Chapter Text
He had certainly not intended to become friends with Jackie Burkhart.
He’s 14 and she’s 13 and he finds her crying outside the prison doors and, not that he would ever admit it, hearing her cry makes his skin itch.
Apparently he’s the only person in the whole town who doesn’t know her father had been locked up for embezzlement, a rich person crime as Edna calls it, and she latches onto him.
“It’s nice to talk to someone who doesn’t know everything, you know? It feels like a blank slate. Like you’re immune to how popular I am.”
He rolls his eyes dramatically at that.
“Why is your dad here?” she asks him after talking about only herself for close to ten minutes.
“Robbery.”
To his surprise, she doesn’t seem to care.
“Do you think you could give me a ride home? My mom refuses to come here. I had to take a bus. A bus!”
He glances nervously over at Edna, smoking inside her boyfriend of the week’s piece of junk car.
“Uh...I don’t know about that-,”
“I’ll give you gas money.”
“We can probably work something out.”
Which is how she ends up in the backseat of the dirty car, speeding back towards town while Edna rants about Hyde’s piece of shit father.
“You better not end up like him, Steven. He’s good for nothing.”
“Your name is Steven?” Jackie inquires, perking up in the backseat.
“No,” Hyde snaps.
“Of course it is. He insists on going by his deadbeat dad’s last name. Couldn’t tell you why,” Edna snorts, shaking her head at him.
They pull up in front of Jackie’s house, Edna’s nasty remarks about the huge houses sitting awkwardly in the stuffy car.
“We’re going to lose the house soon anyway. The state is seizing everything.”
“There’s always room on the south side of town,” Edna quips, grinning maliciously at Jackie. Jackie flinches.
“Well, thank you Mrs. Hyde. Bye, Steven.”
“It’s Hyde-,”
But she’s skipping down the driveway before he can get the words out.
“She’s too good for you, you know,” Edna drawls as they pull out of the driveway.
“Shut up, Ma,” Hyde snaps. But as the houses get smaller and smaller, he knows it’s true.
She doesn’t leave his side after that. She finds him between every period and follows behind him, Foreman and Donna as they walk home from school until they pass her house.
“God, she is so annoying,” Eric bemoans once she disappears into the mansion.
“She has such a crush on you, Hyde,” Donna teases.
Hyde offers a disgusted “fuck off” but says nothing else.
The truth is, he doesn’t mind Jackie. Sure, she’s annoying and shallow and he only listens to half of what she says, but she also gets it. She gets what it’s like to have your dad let you down. She gets what it’s like to have a mom who can’t deal with the fallout. She gets what it’s like to have to depend on yourself.
And it’s nice sometimes, to listen to her mindless babble. It’s kind of like background music. Nothing she says reminds him of his shitty life or how angry he is at his dad or how bleak his future is. It’s just Jackie.
His friends don’t get it. He can’t blame them, he wouldn’t get it either. Eric thinks she’s satan. Donna secretly loves being the only girl in the group. Kelso doesn’t understand why a chick as hot as Jackie would be hanging out with Hyde and not him.
At first they stick to between periods and the walk home. Then they hang at the Hub a few days after school. Everyone gapes at them, together at a table, but Hyde doesn’t care. He’d rather they talk about Jackie than about his dad.
Eventually she ends up in the basement. It was bound to happen. Hyde spends most of his time there and Donna seems to have warmed up to her a bit. Kelso just wants to get into her pants.
Eric bitches and moans but never actually tells her to leave, despite having the authority to do so. She kind of fits in. They’re just a bunch of misfits. So is Jackie. The burnout, the nerd, the idiot, the tomboy and the princess fallen from grace. None of it makes sense, which is why it does.
But she’s still Hyde’s friend, most of all. Even if he denies it.
“Steven you have so much potential, you know. You’re actually really smart. You’re just frying all your brain cells with your drugs,” she tells him one day at the Hub, looking at him disdainfully.
“Of course I have potential. Have you seen how fast I can pick a lock?”
She rolls her eyes at him.
“You don’t really want to end up like your father, do you?”
“And you don’t really want to marry your father, do you?”
She’s always looking for the richest guy she can find. One who can give her back everything she lost. One who, in Hyde’s opinion, will lose everything again.
“I’m not going to marry my father, Steven. I just want to marry someone who can give me the lifestyle I became accustomed to.”
“Whatever, Jackie. I don’t need money. Money corrupts people.”
“You just need the love and support of a good woman, Steven, I swear.”
A scene of Jackie in a white dress flashes across his mind. He blinks it away. Maybe he has been smoking too much.
The next year he, Foreman, Donna and Kelso start high school but Jackie’s still in middle school. He spends the summer hanging out with her, but assumes their mismatched friendship will come to end once the summer is over and they’re not in the same school. He tells himself, repeatedly, that he’s fine with it. He doesn’t care about her, he doesn’t care about anyone. He was just bored and she was just bored and they happened to be in the same place a lot.
He tells himself that as he stomach sinks when he says goodbye to her the night before school starts. It’s just dread that the school year is starting. It has nothing to do with the brunette head bobbing away from him down her driveway.
But Jackie doesn’t go away. Instead he quite literally runs into her outside the highschool as he leaves on the first day.
“What are you doing here?” he asks, focusing every muscle on not smiling.
“We get out a few minutes earlier so I figured I’d meet you here,” she shrugs before launching into every detail of her first day at school. He doesn’t listen. But she’s not looking, so he risks a smile.
They meet a new kid, they call him Fez. Hyde can barely understand what he says but he’s funny and weird and Hyde likes him immediately.
Kelso has redoubled his efforts to get into Jackie’s pants. Hyde watches it through narrowed eyes, stomach churning just slightly.
“Are you going to go out with Kelso?” Hyde snaps one afternoon. He’s at the Hub with Jackie. Kelso had just left after spending the entire time trying to convince Jackie to be his date to homecoming.
She wrinkles her nose at him.
“No, why?”
Hyde shrugs, reaching for a fry.
“Just wondering. He’s annoying.”
“I know. I do want to go to homecoming though. I need a high schooler to ask me.”
She bats her eyes at him. He throws a fry at her.
“No way, man.”
She pouts the rest of the afternoon.
“Hyde, may I ask Jackie to homecoming?”
The words are coming from Fez and Hyde nearly chokes on the hit he just took. Kelso lets out an affronted screech.
“Uh, why are you asking me Fez?” Hyde coughs, chest burning.
“Well I do not know American customs and I am thinking Jackie is your lady friend?”
Hyde shakes his head quickly.
“Nah, man. Well, she’s kind of my friend. But that’s all.”
“So I can ask her?”
“Uh...sure. But I don’t know if she will say yes.”
“She wouldn’t say yes to me, Fez. She won’t say yes to you,” Kelso snaps.
Jackie does say yes.
“Well I didn’t want to, he’s foreign and weird. But I really want to go and Michael will just try and touch my boobs the whole time.”
He nods in agreement.
“I’d rather go with you, though,” she says, but quickly stutters, “Not as dates or anything, just as friends.”
“I’m not going to the stupid dance, Jackie.”
He does go to the stupid dance, but not with Jackie.
He goes because Donna wants them to all go as a group. And hanging out with Donna is something he is finding more enjoyable than he used to. Sure, it has to do with how big her boobs got over the summer and how she shot up a foot. But she’s also cool and laughs at his jokes and gets him, at least some of the time.
He knows Foreman likes her. And he suspects she likes Foreman back. But it’s not like either of them are doing anything about it so if Hyde wants to test the waters, what’s the big deal?
He wears an ugly sports jacket he finds in Bud’s closet, it smells like moth balls, and he sprays a little too much of the cologne he shoplifted a few weeks ago.
“You look ridiculous,” Edna tells him when he passes her on the porch on his way out.
“Thanks, Ma.”
They meet at the school gym. It’s as awful as Hyde suspected. There are ripped streamers on the ceiling and the music immediately gives him a headache. But Donna is in a low cut green dress and maybe it’s not so bad.
He hears Fez calling his name and he turns around. Jackie is on his arm, clad in a stunning gold dress.
“Wow,” he says when she reaches him, giving her a once over, “You look...great.”
She beams at him.
“So...so do you.”
“No I don’t,” he laughs, tugging at the dated jacket. “Where’d you get that dress?”
“It was my mom’s.”
Donna spends the whole night dancing with Eric but it doesn’t matter because Hyde can’t take his eyes off Jackie. Fez twirls her around the gym while she yells in delight, dress spinning around her knees. He can’t help but wonder if he should have told Fez he couldn’t ask Jackie.
“Can you believe she said yes to him?” Kelso asks indignantly, eyes on the same spot as Hyde’s. He’s immediately distracted by a blonde junior. Hyde is not.
“So you like Fez afterall?” Hyde asks at the end of the night as they all leave the gym, the girls’ heels clattering on the sidewalk.
Jackie glances up at him.
“He seems like a nice guy. He can dance really well. I can’t date him though. He’s foreign.”
Hyde nods. Jackie shivers and he shrugs his coat off, passing it over to her.
“You don’t-,”
“It’s fine. I’m not cold.”
They reach the intersection where Fez and Kelso need to head the other way.
“Jackie, I can walk you home,” Fez says eagerly, over Kelso’s protests.
“Thanks Fez, but Steven can walk me home. It’s on the way.”
Fez looks crestfallen, but agrees. Hyde tries not to grin.
He and Jackie fall back into step.
“So you like Donna?”
Hyde looks over at her, fear bubbling in his chest.
“What? No I don’t.”
“Yes you do. I can tell. It’s okay, I’m not going to say anything.”
“You know, I thought I did. But I don’t know, maybe I don’t. She likes Foreman anyway.”
“Yeah, she does.”
They reach her house and Hyde stops at the end of the driveway.
“Well, see you later,” he says awkwardly, shifting his weight between his legs. She gives him a soft smile.
“See you later, Steven.”
She is still wearing his jacket but he doesn’t say anything. For some reason, he likes that he will have to come get it tomorrow. He doesn’t understand why.
Bud gets out of prison a few weeks later. A week after that, he’s gone.
Edna bitches and moans and tells Hyde it’s his fault. The house is littered with cigarette butts and empty beer bottles and Hyde goes for a walk even though it’s forty degrees just to get out of the house.
He ends up at Jackie’s house, he never consciously chose that direction, and finds her on her porch.
“What are you doing out here? It’s cold.”
She jumps at his voice, looking over at him in surprise.
“Steven, what are you doing here?
He shrugs, stuffing his hands into his pockets. His fingers are prickling with cold.
“Just needed to get out of the house. Bud left,” he adds after a beat. Jackie’s face falls.
“Oh, Steven I’m sorry. He just got home.”
Hyde shrugs again, kicking at a rock in front of him. It clatters off a nearby tree.
“He was a deadbeat anyway. We’re better off.”
It’s not really true. Edna is far more tolerable when Bud’s around, at least towards Hyde. And there’s something about having a unit, even one as dysfunctional as theirs, that he likes.
“Do you know where he went?”
Hyde shakes his head.
“No idea. Just left a note saying he couldn’t stay anymore.”
Truthfully, the note said more. It talked about how Edna was an abusive drunk and Bud hated what his life had become. Hyde respected the honesty of it.
“Why are you sitting outside?” Hyde asks, watching Jackie pull a blanket more tightly around her.
“My mom’s gone for the weekend and I don’t like being in the house alone.”
Pam Burkhart had managed to keep the house, with some assistance from wealthy grandparents, but had seemingly spent less time in it than Jackie’s father.
“She’s gone a lot, huh?” Hyde asks, glancing up at the towering mansion. Jackie nods.
“Well I could hang out with you here, if you want. Edna won’t give a damn.”
“Really?” she asks in excitement.
“Sure.”
The house is huge and dark and Hyde immediately understands why she doesn’t like being here alone. It echoes and creaks and a shudder creeps down his spine.
They start out in the living room on opposite couches but wind up in her bedroom with a bottle of Pam’s tequila. Jackie’s cheeks are red and she’s giggling after two drinks and Hyde is there after four.
He isn’t sure how it happens. One minute she’s teasing him about his sideburns and he’s mocking a hideous dress poking out of her closet. Then he’s kissing her. He’s never kissed anyone before. Her lips are soft and his nose bumps against hers. She kisses him back after a moment, hesitantly and unsurely.
But then he realizes where he is and who he is and pulls back, fear flooding his chest.
“I’m sorry,” he mutters, cheeks blazing in the cold room. She drops her eyes to the floor.
“It’s fine.”
“No, I’m drunk and so are you. It’s not...it didn’t mean anything. It just kind of happened.”
“Alright,” she responds in a quiet voice.
Neither of them say anything for another moment.
“That was my first kiss,” she whispers, hugging a stuffed animal to her chest.
“Uh, me too,” he admits, giving her a nervous grin.
“Really?” she asks, sounding relieved.
“Yeah.”
“Oh, that’s good.”
“Let’s just...forget about it, okay?”
“Okay,” she agrees.
He meets her on the way to school on Monday. They don’t talk about it.
Jackie starts high school with them the next year. It’s kind of nice, having her in the same building again. She eats lunch with them and insists on decorating his locker. He takes everything down as soon as she leaves, but shoves it all in the back of his locker instead of throwing it away.
Some things are different though. Eric and Donna are actually starting to date, or starting to start to date, whatever that means. They’re awkward and flustered around each other but Hyde has stumbled upon them kissing more than once now.
He’s fine with it though. He knew it had to happen sooner or later. And the group is larger now. Two of them dating doesn’t seem so important.
The less welcome change is Jackie’s growing reciprocation of Kelso’s interests. Hyde isn’t sure when it started. Kelso did shoot up at least six inches over the summer and his teeth are finally straight. But Jackie goes from flicking him away like an errant fly to following him around like a pathetic puppy.
It isn’t that Hyde likes Jackie. He just knows Kelso is the horniest guy in the school and Jackie is still young and mostly innocent. He is still her only kiss, to Hyde’s knowledge. Not that Kelso knows that. Not that anyone besides her and Hyde knows that. Sometimes Hyde wonders if Jackie even remembers.
All hope Hyde has that Jackie’s crush is a faze are wiped away when Kelso comes barreling into the basement one evening, whooping.
“Jackie finally agreed to go out with me, guys!”
Hyde pretends not to notice everyone’s eyes immediately land on him.
“That’s great, Kelso,” Hyde mumbles through clenched teeth, nearly ripping the page of the magazine he’s turning.
“Ay, but you are so stupid,” Fez bemoans, shaking his head. “I thought she liked Hyde.”
“Me too,” Foreman adds, earning him a glare from Hyde.
“We’re just friends. You guys know that.”
“Well you better be since Jackie’s my girlfriend now.”
“She agreed to a date, not to be your girlfriend,” Donna corrects, narrowing her eyes at Kelso. “And weren’t you going out with Pam Macy?”
“Yeah,” Kelso responds blankly. Hyde raises his eyes to his friend.
“You can’t date both of them, moron,” he snarls.
“Well if Jackie agrees to be my girlfriend I’ll dump Pam. I mean Pam’s a slut. But I think Pam might let me do it with her soon.”
Hyde clenches his fists around the magazine, but keeps his voice calm.
“Well you better figure out that soon, Kelso. Jackie’s not dumb.”
But Jackie also might not be as smart as Hyde hoped.
“I know he’s an idiot but he’s so beautiful, Steven. And he lets me pick out his clothes and takes me to all the pep rallies. I’m trying to make the cheerleading squad, you know.”
“Hasn’t he made out with like all the cheerleaders?” Hyde asks, crossing his arms over his chest.
He and Jackie are the hub, under the pretense of doing homework. Jackie is doing homework. Hyde is trying to get his paper airplane into some girls’ huge hairdo.
“Not all of them, I don’t think. Look Steven, I like Michael. You could just be happy for me.”
There’s something in her voice that makes Hyde stomach turn. As if there is some reason he wouldn’t be happy for her. He swallows.
“Look, you two can do whatever you want. I’m just trying to be realistic.”
Because Jackie is his friend. Because Jackie is just his friend. If he repeats it enough, it has to become true.
Kelso and Jackie’s relationship is predictably a disaster. She dictates every corner of his life and he acts out by cheating on her. The first time, Hyde tells Jackie. Because Kelso is a piece of shit and Jackie is something halfway decent in this world.
But when she takes him back, he says fuck it. Let her dig her own grave.
They stay friends, at least distantly. They hang out at the hub and she laments his wardrobe but Kelso walks her home now. She decorates Kelso’s locker. Kelso asks her to the homecoming dance and she says yes.
Hyde starts hooking up with a girl named Kat Peterson. She’s way too hot for him and tells him he can’t tell anyone. Hyde’s okay with that. He just wants to kiss someone who isn’t Jackie.
“I know you’ve been hooking up with Kat,” Jackie tells him one day, when they’re alone in the basement. Hyde glares at her.
“How?”
“I’m popular, Steven.”
He grunts, but doesn’t say anything else.
“You deserve someone better, you know?”
“And how is that?” he snaps, looking at her incredulously. He knows for a fact he cannot do better than Kat Peterson.
“You shouldn’t be with someone who won’t acknowledge you.”
“And you shouldn’t be with someone who cheats on you.”
She doesn’t talk to him for a week.
In typical Kelso fashion, he ruins it with Jackie two weeks before the prom. And then even more typical Kelso fashion, the girl he asks to prom was the one he cheated on Jackie with.
Hyde can practically see Jackie crumbling around him, watching Kelso with varying expressions of pain and longing. It makes him feel a little sick.
She’s mostly leaned on Donna during the fiasco, her friendship with Hyde has become precariously balanced on not talking about Kelso. It’s all she wants to talk about now so that leaves very little room for Hyde.
At least until Kelso asks Pam Macy. Only a few hours after the announcement, Jackie appears in the basement. She sits on the couch next to him, letting out a dramatic sigh every few minutes. It’s irritating.
“If I ask you what’s wrong will you stop doing that?” he finally asks after almost fifteen minutes.
She bemoans Kelso going with Pam, hands flailing in despair, and admits she’d lied to Kelso about having a date. Hyde grins.
“I’m such a loser,” she wails. “Wait...you’re not going, are you?”
“Absolutely not.”
“So you don’t have a date?”
“Nope.”
“Oh and you clean up real nice.”
He snorts.
“Not happening, Jackie.”
But then she starts to cry. Loud, dramatic wails and smudging makeup and suddenly she’s clutching on to Hyde, begging him to take her.
He wants to say no. He has to say no. Prom is stupid and he and Jackie are in a weird place and now she’s technically his best friend’s ex-girlfriend.
But he also can’t stand to hear her cry and it’s making his skin itch just like the way it did two years ago outside the prison so before he can think about it, the words tumble out.
“Look do you wanna go to the prom or not?”
“Yes.”
Dammit.
Foreman helps him find a tux he can afford to rent and explains what a corsage is.
“I have to buy one?” he bemoans, looking at the vomit-inducing array of flowers.
“Uh, yeah,” Foreman laughs, picking a blue one for Donna. Hyde scowls while selecting one with pink and red flowers. He knows Jackie likes pink.
“I’m renting a hotel room for me and Donna tomorrow night. I think we’re going to do it,” Foreman admits over lunch, the corsages placed in the center of the table.
“Does she want that?” Hyde asks, raising his eyebrows.
“I think so. I hope so. I just...I think we’re ready, you know?”
Hyde doesn’t know, but he nods anyway. He wonders for a moment if Kelso and Jackie have done it yet. He doesn’t think so, it seems out of character for Kelso not to tell the town if it had happened, but they have been together a while.
“I can’t believe you’re taking Jackie to prom,” Eric chuckles, taking a sip of his soda. “Kelso is going to freak.”
“Kelso is a freak,” Hyde snaps, biting angrily into his burger. “This whole thing is his fault.”
“Yeah well they’ll be back together soon and you can get off Jackie’s leash.”
Hyde takes a sip of soda before responding.
“You really think she’ll take him back?”
Eric shrugs.
“They’re kind of perfect, you know? Kelso wants someone to boss him around. Jackie loves bossing him around.”
Hyde frowns at his cup.
“Yeah but he keeps cheating on her.”
Eric shrugs again.
“She always forgives him, doesn’t she?”
He’s smoothing out his tux when he hears a knock on the door. He hurries through the living room, past Edna smoking in her armchair.
“You’re really taking the Burkhart girl to prom? Good grief.”
“I’ll be home late,” he mutters, not glancing at her.
“Everyone is going to laugh at you!” she screams as he opens the front door.
“Shut up Ma, you’re making the night too damn special,” he hollers back, anger boiling in his chest.
It evaporates when he sees Jackie.
She’s in a lavender dress, mesh hugging her neck. Her hair is up in some kind of fancy twist, decorated with white flowers. It takes his breath away.
“Wow, you look beautiful.”
It’s such a mushy thing to say, but it’s also the only thing he can think of that begins to describe the revelation she looks like.
“So do you,” she grins, eyeing his tux. He clears his throat.
He sees the Vista Cruiser pull up. Neither of them have a car, so Foreman and Donna offered them a ride.
“Should I go say hi to your mom?” Jackie asks, peering towards the door. Hyde quickly shakes his head.
“Uh, no.”
He starts to lead her down the steps when she pauses and points at the box under his arm.
“Is that for me?” she asks, eyeing the box.
“Oh, yeah,” he stutters, handing the box to her. She opens it, grinning at the flowers.
“It’s beautiful, Steven. Thank you.”
And to his surprise, she leans forward and presses her lips to his cheek. He flushes.
“Uh...yeah, you’re welcome. Let’s go.”
They reach the Vista Cruiser and Hyde pulls the back door open, letting Jackie climb in first. He scoots in beside her.
Donna turns around and grins at Hyde.
“Don’t you two make a nice couple,” she teases, wiggling her eyebrows. Hyde flushes deeper.
“Can it, Pinciotti,” Hyde snaps, glaring at her. She turns back around but doesn’t drop the grin.
The prom is more or less what Hyde anticipated, terrible. The music stinks and there are at least three teachers watching the punch bowl. But Jackie has her arm linked through his arm and he can feel the student body watching them, wondering how the burnout got the cute cheerleader. He kind of likes that.
“Want to dance?” Jackie asks after a little bit, a slow song coming over the speakers. Hyde tugs at his collar.
“I’m not really into dancing Jackie.”
She rolls her eyes and grabs his hand.
“You don’t even have to do anything. Just put your hands on my waist and sway back and forth.”
It turns out, dancing with Jackie isn’t so bad. His hands fit nicely around her waist and she keeps up a steady stream of commentary in his ear, mostly blocking out the music. He hasn’t spent much time with her since she got with Kelso. If dancing with her gives them a chance to talk, so be it.
She falls silent for a moment and he notices her eyes watching something across the gym. He glances over and sees Pam and Kelso, practically glued together on the dance floor. He sighs.
“Pam’s butt looks really big in that dress,” he offers, squeezing her waist. She looks back at him with a sad smile.
“No, it doesn’t.”
“You’re right, it doesn’t.”
They keep dancing.
“You should go ask him to dance,” Hyde murmurs, spinning them so she can’t see him anymore. She looks up at him.
“What?”
“You two clearly still want to be together. Why don’t you go ask him to dance?”
Her eyes widen.
“You hate me being with Michael.”
He shrugs.
“If he makes you happy man, go for it.”
She glances over her shoulder, back at Kelso and Pam, before shaking her head.
“No. I came to prom with you. I don’t want to think about Michael tonight.”
Hyde bites back a grin.
Someone manages to spike the punch, Hyde would look to shake the hand of whoever did, and they’re tipsy soon enough. Eric and Donna disappeared barely an hour into prom, to the motel room Eric got Hyde imagines, and Fez ran out of the school in his underwear, chased by Kelso and a bored looking Pam Macy.
“Want to head out?” Hyde asks Jackie after a while, glancing around the emptying gym. Jackie nods.
They head out the door and down the sidewalk, her heels clacking on the sidewalk. She winces with every step.
“Take your shoes off,” he suggests as she hobbles beside him.
“Steven, I will not let my bare feet touch the sidewalk. That’s disgusting.”
He shakes his head and offers her a shrug.
“We got at least ten more minutes.”
She gives him a pained expression. Then she pushes out her bottom lip, glancing up at him.
“Steven-,”
“I’m not carrying you,” he warns, starting down the street again. She lets out a whine.
“But Steven I can’t walk!”
“Well, find a comfy spot to sleep then.”
“Steven!”
He groans and turns back to her.
“Piggy back ride, that’s all.”
She squeals happily and hurries over to him.
Fortunately she’s tiny because he really is drunk and keeps stumbling towards the edge of the sidewalk before Jackie shouts at him, slapping his shoulder until he gets back on course. They’re both giggling loudly by the time they get to her house.
“Is your mom home?” he asks, looking at the dark house. She shakes her head. “You should have had a party, man!”
“I don’t want a bunch of miscreants at my house, Steven.”
“Lame,” he mutters, but he is still grinning. “Well, tonight wasn’t so terrible I guess. I hope you had a little fun.”
“I did Steven, thank you.” She gives him a small smile before biting her lip and looking back at the house. “Do you want to come in?”
He takes a deep breath. He’s drunk and Jackie looks beautiful and that seems like a really bad combination. But he’s also drunk and Jackie looks beautiful and that sounds like a really good combination.
“Alright.”
He follows her inside, the mansion still dark and creaky. Jackie stumbles slightly as she steps inside, reaching for Hyde’s shoulder to steady herself.
“Want another drink?” she asks, pointing to the bar next to the kitchen. Hyde bites his lip.
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
“Oh, come on Steven. It’s prom!”
He relents and takes the glass she hands him, wincing at the flavor of whisky.
“You like whisky?” he asks, watching her bring the glass to her lips.
She winks before finishing the glass in one gulp.
“That’s kind of hot,” he murmurs, words traveling out of his mouth before checking with his brain.
Immediately, he feels the air in the room shift. There’s a tension he’s never felt before, like electricity coursing between them. It’s all he can do to shove his hands into his pockets to keep himself from reaching out and kissing her.
He can tell she feels it too. She lowers her glass slowly back to the counter, licking her lips nervously.
“Do you...do you want another drink?” she mumbles, fingers fumbling for the whiskey bottle. He reaches out and grabs her hand, stopping her.
“No, I don’t think so.”
He tells himself to move his hand but it won’t listen, wrapping more tightly around her dainty wrist instead. He hears her swallow.
“Steven, I-,”
And then she’s kissing him. Her lips press tightly against his, her tongue immediately darting out to swipe against his lips. He drops her wrist so he can grip her waist instead, pulling her flush against him. She gasps, moving one hand into his hair and the other to the back of his neck, clawing at the skin there.
Every nerve ending in his body is on fire, screaming for more. More of her. He slips his tongue in between her lips and she moans, the vibration traveling through his entire body, heat pooling rapidly below his stomach.
She’s gripping his jacket, trying to push it off his shoulders. He tries to shrug it off his shoulders while still kissing her, unwilling to relinquish her lips. He succeeds, although somewhat awkwardly, and wraps his arms around her more tightly, no longer encumbered by the jacket.
She bites down on his lip and the pain goes right to his cock which responds enthusiastically, pressing into Jackie’s stomach. She gasps, freezing.
Fuck, he thinks to himself, you took it to far. He watches as her eyes dart down, eyeing the bulge in between them. Then she giggles. Hyde lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.
“What are we doing?” she asks, still grinning but eyes full of confusion. “It’s us.”
“I...I don’t know,” he admits, hands still resting on her waist, “It feels good.”
“It does,” she agrees, flushing slightly. “But we probably shouldn’t.”
“You’re right,” he agrees and drops his hands, taking a step back. A cold wave washes over his body, extinguishing the fire that had erupted within.
They stand in awkward silence for a moment, recovering their breath from the impromptu makeout session.
“Kelso doesn’t need to know about this, right?” Jackie asks after a moment, biting her lip nervously.
You shouldn’t be with someone who won’t acknowledge you rings in his ears.
“Right,” he agrees dully.
Jackie takes Kelso back days later. Hyde makes a point not to go near the basement for a bit. He’s not interested in seeing them grope each other on the couch.
Donna finds him one day, sulking in the alley behind the library.
“Did something happen between you and Jackie after prom?”
Hyde glares at her.
“No.”
She gives him a pitying smile.
“She’ll grow out of Kelso eventually.”
“I don’t care.”
They both know he does.
There’s only a few weeks left in the school year when Jackie turns up at Hyde’s window in the middle of the night. He grumbles at his mom to go away in his dream, a pleasant dream about a hot chick wearing only a Led Zeppelin shirt, when he blinks his eyes open and realizes the tapping is coming from his window.
She’s in her pajamas and her eyes are wide and red. Hyde immediately throws the window open and she crawls in.
“Jackie, what is it?”
She rubs at her eyes and gently sits on the edge of his bed.
“My mom’s not home.”
He frowns at her, scooting down the bed to sit next to her.
“She’s not home a lot though, right?”
“She hasn’t been home in a month.”
Fuck.
Fuck.
He feels like an idiot. Of course Pam is gone. There had been no sign of her at the house after prom and Jackie hasn’t mentioned her in ages.
He pictures Jackie alone and scared in her giant house. He shudders.
“Shit Jackie, why didn’t you say anything?”
She shrugs, staring at her hands clasped in her lap.
“I didn’t want people worrying about me.”
“So then why are you here?”
“I heard a noise and freaked out. I think it got to be too much. And I knew...I knew you wouldn’t pity me.”
He’s not sure what to say to that, but she’s right. He doesn’t pity her. He’s angry at Pam and himself for missing the signs, but he doesn’t pity her.
“Can I stay here tonight?” she asks, glancing over at him. “I’ll sleep on the floor. I just don’t want to be alone in the house.”
He sighs before nodding.
“You take the bed. I’m used to the floor. Just be quiet. Edna will have a cow.”
Jackie bites her lip before nodding. Hyde creeps into the living room, pulling down some extra pillows and blankets from the hall closet. When he steps back into the room, he’s accosted by an armful of Jackie.
“Thank you,” she whispers into his ear. He smiles.
She stays for almost another month. Fortunately Edna is so oblivious to everything besides her own self-pity, she has no idea. After a week of sleeping on the floor however, Hyde is practically hobbling through the school.
“Just get in the bed,” Jackie says that night after she sneaks in, scooting over towards the wall. He raises an eyebrow at her. “It’s fine. We’re friends, right? And you look like your back is about to go out.”
“But, Kelso-,”
“Friends, right?”
It’s surprisingly easy to share a small bed with Jackie. She doesn’t snore, tucking tightly into herself before falling asleep. Usually they wake up entangled, limbs woven into each other and bodies pressed together. It’s become a daily struggle of extricating himself without letting her see is always present morning arousal. He’s sure she’s felt it. There’s no way she hasn’t. But she hasn’t said anything and he’s not going to give her a reason to.
It all comes crumbling down, a few days before the end of school. Hyde forgot he’d agreed to get to school early with Foreman, Foreman needed to finish a project and Hyde wanted to try and break into the gym coach’s locker. The Vista Cruiser pulls up at the same moment as Jackie crawls out his window.
“What the hell?” Eric cries as Hyde rushes outside at the sound of Jackie’s shriek.
“It’s not what it looks like, Foreman,” Hyde snaps, pushing them both into the car before they wake Edna up. “Jackie just needed a place to stay.”
“What’s wrong with Kelso’s? Or Donna’s?”
“Kelso’s house is filled with his gross brothers. And Donna would have told everyone.”
“Told everyone what?” Eric asks, still looking suspicious.
“That her mom is gone,” Hyde snaps, wincing as Jackie pinches him.
“Steven, that’s private!”
Everyone knows by the time school starts.
“You were sleeping with my girlfriend,” Kelso screeches at Hyde, slamming his locker shut in Hyde’s face. Hyde counts to ten before responding.
“She needed a place to sleep, man. That’s all.”
“A place to sleep huh? So she picked your bed?”
“It’s a deadbeat parent thing, Kelso. You wouldn’t get it.”
Eventually, they work out that Jackie will stay with Donna from now on. Hyde is glad, Bob is a good guy and Jackie will be safe there. But that night, his bed feels unbelievably big.
Kelso starts sleeping with Laurie as soon as the summer bell rings. He practically trips over himself to tell Fez, Hyde and Eric about it.
Hyde thinks about punching him in the face. Instead he just leaves the room.
“I think we need to tell Jackie,” Fez says nervously later that night, once Kelso and Donna are gone. Eric shakes his head.
“It’s not our place. And Jackie bites.”
They both look at Hyde, who shrugs.
“Look I warned her this would happen again. She decided to take him back.”
Truthfully, Hyde wants to tell her. Mostly because what Kelso is doing is gross and Jackie doesn’t deserve it. But also because a little part of him, and he swears its little, wants to be the one to see Jackie realize what Kelso really is.
But he knows what all his friends will say if he’s the one who tells Jackie so he doesn’t quite get the words out next time she comes around,
He lays traps though. He invites Laurie along for an overnight trip. He tries to get Kelso to slip up when Jackie gets suspicious. He even tries to convince Kelso to tell her himself.
But when she finds out, it has nothing to do with Hyde.
She comes running into the basement, eyes red and full of tears, sobbing about seeing Kelso and Laurie in the kitchen. Hyde immediately regrets not telling her.
“Did you know?” she asks him later, once it’s just them in the basement. He grimaces. “How could you not tell me?”
“I tried, man. But you didn’t want to see it.”
“So you’re saying it’s my fault?” she snaps, tears sliding down her blotchy cheeks.
“No, it’s not your fault. It was just a shitty situation.”
He thinks she’s going to hit him. He braces himself, he deserves it. Instead she throws her arms around him, pressing her face into his neck.
Tentatively, he slides his arms around her, rubbing a small circle on her back. She doesn’t let go until Red stomps down and tells them to get the hell out.
This time around, Jackie actually seems determined not to take Kelso back. And to Hyde’s outward indifference, she spends most of her newly acquired free time with him.
It’s the summer and Hyde managed to find the least involved job of all time at the Photo Hut. Jackie has taken to spending his shifts with him, chatting mindlessly from the counter.
“Do you work here?” Leo asks her one day, looking bemused to her continued presence.
“No Leo, I’m beautiful,” she replies, rolling her eyes at him.
“I’m Leo,” he responds, still looking confused.
Jackie leaves to make a nail appointment and Leo looks over at Hyde.
“Hyde man, no offense but your girlfriend is kind of annoying.” Hyde flushes, scratching at the heat rising up his neck.
“She’s not my girlfriend, Leo.”
Leo raises his eyebrows at Hyde.
“You’re already married, man?”
“What? No. She’s just my friend.”
“Oh sorry dude, that sucks.”
He frowns at Leo, cheeks still burning in the stuffy room.
“What?”
“Well you love her man, so it sucks she’s just your friend.”
“I don’t love her, Leo.”
“Love who?”
Hyde rolls his eyes but feels infinitely grateful for Leo’s goldfish memory.
Summer goes too fast. He spends almost all of it away from his house, Edna growing less tolerable by the day. But the basement no longer provides the solace it once did. Donna and Eric are fighting. Eric seems resolute in he and Donna’s relationship progressing in a traditional 1950s fashion within the confines of Wisconsin. Donna seems less interested in those parameters. Fez has become so horny he’s taken to loitering around the pool, hoping for swimsuits to slip.
Jackie has also lost interest in the basement. Kelso decides he wants her back, following her around with gifts from the dollar store and horribly written songs. At first Hyde wondered if it might work again. Instead, she suggests the two of them hang out at her deserted house. The Burkharts were rich enough to install A/C and it’s mercifully quiet.
Of course what happened last time they were alone in Jackie’s house is heavy in the air at first, but the hot months go by without incident and the tension fades away. He begins to feel relieved. He never actually liked Jackie. She was just hot and he is a teenage boy and these things happen. They’re just friends.
At least, that’s what he thinks until the last week of summer. He and Jackie slip into the empty house once Eric and Donna start to bite each other’s heads off in the basement and a tear slips down Kelso’s cheek.
Hyde pulls out a joint, he’d been saving it for a time when he wasn’t surrounded by a bunch of idiots, and she hesitantly agrees. She’s only just started joining the circles and still coughs when she takes a hit. Hyde grins at her teasingly, but offers her a glass of water.
Soon they’re side by side on the floor, leaning back against the couch. He watches as the ceiling swirls dreamily above him. He can feel her hand just touching his, her pinky finger barely brushing against the back of his index finger. It’s the only thing he can think about.
“Steven?” she asks after a moment, her voice coming from somewhere in the distance.
“Yeah?”
“Have you ever had sex?”
The question is shocking enough to force his mind away from her barely there touch and back into the present.
“You know I haven’t,” he responds, looking over at her in confusion. She sighs.
“Me neither.”
“Really? I figured you and Kelso…,”
She shakes her head, biting her lip.
“Did he tell you we did?”
“No. I just assumed. I know he had sex with Pam Macy. And Laurie.”
At the look on her face, he wishes he hadn’t brought that up.
“It’s fine,” she says at his concerned expression, moving her hand so it fully covers his. His body reacts involuntarily to the touch, chills shooting up his spine. “I told Michael I wouldn’t sleep with him until he stopped sleeping with other girls. Clearly, that never happened.”
“Smart,” Hyde comments, forcing a strained smile. “I’m sure Laurie gave him all kinds of stuff.”
Jackie nods, leaning her head back against the couch but doesn’t move her hand.
“Why haven’t you? Girls like you.”
He shrugs, shifting slightly. He can smell her perfume now. It smells like lavender and vanilla and he feels an uncomfortable urge to smell her hair.
“I don’t know. Never met one I wanted to sleep with, I guess. At least not my first time.”
“I didn’t think you cared about stuff like that.”
“I don’t. I just have standards.”
There’s silence for a moment, reverberating loudly in between them. For some reason, Hyde’s heart is beating in his ears.
Then she’s on top of him, her legs straddling his waist, and kissing him fiercely.
He responds immediately, instinctively even, kissing her back with equal enthusiasm. Her mouth is warm and wet and open so he slides his tongue in while his hands squeeze her waist, digging into the soft skin that’s exposed between her shorts and her top.
She moans softly into his mouth, her hands tugging at his shirt, pulling him further into her space. Her top rides up further and he moves his hands with it so they land just under her bra.
Then she moves her hips, grinding down into his crotch. His whole body reacts, mimicking her movement. His mind feels like it’s been trapped in a fog, all of his blood rushing between his legs, pressing into her.
She grinds down again and he groans, ripping his mouth away from hers with every ounce of willpower he has.
“Jackie,” he pants, wondering if she can hear his heart, “What are you doing?”
“Kissing you?” she responds, her bright eyes filled with a knowing innocence that nearly forces him to kiss her again.
“Yes but...why? We shouldn’t. What about Kelso?”
She glares at him, moving back slightly in his lap. He immediately misses her.
“What about him? He’s not my boyfriend anymore.”
“I know but still, what are we doing?” he asks horsley, a voice in the back of his head screaming at him for putting this whole thing on pause.
“I...I don’t know really,” she responds quietly, moving her eyes away from his, “I just knew I wanted to kiss you. And you wanted to kiss me. Right?”
“Well, I mean you’re a hot girl,” he jokes lamely, giving her a strained smile. She rolls her eyes.
“I just...I trust you Steven. More than I ever trusted Michael. And even if we don't like each other like that, that doesn’t mean I’m not attracted to you. I feel safe with you. I feel safe doing things with you.”
“You want...you want to do things?” he asks, swallowing as his heart hammers against his chest.
“I don’t know. Maybe? I liked kissing you.”
“Jackie it’s just...if we start I don’t think I’ll want to stop,” he whispers, watching as her mouth moves towards him, tongue just poking out from between her lips.
“Maybe I won’t want you to stop.”
As soon as she kisses him again, he knows exactly where this is going.
When Hyde blinks awake, his vision is filled with...pink. Lots of pink.
Jackie.
He turns his head to the side and sees Jackie curled on her side, facing him, brown hair spilled out on the pink pillow. One strand falls across her face, fluttering as she breathes. His first thought is that she looks beautiful.
His second thought is that he’s completely fucked. Literally and figuratively.
The clock behind her blinks midnight. He groans and leans over to shake her shoulder.
“Jackie,” he murmurs, raising his voice when she doesn’t open her eyes. “Jackie.”
“What?” She blinks awake, looking up at him in confusion. Then he can see her reality sink on.
“What time is it?” she asks, looking around frantically.
“Midnight,” he responds, eyes scanning the room for his clothes. He sees his pants and boxers crumpled on the floor across the room.
“Dammit, Donna is going to wonder where I was,” she mutters, looking over him nervously. “Close your eyes.”
“What?”
“Close your eyes. I need to get my clothes.”
He rolls his eyes at her.
“I’ve kind of seen it all already, remember?”
She flushes but glares at him.
“Well, that was then. Now close your eyes.”
He does so, listening to the padding of her feet and the rustling of her clothes.
“Can you hand me my clothes then? While you’re up?” he asks and feels them being pushed into his hand a moment later. He tugs them on.
Once the seemingly all-involved task of getting dressed is accomplished, they fall into an undeniably awkward silence.
“So,” he says, scratching the back of his head. “That happened.”
She bites her lip and nods, cheeks blushing pink. He notices the way her hair is still slightly matted in the back. He fights back a grin.
“Are you...are you going to tell everyone?” she asks after a moment, chewing nervously on her thumb nail.
“I wasn’t planning on it,” he responds. He hates the disappointment he feels when she looks relieved.
“Oh okay, good. Well, I just mean it’s probably better if they don’t all know. Right?”
“Sure,” he agrees easily, forcing a neutral look onto his face. Indifference is a mask that he knows can keep him safe.
“Look, Steven. I don’t...I’m not saying I regret it. Because I don’t. I’m glad it was you. But it’s just...well with Michael and everything-,”
“Say no more,” he interrupts, hoping his voice sounds breezy. “It’s all good.”
She offers him a smile that doesn’t meet her eyes.
He drives them both home in a silent truck cab. As Point Place rolls by in the window, he tries to scrub the memory of how Jackie looked beneath him, eyes full of freedom and lust. There’s no point getting attached to a memory.
It’s surprisingly easy to pretend like nothing happened between him and Jackie. With the disintegration of his home life he’s almost mastered the art of giving nothing away. No one asks questions if he’s quiet and moody and generally aloof. It’s mostly nice, not having to answer questions about how he’s doing or fake a smile all the time. It’s a little bit lonely too.
Everything comes crashing down when Edna leaves.
Considering how little he could stand her, he was surprised by how terrible her leaving was. He knew she resented him and blamed him for the deterioration of her life, but never actually thought she would leave. Bud was one thing. Bud never showed any real attachment to being a father. But as much as Edna bitched and moaned he thought they were in it together. He thought she’d at least learned to care about him enough to get him to the finish line, if 18 was even a finish line, before giving up completely.
But the hastily scrawled note he finds after school one day proves that not even his mother cares enough to see it through with him.
He hides it at first, inviting the gang over for a night of unsupervised fun, and Fez and Kelso tell him how lucky he is. And as always, they buy his stoic nonchalance.
He watches Jackie out of the corner of his eye as she sits on his dirty sofa. He wonders if she will see. The other misfit to watch their mother choose herself over her child. But while he watches her, she watches Kelso. So he has another drink.
What he didn’t expect was for someone to be watching him. His facade can fool most, but apparently it can’t fool all. Foreman shows up with a crappy sandwich the next day and Hyde practically inhales it. Turns out, Edna’s shitty job put their shitty food on their shitty table. Hyde’s even shittier job buys him crackers and a bottle of ketchup.
Of course Foreman tells his parents and Hyde ends up in their basement, sipping hot cocoa that Mrs. Foreman forced into his hands. He scowls and yells and claims his independence but the relief he feels is more powerful than anything he’s ever experienced in his life. He’s not alone anymore.
Jackie finds him in his new room, the storage room in the back of the basement, and watches anxiously as he unpacks his garbage bag.
“Jackie, either say something or go away. You’re freaking me out.”
“Steven, I’m so sorry. I should have realized. I should have helped you.”
He shrugs.
“It’s fine.”
“No, it’s not. Everything has been weird between us and I wasn’t paying attention-,”
“Jackie, I said it’s fine.”
He knows his voice is too harsh when it comes out but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t want to listen to Jackie grovel while he unpacks his pathetic life. It reminds him that once it was Hyde and Jackie against the world. Now it’s just Hyde.