by Jaded (opheliadrowning@hotmail.com)
Summary: Hyde's POV interlude. He's moved on to life in Madison, but can't stop reflecting on the past, and the ups, downs, and mistakes that have littered that way.
A/N: Every other chapter will be Hyde's POV and have a song accompaniment. This time, it's Driftwood, by Travis.
Disclaimer: That 70s Show, that brilliant half-hour of comedy gold, does not belong to me. Nor do the Travis lyrics, but I will play with them for now and hope no one decides to sue my ass.
*This chapter is dedicated to annies at Fan Forum. Hope this helps to cheer you up!
Part 3: Driftwood
"Everything is open,
Nothing is set in stone,
Rivers turn to oceans,
Oceans tide you home."Madison is home now. It's been what, only a month? And Point Place is little more than a distant memory. Except I guess I do feel kinda bad about not telling Mr. and Mrs. Forman why I left or where I left for. I've been meaning to write or call, but Mrs. Forman has this scary way of getting me to. . . tell the truth. It's un-nerving, man! I don't want her telling everyone where I am, or worse, I don't want her trying to get me to go back . I can't do that. I don't want that.
Not that I think people care where I am or anything. I mean, whatever. They all have their own lives, their own dreams to live out. Now, they just have one less spectator.
"Home is where the heart is,
But your heart had to roam,
Drifting over bridges,
Never to return,
Watching bridges burn."
Madison is totally cool. I know college is just part of the system, a way to keep free-thinkers like myself down by trying to make us conform to some out-dated notion of achievement through formalized education meant to "supposedly" improve our lives. But hell, the atmosphere is awesome. Screw school.
There's this student union here right off one of the two lakes that cusp the isthmus where the campus of the University of Wisconsin is located. There's live music there every weekend, and they sell beer, beer! there. My kind of place. There's tons of hot chicks around too, and these are just the townies. The college co-eds don't start spilling in again until late August.
Not that I'm looking or anything, you know, but it's not as though I would be opposed to a little action. A growing boy needs his Tang. But I'm not going to actively put myself out there. No more of that relationship crap for me, 'cause where'd that leave me? Yeah, exactly. My philosophy now is love 'em and leave 'em. You stick with one person, you're gonna get burned, and they're only going to hold you back like some 95lb. cheer-leading anchor. To think, if Jackie and I hadn't broken up I probably would've stayed in Point Place forever with her.
Hell, Madison's not a huge city, but it's tons bigger than Point Place, and from here, who knows where I may go. Maybe one day, New York, then the rest of the world. And you see, all this would not be possible if I was still with Jackie. She's the settling-down type. She'd want a house, a family, kids, a lawn that I'd be damned before I'd make the effort to mow it. Conformist American notions about happiness: That's her dream. And she'd probably be all, "Steven!" this, and "Steven!" that. Man, what a living hell that'd be. Without her now though, I'm a total free-spirit.
Not to say that Jackie and I didn't have good times. Hell, we had great times, actually. Some of the best of my life. I didn't even mind listening to her chatter away like a little monkey, talking about her hair, about Donny Osmond, about what she wanted me to buy for her. Nope, didn't mind at all.
And kissing her? Man. What can I say about that? Maybe it was all those years of the built-up hatred we had between us, that when we finally got together all that energy just got generated into heat. When we decided that hell, fooling around wasn't such a bad idea all that tension just gelled into this crazy sexual energy. That girl always knows how to make me crazy and stupid all at once. Oh crap. I mean made. Crap.
"You're driftwood floating underwater,
Breaking into pieces, pieces, pieces,
Just driftwood, hollow and of no use,
Waterfalls will find you, bind you, grind you."
Just forget it. That's all the past now. I've broken apart from all those people, all those places. It's a new Steven Hyde now. I even got myself a job, one where I can't really sleep, but it's okay, 'cause I get to work with alcohol.
I bar tend at the Rusty Penny, this bar just off State Street, the main campus drag and student hangout. It kind of sucks though. You can't drive down State Street. It's a "pedestrian only" road. Whatever. Now I gotta walk though, but I don't live so far away from work, so it's cool. The Penny is pretty low-key, just the way I like it. When Dave, my boss, hired me, he told me that the bar doesn't attract the annoying crowds of jocks, cheerleaders, frat-boys, or sorority girls. A definite plus, although those sorority girls are fast and loose, and I don't mind that at all.
I'm starting to wonder though…Dave says it doesn't attract those types…and since I've been working here, I'm starting to think, is this the kind of place that would attract Forman, Donna, Kelso, and Fez? It reminds me of The Hub, except, you know, with more alcohol and drunken middle-aged men.
"Nobody is an island,
Everyone had to go,
Pillars turn to butter,
Butterflying low,
Low is where your heart is,
But your heart has to grow,
Drifting under bridges,
Never with the flow."
The UW is a big campus, so it's possible that I won't ever run into any of the gang ever, but I knew when I left for here that that was always going to be a possibility. You know, it's strange enough that I'm even planning on gong to school here. Stranger that they let me in. Go figure. However, while I do plan on going to class, I also plan on sleeping through most of them. I guess I kind of wanted to prove people wrong about me, and at the same time totally throw them off. Me in school. That's the last thing anyone would expect of me. And I guess if the Formans ever find out, I do want to kind of make them proud of me. They did so much for me these last few years, I could at least try to show them I wasn't a total screw-up.
Of course, it's not like I'm going to try that hard or anything. That'd be messed-up. Oh yeah, it's Food Sciences for me, and maybe one Poli-Sci course so, you know, I can keep an eye on the Feds and root out whatever their new, nefarious conspiracy is.
"And you really didn't think it would happen,
But it really is the end of the line,
So I'm sorry that you've turned to driftwood,
But you've been drifting for a long, long time."
I guess I even surprise myself sometimes. Who would've thunk it? Most people wrote me off a long time ago. Example? My parents. They ditched my ass at the first available opportunity. Edna once said, when she called me from wherever she and Bud were at the time, that she was kind of sorry to have left the way she did and when she did, but that she was tired of having to "take care of me" or being "responsible" for me.
"I had figured long ago that by that age you'd be in prison already, Steven," she had said. "I just got tired of waiting. I had to get on with my life."
So fine. No one's got to take care of me now except me. I'm a loner and a drifter. I know that, and that's how I like it too. You learn to manage. You cope. It's made the man I am today. I've got nothing to tie me down or hold me back.
"Everywhere there's trouble,
Nowhere's safe to go,
Pushes turn to shovels,
Shoveling the snow,
Frozen you have chosen,
The path you wish to go,
Drifting now forever,
And forever more,
Until you reach your shore."
Somehow, though, I can't shake this feeling that something bad is gonna come and bite me in the ass. Maybe it's Karma getting me back. I know, and I'll admit, I was a total bastard and totally screwed-over Jackie. So I thought she and Kelso were messing around, because it's always been Jackie and Kelso, Kelso and Jackie. And he'd seriously never shut-up about her, how it was "obvious" that she still loved him, and that I was just "the layover on the way to the airport of love." And then there was the whole, "Get off my boyfriend!" fiasco, and when she accepted that sweater from him for her birthday. I dunno, it was always in the back of my mind. It was always a possibility.
So she told me she loved me a couple of times. Big deal. Jackie's always been about words. That's why she never shuts up. I remember how she used to tell Kelso she loved him when they were going-out, and then how she'd brow-beat him into saying it back. Like everyday. It was like a reassurance that she had him, but who knew if he meant it, especially when he kept messing around with Laurie or Pam Macy. Asshole.
I'm not like Jackie though. And I'm not like Kelso. When and if I say something crazy like, "I love you," I'm gonna mean it. It's not going to be half-assed or just said because it's expected, like saying "you're welcome" when someone says, "thank you." If I'm going to say something like that, it's gonna be for real.
And it was real, when I said it to her, but I guess "too little, too late." That's fine, I deserved that. I was mad though, didn't trust her about Kelso, so I made out with some random chick and Jackie found out about it.
So I guess I'm an asshole too. Eh, she's better off without me, and I'm better off without her. Probably. We were all going to go our separate ways eventually anyway. This is how things would've turned out regardless, you know? From there on out, though, who knows what's going to happen, but I'm cool with that. I'm just going to go with the flow, and see where the Zen takes me.
"And you really didn't think it would happen,
But it really is the end of the line,
So I'm sorry, that you turned to driftwood,
But you've been drifting for a long, long time,
You've been drifting for a long, long,
Drifting for a long, long time."
[end part 3]
