Author's Note: Hello everyone! I've decided to add to my ever-growing list of open stories by finally posting this one. I thought maybe it would give me the motivation to finally start writing it again. Hopefully it does because I love writing backstories, especially when it comes to the one and only Steven Hyde. Worst case scenario, I have eight chapters to upload for you all. I hope you like it.
Steven was sitting on his bed, curled up in a little ball and staring at the floor when his mother barged in. She threw his door open and he winced as he heard it slam against the wall, sure that she was heading in the direction of yet another beating. Although she usually kept the abuse at an average of three to four various tortures a day, if she was in a really great mood she would up the count to anywhere from six to eight. It had only been half an hour since she'd thrown her Zippo lighter at his head, burning off a large chunk of his hair, but he knew that if she was pissed or inebriated enough that wouldn't mean shit to her.
"Bud and I are goin' out," she purred to him in a seductive tone that she didn't seem to be able to turn off while she was high. "If this house is still a mess when we get back, I swear to God—"
"Edna, get the fuck in the car!" he heard his dad scream from the living room. A disgusted look simultaneously crossed Edna and Steven's faces, but that didn't stop her from spitting in Steven's general direction and following the voice of his father.
As usual, as soon as the front door slammed shut Steven was at the window in his bedroom. He pressed his face up against it to make sure that his parents had really left; that they were really gone. Once their car was out of the driveway he would usually pull away and do whatever chores they had assigned him, but today something stopped him. Just as he was about to turn and face the task of cleaning his room, he caught sight of the house across the street.
He stared blankly at the car that was sitting in the driveway across from his. It was bright red and although he was only seven years old with no real knowlege of the matter, its lack of rust and dents and its bright red color lead him to believe that it was quite expensive. He was still staring at it in awe when the door opened, and out came a tall man in a business suit. He wore a scowl on his face, which only further deepened when he turned back to the car and his mouth began to form words. From the redness of his face, Steven could only assume that he was yelling.
Moments after the man had turned his back, a small girl in a frilly pink dress daintily hopped out of the backseat. Steven watched her follow what he presumed to be her father. She had a light spring in her step, and she seemed completely out of place in the run-down neighborhood. Steven had just let out a wry smile— she was such a girl— when she stopped in her tracks and her head snapped up to look around her. Her eyes trained on his evaluating gaze and for a moment, she did nothing but stare at him from where she stood. Then, she wordlessly stuck up her middle finger and flounced after her dad, who had already disappeared inside.
Later that night, Steven took out a spiral notebook that his mother had bought for the first day of school and in his sloppy handwriting wrote the first in a long series of rules that would eventually determine everything he would ever be:
September 4th, 1967. Rule #1: Looks can be deceiving.
