:)

This story originated as a personal challenge to myself. I haven't written many stories, but I read a lot and in my opinion the three hardest kinds to write would be cartoons, sitcoms and slash. My goal for this story is to combine those three things with the one thing I ABSOLUTELY HATE - song fics. So really all I'm trying to do here is write a slash fic for a sitcom, making it a song fic that crosses over with a cartoon and making it SOMEWHAT REALISTIC. No sweat, right?

Beautiful Music
THAT 70's SHOW
by Jennifer Ryan
01/01/06

:)

Beautiful Music

I didn't love her at all, but I really liked her a lot. She was demanding and I was a bastard, which made everything equal. I haven't a cruel word to say about her and though most of my memories are happy ones, when she left for Chicago, I wasn't sorry to see her go. It relieved a great deal of the pressure of pleasing her.

She needed me; needed me to tell her things and take her places and make a big, flowery display. The walls I erected and perfected in my younger years are not so tall now, more like a fence she was allowed to stand behind on the occasion she wished to speak and a barrier I would hide behind when I did not care to answer. I was treasured, I know, but I was a trophy, too.

I'm happy she's happy, but I'm more glad she's gone. If only she hadn't taken Donna with her and broken my best friend's heart. I often become reflective like this, as a way to block Forman's repetitive and unhappy chatter.

"She can study journalism anywhere. She wanted to leave me. She always wanted to leave."

I turn to look him in the eye and tell him, "Yes, she did." He needs to understand. I do. I suspect he does and pushes it down so deep that he can ignore it, but everything would be better if he would just accept the simple, obvious, undeniable and easily believable truth. "She's eighteen years old, man. Of course she wanted to leave. Forman, she's eighteen years old."

"I've loved her since we were babies. She was my best friend."

I put my arm around his shoulder and shake him gently. "No she wasn't. I am." He breathes a laugh and I stand in front of him, my hand reaching for him to join me as I speak sweet words of love. "Come on, let's get trashed."

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The Roundabout

From the mirror behind the bar I study long, sandy hair and poorly applied makeup. Her friends look like whores, too. It's been so long since I've - though I'm aware my demeanor implies otherwise, I don't like them dirty. Well, not too dirty.

But now I am drunk, gloriously and fantastically so, which makes me think it would be a great idea to put the moves on them.

Before I can push myself from the bar, one of my top thousand favorite songs comes on and I'm captivated. Since it's only about nine minutes long, I light a cigarette in sweet celebration of things that both rock and roll. Blowing smoke in Forman's face, I drape my arm around his shoulders and sing loudly, "I'll be the roundaboooooout. The words will maaaake you out and out ... "

He smiles for me, but sadly, and continues to pretzel dive. I want to smack him until he believes that Donna leaving was a good thing. Their relationship was way too volatile - if I'm using that word correctly - and frankly I was growing bored with their dramatics.

He needs to quit lingering on the things they have in common and pay attention to how vastly different the two of them really are. Donna is a smart girl with big ideas. She needs people around her, intellectual stimulation and whatever else it was she used to blather about endlessly while I drank my beer and nodded. Did he really think she'd be happy in Pointless Place, Wisconsin, working part time at the radio station for a guy whose main interest is her tits?

If he wants to dwell on commonalities, he should stick with the kid. I'm his best friend, drinking buddy, confidant, cohort, partner in crime, ally and definitely his main man. Though he sits beside me consumed by Donna's perceived rejection, I both suffer through it and forgive him for it, because Eric doesn't yet realize that I am his soul mate. He just needs to cheer the fuck up. Everything will be fine in time, especially if I can get him laid.

My song is over and I check on the girls to see they've been claimed by a really interesting looking group of black guys. I'm a little surprised by that until I hear the sandy-haired one giggle and speak. They must be Polish girls from Kenosha, where many of the young immigrants are prostitutes. That may sound unfair, but I don't live in the most diverse or liberal spot in the world, and if a black man wants to make time with a white woman, more often than not, she is a foreign girl. And then no one notices or gives a shit, because in Point Place a Polish girl shares the same lowly status of any other non-white, and that just sucks.

My attention is captured by another good song and I smile. So maybe I can't get us laid, but this is still a good night. I put my arm around Forman's shoulder and shake him close, so I can sing in his ear. "War, children, it's just a shot away. It's just a shot away. It's just a shot away ..."

That's when he fades white as a sheet and almost throws up on the floor. I clap my hand over his mouth, chastising myself for not knowing better than to shake the beer filled idiot. As his soul mate, I'm well aware of his nervous stomach and his nervous everything else. I direct him to the wash room, filling the sink with cool water to dunk him in, but he saves himself by sliding to his knees. I check my shoes for barf while he breathes through the nausea, because that's really all he can do at this point, the naughty little drunk.

"Listen to me, Forman. She's eighteen fucking years old. If your dad had the money, you'd go to college anywhere but here, too. Did you want her to live miserable in a trailer or some a crappy apartment while you spend the next ten years trying to figure out how to pull your shit together?"

"No," it comes as a pathetic whisper. "But I didn't want her to leave me."

"She didn't leave you; she does loves you. She left here."

"She'll find someone else. Maybe she has already."

I bend down to be close and before I pull him up I promise, "Yes, she will." The shock in his eyes hurts me deeply, but it's Tao, man. "Be happy for her instead of sorry for yourself." I use my thumb to wipe away what may be a tear and express tenderness in the only way I really feel comfortable. "Hurry up and puke so we can finish drinking. We're not unconscious yet."

I lead him to the bar, where we find the Polish girls waiting in our seats. I smile, politely excusing myself as I brush against her breast to reach for my beer. Sandy-hair wraps long red finger nails around the bottle and speaks in terribly broken English. "Beer nice, but vodka better. Yes?" Her friends both giggle, but I'm not sure why.

"Much better." I wrap my hand around hers and introduce myself. "Daltrey. Roger Daltrey." The bartender places a bottle in front of us and she pays with a twenty dollar bill, then takes a long drink straight from the bottle. Though I'm in mad, crazy, dirty, sinful love, the last of my money is a five and I sadly doubt it's enough for a blow job. Knowing that drinking fast is the cheapest high, I finish my own beer in a long, quick pull and fish for something cool to say. Before I can decide, the magic is broken by a series of hiccups and I turn to see my best friend sobbing like a bitch. I hit him in the arm as hard as I can, hoping he'll knock it off; instead the tears begin to pour. He hugs the bottle close and bangs his head against the bar.

"What is wrong with pretty friend?"

As she moves toward him, I stop her, leaning close to whisper. "Look, recently his fiancee ... killed herself. He's had to take the semester off from medical school. It's been an incredible stress."

She goes to him and takes his face in her hands, slowly kissing each cheek. "Let Nadia hold you better, yes?" She pushes his face into her cleavage, holding him tight and through tears, I see the corner of his mouth turn up, just a little - just enough.

Another hand full of long red fingernails comes from behind me and slides across my chest. "I am Sasha. I like groovy American man with curled hair."

"Hi, Sasha." I restrain myself from saying I like Polish whore with big breasts and no morals. "Let's drink vodka."

For the first time I notice the third girl - the resemblance is so that they must be sisters, not twins, but they could be mistaken for them. Blue Oyster Cult plays in the background and now I love this song. We drink a lot of vodka. We don't stop until they throw us out.

:)

The world spins when I wake and I'm unsure if time has passed. All that exists is the ceiling, a field of stark white with that rough texture that rolls in sea sickening waves. I feel slow and uncoordinated, sure I just need a few minutes to wake. Though I don't remember exactly how we got here or where here is, I know we walked a while, because Nadia was holding up Eric and carrying on about pretty, pretty sad boy. Sasha had her arm in mine and Mariska had her hand in my back pocket so she could caress my sexy American ass.

I think some of their friends picked us up and drove us because I had to lay down so bad - things were spinning fast. I remember seeing Eric draped across the bed, fast asleep, and I remember something about Mariska giving me the blow job for which I'd hoped. We must have really downed a lot of booze because I slept harder than ever and remember little.

And this room is fucking cold, man. When I'm finally able to move I see Forman naked, curled into the fetal position and poorly covered by a sheet. Fuck, I don't know where my clothes are either - no wonder I'm freezing. Heh, I think Forman and I spent the whole night pounding into three Polish girls. It's a dream come true, except for the part with Forman being there and the part where the girls are Polish.

Sensation returns slowly and realize I feel worse than like shit. You know, I think I remember Nadia and Sasha going at each other. It IS just like my dreams.

My mind drifts a good while before I realize Forman hasn't moved an inch. Terror floods me and I hold my breath and close my eyes, suddenly afraid he's no longer alive. Poking him with a finger, I make contact with pale skin that is ice cold, but responsive. Relieved, I swaddle him in the top sheet, wrapping my arms around him tight, happy to feel his tiny breaths against me.

As my head begins to clear, I wonder where we are. This room appears little more than an abandoned studio apartment decorated with a dingy bed, a broken mirror leaning against the wall and a bare, flickering light bulb ready to burn out. Since I'm able to move, I wrap the other sheet around myself and look for our clothes to no avail. I crack the door to investigate a scuffle in the hall and am shocked to see homeless people everywhere. Point Place does not boast a single derelict since Red and Kitty took me in, which means that I don't know where the hell this is until I look out the window.

We're not only in Kenosha, man, we're on the wrong side of the tracks, evidenced by the actual train tracks running not fifty yards away. A few miles north should be the concert hall where we saw Bob Segar a few months ago and the little diner we got kicked out of for being "incorrigible rapscallions." A little boy with long dreds watches me and when I ask if he has a dime for the pay phone he tells me to use the one on the string. On closer inspection, the coin box is smashed open and indeed a dime, or really a washer the size of one, is mounted permanently on its side. I call Fez quickly, before the drug dealer who lives on this pay phone figures out I'm using it.

Two tense hours later, Fez arrives with clothes and my cigarettes. We can't wake Forman for anything, even though I tell him repeatedly that I'm not carrying him to the car. Fez is confused and a little shocked, but I explain we picked up some whores, which makes him insanely jealous and very impressed. "Don't you think Fez would like maybe to pick some whores and play for hours with their boobies?" I know the answer to that question, so I ignore it and try to pull on my blue jeans while balancing a cigarette. Fez stares quizzically and points out that I have a huge bruise on my ass in the shape of a hand print. Like an idiot, I try to look, but do little more than chase my tail like a puppy. He stops me and lays his hand across it. "She must have been some giant whore. Her hand is bigger than mine."

Suddenly, I don't care that he's touching me because I can't look away from it or remember how to speak. I must have been really drunk, because I have no explanation for what could have happened to us last night. With Fez as my clumsy assistant, we dress Eric and quietly I check every inch for marks other than the bruises that are on his arms. Amid the catcalls of winos and junkies, I carry him to the car after all.

:)

It's just a shot away

I feel like I've been pounding on the door for twenty minutes; that's usually how long it takes to wake Leo up of an afternoon. He throws it open and gives me the usual, "Oh, hey man," before he notices that Fez and I are dragging a badly hungover Forman into his living room. "What happened to him?"

Fez answers him, with a surprising hint of jealous anger. "Steven and Eric were raped by a gaggle of Polish whores."

I frog him so hard I hope his gramma felt it all the way back in Venezuela. "We weren't raped - by anybody. Don't even think about saying that shit out loud again." I can tell by the look in his eyes, he's never seen me so psychotically pissed.

"Why are you angry at me?"

"I'm not angry - just don't say that." We lay Forman on the sofa and he sighs and rolls over. "Leo, I've got to use your shower in the worst way."

"No problem, man. Just keep the spray on cool or Benny will get pissed."

I have to laugh at that. "So that giant mushroom growing in your shower finally has a first name?" Little did I know when I pulled back the curtain how terribly wrong I was. I yell for Leo, more out of disbelief than shock. Hot on my heels, he kneels in front of the bathtub and dips his fingers in the water, singing Benny, man, Benny. How's my best friend? How's my little buddy? Hey, little Benny.

"Little Benny!? Leo, man, where the hell did you get that thing?"

"I found him. You won't believe this, but he's Buddhist. And he understands English just fine, so you can tell him anything."

I look down at the two-foot long goldfish in astonishment and take a slow, deep breath, embarrassed to have been so startled. I guess it's just been one of those days. "You talk to him, Leo? He answers you?"

"I meditate with him, man. He communicates telepathically on a spiritual level."

"I think I'll skip the shower and make some coffee for Forman." I don't know where anybody finds a giant goldfish, although it sounds frighteningly within the scope of Leo's expertise. I don't care how dirty I feel, I'm not taking a shower with it. Instead I guzzle half a pot of strong black coffee then dilute some with milk for Eric. Before I can get the second mug down his throat, he's in the bathroom chucking it up. He does seem less groggy now and I didn't hear Benny complain about the company or the smell.

Fez flips on the tube for poor, wrung out Forman, who lets me help him to the sofa, where he immediately falls and curls into an unhappy ball. I place a blanket over him and Fez pets his hair, telling him that this is the episode of the Superfriends where Bizarro gets kicked in the nuts by Solomon Grundy. Leo rolls a joint for the two of us and we sit Indian-style in front of the picture window with the tea some of his weird monk buddys laid on him last time there was a stoner's reunion. It's not bad at all, some kind of orange and jasmine, but it doesn't seem different than what you'd buy at the market.

"You're in way more trouble than you think, man. They probably shot him up with heroin and that's why he's pukin'. It's just gonna get worse, too, until it's out of his system."

Beautiful, that explains the bruises all over his arms. I take an extra long toke and hold it until my lungs burn, wondering how I'll ever be able to cover for something like this. We haven't been home in almost twenty four hours. Red is gonna shove his foot straight up my ass, no matter what the excuse.

"I've heard about this kind of thing before. They take pictures of it and then you gotta pay to get 'em back. If you don't, they give them to your family and plaster them all over town. And man, if those girls let their boyfriends get a turn at Forman ..."

"Don't say it, Leo! Don't even think it. Nothing happened." He looks at me like I'm the world's biggest idiot, then I realize he's just stoned. Though the pot is gone, it didn't take my problems with it as I'd hoped, just made them more difficult to solve. Fortunately, they didn't give me whatever it was they gave Eric, or we'd still be lying defenseless in that cold little room until somebody found us or until we died. It's pathetic of me, but I'm a little unsure of which would be worse. I don't realize Eric's awake until he shuffles to my side and leans against me in a vain attempt to join me on the floor. I'm afraid to help him bend because I don't want to get barfed on.

"What are you guys arguing about?"

"We're not. If you're going to be sick again, hurry up and do it. Fez brought the El Camino and it already smells like something died in it."

"No, I can't let my mom see me. Hyde, what did we do?"

"We got rolled by a couple of pros, Forman. They put something in our drinks and took off with all our stuff. You'll feel better when it wears off." He nods and calmly walks to the bathroom, where his retching gives way to a startled yelp. He found Benny, man.

Fez and I walk Eric around Leo's back yard for over forty-five minutes, giving him soda and crackers to help with the nausea. Though still shaky and sweaty, he'll be able to walk in the house on his own, so Mrs. Forman will think it's the flu. He hangs out the window the entire way home, something I only wish I could do. I don't know what the hell Fez did to my car, but as soon as I'm through being indebted to him, I'm going to kick his ass. It's almost dark and as I pull into the driveway, Red and Bob are leaning against the Toyota and sharing a six-pack.

"Well, well. I told Kitty I'd get a chance to kick some teenage ass before bed tonight and so I was right." Red opens the door for me with an unnerving smile on his face and Bob laughs a little before downing the rest of his beer. "So, Steven, where have you been for the last twenty-seven hours?" I step out of the car and he looks past me, acting happily surprised. "Wait a minute, is that my son over there? Well, come on out of the car, Eric. How the hell are you?"

I can't stand it when he smiles like this. He doesn't really give a damn where we were or what we were doing, he just wants to bust my nuts over it because Mrs. Forman was worried. "Look, Red, I'm sorry we didn't call, but .." He puts his arm around my shoulder and raises his hand to silence me.

"Of course you didn't call, Steven. Why, I'm old enough to know there are no telephones in happy fun dumb ass land."

Fez helps Eric out of the passenger side and they head toward the basement until Bob intercedes. "You OK, kiddo. You don't look so hot."

"Mr. Pinciotti?" Eric is wide-eyed and throws his arms around Bob, making an exaggerated spectacle. "She left me. She left me. She left m - I have to throw up."

"Heya, Red," Bob hangs on to Eric to hold him up. "I think he's been drinking."

"They've all been drinking, Bob. They're eighteen and unemployed. It's the only time I can get them out of my damn house. Eric, if you throw up on my driveway, you're cleaning it. Now, get your ass inside and don't let your mother see you."

"Yes, sir." He stumbles away slowly and takes the back door into the basement, while Fez excuses himself home and far away from us all.

I'm so relieved we've made it this far. I just want a really long shower and to forget any of this ever happened. Red goes inside to let Kitty know everything is fine. Mr. Pinciotti pats me on the back and smiles before going home and I stop him briefly. "Do you still have Donna's plastic wading pool in the garage?"

:)

It's just a kiss away

After I scrub my skin raw, I pull on sweatpants and my Zeppelin shirt and join Eric in the basement. He's lying on the couch, staring straight at Gilligan's Island, but oblivious to it. I lay in the opposite direction and study the ceiling, wondering what I'm going to do. Those hookers got to know we have no money and no anything else. They think all Americans are rich; do they really have it so bad? In a way, I guess I can understand. I remember what it's like to be hungry and cold, or so lonely that I've gone for days without human contact. I lived so long without feeling love for another person or feeling another person love me that I almost didn't recognize it when it happened. I won't go back to that hell without a fight.

When I was little, I remember thinking Eric was rich because he had several sets of clothes and a new toy every week. He had two parents and even though his dad could be gruff, I've seen him sitting in the old man's lap about a thousand times, whether he was at the kitchen table coloring on the evening paper or in the living room watching TV. They had a really clean house with heat and a mommy who never once said, you ruined my life.

Is that how the Polish girls see us? Now that I'm older I know that it takes everything the Forman's have to scrape by. There are no extra days off or family vacations like on the Brady Bunch. There are two jobs and the hope of overtime and rationed dinners with double gravy on everything just so it doesn't seem so small. Then there are the two guys in the basement who smoke grass all day and watch tube. I work part-time at a high school kids job just so I have enough money to drink. I realize how much I really have now and just how much I have at stake. Eric's parents are mine and his house is my house. I wear his socks and his old winter coat and I go everywhere he goes and do everything he does, and it's like a dream come true that I could have just that. It would devastate me to lose any of it, but if I ever had to watch him lose it - there are no words. I'd rather die.

I look over and see Eric is sleeping, so I wipe my feet on his head a couple of times because I want to and he can't stop me. Sadly, he doesn't notice at all. Light pours from between the curtains, meaning I've been thinking depressing thoughts all night. I close my eyes and try to will myself to sleep, but it seems like only minutes pass before I wake to Eric's nightmare. I get up and dig through my clothes pile for rolling papers, looking for our favorite distraction, because his bad dreams are mine.

He complains that his stomach is cramped up, so I lay the weed on him and promise it will help, though speaking from personal experience, it never does. We lie side by side and smoke together and then he says the words I knew would come.

"I think I'm going to tell my mom."

"Tell her what, that you were robbed by a hooker? For G-d's sake, Forman, let your mother live in denial. She has a fit every time you go to the bar."

"Something happened, but I don't remember. Tell me what it is."

"Nothing happened. Leo says you mixed quaaludes and vodka. You're just going to feel like shit for a few days, but then everything will be fine. Just go back to sleep, man."

"I can't."

I take the last drag and pull the blanket all the way up to our necks, singing to him slowly and very quietly. All our times have come ... but now they're gone ... and we can be like they are. He goes back to sleep, so I hold him for just a little while, because I want to and he can't stop me. Soon I'll sleep, too.

:)

To be continued

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For those illegally downloading the soundtrack

:) The Roundabout by Yes, 1971
:) Gimmie Shelter by The Rolling Stones, 1969
:) The Reaper by Blue Oyster Cult, 1976