Smokescreen, by Sue Castle. Rated NC17, no copyright infringement intended.

"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.

end