So I'm publishing this late as hell and I still have to write another chapter for another story but I hope that you guys won't hate me too much for forgoing the comment responses. Thank you guys so much for leaving me a review. You guys brighten my day every time I get it.
Chapter Twenty: The Days to Come
"Oh, sweetie I am so glad you're here." Tina's eyes narrowed on the magazine that she was flipping through, the smell of eggs mixed with fresh chili filling the Forman kitchen.
Since the death of Grandma, Kitty had been churning out meals like she was a factory about to go out of business. Just that morning, the spritely blonde had filled the kitchen table up with waffles, pancakes, bacon, sausage, fresh fruit and a variety of other odds and ends that made Tina a bit queasy.
Or maybe that feeling just came from the close proximity of her older sister.
"Yeah," Laurie started, sipping daintily at a cup of coffee as she hovered next to where their mother was currently making eggs and some kind of soup. "I had a final this week."
Tina bit down on her lip to keep from saying the words that were all but clawing their way up her throat.
"Oh," Kitty murmured, shoveling the scrambled eggs onto a serving plate. "I'm so sorry, honey."
"Oh no, this couldn't have come at a better time. I was really unprepared."
Tina slammed her magazine shut, her spine straightening as she hissed across the room. Laurie had always been a tactless piece of work but the little comments about all but squandering their parents' money on a college that Laurie was too busy skanking around to actually pass was really starting to piss Tina off.
Kitty stopped mid-sprinkle, the salt shaker frozen over the eggs as she stared up at her eldest daughter. Like she was trying to remember when she had become someone that Kitty almost thoroughly detested. If it wasn't for the memories of holding Laurie when she was a babe, Kitty would have probably told her to get out.
"I'll take those," Tina cut in, scowling as she shouldered between her sister and mother and grabbing up the plate of eggs. "Laurie, could I talk to you? Privately?"
She didn't wait for an answer, grabbing her sister by the collar and dragging her out the door and onto their small patio, the plate clattering to the kitchen table on their way out.
"Jesus, you're going to wrinkle my sweater," Laurie whined, shoving the smaller auburn-haired girl away from her.
There was something feral inside of Tina that roared at the shallow indifference that seemed to roll off of Laurie. Vaguely, she wondered when she had grown to hate her so much. Oddly enough, it wasn't even when she had slept with Todd. No, that had just been a minor infraction in the growing monster that she had seen her sister transform into. Maybe the reason that she hated her so much was because she had once admired her, looked up to her in the reverent way that only a younger sister could ever know.
Now, as Laurie stared down at her, cheap perfume slapping her in the face with every wintery breeze, she couldn't dredge up any of those old emotions. Instead what she felt was cold and ugly. A perfect match to her sister's personality.
"Listen, I know that all that fills that bottle blonde head of yours is the quickest way to get on all fours but let me key you in on something: mom and dad are going through the worst possible thing to happen to anyone. Dad just lost the woman who raised him and mom just lost any chance to make her husband's mother respect her," Tina snarled, crowding Laurie until the taller girl had to step back. In that moment, Tina felt like she could do bodily harm to her. "Since you have a hard time feeling anything but the urge to conquer and destroy, I'll make it real simple for you. Until this is over you're going to be the nicest fucking person this side of Wisconsin. I know you have experience with it since you've been playing at being a decent human being all these years to get all those sugar daddies-"
Even in the petrified state that Laurie was in, she let out a gasp, bulking instinctively at the notion.
Tina cut her off. "Save it. Don't make this harder on them with your selfishness."
The verbal jibes had been enough to awaken Laurie's basic instincts. She was a predator by nature. On a base level, she knew when to attack and when to retreat. Tina's eyes narrowed as she saw the lights click on in Laurie's eyes. Years of being her sister's sparring partner had made her privy to the expression. At the very least, Laurie thought that she could come upon equal grounds at the end of this argument.
She was dead wrong.
"I don't know what's gotten into you," Laurie hissed, coiling back like a snake that was about to attack. Tina let out a sneer which only made her wind tighter. "But you don't tell me what to do-"
"I'll tell dad that you're failing out of school," Tina said bluntly, forcing every bit of resentment that she had into those words. She meant them. Eric and her had been filtering college S.O.S. letters since Laurie had started. Rather than sibling loyalty, it was more so done as a way to safely guarantee leverage when they needed it. "And I'll tell daddy that you slept with George Allen."
Laurie gasped, reeling back. George Allen was a secret that Tina had been keeping since the beginning of high school and only found out because George's daughter had been crying about it in the third-floor bathroom. It was just like Laurie to sleep with one of their father's best friends. Which subsequently led to the destruction of his marriage and for his subsequent move to somewhere where the taxes were lower and the jobs easier to find.
"You wouldn't," Laurie whispered, her eyes flicking to the glass sliding doors just beside them where Kitty, Red, and Eric had gathered around the table. Tina's twin was currently staring open-mouthed at the pair, his eyes trained on the way that his eldest sister was standing. Like she felt cornered.
"Watch me." Tina didn't break Laurie's gaze, her mind whirling angrily as she tried to control herself. An odd protectiveness had overcome her as the preparations for their grandmother's funeral had proceeded. Tina Forman had never particularly felt the urge to guard her parents in this way as if any word might crack them like an egg. It ate away at her. And perhaps that came from the knowledge that someday as Red's mother had died so would her own parents and then eventually she would follow them as well.
Maybe that was why she was currently debating whether she should just reach forward and start to pound on her sister or let her slide at the detriment to her own sanity.
"Watch yourself, little sis," Laurie snarled but the threat was weak and she turned towards the door, her talons reaching out for the nod before she whipped back around. "And for your information, my hairs naturally blonde."
Tina let out a derisive snort. "Oh, please. We lived under the same roof for over ten years."
For a moment, Laurie debated sinking her nails into Tina's eyes but, glancing at the table with both of their parents, relented. Giving her little sister a parting sneer she huffed her way into the house and plopped herself into the only free chair with the air of a scolded child.
"You two have a nice chat?" Red asked, eyeing the two suspiciously. Both put on identical expressions of innocence. Vaguely, Tina noticed that her brother had slipped away before the two had come back in, out of self-preservation or necessity, Tina wasn't sure.
"Yes, daddy," they said at once, Laurie giving a smile so sweet that Tina thought for a moment that her teeth were made of sugar. Batting her lashes at her father, she continued on. "I was just telling her how happy I am to see her. It's been so long."
"Yeah," Tina said blandly, folding her arms across her stomach as she leaned against the cool expanse of the sliding glass doors. "Last time was around the time that you slept with Todd Jackson right, big sis?"
Laurie's eyes narrowed dangerously. "And you've really moved on from that haven't you."
Tina's eyes were frosty. "You wouldn't believe."
The last time Red had felt such intense silence was when he was in a hole hiding from North Koreans in Pyongyang. At least then he could have shot his way out of the situation. Now he was stuck spooning chili next to his waffles.
"Well, isn't that lovely," Kitty said, a bit distracted by the fact that she couldn't remember if she had put the cinnamon buns in the oven fifteen minutes ago or twenty. Her eyes flicked up to where her youngest still stood. "Do you want me to get you a plate, honey?"
Tina eyed the mess of food littering the table, her stomach rolling. Something heavy and sad had settled over her the days since her grandmother's death. Perhaps it was the fact that the paramedics had declared her death with such finality only seconds after arriving, no wait and with a tired sort of air. It reminded her that these things happened all the time and why had she been so foolish as to think that it wouldn't happen to her eventually, silly girl.
Or perhaps it was the fact that she didn't feel sad at all. No. The only sadness she felt was the pain of watching her father struggle through each phone call to all of their family members. Or the way that he had slammed the phone into its phone, staring at the receiver bitterly after his oldest brother hadn't even answered.
"No, mom," Tina murmured, dragging her eyes away from her father. "I think I'll just sit outside for a bit."
Red's eyes flicked up, his brows furrowing for a moment as he debated saying something. But then the phone was ringing and he was sighing, his eyes shuttering tiredly.
"Make sure you eat something, button," he murmured, kissing her forehead as he made his way over to the phone.
"Would you like a cup of chili with your waffles?" Kitty asked, her hands flickering over the food like a bee looking for the right flower to work with.
Tina paused, halfway out the door.
"Um, I don't know," Laurie grumbled, clearly unhappy at the prospect. Tina turned a pointed glare to her sister, the two having a silent battle before Laurie forced a smile. "Sure."
One battle down, Tina thought tiredly as she slipped onto the porch, sinking down into one of the chairs lining their small patio.
Hot chocolate weather, her mother had once told her when she was little, flicking her nose and giving her a steaming mug. Winters had always been that way in the Forman household and Wisconsin had long ones. Year-round the annual temperature was in the fifties but at night it could dip to the tens with a swiftness that shocked tourists. Not that people picked "America's dairyland" to go have a good family romp.
Most days were cloudy, overcast and dim but today...today the sun had shown through with a brightness that would have usually made Tina glad of the oncoming spring. But today… today it felt wrong. Inside of the Forman household, the air was heavy and even outside, Tina could feel it pressing down on her, making it hard to breathe.
The auburn-haired girl pulled Hyde's jacket tighter around her, enjoying the scrape of the sheep fur against her nape as she stared unseeing across the growing darkness. She didn't know how long she sat there, thinking about nothing really. It had to be a while since she could hear Marty's high, girlish voice piercing through the house. When had they pulled up? Her mind whirled.
"Bunny." Tina blinked, dragging herself back to the present. A burst of warmth bit through her, making her realize that her ears were burning from the cold and her nose had gone numb a while ago.
Hyde's usual glasses shaded his piercing eyes, his brown curls spiked through with little hints of blonde falling across his forehead. Quietly, he crouched in front of her, his larger hands reaching out to rub along hers. He blinked. "You're freezing. How long have you been out here?"
She didn't know. A sudden wash of emotions made her weak, her heart squeezing. She felt guilty for not loving her grandmother as much as she should have. She felt guilty for only caring about how her parents were handling it. She felt guilty-
She lurched forward before she could finish the thought, her hands tangle in the softness of his curls as she all but leaped onto him.
It wasn't a nice kiss. It was a desperate, savage one filled with all the things that Tina was thinking. I'd missed you. Something awful happened. Am I a bad person? Hyde's grip tightened around her, his arms wrapped around her waist as he adjusted himself so that she was spread on his lap. Their tongues slid against each other, tangling until Tina could barely breathe.
Something carnal and desperate had roared to life inside of her when she had seen him and that ache had only grown at his immediate response. Moaning, she tightened her hands in his hair, trying to rub herself against him to get any sort of friction between them. He let out a returning rumble, one hand rubbing down her back before dragging her closer with a hand to her butt. Hungrily, his lips slanted along hers, meeting her for every lick.
"Oh my god." Tina jerked, breaking the kiss as she blinked around Hyde's shoulder at her brother. Who looked like he was about to throw up all of that morning's chili along the driveway.
"Oh my god," Tina hissed, blushing furiously as she saw Kelso and Fez just a step or two behind Eric, all of their eyes wide.
Grumbling, Hyde tried to drag her back to him, his brows furrowing as their lips met for the barest moment before she tried to wiggle away from her.
"Dude, your sister's making out with Hyde," she heard Kelso mutter as she pushed against Hyde's chest.
"I am very confused," Fez whispered, his expression torn between confusion and old anger. Had he dreamed up the awful events of last weekend? He could have sworn that Hyde had driven off with some super hot, punk chick.
But now Tina was wrapped around him like a koala clinging to a tree.
"Hyde," Tina hissed out, her eyes searching his as she sent him a glare.
"What?" he muttered innocently, his hand squeezing down on her ass hard enough to make her gasp. God, he loved it when she gasped like that, blushing up at him. "You're the one who jumped on me."
"WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?" Eric yelled, paling beneath the continued display. Watching his sister wiggle around on Hyde's lap - Bile rose into the back of his throat, his brain recoiling as he gagged.
"Your sister's a skank!" Kelso crowed gleefully, clapping his hands. Curiously, he turned to where Eric was dry heaving over the bushes. "Dude, you think they've done it in the vista cruiser yet?"
"Oh god," Eric sobbed, landing a savage punch to Kelso's arm before he covered his eyes and turned in the general direction of where Hyde was still trying to catch Tina's lips. "What the hell is going on?"
Tina gulped down a breath of air as Hyde pulled away, giving her lip a final bite before he tilted his head toward the three boys. "Oh yeah. We're dating."
"Hyde," Tina hissed, frowning down at him as he gave her a smirk.
"What, doll?" he grinned, finally loosening his grip a fraction as he got to his feet, dragging her along with him. "We did it your way and look where it got us. Now we're doing it my way."
Fez's mind had finally caught up with him, his tongue stumbling over the right words as Eric gaped at the two. Kelso was still giggling somewhere behind him.
"But you drove away with that girl, you-" Fez tried to think of the right word. "You whore."
Tina winced at the reminder as Hyde's smile turned tense, the arm wrapped around her going tense.
"Yeah, thanks for that reminder, Fez," Hyde muttered, his words cutting.
Kelso moved forward with an oddly energetic glow in his eyes. "Did you guys do a threesome?"
"DUDE, COME ON," Eric cried, looking shell-shocked and in a deep sense of agony as he whipped around, punching the lankier boy in the stomach again. "THAT'S MY SISTER!"
From his stooped position, Kelso opened his mouth.
"If you call her a skank one more time," Hyde growled, his smile savage. "I'm gonna have to break your jaw."
Kelso quickly shut it.
Tina gave a long-suffering sigh. "Listen, this isn't that big of a deal."
"Big of a-" Eric hissed, astonished.
"This whore made you cry!" Fez jumped in, pointing an accusing finger at Hyde, who had shifted in slight agitation.
"Fez." Tina's voice held enough of a warning to make the young foreigner pout. "Nothing happened between them and Hyde came the next night-"
"OH!" Kelso shrieked, looking somehow scandalized and gleeful at the notion.
Tina sent him a glare. "And nothing happened."
The slick smile that Hyde had on his face was far from backing her up though. She sent an elbow into his side.
"So now-" Eric couldn't finish the rest of the sentence, his eyes flicking between the two in horror. He didn't even want to think about the proprietary way that Hyde had her snuggled into his side. He flinched before shaking his head. "I need a drink."
"This is awesome," Kelso whispered gleefully as he followed Eric into the vista cruiser.
Fez stalked over to them, his jaw set petulantly as he glared up at Hyde. "If you hurt her, I'll cut off all your toes and feed them to wild animals."
Tina blinked, resisting the urge to pat the dark-skinned boy on the head. Hyde raised a brow. "Okay, buddy."
A decisive nod was his final parting before he flounced off to the back seat.
Tina's head spun a bit at the departure, something about the exchange draining her further. The gang. She hadn't even thought about how they would react to the fact that Hyde and she were dating.
"We're taking Eric out to get wasted," Hyde murmured, turning so that they were facing each other. "Want to come?"
"Getting wasted…" Tina considered, her mind drifting to the chaos that was currently taking place inside of her own home. Each person seemed to be running on a different track, barely avoiding a collision in the small space. Still...her family needed her…
"LET YOUR FEELINGS OUT!" Came a high-pitched cry, accompanied by the desperate scuttle of what she could only assume to be her father as he desperately tried to flee.
"Leaving now?" she asked with false brightness.
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