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apachefirecatTitle: Blue Tears, Stolen World
Fandom: Saved by the Bell
Author: Apache Firecat
Characters: Slater/Jessie, Renee/Jessie
Rating: PG-13/T
Summary: Renee's let Jessie and Jamie down yet again. This time, Slater's there.
Word Count: 2,345
Written For: The author's 13 Days of Halloween
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to their rightful owners, not the author, and are used without permission.
"No, I don't mind," Slater assured Toddman yet again. "I mean, what else am I going to be doing? Watching old slasher movies all night long or -- ?" He suddenly stopped in mid-word and mid-step as he got a look at the buffet table. He didn't even notice the food, which had gotten to be unusual for him as he often helped himself to whatever the school had left and snuck it home to last him a few days, but he didn't get any further than the punch bowl and the beauty who was standing in front of it.
A seafoam green leotard clung tightly to a nicely shaped ass, and Slater barely managed to stop himself from catcalling or at least whistling. Toddman took a look at his friend and slowly shook his head. "More power to you, buddy," he commented and moved away.
Slater slicked back his hair and tried to keep his strolling pace casual and sexy at the time. "Hello there, Momma!" The woman turned around with a drink in her hand, and Slater spit in surprise. "Momma?!"
"Please don't call me that in front of the kids, you macho pig."
"What...?" As his eyes raked up and down her body, his curiosity only grew. The Jessie Spano he had known in school did not dress like this! She was clad in a form-fitting Poison Ivy costume that left almost nothing about which to wonder. Fake leaves curved around her breasts almost as tightly as the leggings fitting her butt. "I... I just... Since when do you dress like this?!"
"Since that idiot I married thought it would be a good idea." She pushed her mask back up even though it wasn't slipping, causing Slater to wonder if perhaps she was wearing glasses now when no one was watching her. Jessie had always striven to be the furthest thing from superficial, especially when it came to her looks, but he also knew she had always been easily hurt whenever others teased her. It would make sense that she would hide the glasses, if she was having to wear them.
His brain couldn't quite catch up to everything that was happening, and it took him a full minute or two to realize that she had referred to her husband as an idiot. "I, hum, I haven't gotten to meet him yet."
"You're not missing anything." She scowled. "He's an idiot."
It couldn't be easy, he reflected for the first time, to be married to Jessie Spano. She was beautiful, intelligent, and a definite win all the way around, but she was also a perfectionist who expected only the very best of herself and, he was quite certain, whatever guy had been lucky enough to land her. He watched her take a sip from her glass and recognized the look in her eyes. "You didn't spike the punch, did you?!" he exclaimed, his own eyes shooting wide.
"Of course not!"
"I just... That is... I, hum..." She had not blustered him this much, this easily, or this quickly since their high school days. But then he noticed the little vial sticking up from her bodice. She was spiking her punch, just not the main punch bowl, which did mean that she was very, very upset. "I..." Even knowing that, he still could not figure out how to approach her.
"No wonder Renee wanted me to wear this get up," Jessie remarked, the corners of her lips beginning to curve upwards. She waved her cup at him. "I've never had you this tongue tied!"
"Sure you have," Slater responded even as his mind raced, wondering how many she'd had and just what exactly Renee had done or said. He turned to scan the crowd.
"He's not here," Jessie said, again waving her cup through the air. "He's off gallivanting on the other side of the country again. I can handle it," she said. "I should have known better than to put this thing on, especially with him saying he was coming as the Joker, but when he shipped it overnight..."
"That's no ordinary costume, is it?" Slater asked, his dark eyes again roving the costume's details in awe.
"You've always been so sweet to me. No, it isn't. It was made of completely recycled materials from an upstart company in China that's making quite the waves in Hollywood. I don't follow the Hollywood trends, -- "
"You never did."
" -- but he does."
"So he intended to come, but he, huh, got detained?"
"He always gets 'detained'." Her green punch splashed as she formed air quotes. "I forgave him the first five times, but -- "
"The first five times?!" Slater sputtered.
"Yes. I mean, he was a little boy when we met. He had to grow up, but he's still a Peter Pan! He's never going to grow up! He thinks their attention can keep him young! He says he isn't cheating on me any longer! He's apologized so many times! But I know better!"
Slater's eyes darted around the gymnasium. The students were beginning to gather closer, and whispers were starting to flow through the crowd.
"I wouldn't keep forgiving him, you know, if it wasn't for Jamie, but Jamie needs a father. What about you, Slater? Why did you never get married? Why was nobody ever smart enough to snatch you up?"
He wasn't a win, Slater thought, and almost said the words aloud, but he stopped himself just in time. This wasn't Jessie. Tonight, she had fallen prey to something far worse than caffeine. She was falling prey to alcohol in trying to dim the pain that jackass of a husband of hers had caused. He couldn't believe that the man who had actually landed his dream girl was mistreating her so terribly, but he had never once met Renee and had realized some time ago that there had to be a reason for that. He'd hoped, at times, that Jessie would come to him when she was upset and had finally had enough of the way Renee was treating her, but not like this!
"So I'm guessing," Slater said, slowly ambling away from the table at a distance Jessie could idly follow without making too much of a scene, "that he told you and Jamie both that he'd be here?"
"Yes. And then he texts me right after we get here to the school -- he doesn't even call -- and says his flight was delayed! If his flight was delayed, he would have known about it hours ago!"
Slater's heart panged for Jessie. He knew she was right. Renee, whoever he was, was throwing away a perfectly good son and the most beautiful, most intelligent woman A.C. had ever known in favor of, he was quite sure, some floozy instead! A floozy who could offer him no future but also no quarreling match to meet or best his intellect. She wouldn't be the type to be able to make him, or anyone think, or to encourage him to strive with everything he had within himself to become a better man and provide for a better future.
Jessie had frustrated him many times back when they'd been dating, but he'd known, deep down, that she'd always had good intentions. Why, if he'd had her driving him all these years, he probably wouldn't be just a high school Coach! He probably wouldn't even be a star player but something far grander, something he'd never had in himself but she could have made. He had known he would never be worthy of Jessie and that she deserved to be all she could be, and it had been in his determination not to hold her back that he had pushed her away instead, insisting that she go to a college worthy of her so that she could build a life and a future that would make her happy and make use of all of her amazing abilities. Yet instead, she'd married a piece of crap who had never deserved her and was practically raising their son single handedly.
Her life -- the amazing life she could have built -- was slowly but surely being dismantled by a creep who thought it was acceptable to cheat on the best woman Slater had ever known, and to publicly stand her up at her place of work and in front of their child. What else had Renee done to Jessie in front of Jamie? Slater wondered. Jamie was a good kid. He might not be the brightest or the best football player in the world, but he had a good heart and was smarter than most people gave him credit. He'd always noticed the boy was very shy and reserved when speaking of his father or his home life, and now he knew why. If Renee hurt either of them -- His teeth ground together, and his hands balled into fists.
But they were being watched. Nearly every child in the gym was trying to pay attention and figure out what was happening between their teachers until Lexi grabbed the boy over whom all the girls were constantly fawning and started dancing. He let the kids dance as closely as they wanted, because it was drawing attention as rapidly away from Jessie as it had come to her. They didn't deserve to see her like this, so... so broken, Slater realized, his heart aching.
"I think you've had enough of that," he said, moving with deft reflexes and grabbing not just her cup but the vial from between her breasts. It looked like something a Scientist might use, but he didn't surprise him at all that she would have something of its nature just laying around her home. He pocketed the vial and put the cup down on a table. She reached for the cup, but he grabbed her hand. "Let's dance," he said, clearly not giving her a choice.
Yet as he swept her across the gym floor, Slater found himself having difficulty remembering that they were not the children they had been. They were not free. They were no longer together and not allowed to long for each other or to reminisce about what had been and what had almost become, what, perhaps, should have become. After all, if Jessie had been going to throw her future away after some jerk guy, why couldn't he have been that jerk?
A slow song came, and though he did not try to pull her any closer, Jessie stepped closer herself. She swayed her body against his in ways that made him groan in the back of his throat and yearn to be twenty years younger again. He wished he could love her. He had wished for many years that he could forget her and move on, but now all he found himself doing was wishing with all his heart that he could have been the one she had married instead of that blasted Renee. "When I do meet your husband," he mumbled, "I'm going to have some select words to say to him." Actually, he'd have a hard time not just outright pummeling the bastard.
"This is nice," Jessie whispered in his ear from where her head rested on his shoulder. Slater shivered with excitement as her body slipped against his and he felt every inch of her breasts against his chest. His groin felt already cradled in her hot womanhood; they had always been such a perfect fit.
But she was married. He had sent her away to build a future, and she had chosen the wrong idiot punk with whom to build it. She'd been hurt by him and didn't deserve anything he'd done to her, but she was nonetheless a married woman. He stepped back, forcing her to stand more erect and lift her head from his shoulder. "It is nice, Momma," he agreed, gazing into her beautiful, confused, and shimmering eyes. "But your son's somewhere out here on this floor."
"I know," she said, and looked genuinely ashamed.
"Why don't you go on home," he suggested, "get cleaned up, maybe have a nice bubble bath? But take a taxi." He dangled her keys in front of her for a quick moment before deftly closing his fist around them and pocketing them. "I'll make sure Jamie gets home."
"You! Little pickpocket..." She shook her head and then gazed at him in open awe. "You always were the best to me, Poppa."
He wanted to tell her not to forget that, but he didn't matter. She was no longer single. Worse by far, she was no longer his in any way other than friendship. "Go, Jess. I've got the kids," he told her and forced himself to walk away. Once he was safely surrounded by dancing, young couples, he looked back to Jessie just in time to see her actually walking away. She was still vastly intelligent and still knew herself better than any man would ever have the honor of doing so.
Maybe he could still be that man, he thought, wrapping his fingers around her keys in his pocket. Maybe one day, when she finally stood up to Renee, she'd still remember what a great item they had been. Even if she did, though, how could he ever make her understand that he had insisted they break apart because he knew she deserved the world and he could not give it to her? How could he explain how he had stood, nearly weeping, every time she had called him in the dorms, fighting the urge to answer her and to reach back out to her, until she had finally stopped calling? How could he explain that he had hurt her to help her, to give her the world, especially now that Renee had stolen the world from her?
Hearing Toddman yelling at a couple near him, Slater snapped out of his reverie, but one last thought lingered in his mind as he went about his duties. He was going to find a way to pummel Jessie's husband one of these days!
The End
Fandom: Saved by the Bell
Author: Apache Firecat
Characters: Slater/Jessie, Renee/Jessie
Rating: PG-13/T
Summary: Renee's let Jessie and Jamie down yet again. This time, Slater's there.
Word Count: 2,345
Written For: The author's 13 Days of Halloween
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to their rightful owners, not the author, and are used without permission.
"No, I don't mind," Slater assured Toddman yet again. "I mean, what else am I going to be doing? Watching old slasher movies all night long or -- ?" He suddenly stopped in mid-word and mid-step as he got a look at the buffet table. He didn't even notice the food, which had gotten to be unusual for him as he often helped himself to whatever the school had left and snuck it home to last him a few days, but he didn't get any further than the punch bowl and the beauty who was standing in front of it.
A seafoam green leotard clung tightly to a nicely shaped ass, and Slater barely managed to stop himself from catcalling or at least whistling. Toddman took a look at his friend and slowly shook his head. "More power to you, buddy," he commented and moved away.
Slater slicked back his hair and tried to keep his strolling pace casual and sexy at the time. "Hello there, Momma!" The woman turned around with a drink in her hand, and Slater spit in surprise. "Momma?!"
"Please don't call me that in front of the kids, you macho pig."
"What...?" As his eyes raked up and down her body, his curiosity only grew. The Jessie Spano he had known in school did not dress like this! She was clad in a form-fitting Poison Ivy costume that left almost nothing about which to wonder. Fake leaves curved around her breasts almost as tightly as the leggings fitting her butt. "I... I just... Since when do you dress like this?!"
"Since that idiot I married thought it would be a good idea." She pushed her mask back up even though it wasn't slipping, causing Slater to wonder if perhaps she was wearing glasses now when no one was watching her. Jessie had always striven to be the furthest thing from superficial, especially when it came to her looks, but he also knew she had always been easily hurt whenever others teased her. It would make sense that she would hide the glasses, if she was having to wear them.
His brain couldn't quite catch up to everything that was happening, and it took him a full minute or two to realize that she had referred to her husband as an idiot. "I, hum, I haven't gotten to meet him yet."
"You're not missing anything." She scowled. "He's an idiot."
It couldn't be easy, he reflected for the first time, to be married to Jessie Spano. She was beautiful, intelligent, and a definite win all the way around, but she was also a perfectionist who expected only the very best of herself and, he was quite certain, whatever guy had been lucky enough to land her. He watched her take a sip from her glass and recognized the look in her eyes. "You didn't spike the punch, did you?!" he exclaimed, his own eyes shooting wide.
"Of course not!"
"I just... That is... I, hum..." She had not blustered him this much, this easily, or this quickly since their high school days. But then he noticed the little vial sticking up from her bodice. She was spiking her punch, just not the main punch bowl, which did mean that she was very, very upset. "I..." Even knowing that, he still could not figure out how to approach her.
"No wonder Renee wanted me to wear this get up," Jessie remarked, the corners of her lips beginning to curve upwards. She waved her cup at him. "I've never had you this tongue tied!"
"Sure you have," Slater responded even as his mind raced, wondering how many she'd had and just what exactly Renee had done or said. He turned to scan the crowd.
"He's not here," Jessie said, again waving her cup through the air. "He's off gallivanting on the other side of the country again. I can handle it," she said. "I should have known better than to put this thing on, especially with him saying he was coming as the Joker, but when he shipped it overnight..."
"That's no ordinary costume, is it?" Slater asked, his dark eyes again roving the costume's details in awe.
"You've always been so sweet to me. No, it isn't. It was made of completely recycled materials from an upstart company in China that's making quite the waves in Hollywood. I don't follow the Hollywood trends, -- "
"You never did."
" -- but he does."
"So he intended to come, but he, huh, got detained?"
"He always gets 'detained'." Her green punch splashed as she formed air quotes. "I forgave him the first five times, but -- "
"The first five times?!" Slater sputtered.
"Yes. I mean, he was a little boy when we met. He had to grow up, but he's still a Peter Pan! He's never going to grow up! He thinks their attention can keep him young! He says he isn't cheating on me any longer! He's apologized so many times! But I know better!"
Slater's eyes darted around the gymnasium. The students were beginning to gather closer, and whispers were starting to flow through the crowd.
"I wouldn't keep forgiving him, you know, if it wasn't for Jamie, but Jamie needs a father. What about you, Slater? Why did you never get married? Why was nobody ever smart enough to snatch you up?"
He wasn't a win, Slater thought, and almost said the words aloud, but he stopped himself just in time. This wasn't Jessie. Tonight, she had fallen prey to something far worse than caffeine. She was falling prey to alcohol in trying to dim the pain that jackass of a husband of hers had caused. He couldn't believe that the man who had actually landed his dream girl was mistreating her so terribly, but he had never once met Renee and had realized some time ago that there had to be a reason for that. He'd hoped, at times, that Jessie would come to him when she was upset and had finally had enough of the way Renee was treating her, but not like this!
"So I'm guessing," Slater said, slowly ambling away from the table at a distance Jessie could idly follow without making too much of a scene, "that he told you and Jamie both that he'd be here?"
"Yes. And then he texts me right after we get here to the school -- he doesn't even call -- and says his flight was delayed! If his flight was delayed, he would have known about it hours ago!"
Slater's heart panged for Jessie. He knew she was right. Renee, whoever he was, was throwing away a perfectly good son and the most beautiful, most intelligent woman A.C. had ever known in favor of, he was quite sure, some floozy instead! A floozy who could offer him no future but also no quarreling match to meet or best his intellect. She wouldn't be the type to be able to make him, or anyone think, or to encourage him to strive with everything he had within himself to become a better man and provide for a better future.
Jessie had frustrated him many times back when they'd been dating, but he'd known, deep down, that she'd always had good intentions. Why, if he'd had her driving him all these years, he probably wouldn't be just a high school Coach! He probably wouldn't even be a star player but something far grander, something he'd never had in himself but she could have made. He had known he would never be worthy of Jessie and that she deserved to be all she could be, and it had been in his determination not to hold her back that he had pushed her away instead, insisting that she go to a college worthy of her so that she could build a life and a future that would make her happy and make use of all of her amazing abilities. Yet instead, she'd married a piece of crap who had never deserved her and was practically raising their son single handedly.
Her life -- the amazing life she could have built -- was slowly but surely being dismantled by a creep who thought it was acceptable to cheat on the best woman Slater had ever known, and to publicly stand her up at her place of work and in front of their child. What else had Renee done to Jessie in front of Jamie? Slater wondered. Jamie was a good kid. He might not be the brightest or the best football player in the world, but he had a good heart and was smarter than most people gave him credit. He'd always noticed the boy was very shy and reserved when speaking of his father or his home life, and now he knew why. If Renee hurt either of them -- His teeth ground together, and his hands balled into fists.
But they were being watched. Nearly every child in the gym was trying to pay attention and figure out what was happening between their teachers until Lexi grabbed the boy over whom all the girls were constantly fawning and started dancing. He let the kids dance as closely as they wanted, because it was drawing attention as rapidly away from Jessie as it had come to her. They didn't deserve to see her like this, so... so broken, Slater realized, his heart aching.
"I think you've had enough of that," he said, moving with deft reflexes and grabbing not just her cup but the vial from between her breasts. It looked like something a Scientist might use, but he didn't surprise him at all that she would have something of its nature just laying around her home. He pocketed the vial and put the cup down on a table. She reached for the cup, but he grabbed her hand. "Let's dance," he said, clearly not giving her a choice.
Yet as he swept her across the gym floor, Slater found himself having difficulty remembering that they were not the children they had been. They were not free. They were no longer together and not allowed to long for each other or to reminisce about what had been and what had almost become, what, perhaps, should have become. After all, if Jessie had been going to throw her future away after some jerk guy, why couldn't he have been that jerk?
A slow song came, and though he did not try to pull her any closer, Jessie stepped closer herself. She swayed her body against his in ways that made him groan in the back of his throat and yearn to be twenty years younger again. He wished he could love her. He had wished for many years that he could forget her and move on, but now all he found himself doing was wishing with all his heart that he could have been the one she had married instead of that blasted Renee. "When I do meet your husband," he mumbled, "I'm going to have some select words to say to him." Actually, he'd have a hard time not just outright pummeling the bastard.
"This is nice," Jessie whispered in his ear from where her head rested on his shoulder. Slater shivered with excitement as her body slipped against his and he felt every inch of her breasts against his chest. His groin felt already cradled in her hot womanhood; they had always been such a perfect fit.
But she was married. He had sent her away to build a future, and she had chosen the wrong idiot punk with whom to build it. She'd been hurt by him and didn't deserve anything he'd done to her, but she was nonetheless a married woman. He stepped back, forcing her to stand more erect and lift her head from his shoulder. "It is nice, Momma," he agreed, gazing into her beautiful, confused, and shimmering eyes. "But your son's somewhere out here on this floor."
"I know," she said, and looked genuinely ashamed.
"Why don't you go on home," he suggested, "get cleaned up, maybe have a nice bubble bath? But take a taxi." He dangled her keys in front of her for a quick moment before deftly closing his fist around them and pocketing them. "I'll make sure Jamie gets home."
"You! Little pickpocket..." She shook her head and then gazed at him in open awe. "You always were the best to me, Poppa."
He wanted to tell her not to forget that, but he didn't matter. She was no longer single. Worse by far, she was no longer his in any way other than friendship. "Go, Jess. I've got the kids," he told her and forced himself to walk away. Once he was safely surrounded by dancing, young couples, he looked back to Jessie just in time to see her actually walking away. She was still vastly intelligent and still knew herself better than any man would ever have the honor of doing so.
Maybe he could still be that man, he thought, wrapping his fingers around her keys in his pocket. Maybe one day, when she finally stood up to Renee, she'd still remember what a great item they had been. Even if she did, though, how could he ever make her understand that he had insisted they break apart because he knew she deserved the world and he could not give it to her? How could he explain how he had stood, nearly weeping, every time she had called him in the dorms, fighting the urge to answer her and to reach back out to her, until she had finally stopped calling? How could he explain that he had hurt her to help her, to give her the world, especially now that Renee had stolen the world from her?
Hearing Toddman yelling at a couple near him, Slater snapped out of his reverie, but one last thought lingered in his mind as he went about his duties. He was going to find a way to pummel Jessie's husband one of these days!
The End
