Work Text:
World's Best Compatibility Test
"Life was so much easier when I hated you," Eric mused, glancing worriedly at the paper in his hand before turning his eyes to the far more pleasurable sight of his beautiful, electrifyingly vibrant fiance. They were sitting in front of a roaring fire in the cabin that Jackie had recently bought back after her tax-evading parents had been forced to sell it. Her parents were rarely around to enjoy it, but Eric and Jackie not-so-secretly preferred having it to themselves anyway. This was where they decompressed from their work as a cable talk show host (her) and a teacher of self-created courses on how sci-fi both reflects and influences reality to a few proudly odd Point Place Community College students (him). It was also the scene of some of their most genuinely intimate moments, verbal and otherwise.
"Yeah, well, right back at you," Jackie informed him, but she couldn't suppress a smile as she looked over at him. She certainly hadn't expected to end up with a lanky, cheerfully unambitious but sublimely smart, sweet nerd who avoided parties like the plague and considered his torn May The Force Be With You t-shirt to be high fashion, but her own turbulent romantic history - along with some of the experts on her unpopular niche local talk show - had taught her that the life we're meant to lead is often very different from the one we thought we wanted. "Now fill that out before I'm forced to murder you and end up wasting my prime fashionista years in a hideous prison orange jumpsuit."
"If this talk show host gig ever falls through, you could always write for Hallmark," Eric informed her, listening to the fire in front of them crackle and pop. He could actually feel his omnipresent snark melting away as the vulnerability that she tended to bring out in him bubbled to the surface. Jackie, while brash and possessing all the diplomacy of a bulldozer, was so intensely, unapologetically passionate and emotional that it had proved infectious. Granted, he had always been inconveniently romantic and deeply feeling by male standards, much to his uber-alpha father's chagrin. And in stark contrast to the far cooler men Jackie had dated before him.
"Just suck it up and get it over with, Eric. You know me far too well to think that patience is among the virtues I possess."
Eric reached out to pull her on to his lap. It was easier to drop the sarcasm he wore as self-protective armor and admit his real thoughts and feelings when Jackie always did so without any trepidations - and at such a high volume.
"You possess so many other virtues that it wouldn't have been fair to the rest of humanity if you'd been blessed with that one too," he told her.
"You have a few worthwhile attributes yourself," she replied softly, and they beamed at each other until Eric reluctantly turned their attention back to the paper in his hand.
"I just think these are the type of questions that people think they want the answers to in theory but don't in reality," he explained. He held the paper up for her inspection despite knowing she'd already reviewed her own copy countless times. The World's Best Compatibility Test---and you have to admire the author's humility, by the way---"What do you most wish you could change about yourself and your partner? What do you anticipate arguing about the most when and if you get married? Do you view your partner's differences as complementary ones that balance you out and challenge you to grow or as signs of incompatibility?" The thing is, sweetheart, it's one thing to tell ourselves that we're compatible despite what 99.9% of the world and tests like this tell us, but to actually see the results in print could prove to be the iceberg to our Titanic."
Jackie nodded, apparently having grown accustomed to his goofy film-based metaphors. "You know, I'll never, ever get over the way you cried every bit as much as I did during that movie." Just as Eric was about to sputter out some sort of self-deprecating or vaguely defensive response, she cupped his face in his hands and gazed at him with those fiery but soulful eyes. "And that was the night I knew I wanted to marry you."
"Because wimpy, hopelessly nerdy dorks who care more about movies than real life are that irresistible?" Eric asked incredulously.
"God no, not at all," Jackie replied, just a tad too vehemently for Eric's liking. "But I saw then, while we were both crying all over our overpriced popcorn and each other, that you have the hugest heart. In every other relationship I was in, I was the one who cared too much and tried too hard, the hopeless romantic with dreams that the other person didn't make any effort to make a reality. But even as I mocked you mercilessly over weeping like a little wuss-"
"Such beautiful memories," Eric assured her, but he kissed her on the forehead. Kissing her on the mouth would have forced her to stop talking. While most people usually wished that Jackie would do just that - his father, despite having developed genuine affection and even respect for Jackie still casually referred to her as Loud Girl - Eric greatly enjoyed listening to what Jackie had to say. Particularly when she seemed to be in the process of offering words of affirmation amidst the usual amusing jokes about his awkwardness and utter lack of smoothness and style.
"-like a little wuss," she repeated teasingly, "I knew that despite our many, many, did I mention MANY differences, deep down we were the same in the ways that really matter. You're sentimental and romantic and you get super enthusiastic about stuff that other people claim don't matter and you really, truly, deeply care. And, most importantly, you love me almost as much as I love me," she joked.
"I am and I do, but-"
"Eric, you know that's my least favorite conjunction!"
"Well, at least that's one question I'll get right on this compatibility test. The one that we know I'll take despite my doubts purely because you think it's important. I guess I just want to know the odds of surviving this possible kamikaze mission before I climb into the cockpit."
There was a brief pause. Jackie, who had been gazing into the fireplace with a quiet pensiveness that had been uncharacteristic of her prior to falling in love with Eric, finally responded. "You mean how low will our score have to be for us to call off the wedding? Even if we fall into that bottom "for the love of God, separate immediately before you destroy each other and everyone around you" category, I'll still want to be with you forever. I mean, of course I'm a competitive freak who wants an A, and even then that's only because there's technically no A+, but nothing that this test reveals could change how I feel about you."
"You're just wondering whether you can trust me to be a mature husband despite some evidence to the contrary?" Eric guessed. He was doing what the psychologist who had appeared on Jackie's show to promote his modestly entitled World's Best Compatibility Test would call projection - taking his deepest, darkest doubts about himself and assuming that she harbored them as well.
"Believe it or not," Jackie said, implying that the "not" was more likely, "I didn't want us to take this test because I distrust your ability to be top-notch spouse material. It's that I don't trust myself."
"But you're the most bold, confident person I've ever known," Eric protested. "Like to the point where I'm in genuine awe even when I pretend to cringe or joke about whether your ego can fit with us in my Toyota."
She snuggled against him. Despite Eric being naturally thin, she had enjoyed discovering that he was tougher and stronger than he looked - both inside and out. "Oh, baby, you're the one who should work for Hallmark. It's just that I don't trust my ability to make the best choices when it comes to romantic relationships. You know I tend to be bossy and smothering..."
"You're a passionate woman who knows what she wants," Eric corrected loyally.
"And sometimes kind of insane..."
"Love and sanity are mutually exclusive," he assured her. "Plus, even if normality existed, do you know how deadly dull I'd find it? I don't love you despite your quirks, Jackie. I love you because of them. And I always will. You're my other half. You're my soulmate. You're the reason I'm not still a loser playing with action figures in my parents' basement and entirely detached from that hellscape known as 'real life.'"
Jackie leaned in to kiss him with an intense passion that would likely cause Eric to make a joke about them generating more heat than the fire that thrived just inches away from where they sat. She had come to adore his earnest, corny dad jokes despite the fact that he wasn't a dad. Yet.
Spontaneously, she yanked the compatibility test out of his hands and hurled it into the fireplace. "But I really was going to take it!" Eric said.
"I know, which means that we automatically passed," Jackie declared, and Eric grinned as he saw that her usual confidence and bravery had returned. "The way I see it - and mine is the only pair of eyes that matters other than yours - you're selfless and sweet enough to do stuff you don't want to solely because it'll make me happy. And I love you and our relationship enough to believe in us no matter how cringe-inducing part of my history is or what some piece of paper tells us. Plus, we're both screwed up in ways that we're aware of but choose to love each other anyway. That's romantic compatibility."
"And just like the characters in Star Wars ultimately determine their own fate," Eric began eagerly, but hastily switched gears when the love of his life pretended to throttle him. "No one can predict or determine our happiness except us."
They held each other and watched The World's Best Compatibility test burn.