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Old Love

prologue:

He knew the moment he opened his door to find Jackie Burkhart standing there with her haunted mismatched eyes that it could only spell trouble for him. But then again, Jackie was always trouble for him. Or any warm blooded man for that matter.

"What ar—" she stopped his words by pressing her body to his and yanking his mouth to hers. He knew it was wrong, that she was upset about something. Fez, probably. Only being mad and upset would get her to his door in the middle of the night. "Jackie, wait" And just like that time all those years ago that she bought him his boots and tried to kiss him, he tries to stop her.

"This usually works better when we don't talk, Steven" His name. God, he hadn't hear her say his name since Sam. Fucking hell, he missed it coming from her lips in a husky whisper. So he kissed her this time, one hand on her hip fussing her body to his and the other buried in that shampoo commercial hair of hers. Because there was one crucial difference between him and the sixteen year old he had been, he knew exactly to what he would be saying no if he refuse her. And he simply wasn't strong enough. He wanted to hear her say his name again. Scream it as he buried himself to the hilt in her. Over and over again.

The sun coming from the far window directly to his face woke him up. He really had to get some damn curtains. She is not in his bed, and for a moment he wonders if it was all a dream. An extremely realistic dream. Wouldn't be his first about her. Hell he has been dreaming about her naked since Junior fucking Prom. But in his dream she always said I love you, not so much on those first years, but after, he wasn't sure exactly when it started, but every since then she always said I love you. Fuck. He was starting to sound like Forman. He didn't fucking care what the hell she said or didn't said in a freaking dream. Still, he couldn't help but notice that this time there was no I love you's. And it wasn't a dream. No, it was very real, he concluded when she came out of the bathroom with her hair wet from the shower. Wait, she took a shower and she didn't tell him. He loved having her against the tiles while the warm water hit him on the back. Who was he kidding, he loved having her anywhere, and however she wanted.

"Where are you going?" he had to abandon his train of thought when he saw her putting on her boots. She looked at him, and he never wished for his dark glasses more. Her face was completely blank.

"Home" Her answer doesn't give anything away. It's short and to the point. He knows that the others would say that that blankness was the result of his Zen lessons, but Jackie always had her own version of Zen. How else could they explain how no one knew what was going on in her house with the ever absent parents and whatnot. Her Zen consisted on a carefully cultivated image of a shallow, tactless, egocentric cheerleader with the perfect life, and now that that image fell to pieces she adopted his choice of mask, and perfected it to a shinny hard as diamond exterior. At least he hoped it was a mask. She has to feel something about last night. She just has to.

"About last night," He cuts himself off. What the hell is he supposed to say? Last night was great, but you didn't say I love you and could you please say it now. Yeah, that would go oh so well. It may have worked like a charm in 1978 getting him hours of naked happy Jackie, but now it was 1981 and all that would get him is an incredulous laugh and possibly something hard and pointy thrown at his face.

"Last night was a great fuck, nothing else" She is doing it again. That blank face with the hard eyes that won't give anything away. She is standing there, leaning against the dresser that Mrs. Forman insisted he take with him, finishing zipping up her left boot looking perfectly composed and calm while she chops his heart away. God, he hates her. He didn't even have a heart to chop till she came around. "Don't worry, Hyde. This isn't going to become in a 'lest get together again' tear fest" And why the hell not? He wants to scream at her. He wants to grad her shoulders and shake her until her mask falls apart and she is looking adoringly at him again and kissing him softly while she whispers his name followed by I love yous and I'll never leave yous.

"Good. You look horrible when you cry" But she hurt him, and the need to hurt back is too strong to stop the words spilling out of his mouth "And I wouldn't say 'great' but it's not bad for the slut of the group I guess" The old Jackie, the one that gave a damn about what he said, though, or did would have already dissolved into tears. This new Jackie only raised one eyebrow in amusement and curved that pouty mouth in a taunting smirk.

"'Look horrible,' 'not bad' and 'the slut of the group,'" He would like to say that something flashed on her eyes, something like pain, anguish, the ghost of a tear, but that was just wishful thinking on his part. "Never knew you to be so childish, Hyde" He was going for blood and she not only laughed at his face, but she sucker punched him.

"Well, you do, you are, and you jumped me" God fucking damn it, he was childish. She just rolled her eyes and went out of the bedroom. He would like to say that he stayed where he was in his comfy bed and went back to sleep showing that he didn't give a fuck about her. But no, he just had to get up, put on a pair of boxers and follow her. "What is it? You have another fuck scheduled on this morning?" He was expecting her to be hiding tears like that day on the stadium, he was, however, sadly disappointed. She was putting on her jacket. Was a freaking tear too much to ask? Apparently yes, since she looked at him with a 'WTF?' face mixed with more amusement that was good for his sanity.

"Steven, I just expend the night having multiple orgasms" that shut him up and brought very pleasant images to memory. Fuck, she was beautiful when she came. "The fact that I'm standing upright and maintaining a forward motion at the moment is proof of how good all those cheerleader practices were to my perfect legs." Not fair. How the hell was he going to provoke her into confession-mode if she kept with the indirect adulation and the naughty images. "I'm not going to have sex with anyone this morning." For some reason that made him happy. Ok, he knew why it made him happy. So happy, he was sure he was grinning. "This afternoon and tonight is another story though." Now, he was sure he was grinning. Hell, he was probably drooling as she closed the door after leaving the apartment. He didn't even know why he got so mad at her anymore.

He spent the entire morning in a good mood, smirking whenever an idea what he would do to her this afternoon and tonight came to him. Forman told him to stop smiling that he was being creepy and that he was scaring the customers. Well, too bad for him and all those idiots. He was going to spend hours with a naked Jackie. She wasn't lying about that acrobat comment she once made. She was very flexible and creative. At noon he was practically jumping on his toes. At one o'clock when Randy came to do his shift, he practically jumped over the counter and tossed him the keys to the store. He was in his apartment in fifteen minutes. He spend an hour cleaning up the place and after seeing that there was nothing in the fridge that would make a decent meal, he run to the store to get something. He came back and made dinner. He knew Jackie loved him cooking for her. Something about it being romantic and sexy. So he cooked, he use to do it for money, and he could definitely do it for compliments from the petite brunette. He took a bath and even shaved.

By 4:35 everything was ready, well the meat was still in the oven, but he figure that she could be a little late so he put it in low heat so it wouldn't dry up.

By 5:40, the meat was ready. His knee started that annoying tick.

At 6:15 he opened the wine and drank a cup.

By 7:34, he finished the first bottle of wine.

At 8:02 he grabbed the phone. He didn't call.

At 8:13 he turned on the T.V. and opened a can of beer.

At 9:15 he turned off the T.V. and put on Physical Graffiti

By 'The Wanton Song' (side four, track 2) he was wasted and rolling his second one. And that's when it came to him. His mistake. He assumed she was talking about him, but she never mentioned him. She said: 'I'm not going to have sex with anyone this morning' and then she added 'This afternoon and tonight is another story though.' Meaning that she planned on having sex sometime between this afternoon and dawn, and him like the idiot he was assumed that she was talking about him, about them. Which means that somewhere in this town she is having sex with someone that is not him. He couldn't breathe, hell, he felt like crying and stupid 'Boogie with Stu' was playing and the upbeat almost happy tune made him angry again. It was credited to Ritchie Valens' mom as a sorry from Plant and the bitch sues them. He could just bet that Mrs. Valens and Jackie would get along just fine. Fucking bitch. And god damn it he couldn't help the images from coming. It played like a freaking movie on his head. Jackie fucking another guy. Probably screaming his name too. Telling the whoever he was that she loved him. No, wait, she didn't say that last night, but maybe she was saying it tonight to some asshole while he went in and out of her fucking until she could feel her legs anymore. 'Sick again' was on now. Great now he would never be able to listen to this song without picturing himself as a pathetic loser going after Jackie telling her how he always wanted her while she laughed at him. It used to be the other way around, back in her stalker-phase. Back then, she was the sad L.A. Queen and him the cool, unreachable guy she wanted. The record stopped and silence descended on the apartment. The wine was gone; the dinner was cold, and the meat all dry. And Hyde couldn't help but think that this was exactly why he should have just closed the door on her face yesterday. In 24 hours she had him on the floor drunk, doped, about to lose his freaking mind, and still hoping that she would came any minute now.

She never came.