Disclaimer: I don't own anything!

Warning: Language

Author's Note: This story has been haunting me for the past few months. I think its time to post it. It will likely be my last fic, though I am going to try to finish the ones I have started and not completed. I hope you'll find this one believable - this is going to explore some areas that aren't really pretty. But I think it has the potential to be powerful. We'll see if I do it justice. And as always, I believe wholeheartedly in Jackie/Hyde happy endings. The subtitles are what each character (Hyde and Jackie) are thinking about Hyde at the moment. I'm sure you would have realized that without me saying so, but I'm saying so anyway. :) Please read and review, and thank you so much!!! This is set about six months after the series finale, so includes as canon that repugnant season 8.

What He Is

What he is...

Is not much.

Not much in life was worth getting upset about. Steven Hyde learned that at an early age, and as he grew older, found it more and more true. Because inevitibly, life went on. After the Chicago fiasco, life went on. After he discovered his drunken marriage, life went on. After Sam left, life went on. After Jackie and Fez hooked up, life went on.

Hyde figured not much was all he could ask for.

It wasn't too bad. He had a job that he didn't have to work hard to keep. He had a cheap place to live. He had friends that amused him most of the time. And he had a new chick who knew to expect not much from him and was satisfied with it.

He met her at a bar. It was a dump, but it served the best beer in Point Place. Hell, all that he required of a bar was good beer. So trashy or not, it became his hangout of choice. The others hated it, and after a few nights refused to go with him. He didn't give a crap. Drinking was often better done alone. Especially on those nights when he started to remember something he didn't want to remember.

After Fez and Jackie became a couple, it happened more often than he liked. After the unholy couple broke up, it happened even more.

He tried to forget. Tried damned hard. Beer helped.

So he'd met her. Joni. He hadn't picked her up the first night, though he could have. That night he'd been irritated. Forman and Donna had spent the afternoon arguing about complete bullshit. Fez and Kelso had acted weird because of something that happened the weekend before. Hyde had a suspicion, but kept quiet. And Jackie.

Yeah, she'd just been her normal, bitchy, manipulative self. Talked him into fiddling with her car until it stopped making whatever noise she'd imagined up. He went to the bar pissed that he'd helped her out. He went to the bar angry because he couldn't figure out just why he'd done her bidding.

He'd gone, and Joni sat down next to him. She reminded him of Chrissy a bit; she hated the government, authority, and liked Zeppelin. The perfect chick. They'd hooked up a week later.

Okay, she was no beauty queen. She was decent enough. Pretty, not hot, not beautiful, but pretty. Her eyes were nothing special, some greyish color. Skin wasn't perfect but at least not pock-marked. Body was pretty cool. A little thicker than he usually liked, but included a nice, plump rack. Frankly, he didn't give much of a damn what she looked like. He just had to remember to not compare her to certain other chicks. Like Jackie. Because whatever he felt about Jackie, he'd always think she was drop-dead gorgeous. That was just a truth.

But he didn't need drop-dead gorgeous anymore. It was overrated. He'd been with drop-dead gorgeous, and it had been hell. Much as he enjoyed being evil and looked forward to meeting Satan one day, that kind of hell wasn't his idea of a good time. Anymore.

He was a hell of a lot more suited to a chick like Joni than Jackie. So he wasn't getting much in the looks department. Saved him a hell of a lot in others.

So long as he remembered that, he was satisfied. And most of the time he remembered.

What he is...

Is a loser.

Another Monday. Hyde ditched work early and now sat in the Forman basement, watcing television and drinking a well-earned beer. No one was around and it was nice. He took a long sip. Yep, it was nice.

The door opened and he scowled, but it was Joni, so he grinned and held up the beer to her. A pseudo toast. Three weeks they'd been hanging out and she already just walked in. Pretty badass. "So?"

She plopped down on the couuch and lifted her feet to the table. She wore boots. Like his. Yeah, she was no fashion bug, which sometimes irritated him but usually he didn't care. Much. Her smile was good, though the teeth were crooked. No money for dentists, she'd told him, or anything. He related well. "Its on," she said.

He nodded and turned his attention back to Gilligan. "Cool." Some biker brawl, some territorial disupte between rival gangs. He'd never been to one. She had and loved it. Said they were great shows. Joni craved violence.

The thought made him smile. It was almost like hanging out with another him. Pretty damn cool. The best part was that she didn't expect commitment or some freaking wedding ring, or even faithfulness. Hell, she'd told him she knew he couldn't possibly be faithful.

His idea of heaven. Most of the time.

The others came trambling down the stairs, and Hyde rolled his eyes. More and more lately he was sick of the lot of them. Joni gave him a knowing grin and a wink. She got it. She got him.

Donna sat down next to Joni and smiled uncomfortably. "Hey, Joni," she said.

"Blondie." Joni nodded.

Forman sat next to Donna, mumbling something under h is breath. Fez and Kelso stayed behind the couch, at a distance from one another although they exchanged strange looks. After a moment, Kelso grimaced and stalked over to the deep freeze. Hyde wondered when they would just freaking admit what the real problem was.

And Jackie, the bitch, sat down in the lawn chair. She made a big production of being dainty. Hyde tried not to look at her, or notice how her skirt flared out and showed her tanned legs for a tantalizing moment as she crossed one over the other.

"So Hyde," Joni said in her phony Bronx accent. Sometimes it entertained him, other times he wanted to tell her to knock it the hell off. Today he didn't care. "You gonna spring for dinner? Or am I gonna have to pay again?"

He grinned but kept his eyes on the t.v. "What do you think?"

"I think you're a cheap bastard, is what I think."

"Oh, he is cheap. That's a well known fact." Lately, Jackie'd spoken her burns in a voice that was just a bit softer than before. Hyde didn't really get it. And wished he didn't notice it.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jackie toss her hair over her bare shoulders. What in the hell was she wearing? Some off the shoulder shirt that looked like it was barely holding up. He wondered if he pissed her off enough so that her entire body shook if it would fall off.

He grimaced. He should kick his own ass for that thought.

"Of course, he did used to by me dinner."

He had to bite his lip to keep from grinning. Bitch or not, or maybe because of it, his ex-girlfriend could burn. And he liked burns. Any burns. The source or target didn't matter. A burn was a burn.

Joni stood and scowled. Hyde frowned. Jackie used to say only uggos scowled. She was right.

"Yeah, well, you know why, don't you?" Joni raised her eyebrows at the much smaller girl. "Ain't no big mystery that girls like you only go to bed with men who give 'em stuff like dinner." She grinned. "Like a hooker. Which is what you were to him, really." She sent a sidelong glance to Hyde, and he shifted on his chair. "One he paid for with his self-respect, if he ever had any."

"Uh!" Jackie's gasps hadn't changed much. High pitched, loud, hell on his ears.

"Is that what he told you?"

Donna sounded pretty pissed. Odd, considering her strained relationship with Jackie. But he shook the wonder away and decided that this could lead to a chick fight. A cool chick fight. One that would probably distract everyone in the now-quiet basement from what Joni'd said. He managed to look up at the two standing girls with a hopeful grin.

Joni just smirked and waved a hand at Donna. "He didn't have to." She shrugged and gave him a smirk. "I mean, come on. Do you really believe all that crap about the rich girl and the poor boy? Please." She looked pointedly at Jackie. "No girl like you ever really cares about a guy like him." She stood taller. "That's why he picked that stripper over you, you know. He knows the score."

And now, he couldn't breath well. He could feel the eyes on him, the expectations, so he did his best to give a little shrug and turn his mouth up at the corners. But what in the hell could he say? Joni wasn't saying anything he hadn't thought a million times before.

"Shut up, you whore!"

It startled him, Jackie's voice. Hard and strong. She stood now, and he watched her. Couldn't help it. Her hands rested on her hips and she gave Joni the harshest look she could manage.

"You don't know me, or how I felt about Steven."

Other girls would wither under Jacdkie's hate stare, but Joni only laughed. "So? Look, it doesn't even matter, because this guy..." She pointed her thumb at Hyde. "This guy doesn't have it in him to love. Especially not some shallow little bitch like you. Right, babe?"

Hyde lifted his shoulders for a second. "Whatever." Everyone knew that, anyway. He knew it. Everyone did.

Except maybe Jackie, and for God's sake, she needed to. Then again, maybe she did know it now. How could she not? There was no way, not even in the seventh ring of hell where anything bad was possible, could Jackie still believe that he'd loved her.

His stomach hurt. Bad. Beer not sitting right at all.

The basement had never been this quiet for so long.

"Sorry for disillusioning you, princess."

He stared at the television again. Jackie's footsteps, clapping of heels, then the basement door slammed closed. He closed his eyes and tried to picture a beach in Florida, where none of the slutty girls in bikinis looked like either Jackie or Joni.

Still more silence.

Finally, after nothing happened but Joni sitting down and her subsiding chuckles, he stood. "Okay, then. If today's episode of As the World Turns is over, I'm out of here." Donna glared at him. Forman watched him with a furrowed brow. Kelso looked as if he wanted to say something, but when Hyde met his eyes, he looked away. And Fez just hung his head.

Joni stood and took his hand. "Awesome. We've got a date to go on, don't we, loser?"

They'd joked about being losers. Course, it was mostly her doing the joking after she'd hustled him in a game of pool that first night. The nickname had just kind of stuck.

Hell, at least it was cooler than certain other nicknames. John Lennon called himself a loser in that one Beatles song. Must be cool. Lennon was cool. Being a loser was cool. Better than being the kind of "winner" Jackie'd tried to force him into being. Yep. He'd rather be called Loser than Puddin' Pop any day of the week.

He tried to remember that.