by Jaded (opheliadrowning@hotmail.com)
Summary: Jackie and Hyde reach new levels of viciousness with each other. Takes place after "Thank You" and before "Black Dog" on the Season 5 timeline.
Rating: PG-13
A/N: This chapter is titled for the play/film of the same name starring Katharine Hepburn and Peter O'Toole. Chosen because of the viciousness of words and intensity of emotions that run throughout that play/film, and also because, you know, it's set in the winter.
Dedicated to the cool cat refugees from fan forum for their support, their humor, and the good times.
Chapter Seven: The Lion in Winter"So Jackie, any new cases of V.D. for you these days? Or hasn't Kelso shown you the new additions to his collection yet? I'm sure he's just got tons."
In the weeks since the college visit to the UW, the viciousness between Jackie and Hyde reached all-time highs. Everyone was starting to notice, even Red (who had stopped Hyde in the driveway one day and had said, "I normally don't give a rat's ass, but . . ."), but neither Hyde nor Jackie cared.
"Well I'm sure you could give him a run for his money," she snapped back, throwing her hair over her shoulder and sticking her nose up at him. She flounced over to the sofa in the basement and sat down, ignoring him. Jackie had just walked into the basement unannounced.
Hyde stood near the entrance to his room, his arms crossed and glaring at her. His attention snapped back to the door when he heard someone else walk in.
"Michael!" Jackie said, "go upstairs and get me a soda."
Kelso hesitated. The "honeymoon" period of their re-relationship had passed, and being under Jackie's thumb didn't seem as much fun to Kelso as it had at first.
"Jackie--" he started.
"Probation?!" she snapped. "Remember?"
He ran up the stairs, stumbling on the third step, but recovering before he took out his own eye.
Hyde leaned against the wall and stared at the back of her head. "I see true love is working out for you," he said, unable to hide the disgust in his voice.
Jackie was silent for a moment, but finally in a shaky voice, Hyde heard her say, "Whatever," under her breath.
He laughed, shaking his head. He walked over and sat down in his chair. She was only a foot away, the closest they had been to one another in weeks.
Hyde could smell her perfume. Faint and clean like flowers or baby powder. He swallowed, suddenly feeling a little overwhelmed and momentarily forgetting what he had intended to say. He let out a long breath in attempt at recovering some composure. It was hard to be this close to her and not remember the many times they had found themselves sprawled on the couch and tangled up in one another, using their mouths to do something other than burning one another.
"Whatever?" he said, remembering his train of thought. "Don't try that crap with me, Jackie. I taught you Zen. It won't work on me."
"Whatever," she said again, her voice more firm this time.
Hyde leaned back in his seat and pushed his sunglasses further down his nose, watching her out of the corner of his eye. Jackie was staring at the television even though it wasn't even on. Her focus was intense. A little too intense.
He tapped his fingers on his leg and looked back at the stairs to see if anyone else was going to be coming down any time soon. It was still just him and her in the basement, and that had proved to be a dangerous combination in the past. Any longer and they were liable to tear each other apart—or tear each other's clothes off—it was a toss-up.
After he had gone off with that college girl a couple of weeks back when they had been in Madison, Jackie had acted upset and angry like a jealous girlfriend. Except she had acted like his jealous girlfriend, not Kelso's. Yet she was still with Kelso, hanging on his arm, kissing him in front of Hyde and the rest of the world.
And that pissed him off, because it made him think—well—it made him not know what to think. On one hand he was angry because no one had a right—especially Jackie—to act like he belonged to them, but it also gave him a strange sense of satisfaction for reasons he didn't care to discuss or acknowledge.
He almost missed it when she shot him a quick glance, her arms relaxing and falling into her lap. She was playing with her skirt, her fingers wrapped around the smooth blue fabric of the hem. He could see her knee poking out.
"Jackie." He heard himself say her name in his head, but when he looked up he saw that Kelso had returned, and it had been Kelso saying her name. It was also Kelso handing her the soda, and it was Kelso who tried to look down her shirt and got slapped as a result.
"Damn Jackie! I'm your boyfriend, remember? I should be allowed certain perks!"
"Well looking down my shirt isn't one of them."
Kelso grinned. "Oh, I get it. I don't to look down you shirt. I get to take it off!"
"Michael!"
Hyde snorted, feeling like himself again. "Don't you know, Kelso? Everyone gets to do that to Jackie. Don't feel too special."
Jackie shot him a look of a thousand daggers. "Shut up, Hyde."
"Is that the best you can do?" he asked, leaning forward in his chair.
"Well, if that were true, which it is not, then it's probably due to the fact that I lowered my standards this summer."
"And then you lowered them even more at the end of the summer," he said, giving her a significant look.
Kelso looked at the both of him. "Huh?"
"At least I have some standards," she spat. "You—you just run off with whatever slut is willing to give it up. . . "
"Hey," Hyde said, leaning back in the chair and crossing his right leg over his left knee, "I'm all for the sexual revolution. If the ladies are up for it, so am I. There's no need for name calling or labels, Ja--"
". . . without any regard for other people's feelings!"
Hyde started and there was a long paused that followed. "And who would these other people be, Jackie?" he asked evenly.
The long silence was eventually broken by a knocking at the back door. Then another knock. Hyde wanted to know Jackie's answer, or to even know if she'd be willing or even brave enough to say what they both already knew. The knock came again.
"The suspense is killing me!" Kelso squealed, looking at both Jackie and Hyde, bouncing with curiosity and oblivious to what was going on. He seemed to think it was a riddle instead of the cosmic joke it really was.
There was another knock, louder this time, and a voice that asked, "Hyde?"
He had to go answer it now and got up to open the door. He could feel both Jackie and Kelso watching him as he went.
"Hey, babe." A tall, leggy blonde walked in. She reached for Hyde and caressed his bicep as she leaned in and gave him a full-on kiss on the mouth. He'd been expecting her, but Hyde hadn't realized how soon especially with the added distraction of Jackie and Kelso.
It had just come up too. At school earlier that day, Julie Carson had just come up to him, asked him if she could touch her hair because she thought it was cool, and asked him if he had the evening free for some Friday-night fun. She was hot, had a convertible, and he had no plans so he had said, "Why the hell not." But she couldn't have come at a more awkward time, and even she seemed to pick up on that.
"Um, hey guys," she said, waving lamely to Jackie and Kelso.
"Hey!" Kelso said. He looked at Hyde then and give him a thumbs up. Jackie said nothing, and for some reason that silence combined with the look on her face made his chest ache and his stomach hurt. He put an arm around Julie's waist and tried to shake the feeling, but it would not go away.
"Uh, anyway. We're heading out." Hyde put a hand on the small of Julie's back and guided her out first. He couldn't help but give one last look before he closed the door though. His eyes fell on Jackie, lingering on her face.
He didn't care if Kelso noticed, he didn't even care if this one look would somehow make Kelso suspect that something had gone on between his oldest friend and his girlfriend over the summer. This look was for Hyde, and for Hyde alone. How did a girl—this girl in particular—get him so twisted up inside, he wondered? He reached for his jacket which was sitting by the record player and looked into her face again. Her eyes were hard and cold, and it sent a chill through his body.
He had to forget about this, he thought, but he seriously wondered if he could shake Jackie Burkhart out of his mind. Or if he actually wanted to. Now that was a mess. In the meanwhile, as he shut the door and walked out into the chilly Wisconsin day, cold white snowflakes blowing in his face, the gray sky looming overhead, he told himself that one pair of soft lips and one warm body was just as good as any other. But as he was prone to not trusting anybody or anything, he was starting to think that he couldn't even trust himself.
***
Jackie had sworn that she had known what love was like, how it looked and felt, and could recognize the many different ways it manifested itself. After all, as the most popular and beautiful girl in Point Place it was practically her job to be the sage of love. For instance, what she had and had had with Michael was practically like Love Story except without being in college and the dying, and the fact that she thought she was a lot hotter than Ali MacGraw.
He bought her presents, told her she was pretty all the time, made her feel warm and fuzzy inside when he kissed her, and seemed to need her. Who else would clean up his boo-boos when he ran into a door or got something in his eye?
But the summer had come and he had run away, and Jackie had found herself wrapped up in Steven. With him things were drastically different. For one thing, he didn't buy her stuff like, ever, nor did he ever tell her she was pretty. But then again, he never had to because she could tell that he thought it by the way he would look at her, like he was drinking her in or like she was the only person in the world who mattered. And when he kissed her there were no warm fuzzies. It was more like volcanoes exploding and shooting stars, and sometimes it was like drinking hot cocoa after being outside on a cold winter's day. It felt warm all over and delicious, and it only made her want to drink more.
It was difficult to read him. With Michael it was like reading a children's picture book, bright, colorful, short, and easy to understand. With Michael, Jackie knew where she usually stood. But Steven was like trying to read James Joyce translated into Chinese.
There was no doubt that he had desired her, but somewhere along the line that stopped being enough, and that had scared her more than anything ever had before, even the time that she heard that a lion had escaped from the Milwaukee County Zoo. For months Jackie had been denying the fact that she wanted to love him, and that she wanted him to love her back. There were so many things wrong with that idea, but it was there and that was that.
She could even trace it back to one night, an evening in late July when Eric had been camped out in the basement, curled up in a blanket in front of the television and bawling every time a red-head came on the TV. Steven had dragged her out of there and driven them to the Point. It had been a warm evening with a clear sky sparkling with millions of stars. They had made-out some in the el Camino before he had suggested laying out on the hood of the car to enjoy the evening.
That was when it all changed. They had lain side-by-side, staring up at the sky. On the radio, "Stairway to Heaven" had been playing, except it was already to the part where Zeppelin "rocked out" (that's what he had called it) so it didn't sound all that romantic. He had had his hands folded behind his head at first, but then she had felt him shift, and found his arm wrapped around her shoulder. Steven had pulled her closer to him and Jackie had complied happily, resting her head against his chest. He then bent his head towards her and had kissed her on the forehead, and she could hear him sigh, a very un-Hyde-like thing to do. That was when it stopped being about just making out and became, at least for her, about being together.
So was it love? Was what she felt for Steven love, or was it just lust on a different level? She knew she loved Michael—or at least had loved him once—but what she felt for him and what she felt for Steven was so entirely different, it was like comparing apples to water buffalo.
Jackie only knew for sure that she felt something, because the night before when Steven had gone on that date with Julie Carson, Jackie had demanded that Michael stay with her in the basement until they got back. Of course she didn't tell Michael that was why, but that had been the reason. But it had gotten late and Michael had fallen asleep more than once. If they stayed any later it would become pretty obvious why they were still there, and Jackie had a feeling that Mr. Forman would come storming down to tell them to go the hell home anyway.
It was now Saturday and she still wanted to know. She felt kind of like a masochist because more likely than not, he had probably had a good time. Jackie was also still dying to know what had happened that night up in Madison. It made her want to throw-up, but it killed her not knowing if he had actually spent the night with that girl or not.
She went over to the Forman's around noon by herself. Eric was there of course, as was Donna. They were snuggled together on the couch calling each other "honey" or "sweetpea."
"Hey," Jackie said quickly in greeting, looking around the room for any signs of Steven. Without thinking, she walked into his room to see if he was there, and whether or not he was with anyone else. The room was empty.
"Where's Steven?" she asked, aware that the words came out shrill.
"Someone looking for me?"
Jackie looked up the stairs and saw him coming down. He stopped mid-step when he saw her.
"Oh," he said. "It's just you," and continued down the stairs. He sat down in his chair and kicked his feet up onto the table. "Where's your boyfriend, Jackie? Lost him already?"
So that's how it was going to be, she thought. Well I can play that game too. "No," she said sweetly, "he's safe at home. I tucked him in last night and left him there this morning. He's safe. And satisfied." So what if it wasn't true, she thought. The look on Steven's face was worth the white lie.
"Ew," Eric said, breaking away from Donna momentarily to express his disgust. "File that one under too much information."
"Satisfied?" Steven said, recovering. "A bit full of yourself there, aren't you, Jackie?"
"You wouldn't know satisfied if it hit you in the face."
"Oh, trust me, I do. I never hear any complaints."
"Yeah, you see, the thing is I don't trust you, Hyde. So therein lies the problem."
"You think that's the problem, Jackie? You're even more vapid than I thought. I always knew you were delusional, but I didn't think you were that stupid."
"Oh, so you're calling me stupid now? That's nice!"
"Dude!" Eric said, turning around to shoot them both looks. "Why don't you guys just go get a room or something? This crazy sexual tension--" here he made some wacky hand gestures, "is driving us all crazy."
"Eric!" Donna said, frogging him on the arm. "Be serious." She also turned and looked at Jackie and Hyde. "What's going on you two?" But they both ignored Donna.
Jackie took two steps closer to Steven, shouting now. "You know what, Steven? No one wants to hear you talking anymore, okay? Your car that runs on water? STUPID. Your government conspiracies? Also STUPID. And you know what? As much as people don't want to hear you talk anymore, they simply just don't want you."
The last statement seem to strike him dumb, and too late Jackie realized that she had gone too far. She had only been thinking about herself, about what she could say that would hurt him most and in the process had forgotten about his mom and dad, about how they had not left him once, but twice and how that probably made him feel not only unwanted, but unloved.
His mouth was opened slightly in surprise, and his shoulders seemed slumped as though someone had let his air out.
"Steven, I--" Jackie wanted to apologize, but instead she fled out the back door, racing up the back stairs and out on the street.
***
He ran after her. Hyde didn't know why but he did. Out into the snow he ran, ignoring the strange looks from both Eric and Donna, ignoring the cold and the fact that he was only wearing a thin long-sleeved t-shirt, and ran after Jackie before she could get away. He saw across the street trying to run in her heeled boots. He made a mad sprint towards her.
It was beginning to snow heavily. The snow whirled in mini cyclones around him, his sunglasses becoming plastered with a thin layer of ice. He pulled them off and ran with them in his hand, using his other hand to block the snow from his eyes.
"Jackie!" he called, his voice echoing through the quiet neighborhood. "Jackie!"
He was faster than she was and it only took him a few seconds to catch up to her. "Jackie!" he said again, reaching out to grab her hand so she couldn't run away anymore. She whipped her head around so she wouldn't have to look him in the face.
"Leave me alone, Steven!" she said, her voice choked with tears.
"No," he said. "We have to talk."
"Since when do you want to talk?"
"Since now. C'mon, Jackie. What the hell is going on?"
"Why don't you tell me since you seem so damned sure of yourself?" She still would not turn around.
"Jackie, look at me," he said, his voice gentle. "Please." He squeezed her hand. "Please."
Slowly, she came around, her eyes turning up to look at him. "What do you want from me?"
Hyde took a deep breath. "I want this passive-aggressive stuff to stop for one thing. Obviously, there's a problem here, so why don't we just come out and say what we mean and get it over with?"
"Get it over with, huh?" she said. "Okay. Fine then. Why don't you start since you're so gung-ho about the truth."
"Fine," he said. Hyde ran a hand through his now snow-coated hair and took a deep breath. "I think that you and Kelso are a big mistake." There, he thought, I said it. "I think that you getting back together with him is just asking for trouble. Because you're only going to get hurt, Jackie, and you're going to come running to me like you always do when Kelso breaks your heart."
She seemed to take a few seconds to absorb this. "So what is it? Is it that you're sick of me running to you when I need help?"
"Jackie, no."
"Or is it because when I run to you, you want me to stay?" She blinked. There were snowflakes on her eyelashes.
"I'm just saying," he said quickly, avoiding the question, "that Kelso's just going to hurt you again. You're setting yourself up for a fall. I'm not always going to be there to help you pick up the pieces, Jackie. Do you really want to be in a relationship where you're just waiting for the other shoe to drop?"
She looked at him in disbelief. "At least with Michael," she said angrily, "I know there are shoes."
"What?" Jackie-speak. Why did she always have to speak in her messed-up, cheerleader code?
Jackie threw her hands up in the air. "You know what, Steven? Nevermind. If you don't know what I'm getting at, then just nevermind because it's just a waste of both of our time."
She shoved him away and started off again towards her car parked just a few yards away down the street.
He could have followed her. He might have, but he didn't. Instead Hyde stood in the snow and watched her drive off. Even after a few minutes, long after she had gone, he stood in the snow and stared off to where she had been standing not too long ago. Eventually, Hyde started to feel cold and walked slowly back to the house.
Eric was still sitting in the basement when he walked back in. Donna, it seemed, had left, probably to find out what was going on with Jackie.
"Hey, man," he said, looking genuinely concerned. "What's going on with you and Jackie?"
Hyde circled the room and shook off the cold. He looked his friend in the face, deciding what to say. Finally, he settled on truth.
"I don't know, man. I just don't know."
[end chapter seven]