Disclaimer: If you enter my house by the secret back way, you will encounter a staircase. Go up it. Once you reach the top, walk forwards. You will see a long corridor, lined with identical white doors. Push open the third door on the right, and step inside. In the main body of the room you can observe, in their natural habitat, the Hyperus Hyperus, the Moviebuffus Dorkus, the Blondus Badgirlus, the Gayus Artboyus, the Humorous Loserus and the Vicious Waitressus. Sorry, writing this chapter got me down. I don't own the song 'Lucky Man' by the Verve. Post it anywhere, I don't care.
Spoilers: After 'Parental Discretion Advised' at the end of the second season.
Author's note: As you can tell, I specialise in highly sarcastic disclaimers. Please don't take any of them seriously. I hope you've already read the previous Author's Note. If you haven't, go back and do it now. I know that I am heavily drawing on other people's work. But I'm also trying very hard to personalise, so please bear with me. If you don't send constructive feedback, this page will self-destruct 5 seconds after you reach the bottom.
Summary: Voulez-vous faisez un pour moi? Non? Pourqoui pas?
Rating: PG-13
Happiness - more or lessWalking up Seafair Drive towards Jen's - and now Jack's - house, he paused a moment to look at Dawson's house. He'd never seen it like this before - so silent and still. The Leery household being quiet was something of a contradiction in terms.
It's just a change in me something in my liberty
Oh my mindHappiness - comin' and goin'
I watch you livin' I watch my fever grow and I know
Just where I am
There was the house he'd spent countless afternoons, days, even nights, with both Joey and Dawson. Since they were all five years old, they'd been the Three Musketeers. Inseparable throughout all the awkwardness of adolescence, throughout the bad periods of Joey's childhood - and his own. The Leery house had been the place he and Joey could come to receive cookies and care, where there were happy parents who weren't constantly harping on faults, where there were parents who weren't dying, or dealing in drugs. Where the golden boy Dawson, his best friend and hers, would be waiting with a fresh stack of obscure movies and criticisms of same to cheer both of them up and make them think that life might be worth living after all. Even after Joey and he grew apart, reduced in the main to slinging insults, they had still shared this sense of Dawson's house - and Dawson's closet, in particular to Joey - as their sanctuary to forget about their own problems.
Brushing at a fly, one hand hit his slightly
swollen nose, and he winced at this reminder of the brutally real present.
Turning to walk up Jen's path, he glanced once more, wistfully, at the
darkened bulk of the Leery house, then, steeling himself to be his 'usual'
wisecracking self, he rang Jen's bell.
Well how many corners do I have to turnJen opened it to him, laughing at some unknown joke, with Jack standing behind her, also semi-hysterical. Glad somebody's able to enjoy themselves, he thought sardonically, hating himself at the same time for begrudging their happiness. But how could he not? Jealousy always produces hate, he reasoned to himself. But it didn't make him feel any better.
How many times do I have to learn
All the love I have is in my mindBut I'm a lucky man
The fire in my hands
"Pacey!" exclaimed Jen, smiling, which made him feel a little warmer inside. "Where've you been? Haven't seen you in so long."
Pacey instantly went on cheerful autopilot, as he always did when confronted with someone who actually seemed to be in a good mood. As he'd done constantly in front of his friends for the last three weeks or so. But then again, when was the last time he had a serious conversation with Jen? Probably not since Joey and Dawson first got together. God, that was a long time ago. "Been working at Screen Play a lot. I'm sure you've heard about that from Dawson. He's sure heard about it from me."
"Yeah, I heard about that, anyway," said Jack, smiling.
"So what's so funny?"
"Nothing," said Jack and Jen simultaneously, glancing at each other and simultaneously breaking up again. Pacey felt unreasonably irritated. He was used to private jokes; ten years of observing the relationship between Joey and Dawson was enough to give him a pretty thick skin. Still..... Does everyone have to be enjoying themselves so damn much right now?
Jen, sharp as she'd always been, caught the look on his face and stopped laughing, making a cutting motion to Jack with her left hand that Pacey pretended to ignore. "Hey, do you wanna come in? We're following Dawson's bad example and having a Spielberg marathon, seeing as he's not even around to force us to any more."
Strangely, the very mention of Dawson's idol was enough to make him feel a little better. "What's showing?"
"Saving Private Ryan, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, and Jaws," answered Jack, mock-glaring at Jen, who pretended to glare back. "Einstein here insisted on the last one. Grams is out at a prayer meeting, so we have the house to ourselves."
"Grams? Since when do you call Mrs. Ryan Grams?"
Jack shrugged, and bent over to scratch his ankle. "I followed Jen's example, I guess. Too formal calling her Mrs. Ryan when she's feeding me and letting me stay here. Besides, she doesn't seem to mind."
"That reminds me, Jen. How've you two been getting on?"
"What, me and Jack?"
He grinned in spite of himself, and found himself quoting Andie. "Don't play dumb. When dumb people play dumb, it's very disconcerting." Jen smiled. Jack shot him a strange look. Oops.
"We haven't been getting on too badly, actually. She's stopped trying to get me to go to church, although she has tried to drag Jack a couple of times. But we can both live with that. The only problem came when I stubbed my toe on the table, and accidentally - " she smirked at Jack - "said shit. But she got over that one in time."
Ever-so-subtly changing the subject, he
moved up to the top step. "So, are you letting me in or not?"
Happiness - somethin' in my own placeCollapsing onto Jen's couch as she and Jack settled in one on either side of him, he felt wanted - at least a little - for the first time in a long time.
I'm standing naked with a smile and I feel no disgrace
With who I amHappiness - comin' and goin'
I watch you livin' I watch my fever grow and I know
Just who I am
"I thought I'd suffered enough with this movie after Dawson and Joey broke up for the first time. In the week after that, I lived through this twice, the entire Indiana Jones series, E.T. four times, if you can believe that, and Jurassic Park and The Lost World. I seriously considered taking a butcher's knife to that collector's item."
"Yeah, I know what you mean," agreed Jen, picking up a bag of popcorn from under the couch and passing it to Jack, who threw some at his mouth and missed in a characteristic gesture. "Before he left with his mom, I went through two all-night movie marathons. Every single one of which seemed to heavily involve someone falling in love with their best friend. I fell asleep halfway through the second one. And woke up to hear Dawson talking to his stuffed shark."
"What's his deal with that thing?" asked Jack, passing a packet of Twizzlers to Jen.
"I don't know. It's something special between him and Joey. I never really caught on to the significance."
"It's nostalgia," cut in Pacey, smiling almost wistfully at the memories. "He and Joey used to play Jaws in his closet. It's - I don't know - a childhood thing. Like the E.T. doll, only more. Speaking of everyone's favorite aspiring director, where have all our four-syllable words gone?"
"That's not really speaking of everyone's favorite aspiring director," pointed out Jack. Smiling, Jen reached across the couch to hit him playfully, banging Pacey's face in the process. He winced, but neither of them seemed to notice.
" I don't know. I mean, he seems to use them pretty naturally, so we all kind of followed his lead. But I prefer talking like a normal person." Jen lowered the volume slightly.
"I guess. Although I kinda miss having Dawson around to say things like 'I am eternally lost as a species on this planet.' " Pacey laughed. "I never did figure out what that was supposed to mean."
"When was that?" asked Jack, leaning back into the couch again.
"The night before his birthday. He calls me at quarter to midnight and insists I come over. So I rush over there, expecting a complete disaster rivaling the time Joey ripped a hole in the stuffed Jaws, and I get a speech about how everyone else is going on with their lives whereas he's just stagnating. I told him to be definitive, and he announced he was going to get Joey back and took off out the door."
Jen laughed again. "Same old -" She cut off abruptly. "Pacey, your nose is bleeding."
Instinctively, his hand moved to cover his nose, and came away sticky. "Damn. Got a kleenex?"
Jen dug one out of a pocket and passed it to him, muting the TV. "How did that happen?"
He tried his best to look innocent and honest. "What happen? C'mon, Jen, it's just a nosebleed."
"Except that you never get nosebleeds." Jen looked at him narrowly. "Dawson told me that once. That you always used to laugh when he and Joey did, and boast that it never happened to you. And I hurt you when I hit you in the face. I saw that. Plus, you can't even look me in the eye and say it." Jack was watching silently.
He shrugged. "I walked into a door." Jen continued to eye him, her face expressing blatant disbelief.
"Yeah right, Pacey. That's something twinkletoes
over there would do. Not you. Tell the truth."
Well how many corners do I have to to turnHe sighed. Nothing left to do but go for it. "My dad hit me," he said quietly, looking down into his lap. He could feel both Jen's and Jack's eyes on him in the silence that followed. Having gone so far, he felt a suicidal tendency to go all the way. Looking up and staring straight ahead at Jaws, still playing silently onscreen, he added, "Do you know that I've never told anyone that before? He didn't do it very often when I was younger, and it was easy to cover up to Joey and Dawson. Joey never took much interest in anything to do with me anyway, and - well, you know how oblivious the D-man is. And he hadn't done it for a while. Not since I was about thirteen. But he does it more now. And harder." He gave a short, bitter laugh. "And finally someone notices, and of course it's the people who only came to Capeside this year. Not the people who've known me for years, and are supposed to care about me." As the silence intensified, he looked down into his lap again, and said, even more quietly, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that."
How many times do I have to learn
All the love I have is in my mindI hope you understand
I hope you understand
Jack cleared his throat. "Did you ever tell Andie?"
He flushed. "No. I would've if he was still doing it when we were together, but he stopped long before we met. He started doing it again after she left, really. And she's got enough to worry about now. She doesn't need any more from me."
He forced himself to look up again, and his eyes caught Jen's. It was the sympathy that undid him.
"I think I'm going crazy," he said, his voice breaking, and the barriers that had been building up in his mind for weeks collapsing. "I have no-one to talk to, and I can't bear to be in that house any more. Doug does nothing but get on my case. My sisters are gone. My mom might as well be on Mars. And you know about my dad. Andie's gone. Dawson's gone. And have you tried having a reasonable conversation with Joey lately? And I just didn't feel like I could come to you guys. I don't know you well enough to unload all of my troubles on you and expect you to help me." He stared into space, red-eyed, a single tear trickling slowly down his face, aware of Jen's hand gently rubbing his shoulder. Jack was just watching silently, slightly shocked. "Do you know I sat on the dock this afternoon and I seriously considered throwing myself off? I thought about you and Abby, Jen, and I wished it had been me. I couldn't stand it. I don't know if I can go on without her any more."
Jen said gently, "I've been there, Pacey. And you have to come back from the edge. If you'd killed yourself, we would never have forgiven you." She flushed slightly as Pacey looked her full in the face. "Okay, maybe that was a bad choice of words. But if you killed yourself, you'd kill Andie. And Dawson. And Joey, even. And me and Jack as well. And your family do care about you, Pacey. I know that you won't believe me - "
"I used to believe that," he said lifelessly. "I used to tell myself that they really did care, and just couldn't express it. But I can't any more." He couldn't look at either of them any more; burying his face in his hands, he sighed, as tears leaked between his fingers. Jen pulled his head onto her shoulder gently, and spoke to him softly.
"So what stopped you? Why didn't you jump?"
"I couldn't do that to Andie," he said, muffled. "I couldn't hurt her like that. I know she cares about me, even if no-one else does. And she doesn't need something like that right now."
"Then that's what you have to hold onto. Remember that you have a reason to live, Pacey. That's all you need." Jen was still stroking his shoulder, like the mother he'd never really had. He was tempted, so tempted, to cry on and on, to let out the emotions of sixteen years in one tumultuous burst, but he couldn't. He couldn't bring himself to let down his guard any further; he felt slightly shocked at himself for having let it down this far.
Suddenly embarrassed, he jerked to his feet and ran his hands through his hair, swiping at the tears. "I.... I gotta go," he got out, yanking the door open and running. He could dimly hear Jen calling after him, concern in her voice, but he kept running.
Always running, he thought with disgust, as the main street pounded past. Always running away. Can't face up to anything. His face twisted. Coward.
People were looking at him, at the boy running like a scared dog, but he could barely see them through the blur of his vision. He didn't know where he was running to; sarcastically, he thought; I guess I'll know when I get there.
If I ever get there.
The streets went on.
Happiness, more or less
It's just a change in me something in my liberty
Happiness, comin' and goin'
I watch you livin' I watch my fever grow and I knowOh my mind
Oh my mind
Oh my mindIt's just a change in me something in my liberty