Especially now when you're lying in my bed wearing nothing but a worn tank top and a pair of boxer shorts that, if I remember correctly, might at one time have been mine. Of course, you think they were Dawson's probably. I think it used to piss him off at first when you'd come over to the house and spend the night and always pick that pair because he knew they were mine, had been left there ages ago when I was thirteen or fourteen and had an accident in the night. When Gale had grabbed the wash and taken them, I'd been too embarrassed to claim them as my own and let Dawson take the heat for any nocturnal emissions. Hee. Heeeeeee. She's sleeping in shorts he spooged in. That's funny as hell.

And then you'd stolen them. Well, borrowed them and then borrowed them indeterminately. I think Dawson forced himself to forget that they were mine. Not that he was ever jealous of me, but I think he disliked that you could be fooled so easily. How he expected anything different when you found the shorts in his underwear drawer, I'll never know, but then, there's a lot about our buddy Dawson that I'll never understand. Why he kept Pacey's soiled shorts in the first place being one thing.

Like how he could do this to me.

Oh sure, I'm sure he never expected any of this. Never planned on Saturday nights becoming our movie nights. Never planned on you crashing at my house overnight after a long evening of old cartoons or cheesy new releases with more special effects than plot. I know this isn't what he had in mind. And, to be honest, neither did I. I certainly didn't plan on adopting any old rituals to remind you of him. That was, to be brutal here, absolutely the last fucking thing on my mind.

But you like routine. And we are different. We don't discuss the movies any more than to say it sucked or you liked it or I thought there needed to be more of Cameron Diaz's tits. We don't dissect, we don't evaluate it as to its impact or importance in our lives and we sure as hell don't go around finding plot parallels. Thank jeebus.

Well, not to each other. But something about this one, about the underdog girl getting the guy and it all working out in the end, even though it was still fucked up, well…that one struck a chord. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm not even close to the realm of daydreaming that you're lying in my bed, pretending to be asleep and watching me watch you, sighing like a fucking lovesick teenager from a fifties song, wishing that I'd crawl in there with you and just hold you and maybe kiss you. I'm wishing it! Does that matter?

Admittedly, the thought of holding you and kissing you and, because I am a teenager, feeling you up until your whole body is heavy with wanting and my cock is hard as a fucking sledgehammer does cross my mind. I'm not made of stone, you know. Well, not all of me. Bwah!

Back to blaming Dawson. He had to know, right? He knew I had a short lived thing for you back before the two of you finally admitted to your destiny, way back before it got all fucked up with other people and lies and families and everything. He knew I wanted to kiss you. How the fuck could he ask me to look after you? Especially knowing that I have this thing about women in distress. Save or screw, Pacey! Save or screw! Damn, that was some good Show Me Love-in' this morning.

Maybe he figures you're immune to my charm. Not that he's not wrong, but still, something of an ego blow there, good buddy. I mean, you're not made of stone either, right? Surely there's something in me that might get through to you. Yeah…his tongue! Hee! I'm twelve!

I reach over without thinking and run my thumb over your pulse. You're lying there so completely at ease, one arm extended off the bed, your hair a wild mess on my pillow. You move a little, the shifting of your body pulling the tank top a little tighter across your breasts. I took that out because it kinda sounds like he's molesting her in her sleep.

Jesus, when the women in the Potter family get breasts, they don't fucking fool around, do they? Hee!

Your pulse speeds up a little and you moan softly as I pull my hand away. I shift in my seat and lean back against the wall again, reaching down to adjust what had once been a mildly persistent ache in my cock, that is now a raging hard-on that isn't going to go away any time soon.

Let's practice this again. "No way, D. There's no way in hell I can hang around with Joey without one of us ending up dead, floating face down in the creek. It'll be a blood bath and it'll hang over your head." That's what I should have said. Should have stuck to my guns. Surely I can still get out of this, right? I mean, I just have to walk you home tomorrow morning, tell Bessie that I can't work on the up and coming B&B for a while because I've got something…schoolwork, except no one would believe that. But some excuse. I'm the king of excuses.

"Pace?"

I close my eyes as you whisper then turn my head to look at you. "Hey, Potter."

You lift up on both elbows and peer over the pillow at me, your head tilted slightly. I scoot forward so that you can see me a little better and, coincidentally, so I can see down your shirt just a little bit. Hee! I may not be willing to admit anything else, but I'll fully admit to being a horny 17-year-old.

You yawn, your nose crinkling cutely, then lift one of your hands to rub the sleep from your eyes. "What time is it?"

I look at the clock, glad for something to focus on that isn't sleepy, soft, downy flesh. I pull the blanket a little higher around my waist. "Four."

"Why are you still awake?"

"Are you kidding? There's an all night cartoon marathon."

"You have the Cartoon Network, Pace. That pretty much guarantees you an all night cartoon marathon every night."

"They're not always the classics though." Word. Some of them suck ass.

You yawn again, looking distrustful. Like you know that I've been watching you, thinking about you, wanting you. God, I want you. God, I wish I just wanted you. I wish I could just put it all aside as hormonal bullshit, but I can't because when I think about you, I don't just think about what you'd feel like and taste like and be like underneath me, what it would be like inside you. I think about spending time with you and being with you and holding you when you cry and helping you with stupid stuff that you don't really need help with you just pretend you do so you can be with me. He's just too damn perfect.

I think about how babysitting a little kid isn't so bad because it would mean I'd get to be with you and I think that maybe it wouldn't be so bad to go to college if it meant that you'd have to forgo any of the typical parties and shit to be with me and help me pass all my classes, even if they are the most basic and probably bore you out of your skull.

I think about waking up and looking at you and just stroking your hair and breathing you in. I think about making you breakfast of badly burned toast and undercooked waffles. I think about curling up on the couch and watching a game on TV while you read a book and sit between my legs, stroking my thigh occasionally, but mostly just turning the pages slowly until you're finished or you fall asleep on my chest.

And all of that scares the hell out of me. It should. She's a wishy-washy little bitch.

Because what started out as just a favor to a buddy, what was supposed to be looking in on you from time to time to make sure you were surviving without Dawson in your life, and I have to laugh at that one, because our friend Dawson doesn't seem to have any sort of ego issues, does he? But all of that has changed. Mutated. Become this weird thing that we're doing now and I don't know it and I don't understand it.

But it feels dangerously like I'm falling in love with you. And I guess I'd know, right? I loved Tamara. It was different, but I did love her. And Andie. I guess it wouldn't have hurt so much if I hadn't loved her. But I keep wondering because I went from one to the next with them, but with you it's like this long, slow build-up. It's like the slow unfolding of something that I don't understand and, when I think I might understand it, it frightens me so much I want to curl up under my bed and just hide from you.

Because you see me so well.

"What?"

I snap out of my reverie and note your scowl. "What, what?" Hee. He's so cute.

"You're staring at me."

"Beauty sleep's supposed to help, isn't it?"

"You're an asshole, Pacey."

"Someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed."

"Your bed's barely big enough to have sides."

"You slept on a couch for, what? Two years? I don't think you have much room to talk about the accommodations, Potter." Word. Shut it.

You smile and your eyes are soft, dark and liquid. I could get lost in those eyes. He's Debbie Gibson! Who am I kidding? I am lost in them. I've been lost for a long time. It just took me this long to figure it out.

And I don't know which is stupider. The fact that I took so long, the fact that I fell…or the fact that someday I just know I'm going to slip up and tell you.

"Are you going to go to sleep?" You reach over and poke me in the chest and for a brief instant, a flash of what it would be like to pull you off the bed and onto me and what it would feel like to have you touching me slices through my head. I catch my breath and shrug, not trusting my voice, not sure I can think now that every drop of blood is now pounding through my embarrassingly large erection. "Or are you really watching the Playboy channel and the cartoons are your cover-up in case I wake up." You grab the blanket that's covering me. "You're not jerking off under there, are you?"

Oh God, oh God, oh God. Don't lift up the fucking sheet, Potter. Please. Don't. Don't, don't, don't, because I don't want to explain and I don't want to lie to you and I don't want to look into your horrified eyes and see something that I won't be able to deal with. Hee! I love the repetition. Disgust. Desire.

You drop the blanket as if I've said something or maybe you figured something out on your own. Your eyes meet mine and I can't read them, can't fathom the expression in their depths. You smile a little and reach out, your fingers almost touching my cheek but missing as you fall back onto the bed. "On second thought, I don't want to know." There's a soft pause and I can hear your breathing and it's slightly off, panicked or frantic or, and I'm dreaming here, aroused. "Night, Pace."

I smile, unable to help myself, cursing Dawson in my head. I'm in love with my best friend's girl. Fuckin' A.

"Night, Potter."

Sigh. And, aw. I :luv this to little bits and pieces. It's so cute and funny and real. And reading it while S3 is re-airing just makes it so much sweeter. So good.

4/18/03