Disclaimer: I don't own Dawson's Creek or even anything remotely associated with it. Also I don't own the excerpt from the song by Pink Floyd called "Comfortably Numb."

Note: I would really like to thank everyone who has e-mailed me with support and feedback. It really motivated me when it seemed I'd never get started on it (it's a hard thing to write about). I'd also like to thank my friend, Rebecca, for her ideas on what to write next.

Distribution: Put it wherever you want. Just email me.

There is no pain you are receding
A distant ship, smoke on the horizon.
You are only coming through in waves.
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying.
When I was a child
I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown,
The dream is gone.
I have become comfortably numb.
-"Comfortably Numb"
-Pink Floyd

Comfortably Numb

Pacey lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling as if enthralled with the white plaster. He had screwed up, after all these years someone had finally seen the damage implicated on him by his father. And the irony of it was that it hadn't even been one of his friends, it had been a girl he had just met a couple days ago. Then he thought about how he had been so cold and distant from Andie. He could barely even remember why he had acted that way or at least the bullshit reason he had thought of. The truth was that the hurt part of him, the one that he had suppressed for so long, was rebelling; it had wanted to hurt others so that they could even feel a tiny bit of the pain he had dealt with since he was seven. The pain that ate away at him even when he was laughing with his friends or when he had that affair with Tamara. It would never go away, instead it just grew as the years passed by and as he grew older. The pain was such an integral part of him that he couldn't comprehend the thought of living without it. What would it be like to be truly happy?

Pacey then remembered those few moments when he had felt entirely disconnected from his feelings, he had felt absolutely nothing. It had been as if all the black feelings, the uncertainty, the ever so faint hope, had been cleanly erased. As he thought back to it, he felt shaken to the core. What had happened to him? But even though he felt shaken a small part of him wished that he could relive those few moments of emptiness. But then panic went through him, he could visualize himself drifting through the years, just an empty shell, cold. The real person he was would be lost, and what would be left was a thing dead in feeling and soul. Pacey feared that, no matter how many beatings he had taken from his father, he had always kept from losing himself, the person that he truly was and would forever be. He had always won that battle but now the temptation to give way consumed him. Pacey knew he must never give in to that temptation, but part of him had simply stopped caring.

***

"Pacey...Pacey..." Pacey slowly woke up, hearing the weak call coming from his parents room. He could hear his mom shuffling around, then came a loud crash and a moan.

Pacey quickly jumped out of bed and banged the door open, racing towards his parent's room. "Mom?" he called loudly. Then he saw her, a limp figure lying on the ground by the doorway. He raced to her side and began to shake her. She slowly open her eyes and began to laugh in a cruel, mocking tone. Pacey shrank back from her, feeling like he was about five years old, scared and confused.

His mom stopped laughing. "My white knight in shining armor!" she said sarcastically, struggling to get up. Pacey automatically reached out to help her up, but felt her slip out of his grasp as she fell on the ground with a resounding thump. "Pacey can't you do anything right? I can finally see where your father was coming from!" she complained.

Pacey backed away from her. "Mom, why are you doing this to me?" his voice trembled as it took on the tone of a little boy's.

"Pacey, I was laying in bed, sober for the first time in what seems years, and I finally realized something. Do you want to know what that was?" she used a cruelly wheedling tone. He mechanically shook his head. "Well, I'm going to tell you anyway. I was there thinking why was I, a woman of forty-seven years, living the life of a worthless drunk. I remembered those happy years when it was just me, your father, and Doug. Then there were your two sisters. Then there was you. Your father never really took to you, and he started to change. Slowly, my happy life began to crumble and I couldn't bear watch it die away. First I tried to be a good mother, but it got worse than I could handle. My friend became a bottle. A stupid bottle filled with cheap liquor! Finally after eight years I come out of my stupor and for the first time I can see clearly. It's all your fault. It's your fault that your father changed. It's your fault that I'm a drunk." Her voice rose, "It's your fault that my perfect life is gone!" "I hate you! I hate you!" she shrieked at him.

Pacey stumbled away from her hateful form in an animal panic. Running to the living room he tumbled onto the couch and curled into a fetus position. Then he put his hands over his ears, shutting out her hateful voice. The loss of his mother's love, one that a child should never have to question, was too much for him. He couldn't deal with it anymore. He began to gently rock himself until he feel into a dark, troubled sleep.

***

Pacey woke up to the sound of loud knocking at the front door. He felt dried up tears on his face and absently tried to scrub them away. He felt nothing. Absolutely nothing. For the first time there was no pain, no anger, no hurt. The loss of his mother's love had been the last straw. There had been nothing left in his life.

Then whoever was at the door began pounding on it. Pacey slowly got up and headed towards the door. Opening it he found Andie nervously standing on his front porch.

"Hi Pacey!" she said brightly, her worried eyes belying her tone of voice.

Feeling about a million miles away Pacey watched himself go through the motions. He saw himself give Andie a big smile and say in a confident voice, "Hey Andie. How's it going?"

"Good," she smiled, "I wanted to see if you were ok. Even though Dawson said you were I wasn't sure."

"No. I'm fine. It's just causes major stress when your party's busted for the supplying of alcohol. That on top of a major hangover is not a good mix, believe me," he said, all the while smiling. But his smile didn't reach his eyes, which looked dead and emotionless.

Andie didn't notice. "Yeah. I can understand. It's just that you looked so upset. So...uncertain and lost. It was sort of upsetting. What I'm trying to say is that even though we have our...um...fight I really want to be your friend. You know, be there for you. Because it looks like you need it and for some weird reason I like you."

Pacey didn't know how he was supposed to respond, "I like you too, Andie. Ever since you first crashed your car into mine. Even though we haven't been on the best terms. And I want to reassure you that I'm completely fine."

Andie gave him a smile then it slowly died away. "Pacey. Can I come in? It's sort of awkward standing out here."

"Sure. Here follow me to the living room." Andie began to follow Pacey but suddenly stopped in her tracks. Pacey looked at her face and saw it go through several stages of shock and horror. He turned to see what she was staring at and saw his mother still sprawled out in the hall, asleep. Apparently she had been exhausted after all that yelling.

Andie got enough over her shock to speak in a wavering, uncertain voice, "Pacey, who's that?"

"That's my mom," he said softly. "She's sleeping."

"She looks...unwell. Is she ok? Is she sick?" Andie asked in a concerned voice.

Pacey kept his voice light, "No. She's fine. You know, for the first time in eight years she's sober and she came to a great realization. It's not her fault that she's a drunk. It's mine. And she hates me." He could have been talking to Andie about the weather as he divested a long held secret. It didn't matter anymore what happened to him.

Andie recoiled at his words and for the first time took in his empty eyes and deadpan expression. The happy, cheerful Pacey shown earlier had been just a charade, a mask. "Pacey. Let's help her get onto a bed. Ok?"

"Ok," Pacey followed Andie to where his mom slept. As he looked down at her he felt no resentment, no anger. The angry words she had spat at him earlier were now dull, unable to hurt him. He picked her up in his arms and carried her into the bedroom. Gently, he laid her onto the bed and covered her with a blanket. Then he turned around and saw Andie staring at him from the doorway. Pacey left the room and headed towards his own. Andie silently followed him.

Inside there she suddenly burst out, "Oh my god. Pacey, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I didn't know. No one told me. Are you ok?"

He calmly replied, "I'm ok, Andie. There's absolutely no need to worry about me. I'm completely fine."

Andie looked at him oddly, "What's wrong with you? Something's not right here. I just found out about...your mother and you act as if we're talking about what I had for lunch. Also, the way you're acting. It just doesn't seem as if you're...feeling anything. It's just like if your mind was a billion miles away from here, and all that was left was your body going through the motions. There's like no real life left in you and I know that something's not right. Pacey, tell me what's wrong. How can I help you?"

"Andie, you know, I'm not sure if I want to be helped. For the first time in eight years I feel absolutely nothing. No more pain, no more anger. It's all gone, its as if it were never there. I can't be...hurt emotionally anymore. And for me that's like a godsend, because I can barely remember a life with no pain, with no alcoholic mother, no verbally abusive sisters, and no brother or father who..." Pacey stopped. He didn't know how he could tell Andie about what his father did without scaring her.

"Pacey, is he the one who hurt your head?" Andie asked in a sharp voice, suddenly remembering the blood she had seen earlier at ScreenPlay Video.

Before he could answers she heard the front door fly open and slam against the wall with a heavy thud. Heavy footsteps clumped in, heading towards the hall. Pacey quickly went into action.

"Andie, get under the bed," he said in a low, urgent voice. She took one look at his face and quickly got off the bed and slid under it.

It was not a moment too soon. As soon as Andie had disappeared under the bed the door to Pacey's room had been thrown open by an extremely angry person. Pacey looked up, with a resigned look on his face. Even if it didn't matter what happened to him anymore, it did matter what happened to Andie. She seemed to be the only person who could reach him emotionally now.

"Pacey!" Sheriff Witter thundered, "Get the hell off that bed and get here now!"

Pacey slowly got up and headed towards his father, his shoulders were slumped, and his face was blank. When Pacey was standing right in front of his father he raised his head up and looked him in the eye.

Sheriff Witter roughly slammed his hands on Pacey's shoulders and said in a voice that burned with fury and contempt, "This is it, Pacey. You finally proved that there is no change for pathetic, lazy losers like you. You know what happened today? I got a call from the school. You're flunking. Again. Couldn't you even try and do better than a D?" Mr. Witter stopped talking and shook Pacey. Pacey's eye's were no longer focused on his, instead staring through his father as if he weren't there. Mr. Witter didn't notice and continued to berate Pacey. "You aren't worthy to be called my son. You are nothing..." he continued on but Pacey was no longer listening. His mind was no longer in the room with his father. He could see his father's brutal face set in an angry expression as he yelled so hard that spit droplets flew onto Pacey's face. But Pacey blocked it all out, it was as if he had pressed the mute button on his father. He knew that before he would have been telling his father to fuck off, even if that had earned him an even worse beating, but now that seemed so long ago.

Mr. Witter finally realized that Pacey wasn't listening and shoved his son onto the floor as hard as he could. Pacey smashed onto the floor, then skidded back into the bed with a painful thump. He could hear Andie's frightened breathing from there, but he felt no pain when right now he should have been screaming. He struggled to get up but his legs wouldn't comply. Mr. Witter strode across the room and yanked Pacey up.

"Finally, you can take it like a man. No more whining, no more crying," Mr. Witter said in a hateful voice, "Let's see if you can take this. He pulled his arm back and dealt Pacey a roundhouse blow. Pacey heard his nose make a strange crunching sound as blood sprayed onto his face. His hands came up instinctively and cupped his nose. Mr. Witter looked at his hand then grabbed Pacey again. Mr. Witter shoved Pacey against the wall and pulled him forward, then smashed him against it. In his father's grasp Pacey's arm had been twisted behind himself, and now it broke with a sickening snap. Pacey still made no sound even as his eyes widened and became glassy.

So caught up in his wrath Mr. Witter didn't notice and began to pull Pacey forward again when Andie slid out from under the bed and launched herself at Mr. Witter. Mr. Witter grunted as Andie collided with him and abruptly let go of Pacey. Then he quickly turned around, his face bright red with exertion and murderous rage...

To be continued...

So what did you think of it? Bad? Good? Please send me any thoughts or comments or whatever!

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