by Jaded (opheliadrowning@hotmail.com)
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A trip to the UW tests will power, reveals feelings, and only further complicates a complicated realtionship.
A/N: Takes place when "Over the Hills and Far Away" should be taking place.
Chapter Six: School DazeA measured breath, gaze straight ahead, Hyde took the el Camino around the on-ramp and merged into the flow of traffic and onto the highway heading towards Madison. He then quickly changed lanes, the car ahead of him in the right lane puttering along slowly. As he zoomed by he cast a glance at the car. It was an older couple, pointing at the clusters of trees at each side of the highway and acting as though highway151 was the scenic route around Devil's Lake State Park.
It was fall in Wisconsin, and the trees were putting on a show, the leaves transitioning from green to yellow, yellow to orange, and occasionally ending with a flourish of cardinal red at its very tip like a hot blush.
Nature, Hyde thought. Whatever. And he drove on, lost in thought.
When he had looked over at the old couple he had seen more than just them, more than some trees. Hyde hadn't failed to notice that Jackie was only a foot away from him, her hands folded in her lap, her head leaning against the passenger-side window. She looked…well, she looked beautiful, but he wasn't going to tell her that. Her head was already big enough, and anyway, he didn't say that kind of stuff and especially not to her, not now.
So this was going to be like a test, and as much as Hyde hated tests, it didn't mean that he wasn't any good at them. He could do fine if he tried, and he knew that with this, he had to try, and try damn hard too. Because it would be so easy, he thought, to just pull the car over onto the side of the road and kiss her, lean her into the upholstery, run his hands over her warm, tan skin, and tangle his fingers into her soft, dark hair. Hyde remembered that she liked being kissed on the neck, and how when he used to trail kisses down her jaw to the hollow of her throat she'd squirm and giggle, and ultimately melt into his arms. Then they would lapse into their own little world even though it was still just Forman's basement or Jackie's bedroom, where time didn't matter and it was just them.
He was startled to discover how vivid and detailed the image was and how quickly it had come to mind. He was also bothered by the little voice in the back of his head that told him that even if he did pull over and if she agreed to make-out with him like they had all summer, it wouldn't be enough, and how it would never be enough.
Two months and he still had her on the brain, and he knew that if he didn't exorcise her out of his head soon he was going to go all Linda Blair-head-spinning-pea-soup-puking crazy. Maybe Forman was right and Jackie was the devil. It would explain why he felt like he possessed by her day in and day out and into the night. Why he couldn't stop thinking about her even when he tried.
Passing the town of Beaver Dam, Hyde had already lost track of the Formans and the Vista Cruiser which he remembered passing a couple of miles back. They'd met up in Madison later though, but Hyde hoped that they weren't too far behind. Being alone with Jackie in the car was one thing because he could pretend to concentrate on the road and she could pretend to stare at trees or something, but once they got into town and had to wait for everyone else, it would be harder.
Hyde realized then that they hadn't spoken one word to each other in half an hour, not since they had left the Forman's driveway, and this was unusual for Jackie who had had trouble shutting up when he had had his tongue practically down her throat. He dared to glance over again and saw that she seemed to be asleep.
He drove on, but after two minutes looked at her again.
"Kelso," he muttered, the name coming out bitter like poison. Hyde shook his head, and out of the corner of his eye saw Jackie twitch in her seat. He raised an eyebrow. Was she faking being asleep?
He cleared his throat and spoke again. "But what could you possibly expect from a cheerleader? Piss-poor taste and no common sense." He glanced at her again, watching to see if she moved or woke up but saw that she didn't. He tried again, and this time in a loud, clear voice that gave up any pretenses that he actually believed she was asleep. "You two deserve one another then." But Jackie did not stir in her seat.
Maybe she really was asleep. Hyde wasn't so sure anymore. Seeing a sign that said "Madison: 15 miles," he considered trying one more time to test her, to see if she was really awake or not. He had even thought of the perfect phrase, one that would shock her into a reaction no matter what: "Jackie, I love you." But when he tried to say it the words stuck in his throat like a side-ways pill and he found himself unable to even manage one syllable.
So instead Hyde just continued on until they got into Madison and he arrived on the University of Wisconsin campus. It took a few minutes to orient himself in the downtown area because there were so many one-way streets, but eventually he found the hotel that Red had booked for them and pulled into the parking lot to wait for the other car to show up.
Jackie looked genuinely asleep now. Her chest rose and fell in an easy rhythm and there was even a little drool on the corner of her mouth. Hyde smiled to himself, imagining how embarrassed she would've be if she knew that she was a drooler.
When he finally did see Red pull the Vista Cruiser in the lot, he leaned over to wake Jackie up. He reached over and stroked her cheek with his finger and said her name before he realized what he was doing. But instead of pulling back he let his hand linger there for a moment, letting himself think that the reason was because he was a red-blooded American boy, and like any red-blooded American boy he as taking advantage of a hot girl when the opportunity arose. But even Hyde knew that was far from the truth.
But really, he thought, what was the truth? The government was always lying, and Jackie—she was obviously lying to herself—but maybe she didn't know it. He may not have known the truth himself, but he thought himself a pretty good judge of what was a lie.
Seeing Red getting out of the car, then seeing Eric emerge looking obviously disgruntled, Hyde pulled his hand away reluctantly and opened his door to get out.
"Jackie!" he barked. "Time to get up and get out."
She jumped slightly and turned her gaze onto him, her eyes wide and surprised. She blinked, opened her mouth to say something, and then promptly shut it. Shaking her head to knock the cobwebs out of her head, she slowly opened the door to get out, but not without giving him a second, parting glance.
He did his best to ignore her and then doubled the effort when he saw Kelso scamper over to her and take her hand and kiss her on the cheek. They headed off, following the Formans into the hotel, leaving Hyde to carry his bags and hers.
***
There were way too many sluts at the UW, Jackie thought. She stood in the lobby of Chadbourne Hall and glared at every pretty girl that walked by, and there were too many for her taste. She could hear Michael making little squeals of delight next to her, and she did her best to ignore him. She knew about his love for sluts, and she also knew that sluts loved him. Together, they were a dangerous combination. That was why she was here too, or at least she told herself.
She let her eyes wander around the room—Fez was also entranced by the many college slutbags—until they finally came to rest on Steven. Jackie felt her chest tighten. He loved sluts too, and had already gotten his fair share of looks from passing girls. Michael was pretty, but Steven looked and acted—for the most part—like a man, and that seemed to be more appealing to these older girls. He carried himself differently from Eric or Michael, and the beard probably helped.
Jackie suddenly felt like a little girl, and she shrank back. But why? she thought. I'm as every bit a woman as any of these girls if not more. She gave the stink-eye to a girl that seemed to take a particular interest in Steven and watched with satisfaction as the girl stopped, looked confused, and scurried away like a scared little squirrel. Steven gave her an angry smirk, but she just shrugged and smirked back.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" he mouthed.
"Nothing," she mouthed back innocently and turned her attention to Michael. He didn't know it, but she had heard him in the car when he had insulted her and Michael, and she was pissed at him.
Wanting to avoid any sort of confrontation on the way to Madison, Jackie had pretended to be asleep. It had been hard though. She was a normally chatty person and she had always loved to talk Steven's ear off because she knew it annoyed him to no end, but that ultimately he listened to every single word she said, but to talk to him then would've only had led to trouble. She knew that it would end with them fighting—or kissing each other passionately—and she couldn't allow either one of those situations to happen.
She had eventually really fallen asleep, but she had heard him mock her relationship with Michael, and it had hurt her and had made her angry. What right did Steven Hyde have to insult her relationship? He didn't know what a relationship was, what is was like, how hard it was to keep one together. Where did he get the gall to say what was right or wrong with hers?
"Michael!" she snapped when she saw him making googily-eyes at some girl.
"What?!" he shrieked.
Jackie shook her head sadly and grabbed him by the wrist. "You need to behave. If you don't remember, let me refresh your mind." She pulled at his arm again and made him crouch until his head was level with hers. "You, Michael Kelso, are with me. Remember?" He nodded slowly. "And," she said, raising her voice to a shrill pitch, "you are still on probation, which means you are NOT SUPPOSED TO LOOK AT OTHER GIRLS!"
"But Jackie!" he whined, looking behind him. "That's like . . . it's like me telling you that when you're at a mall you're not allowed to shop!"
"No," she said, "it's really not. Really, Michael, did you want to be with me or not?"
"I do," he said in defeat.
"Good. Now go find me something to drink. And it better be cold!"
He ran off and Eric came up to her, an eyebrow raised. "Jackie, tell me again, why ARE YOU HERE?"
Unfazed, Jackie answered, "To supervise Michael."
"You are not going to come with us to the college parties and yell at Kelso all night, are you?" Fez asked, tearing his eyes away from the crowds of young co-eds for a second.
"Yeah, Jackie, because that would really kill the mood and then what use would the ladies be for our libidos?"
She whipped around. It was Steven.
"Don't let me stop you from finding a skank and getting laid," she said acidly.
He smirked. "Don't worry about that." He had his sunglasses off and was staring at her, his eyes almost daring her to say or do something.
And she wanted to. She wanted to scream at him, but she didn't know exactly what words and in what order. He was driving her absolutely crazy, and especially so in the last few months. He hated that she was Michael, and he made that known to both of them every moment he could with whatever little backhanded comment he had in his arsenal.
It frustrated her to no end that she didn't know why he acted like that. Did he just want to make her miserable? Or did he want her? But she erased that thought from her mind as soon as it came up. He had made it abundantly clear that her company disgusted him now, and that probably hurt her more than anything.
That day she had taken him to the mall with her she had hoped that they could have remained friends. Friends with benefits, the voice in the back of her mind whispered, and the memory of that day, the remembrance of his closeness made her heart flutter. But he had stormed off, and almost every comment to her after that was a burn, a backhanded comment, a snarl.
They had agreed to end their summer fling, so why did it feel like it was anything but over?
"Oh my god!" Fez yelled suddenly. Jackie jerked her head up to see what he was yelling about. "It is a naked college girl!"
A girl walked past the lobby wrapped in nothing but a towel and flip flops. Jackie glared at her, then at all the boys, even Eric and Fez who she really didn't care about like that.
"Hold it—girls live here?" Mr. Forman, who had been talking to the resident advisor suddenly asked.
"Yes sir," the advisor responded. "We're co-ed here."
The boys made a squealing happy noise.
"SHUT IT, you dumbasses," Mr. Forman boomed. "That's it. You are staying with us at the motel."
"But Dad!"
"Eric--"
"Okay! Okay!"
Steven hit Eric on the shoulder, Fez glared, and Michael shrieked in indignation. The only person who left Eric alone was Jackie. She was pleased with the change in plans.
***
At around nine o'clock that evening, after being treated to a lecture on Mrs. Forman's ovaries and her other lady problems, the boys left their hotel room still shaking out whatever mental images she had put into their heads with the exception of Fez, who seemed a little too interested in the subject, and who needed to be dragged out of the room by all three boys.
Jackie, who was staying in the room next door, pounced on them the second they walked out of the door. Did she have super-hearing or something, Hyde wondered as he attempted to ignore her completely.
"Where are you going?" she said. She seemed to be addressing them all, not just Kelso. Hyde gave her a look, then shot one at Forman who seemed to pick up on the cue. It was a perk of being best friends for so long.
"Bible study," he said.
"Really?" she said not believing him at all. "Michael?"
"Bible study?" Fez asked. "You son of a bitch! Why did you pull me out of the room then? I would rather learn about the natural wonders of the female body from Miss Kitty than go to Bible study! What happened to the party?"
"Fez!" both Hyde and Eric shouted at once.
"Party? Michael, were you going to invite me to this party?"
Hyde rolled his eyes and walked down the hallway away from her. Man, he thought, she's already back in rare form to the Jackie of days of old. Mean, bossy, and demanding. He wondered what he had seen in her. Well, he thought as he turned around and looked at her again, she was still really, really hot. He pulled at his collar and turned away again, shoving his hands into his pockets. He wasn't going to think about her anymore. Right, he thought, don't think about her. That's the ticket.
"Of course, Jackie!" Kelso lied. He went and put an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. Hyde opened and closed a fist, unable to not watch. "A party without you, baby, isn't really a party."
Hyde snorted loudly. Jackie shot him a look, but this time it wasn't an angry look. Her face looked soft, her eyes wide and her mouth just slightly open in something like a smile.
"C'mon, let's go," he barked. "If we keep pansying around like this the keg is gonna be tapped before we get there. I don't know about you losers, but I ain't wasting my college experience."
"Yeah!" Kelso shouted. "To the beer!"
"To the beer!" Forman chimed in, and they filed down the hallway.
They had found out about the party from one of their campus tour guides. "Yeah, man," their tour guide Sid had told them during a lull when all the squares had gone to explore one of the libraries, "there's gonna be this huge blow-out on Langdon Street. Lots of hot chicks, lots of good beer. It's by all those frat houses but it's not actually AT a frat house," he continued, a fact that reassured Hyde. Brotherhood was one thing, but organized meatheads was another. "It's pretty cool," Sid went on, "all the hot sorority babes go there too."
"It is like Christmas!" Fez had said. "Except with beer and whores instead of eggnog and reindeer!"
When they finally found the house where the party was at they managed to glide in without any trouble. It helped that Jackie went first and there was a pimply nerd at the front door who couldn't keep his drool to himself when he saw her. A few winks there, a little show of leg here, and she even managed to get him to waive the five dollar cover they were asking for all of them.
However, when the guy tried to grab her ass on the way in as some sort of compensation or perk of the job, Hyde frogged him hard on the arm before he got a feel of anything. Hyde grabbed the nerd by his collar an d pulled him up.
"Think you're a big college man, do ya? Do that again and this won't be the last you see of me." Some guys, he thought, dusting his hands off. Forman giggled and Fez gave him a high-five. Kelso seemed a little put out that Hyde had to defend his woman, but Hyde knew that he hadn't done anything, no one else would have. He also couldn't help but wonder if Jackie had seen or heard any of it. He kind of hope she hadn't, but then a little part of him hoped that she had.
"I need beer," he grumbled and went wandering to what looked like a kitchen.
Three beers later he was finally having a good time. Forman was chatting with some girl who looked like she as trying to find an escape route—he was probably talking about Donna again—and Fez was being persuaded to do a keg stand by some girls. Kelso in the meanwhile, seemed to have disappeared, which meant Jackie should've been with him too, but she wasn't. He saw her a few feet away from him and looking really annoyed. He considered going and getting her a beer so at least she wouldn't look so surly, but he decided against it. To stop thinking about her or whatever he was doing, he had to stop talking to her, and getting things to her was bordering on nice to boot, and he didn't do "nice."
"Hey there." Hyde looked up. It was a girl. And a hot one too. Blonde, curvy in all the right places, and looking interested in him and willing.
"Hey," he said, keeping his voice low and even, which he found drove the right kind of girl wild because it betrayed just enough mystery and aloofness to make them want him even more.
She reached out and touched his chin. "So that's a great beard. I've never made out with a guy with a beard."
Hyde shifted his beer from one hand to the other and gave her a smile. "Well, this could be your lucky day."
"Want to go to my room?" she asked. Man, he as loving these college girls. Hot, and forward as all hell.
"Absolutely," he said, standing up. She took his hand and began pulling him along.
Across the room in the dark he saw Forman, and then he saw Jackie. She was staring at him hard, her arms crossed, her lips set in a thin line. He hesitated for a moment, and the girl, noticing it, turned.
"What's wrong?"
"You know what?" he said, "I'll be with you in a second. I just gotta go tell my friends that they shouldn't expect me tonight."
She grinned, obviously liking his line of thinking. She leaned in close to his ear and whispered, "Sounds great. Tell them you'll see them tomorrow. I'll go freshen up a little. Room 521. Don't keep me waiting."
"Don't worry about that." She left and he quickly made his way over to Forman to tell him what was going on, but before he could Jackie intercepted him halfway, grabbing him roughly by the arm and pulling him out into the hallway with her. She kept going, dragging him until they reached the empty stairwell.
"What the hell do you think you're doing!" he said, shaking her hand off. "Damn, Jackie!"
"What the hell do you think you're doing" she demanded.
"What? Jackie--"
"Are you really going to spend the night with that slut?"
"That was the general idea."
"You can't."
Their voices were echoing in the stairway. He wouldn't have doubted it if the rest of the dorm was listening in to their conversation right now.
"You know what, Jackie?" he hissed, "I think I can."
Pure frustration swept over her face and she stamped her foot angrily. The sound echoed like a shotgun going off in a cave, bouncing off the walls and bounding back at them. "You can't," she said again, her voice quiet and quivering with emotion. She shook her head vigorously. It made Hyde pause, made him check his anger. He took a step closer to her. He could smell her perfume and he swore he could feel her familiar warmth radiating from her body. He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling a little overwhelmed by her nearness.
"Why," he asked again, his voice calm as he could force it.
She turned her head up and looked at him, her eyes dark and searching. Their faces were only inches apart.
"You know," she insisted.
"No, I don't," he said. "Tell me."
"You just—I—you just can't!" she cried. He could see tears forming in the corner of her eyes. "You deserve better."
"We all deserve better, Jackie, but that isn't how it always works out, now is it? You deserve better than Kelso, but obviously that didn't stop you from getting back together with him, did it?"
"How dare you," she said, her voice small but accusing. Her hands curled into little fists and she moved to strike him but he caught her wrists in his hands.
Hyde looked into her face, his heart beating fast and hard. He leaned in towards her again, momentarily unsure what he was going to do or what he wanted to do. He could feel the hairs on his arms standing up. No matter how long ago they had stopped their little affair there was still something left, something like electricity, like lightning, something hot and powerful and intense. The part of his brain that he normally told to shut the hell up took this opportunity to name what he was feeling. He missed her, missed her closeness so much that he had shut that part of himself down and had done everything possible to ignore it.
Hyde saw her lick her lips, the pink tongue passing quickly over her mouth. Jackie's breathing had become shallow and quick. She was watching him carefully, waiting for his next move.
His head bobbed closer to her face, and for a moment he closed his eyes, ready to let whatever happen happen, but sense grabbed a hold of him and shook him to his senses. He leaned in again, but this time his mouth moved towards her ear, his lips brushing against the curve by her hairline.
"I'm not your boyfriend, Jackie," he said softly. "You don't get to tell me what to do." He dropped her wrist and pulled away, turning back towards the hall as quickly as possible.
Jackie made a noise, a gasp almost like a sob, but Hyde pretended not to hear it, getting out of the stairwell as quickly as possible. He stumbled through the door and looked wildly around the hallway, disoriented. He couldn't remember where he had wanted to go, what he had wanted to do. His hands touched the wall and he felt his way around the corridor, letting his legs carry him to where they thought he was supposed to be. The only thing he knew for sure through his daze was that he could not go back. It was too late for that now.
[end chapter six]