A/N: I'm a fan of this chapter! I think I manage to capture Eric pretty well. I love writing him, and it makes me warm and fuzzy when I think I did him justice. So, here you go!

Chapter 10

It was two in the morning on the twenty-sixth of December when Eric Forman, despite sneezing a couple of dozen times along the way, found himself at the stairs of the basement without waking anyone up. Oh, yes. Mission accomplished.

Forman took the time to do a little dance, a smile on his face, before he descended the steps. He noticed how completely pitch black the basement was, the only light coming from the door going outside. It was kind of depressing, now that Eric thought about it, and he wondered how Hyde could sleep down here.

He was a little scared himself right now.

He sucked it up and stumbled around before he found the light switch. The second he clicked on the lights, he screamed slightly and jumped back, not expecting the face of Steven Hyde to be staring at him, his sunglasses still on.

"Shit, man. You scared me!"

"I scared you? What the hell are you doing down here? It's got to be, like, three in the morning, man," Hyde said, his voice sounding wide awake and not the least bit tired.

"No, no, no," Eric hurriedly said, shrugging, a smile coming onto his face. "Naw," he repeated, cocking his head back, "it's only, like, two."

"That's great and all, but what the fuck are you doing here at two in the morning?" he repeated.

"What? Can't a guy come down to his own basement and just chill?"

"Forman."

"Alright," Eric acquiesced. "I'm grabbing my jacket and going out for a drive to think."

"Yeah, man. That's cool."

"Yeah. Alright… Alright," Eric nodded, twitching as he noticed how close Hyde had moved to him.

As Eric grabbed his jacket, he noticed that Hyde grabbed his, too. "What're you doing?" he asked.

"I'm coming with you."

"O-okay," Forman said, nodding slowly and unlocking the door to the basement before stepping outside. "Why?"

"Because you're freaking out about something, and it's starting to piss me off."

Forman stopped at the door to his old car and took a deep breath, looking at Hyde. Then, he nodded. Yeah, it was true. Taking one more deep breath in, he let himself into the car, automatically turning on the heat, knowing it wouldn't become hot for a while.

It was a silent night, ironically enough. Even the occasional parties that took place in Point Place were abandoned because everyone spent Christmas with their families and was now tucked safely into their beds, full of food. The streets didn't have tire tracks even though it stopped snowing three hours ago. That proved that the streets were dead.

Well, either that or a steamroller magically came by to make it look as if no one was. Somehow, though, he doubted that this was the case.

Only five minutes of driving with cold air still blasting from the air conditioning found Eric pulling over, noticing a park he used to play in when he was younger. Without looking at Hyde, he took the keys out of the ignition and got out, heading for the swingset as he always did.

It didn't matter how old Eric Forman got. He was a sucker for swinging. A park without a swing set was just, like, a reason to cry, man. A joke. A cruel, cruel joke.

Beginning to swing back and forth, he noticed that Hyde took a seat at the bottom of the slide and began to rub his hands together for warmth.

"You know, I just can't stop screwing myself over. I'm going to end up with pneumonia before long. Yep. That seems like something that could happen to me," Eric stated.

"C'mon, Forman. Your life nowhere near sucks so stop your whining. I'm here," replied the other man, half smiling as he crossed his arms.

Eric snorted.

"But seriously, man, what's wrong with you? Donna's right. You're being weirder than usual."

Eric's eyes nearly jumped out of his sockets. The man who he had kissed twice now and had buried feelings for, for God knows how many years, was now asking him why he was being weird.

"Hmm, gee, I don't know, Hyde. It's not like something really different and life-changing is going on or anything except… hmm… Oh wait! It is!" Eric yelped, jumping off the swing, ignoring the dog which began to bark because of his outburst.

"You're being dramatic."

"I-I'm being dramatic, am I? How? How am I being dramatic?"

"Well, for starters, you're yelling at me like I fucked your life up," answered Hyde, still sitting unmoved on the slide.

"Right," said Eric, deflated. "Sorry."

"No problem. Now, I don't see what the issue here is. Are we still best friends?"

"Yeah, man. Of course."

"Did you do something you didn't want to do?"

"No."

"Now, this is the big one: Do you find yourself inexplicably attracted to Kelso?"

"Ugh, no. Hell no. That's gross."

"Exactly," answered Hyde, a wiry smile coming onto his face.

"When you put it like that, it doesn't sound like anything should be wrong," said Eric, somehow not feeling better.

"But something still is. I know you, Forman. You've got the emotions of a chick. What's up?"

Eric stood in the snow, his jeans now soaked through as he thought of a way to delicately state his problems. He should have realized the second he turned thirteen that he was incapable of being coy or lying to people. He just couldn't do it.

"Well, I think I'm gay. Nope. Scratch that. I'm sure I want to fool around with a guy… a guy that I like… a guy that is you, my best friend of," he paused to consider this carefully before nodding, "pretty much since I can remember. Which is especially sucky considering I'm pretty sure you don't reciprocate. Also found out that this same best friend who's screwing with my head also has this whole other life and love and whatever else I didn't know about!" Forman's words exploded from him.

"Ah, so that was the reason you bolted after truth or dare," stated Hyde, a wide grin on his face.

"Pretty much."

"Well, let's address this bit by bit."

"That sounds reasonable," answered Forman, sitting back down on the swing he abandoned moments earlier.

"Who the hell cares if you're gay? And besides, well, I wouldn't even say you're gay, necessarily. I mean, you still dug Donna. You're not smart enough to fake that."

"That's probably true," agreed Eric.

"But you do want to, uh, do whatever with me?" he asked for confirmation.

"Yep," agreed Eric again.

"And I don't reciprocate?" asked Hyde.

"Do you?" he asked in disbelief.

"Would I have made out with you twice now if I didn't? If I didn't, wouldn't I have socked you?"

"Thinking about it now, the answer would be 'yeah, he probably would have!'"

"Deductive reasoning has never been your strong suit, man. Now, for you freaking out about this whole different life thing, I have a right mind to sock you. Get bent. You leave Point Place on a whim, and God knows what happened while you were gone. Then, the second you get back, you go off to college with Donna. Man, screw you if you think you have a right to be mad at me for not telling you my shit. You never told me any of yours."

Eric closed his eyes and took a deep breath. None of that was not true.

"I'm an idiot, aren't I?" asked Forman, more to himself than to Hyde.

"Damn straight," replied Hyde, the smile coming back to his face.

"So, this thing we've got going here?" Forman asked, unsure of what he was asking and the type of answer he was going to get.

"I don't want to turn into a chick here so I'll say this once: I like you, man, and I'm up for whatever happens."

Eric nodded. "Well, okay then."

"Okay."

A/N: Next chapter has some action (though no smut; that doesn't come until a little later). Pretty soon, I'll change the rating to an M. I contemplated doing it now, but I'm not sure which kind of readers I'm trying to attract here. Hah. Anyway, thanks for reading!