Disclaimer: That '70s Show copyright The Carsey-Werner Company, LLC and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, LLC.
Dedication: To msstock87, fairytaleprincess03, schottzie, and hanselnext for your undying Zennie love.
ONE DIFFERENCE:
HYDE DOESN'T LIE
about the Kiss in "Jackie Bags Hyde"
The night couldn't have been more perfect. The Lincoln's hood was cold beneath Jackie's butt, but Steven sat so close that he heated her body and mind. He'd both defended her honor earlier at Mr. Forman's barbecue and asked her on a date. He'd also paid for their pizza and drove them to Inspiration Point, a make-out spot on Mt. Hump. Never did she think he'd take her here of all places.
The sky was clear enough for stargazing, and the chilly air made her shiver. Steven had lent her his denim jacket, and she fought every impulse to kiss him, to taste the lips she'd fantasized about so often. Instead, she asked him what he thought of their first date.
"It was no worse than bowling," he said, and she glared at him. What kind of answer was that? The date had filled her insides with fireworks, but he clarified his statement by adding, "I don't hate bowling."
She smiled—he'd actually enjoyed being with her—and gazed into his eyes. She could barely see them through his sunglasses, but he didn't glance away.
She leaned in closer to him. Their arms were pressing against each other now, and she tilted her head. He angled his down, directing his mouth toward her lips, and her heart beat furiously as he welcomed her kiss.
The initial contact between them was soft. He didn't push. They were experimenting, learning how their lips felt on each other. But then he grew bolder and gave her more of his mouth. The sensation of him shot strangely into her neck and energized the rest of her body. She was both uncomfortable with and fascinated by the feeling, but he began to pull away from her.
Did kissing her surprise him? Frighten him? She cradled his cheek with one hand and planted her other on the Lincoln's hood for support. He couldn't withdraw from her yet. She had to experience a full kiss with Steven Hyde, and she widened her jaw to let him in completely. His mouth answered in kind, pushing back into hers intimately and causing a wave of emotion to crash through her. Her tongue slid wetly against his, and his breath seemed to catch.
She couldn't think. She was so used to thinking during a kiss—about her hair, the latest cheer routine, Michael's lack of technique—but as she and Steven began to part, she imagined swimming naked in the reservoir and crawling out to the freezing air. Gooseflesh was rising on her skin, in anticipation of being without what he'd just given her.
She stopped short of breaking contact with him. Their lips remained connected; his were warm, and hers were tingling. Would she tremble once he was gone? Her hand didn't leave his cheek, and the breath from his nose tickled her skin. She was experiencing a total lack of comprehension. This date was Steven's and her first, but the kiss felt like two lovers reconnecting after years apart. Impossible, and something he would never reflect back.
She waited for him to pull away from her mouth, but he stayed as he was with no indication he would leave. Was he waiting for her to continue the kiss?
She couldn't. Her lips withdrew from him. She licked them to get his taste off and looked into his eyes for answers. They gave her none but watched her with a quality she couldn't identify. Had he been without his sunglasses, maybe she would've gleaned some truth, gained some help for the chaos swirling through her body and mind.
She glanced down at the leaf-covered ground, though she didn't really see it. Her idea of love had been shattered when she caught Michael cheating on her. Steven had helped her forge a new idea, one where boys protected the girls they claimed to hate. One in which a specific boy—him—protected a specific girl—her—even when it put his own life in danger. He'd gone to jail for her, had kept her dastardly deed a secret, even after Mr. Forman kicked him out of his house.
"Okay, I didn't feel anything," she said, putting the only words she could to the chaos.
He hesitated before speaking. "Nothing?"
She returned her gaze to him, and his face reflected the confusion in his voice. "No," she said quickly. "I mean ... I meant..." Her brain ran through alternative answers. She hadn't wanted to insult his technique, especially since he knew how to kiss. "I mean the kiss was hot, but..." She'd waited a year before making love to Michael, yet she could easily have sex with Steven in the Lincoln tonight—and that, along with everything else, terrified her. "Well, did you feel something?" she said.
He hesitated again, "Uh ... yeah," and hopped off the Lincoln's hood. "Doesn't matter, though."
"What?" She jumped off the hood, too, and followed him to the car's passenger-side door. It was open, and Leo Sayer's "When I Need You" was playing from the radio.
"You don't feel shit, so it doesn't matter if I felt anything or not."
He put his hand on her back and gently guided her into the car. He shut the door and, a moment later, slipped into the driver's seat. Then tuned the radio to a rock station. Some too-loud song blasted through the speaker, and he touched his fingers to his lips before pressing on the gas.
The Lincoln's wheels crunched onto Mt. Hump's gravel-strewn road. Jackie stared out the windshield, but the night was so dark. Barely anything could be seen except the road. The trees were dark blotches that passed by too quickly. "So you feel something," she said.
"Doesn't matter."
"What if I'd told you something different? Would it matter then?"
"Doesn't matter," he said again and cranked up the radio's volume.
"Can't you say something else?"
He shrugged. They'd reached the foot of Mt. Hump, and he turned the Lincoln onto Green Bay Road.
Hyde needed Jackie to shut up. She was interrogating him on a closed subject. Her kiss had started a revolution inside his chest. He was all for anarchy, but not when it reigned in his own damn body and mind. The rebellion had to be squashed before it torched his sanity.
"What did you feel, Steven?" she said.
"Nothin' relevant." He kept his focus on the road but caught her face in the rearview mirror. She was frowning. Time had come to go on the offensive. "Why the hell do you care?"
"It matters—"
"Why?"
"Because it does."
"So you can laugh about it with your bitchy cheerleader friends? Sorry, not givin' you any ammunition."
She crossed her arms over her chest. He saw this in the rearview mirror, too, but he should've been watching the road. A car honked at him angrily, and he put his foot on the brake. He'd almost run a red light and collided into a mid-sized Mazda.
"You just wanted to have sex with me," she said. "Is that it? You're disappointed I wouldn't do it with you on the hood of my daddy's car?" Her eyes narrowed—he was looking at her directly now—and her lips curled into a snarl. "All you men are alike."
"And you're full of yourself."
He refocused on driving, but she wasn't finished. Her hand slid over his thigh. "Pull over somewhere. We'll do it right now."
He slapped her hand off his leg, before she could feel her full effect on him. "No, thanks. Not into making chicks do what they don't wanna do." He sucked in a breath and blew it out. "Man..."
"What?"
"First Kelso, then that dillhole Chip. You sure know how to pick 'em."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
He didn't answer. 75th Street led into Jackie's upper-class neighborhood of mansions, luxury stores, and high-end restaurants he couldn't afford, and he'd never been so happy to see it.
"You're so difficult," she said once he pulled up to her house. Her driveway was as gravelly as Mt. Hump's road, and her garage door was shut. "That's your biggest problem, you know." She removed a garage remote from the glove box and pressed a fat white button. "You're difficult."
"Yeah, and your garage is open, so I'm outta here." He put the Lincoln in neutral and shoved himself out of the car. The date hadn't gone as he'd expected, and it definitely hadn't ended the way he thought it would after that kiss. The chick fawned over him for months, didn't take no for an answer, and when she finally got what she wanted, she chucked him out like an empty beer can.
His boots crunched on the gravel driveway. Walking off the Burkharts' property would close this pathetic chapter of his life. Jackie was no longer his problem, and neither were the feelings she'd stirred up. Not since Donna had a chick affected him this much, for good and bad. He didn't like it, the lack of control. Made him do stupid things.
"Steven, wait!" Jackie dashed up to him at the property's ornate metal gates. "You forgot to take your jacket."
"Oh. Guess I did," he said, and she handed him the denim jacket. He resisted the urge to sniff it, to find out if her floral-scented hair had left any trace on it. "Thanks."
He shrugged on the jacket without looking at her. That should have been the end of things, but the denim was still warm from her body.
"I can wait here 'til you drive into the garage," Steven said, and Jackie swallowed a startled breath. His courtesy was a jarring but nice surprise. Michael had always fled once they got onto her family's property. He was scared of her father and rightly so. Daddy had never liked him, but despite Steven's scruffiness and somewhat crude demeanor, he was a gentleman.
"It's okay," she said. "I'll be fine." But this night would haunt her, what she'd done. She'd rejected him because she needed time, because she thought the current flowing through her was one-way, that he wouldn't complete the circuit. "Thanks for the date, Steven. Thank you for giving me a chance." She cupped his shoulders, stood on her toes, and went to kiss his cheek.
He shied away. "Let's not do that."
"Sorry. Good night." She backed off and headed toward the driveway. Her decision at Inspiration Point seemed irreversible. If she'd used better words to explain herself, had shared her confusion and fear, would he have respected it? Or even cared? Steven was a boy used to an easy girl, and Jackie was anything but easy.
Yet even now, her body ached for him. She wanted his lips on her, for his hands to slip beneath the fabric of her dress, but her heart couldn't handle it. She needed to go slowly, despite that he could have kissed her into ecstasy tonight. She had to walk away, despite that she could fall in love with him— truly fall in love beyond infatuation—if he did the right thing in the next thirty seconds.
She reached the Lincoln, and gravel crunched noisily behind her. She turned around, pulse tightening because she half-expected a robber, but Steven grasped her hand, and she heaved a long, relieved breath.
"Look, I'm sorry for being an ass," he said seriously. Then he grinned. "Turns out I was right about us, huh?"
"I guess so."
"For what it's worth, I'm not pissed you don't wanna screw, okay? I know that's my rep, but it ain't why I said what I said on the car. We're cool, all right?"
"We are?" She stared at him. The front lights of her house were reflecting off his sunglasses, and she couldn't see his eyes at all.
"Unlike you, I know how to let shit go." He gently squeezed her hand before releasing it. His lips grazed her cheek, but he was already at the property gates before she realized he'd kissed her.
Jackie tried to parse her kiss with Steven during the next week, to break it down to its base elements. The task distracted her in school, and instead of concentrating on geometry, she came up with six explanations for Steven's, "Uh ... yeah," about feeling something. Thankfully, Mrs. Clarke didn't call on her that Tuesday in class. On Wednesday, however, they had a quiz, which Jackie failed to study for—since she'd missed when Mrs. Clarke announced it.
The red B- she earned stood as a fiery testament to her frustration. What had Steven felt during their kiss? By Thursday, she'd X'd off half the explanations scribbled on notebook paper:
—Steven felt like having sex with me because I'm a hot kisser. [x]
—Steven felt annoyed he was kissing me. [x]
—Steven felt disgusted because he doesn't appreciate a good kiss. [x]
The remaining three possible reasons heated up in her skull, boiling over as she obsessively thought about them. Eventually they, quite embarrassingly, began spilling out of her mouth. And in front of Eric, of all people. She'd avoided his basement all week, had avoided Steven, but that changed on Friday. She went there after school, hoping to observe Steven and gather some evidence. Only he wasn't around.
"What are you doing here?" Eric said from the couch. A Lego set, in various stages of construction, was sprawled on the wooden spool table. "Don't you have other houses to haunt?"
"Whatever." Jackie crossed over to Steven's chair and sat down. The seat wasn't warm. Steven clearly hadn't come home yet. "The Gong Show?" She gestured derisively at the television. "Really? Can't you put on The Edge of Night or something?"
"Can't you be any less here?" He stuck a blue Lego to a gray one then slammed the joint pair onto a red Lego platform. "Damn, Hyde."
"What about Hyde—I mean, Steven?"
"He smashed up my rocket base on Monday night. Kicked it or something. I scoured the basement for all the pieces but—"
"Eric, wait." She stood up and rushed over to him. "This is really important."
"It is?" His face brightened as she sat on the couch. "Yeah, see, you come from a rich family and appreciate good craftsmanship. "
"No, if Steven wrecked your stupid Lego-thing, it means he was angry after..."
"After what?"
"After..." She glanced away, and her eyes fixed on Eric's half-built rocket. Did he know about her date with Steven? Steven had announced it in front of everyone at Mr. Forman's barbecue, but Eric was over at Donna's then. Michael and Fez had been present, but they were also drunk, and they didn't seem to remember. "After the barbecue," she said. "I think a sparkler singed some of his hair."
Eric frowned. "Well, that was no reason to destroy hours of my work."
He returned to building his rocket, and she watched his fingers, but they disappeared under the weight of her thoughts. "Better as 'just friends,'" she whispered. "But he couldn't have felt that about us. Eric's stupid rocket would still be intact—"
"Hey, watch what you say about the rocket, okay?" Eric nudged her shoulder and nodded at Steven's chair. "Personal space, please."
"Fine." She stood from the couch, but Eric had to keep talking.
"'Just friends'?" he said. "Hold on a sec." He pointed an accusing finger at her. "Don't tell me Kelso and Fez's drunken ramblings were true." His face twisted in disgust." Oh, God—you and Hyde did go out on an unholy date!"
She shook her head. "N'uh-uh."
"Did you..." His eyes shut. "I can't even make myself say it."
"Nothing happened, Eric! Stop making things up."
"Nothing happened when?"
"On the date."
"So there was a date!"
She flicked her eyes toward the basement's exit. "No..."
"Damn your demon tongue!" He covered his ears, "You, miss, are a liar!" and his words grew louder and faster the more he spoke. "Kelso was always a lost cause, but Hyde was pure. Even the head devil, Laurie, couldn't lure him. But you—you tainted him!"
"Shut up!" Jackie swept her arm across the spool table and knocked his half-built rocket base to the floor. Legos scattered everywhere.
Eric shot to his feet. "Jackie, what the hell?"
She marched back to Steven's chair. She didn't have to explain herself to Eric or to anyone.
"No, there's no sitting for you," he said. "You're gonna pick up every one of those Legos."
"And if I don't?"
"Then you're banned from the basement, that's what." He nodded with a smug smile, and she wanted to yank off his lips. He looked entirely too satisfied, but she stopped caring when Steven slipped into the basement. Eric, though, hadn't seemed to notice his arrival. "That's right, lady," he continued. "You're banned!"
"Who's banned from the what now?" Steven said.
Eric turned toward him. "Your little girlfriend here."
"She's not my girlfriend."
"Well, whatever she is, she can't come here anymore unless she cleans up her damage. I rushed home after school today to fix that rocket, and she busted it!"
Steven laughed. "Nice."
Jackie's eyes widened. What did he mean by "nice"? "Nice" that she might be banned from the basement? Or "nice" that she'd wrecked Eric's rocket again?
"Ooh, why don't you ever make sense?" she said to Steven. She stormed past him and reached the basement door.
"If you walk out," Eric said, "without picking up just one Lego, don't come back."
"Hey, Jackie—" Steven scooped a Lego from the cement floor and tossed it at her. She caught it. Then, with careful aim, she hurled it at Eric's skull. It struck him on the forehead, causing him to cry out, and Steven laughed harder. "I was hoping she would do that," he said between laughs, "and she did."
That night, Jackie received an unexpected phone call. Michael invited her to his uncle's ski cabin, but she refused to go unless other people were going, too.
"Oh, Eric and Donna are coming," he said. "Yeah, it's just a friendly outing."
"Friendly?" she said.
"Yup."
She agreed, if only to get on Eric's good side again. The prospect of being banned from the basement scared her. If Steven had just said he didn't feel anything in their kiss, she could've forgotten him—and all the confusion he inspired. If he hadn't felt anything, then her feelings would be irrelevant. A connection had to go both ways, or it wasn't a connection at all. It was delusion.
Her self-analysis this week had brought these things to light. While she and Michael were dating, she'd imagined Michael to be one person when he was another. But in Steven, she saw things he didn't see in himself, things he constantly denied. Yet his treatment of her contradicted that denial. Who was he really? She had her theories, but more proof was needed before she could let him go. And the only way to get more proof was to have access to the basement.
Michael's ski cabin turned out to be a tiny ice shack, and the "friendly outing" turned out to be a scheme for Michael to get Jackie back. Fez had come along and tried to flirt with her, too, something she definitely did not need. The whole day would've been a disaster had Michael's van not broken through the icy surface of a lake and sunk.
He was gloating over winning the dumb game he'd had everyone play, something styled after the Newlywed Game. He'd pulled Jackie into his van afterward and started hopping around, singing, "I won, and Fez lost! I won, and Fez lost!"
She stared out of the window during his idiocy until a loud crack vibrated the van. She fled outside, and he followed, and the van bubbled its last gasp as it sank into the freezing lake.
Eric, Donna, and Fez watched with amusement while Michael shouted futile protests. Jackie ignored him and hugged herself in an attempt to keep warm. The air was bitterly cold, and breathing stung her throat. No one was offering her a jacket, but Steven probably would have, just like he'd done during their date.
"Jackie—hey!" Eric bumped her shoulder and captured her attention.
"What?"
"Forget what I said yesterday. Welcome back."
She risked a half-smile. "You mean it?"
"Oh, yeah. This is the greatest burn on someone-who's-been-sleeping-with-my-sister ever." He gestured to the jagged hole of ice and water where Michael's van used to be. "Wouldn't have happened without you."
"He's right," Michael said. "If you hadn't broken up with me, I wouldn't have tried to get you back. You owe me money!"
"So that's all this was?" Jackie said. "A manipulative attempt to woo me?"
"Who cares? I'm losing my van!"
Donna slid her arm around Eric's shoulders. He'd given her his coat to wear, and envy dripped off Jackie's skin like ice water. "Time for a four-mile-walk to town," Donna said. "We're gonna have to pool our money to hire a cab to take us home."
"Oh, I'll pay for it," Jackie said. "Let's go."
She led the charge from the ice shack but treaded lightly toward the road. She didn't want to suffer the same fate as Michael's van and break through the ice. She was freezing enough.
Six weeks had passed since Hyde's kiss with Jackie, and she hadn't pestered him once since that night. Sometimes he caught her looking at him in the basement. Then again, maybe he was the one looking at her.
He still didn't get why she'd cared about what their kiss made him feel. Vanity was the most logical answer. But she would have bragged about his admission to everyone, and she hadn't. None of her bitchy friends had bugged him about it. None of their mutual friends had either, except for Forman. Forman asked him once if he and Jackie had "swapped hellish spit," but Hyde disabused him of the idea. No one needed to know about that kiss.
Even though Hyde couldn't stop thinking about it.
The Christmas rager tonight at Bud's place was the perfect distraction. Tinsel, beer, weed, and people packed the apartment. Jackie and Donna didn't like the prospect of "sucking beer out of a funnel," so they hightailed it out of there, and Hyde was relieved. Some primo skanks had been invited to this party, and he was holed up with two of them in his room. They both had nice racks, were drunker than he was—and were totally into him. His first three-way, man, and he had Jackie to thank for it.
Jackie to thank for it? He stiffened and not in the good way. Why the hell was he thinking of her while these chicks used his body as a playground? But their hands and mouths didn't reach him beyond his skin. His outer barrier kept them out, toughened from years of pain and abuse. In no way did he want to connect with a girl deeper than his body. But Jackie, damn her, had gotten past his defenses.
That didn't keep him from enjoying the night, though. His mind eventually fell in line as the two chicks gave directions. Unlike him, they'd done this before. He lay back on his bed, and as they took turns on top of him, Veteran's Day became a faint memory.
"Ooh, listen to this." Jackie pointed to the Cosmo article she was reading. "'Corner Him Under the Mistletoe: Eight Ways to Trick a Guy Into a Relationship.'" She grinned despite that the night had been, thus far, uneventful. Steven was having his party, and she wasn't there. "I love the holidays."
"Anyone in particular you're trying to trick?" Donna said. She and Jackie were sitting in the Formans' living room. Frosty the Snowman was playing on the television, not exactly riveting cinema. "Because anyone who's worth a damn," she continued, "you don't have to trick."
Jackie glared at her. "Aren't we festive."
"Speak for yourself."
"For a giant, you're not very jolly. What's your problem?"
"What's yours? You've been bitchier than usual the last six weeks."
Jackie put down her magazine. "I have?"
"Yeah. I mean, a few insults here and there, okay. But it's been, like, non-stop. 'Donna, that shirt makes you look like Sasquatch.' 'Donna, red is for hearts, not hair.' 'Donna, your tomato-shaped butt's blocking my reading light.'"
"Oh, Donna..." she covered her mouth and hid her laughter. "I guess I've been on a roll. Sorry."
"You sure have."
Jackie grew silent. She'd been having horrible dreams over the last six weeks, dreams where she and Steven were together. Whenever she woke from them, a hollow feeling spread through her chest. Last night's dream had been particularly brutal, a full-on replay of their Veteran's Day kiss, only they didn't stop at kissing. Her skin was still tingling from it.
"Donna," she said, "I need to talk to you about Steven."
"Oh, God. I thought you were over him."
"I am ... but when he liked you—I mean, liked you—what was he like?"
"That's a lot of like."
"Come on." Jackie patted Donna's knee. "I'll be less bitchy from now on if you're serious."
"Okay, um... " Donna's fingers knotted together. "Hyde was..." she glanced up at the ceiling and inhaled deeply, "not good."
"'Not good' how?"
"He didn't get that I was with Eric, and he forced me to kiss him, and I slapped him."
Jackie screwed up her face. She had a hard time imagining Steven forcing himself on anyone, but Donna wouldn't lie about something like that. "Okay, what I really mean is, did he ever tell you how he felt about you? Directly?"
"He might have?" Donna said, with too much uncertainty for Jackie's taste. "I was kind of really drunk at the time, and I can barely remember it."
Jackie grasped Donna's shoulders and shook her. "Remember it, Pinciotti. Remember."
"He said something about feelings." Donna scooted back on the couch, and Jackie's hands slipped off her. "He said he had feelings for me."
"That's all?"
"Maybe there was more. Oh, but I do remember beeping his nose."
"You're no help." Jackie picked up her magazine again and began to read, but her brain registered none of the words. Not since her first kiss had the ways of love confounded her so. Steven's unpredictable nature had effectively made her a novice in romance.