Jackie found Eric on the front porch, nursing a beer on the steps to the house. Amber light from the lamps lining the streets cast shadows on his features, turning them mysterious in the dark.
"Hey you," she greeted him, her fingers caressing his hair at the back of his head.
"Hey," he said, offering her a half smile. He snagged her wrist and turned his nose to breathe in the warm scent of her skin.
Her other hand came up to brush the side of his face. "What're you doing out here all by your lonesome?" she teased.
She felt him press a kiss to the inside of her wrist in answer, before he pulled her down onto his lap and in between his knees. "You were inside a long time," he remarked.
She nodded, and her hair rustled against his shirt. "I missed you," she told him, rubbing her cheek against his forearm where it rested across her breasts.
He laughed softly and kissed her temple, then took a swig of beer, content to sit there with her in his arms.
The night was cool, and the street in front of the house was deserted. Jackie noticed that Kitty's plants in the front yard had started to flower again, and the sweet scent of the flowers carried over to them.
"My tree..." she said absently, "it would've started to flower around now, wouldn't it?"
Eric looked surprised at her question, but then looked down tenderly at the top of her head and nodded slowly. "Yes," he said quietly.
"I miss our nights out there beneath it."
For a fleeting moment, they could've both sworn that the night air carried the crisp scent of Acacia flowers with it.
And then it was gone.
"Your mom... She knows, you know."
Jackie felt more than heard him sigh. His arm tightened around her and he set down the can of beer next to them on the step.
"I know," he replied.
"Not everything," she hastened to add, "just... she suspects."
"I know," he told her again softly.
Her fingers traced the veins on his forearm, and she turned her face to press a kiss to his upper arm before leaning her head back between his shoulder and bicep. "I didn't say anything," she said quietly, "in case you were wondering."
"I wasn't." He looked down to give her a quick smile. "I know you."
She snorted dismissively. "Eric, many times before I've sold you out to save my own skin."
He barked out a laugh. "That is also true."
"Well, I didn't earlier. And I won't ever again now." She looked up to consider the lines of his profile, catching a glimpse of the deep scar under his jaw. Her heart tightened, and she angled her body sideways under his heavy arm to loop hers around his waist. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry it all happened to you."
"I'm not," he told her plainly, his voice deep and caressing in the night. "It brought me you."
She wasn't sure she was a worthy exchange, but she accepted his words, feeling them warm her in places she didn't know could still be warmed. She pulled his head down for a deep kiss, feeling his breath feather over hers, mingling with hers.
"Thank you for not telling them," Eric said quietly, the words heavy with feeling, as she tucked her head into his chest, over his heart. "It's not... It's not something that I would want them to know. And.. and to bear."
She had known, of course, which was why she hadn't, and wouldn't. She supposed someone less noble and more vain than he was would probably wear pain like a badge of honor, trumpeting it to all and sundry. And perhaps once upon a lifetime ago, she would have likely not been able to understand.
She did now, because she cared for him deeply, and she cared for Kitty, and she cared for Red. So she understood.
Her arms found their way around his neck, and she pulled herself up against his body to look into his eyes. Even in the dim light, she could make out the green in them that she loved so much. "Of course," she whispered, smoothing her thumbs over the planes of his face. "I know you," she told him, using his words from before.
He smiled his lopsided smile, catching her lips again in a heartfelt kiss.
Hyde happened to come upon them a third of an hour later, laughing softly and whispering quietly between intimate kisses and even more intimate touches.
His Camino had broken down somewhere along the way home from Grooves and he was in a foul mood after having to deal with the tow truck and being forced to walk home the rest of the way. His feet were sore, his legs ached, and he hated doing any form of exercise that didn't require him to be horizontal.
At first, he didn't recognize the couple on the step, and then when he did, a slow fury started to burn in his veins, accompanied by a sick taste of bile. The bile he seemed to be very acquainted with in recent times — it seemed that everything and everyone in the world around him conspired to make him feel sick.
He stopped at the edge of the driveway, unable for the moment to move any further. Eric's head snapped up, noticing immediately that he and Jackie were no longer alone.
Hyde's gaze locked on Eric's hand, which not five seconds before had been somewhere in the vicinity of Jackie's breast, and his eyes turned livid as Eric moved to adjust her top as Hyde involuntarily made a small step forward.
Jackie, a playful smile still lingering at the corners of her lips, looked up at Eric in confusion, frowning at the sudden customary stoniness of his face, when he lifted his jaw slightly towards the driveway to indicate that they were no longer alone.
She turned to see Hyde, and her mouth rounded in an "oh" of surprise, barely noticing as Eric's fingers had moved between them to do up the top few buttons of her blouse.
"Hyde," he nodded to Hyde, satisfied that Jackie was decent and scarcely moved as Jackie used her thumb to wipe some of her lipstick off of his bottom lip.
She turned to face him also. "Steven," she said swivelling around within the circle of Eric's arms to greet him. "Back for dinner?"
Hyde glowered. He forced his feet to move towards them, murderous intent gathering about him the closer he got to them. He saw the can of beer next to Eric on the step and pulled a foot back with every intention of sending it smashing towards Eric's face.
His foot connected sharply with the hard concrete of the top step instead, and in that split second before pain set in, he saw Eric calmly take a sip from the same can, and then pain exploded.
Jackie leapt up, concerned, and Hyde cut off mid-shriek, electing to rain a fury of more masculine curses down instead. He glared at Jackie. He refused to look at Eric, and with as much dignity as he could muster, he hobbled away on his once just sore, but now sore and bruised, feet down the basement stairs.
"Ignore him," Eric said shortly, as the basement door crashed open.
Jackie was staring after the stairs with her mouth slightly open. They heard Hyde trip over something in the dark and fall heavily. More curses ensued within.
"Are you sure—" she began, and then caught his expression in the moonlight.
Dismissing Hyde, she reached her arms towards him and slid easily back into his embrace, back to where she wanted to be. She kissed him tenderly in front of his ear, and then planted another gentle one at the corner of his mouth.
Carefully putting the can he had deftly swiped away from Hyde earlier down, she nuzzled the knuckles of his hand and guided it back under her shirt where it had been before they were interrupted.
"Now where were we?" she asked him huskily, seeing the answering glint in his eye and gasping slightly as she felt the callused warmth of it against naked flesh.
A/N: I wanted to take a moment to say thank you for all the reviews, as well as personal messages to me left by you guys on the last chapter. Every one of them made me smile, and some of them really warmed my heart. A lot of authors say this, and you guys probably read it a lot, but do know that it is really because of you guys that I find the energy to keep this story going. And especially during these dark times that seem to hover over all of us, I hope that a little of the love that Eric and Jackie share will find its way into each and every one of our lives.