Fair Warning by Criss Moody
Date: November 27th, 2000
Disclaimer: Kevin Williamson and Sony own the characters and the concepts, duh. If I owned them Dawson would be…well, let's not ruin this nice story with gruesome violence.
Rating: Eh, R?
Content Warning: mentions of m/m sex and polyamory
Spoilers: For eps up through the senior prank ep, whatever that was.
Summary: Pacey gives Dawson fair warning of his stubbornness in this musing bit.
Notes: Inspired by the senior prank ep.
By now, you should know that I’m stubborn.
Hey, man, I am the guy who ate swallowed fifty raw eggs in seventh grade to prove that it wouldn't kill anyone. I think I rolfed most of my guts out, but I lived.
I'm not giving up on you Dawson.
I'm not giving up on our friendship, however tangled and beaten up it's lookin' right now. Yeah, so right now, our nearly lifelong bond seems pretty damned torn asunder. True, our future as crotchety old men arguing about who forgot to buy more hemorrhoid cream has vanished.
But my friend, love doesn't just go poof like that. In love, love, whatever, no strong emotion just evaporates in a split second.
Not in the miniscule amount of time it took Joey to pick me.
You survived, didn't you?
You picked up the pieces. In grand Dawson Leery fashion, you griped and moaned, and made a general dramatic annoyance of yourself until one day you even started to annoy yourself. Then, you were ready to admit something.
You were sick of being sick over Joey's choice.
You hated her choice, you hated me, and you wanted me to sleep with the proverbial fishes, but the endless moaning had to stop sometime. Eventually, the sun came out again and Dawson Leery noticed that he still had friends and parents who cared about him.
Luckily, the causes of the mope were out bobbing along the ocean's waves, and thus not rubbing your loss in your handsome face.
For three months anyway. In which time, you stewed in your hate for us, cataloguing our various sins. When the momentous occasion occurred, our arrival elicited the expected response from you.
You ignored us.
Real mature of you by the way. Even that stage, however, passed. Increment by increment, you emerged from your dark cloud of self-righteous indignation to see Joey's beautiful, hesitant smile peaking through.
Figures that Joey could make you get over deciding to hate us both forever.
Slowly, fucking painfully for your information, you started talking to Joey. Then came the day when you deigned to swap words with me. Civil they were not, but words they were indeed. The great freeze-out had ended.
Now, you've admitted that you might, everyone hold your breath, be able to be my friend again someday.
If this were a bad TV movie, I'd fall to my knees and weep for your forgiveness. Seeing as I'm not the weeping type, I'll pass.
I'd rather sink down and swallow your dick anyway.
The things the general population doesn't know about Dawson and Pacey.
Pacey did not steal the class' hamster fund in fourth grade; he covered for Dawson, who had taken it to buy a copy of The Goonies. Dawson hates chocolate, but he always bought it at the movies and gave it to Pacey.
Oh yeah, and Dawson and Pacey have been swapping blowjobs, handjobs, and general physical release since they hit puberty. To be perfectly honest, I've never really been into guys. Right, I've been sucking on you since I was thirteen, but other guys don't flip my switch. It's not like I'm gonna run out and jump Jack.
You, you I've always wondered about. Did you really never get anywhere with Jen because she stopped it or because you couldn't make yourself? Why haven't you taken the slightest advantage of my nubile and more than willing older sister? Don't give me the noble crap; Gretchen would fall on you in a heartbeat if you just smiled at her in the right way.
Nah, you get hot for one woman. Joey. As for your other carnal urges, I know you. I know the way you've eyed Jack when we've played touch football, when after gym we'd shower, you, I, and Jack all lined up, singing and joking. You reached for the soap and shampoo one too many times, brushing up against a hip, or a peaceful cock.
Why am I so sure you have a genuine lust for Joey?
Besides the fact that I know Potter could light anyone's flame, I know how you look when arousal hits you.
Your eyes widen, your nostrils clinch in, and you develop this lip licking fetish. That wet, talented pink tongue sweeps constantly over your thinned lips. Dead give away, that tongue.
Man, I miss that tongue, I really do.
The way I see all of this is pretty simple. On any day of the week, in any kind of situation, I can out stubborn you. You have the weakest will, my friend. One of these days, you'll get past the denial stage and walk right into panic.
You'll freak, you'll deny more, you'll cry out your straightness to all and sundry. Nope, Dawson Leery likes women, lots of 'em, all colors, shapes, and sizes. He doesn't like guys, not at all, nope. But there will be a niggling, persistent doubt whispering into your ear, pointing out some truths.
When you see me bend over my truck, you spring a hard-on. When Joey smiles, you damn near melt. And when you accidentally catch Potter and me playing kissy face, your mind tells you to feel jealousy, but your body tells you to it's time to stop pretending.
I don't know how this will all end up. For all I know, Joey and I will break up in two weeks. But I know that we'll still be friends, because that came first. And however my sexual encounters with you resolve, Dawson, I think our friendship should still come first. I'll be there when you're ready to forgive, and I won't gloat, too much.
I'm givin' you fair warning here, Dawson. I'm too stubborn to give up on you no matter how many times you take the passive aggressive tack, give a little acceptance, keep back a lot of friendship. But like everything else, that will change.
I'm looking forward to that.