It quickly came to his attention that his bed was a lot smaller than he had realized. Once Jackie started sleeping there regularly, it was pretty clear that there just wasn't enough room for the two of them to sleep comfortably on his cot without practically lying on top of one another. The entire length of her body pressed against his, despite her small stature, was an immeasurable presence in the room.
The first night she had spent over, he had actually been the one to invite her to stay. It had almost come as a surprise to him too, but when he found out that Jackie was staying in that big house all by herself after her father got arrested, he finally figured out what he could do to make her feel better. He had been driving her back to her place after spending the evening in Forman's basement as per the usual, and was surprised to find that all the lights in the building were off as he pulled into the empty driveway. Not one single car in front of the Burkhart household was definitely out of the ordinary. Jackie had been unusually quiet during the whole ride back, which had admittedly also been a little weird, but he made the decision not to push on the matter too much. She had been just a little bit off ever since her dad had been arrested, and Hyde knew she had always been a daddy's girl. Still, he was starting to get worried about her. It was after two in the morning by the time she had finally agreed to let him drive her home, and not a single light in the entire place was on when they got there?
They sit outside the house for a beat, as he processes all the information in front of him.
"Where's your mom?" he asks quietly. Jackie froze next to him.
Suddenly, Jackie quickly unbuckles her seat belt and moves to open her own door. Her not waiting for him to get out and open it for her the way she always did was what convinced him something serious really had to be up with her. When he made a noise of disapproval, she paused again, but still didn't offer up any details. She sat completely still with her hand resting on the handle of the door, tense and waiting for him to say something else. Hyde could almost see the gears turning in her mind, as if debating whether or not to answer his question, or struggling to come up with a halfway decent lie. It was an expression he was used to seeing, but she was usually quicker on the draw.
"I don't know," she finally admits. "Haven't heard from her since her last post card a couple weeks ago. She's in Mexico, I think." Her voice does that soft warbling thing that he has come to recognize as a signifier of tears to follow, so he throws the car into park and gets out without saying a word. He's chewing the inside of his cheek a little bit, biting back a furious comment about her flaky mother. She hadn't contacted Jackie since a few weeks ago? The anger that he feels in that moment, looking at Jackie's hopeless expression as she's been abandoned by both of her guardians, is inexplicable.
Jackie watches him stomp around the car with watery curiosity. Hyde stops at the open door and reaches his hand out for her, which she hesitantly takes. She specifically avoids his eyes when she takes it and allows him to lift her out of the chair, and makes sure that she doesn't look back as she starts walking. She hears the door slam shut behind her as she walks up the driveway, but keeps a brisk pace so she doesn't have to watch Steven drive away. Jackie knows he's no good with the comforting words and things like that, so she doesn't expect him to want to stay while she's still upset like this. Even she doesn't even know what she would like him to say to make her feel better, so she doesn't really blame him.
But there's no catch of an engine, and no rumble as the vehicle pulls away. Jackie dares a quick glance behind her, and notices Steven following her at about three paces behind. He's hunched against the cold air as he follows her up to the door. She pauses again.
"What are you doing?" she asks softly, her usual brusque tone absent for the time being as she raises her eyebrow at him.
He scoffs at her, mouth set in a thin line, but his expression is unreadable with his eyes shielded behind those sunglasses. "You can't stay in this huge place by yourself, Jackie. It's not safe, man, what if someone found out it was just you in there? So I assumed you were going to need help getting your crap to bring to the Forman's."
Her patented stony expression fractures just a little. She looks very tired suddenly, like she wants to put up a fight but doesn't have the energy left in her. Jackie doesn't say anything else and holds her front door open for him. Hyde follows her up to her room, taking in the sheer excess of the whole place. They didn't spend much time at her place, even after they had gotten together, and now he supposed he knew why. As Jackie is throwing bits and pieces of her wardrobe into a suitcase he helped her haul from under the bed, he's glancing around at the posters on her wall. The whole place is soaked in this bubblegum pink colour, and there are stuffed animals piled up in every corner. After a few moments, noticing that Jackie has spent a full minute carefully selecting what make-up she wants to pack, Hyde tells her that they can come get more of her stuff later so she should only grab the essentials.
Jackie looks affronted for a moment, glancing down at the pile in front of her. "Steven," she says in that clipped tone of hers, "these are the essentials. I'm just bringing what I need for tonight and tomorrow morning, and then I'll just come back here. It's not like I can just move into the basement."
The suitcase sits on the bed, already brimming with at least three full outfits and a veritable mountain of cosmetics, begging to differ.
Hyde sighs and sits on the end of her bed. "Sure you can," he grumbles, "for as long as it takes for your mom to come back, you'll always have a place to stay."
Jackie whirls around in her seat and stares at him with a slightly flushed expression. Her mismatched eyes are wide with this disbelieving stare, her lips formed in a perfect 'o' shape. Hyde rubs the back of his neck, suddenly realizing how extremely embarrassing what he had just said was, and picks a poster of The Captain and Tennille plastered on the wall to stare at.
"Just hurry up, alright?" he says. "It's getting really late. Got crap to do tomorrow."
Jackie waves him off, but moves noticeably faster than before.
After another fifteen minutes or so, Hyde is carrying Jackie's suitcase out to the car for her while she changes into some pajamas and finds a housecoat in case its still chilly in the morning. After another minute or two, Jackie hasn't followed him out yet so he goes back in and wanders slowly around the main floor since its warmer than waiting in the car. When Jackie still hasn't come down, he eventually decides to make his way back up to her room and tap his knuckles gently on the closed door before he remembers that there's no one to keep quiet from. Jackie is already changed, but he finds her sitting cross-legged in the middle of her bed while staring absently at the wall with the same forlorn expression she had on earlier. Her housecoat is on the foot of her bed, and she's holding a flower-shaped pillow tightly to her chest.
"Jacks, come on," says Hyde, approaching her slowly and laying a hand on her shoulder. She jumps when he makes contact, like she hadn't heard him come in again. "Come on, doll, you'll feel better in the morning, and we'll figure all this crap out then."
She nods absently, but Jackie doesn't move a muscle. With a sigh, Hyde sits down on her bed again, this time so his back is to her, intending to wait it out until she feels ready to move. His mind keeps wandering back to living in that dank house of Edna's after she took off on him, to how hopeless he felt before the Forman's took him in, and it makes his chest ache a little to think that Jackie has to deal with the same thing. Except, really, she's actually a little worse off. Jackie had never had to take care of herself before the way he had, so he knew that whatever else she was feeling right now, she had to be at a complete loss. The rug had been pulled out from under her, and she had next to no foundation of living skills to gain her footing on. He lifts his sunglasses up to rest on the top of his head and runs a hand down his face tiredly. Work is probably going to be hell tomorrow, but there's nothing he can do about that right now. Maybe he just won't go, it wouldn't be the end of the world if he missed a shift.
Without warning Jackie suddenly sags slightly against his back, so her cheek is resting lightly against his shoulder blades. It makes his spine stiffen up in surprise. He's still not used to her leaning on him, figuratively or literally. He's not usually the person people rely on for his support. There's something inherently frightening about being the one someone else is depending on, but he's finding that he doesn't really mind the role so much when its for Jackie. On the contrary, he feels strongly like he wants to do everything in his power to make her transition to independence a smooth one. He simultaneously drops his glasses back into place and reorients himself to so his body is facing the same direction hers is, so he can throw an arm over her shoulders and pull her close against his side, rubbing her opposite shoulder in a way that he hopes is comforting. There's a few long minutes of silence before Jackie shifts out of his grip and lies backward so her head is resting near his hip. He watches her move, staying where he is propped up against the headboard.
"Steven, everything is falling apart," says Jackie, softly. She brings an arm up and lays it over her eyes to block out the light, and maybe to hide the fact that she's starting to cry again. "Sorry, I kept you up really late."
"S'fine," replies Hyde simply. He wishes there was something he could do immediately to make her feel better, to get her to stop crying, but he knows she's not going to just get over it the way he did. There's a blunt and his lighter in his pocket, which might help her ease off some of the tension but he's hesitant to offer it up, because he knows it probably won't really do much to make her feel any less upset. It won't change anything. Still, it might keep her mind from running wild on her, and let her get some sleep tonight. He ends up pulling the joint out anyway and offering it to Jackie. Its all he can do for her, even if he wishes it wasn't. Jackie lifts her arm when she feels his hand nudge against hers.
She turns her eyes up to him suspiciously, so he quickly adds, "You don't have to if you don't want to, I just thought it might help you relax a little."
After a minute Jackie sits up and faces him, looking determined and almost a little eager at the prospect of casting her mind elsewhere. She's smoked with him a few times before, and a couple times in the circle as well, so he knows she can handle it– but usually all she needs is a hit or two before she's ready to tap out. Regardless, she takes the joint from the palm of his hand and holds it delicately between her slender fingers while he lights the tip of it for her. When she takes her first hit Jackie inhales as deeply as she can, and holds it until her lungs start to ache in her chest. The puff of smoke that floods out from between her red lips is accompanied with a deep moan. Hyde plucks the joint from between her fingers as she ruminates on the hit and takes a small hit of his own, before handing it back and getting out of Jackie's bed. He lets the smoke ebb out of his mouth a little, and then blows it away heavily as he opens the window to allow the crisp autumn air to fill the room. He has to avoid getting too baked if he wants to be able to drive her back home in a little while.
Jackie takes another two deep hits before she starts to look completely exhausted, and the pungent smell of marijuana is filling the bright pink bedroom even with the window wide open. Another hit, and Jackie has to unbutton the top few buttons on her flannel pajamas because she says it's too warm. Hyde can see the lace of her camisole peeking out from underneath, but he can't even muster up the snark to made a comment about it. It has to be half past three at this point, and he's starting to feel the weight of it in his bones.
Finally, Jackie feels as though she can take no more. The butt of the joint gets stamped out, and she flops backwards against the pillow. She's got a mirthless smile on her face, but her eyes look dazed and relaxed. The tension she's been carrying in her shoulders has also melted away at last, so he considers this to have been a successful endeavour. Hyde crosses the room in a couple steps as Jackie rolls onto her stomach and tries to push herself onto her feet, so he helps her stand up straight. He also picks up the flower pillow she's been cradling for the last hour and pushes it into her arms when she tries to cling to him instead. It takes all of his attention to get her down the stairs and into his car on her dead-tired legs, but when she's buckled in it seems like she falls asleep immediately.
The ride back to the Forman's is even quieter than the ride to Jackie's house had been, with Jackie practically asleep already in the seat beside him. Hyde spares a glance from the road to look at her every once in a while, but there's no change in the sleepy expression on her face. When he pulls the car into Forman's driveway, every light in the main house is already off, as he expects of the Forman's for this time of night, except for the basement which is still as bright as he left it.
"Jackie, you gotta wake up and get inside," he says, jostling her shoulder until she rouses. She's incredibly cute with that softened, sleepy, baked expression on her face, so he kisses her pouting lips slightly before getting out of the car to grab her bag. Jackie manages to get the buckle undone herself, but leans against the banister of the steps to the basement and waits for Steven to guide her down them. One suitcase in hand, the other on the small of her back as she throws an arm over his shoulder, they make their way down.
The basement is completely abandoned when they walk through the door, Jackie thinks to herself that it's almost freaky. There's almost always someone hanging around down there, so the silence of the room is deafening. They don't stop in the main room, though, Hyde just shuts off the light and guides her all the way to his room in the back corner.
Without much thought or any prompting, Jackie climbs straight into his bed and curls into a tight little ball underneath the thick winter covers. This was undoubtedly as high as she had ever been before; it made all of her limbs feel ridiculously heavy, and her head almost felt as though it had been stuffed up with cotton. Even though it made her feel less worried about everything than she had been in ages, she was eager to sleep it off. Steven watches her with a bemused smile for a minute, before he takes a step over and forcibly pushes on her hip to roll her body towards the desk between his bed and the wall. He repeats the action and holds her in place when she immediately tries to turn back over and gives him a scathingly annoyed look.
"Steven, stop that," she snaps, but her voice sounds strange in her own ears so she bites back the rest of the comment.
"I gotta get changed, don't I?" chuckles Hyde, leaning over her a little. His words clearly take a moment or two to register, but when they do her entire face flushes a pretty shade of red and she quickly turns back over. It is extremely easy to tease her when she's like this, he can't seem to help himself. Covering his laughter with a scoff, Hyde sheds his tee shirt in exchange for a plain tank top and a pair of boxers before he gets into the bed behind her. Initially he tries to give her a little space, especially when she gasps at the feeling of him climbing into the bed behind her, but he quickly finds there is extremely little space to give. Every time Jackie scooches forward, he quickly absorbs the space to get himself into a comfortable position.
Her hair smells sweet, a little like lavender, underneath the heady scent of weed that still clings to her clothes and her skin. Without really meaning to, he presses his cold nose against the back of her neck and inhales the scent of her deeply. Jackie squirms and squeaks a little against him, but there's no where to go so she just turns her dazed mismatched eyes towards him and appraises him with as much scrutiny as she can muster.
"How are we supposed to get to sleep like this?" asks Jackie, angling her entire body away from him and back toward the desk. Hyde can see that her ears are still bright red.
Unable to resist the opportunity to be a smart ass, he throws an arm over her hips and pulls her tighter against him to maximize their space in the middle of the bed. "I think you're just supposed to close your eyes and let it happen." His other arm, the one not holding Jackie against his chest, stretches underneath the pillow for his own comfort. Jackie doesn't protest any further, and neither of them are squirming anymore, so he figures she's really out for the night this time. Hyde himself is finally starting to doze off when she speaks again.
"Steven?" she breathes, scared to wake him were he actually sleeping.
"Mmhm?"
"...Thank you. For taking care of me today. I really appreciate everything you've done for me, I know it was probably a pain, but..."
"S'not a pain, Jacks. Wish you'da tol' me sooner."
"I know. Sorry, I just... It's so... Embarrassing. That my mom is like that. That I don't know where she is, that she won't come home even though everything..."
"Please, Jackie. You never spent enough time with her to know, but Edna was truly the queen of class acts. I don't know exactly what you're going through here... But it's gotta be pretty close to how I felt then. The only thing that made anything better was when the Forman's gave a crap about me and lent me a safe place to sleep. I give a crap about you, so you're gonna be okay. I'm just doing the same thing."
Jackie's face feels unbearably hot suddenly and, though she tried her hardest not to, she sniffles back against her overflowing tears loudly in the cover of the dark room. That sounded a great deal like Steven saying he loved her, in his own way, and it made her feel happier than she had felt in days. The unexpected expression of affection made her feel so relieved that someone still cared about her, and it broke down the flood gates she kept trying to put up. Hyde's larger hands gently stroked her hair away from her wet face, but he didn't let her go, nor did he say anything more. Neither of them spoke another word. The quiet sobbing eventually evened out to deep breathing, and Hyde finally felt like he could let go of the tension he had been carrying in his own body now that she was asleep.
It is sort of an absurd feeling, having Jackie Burkhart sleeping soundly in his basement, in his bed. Having Jackie rely on him as a pillar of strength in a trying time. Jackie's feelings for him, and his feelings for Jackie for that matter, though he supposes he has still never really vocalized them. She's warm, relaxed, and she's completely pressed against him, and the whole situation makes him feel... something. Knowing that Jackie is comfortable and completely trusts him to take care of her makes him feel something stirring in the pit of his stomach. How did they ever go from fooling around over the course of one summer to this?
She murmurs incoherently in her sleep, and his arm tightens instinctively around her.
He certainly didn't know how they had come to this, but he did know that the feeling of being wrapped around her in his bed was an addictive sensation. He was going to have to figure out a way to insist she stay there with him for the foreseeable without revealing how much he loved having her there.
Sorry for the misfire there, the document manager did something odd to the text. I know this fandom is a little inactive these days, but I hope you enjoyed reading this self-indulgent crap anyway.