Disclaimer: I don't own the show, the characters, their copyrights, nada. I'm borrowing for the sake of amusing, arousing distraction and I have no money. So don't sue.

You out there probably noticed this was a T-rated fic. Honestly? I've been inspired by all the dirrty, dirrty Steve n' Jackie stories (coughgah-lindacough) and I had to go for gold. Don't like Fez and Jackie fucking? Please don't read the fic. Grazie.

P.S.: no sex in this entry, sorry. Next time. Honest.

pt. deux.

---

Hours later, Steven Hyde was turning over in his cot to blink at the ceiling. He hadn't slept, although he should have sunk like a stone, judging by all the substances he'd been bombarding himself with earlier. It hadn't been nearly enough to shut up that six-month-old burning cramp in his stomach. Just enough to loosen his tongue in their presence and let loose all the things he'd been fighting like hell not to say aloud whenever either of them were within earshot. Sometimes, he lost. Most times he didn't. This time he'd just been a sloppy drunk and lived up to all the things she'd seen in him since he'd left her for Sam. Damn Jackie.

He let out a tired breath and curled up on his side, listening to Kelso snoring from his sleeping bag on the floor. Yep, Hyde had fucked his own self over, all right, but it was her damned fault he couldn't get over it! Jackie was demon spawn, but dammit, he was drawn to evil! Especially if evil happened to sway its hips his way in a soft, voluptuous, occasionally endearing package. Jackie knew this, of course. She relished in using it, and once he'd let her get those claws in his arms would always lay down to let her.

Ah, who the hell was he kidding? Donna was right, he had been a douche. Even Evil Incarnate deserved a chance to find happiness, he'd told her so himself! And Fez, man - Fez had fallen hard for Jackie from the get-go, and apparently had kept the faith. All recent flare-ups aside, Hyde never saw him treat her as anything less than golden. Plus he was a kinky little bastard; Jackie's special brand of sadism was probably right up that guy's alley. Well, God bless 'em. Let Fez have fun dealing with her bullshit now. Hyde was done with it for good.

So...why the hell didn't it feel like it was for good?

Oh, Christ, what a moronic question. Hyde felt a headache building behind his eyes and wrestled a bit with his blankets. It was over, already. He'd been married - sort of. He'd moved on. So had Jackie, but maybe that was what kept kicking his ass. She'd given up on him and progressed while he lagged behind with a sarcastic insult at the ready and the ever-present contents of a plastic baggie backing him up. In the end, his progression hadn't even been legal - not like that had ever slowed him down, of course - but worse, it had been just a what-the-hell kind of whim. True, he'd learned to care deeply for Sam, yeah, but...but what? Damn! What the hell was his problem?

He sighed. He knew his problem. He'd opted for the quick fix while Jackie's progression had been silently building for years - so silently that no one saw it coming, not even Jackie. The idea that she'd been eyeing Fez - not Kelso, but Fez - the whole time they'd been an "abomination" made Hyde feel slightly ill, like their whole thing had been some weird lie. He grunted and turned over again. That obviously hadn't been the case; girls like Jackie didn't just cry in public behind pillars at football games over relationships that didn't exist, and he hadn't gone through that frickin' country music phase for nothing. Nope, those Merle Haggard LP's now resided in his collection for a reason. So they'd had a thing and that thing had ended. That was all - no eyeing, no lying. Time for Mr. Steven Hyde to be letting go about now. Yeah, right about now.

Kelso snorted in his sleep, startling Hyde out of his numbing philosophizing "Jesus," he said aloud to the darkness. "I'm getting spooked by Kelso's sleep apnea, for Christ's sake." He sat up in bed and planted his feet on the cold concrete. Screw this. I need coffee. Or whiskey. Or both.

Hyde stepped over Kelso's form to wrap himself in a tattered bathrobe and stumbled his way out of the room and up the stairs. Raw, early sunlight sifted underneath the closed door, blinding him when he swung the door open. In a fog he dug the coffee maker out from under the sink and went through the motions of preparing a pot, enough for the household to dip into later. He shoved the screen door aside and stepped out into the cold, plucking a box of Marlboros out of the robe pocket and stuffing the end into his mouth. With a flick of a light soothing smoke invaded his lungs; Hyde cleared his throat and stared across the yard at Bob's house, wondering if Forman and Donna were still shacking up as he smoked.

Now, see, that was another thing. Forman had been dumb enough to split with her while off reading to kids in the African bush, and once Sam split too, it hadn't even occurred to Hyde that life might have been offering him another chance. Instead Donna had ended up farting around with that blow-dried poser Randy before predictably falling back into the arms of Forman the second they opened up to her again. Hyde sucked another drag out of the cigarette and suppressed a cough. Too late now. Twiggy's joy had been practically oozing from his pores last night as he regaled Hyde with the new plan he'd come up with on the twenty-hour flight.

"I've got it all figured out," he'd said, wringing those tiny wrists with such enthusiasm. "I talked to some people at Madison and got them to let me take the entrance exam through the mail - Hyde, I passed, man! I've been accepted!"

"That's damn cool, Forman," Hyde had told him honestly.

"Yeah! I'm going to go for a bachelor's degree, do something meaningful with my career. And the best part: the savings bond from my grandmother just matured, so now I've got enough money to put a security deposit down on a nearby apartment for me and Donna."

Hyde had nodded, curling up his lips in his version of a smile. "I'm happy for you guys, man. You finally made it." At the time he'd been looking at Jackie on the couch with Fez and kind of wishing he could've said the same. Then the beer had kicked in and things just spilled downhill from there.

Yeah, romancing Donna was just a pipedream to him now. Jackie, too. Whatever. Plenty of fish, Hyde, plenty of fish. He stubbed the Marlboro out in one of Mrs. Forman's dead potted plants and sauntered back into the house for a cup of black coffee. Hyde sat there on the kitchen stool, sipping at the brew from time to time and grimacing. The phone on the wall stared at him; Hyde stared back. The carefully memorized phone number to Jackie and Fez's place ran through his mind in a constant loop, taunting him with possibility.

Maybe he could call her, tell her he was sorry. Apologize for acting like an ass. Congratulate her and Fez. Anything to get the grudge to dissolve. Hyde fingered the handle of the mug.

He got as far as dialing the last number before deciding to replace the receiver. No. No, at this point it wouldn't do much good to say those things. As much as it made the acid boil in his stomach, she belonged with Fez now. Maybe she always had. And yet as evil as she was, as shrill and irrational and shallow as Jackie Burkhardt was, being with her had never been a waste of his time.

Wait, that was it. That was it. That was what he had to tell her. He snagged the phone up and dialed again, waited through a few rings before noticing the time and losing his nerve. The receiver slammed back onto the wall. Hyde ran a hand raggedly through his curls. Fuck. He bent to rummage in Mrs. Forman's booze stash, at last coming up with a bottle of Jack. A liberal amount splashed down into the steaming mug; Hyde gulped the mixture with relief. He left the empty mug in the sink unwashed and retreated to the basement room, where the volume of Kelso's snoring had thankfully dwindled a bit. Hyde sat on the edge of his mattress and began mulling his options over.

"Kelso." He said aloud after awhile.

"Uhhhghh."

"Kelso, man, wake the fuck up. I've got a proposition for you."

"A whose-a-whatta?" Kelso flopped over in the bag and squinted at his friend. "Way too early for using big words, man."

Hyde ignored this. "When you planning on going back to Chicago?"

"Later."

"How much later?"

The rumpled figure struggled to sit up on the floor. "Sometime this morning, I guess."

Hyde thought for a moment. "Red set me up with a sizeable chunk of cash the other day," he began. "I was thinking about getting the hell out of Point Place. You want some company?"

Kelso was silent. "Is this because Fez is nailing Jackie now and not you?"

A hot knife of pain drove itself through Hyde's skull. He grimaced. Tact, thy name sure as hell ain't Kelso. "Kind of." Pause. "I thought you and me could share an apartment or something. Maybe even a house."

"But I've got a place already."

"I've got enough money to get us a better one."

"What about Grooves?"

Hyde considered this. "I'll leave it with Randy. Leo, too. They'll be all right. Especially with Angie and my dad dropping in to check on them. Look, man, I don't know about you, but I need a fresh start like a son of a bitch. I'll help out with Betsy and stuff. It'd be cool, y'know?"

Silence. Hyde sighed, already craving another smoke. "Come on, Kelso. I know I don't have to tell you how it feels."

More silence. "Not really, no. Yeah, all right, if you wanna come, that's cool with me."

"Thanks." Hyde stood up and began the process of tossing his life into trash bags. As he worked, a letter began composing itself in his mind. Maybe during the drive the rest of the words would form. Maybe during the drive his courage would follow suit and convince him to mail it to Jackie. Maybe grade-A stash would someday come flying out of his ass. Anything was possible.

"Yeah, and you know, I bet Laurie'll be real glad to see her little orphan boy again," Kelso was drawling on his way back from the bathroom. The hot-pain knife twisted itself a little further into Hyde's skull. Don't ask, goddammit, don't say a word, crap I don't wanna know...

"Dude." He finally said, rubbing his forehead. "What the hell is she doing with you?"

"She looked my address up and came to stay with me and the baby."

Hyde turned to blink at him stupidly. "What? Why? Where's she been all this time?"

"And why do you care?"

"Uh, I don't, genius. I'm just curious as to why the original Evil Incarnate suddenly chose to rise from the undead to be your roomie."

Kelso waved him away. "Ah, she just needed a place to crash."

"She didn't even bother giving you a reason why?" Hyde's eyebrow arched. "What did Brooke have to say about all that?"

Kelso shrugged and began changing his clothes. "Brooke and I kinda hit the skids. But that was way before Laurie showed up, and besides, man, I'm not doing her or nothin'. She's just a sweet piece of eye candy I like to keep around the house. If you know what I mean."

"Yeah. Meaning you are screwing around with her again and you just don't feel like saying so." Hyde rolled his eyes and returned to bag-stuffing. Great. Now he'd gotten himself stuck with a moron and his toddler along with the same skank that moron had nailed behind Jackie's back. Well, that'd make for some interesting dinner conversations, that was for sure. The headache that had been building now was trying to crack open his skull as the two men worked on loading up Kelso's little red piece of tin. Hyde tried convincing the pain that it wasn't his problem, that Kelso was the moron who'd brought Laurie on himself - again - but the pain wasn't particularly inclined to believe him.

So while old Taternuts warmed up the grumbling engine, Hyde busied himself with securing last-minute little details. He placed a call to Randy, only giving him minimal information and signing off with a promise to send him all the legal business crap upon arrival. He placed a call to Leo, asking him to keep an eye on Randy and a call to Angie asking to keep an eye on both of them. A snippet of impulse almost had him dialing Jackie's number again; thankfully the whiskey starting to course through his blood snuffed it right out. Lastly, Hyde took a moment to scrawl a note of sincere thanks to Mrs. Forman and Red and tried not to think about what he was about to do. Rather, why he was about to do it.

"Can't be helped," he said to himself, borrowing one last beer from Red's fridge. "I'm just naturally drawn to evil." An image of a sneering, preening, jiggling Laurie bounced its way through his mind's eye, mocking him and his stupid misery. "Especially soft, voluptuous evil."

With a sigh he slung on his jacket and shut both sliding doors behind him. Kelso grinned and bounced in his seat, an eager-to-please terrier anticipating his master's mood. Hyde launched himself into the passenger seat and slammed the door shut; the idling engine sparked to life as the car rolled backwards down the driveway.

"Yep. Nothin' like an old fashioned kinda road trip!" Kelso said proudly once they were rolling along the main highway. Hyde replied with another sigh and reached to click on the radio.

"...young and sweet, only seventeen..."

ABBA. Of course, what disgusting poetic justice. A harsh flick of his wrist morphed the syrupy melody into the first jangling chords of "Hotel California" - also poetic justice, Hyde thought sourly as he lit another smoke and offered one to Kelso, who shook his head. They drove onward. Hyde watched in the mirror as Point Place disappeared behind them.

"You can check out anytime you like...but you can never leave..."

Hyde snorted. "Fuck that," he said, sucking on the cigarette and exhaling angrily. He yanked his sunglasses from the pocket of his coat and glanced at Kelso over the lenses. "Taternuts. Do me a favor and step on it, huh? I really, really don't want Don Henley being right on this one."

Kelso's laughter scoffed at him. "Dude, I can't believe you just called me that. I can't believe you still remember that! You are totally hung up on the past, man."

"Just shut up and drive."

TBC