Creative Problem Solving

"Hey, Hyde," the girl named Donna pokes at his shoulder, and that'll probably bruise later, but whatever. "You want to do that science project together?"

Hyde shows as much glee as he can by yawning. "Yeah, sure."

Donna understands. And she smiles.

So Hyde figures that it's alright. That and way her jeans are all frayed at the crotch and he can totally see—

"Can we do the volcano thing?" Donna sits on his bed, her smile bright, "I rock at the volcano thing."

Hyde would rather not think about baking powder right now. What he would like to say is, Hey Donna, you're sitting on my bed. And watch her figure that out. Except then she'd probably do that thing where she'd roll her eyes and look off to the side and sort of hit him, because that would be treating her like a girl. Which was only okay sometimes.

So instead Hyde offers, "Maybe if this was the fifth grade."

Donna frowns. She's got long legs. When they're both sitting like this, he's taller than she is, which is sort of weird in a way, because he's always liked that Donna was taller than him in and out of heels, and he liked that she didn't wear perfume, not that he'd tell her that either, because then she probably would. "We could use food coloring this time."

His mind goes all sorts of places with that, because hello, she's still sitting on his bed.

"We should protest something," he offers. Her eyes light up. Donna loves resisting oppression.

"Damn," she laughs, "That's all it takes to motivate you?"

Among other things. He doesn't look at her crotch.

"Let's grow some weed," he suggests.

Donna has reservations. But only sort of.

"I'm just saying," she says, "This is like the dumbest thing we have ever done. And we will probably be suspended. Also, they'll confiscate it, and then you'll loose money and I'll feel bad."

"It'll be worth it," Hyde declares, words running slow. She slides to the floor, long red hair scrunching up at the back, her big hands spread wide. He looks at them for as long as he can before she sits on them.

"Don't tell Eric," she asks, and doesn't look at him when she says it. Something pokes at his brain, but he ignores that and shrugs.

"Awesome!" Kelso cheers, because Donna never said not to tell him, "What's your hypothing?"

"You mean a hypothesis?" Jackie asks scathingly. She sniffs at her still-wet nails, shutting her eyes and letting her head loll.

Hyde sighs, then yells up at the ceiling, through two floors and into Eric's bedroom, "Donna! We have a problem!"

"Contention One," Donna writes in neat, all-capitals, "It's…green. No. Organic."

Hyde closes his eyes and thinks about her naked.

"Hyde?"

"Fertilizer affects taste," he suggests, "And then we pass out samples."

Donna begins to write this down, and then throws her pen at him. "Then we'd get arrested."

"Damn it." Hyde observes, "Corporate America is limiting our creativity."

Donna dumps the pad of paper and flops backwards, which is great, because now he's looking at her lying on his bed with messy hair.

Tease.

"Even I think that's a stretch," she says glumly.

"Want to experiment?" he tosses out, and waits to see if she takes the bait. One heel thumps up and down, beating against the ground.

"Come on, Steven," she says, only really softly and that same something is back to poke at his brain, which is irritating as hell, seriously.

This is a total and crushing defeat.

"Oh, Hyde," Donna rolls her eyes, "Grow up."

"You're selling out," he accuses, and she gets him in the shoulder pretty bad.

"I'm growing drugs for a school project," she stresses, "Cut me some slack, alright?"

"Fine."

"Awesome."

Hyde sulks. "But I still don't like it. We're going to sound like—well, not like our parents. But like other people's parents."

"Yeah," Donna agrees, runs a blunt nail along the underbelly of a leaf, "Other people's parents."

Poke, poke, poke.

"So in conclusion," Donna holds up the little plant so that the entire classroom can see, "If you smoke it, it'll kill you in about seventy years. And your teeth fall out."

"But that's okay," Hyde cuts in, as he's been doing through out her lecture, "Because seventy years is about when the food preservatives get you anyways—OW."

She always gets him in the same goddamn arm.

"This is such bullshit," Hyde tells her after they've been held after class, missed the bus or and a ride, and start hiking home, "Why'd they only suspend me?"

"You were rolling a joint right in front of them," Donna points out.

Hyde kicks a rock into on coming traffic and turns a little so she only clips his arm. The bruise burns from where she grazes it, but he sets his teeth and doesn't say anything and that's—symbolic, or something like that.

"Thanks," she says after a beat, "For—you know, for saying it'd been your idea. For letting me just act like a dumb girl who hadn't known what was going on. God, God I hate that. I'm sorry. Let's go back."

"Let's not," he pulls her along by the elbow, feels her skin, remembers what is was like to kiss this girl named Donna and what it was like when she slapped him and what it was like when she said sorry and what it was like when he said—

That he'd gotten over her.

Yeah.

"We showed him, right?" he pops up The Man and the cars passing honk in retort. Donna makes him walk fast, matching her long stride. She's not in heels today and they're almost at eyelevel and the whole world's watching, and it's not like the universe cuts him many breaks—so he just goes for it.

She doesn't slap him, at least, actually sort of leans in for a second and he knows she closed her eyes because he can feel it, and for some reason that matters.

"Oh, Steven," she pushes him back a little and looks—looks sorry.

"Yeah, I know," he says, and for what it's worth, he goes those extra ten steps and walks her home.