Rating:
PG
Pairing: Pacey and Joey
Summary:
Pacey and Joey find a little magic to help start off their summer together.
Note:
I wrote this a long, long time ago.
- - -
Another turning point
A fork stuck in the road
A picturesque moment to be treasured it was, indeed; two young lovers sailing
off into the sunset on a boat appropriately entitled "True Love". Having left a
broken Dawson Leery at the docks, Joey now had her prince charming ... or the
closest version found in a Pacey Witter, anyway.
So why wasn't she overflowing with joy? One word said it all: Dawson. The
guilt of running away from him when he seemed so alone was silently killing her,
even as she flashed a loving smile Pacey's way.
Joey couldn't really tell if Pacey sensed her hesitation or not; he was too
focused on steering the boat. "Pacey," she began, "how far are we planning on
traveling tonight?"
Shrugging, Pacey didn't seem to have a plan. "I guess we'll go as far as we
can, but I'm not too eager about traveling after dark, so we'll most likely have
to stop soon."
Joey nodded. She stared at the beautiful sunset sky, a unique combination of
reds, oranges, pinks and yellows ... her fingers tingled, longing to paint it.
Not having any materials handy, she instead just savored the moment, etching the
image permanently in her mind.
Suddenly aware that Pacey was staring at her, Joey turned around to face him.
"...What?" she asked innocently, noticing the thoughtful sheen in her lover's
eyes.
"Nothing," Pacey whispered, taking in the view of the angelic girl whose
heart he had finally managed to capture. A soft oceanic breeze danced through
Joey's hair, waving it ever so slightly. "You just look so beautiful against
that sky."
Instinctively, Joey prepared to throw back a remark about the subtle
corniness of such a statement, but she quieted herself. Flattered, she blushed a
little. "I'll bet you say that to all the girls," she teased.
A slight chuckle resounded from Pacey's lips. "Only when it's true, Potter."
Time grabs you by the wrist
Directs you where to go
Naturally, it eventually grew dark. But the two teens were still out in the
murky waters, now quite a ways from any dock.
Pacey turned off the motor, then stole a glance over at Joey. "What are you
thinking?"
"I was just thinking about the stars," Joey muttered, looking upward. "You
remember when we were younger, how we picked which ones were ours?"
A smile crept up Pacey's face as he, too, looked at the sky. "Yeah, wow; we
were so young then. Maybe eight, nine?"
"Yeah." Joey nodded. "Don't you ever wish you could just go back to those
times? You know, when everything in life was carefree and magical ... and
worries didn't exist?"
"Well we always had our worries, Jo," Pacey reasoned.
"But they were nothing like the monumentally affecting, life-altering
repercussions of the actions we choose nowadays. I mean, Pacey, our days
consisted of games, falling in the dirt, stepping on bugs, running in the rain,
having insignificant fights that were resolved within minutes ..."
"Do you remember what most of the fights were about, Jo?" Pacey asked in an
uncharacteristically reluctant tone.
Joey frowned slightly, thinking back.
"They were about Dawson," Pacey stated matter-of-factly. "One of us was
always jealous that Dawson liked the other one better."
As Pacey expected, Joey's face suddenly darkened at the mention of Dawson.
He'd been in the back of her mind since they'd left Capeside, and Pacey knew it.
He also knew, though, that there was nothing he could do about it.
Pacey cleared his throat, frustrated. "I'm sorry for bringing him up, Jo. I
won't do it again."
Joey just nodded slowly, her mind seemingly somewhere else.
"Do you regret it?" Pacey softly inquired.
"Regret what?" Joey asked without looking at him.
"...Coming with me?"
So much compassion was in Joey's eyes as she turned back to a clearly unsure
Pacey. In one word she truthfully summed up the answer. "No."
A slight relief washed over Pacey, but not enough to completely reassur e
him. He moved closer to Joey to plant a sensual kiss on her lips.
"How goes the expression? Kiss 'em when they're down?" Pacey joked as he
pulled away.
"Better than kicking," Joey remarked, grinning as she leaned in for another
kiss.
So make the best of this test
And don't ask why
The kiss was interrupted when both were startled by a slight jolt. The boat,
which had been peacefully drifting up until now, had struck something, coming to
a halt. Pacey traced the large figure in the darkness with his eyes. It was a
humungous ship, which was, strangely, motionless. He frowned, confused. "Well,
how strange is this?..."
Joey was now staring at this ship as well, although the view was limited,
seeing as how they were at the very bottom.
"You wanna go aboard?" Pacey questioned, surveying her carefully.
"Go aboard? Pacey, are you insane?" Like a mask, Joey put on her customary
frown, tossing aside the giddy smiles.
"How many times do I have to ask ya--where's your sense of adventure, Jo? Did
you lose it somewhere?..." Pacey smirked. "C'mon, it'll be fun."
Joey crossed her arms across her chest, annoyed. "No. You can't make me."
"Suit yourself. But I'm going in," Pacey announced, as if to an
audience.
Rolling her eyes, Joey brought him back down to reality. "And how exactly are
you going to get in , Mr. Adventure?"
Pacey opened a trap door. "Apparantly, through here." He peeked in. "Hello?
Anybody home?"
"Pacey!" came the shrill whisper of Joey. "You're probably disturbing
someone's paid for and completely relaxing vacation! You don't just stick your
head into boats and start talking!" But she stopped, realizing who she was
talking to.
"Hmm ... there's nobody there," Pacey observed out loud. This was followed by
a giddy snicker. "I'm going in now. You wanna stay out here until you're bored
as hell, that's fine with me, Jo." With that, he hoisted himself into the small
trap door area, grunting as he shoved his body into the small opening.
Joey looked around, comforted only by a thick blanket of humid darkness.
"God, Pacey, I hate you!" she yelled as she quickly followed his lead.
"I'm sure you do," Pacey sarcasticically replied, helping Joey into the ship.
"I knew you'd follow me."
"Ugh, don't be annoying," was all Joey cared to say at the moment, looking
around.
"This must be like ... storage space or something," Pacey mused, almost to
himself.
"Yeah, except there's no storage," Joey corrected, seeing that the room was
completely empty. "Pacey, this is weird--can we go now?"
"Not yet, Potter. Come on, there's bound to be something fun upstairs."
"Yeah, like the captain, who's going to throw us overboard, Pacey," Joey
retorted, her customary sarcasm showing through once more.
Pacey laughed. "You say the darndest things when you're frustrated, you know
that? Look, nobody's going to do anything; they're not even going to notice us.
I just want to have a little fun."
Giving up, Joey sighed. "Fine. We'll go have your 'fun', but then we're going
to leave, right?"
"Absolutely." Pacey reached for her hand in the darkness, grasping it firmly.
The light of the moon shone in slightly from the sky, but nowhere was a light
switch to be found.
Slowly the pair trudged forward until Pacey almost tripped over something. A
stairwell. Ever so slowly the two ascended the creaky steps towards the door at
the top which was slightly ajar.
Joey almost wanted to laugh. "I feel like I'm stuck in an episode of The
X-Files."
This brought a smirk to Pacey's face as he reached the door, peeking out.
Seeing nothing, he pushed the door open some more; it squeaked in resentment.
"Whoa. Somebody needs to put a little oil on this baby's hinges," said he,
stepping onto the boat deck, pulling an annoyed Josephine up behind him.
"This place almost looks deserted..." voiced Joey. A quick sniff of the air
would reveal a musty odor, one of seemingly old wood.
"Yeah, that's for sure," came Pacey's reply. "Well hey, all the more reason
to par-tay, right?"
"Don't get so excited Pacey. I said it looks deserted. But that
doesn't make any sense. Why would somebody abandon a huge boat out in the middle
of nowhere?"
"HELLO? Yo--anybody here?" Pacey shouted.
Ruthlessly Joey stabbed him with her elbow. "What are you doing ?
Trying to get us in trouble?"
"Jo, I am simply making sure nobody's really here."
"You're insane," Joey remarked, shaking her head to herself. "Utterly
insane."
The boat deck had no roof, so once again the moonlight illuminated
everything. Joey slinked over to the railing about ten feet away and looked down
a few feet to the shimmering waters below. She saw Pacey's small watercraft,
pitifully small in comparison to this one, still drifting slightly nearby. Joey
wondered what would happen if the small boat drifted away.
Pacey suddenly came up beside Joey and joined her in watching the water.
"This is too strange. There's absolutely nobody here."
"You'd like to think that, wouldn't you, Pace?" Joey's tone of voice was
clearly unamused.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Pacey was starting to get irritated -- how
easily the one he loved could take the wind from his sails.
Ignoring his question, Joey continued. "God, this is so demented. This can't
possibly be real. We've wandered into some alternate universe or something."
"Why can't this be real? What's so unrealistic about this?" Pacey challenged.
"So we found an abandoned ship. That's not all that strange. Maybe something was
found on the ship that caused it to be abandoned and left where it is. Why do
you have to be such a skeptic about everything? Can't anything ever just be what
it is?"
Joey sighed. "I guess not. I mean isn't that what I always do? Take the
magic, the mystery out of everything through constant rationalization and
over-thinking?"
It's not a question
But a lesson learned in time
Witnessing this moody streak was starting to get to Pacey. Tenderly he
slipped his arms around Joey's slender waist and gave her a peck on the cheek.
"Hey. Let's just stop talking about this, okay? I mean, granted, this situation
is certainly unorthodox, but we're teenagers for crying out loud. Let's go do
what we do best. Trespass. Mingle through the rooms of this boat that isn't
ours. Be fools. It'll be fun."
Not that the idea sounded all that inviting, but it was simply the way that
it was so eloquently, or rather, non-eloquently put that put a smile back on
Joey's face. "I swear, Pace, if you ever grow out of that five year-old state of
mind, someone's going to be shocked to death."
Pacey grinned. "Ah, you know me all too well." He took ahold of Joey' s hand
and started walking along the deck. "Come, my fair Josephine. We shall view the
contents of this mysterious vessel together," he stated in an awful accent; Joey
wasn't even sure which one he was trying to imitate. She laughed anyway.
The boat was apparantly fashioned in a hard-to-lose-yourself simple sort of
way. There was a large chunk of rooms all cloistered together in the center of
the boat. On the outer rim was the deck and then the railing, overlooking the
sea.
Coming up to the first door, which was closed, Pacey tried the knob, only to
find it locked. He looked disappointed. The two continued on around the deck
until they came to another door. This one opened to reveal a large room, as
empty as the one below.
"I'll tell you one thing, Pace," Joey started, trying to lift both their
spirits, "Whomever designed this ship was terrible at using space wisely. I
mean, look; this room is huge. I don't see how there could be any passengers;
there's no room for bedrooms."
Pacey entered the room, looking all around in awe. "Geeze, this really is
huge. I mean, I wonder what they'd need such a large room for." The ceiling went
up unusually high.
Joey let go of his hand to walk further into the room and see for herself.
"Probably for dancing or entertainment." A quick survey of the walls would find
three large windows. Slightly startled, she jumped a little upon seeing a record
player in one of the corners. "Was that there before?..." she asked uncertainly,
pointing in the direction of her questioning.
"I didn't notice," Pacey said, unphased, walking over to it. "Wow, a record
player?" He laughed. "You were right, Jo. This place is ridiculous. I
wonder how this thing works."
Softly placing the needle on a record that was in place, Joey ended Pacey's
curiosity, as some obviously very old music began to play. Delicately, she
stretched out her hand in Pacey's direction. "Would you care to dance, Mr.
Witter?"
"I guess we shall see how well those excruciatingly boring dance lessons
served us, eh, Ms. Potter?" Pacey took her hand and lead her to the center of
the room where the two started the sway slowly to the music.
Holding Pacey close, Joey laid her head down on his chest, breathing in his
aftershave. And once again her thoughts yearned to explain this situation. An
abandoned ship? This was like something out of a fairy tale. It wasn't real; it
couldn't be real. Maybe this was just a dream.
Joey lifted her head to stare into the loving eyes of an infatuated Pacey.
She smiled at how perfect this moment was; almost too good to be true. The
moonlight shining in on she and her true love, dancing away the night on some
exotic and abandoned sea vessel. She almost didn't want it to end. Joey jokingly
thought to herself about how much alcohol she must have subconsciously swigged.
"Having fun yet?" Pacey asked, delicately tracing a finger along Joey's
cheek.
She couldn't help but smile. Oh, but he was so sweet--so romantic, when he
wanted to be. For that, he deserved a kiss, which she gave.
Pacey responded to her lips on his, and the kiss grew more passionate as the
soft music droned on. Such a sweet sensation passed through his entire body as
the two connected lips, again and again.
The sudden cut-off of the music in the background put a damper on the
romantic moment as the record stopped playing. Joey pulled away from her lover,
catching her breath. "I love you, Pace," she whispered in a most sincere voice.
Pacey rested his forehead against hers, holding her tightly around the waist.
"I love you too."
The two remained in that position, just holding one another, until finally
the moment had worn itself out. "Let's go now, Pace," Joey pleaded.
Sighing, Pacey decided the magic was somehow fading in this boat. It wasn't
as exciting anymore; he agreed that it was time to go. Hand in hand, the two
headed out of the room and back down to the storage area together, exiting back
out through the trap door.
It's something unpredicatable
But in the end it's right
Joey's eyes opened to find the blazing sun overhead, making her immediately
squint. A headache caused her to moan in pain. "Hey Pace ... you awake?" she
called, her voice scratchy and hoarse.
Eventually, Pacey's voice, also quite scratchy, answered. "Yeah."
"Did we fall asleep or something?" Joey started, straining to remember the
events of the past night.
"I guess so," Pacey reasoned, frowning. "All I remember is kissing you last
night and then ... I don't know -- I guess I feel asleep..."
A slight vision haunted Joey's thoughts for a second; something about a large
boat. She frowned, straining to understand why this was all so perplexing. "Wow,
we must have just both fallen asleep ... how strange."
Pacey nodded. "Well, at any rate, I guess we had better get going again. I'm
not sure exactly how far it'll be to the next dock but I'm hungry."
"Yeah, me too," Joey agreed. She seemed to be slightly distracted;
concentrating hard on something.
"Is anything wrong, Jo?" Pacey seemed a bit concerned.
"What? Oh ... no. It's just that ... I dunno, I have this strange thought
plaguing my mind; it's as if I want to remember something, but yet I can't."
Shaking his head, Pacey laughed softly. "You're just too much, Potter."
"I know it sounds crazy, but I just ... I don't know..."
"Just forget about it," Pacey said, leaning in to give her a good morning
kiss. "Nothing should be plaguing you. We're in for a summer full of fun, just
you and me. Let's make it worry-free starting now."
Joey smiled, trying to bury that nagging sense inside of her. "...I love you,
Pace."
Pacey, who had been preparing to get going once again, once more focused his
full attention on Joey. "...Well I love you, too. Always." He flashed a debonair
smile to his beautiful love, which for a second, brought on a slight Deja Vu for
Joey. She shook it away from her mind. No worries; just a summer full of fun.
Joey sighed, unusually content. A whole summer full of fun with her pr ince
charming. Worry-free, full of love, full of magic. Starting now.
I hope you had the time of your life.
THE END
