the baby. This means she has to call Pete and tell him.

Pete is hanging out with his band, playing video games with Joe Troh and being a doofus dorkface, while Andy and Patrick play on computers and do their own thing in the background. When the phone rings, they pause the game and he answers.

Pete says, "Oh, hey, Mikey, what's up?" Because they're still friends, you know, and he thinks they're going to hang out or something.

And Mikey just says, very calmly because she's been practicing, "I'm having a baby, you're the father, I'm keeping it."

Pete drops the phone.

His band sort of stares at him, because Pete looks freaked the fuck out, and you don't actually see Pete like that very often.

After a couple of seconds, Joe picks up the phone when Pete dropped it, and talks to Mikey, and nods a lot, and then says, hey, congratulations, Pete will call you back when he starts breathing.

Pete drags Patrick with him to his bunk to discuss this. This means Patrick has to hear just hours of Pete's freaking out, going over and over the same thing. Pete can say "I'm going to have a *kid*" and "I'm going to be a *dad*" with, like, thousands of different inflections.

He's driving Patrick insane and Patrick kind of wants to smack him. Finally, though, Patrick just says, "Yeah, Pete, I know. What are you going to do about it?" and "*Mikey*'s the one having a kid."

This makes Pete realize that he really has to go *talk* to Mikey, so he flies out to see her. Pete pretty much figures they're going to get back together now -- for the *baby*! -- and Mikey has to tell him that no, no that's not going to happen. But Pete definitely wants to be there for her, and he wants to be a dad, he wants to be part of the baby's life, he wants to be part of this.

He also sees the rest of MCR when he is there, of course. Gerard sort of just glares at him, Pete is actually kind of afraid of Bob. Frank just says, "Hey Pete, there's this great new invention you should check out, it's called a condom."

Pete and Gerard have this really long talk, where Pete says how sorry he is and they start making all these plans for exactly how everything is going to work, without even consulting Mikey -- because Mikey's not there, she's locked up in the back of the bus with Alicia and some ice cream, and it's only when Pete hears some really familiar noises that they realize she's not back there because she's annoyed at them or hormonal; she and Alicia are *together* back there.

The whole thing with Alicia is really kind of sweet, because ... well, Mikey really liked her, but she kind of figured just the fact that she's pregnant -- that's really a deal breaker, you know? But there are lots of sweet sweet kisses on the couch and Alicia saying "Hey, no, I like *you*, no matter what."

Everyone really tries to keep the whole thing really low key for as long as possible. Nobody talks about it in public or anything, and so far the subject's not come up. Mikey plans to keep playing as long as possible, though, and they know it's going to come out eventually. They start making these plans on exactly when they're going to let it become common knowledge, and how, and all these things.

Part of Mikey is starting to get really fed up about all these plans everyone keeps making for her, you know?

What actually happens is they're in an interview, and someone makes this comment, not even *to* Mikey, just to Gerard or somebody, a crack about Mikey gaining weight. She rolls her eyes and says, "Well, yeah, I'm pregnant, so."

It's in this totally dry offhand way, so they can't tell if she's serious or joking or what, but the interviewer giggles a little and says, "Congratulations, who's the father?" in the ton of voice where they could just be carrying on the joke.

Mikey says, "Oh, Pete Wentz."

This, of course, just makes it that much more hard to tell, because. how do you deal with someone claiming to be carrying Pete wentz's love child?

FOB's in an interview the next day, and some smartass interviewer brings it up, hoping to catch Pete embarrassed or off-guard or freaked, but there've been phone calls or texts to actually let Pete know what happened, so Pete's real calm and just says that yeah, he was involved in that, and he's still really good friends with Mikey and Alicia, and he's wishing them the best.

It's kind of weird after the press finds out, though. It's not a huge news story or anything, but there's enough to make the whole thing really uncomfortable. The internet is the worst, of course; people on the internet are mean. It feels like there's always all these people passing judgment on them, especially on Mikey, about how she's a terrible person. And, you know, Mikey is a bassist in her big brother's band; she never signed up for talking to MTV about being an unwed mother.

So basically she just ... doesn't talk about it.

Pete talks about it, when people ask, because he's Pete. He gets q&a's asking if doesn't he think he's promoting premarital sex and broken families and stuff? Pete just says that his kid is gonna have a family that loves him, that wants, that cares about him. And what the fuck else matters?

(Pete actually writes about the kid a lot, although mostly not straight-on. He has a lot of vague journal entries about growing up and love and finding meaning. After the kid is born he goes into hyperbolic rapture, like the way he does about Patrick sometimes, but times a thousand. When Fall Out Boy's new album comes out in 2007, there are at least two songs on it that are commonly agreed to be about the kid, and another two that people are pretty sure are about Mikey. [People, in this case, are wrong; one of those two songs is about Patrick.])

Mikey is the kind of skinny woman who doesn't really gain much weight; it's all centered around her middle, so it always looks fake, like she has a pillow or a beachball or something stuffed under there. When Pete comes to check in with her, Patrick accompanies him, and they're all sitting around a kitchen table somewhere, Pete and Mikey and Patrick and Alicia and Gerard. Mikey is perched on Pete's lap, his arms wrapped around her partly because of the baby and partly just balance. Alicia's right to the side close to Mikey, Patrick's sitting back in his seat with his arms crossed, and Gerard is leaning forward, elbows on the table, talking loudly and gesturing about something, looking half-naked without a cigarette in his hands.

Gerard has a hard time getting used to not smoking around Mikey; it makes him a little twitchy, and Frank too. But it's not as though he minds, he explains to Mikey earnestly. "We're all in this together! Everyone has to make sacrifices!"

Mikey, being Mikey, and having had Gerard as her older brother her entire life, does not react to this. It's been months and months and months since Mikey had either coffee or sushi. Mikey just puts her hand on her stomach and raises her eyebrow. "Sure, Gee," she says. "Sacrifices."

The last couple months of the pregnancy are really hard on Mikey, partly because of that outside pressure, but also because of the crazy hormones and her serious depression hitting her all that once. She goes to LA with the rest of MCR to start working on the new album, and she's eight months pregnant, living in this dark and fucked up haunted house, and she just falls apart, cracks open. She can't do it anymore. She leaves the band, has the baby, she's practically suicidal -- but it gets better, it does, with a lot of work.

They name the baby James Wentz Way. Jamie for short.

It's weird, because Mikey and Pete are sort of the last people ever you would put in charge of an entire helpless new human life, but... they're not *bad* at it, really. A little spacey, maybe, but they're both so totally in love with the kid that they're *trying*. Mikey has an advantage, maybe, because Alicia's already sort of keeping *her* from constantly harming herself, and Alicia's pretty much responsible enough to manage to keep the baby safe, too.

Mikey has custody of the baby, of course, and she and Alicia live together in New York. Pete is still mainly based out of Chicago, but all of them are on the road a lot.

Pete tries to see the baby as often as possible, though, and Mikey lets him take him a lot, for days at a time.

Patrick is always there too when Pete has Jamie. Patrick is pretty good at remembering stuff like meals and vitamins and shots and naps and things, whereas Pete is better at the stupid games. Plus, Patrick can change diapers. Pete has been practicing for a long time, but he's still not great at it.

But, yeah, Patrick's always there. And eventually one night after midnight feeding number one million, it finally strikes Pete that -- hey, this kid doesn't just have three parents; he has four.

He and Patrick are standing across from each other at the makeshift changing table as Patrick fixes the diaper Pete fucked up again, and Pete suddenly says, with this burst of realization, "Patrick Stump, you're sort of in love with me!"

Patrick's face shoots up and he opens his mouth to say something, and Pete leans over the table and kisses him, their first real kiss.

Pete gets a new tattoo when Jamie is three months old. It's actually kind of weird and creepy, but it's about his *son*.

Jamie's wardrobe is about two-thirds little boy clothes and one-third baby girl stuff. He also has quite a lot of costumes; it's amazing how many different kinds of animal suits they have for infants. Pete's certainly impressed.

His hair is always goofy looking.

Pete refers to he and his son as the sweet little dudes. There are tons of pictures of Pete with his kid, with Pete's face always stretched into this wide crinkly smile. Alicia takes a lot of pictures of Jamie, too. Sometimes he and Bunny even have matching outfits.

(Sometimes late at night Patrick finds Pete hunched over the computer, looking at the pictures and being emo about how maybe that would be better, maybe he should just let them have them always? Which is why Patrick stealthily changes Pete's screensaver to a folder of images of Pete and his son being adorable and happy.)

Pete's own favorite picture is of Patrick sitting in front of his computer, with Jamie in his lap, leaning against Patrick's chest and drooling on his shirt. They're his guys. Pete doesn't know how he got that lucky.

Mikey and Alicia get hitched in early 2007. Mikey takes some time off from the band, then, so it's just her and Alicia and little Jamie, getting a chance to settle down and just chill. It's a nice relief from all the crazy shuffling-back-and-forth that's been happening.

Pete's still a really busy guy, between the band and his other responsibilities, so it can be a couple weeks or more in between times he sees the kid, sometimes. Which is really hard, but he pretty much gets daily emails with photo attachments from Alicia and he texts Mikey ridiculously often, so it's not as bad as it could be.

When he does come and pick up Jamie after a long while, he's so fucking excited he could practically explode. He kisses Mikey on the cheek and takes the baby and runs.

Once he's old enough to be in school, Jamie mostly lives with Mikey and Alicia - maybe MCR eases back their touring schedule, a little? just so that Jamie occasionally sees both of his mothers at the same time. It's getting to the point where it makes sense, anyways - they've all got side projects they can be working on, and they're starting to get to the age where regular sleep is almost better than the prospect of sex. They take longer breaks, and usually all wind up at Mike and Alicia's place at least once or twice, hanging around and just chilling, being family.

In the summer, though - in the summer, he totally goes out with one set of parents or the other, sometimes both, switching back and forth between them, so they've got this tiny little baby running between buses, all dark hair and big eyes and chubby elbows. They make jokes about Jamie being a hot potato, and then it sticks, and then there's a behind-the-scenes thing and some camera guy catches him, and half a week later there's video footage of Jamie Wentz Way, age 4 1/2, saying "my name's Potato!"

It's generally agreed that, well, at least like this they're sure the kid's Pete's.

So Jamie Wentz Way is pretty much spoiled rotten, because he's the darlingest thing ever, and he has ten million uncles to teach him about music or spitballs or fart jokes. They're really kind of worried about putting him into public school, because of it. They're worried he'll be some kind of entitled little rockstar brat. And, fair's fair, in some ways he totally is - but at the same time, he's used to living in a bunk on a bus, and his main favorite activity is getting people to tell him stories or play make-believe with him. Plus he's got people like Andy Hurley and Bob Bryar looking out for him - not to mention Patrick and Alicia - and on the whole, they do a pretty good job of making sure that Jamie grows up to be a human being. He has to get glasses by first grade, and when he grows up a bit there are a few awkward incidents with kids who are fans, but on the whole, Jamie integrates into public school pretty well.

Really, it's no suprise: he's used to dealing with crazy people.

Here are some visual aids:

Pete holding a baby.
Pete still holding a baby.
One of Jamie's outfits.
Also this one and this.

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soundslikej.livejournal.com

♥♥♥♥

YOU GUYS I LOVE YOUR BRAINS.

BABY. *DIES A LITTLE*

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a pearl-o and etben kidfic genderswap production

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