Disclaimer: I don’t own Dawson’s Creek. Columbia TriStar and the WB and Kevin Williamson? Paul Stupin? etc., all people who are not me, do. Good enough?

Author’s Note: I didn’t start watching Dawson’s Creek until mid-third season, and so I missed all of the Pacey/Andie and Dawson/Joey. But I’ve done my best to write them how I think they would sound. Also, I don’t dislike the D/J relationship, per say, but I think Dawson is selfish, low, and a lot of other non-complimentary things. But don’t worry! I won’t let it influence my writing.

Setting: Everything else happened, but none of the D/J. Andie and Pacey are together, so I guess sometime second season, and Jen might or might not have dated Dawson, but the important part is, she isn’t dating him now. From Joey’s POV. (Point Of View) Also, Dawson’s parents arrangements may be messed up. I’m sorry! Like I said, I haven’t seen the show at that point.

Chapter One

*************

I still can’t figure out exactly what happened. One minute, I was enjoying an old movie in the company of my best friend, and the next minute, I was kissing him like there was no tomorrow, and there probably wasn’t, for our relationship, anyway. But the thing that scared me most was that I was loving every second of it.

We fumbled with zippers a little, and kissed an hour or two away, but we didn’t really do anything. Around quarter to one in the morning, Dawson tucked me beneath the sheets of his bed, still fully clothed, kissed my forehead, and told me to get some sleep. Which, of course was exactly the opposite of what I did once I heard him snoring. Would you have really been able to sleep if you’d just spent the last hour and a half kissing your formerly platonic best friend to death? I didn’t think so.

The next day, I completely ignored him, until he literally dragged me out of the B&B, and behind the trees, into the small woods. Well, park, really, but it doesn’t matter.

I didn’t protest until we were out of sight, not wanting to make a scene, but I lit into him as soon as we were out of hearing distance. “Dawson Leery, what do you think you’re doing?” I cried.

Dawson got this look in his eyes which can only be described as mushy, and tilted up my chin. “This,” he said in a solemn voice, and he kissed me breathless.

After a few kisses, we’d parted ways, and I hadn’t said anything, still too high on Dawson’s kisses for my rational mind to function. But later, it was my turn to corner, and I had cornered him in a far more effective place. His room.

He tried to pretend he didn’t know what he was talking about, and then, when that failed, he tried to kiss me, and then he tried to joke about it. I mean, honestly, the guy’s defenses never fail, do they? They’ve each got about a million backups.

Finally, we got to the point where I was too fed up with Dawson to play word games, and he was out of word games to play, anyway. “All right, Joey. What do you want?”

I paced the room, inwardly annoyed at him for being so utterly calm, but outwardly, I knew I was keeping the same kind of smug distance from the issue as he was. “I don’t know what I want, Dawson. I know what my body wants, and I know what my mind thinks I should do, but I don’t know how to combine them and make them ‘what Joey Potter wants’. What do you want?”

He looked at me, and patted the bed beside him. I ignored his invitation, although I did stop pacing to stand in front of him.

“I don’t know what I want either, Jo.” Definitely not the comforting assurances I had been hoping for.

“But I do know that we think entirely too much, and maybe this time we should just let our emotions take their own course. We don’t talk about it, we don’t think about it-” Then he quickly added on to his sentence when he saw my disbelieving stare, “too much. And we just let things happen. One of us is uncomfortable, we call a discussion again. But as long as our emotions can agree, we ignore our heads. What do you think?”

“I think it’s ludicrous, Dawson.” When his face fell, I was quick to add the rest of my sentence, though. “But I’m just as confused as you are. Our mothers tell us to listen to our heads, our drama teachers tell us to listen to our heart. So, what do you say we give your ludicrous plan a try?”

Dawson was grinning. I felt the corners of my lips curling, and I knew I was smiling, faintly, I hoped, too. But to be honest, I didn’t mind much when he leaned over and kissed me before he left the room. And when I started analyzing it, I turned off my head, and simply let my heart wander. Which left me with a surprising conclusion.

Why hadn’t I noticed my feelings for him sooner?

Weeks later, we were still on our head-free trial, and not one person had noticed. Well, maybe except for Jen. She doesn’t miss much, though.

I kissed Dawson on the cheek as I sat down, I gesture I hadn’t used often throughout the course of our friendship, but often enough that nobody stared. And when Dawson gave me that big grin of his in return, my knees started to melt. Of course, I had to cover it with a scathing remark, though. Aimed in Pacey’s direction, as usual.

“So, Witter. Still trying to beg notes off of the fabulous McPhee?” I nodded in Andie’s direction, where she was digging something out of her handbag, and handing the small notes in Pacey’s direction. I clucked my tongue mockingly. “Ah, ah, ah, Pacey. Cheating again, are we?”

Pacey looked at me with that fire in his eyes, and I knew his comeback would be scathing. “Well, Potter, as a matter of fact, no. Those are my notes. My notes from the class which I did, in fact, attend. But I don’t recall seeing you. Did you, Joey Potter, scholar extraordinaire, skip Lit class?”

I blushed a little, recalling what I had been doing that day when I’d skipped Lit, study hall, and chem, to got to the beach with Dawson. We’d spent two hours there, two glorious hours, just basking in the sun and enjoying each other’s company. And kisses.

But the memory that was making me blush was the memory of Dawson’s hands exploring a little more than I probably should have let them. But hey, this was all about not reacting to the probably should’s and the maybe shouldn’t have’s, right? And I certainly didn’t listen to my head that day.

I knew I was in trouble when Pacey gave me that half-smile of his, and the mischievous gleam returned to his eyes. “Do I detect a blush, Potter? And I thought Joey Potter didn’t blush!”

At this point, Andie snaked an arm around Pacey’s neck, kissed him, and gave him The Look. She whispered something in his ear with a sly look on her face, and it was Pacey’s turn to blush. He didn’t say anything, just grabbed his stuff, nodded in Dawson’s direction, and left the table. But when they were almost out of hearing range, he whispered loudly in my direction, “I won, Potter,”

I ignored him pointedly, and smiled gratefully in Andie’s direction. I’d never not been able to keep up with Pacey’s banter, and I was a little shook by my inability to return his scathing remarks with the innate accuracy I’d grown used to.

Dawson wrapped an arm around my shoulders, and kissed my cheek. “What do you say we skip our last couple of periods to go to the docks, huh?”

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I had to have known it was a bad idea to skip this many classes within three weeks. But this was all about not using heads, I reminded myself. And therefore, I made the unfortunate decision to go with Dawson down to the docks that day.

The waterfront was beautiful, and deserted. We could see shops and grass and houses, but no one bothered us, and hardly anyone noticed. Several motherly-aged ladies shot us glances that held the question, why weren’t we at school, but we declined to answer, and none of them ever said anything.

We just sat there, me snuggled up against Dawson’s firm, strong chest, for a long time. I felt extremely content. And every time my head would kick in, and start guilt-tripping me, I would simply shut it off. If I needed help shutting out the annoying voices of reason, I would look up at Dawson, and he would kiss me, and the voices would miraculously disappear. It was quite freeing, really, and it made me heady, like I was just a little high.

When the last people left, and there wasn’t a soul in sight, Dawson and I started really going at it. He kissed me, and I kissed him back, and we got more and more passionate. Pulling back from me for a couple of seconds, to catch his breath, he trailed a fingertip down my front, starting at my lips, and going down, through the valley of my breasts, then down to my navel. It sent wonderful shivers through my body, and I loved the way I was feeling.

He pulled me back to him, and we kissed until we ran out of air again. This time, it was my turn, and I repeated his movements earlier, trailing my finger gently, softly, down his chest, then kissing his cheeks, and the tip of his nose softly before returning to his mouth.

I was feeling heady, and better than I had in years, lodged firmly in my fantasy world, Dawson’s tongue entwined with mine, my hands running through his hair--until I heard someone clearing his throat behind us.

I broke from Dawson’s lips, fast, and whirled around. Bessie and Mr. Leery were standing behind us, Bessie with her hands on her hips, and both with scowls on their faces. I turned away from their accusing stares, and back to Dawson, who was wiping the lipstick from his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Why are they here?” I murmured softly. Dawson caught my eye, and then his father’s, before answering.

“I have no idea,” he replied under his breath.

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