AN: Okay, so I got a little (read: monumentally) wordy with this. But this is my first stab at fanfiction in a long time, so any suckiness can be attributed to that. And the fact that I do not have a beta, and have to go over this myself. Not pretty, let me tell you. I hope there isn't anything wrong with this, at least in the grammatical sense.

Anyway! Enough with the technical mumbo-jumbo! This story is set in Season 3, a little while after Pacey breaks up with Andie. After that, all bets are off…enjoy (hopefully)!

Watch Your Step

Chapter 1

"Why does this always happen to me?" Joey asked aloud, seated in the center of a king-sized bed. She brushed at a particularly annoying strand of hair that kept straying into her eyes, but to no avail. She sighed. It was just another item on the long list of things she had no control over. She felt her legs start to fall asleep, but when she tried shifting into a more comfortable position, one of her fellow bedmates – her former archenemy, for that matter – tightened his grip on her, snuggling into her right side. She briefly wondered if this was what it was like to be Andie a few months ago, but the ridiculousness of her present situation brought her out of those mildly disturbing – and by mildly disturbing she meant horribly, horribly scarring – thoughts.

Pacey, however, wasn't the only one in the bed with her, and he wasn't even the only one hugging her like there was no tomorrow. Jen lay to Joey's left, her left arm draped over Joey's stomach right above where Pacey held a vice-like grip on Joey's waist. Joey silently studied Jen's face, pale and serene in the moonlight filtering through the balcony door. She could see why Dawson had fallen for her. Even when Joey had resented Jen for her effortless intrusion into Dawson's heart, she couldn't fathom why Jen had once commented that she thought she resembled a duck. The phrase "blonde bombshell" fit Jen perfectly - only there was so much more behind it all, something Joey had only recently begun to discover. She and Jen had always had a rocky relationship at best, but a few weeks ago they had started to develop an earnest friendship when Joey at Jack's ushering had tentatively reached out to Jen, needing to talk to someone about everything that had been going on ever since last summer had ended.

A light sigh brought Joey's gaze over to Andie, who was curled up back to back next to Jen. She cradled a pillow in her arms, and for once looked peaceful and worry-free. Joey wasn't as close to Andie as the others were, mostly because she had been wrapped up in her relationship with Dawson when Andie and Jack had rolled into town. All she knew was that Andie sort of resembled her - if she had had caffeine permanently streaming into her veins - and that Andie had been good for Pacey and vice-versa. She also had a limited knowledge of Andie's psychological problems, gleaned from a vulnerable Jack's confessions and Pacey's terse briefing when she had gone with him to pick Andie up at the institution she had stayed at last summer.

Joey had thought that Andie and Pacey were going to be lovey-dovey the whole of junior year, and that she'd have to play the reluctant, awkward third wheel, since hanging out with Dawson was out of the question and Jen and Jack were nearly inseparable these days. And then Pacey and Andie broke up. Or rather, Pacey dumped Andie. She didn't know the specifics; all she knew was that Andie had cheated on Pacey with some guy in the institution. Joey knew that Pacey could be annoying a lot of the time, and that Andie had probably been scared and lonely, but despite the disparaging comments she made about Pacey during pretty much the entirety of the years she'd known him, she knew Pacey was nothing if not loyal. She knew it'd kill him to have someone he trusted betray him, especially someone he trusted with his heart.

She stared at the three of them, silently contemplating the pros and cons of crawling into a cave and not coming out until she was no longer a teenager, until a loud snore redirected her attention to the final two occupants of the bed.

Jack and Dawson lay in a horizontal position at the foot of the bed, with Dawson encased in Jack's arms. Joey snickered despite her best efforts to remain expressionless. The looks on their faces when they woke up and realized where they were and why they were so warm if they didn't have blankets would be priceless. This would be the perfect blackmail material. If she was that kind of person, that is. Her thoughts drifted back to Pacey, who was smiling in his sleep. Had he been awake, he would've declared this as "too good an opportunity to pass up", taken lots of pictures, and thought out loud about what the various uses of the "suggestive" photos could be. In fact, he'd probably rope her into one of his inane plans, and she'd probably let him.

It didn't freak her out anymore that she would willingly be Pacey's partner in crime, a role usually fulfilled by Dawson. What scared her was that she'd probably enjoy it. And she didn't know why it scared her, because their marine biology project in freshman year had made Pacey shine with a new light in her eyes – he was someone who could be a real friend, something beyond the antagonistic bantering they had kept up for so many years. Of course, for Pacey, it had awoken something way past the burgeoning friendship she had seen. She could feel her cheeks heat up at the memory – he had kissed her! Pacey Witter had kissed her.

Long before Dawson had realized exactly why she had bristled at Jen's arrival, Pacey had noticed her. Really noticed her, not as Joey Potter the convict's daughter, or Joey Potter, tomboy extraordinaire. And that scared her, despite years of bemoaning the fact that most people never saw her beyond those definitions. So maybe that was why, deep down, she couldn't help but feel that their friendship might be something dangerous. It was something she was afraid to touch.

And it really wasn't helping matters, this proximity.

She was going to kill Pacey when he woke up, because it wasn't really fair to kill him without at least giving him a chance to defend himself first. The again, she would kill him either way, so maybe it would be better to just put him out of his misery. She'd be doing him a favor, really – he was going to have a massive hangover tomorrow.

Or maybe, she mused, it'd be better to draw out his misery. After all, a quick death would be too easy. And he deserves it. This was all his idea, anyway.

She tried shifting again, wanting to get rid of the prickling sensation in her calves, but Pacey still held her tight and she could even start to feel a small amount of pressure from Jen's fingertips, which were located near her ribs. She froze – that was her ticklish spot – and decided that not moving was a very good idea. She didn't know whether it was intentional or not – Jack had discovered that particular ticklish spot in front of Jen when they had done a mock-reenactment of one of the scenes from Dirty Dancing – but either way, it was evil.

Resigned to staying uncomfortably upright the entire night, she pulled up the pillow she had been sitting on so that it now supported her back, scowling at Jen and Pacey when they groaned in protest at her moving. She closed her eyes and leaned back on the headboard.

Tomorrow was going to be one hell of a morning. In more ways than one.