Disclaimer: I do not own that 70s show or Two and a Half Men, neither the shows nor the characters (sigh)
The story is technically a crossover, but I decided to leave it as a T7s story.
Somewhere in early 1979
Steven Hyde sat at the bar counter, indicating to the bartender he needed a shot. His mind was too jumbled to make sense of anything that had happened in the past few hours. For the life of him, he couldn't remember marrying Sam.
What's done was done though. Jackie had run out as soon as Sam had announced their marriage and he knew he had no chance whatsoever of getting her back. Might as well stay with the stripper, he thought. He did not want to be Bud by running out on his responsibilities. Plus it wasn't like Sam would stick around long, he knew girls like her. They would have non-stop hot sex for a couple of months and he would wake up one day to a note saying she was leaving him for one of her customers. He could live with that. Love only complicated things, made you go against everything you believed in to make the other person happy, only to be totally crushed when the other person leaves you like you're nothing.
He knew now that nothing had happened in the Chicago hotel room. He had known it for a while. Jackie was not capable of cheating, not after being on the receiving end for so long. But he was tired of flogging a dead horse. Jackie and him would never work. He was satisfied with his life, go to the store, hardly work, come home and get high with the gang. She always would want more. And he could not bring her down to his level. She deserved more, she deserved better.
He didn't realize his morose expression had caught the attention of the guy sitting next to him. He stared at the way the guy was dressed. He was easily in his mid-40s and he was sitting with a bowling shirt and shorts. He raised his glass to him in a toast.
Charlie Harper had been sitting at the bar for a couple of hours now. He had so far been unsuccessful in drinking away the images of watching Chelsea in her wedding dress, kissing her new husband. He knew he shouldn't have gone but Alan had insisted that was the only way he would get some closure. 'Some closure' Charlie thought bitterly to himself. If anything the wounds that had scabbed over were wide open now and bleeding steadily.
He turned his head when he saw a twenty something guy with an afro take the seat next to him. He watched the guy take one shot after another. 'Another one for the broken hearts club' he thought to himself. He was taken aback when the guy in question turned to look at him and raised his glass in a toast.
Charlie indicated two more shots to the bartender and slid one over to the brooding youngster.
"Here buddy, you look like you can use one more."
Steven took the shot and grimaced and it painfully slid down his throat. Charlie took his own shot before speaking
"So, if you don't mind me asking, what's got you so down?"
Steven stared at Charlie with irritation; he had come to forget his troubles, not to cry about it like Forman. But the guy had bought him a shot, and he seemed cool enough to talk to, so he said
"Got married to a stripper, can't remember the wedding, and my girl ran out on me."
Charlie looked shocked for a second, before he asked with a smile
"So, the stripper's hot?"
Steven grinned before replying "Smoking."
"What about your girlfriend?"
Steven sighed "What about her, I'm married, she left, the end."
"Have you decided what you are going to do?"
"There is nothing to decide, I stay with the stripper, she doesn't nag me, lets me do what I want. Jackie meets a rich doctor, they get married. Everyone is happy."
"Well, that does sound like my ideal life, marry a stripper, have hot sex 24*7. No attachments, no fights. I'd say you hit the jackpot there buddy."
"Yeah, seems like that."
After that there was silence while the two quietly drank away their sorrows.
Suddenly Charlie spoke up
"You know, it was my ex-fiance's wedding today."
"Really? Is that why you're at a bar in the middle of the afternoon, getting smashed?"
Charlie continued as if Hyde hadn't said anything
"You know that girl gave me so many chances to do the right thing, I just was never the marrying kind. Even though I proposed to her, I had hoped we'd just stretch out the engagement till she'd finally get fed up and move on."
"Well, it looks like she did."
"Umm, I mean it's not like I moped around for her. I moved on too, a new girl almost every day. Sometimes two girls in the same day. Who wants to be tied down to one woman for the rest of your life. Or at least that is what I thought."
"You don't think that anymore huh?"
"I'm 45 years old, my only family is my brother and my nephew, Well actually just my brother now coz my nephew has enlisted in the army. I wake up post noon every day with a hangover. I go to the bar in the evening, pick up a girl, sometimes two, do unspeakable things with her through the night. Wake up at noon the next day to find her gone. Repeat the same thing with a different girl. After a while even sex can't make you happy. It's the same thing with a different face."
The gloom that had been churning slowly in Hyde's gut was now turning into a real storm. Still, he couldn't just throw Sam out on her ass.
"Are you suggesting I go after Jackie, what do I do with the stripper I married?"
Charlie laughed mirthlessly
"Well if you really thought of her as 'your wife' you wouldn't be referring to her as the stripper. And you wouldn't be here drinking your body weight in alcohol, you'd be fucking your new wife into the bed. Plus I already know your girlfriends name coz you've said it twice but I have no idea what the stripper's name is, weird don't you think?"
"I can't just abandon her, that would make me just like my parents."
Charlie looked at Hyde and decided he had to employ different tactics to get to the younger guy.
"Look, let me paint you a picture. It's Christmas time five years from now. You are still staying in Point Place, still doing the same job you have now. You're still married to the stripper. She doesn't nag you to do anything, you have no kids coz you'd have to be the stupidest guy on earth to have kids with a stripper. You are in the supermarket getting drinks for your party later that night, suddenly you see Jackie on the other end of the shop. She's been living in New York but you heard she was coming to Wisconsin for the holidays. A handsome man is standing by her side, whispering into her ear and kissing her forehead when she giggles. On his other side is a pram with the most adorable looking baby in it. Just one look and you can tell the baby is Jackie's. While you're busy staring, the stripper comes over to you asking if you've got enough booze to get completely sloshed tonight, whispering in your ear that she is going to do her special striptease for you tonight. You nod at her and follow her to the checkout, taking a last glance and Jackie and what could have been."
Hyde was now hanging on to every word Charlie was saying, it would kill him to see Jackie with another man. Having another man's baby.
Charlie continued "Believe me, you do not want to spend your life taking the easy way out only to reach my age to realize you weren't taking the easy way out, you were running away from working on your problems. I would give anything to go back a couple of years so I could work on my relationship with Chelsea. I would have married her and would have been at a mall right now, complaining because I had to carry all her bags while she shopped on my credit card. Not sitting here, trying to save you from the regret that will surely follow you around for the rest of your life."
Hyde had heard more than enough, he threw down the money on the bar, asked the bartender to put his friend's bill on his tab, said a quick thanks to him and ran out of the bar as if the devil himself was on his tail.
New Year 's Eve 1980
Steven Hyde looked around the room with a sense of satisfaction. He had finally done it. Worked through all his crap and married the girl he had been in love with for years. Not that it had been easy; he had spent the better part of 1979 following Jackie around like a lost puppy. Nothing he had said to her had made any difference. Finally he had roped his friend Charlie in to paint another '5 years later' picture for Jackie and she had caved.
He looked at his wife chatting with her maid of honor and smiled, she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, he still couldn't believe she was all his. He took her left hand in his and kissed her fingers, she turned and looked at him with a sweet smile before leaning in to kiss him on the lips.
Just then his best man poked him in the back. Annoyed he let go of Jackie, who went back to chatting with Donna, while he turned around to face his best man.
"So how does it feel to be bound to Jackie for the rest of your life?" he asked.
"Well, it feels pretty darn good old man" he replied with a grin.
Charlie grinned at Hyde and then pointed at Mia, who was sitting at one of the tables, her engagement and wedding rings glinting. "Hey, who you calling old, I just trapped that minx. I've got a lot to live for."
As Charlie stood up to make the toast, Hyde once again thanked the deity he did not believe in that he had met him at that bar almost two years ago. Just like Jackie had changed his life all those years ago, Charlie had changed his life for the better too.
'We're all allright' Steven Hyde thought to himself with satisfaction.