Helpless
Summary: After almost losing Simon to an illness brought on by stress and exhaustion, Jeanette embarks on a figurative journey to heal them both, reconcile their older siblings, and maybe—just maybe—tell Simon how she feels before graduation sends them their separate ways.
Chapter One:
Primary
Author's Note: This is an 80's universe story and all original pairings, mostly Simon and Jeanette. The Chipmunks and Chipettes are all seventeen and in their senior year of high school, but they're still the munks we know and love! Enjoy!
There was nothing in this natural world more soothing than a dive into blisteringly blue water.
Certainly, the placatory effects of the aforementioned action—which were as prompt and electrifyingly strong as any hard drug—were rooted in the psychological. She had read several studies outlining the neural power of blue and its intrinsic association with trust and serenity, as well as the ability of a swim to unleash a shock of endorphins into the human endocrine system, but when it came to the pool, she abandoned scientific scrutiny with her glasses and tote bag on the chaise lounge. To truly liberate herself, she had to stop analyzing every minutiae and instead embrace the primitive joy of immersing her body in cool, embryonic bliss. It was her only opportunity to be unfettered, to be free.
Jeanette Miller opened her eyes and blinked furtively to acclimate them to the sting of chlorine. She watched the sodium lights weave macramé across the concrete floor just a few inches shy of her lavender toenails. A strand of her brown hair floated spectrally across her field of vision; she flinched at its serpentine motion. Upon recognizing it as her own curl, Jeanette laughed and pushed it into place, sending a rush of silver bubbles heavenward.
The Chipette knew she should probably follow the spiral of bubbles, but she just couldn't divorce herself from her azure haven. She slowly inclined her head towards the surface and closed her eyes, soaking up the stormy silence. Her wafer-thin body floated soundlessly through the water; the trill of her heartbeat lulled her into a meditative, calm state redolent of the moment just before falling into deep sleep.
The shriek of static in her ears and a heavy throbbing in her legs coerced her out of her paradise. Before she could succumb to hypoxia, Jeanette pushed herself out of the water with a powerful kick and broke the surface clumsily, scattering droplets across the small, subterranean room. Grateful that no one else had decided to intrude on her sunrise swim, Jeanette leaned her head back again, relishing the silky ease of the water once more before reluctantly paddling towards the ladder.
As she hefted herself out of the water, Jeanette noticed that her trim legs were shaking. It was no colder than usual—though the pool was not heated, the concrete room was poorly ventilated and was consequently eighty degrees no matter the weather outside—and she had done nothing to alter her body chemistry aside from perhaps holding her breath a few seconds longer than was good for her. She grabbed her purple towel from the chaise lounge and quickly wrapped it around herself, waiting for her legs to steady.
An older man, wearing bright green trunks and a white tee-shirt, entered the room. He waved cheerfully at Jeanette. "Fellow early-riser!"
She smiled politely. "Hello, Mr. Keene."
"You keep the pool warm for me?" he inquired, dropping his duffel bag on a chair and kicking off his sandals. Jeanette, knowing this question was coming, had a reply prepared.
"Of course, I did. I hope it's to your liking."
"I'll bet it is." He shucked his shirt and dove into the water with surprising agility. In spite of his age, he was relatively athletic, due largely in part to his morning swims. Jeanette knew he was a lonely man and did her best to start his day with a bit of kindness—he deserved as much.
Feeling better, the Chipette stood up, shoved her feet into her flip flops, and pulled her cover-up—an oversized Duke Basketball shirt—over her head. She had just replaced her glasses and slung her tote bag over her shoulder when Mr. Keene's eager voice rang out behind her.
"You have a good day now, early bird!"
"You too, Mr. Keene!" she said sweetly. She left him doing laps in the anchor lane.
Jeanette clopped down the cement hallway in her plastic flip flops, shivering in the dim chill. The rest of the recreational complex had an updated air-conditioning unit that was always set to "blizzard" to accommodate the sweaty athletes fresh from the gym. She appreciated the forethought, but wouldn't have minded if the heating system kicked in on these frigid winter mornings. Her arms were speckled with gooseflesh by the time she reached the main gym.
Exercise equipment was scattered across the vast, carpeted space, which was splashed in pallid sunlight. Dedicated athletes and other early-risers silently strained on ellipticals and treadmills, bobbing their heads to whatever inspirational tune was blaring through their headphones. Feeling slightly intrusive, Jeanette hurried across the gym with her head bowed down and her fingers wrapped tightly around the strap of her bag. She didn't allow herself to relax until she had reached her final destination—a rowing machine in the corner.
"Jean." A bespectacled Chipmunk leaned into the room, the nib of his water bottle worked into the corner of his mouth. He smiled shyly. "Sorry, I was getting some water."
"I thought maybe you'd turned invisible," she said, gesturing to the empty machine.
"If only."
Jeanette waited patiently for her counterpart to catalogue his miles on his phone, switch off the machine, and collect his gym bag. The tremors in her legs had abated, but she still felt unusually fatigued, almost as if she hadn't slept at all last night. She had the unfounded, mindless urge to press her damp body against his own, to feel the rigidity of his toned chest and the security of his arms around her waist. He would carry her back to the car and tuck her gingerly into the passenger seat and set the radio to her favorite classical station…
"How was your swim?" Simon asked, jolting his friend from her immodest reverie. Blushing, she shouldered her bag and flashed him a wan smile.
"It-it was lovely," she replied. She felt as though a second trip to the pool was in order to extinguish the lustful flames that had sprung suddenly and violently into being. Latent attraction had defined her interactions with Simon since grammar school, but recently, her feelings had gained an indelible degree of bawdiness that shocked her. She supposed it was a consequence of impending adulthood—or maybe she just really, really wanted a kiss from him. "How was your workout?"
"Hardly enlightening, but refreshing. I'm sure you girls are looking forward to baseball season even more than Alvin and I," he added with a playful nudge. They crossed the vacant lobby and walked into the milky light of dawn; Jeanette hastily drew a cleansing breath of sweet, rummy air to quell her desires.
"Oh, y-yeah. Brittany's already got the tee-shirts made." Upon realizing that their respective counterparts were both on the varsity baseball team, Brittany had decided to inaugurate the Diamond Darlings, an unaffiliated spirit club focused on the aforementioned sport. Originally consisting of just Brittany and a reluctant Jeanette, the Darlings had quickly become a staple of spring semester. Now a senior, Jeanette believed her time was best spent elsewhere, but as long as Simon was still playing, she was still willing to watch. Even if it meant soldiering through hours of idle chatter with the less intellectually stimulating students of Thomas Alva Edison High.
"I bet," he said, laughing gently. Then, with audible hesitance: "Uh, thanks for coming with me this morning, Jean. It's awfully boring riding over here without you."
Her cheeks flared with sweet, rosy heat. "Of-Of course, Simon."
They reached his car—a predictably sensible Toyota, light on crenellation—and threw their respective bags into the spacious trunk. As Jeanette buckled herself in the passenger seat, she contemplated their brief exchange with a slight crinkle of her brow. What had compelled him to thank her for accompanying him? Certainly he knew that she would have come to the complex without him had she a vehicle of her own to drive and that her presence was—superficially, at least—a product of convenience rather than altruism. Jeanette would have gone anywhere with Simon had he requested it of her, but did he know that? Had she betrayed something in the quiver of her voice, in the rosiness of her complexion?
And was that such a tragedy?
"Are you okay, Jean?"
She flinched in spite of herself at the thump of his door closing. "Uh, yeah. Sorry, Simon, I'm just… distracted, I guess."
He fed the keys into the ignition, shook the lingering soreness out of his arms, and turned to address her directly. "Is something wrong, Jeanette? You've seemed a little… out of it all morning."
So she had betrayed something in her bearing, but he hadn't interpreted it as lustful intrigue. She didn't know whether to be relieved or disappointed. "Um, sorry, I think I'm just worried about the calculus test. I didn't sleep that well last night and I-I'm afraid I'll blow it."
"Oh… Don't worry, Jean," he said, reaching across the console to give her arm an encouraging squeeze. "You know the material better than anyone else. I'm sure you'll do just fine." He paused and vacillated momentarily before regaining his composure in the wake of contact with Jeanette's smooth, summery skin. "You weren't sleepwalking last night, were you?"
The brunette's eyes widened owlishly behind her glasses, then closed in dreaded recognition. Sleepwalking always left her feeling exhausted and spacey, especially when she was already drained from school and extracurriculars. "That must be it…"
"You always sleepwalk when you study too much." There was no malice or even amusement in his tone—just concern. An unexpected tightness cinched her throat like a noose, portents of tears, and she found herself coughing lamely to combat it. Though she had done so before and actually benefited from it, she was not prepared to break down sobbing in the front seat of Simon's car.
"Yeah," she agreed in a squeezed, tremulous voice.
The sight of his best friend on the precipice of tears was enough to blast away his reservations and anxieties, and spur him to lace his arms around her in a comforting embrace. Jeanette gasped inexorably at the sensation of his warm, sturdy arms enclosing her, only to instantly melt and lay her head against his shoulder.
When he pulled away, Jeanette's despondent expression had been replaced by an elated smile that made his own complexion momentarily darken. She started to speak, only to gasp in horror. "I-I got you soaking wet!"
He glanced down at the splotch of water branding his Harvard sweatshirt and laughed at her dismay. "It's okay, Jean. I probably got sweat all over you."
"I needed to shower anyway," she said, tweezing her collar and giving it a delicate sniff. "I smell like Alvin's room."
"In that case," he said as he turned the ignition, "we need to get you home before you suffocate."
XXXXX
"So when I told him that I was going to be at practice all day again, he literally told me 'oh, then I'll just bring you a picnic'. And the heavens opened up and he literally just ascended to heaven because he's an actual angel."
Jeanette walked down the east wing of Thomas Alva Edison High School, half-listening to Eleanor's characteristically hyperbolic spiel and half-plotting a way to ask Simon to dinner. The close proximity of their earlier interaction—which had so utterly intoxicated Jeanette that she felt as though she were still sleepwalking—had instilled her with the courage necessary to invite him over for a private meal. She already knew how to present the request: they had made tentative plans to go over their respective essays for the Brightman Fellows Scholarship together, an activity that could easily be followed by a relaxed dinner and maybe a movie if she didn't have a piano lesson to teach tonight. It was rational, logical, proctored. It was easy.
"Jeanie? You there?"
So why did she feel as though she were preparing herself for war?
"Uh, yeah. Th-That's really sweet of Theodore," Jeanette blurted, smiling down at her younger sister.
Eleanor cocked her head inquisitively. "Jeanie, you're six million miles away. Did something happen this morning?" Her sweet eyes widened. "Did you and Simon finally-? Oh my gosh, you were singing in the shower this morning and you never sing when you've been sleepwalking. You did it! You guys finally did it!"
"Ellie!" Jeanette squealed. She glanced around in alarm before ushering a delighted Eleanor into a dim corner and surveying the crush of students for the Seville brothers. Upon seeing neither hide nor fur of them, she leaned down to whisper urgently in Eleanor's ear. "All we did was hug because I was feeling kind of stressed. That's it! B-But it got me thinking… and I-I think I'm going to ask him to dinner after our calculus test."
The blonde gasped and framed Jeanette's fine-featured visage in her hands. "Oh, I'm so happy for you! Just wait, Jeanie, this is going to be it. He's finally gonna realize how much he loves you."
"Let's not jump to any conclusions," Jeanette murmured, anxiety returning at the mere prospect of expressing her feelings. Rejection was still an agonizing possibility and as much as Jeanette daydreamed about receiving a passionate soliloquy from her apparently clueless counterpart, she was well aware that he was not obligated to reciprocate the crush. He could be perfectly fine remaining best friends forever. And if that was the case…
"Seriously, Jeanette." Eleanor clasped a reassuring hand around her sister's wrist, preventing her from slinking away dispirited. "I've seen the way he looks at you. Ever since we were kids, he's looked at you like you were the only person in the room. When he notices you in the crowd, his whole face just—lights up."
Color surged into Jeanette's cheeks. She too had perceived a sudden, radical illumination of his steel-grey eyes whenever their gazes met at baseball games or science fairs or recitals, but she had assumed this was simply a primitive reaction to spotting a familiar face. Perhaps she was just as oblivious as she suspected him of being. "I guess…"
"C'mon, Jeanie! Me and Theodore didn't even get together until freshmen year. There's nothing wrong with taking things slow."
"Yeah, but it's you and Theodore!" The two had been inseparable since grammar school, always holding hands or trading hugs even before they had a concrete impression of crushes and their anatomy. Despite their belonging to different cliques—Eleanor was a three-season athlete and Theodore dominated the drama department—they had remained absurdly close all throughout high school. Dating came naturally to them. "Simon and I are different. He's… I mean, he's my best friend. But we've always just been friends. And I-I don't want to ruin that if he doesn't feel the same way. I-I couldn't bear it if we stopped being friends."
"I have full confidence that he feels the same way," Eleanor said resolutely. As the crowd in the hallway thinned out in anticipation of the tardy bell, the two Chipettes hurried up to the juncture where they usually parted. Before Jeanette could duck into her Calculus classroom and trade her romantic insecurity for the structured constancy of integrals, Eleanor grabbed her sister's sweater sleeve. "I'm serious, Jeanie. You're beautiful, you're ridiculously smart, and you're still a big sweetheart even though high school technically should've make you mean and bitter by now. How could he not feel the same way?"
Because I'm ugly, definitely not as smart as everyone thinks, and a huge pushover, Jeanette thought sullenly.
"You're right, Ellie," she agreed with a plucky smile.
"Hey, I'm forty-sixth in the class. I gotta be right half of the time."
Jeanette waited until Eleanor had reluctantly filed into her Government classroom to elicit a sigh of resignation and head into Calculus. The classroom was thrumming with manic energy: students were either bombarding their frazzled teacher with questions or frantically quizzing themselves. Simon was part of the latter group, but he seemed relatively calm as he perused his flashcards. He had been something of a mathematical savant since kindergarten and had so little difficulty understanding Calculus that Jeanette had to wonder if he hadn't been doing derivatives since the womb. While he had the advantage in math, Jeanette was so proficient in English that her analyses and insights were sometimes lost on even Simon. She liked to think that their individual academic strengths were perfectly complementary, that the two of them were a perfect pair in every sense of the word.
Feeling somewhat emboldened, Jeanette hastened to her desk. She sat right behind Simon, an arrangement that typically only lent itself to girlish longing as Jeanette stared helplessly at the ripple of his lean muscles beneath his shirt. However, she fully intended on harnessing the close proximity today: there was no excuse not to ask him when he was scant inches away from her.
"Hello, Jeanette," he greeted, turning around to give her a reassuring grin. "I was thinking Brittany had convinced you to skip."
"She tried," Jeanette said. She tried to sound disappointed in her older sister, but giggled in spite of herself. Whenever one of her sisters exhibited trepidation about an upcoming test or game, Brittany would always persuade them to skip the event and get slushies with her instead. Jeanette had almost conceded to her this morning, only to change her mind after developing the dinner plan; Brittany, unfazed, decided to skip first period anyway.
"Well, I'm glad you came. Do you want to go over the trig integrals?"
"Um…" She glanced nervously at her chewed fingernails, then back at him. "Y-Yeah. Of course."
As they went through his flashcards, Jeanette reprimanded herself for not seizing the opportunity to ask him. The longer she postponed the proposal, the more anxious she would become and the less likely she would be to find the nerve to act. Maybe if they finished the test early… Yes, maybe they could get permission to go down to the library for the rest of the period. Then she would have no choice but to ask him.
Jeanette breezed through the flashcards and was no longer quite so worried by the time their teacher distributed the test. Simon wished her good luck, which she happily returned before diving into the first problem with all the joyful abandon of her morning dive into the pool.
To her surprise, Jeanette knew most of the material and remembered each of her integral identities. She still reviewed her work twice to ensure she hadn't made any careless errors, but the overall consensus was one of profound relief and satisfaction. Perhaps this day was fated to be wonderful. Perhaps this was a harbinger of not doom, but delight. First, an easy test, then a comfortable dinner, then a confession, and then…
Jeanette waited until Simon had turned in his test to turn in her own (mostly due to her irrational fear of being the first to hand in an assignment). Seizing the lull, she tapped his shoulder lightly and whispered: "Do you want to go to the library?"
"Sure." He requested a pass from their teacher—who obliged happily, trusting her star pupils to actually study rather than fool around—and quickly packed his blue backpack. They left the classroom without uttering another word out of respect for their still testing classmates. Out in the hallway though, it was a different story.
"What did you get for thirteen?"
"Six. What did you get for the bonus?"
"Three-point-two."
"Me too!" Jeanette cheered, bouncing momentarily in place. A whorl of hair escaped her sloppy bun; her feet tangled frantically at the sudden tickle of the curl against her face. Before she could hit the linoleum and scatter her textbooks in a most unflattering manner, a practiced arm looped its way around her middle. Jeanette found herself pinned securely against his chest, held in place by a forearm that was now shaking; his radial pulse thundered against her sternum.
A nervous chuckle escaped him. "Uh, are you alright, Jeanette?"
"Y-Yeah." She reached up to adjust her glasses, only to remember that she had opted for contact lenses today, and brushed the stray curl behind her ear. "It's been awhile, hasn't it?"
"Not too long. I was going to put catching you on my transcript," he added, removing his arm and stepping back so that the rattled Chipette could compose herself. She quirked her eyebrows in amusement.
"Varsity Jeanette Catching?"
"I'm team captain."
They both laughed, instantly defusing the nervous tension that had threatened to render the outing hopelessly awkward. Jeanette had hoped that her characteristic clumsiness wouldn't interfere with her errand, but the fact that he still found it somewhat endearing and hadn't forgotten how to catch her was heartening. Maybe her klutzy nature wasn't the total turn-off she had always condemned it as.
Upon reaching the library, they grabbed a small table near the reference section and unpacked their Physics textbooks. Before they could start discussing last night's homework, Jeanette uttered a soft "uh" to grab his attention. Since she was of such a timid, unobtrusive temperament, Jeanette often struggled to speak up in conservations, especially knowing she would be inevitably talked over by louder, brasher voices. Simon hated to see his shy friend so hesitant, which had prompted him to devise a little system: if she started any statement with "uh", this was his cue to listen and ask for the attention of the other conversation participants.
He glanced up, the gentle storminess of his grey eyes slightly magnified by the lenses of his glasses.
"Um, I-I was just wondering… um, we had talked about going over the Brightman Fellows application sometime this week… and, um, I-I was just wondering if maybe you wanted to come over tonight and… if you want to, maybe we could do that and-and have dinner or something… if you're not busy, of course."
The brief silence that followed was probably less than a second in length, but to Jeanette, it felt like several hours or more. She waited in agony as her stammering invitation was contemplated, fearing his brow might crinkle in revulsion at any moment. He would refuse or, worse, tell her that he had no time for her and her silly efforts at romance, couldn't she see he had no interest in dating anyone, especially her? She bit her lip, anticipating rejection.
"I'd love to." Simon smiled at his blushing companion, who blinked in disbelief a few times. "What time should I be there?"
"Um, f-five… if that's okay with you."
"Perfect. It's a date."
"Okay." The brunette beamed and allowed herself a breathless little laugh. "Okay."
Author's Note: Okay! First chapter! So, let me start by saying that this story will be all original pairings, with an obvious focus on Simon and Jeanette, because who can resist these two? It will be very slow-burn, but there'll be plenty of interactions to tide you over until then! Some things in this chapter might seem kind of random or unnecessary (the swimming pool, the sleepwalking, the conversations), but I promise that it will all come together. I really hope you enjoyed this chapter and that you'll leave a comment so that I know how you feel. Next chapter should be up soon!