Smokescreen
by: Brenda Antrim
"I just want everyone to do whatever
would make them happy."
"But then the planets would collide
and the sea would boil over with blood!"
Thinking back to Jen's semi-serious
reaction to his simple philosophy of life, Pacey sighed. Audrey had a
point. Lifelong friendships were nothing to sneeze at. Even when it
turned vaguely incestuous, leading Dawson to lose his virginity to Jen,
of all people ... although come to think of it, Dawson probably had much
the same reaction when Joey lost hers to Pacey. If ever there was a
screwed-up twosome it was Dawson and Joey. He clamped down hard on the
niggling thought that neither Joey nor Jen could have truly claimed
Dawson's virginity. After all, it had been a long time ago, and if
Dawson wanted to stay in denial, who was Pacey to forcefully pull him
out?
Pacey hadn't been a virgin in any sense
of the word for a long time. Which gave him a rather unique perspective
on his friends' various relationship dilemmas. And which led him to
precisely where he was now, on his afternoon off, listening to Jack moan
about his best friend's pre-conceived notions of fraternities mixed with
reluctant relief he didn't want to admit from dumping Tobey, after
spending most of the previous evening listening to Joey talk herself
into not being hurt by Jen giving Dawson a bit more care-taking than
she'd expected. He glanced over at Jack, slumped on the couch glowering
at his shoes, who'd talked himself around until somehow it was Jen's
fault that Tobey got hurt since she was the one who'd pushed the match
to begin with. Pacey sighed a little louder.
"Where there's smoke there's
fire," he inserted when Jack had to pause for breath. Jack gave him
a funny sideways glance making it absolutely clear that was a non
sequitur, and Pacey sighed again. He thought he'd been following the
conversation better than that.
"If you hadn't been attracted to
Tobey there'd've been no results to her matchmaking efforts, regardless
of how her heart was set on him for you. And if you hadn't been spending
so much time with your new circle of friends that she's practically
forgotten what you look like, she wouldn't be thinking in terms of keg
parties and monosyllabic proto-humans instead of the warm, caring,
epitome of cool you know your brothers to be."
Jack dropped his head back against the
sofa and closed his eyes, adding a sigh of his own to the ambiance,
which was pretty sigh-laden already from Pacey's own contributions.
"You don't understand, Pace --"
he started. Pacey barely managed not to roll his eyes, but he did cut
off the refrain before the seven hundredth repetition.
"Yeah, I know, none of us
understand. I have a proposition for you." Jack opened one eye and
glared half-heartedly at him. "Make me understand. Show me that Jen
and the rest of your concerned family of friends are over-reacting.
Prove to me that your fraternal brothers are not trying to separate you
from hearth and Grams' home."
"How'm I supposed to do that when
you won't believe what I tell you about them?" Jack grumped,
opening the other eye and fixing them both balefully on Pacey.
"Date me."
When Jack finally stopped laughing and
picked himself up off the floor, Pacey gave him a reproving look.
"I promise not to jump you." He paused for another round of
levity from Jack, then calmly finished. "Take me to one of your
house parties. Show me off to the brothers. Pretend to be seriously
interested in me and let's see what their reactions are. Since neither
of us has any actual emotional investment in intimacy, we can stay
objective and gauge the situation without any of Tobey's hurt feelings
or your defensiveness on the fraternal behalf."
Jack opened his mouth, probably to object
to being called defensive, then snapped it shut. A calculating look
crossed his face, then he grinned. "You're on. Saturday?"
Pacey shook his head. "Have to work.
Friday?"
"Done!"
There was a little too much glee in the
handshake that followed, but Pacey let it slide. He had a point to make,
and he was going to make it. Then maybe at least one of his friends
would stop complaining and get on with his life.
He'd worry about the Bermuda triangle of
Jen, Dawson and Joey later.
Jack looked good. He also looked
surprised. Pacey glanced down at the black jeans, blood-red shirt open
just enough to show a little chest hair, and leather jacket he'd
borrowed from Danny.
"What?" he asked, spreading his
hands wide. "Not up to your usual standards?" Jack swallowed.
Pacey smirked at him. Jack grinned back, although his eyes were still a
little wide and the grin was a little lopsided.
"You'll do," he finally said.
"C'mon," he tossed over his shoulder, brushing past Pacey
where he stood on Grams' step and starting off down the sidewalk.
"Not even a hello kiss?" Pacey
whined. Jack glanced up at him, about to make a smart-ass comment, when
Pacey raised a hand in truce. "Seriously." Jack tripped over
his own feet. "Well, maybe not seriously about the kiss. But we
can't get a true reading of your fraternity's attitude toward outside
distractions in the form of a boyfriend if you treat me like I've got a
contagious disease. So c'mere." He held out an arm. Jack gave him a
mildly uncertain look then ducked under it. Pacey let it fall across his
shoulders, striving to make it appear affectionate, not as if he was
trying to keep Jack from bolting. "Better, yes?"
Jack snorted. Yes, the perfect way to
begin a date.
By the time they got to the frat house,
Jack's nerves were a little less obviously about to jump through his
skin. Pacey was enjoying the body heat, not having his usual layer of
undershirt and pullover to keep him from freezing his chest off in the
wet December weather. Leather was good cover for his back, but his
nipples were standing out, and while it looked relatively sexy in a
sleazy, paid-for kind of way, blue wasn't a good color on him. At least,
not when it was his skin tone.
Lights blazed at the frat house and the
party spilled down the steps out onto the brick walkway. The strong
smell of beer, sweat, stale perfume and various kinds of smoke, legal
and otherwise, proclaimed the success of the gathering. Pacey stifled a
grin when Jack stiffened and started to pull away. Ducking his head, he
deliberately nuzzled the patch of skin right below Jack's ear.
"Showtime!" he murmured.
Jack shivered. Stopped trying to pull
away. Stayed stiff.
Hmm. Pacey glanced down at his friend,
noting how Jack refused to look at him, probably because his eyes were
too busy darting wildly in every direction. Pacey's grin broke free.
Okay. It was going to be more fun than
he'd originally expected. Still, he was there on a mission, and he would
keep his wits about him and his eyes wide open.
"Pete," Jack greeted a guy
guzzling beer like he'd spent the last week in the Sahara. "Mosky,
Polar Bear, Brady, Blossom." He nodded to each, and as Pacey was
repeating internally, 'Polar bear?' Jack waved a hand under Pacey's
chin.
"This is Pacey." No further
explanation for the big guy with the goofy grin who'd just been licking
his neck. Pacey managed to not laugh out loud, but it took some effort.
Holding out the hand that wasn't wrapped tightly around Jack's shoulder
in the general direction of the group, he said cheerfully,
"Hi!"
Mumbled, half-drunk and generally
friendly greetings followed, along with handshakes ranging from
inappropriately hearty to limp fish. Pacey felt his grin harden. Jen was
a very observant girl. These dudes might have been all for Jack joining
them, and that was understandable given that Jack was a decent guy, but
whatever they told the Dean, they weren't particularly sanguine about a
boy tagging along with their gay buddy. Made it all too real.
Tolerance was tough even when sincere,
and when it was mandated, it was impossible. He felt a twinge of pain
for Tobey. The kid would have been toast in ten minutes with these guys.
Pacey, on the other hand, was a different story. He didn't cave easily.
Or at all, for that matter.
Plus, he wasn't actually in love with
Jack, so he could have a lot of fun fucking with these guys' minds.
The evening progressed about as he
expected from that point on. He stuck to soft drinks, watching the
interplay between Jack and his frat brothers, who seemed to genuinely
like him as long as they didn't have to look at Pacey. Oddly enough,
they seemed to genuinely like Pacey, too, as long as he wasn't actually
touching Jack. Even weirder to Pacey, since he wasn't used to being
taken for a queer and so was unaccustomed to the phenomenon, the girls
loved both Jack and Pacey. Jack was oblivious to the by-play, in large
part because he still seemed off-balance by Pacey's 'date look'. Pacey
caught him staring at his chest half a dozen times.
This, of course, made Jack nervous, and
that made Jack drink. Since he didn't have the hardest head at the best
of times, it took very little beer for Jack to start to relax. Pacey
divided his time between avoiding the girls who were determined to hit
on him, covertly watching the frat boys' reactions every time he touched
Jack, and watching Jack's back. The first got trickier as the night wore
on, the second reaffirmed his initial impressions, and the third was a
hell of a lot more fun than he'd thought it would be.
Musing on the fit of Jack's jeans, Pacey
faced a small hidden home truth. He was pissed off about Dawson and Jen.
He was also happy for them. The emotional dichotomy was palatable simply
because it was the truth, and he gave a mental shrug of acceptance,
which was all one could do with truth.
Dawson had a lot of issues. He'd probably
put the afternoons he and Pacey spent out in the woods and up in his
room in a box marked 'experiments' and never thought of them again. So
in his own mind he had been a virgin. The little voice in Pacey's brain
that usually irritated the shit out of him asked if Jen hadn't been a
little payback for Pacey having Joey, but that would put Joey losing her
virginity and Dawson losing his, with a girl anyway, on the level of a
game of one-upsmanship between Dawson and Pacey. That completely
disrespected both Jen and Joey, and Pacey didn't like to think he would
do that.
Before he could follow his internal
debate to any conclusion, logical or otherwise, he saw a vampiric blonde
bearing down on him. Placing her as the girlfriend of one of the seniors
in the frat, a Brother of Power in Jack's book, Pacey took
counter-measures. Moved two steps forward and one to the right, set his
Coke down on a handy table and ran his hand down the inseam of Jack's
jeans.
Blondie froze mid-step. Pacey looked as
lustfully as possible at Jack. Jack jumped.
Turned mid-air and landed in Pacey's
arms.
Ha. Well, that was one way to head off
attack. A Jack-shield. Jack's eyes were huge and dilated. He smelled
vaguely of beer and stress. He fit right under Pacey's chin. And he was
hard as a rock.
Then he reached up and bit Pacey's neck.
Okay, so they were both hard as rocks.
Pacey's neck had always been a vulnerable point. It had been an
emotional couple weeks. He hadn't gotten laid in awhile. Jack was more
than willing and Pacey was horny. Reams of rationalizations went through
his mind in the nanoseconds before he took Jack up on his invitation,
but when it came down to it, there was only one reason.
It felt good.
Admitting to himself that he was an
unrepentant hedonist, Pacey caught Jack under the chin with his left
hand, brought his face up for a kiss, and wrapped his right arm around
Jack's waist, pulling him in close. Things got a little hazy. Jack was
hungry, much hungrier than Pacey expected, and it was obvious to him at
least that if he hadn't gotten any for awhile, it had been much longer
for Jack.
Not inexperienced when it came to lip
action, Pacey let Jack at him for a moment before gradually assuming
control, calming it down, steadying it out. Gentling it until they were
exploring rather than ravaging. He chased Jack's tongue back into his
mouth and played with it, pulling back to nip at his lower lip before
bathing it with the tip of his tongue, soothing the tiny bite before
sliding back into another long nibbling kiss.
Eventually he became aware of a pool of
silence surrounding them. Jack didn't notice, still concentrating on
Pacey's mouth, but Pacey did. He glanced up through his lashes,
carefully, slowly turning to shield Jack from the crowd, ready for the
scene to turn ugly. Head Frat Boy, Blondie at his side, started forward,
and Pacey tensed. Jack finally realized something was up and tried to
pull away, but Pacey kept him in place with a hand cupping the back of
his head. They had to let it play out, if Jack was ever going to know
the truth. Then events took an unexpected turn.
"God, that is so hot!" Blondie
hissed.
Head Frat Boy paused. Looked at his
girlfriend, who was watching Jack and Pacey with an avidity usually
reserved for feral carnivores at the sight of fresh bloody meat. Head
Frat Boy looked slowly from Blondie to the clinch Pacey was still
maintaining, although Jack was shifting restlessly.
"Really?" Head Frat Boy quizzed
his girlfriend.
"Oh, yeah," murmured a brunette
off to the side. The jock next to her, who'd been ready to back up his
buddy for a little fag-bashing, looked confused, then vaguely hopeful.
"Very," Blondie affirmed. A
redhead a few feet away nodded, adding her own "Oh, baby, is it
ever!" to the mix.
Interesting. Pacey absently traced Jack's
upper lip with his tongue and every woman in line of sight to the action
perked up. Their boyfriends were too busy looking at them to pay any
attention to Jack and Pacey. So, Jack might have another point in his
favor.
Mandated tolerance wouldn't work, but if
having Jack around got the guys laid, they'd welcome him with truly open
arms.
Blondie then latched on to Head Frat Boy,
and the build-up of hostility collapsed into random spouts of lust.
Pacey grinned against Jack's mouth and drew away.
Well, he tried to draw away. Except Jack
had enough beer in his system to not give a shit what his frat brothers
thought, and Pacey's neck was right there. Within biting distance. And
Jack was still hungry. Pacey's moan took him by surprise. Then Jack
grabbed hold of his arm and started hauling him up the stairs. Still
chewing on his neck. Pacey's eyes weren't focusing real well, but the
rest of his body was on overdrive. He noticed in his peripheral vision
that couples all along the stairway were making out, and he counted at
least five separate gropes, not all of them from females, before Jack
pulled him through a door into a small room.
In the thirty seconds he had to
reconnoiter before Jack pushed him on the bed, Pacey noticed three
important things. There was a bed, and only one bed, which was a big
plus. No roomies to break the mood with an inopportune appearance. The
door had a lock, and Jack automatically turned it. And there was a
bottle of hand lotion on the stand beside the bed. All good things.
Then he landed on the bed, and Jack
landed on top of him, and he was too busy trying to breathe to fight as
Jack stripped him off with more enthusiasm than grace. Not that he would
have fought very hard. Or at all, for that matter, he thought, staring
up as Jack stripped himself even faster than he'd stripped Pacey.
Danny's leather jacket was halfway across the room, his shirt was on the
floor, sans a few buttons, and his shoes were peeled off along with his
jeans. He toed off his socks as Jack tossed his own clothes on top of
Pacey's, then reached for the waistband of his boxers.
Jack got there first. With a surprisingly
wicked look, Jack nuzzled all along the front of Pacey's boxers, until
Pacey was well on his way to bursting through the cotton. Toss some beer
down him, shed the boy of his boyfriend and a few inhibitions, and Jack
put on one hell of a show. Pacey enjoyed every moment of it. Eventually,
after he'd outlined Pacey's erection from his balls to the leaking head,
several times, Jack took pity and carefully peeled the boxers down.
With his teeth.
By this point, Pacey was hanging on to
the pillow with both hands, clenching his teeth and trying not to
scream, buck Jack off, or come. Jack nudged the elastic down until it
was caught under Pacey's balls, pushing them up away from his thighs and
giving Jack the perfect angle to chow down on them. Pacey's eyes shut
and his toes curled. His fingers ached from fisting the pillow so hard,
and all the nerves from his tailbone radiating in every direction were
on fire. He'd never actually come just from having his balls played
with, but there was a first time for everything.
Thankfully before he lost him mind
completely, Jack pulled back. Pacey unwrapped his hands from the pillow
and shucked his boxers before Jack could change his mind, gasping in
relief when the twisted waistband stopped binding him. Jack reached for
him again, but Pacey had other things on his mind, and a tipsy Jack was
no match for a determined Pacey. Jack found himself flat on his back
with Pacey's tongue in his mouth and Pacey's hand milking his cock
before he knew what was coming.
Then it was Jack's turn to squirm, and
plead, and moan. It had been a long time since Pacey'd done this with
another guy, and Dawson hadn't been the most adventurous playmate even
then, but Pacey had a lot of other experience to draw on, and he did.
One thing he'd been taught from his first lover was to concentrate on
his partner's reactions, and he had an innate ability to focus
completely on the person with him. Jack didn't stand a chance.
The hollow of his collar bone made him
wriggle, so Pacey's teeth spent some quality time there. As did the skin
just below his right nipple, and the line along the bottom of his ribs,
and the crease where his thigh joined his pelvis, and the very tip of
his cock. By the time Pacey drew back, leaning on one elbow to judge the
effects of his efforts, Jack was literally mindless. He was dripping
sweat, leaking copiously, and begging to come. It was a good look for
him.
Stroking Jack's cock firmly from base to
tip over and over, Pacey gave him what he needed. Jack shuddered as he
came, arching off the bed, head digging back into the pillow, hands
scrabbling at the sheets. Pacey found himself whimpering along with Jack
as he shivered through his orgasm, rolling nearer to free up a hand so
he could tug at his own balls to keep from coming in sympathy. He wasn't
quite through with Jack yet. He'd spent most of the evening, when he
wasn't watching the frat boys, staring at Jack's ass, and he wasn't
going to give up 'til he got it.
Fucking was fucking, and Pacey liked it.
A lot. Jack wasn't nearly as experienced as Pacey was, and Pacey had the
notion that maybe, if Jack knew what he was missing, he wouldn't be
quite so quick to toss it away in favor of his fraternity fellowship.
Particularly when the other fellows all purported to be straight.
After the gropefest on the trip up the
stairs, Pacey wasn't too sure about that.
Still, Jack had lube. Slicking his hand
through the mess on Jack's belly, Pacey gently stroked it down between
his thighs, feeling for the opening. Taking his free hand away from his
own balls with a deep breath, determined to finish this right, he yanked
the drawer on the night stand open and sighed with relief. Yeah, Jack
had condoms, too. Brand new box. Never opened.
Poor Tobey.
Glancing down at Jack, humping his hand
lazily, Pacey grinned. Pulled out a condom, and pulled his hand away
from exploring Jack's hole long enough roll one on. He had to take a few
more deep breaths, and bite his lip a time or two, but he got the damned
thing on without going off prematurely. Jack's eyes were open now,
pretty hazy but tracking him, and Pacey leaned down to kiss him. From
the enthusiastic tongue-wash he got, it was clear Jack was up for Round
Two. Pacey broke the kiss and looked down at him.
Sliding a lotion-sloppy finger in and
playing with the muscle, loose from Jack's climax, Pacey asked softly,
"Yes?" Jack tried to speak, couldn't get his tongue to work,
and settled for nodding vigorously. Pacey would have laughed, but he was
so hard by that time he hurt, and he decided levity could wait for
later. Settling down between Jack's thighs, opening with alacrity for
him, he steadied himself and gently thrust.
Jack howled.
Pacey tried to draw back. After all, if
that was the reaction he got just from the head going in, the whole
thing would kill him.
Jack growled, wrapped both legs around
Pacey's waist and both arms around his shoulders, and pushed.
Pacey nearly passed out. Forget killing
Jack. It just might kill Pacey. Fucking might be fucking, and the
mechanics might be the same, but the sensation was completely different.
It felt like he'd put his dick in a vise, or maybe a milking machine.
Hot and tighter than he would have believed possible and if he pumped
he'd surely tear off his skin but if he didn't move he was going to die.
Not that he had a choice in the matter.
Jack leaned over and latched onto the side of Pacey's neck with his
teeth, and that settled it. Pacey was thrusting before he could stop
himself, and from the way Jack was yelping into his neck, and the grip
Jack had on his waist, it must have been fine with him. Then Pacey was
holding Jack almost as hard as Jack was holding Pacey, and he was
coming. Jack enjoyed it so much he came again, and Pacey hadn't even
realized he was hard. He knew it when it happened, though, because
Jack's ass grabbed hold of Pacey's cock and nearly squeezed it off, and
Pacey came harder than he'd ever come in his life.
Several centuries later, Pacey managed to
make his arms move. Grabbed the edge of the condom and eased out. Jack
groaned, and Pacey would have apologized, except the groan was a prequel
to falling dead asleep, and it wasn't worth waking him up. Pacey dropped
the detritus in the wastebasket, shoved Jack far enough over to be able
to lie down without squashing him or falling off the edge of the bed,
and fell asleep nearly as quickly as Jack had.
Morning came too early. Pacey felt pretty
damned amazing, not surprising since he hadn't gotten drunk and he had
gotten laid. Jack woke up with a whimper, pulling the pillow over his
face and hiding. Pacey looked down the length of the body pressed up
against his and noticed the early-morning hard-on not even a hangover
could kill.
"You okay, Jack?" he asked
quietly, running his hand down Jack's side.
"Am I dead?" Jack groaned.
Pacey grinned, then reached over and ran his fingertips down the length
of Jack's erection. Jack jumped.
"Doesn't feel like it." He
waited for protest, but all he got was a tentative nudge of Jack's cock
into his palm. "Headache?" Pacey continued in a conversational
tone, closing his fingers around Jack's erection and jacking it slowly.
Jack moaned.
"Shall I take that as a yes?"
Pacey grinned and moved his hand a little faster. Jack's hips moved,
colliding with Pacey's own erection. There was a moment's pause, then
Jack shoved his ass back harder, rubbing along Pacey and ripping a moan
out of him that matched Jack's.
Going with the cues he was given, Pacey
slid his cock between Jack's cheeks, enjoying the heat and the pressure.
Jack liked it too, judging by the way he was writhing and the sounds he
was making. Pacey felt the tension rise in his balls and sped up his
movements, fore and aft, rubbing a little harder, pulling a little
faster. Jack responded by shivering against him and coming hard. Pacey
felt the muscles clench as Jack's ass tightened, and let himself go,
groaning as he came, then slowing down, enjoying the friction as he
softened. Patting Jack gently, he withdrew far enough for Jack to turn
over and face him.
Jack looked confused. Sated. Pale.
Interested. Pacey grinned at him.
"Okay," Jack said slowly.
"What exactly was that?"
"Which part? Or in toto?" Pacey
teased.
"Don't throw Latin at me when I've
just had my mind blown," Jack grumbled. Pacey quirked a brow.
"No, that we didn't do. Weren't you
paying attention?"
Jack smacked him half-heartedly. Looking
as serious as he could, given that he was naked, well-fucked, and in bed
with a guy he'd thought until the previous night was straight, he
waited. Pacey caved.
"That, my friend, is what is known
as a buddy-fuck. If you hadn't been going through serious periods of
angst over gender orientation instead of noticing what was going on
around you, you'd've been aware of this universal phenomenon long
ago."
That earned him a bright, crooked grin.
"Why didn't I know this about you before?"
Pacey shrugged. "I have depths
unplumbed. Less than you now have, I will say." Jack blushed bright
red and squirmed. Pacey grinned back at him. Then he sobered. "I
think we know one thing for sure."
"What? That I'm easy? Or that you're
good in bed?" The blush was fading, and Jack looked less confused
and even more interested.
"No, I'm talking about things we
didn't know before." Jack growled at him and Pacey patted his head
gently. "I think your frat brothers are okay with you, now that
they know having a gay couple around can be an aphrodisiac to their
girlfriends." The blush started to rise again. Pacey ignored it.
"That being said, I think you have a phone call to make." The
confusion came back. "And an apology. To Tobey."
The blush went away quicker than it came,
leaving Jack pale enough to qualify as dead. "Why do I need
Tobey?" The shakiness in his voice belied his attempt at
nonchalance. Pacey shook his head.
"Because Tobey actually loves you.
And even if you don't get back together with him, he deserves better
than to be left on the curb like abandoned luggage."
Pulling away with one final pat, Pacey
crawled out of bed and rummaged for his clothes. He had to get ready for
work, and Jack had a lot to think about. Pausing at the door, he looked
back at Jack, who lay sprawled against the pillows, staring at him.
"Of course, if you're ever in need
of a smokescreen again, or a buddy, you know who to call." He was
grinning as he headed off down the pathway. Jack was kind of cute with
his mouth hanging open like that. Two blocks away from the frat house,
he passed the coffee shop. Glancing through the window, he saw Jen and
Dawson, totally engrossed in one another.
Another problem for another day.
E-mail
Brenda