A/N: Sorry, this took me a while. Real life has been happening a lot through the last couple of weeks, and I haven't had enough time for this. But it's here now.
In Fez' case, it could be excused. Fez had known Kelso for a much shorter period of time and could be much more receptible to Kelso's convincing. And Kelso could be very convincing, when he wanted to be. But Forman and Hyde should have learned by now, they really should have. They'd known Kelso since he moved here in first grade for crying out loud. They should know. Never ever listen to something Michael Kelso saying he has a good idea, unless it involves nobody but Kelso.
Falling or jumping off the water tower was objectively a bad idea, but at least, unless Kelso managed to grab one of them, it was only Kelso who got hurt. That time, when they were 10 and Kelso decided to steal a cow from one of the local farmers had also been a bad idea. But at least, it had only been Forman and Kelso getting caught by the farm's very angry guard dog. And Forman was faster than Kelso.
Kelso had a tendency to either have been given something that sounded too good to be true or loudly proclaim to have the "best idea ever." And Forman and Hyde should have learned by now, that if the best idea ever involved them, it was definitely a bad one. Because there had been a lot of those.
Even in the historic amount of really bad ideas, Hyde was pretty sure, this one had to take the cake. They had never ended up in jail before, not even after they had stolen that Christmas tree at Christmas from the side of the road. But here they were, sitting in a line on practically rusty metal chairs staring at a grey cement wall, in jail because of a stupid car.
"If I call Red, I'm dead," Forman said, voice steady but clearly nervous. He was fidgeting more on his chair, than he usually was. "Even if my mom picks up, Red is going to know, and I'll be dead."
"You say that with everything, man," Kelso added, but he wasn't looking at Forman, and to Hyde, Kelso's protest sounded weak. Like he didn't really believe Forman was overreacting.
"Yes, but this time, I'm dead," he bit back. Considering the fact that they had all been convinced Forman was overreacting about the scratch on the Cruiser, only to be convinced the second they noticed Red's head snap around, Hyde believed him. Not that he could do anything to help, like he'd already said it was poker night. If they called Edna, she'd probably just drunkenly yell in their face and hang up, wasting their one chance to get out of this hell hole.
None of them said anything for a minute, just sitting there in a straight line on the chairs where the cops had placed them. This had to be illegal somehow, none of them were over 18, so you couldn't just keep people, right? Of course, Hyde also knew the system didn't actually care much about the rules, as much as they pretended to, so even if it was illegal, he was pretty sure that wouldn't be much help. Something flashed over Kelso's face, and Hyde immediately had a bad feeling.
"I know what we can do," Kelso said, clearly proud of his idea, which probably meant it was worse than Hyde suspected. He mentally prepared himself for whatever it was. "Jackie's dad is a lawyer, he can get us out of here. I can call Jackie and convince her to help us."
"Man, did you hit your head?" Hyde asked immediately, the idea turned out to actually be even worse, than he'd expected it to be. Which was really saying something. Not only did Jackie hate Kelso's guts, but even though she had been back in the basement for the last day, she didn't like any of the rest of them either. And doing something out of the goodness of her heart, didn't really seem to be Jackie's style. "Jackie broke up with you less than a week ago, she's gonna hang up as soon as you call."
"No, come on, man. Jackie doesn't want me to rot in jail!" Kelso said, and Fez gave him an affirming look, which of course only made it so much worse. Hyde resisted the urge to roll his eyes to the back of his head, if only barely. "Besides, she loves me. She just needs a bit of time to get over me making out with Pam Macy, and then she'll come back."
"Kelso, you're the king," Forman muttered, staring straight ahead at the grey cement wall. Forman, like himself was clearly wondering, how everything had gone so wrong, that they had ended up here, stuck in a jail cell with Kelso and Fez. Hyde sure was wondering exactly that.
"Well, do any of you idiots have a better idea?" Fez protested, glaring at Hyde and Forman as if he was disappointed, nobody was on board with Kelso's plan. Understandably, considering Fez had a lot less experience with Kelso's stupid ideas.
"We could call Donna. But she'd probably have to ask Midge or Bob to help," Forman said, and then immediately looked like he reconsidered. "But Mr Pinciotti would tell my dad in a heartbeat, and then I'd still be dead."
"See, none of you have better ideas," Fez pointed out, like he and Kelso were the only ones, who had figured it out. "And like Hyde said, his mother is being poked so she can't help us either."
Hyde decided to punch his arm for that. It might be where poker night was going, depending on what mood Edna and whatever buddy she was playing poker with where in, but he really didn't need his moron friends to remind him of that. "Yeah, lets call Jackie. She's the only one, who can actually help us."
"I really hate that this is the best idea we have," Forman said with a deep sigh, and Hyde was inclined to agree with him.
"Well, if we're going to rot in jail for the rest of our lives," Hyde said with a resigned breath, preparing himself for his fate. An inevitable fate, if they went through with this phone call. "It might as well be Jackie Burkhart's fault."
"No!" Jackie should have hung up at least a minute or so ago. Maybe she was losing it, considering the fact that she was still talking on the phone. Michael had called her two minutes ago, because he and the rest of the boys had gotten themselves stuck in jail over a car. A Michael screw up of course. And somehow, she was supposed to want to help them or ask her dad to help them. "I said not until hell freezes over."
"Come on, Jackie!" Michael said, his voice bordering on whiny, which just made Jackie roll her eyes harder. That was exactly how he sounded, whenever she wouldn't let him get to second base. So, she'd gotten used to the whiny voice, and could easily block it out and completely ignore it for a fairly long amount of time if necessary. "You know, I'm too fragile to be stuck in jail."
Over the course of the last two minutes, Michael had run through nearly every possible argument he had. At least, Jackie was pretty sure of that. He'd started by telling her how pretty she was, and that was probably the reason, she was still on the phone. It was nice to hear, but it was going to make her forget he was a two-timing liar, even if he was right that she was the most gorgeous girl in Point Place. Then he'd tried to remind her, she loved him, which was worse. Then switched over to suggesting she just helped him and left the other boys in jail. And now begging.
"Michael, I said no!" Jackie repeated, this time a lot harsher. She was going to end this temporary insanity and hang up. She was going to, right now. If she kept being on the phone, she might accidentally cave and help out Michael and she didn't want to do that.
"Jackie-" Michael started, and then there was a scuffle and he was cut off. For a brief moment, Jackie was actually worried that some scary criminal had tackled Michael. She mentally kicked herself, she wasn't supposed to worry about Michael, she was trying so hard to not care. Thankfully, Michael would have no way of knowing she was worried.
"Don't hang up," a voice, belonging to Steven Hyde, said. Well, not quite a scary, big criminal then. Just a poor boy who listened to bad music. She wanted to hang up, probably even more now than she had two seconds ago. Jackie's face quickly turned into a scowl.
"Not convinced, Hyde," Jackie said between gritted teeth.
"What do you want?" Hyde asked her, catching Jackie off guard. There wasn't the usual ten layers of sarcasm, he almost sounded sincere. Which was way weirder and off putting, than the fact that he thought, he could do a better job at convincing her than Michael.
"Excuse me?" she said and sat up a little straighter in her bed. She'd expected him to just complain and hang up, so Jackie wouldn't have to be the one hanging up.
"Can't be that hard to wrap your head around, Jackie," he replied, making her roll her eyes and once again considering hanging up. For some stupid reason, she didn't. Again, if she was asked later, which she probably wouldn't be, she would say it was temporary insanity. "What's it gonna take for you to ask your dad to help us?"
"500 dollars from each of you?" Jackie suggested, already knowing what he was gonna say, before she did. But to be honest, she kind of hoped he'd just give up and hang up.
"Jackie, if we had 2000 dollars, we could just bribe our way out of here," Hyde shot back. He took a breath, like he was steadying himself to keep having this conversation. She hadn't expected that. "Something else?"
She still wasn't sure if he was actually trying to be nice to her, mostly because it didn't seem like him. There was a lot of things, Jackie could suggest that she knew Hyde would hate doing. And it had to be something, Hyde didn't want to do. She shuffled a little from how she was sitting on her bedspread. "Jackie, something else?" Hyde repeated a little more irritated, but clearly trying to pretend he wasn't.
"Fine, apologize to me," Jackie said, keeping her voice steady. There wasn't a response for a couple of breaths.
"What?" Hyde said. He sounded disbelieving.
"Apologize for being such a stupid jerk at the ski cabin about me and Michael, and then maybe I'll ask my dad, if he can help you," Jackie said matter of factly, still keeping her voice just as steady. She could be really stubborn, when she wanted to be. Like that time, she had to convince Kat to drop Amber from the cheerleading squad, because Amber kept hitting on Michael. It had taken a bit of work, but Jackie hadn't backed down, and she'd gotten exactly what she wanted.
"That's emotional blackmail," Hyde bit back. He had shifted from disbelieving to just plain annoyed, which was exactly what Jackie had expected him to do. If all went to plan, he'd get so annoyed that he would hang up in a second, so Jackie didn't have to deal with this conversation anymore. Again, there was a voice in the back of her head reminding her, that she could just hang up. But for some reason, Jackie ignored it.
"You asked, what it would take – it's either this or each of you losers can pay me 500 dollars," Jackie said, if she'd been facing him and not talking on the phone, she would have probably crossed her arms and pouted. To get the point across.
"No chance in hell," Hyde said, and Jackie was worried she'd overplayed her hand. She could have just asked them to wear dresses to school for a day or something, and they'd probably have done it. There was another long beat of silence. Jackie could have just hung up, but she was almost a little interested to see, if he'd actually do it. Which wasn't how she'd expected this conversation to go at all. "Fine," he finally said with a deep breath.
"And sound like you mean it," Jackie said, deciding to push her luck just a little more. She might be mostly doing this to get him to do something, he didn't want to do. But she was kind of mad at him about this weekend, so it wasn't like she didn't want this apology.
"Fine," Hyde retorted, and Jackie could practically picture the scowl on his face behind his stupid sunglasses. He didn't say anything for a long moment, and Jackie wondered again, if she had pushed it too far. "Jackie- I am really sorry about being an asshole over the weekend," he said, and she was surprised by how sincere, he actually sounded. She hadn't thought, he had it in him to sound like he actually meant it. Jackie's grip tightened a little on the phone, until she reminded herself, he was just doing this as a bribe.
"Kelso might have been the most obvious two-timing moron in the world," Hyde continued, and Jackie thought she heard a faint protest in the background, but neither she nor Hyde paid any real attention to it. Something stilled inside Jackie's chest. "But that doesn't mean you should be treated like that, not even you."
"Thank you, Steven," Jackie said, and didn't say anything else for a long moment. It felt oddly- nice to hear that, in a way Jackie hadn't expected it to do. She'd only said, she would consider asking her dad, if he apologized, but she actually wanted to ask him. "I'll see, if I can convince daddy to help you."
Jackie hung up the phone, actually a little surprised that she had actually done this. She took a deep breath before sliding off the bed and padding on soft feet towards her dad's office. Her dad probably wouldn't want to help, but at least she had gotten Hyde's apology out of it. Not that she needed his apology or anything, it was just nice to have.
At the end of the day, it's not Jackie's dad who gets them out of jail. Jackie's dad doesn't do shit. Deep down, Hyde knew that she'd only promised to try convincing him, which meant he had to have been aware, there'd be a significant risk, he'd humiliate himself in front of his friends for absolutely nothing. Or worse to make Jackie happy, which definitely wasn't something he did. In the end, it's actually Forman who gets them out, just by talking to the officers.
"Freedom!" Kelso screamed at the top of his lungs, as the door to the police station shut behind them. Forman rolled his eyes, but he looked visibly relieved. Probably because he knew, he wouldn't be in as much trouble with Red, when he got home. The most he'd hear for, was coming home late, which wasn't the first time and definitely wouldn't be the last either.
"I can't believe you grovelled to Jackie," Forman said, now kind of smirking. The kind of smirk that made Hyde consider punching him. He'd grabbed the phone in order to try and not completely waste their one and only phone call, like Kelso had been about to do. "It's Jackie."
"Gotta do, what you gotta do, man," Hyde replied completely zen and unfazed. Kelso seemed to have decided to lap the parking lot, and Fez was sort of staring at him with an admiring look. "And I did not grovel," Hyde added for good measure.
"Whatever you got to tell yourself," Forman said now full on grinning, making Hyde roll his eyes to the back of his head. "I can't wait to tell Donna about this," Forman said, the smug grin now with an addition of lovey dovey adoration. Something that always seemed to be on Forman's face, when he was around Donna.
It wasn't like Hyde necessarily minded Donna knowing, that they'd spent the last three hours at the Point Place police station. All his friends knew his only future plans consisted of going to prison, and chicks supposedly dug a bad boy kind of thing. It had at least always worked for him before. But what he did mind was the idea of Forman and Donna sitting together, laughing at him for having to try and convince Jackie to help them. They'd probably be sitting closely together too, hands brushing against each other. Hyde shook his head, he had to deal with this crap.
"And I'm sure Red would love to know, why you're missing curfew," Hyde bit back, just barely managing to keep his voice even. Even though, he was always zen. Forman immediately held up his hands in surrender.
"Fine. I won't say anything, you won't say anything," Forman said. Of course, Hyde wasn't going to actually tell, even if Forman did say something to Donna. Not that he was going to say that out loud, but Forman knew that. At least, Hyde was pretty sure he knew that. "Let's just go home."
As they headed for the exit, with Kelso catching up to them, Hyde let his thoughts wander. He wasn't sure, why he'd let himself be bribed by Jackie either. It was probably a mistake, they hadn't gotten anything out of it, and Jackie was probably going to be annoying about it. She was Jackie after all. But Hyde wasn't going to worry about that for now. For now, he was going to enjoy his newfound freedom from the oppressive system. Even if he'd had to rely on Forman and Jackie to get it.