This girl would be the death of him.

First of all, she smelled like vanilla. Her hair, her skin, her clothes, they all smelled like vanilla. She smelled like a walking cupcake, with a hint of something fruity that he couldn't place. He had never been good with distinguishing smells. He hadn't even realized that it was vanilla he had been smelling until he was helping Kitty in the kitchen one afternoon and she said,

"Steven, honey, pass the vanilla, will you?"

He had opened the cabinet and retrieved the tiny brown bottle of liquid and then proceeded to unscrew the top and take a curious sniff before handing it to Kitty, his mind reeling with the fact that the liquid in the tiny brown bottle smelled exactly like her. Twice after that, he had sneaked into the kitchen when everyone was asleep under the pretense that he "needed a glass of water" in order to stand and sniff the contents of the tiny brown bottle in private. That was, until Red had come into the kitchen around the same time, actually getting a glass of water. The older man had asked,

"What the hell are you doing sniffing my vanilla?" and then threatened, "If I catch you sniffing my vanilla the only thing you're gonna be smelling is my foot up your ass."

Anyways, she always smelled exactly the same, like vanilla and that mysterious fruity smell. Even when she insisted on spritzing expensive perfume on her wrists and collarbone, he could still detect the underlying scent of fresh-baked cookies. After a night with her, the next morning he would roll over on his cot and breathe in and smell the sweet traces of her on his pillows long after she was gone. And he still hadn't washed the t-shirt he'd let her borrow last week which she'd returned smelling like her. Not that he'd ever admit it, but he slept with it on nights that she wasn't with him.

Second, he liked the way she couldn't keep her mouth shut. Normally, he considered big-mouthed girls annoying and unattractive, and that's exactly what he had thought of her at first. But after awhile, he grew accustomed to her loudness and her rudeness and her bitchiness and for some reason found it endearing. It was also damn attractive. Lately, he found himself listening avidly to her rant non-stop about shopping and fat girls and how much she despised the way that the weather in Wisconsin made her hair flat and almost as shapeless as Donna's. It's not as if he actually listened to her, well he listened in case she decided to quiz him about what she had been talking about in case he wasn't listening, but he never retained anything she talked about. He just liked hearing her shrill, demanding little voice, as strange as that sounded.

Third, and most embarrassingly, he liked holding her. She was small, really small; she barely weighed anything at all. The thing he loved to do more than anything in the entire world was to hold her at night. She would curl up beside him in one of his t-shirts and he would wrap his arms around her. She had told him she liked wearing his shirts because they were baggy enough to be dresses on her and she knew she looked undeniably cute in them. As they lay there, he could bury his face in the crook of her neck and feel her hair tickle his nose and get high off of the scent of vanilla and sex wafting from her. Occasionally, she would try and start up a conversation, but it rarely went anywhere. Eventually, she would yawn and snuggle even closer to him and he could feel his heart lurch. As she fell asleep, he would reach behind him and turn up the volume on his record player, usually Zeppelin, and he would wait until her breathing grew even until he kissed her cheek and turned the music off. He knew she liked the loud music as she fell asleep because of the vibrations it sent through the bed like a "little massage", she said. She had told him that a while ago and ever since then, the record player found its new home beside his cot so that he could make her as comfortable as possible.

He didn't mind when she made him do things he didn't want to. Like, for instance, taking her to the mall and driving her around Point Place and talking to her on the phone for hours at a time during the day when she was bored and didn't have much to say. He didn't mind staying up late in her room and watching her roll her hair in fat, pink curlers before crawling in bed beside him. He didn't mind helping her arrange her stuffed animals in alphabetical order according to their names or sitting at her dining room table helping her remove the red jellybeans from a container of candy because those are the only ones she likes. He didn't mind holding her magazine for her when her nails were freshly painted. He didn't mind watching her model a billion outfits that all looked the same to him. He didn't mind when she made him listen to ABBA instead of AC/DC or when she made him take down the poster of a girl wearing a bikini off his wall. He acted like he minded, hell, he put up a fight when she made him to any of those things. But really, he didn't mind.

Of course, he would never admit any of this to anyone, especially not her. Because he wasn't supposed to like her at all, let alone be fooling around on a daily basis with her. He knew that it wasn't just sex for her. She wasn't like that; she wasn't slutty like other girls he knew. She didn't just sleep with anyone. She'd only had one boyfriend in her life. He knew he wasn't her boyfriend. He knew that he was just "Steven" to her. And that was perfectly fine with him as long as he could be something to her.

Jackie Burkhart would be the absolute death of him.

And he prayed to God that Michael Kelso would never come back from California.

Author's Note: So, I wanted to write something fluffy and short and this came out. I thought the idea of Steven really liking Jackie near the beginning of their little summer fling would be cute. Because deep down, past all that manly, sexy-ass Zen he's got going on, I think that Steven is just one big romantic puss like all the rest of 'em.

Anyways, I hope you liked it! And if you did, review, review, review!

KAY