A/N: Okay, don't hate me too much but I have a massive headache right now so I'm going to opt-out of responses today in favor of getting this published tonight and also going and getting some headache medicine. I'll try and get this next chapter out quickly so that I can go through reviews and actually answer them faster. (Since I have so many active stories, I usually try to go in a sort of order so that I can update evenly but since I feel like a horrible writer for not messaging you guys, Imma bout to knock this shit out for you) Just know I love all of you and I read your reviews with the fervor of a crazed person.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to force myself into a coma. Good night.

Chapter Twenty-Three: Halloween is for Schmucks

The Forman household didn't participate in the tradition of scary stories. Red Forman had seen enough horrors in the pits to put the terror of serial killers and ghosts safely into the realm of fantasy. As for Kitty… Well, Tina had once seen her mother scream when faced with a row of plastic bats.

Still, even though the essence of Halloween seemed to be lost on Kitty there was always an effort put into family events that she devoted to every holiday. Christmas was filled with snowflakes and hot chocolate. Thanksgiving had turkey, ham, and yams. And Halloween had pumpkins and ghoul stickers on the sliding glass door.

"Mom, you can't possibly think that this is a good idea." Tina raised a mini box of raisins from one of the plastic cauldron lining the kitchen counters. Laurie had long-since shunned all events that brought her into contact with anything other than a man's wallet and Eric had decided that he was too cool for their mother's antics around middle school. This left Tina to fill the mantel of co-conspirator in their mother's love of all things schmaltzy.

That was why she had traded in her usual array of yellows, greens, and purples for a black skirt and shirt with some knee-highs and platforms. Add in a stiff, wire tail and some cat ears and she was the perfect familiar to her mother's witch.

"They'll appreciate it when they have cavities this summer," Kitty declared defiantly, popping a knife through the top of a large pumpkin. The whole house had an earthy, sweet smell, the result only bolstered by the bowl of pumpkin guts and seeds that were sitting beside Kitty in a neat heap. She could only imagine the hours of picking that it would take to divide up the seeds to roast.

Tina adjusted her cat ears once more, forcing the black band back into the wild mess once more as it continued to slip further and further down her brow. Downstairs she could hear the roar of laughter along with the soft exclamation of Scooby-Doo as the gang ran into another ghost. Almost against her will, her ear pricked, searching out the familiar whine of her brother's laugh. Tina had been avoiding him for the past week, picking up all the shifts that she could at the Hubb. The significant drawback to this plan of attack was obvious: Hyde.

Most days he wandered in alone, reading a magazine in one of the booths or sitting on her counter in a way that made no one want to come up and ask for anything. It was pleasant but not at all preferable. A low sort of tension had formed from this. One that was unspoken but still very much present. She could all but feel the silent questions rolling off of Hyde. Why are you working do much? Are you trying to avoid me? When are we going to have time just for us?

Just thinking about it made Tina's stomach roll, her hands tightening on the raisin boxes heaped inside of the cauldron. She knew all too well what would happen if she told Hyde about what Eric had said. And maybe a little part of her wanted to see Hyde beat the shit out of him. But an even bigger part knew that having to hear that his best friend thought he didn't deserve his sister… Tina wasn't willing to see that kind of pain inflicted on Hyde.

So she had kept quiet, making herself busier and busier until no one was really even able to ask her more than the basics.

"Hey, mom, Fez wants us to take him trick-or-treating and-" It was too late to scramble away. Slowly, Tina turned, placing herself defensively in the corner of the kitchen cabinets as her Tina leapt up the final stairs and into the kitchen. His eyes caught on her immediately, widening before falling away guiltily. Good, Tina thought, crossing her arms tightly across her middle. He should feel bad.

For his part, Eric had been avoiding his sister with the same single-mindedness. In school, he didn't go to pick her up between classes. At lunch, he locked himself in the bathroom stalls and stared dejectedly at the graffitied walls, unable to eat while Fat Ed took a dump in the stall beside him. With both of them working so hard at the endeavor, it had become a rather easy goal.

The only issue was… Hyde. Eric gulped, scratching at his neck as he felt a prickle of shame and nausea run through his stomach. He couldn't look at him, couldn't speak to him without wanting to bash his own head off of the nearest sharp surface. Hyde could sense it - Eric had been around him long enough to realize that his friend had ridiculously sharp senses for the unspoken. But luckily enough, they were both guys and so they fumbled through limited exchanges talking about nothing at all.

But having to look his sister in the eyes… That made him feel… Like the biggest, sleaziest, most pathetic piece of trash this side of Wisconsin.

Eric's eyes twitched to the side, his adam's apple bobbing. "Oh, uh, hi - hi, Tina… I didn't think… Aren't you supposed to be…"

The sentence wandered off, slipping into a twitchy, jittery mess of random eye motions and shuffling from foot to foot. Tina's tongue probed at her cheek, her irritation rising. She hated seeing her brother like that and somehow the fact that she still cared that he looked miserable made her even angrier. But she was a bit too petty to let him off the hook just yet.

"Coooooolllll," Eric said, apparently to the ceiling since all that Tina could now see was the underside of his chin and his entire, gangly neck.

"Well, you're a Mister Awkward Pants tonight, aren't you?" Kitty laughed, her eyes crinkling as she placed a lit candle inside of the pumpkin and hustled out of the door with it. Tina could see that black tip of her witch's hat bobbing back and forth as she moved the bail of hay this way and that, rearranging the decorations.

Eric's eyes darted to the sliding glass door and then back to his twin sister. "Are you… how are thing's going?"

Tina's eyes cooled to sub-zero frost, her mouth curving down sharply. For a moment, she didn't answer, a bit too annoyed to even think up an accurate response. Still, she couldn't help the biting response that leapt from the tip of her tongue like a viper striking. "Wow. I forgot what a wimp you were."

Eric's lips thinned, his eyes darting to somewhere just over Tina's shoulder as he shoved his hands into his pockets. His adam's apple bobbed uncomfortably for a moment. "Soooo… not well."

Tina's eyes narrowed. "Since my brother shit all over my relationship and simultaneously called his best friend a loser? No. Not well."

Eric's eyes narrowed as well, squinting into whatever dark hole had formed beside Tina's ear. Again his adam's apple gave an uncomfortable bob as he worked over whatever land mines were forming in his head.

In all honest, Eric Forman was going throw a subconscious war zone. Because while he wished that he didn't think his sister was making a terrible mistake he also couldn't stop the instinct - His eyes finally met hers. Because his sister could be with whoever she wanted. She could be with the star football player or an actor in Hollywood or hell, even the freakin' president if she wanted to. She had always been the smart one. The driven one.

And Eric had seen what Hyde had done to other girls. It was always the broken ones that knew how to tear a nice girl up and even though Tina wasn't inherently nice, Eric knew that when she trusted, she trusted hard. Loyal until the end. And that was why it made his gut twist whenever he thought about the last girl that Hyde had decided to pin down and try out for more than a week. One of the nicest girls in school. She went to church and dressed nice and talked softly.

The last time Eric had seen her she had been sobbing, talking to him about how Hyde was going to ruin himself. How he needed help and his mom wasn't treating him right and why wouldn't he answer her calls? It made his heart clench just thinking about it. Thinking about how she had been nice right until the end. How she had wanted to know how Steven was doing even past the point of no return.

And how he hadn't even told the gang that he had been dating her. Hadn't even looked her way in the school halls even before their breakup.

"What do you want me to say, Tina?" he finally whispered, his hair slipping into his face as his gaze slipped to his sister's black platforms. His mouth was dry, an odd tightening making him feel sick. "You want me to lie? I don't think that this is a good idea." Because all I can think about is that girl and how much she cared about him. And how much I can see that you care about him right now.

Tina's expression soured further. "I don't want anything from you, Eric," she finally said, unwilling to let him know how much his silence killed her.

The gentle hum of their mother drifted in through the cracked sliding glass door. The air was heavy with unspoken words. But more than that there was an ache that hung over the two like a second skin. Because they had been together since birth. When Eric had fallen, Tina was there to cry with him. When Donna had gotten her first boyfriend, Eric had come to Tina to vent. There was a rightness to every heartbreak and joy that came to the twins - a shared understanding that came with being born together.

And it hurt both of them equally to suddenly feel this tear - like a space that had once been filled suddenly becoming empty.

"Do you… Do you want to come with us?" Eric started, sliding over the invitation with a sad awkwardness that was as much an offering as a plea.

Tina knew it for what it was. Not an apology but an olive branch. She looked away, staring hard at the living room door. "That depends. Hyde will be there. How are you going to act since you apparently despise seeing us together?"

"That's not… It's not like that…" Eric winced, rubbing at his neck roughly. Like if he scraped away the skin there that he would be able to make her see his point and not hate him for it. "Look - I'm your brother. And while I don't think… I know that both of you are the best people ever, okay? I would never… It's hard to explain."

"For you," Tina finished for him, looking into the sad, chocolate depths of her brother's eyes. What he had said about Hyde was vile and unforgivable… But he was still her twin and she knew how awful he was at expressing his thoughts. For now, she would let it lie. "Fez needs someone that's going to be as dressed up as he is anyway."

"TRICK OR TREAT!" Tina and Fez screamed, grinning into the open hallway of the Millner's house. The pair (after a brief period of fumbling and awkward staring) had been able to completely sync into one cohesive candy-finding unit. While Fez was clearly in high school or perhaps college at certain angles, Tina was short enough that at a glance she seemed younger. Not to mention that her candy grin was a hundred watts and convincing enough that even the most hardened adults crumbled.

This was also why Fez had insisted that they continuously switch each other's bags so they would get an even haul since the houses seemed to regularly dump more candy into Tina's bag.

Neither was ashamed. Not when they got funny looks and not when they passed whining children on their walk down the richer house complex of Point Place. Personally, Tina thought that there was no age limit on candy and Fez was too excited to even think upon the social consequences of being seen dressed up as batman running around begging for sweets.

"Does your sister usually go trick or treating?" she heard Donna say as she riffled through the content of her bag, making her way back down the driveway and to where her friends waited.

Obviously they were too cool for Halloween.

The auburn-haired girl dragged out a watermelon lollipop.

"She stopped a year or two ago when Hyde started to walk around with her," Eric said, watching in mild embarrassment as his sister pushed back her cat ears once more, her face flushed with childlike excitement. She definitely got that from their mother.

"He scared off all of the good Halloween treats," Tina admonished as the curly-haired boy rolled his eyes, taking the overflowing sack of candy from her hands. "He would come along and glare at people over my shoulders and they would only give me a piece or two instead of a handful."

"Lot of thanks that is for me making sure you don't get kidnapped," Hyde grumbled, his eyes drifting to the cute little way that the velcro tail cinched around Tina's waist and the way that her black skirt ended just below her butt. Yeah. Someone definitely would have tried to pick her up.

Fez popped his head from his candy pillowcase, inching toward Tina with a pleading look and a handful of fruit stripe gum. "Trade for Sugar Babies?"

"No," Hyde said automatically, tossing the sack over his shoulder as he kept an even stride beside Tina. Eric and Donna stuck to the back; Kelso and Jackie bickering somewhere up ahead.

Tina frowned up at him. "It's my candy."

Hyde's eyes slid to the side, catching her gaze from the side of his sunglasses. Even though the streets were dark - only lit by streetlamps and the swift flash of children's glowsticks - his shades were light enough that he wasn't blind. "I like Sugar Babies."

A cheeky grin curled her lips and for a moment Hyde thought about how that expression would taste on his lips. "Ask nicely."

"Pppplllllleeeeeeaaaaassssseeee, Twina Fworman," Donna chortled from behind them and Eric gave an appreciative snicker.

Up ahead, Kelso turned, walking backward. "WHIPPED!"

Hyde's expression sunk, his jaw hardening. "I don't beg. I'm not some lapdog." Tina blinked up at him, waiting. One Mississippi… two Mississippi… three - He tipped closer, his lips nearly brushing her ear as he whispered just for her. "Please, doll."

Tina grinned, turning back to Fez immediately. "Sorry, Fez. Peanut butter brittle?"

"I hate peanuts…" he said pitifully, sighing into his gaping bag.

"WHIPPED!" Steven crowed gleefully.

What remained of the old Point Place Grammar School was a husk - the perfect haunt for people who wanted to roam around abandoned rooms with spray cans and weed. The place had been situated in a pretty remote place, to begin with, but since the fire burned down a lot of the left-wing, it had been completely discarded. The surrounding terrain was overgrown with shrubs and grass and the trees had grown from their well-tended rows.

The Grammar School was one of the few scary stories that had cropped up in Point Place. It was also a must for any teen that wanted a little more zeal in the monotony of Halloween.

Which was precisely why Tina found herself slipping through a window and into the deserted halls right in front of one Steven Hyde and right behind Donna Pinciotti.

"You know, I'm not really feeling this whole ghost story vibe right now," Kelso breathed, his eyes wide and terrified as they roamed around the graffitied walls. The whole place smelled like mold and burnt carpet, the walls charred from the fire years before.

Eric rolled his eyes peeking into a room to the right, Donna just behind him. Fez had found a corner to riffle once more through the content of his bag.

"You know, if you get scared, you can wrap yourself around me," Hyde said casually, flicking the flashlight in his hands around the space in a nonchalant examination. Tina's lips twitched, her eyes running over the broad expanse of his shoulders beneath the flannel he wore on top of his white shirt. He had long since surrendered his jacket to her once the night had become chillier.

In fact, at that moment, she looked more like a mini-Hyde, collecting articles of his across the night: his jacket at first and then his switchblade when he had stuffed it into her boot after some guy had made a pass at her and then finally his glasses when they had gone to see a slasher movie and instead decided to curl into his side and take a nap.

He could have mauled her right there, he realized, taking in the cute droop of that cat ears on her head, the way her eyes shone at him through his shades.

Tina let out a happy sigh as one of his hands drifted to her waist, tugging her closer by the base of her wire tail. Softly, she heard her bag of candy hit the floor before her chest met his, his body curling around her. His lips were almost touching hers, his warm breath steaming along her own as his hands worked along the belt of her tail, tugging it, drifting a hand down until he could feel them resting along the top curve of her ass.

Her breath caught, her attention all at once sharpening as, not for the first time, she remembered how large his hands actually were, how much bigger than her he was. Steven Hyde's hands were not a boys - no, they held the callouses and strength of a man's. And right then they were tugging her close enough that his body pressed fully to hers.

His eyes burned into hers, hot and heady in the dim light. "I'm not scared," she breathed, her fingers working into the soft material at his chest.

"Well, that makes one of us," he whispered, leaning down further so that his lips caught hers for a moment, his fingers tightening into the curve of her butt as he drew her up onto her toes. His voice held a thin line of agony. "You're driving me crazy in this outfit, doll."

Tina's next words were unsteady, a low ache starting in her gut as she felt her nipple prickle with arousal. "And that makes you scared?"

"Scared of what you could make me do right now." He groaned, his eyes snapping a dark blue as he caught her bottom lip in a bite, one hand staying at her rump and the other sliding up her back to tug her hair in a harsh request for access.

Tina granted it, willingly, eagerly. Hyde took her lips in a hungry kiss, his tongue thrusting inside as if he was starving and she had finally given him something to eat. Moaning softly, she gave in to the urge to run her fingers through the sexy mess of his hair, getting a thrill of excitement at his low growl. The bit of stubble scraped along her face as his lips slanted, the fingers in her hair move lower, cradling the back of her throat, his thumb dragging her chin down so that he can get a better taste of her. And damn, but she tastes like honey and something else - something that makes his mouth water.

And all at once, Hyde is rabid again, his fingers biting down into Tina's rump as he effortlessly turns her so that she can feel the cool of the school walls against her back. A low sound drifts from her lips to his as he readjusts his hold, his fingers tangling in her hair, forcing her to arch against him.

"Sch - school," Tina gasps as Hyde finally pulls away, his lips kissing along her jaw until he bites down on her neck, making her squeak. And then all at once, he's contrite, licking away the pain and making Tina catch fire. She loves the rough side of him, the side that gives way to sweetness every once in a while - only to people he trusts. "The others-"

"Not going to take you here," he whispers, his voice low and guttural against her neck. Tina's head goes fuzzy as his fingers tug at her hair, releasing it so that he can cup her breast through the thin material of her shirt. The soft cotton is suddenly unbearably abrasive against Tina's hardened nipples, her skin tingling as he simply kneads the underside, rubbing maddening circles but never grazing where she most wants it. "Wouldn't dream of taking you in some shithole like this."

But his eyes are heavy and his hands are still keeping her pressed against his front. For a moment, she can feel the words tingling along her throat, crawling forward. We can go back to my house. Tina's lips part.

"Hey, guys you won't believe what we fou - WOAH!" Donna's words stutter off, the scramble of her sneakers backtracking out of the room. "Oh my god. I'm sorry."

All at once, the bubble is broken, Tina's heart leaping into her throat as she blushes. Against her, Hyde curses, his fingers tightening, making her whimper as a spike of arousal bursts through her at the gentle squeeze of his hands on her breast, the other digging into her butt cheek.

His head tilts to the side, his eyes catching hers for one hot moment. "Don't make that noise."

Mind muddy, Tina flounders for a response. "Wha - what - why?"

His brows furrow, his expression both pained and feral as his eyes drift to her lips. "It makes me want to hear you make it again. And that could only mean one thing."

He doesn't have to explain. Heat rolls through her with the force of a wildfire.

"We should go," he says, his voice low and gravelly. "Before Kelso decides to come in and treat us like a strip show."

At that moment, she contemplates dragging him through the window once more, begging him to kiss her again. But already she can hear the hurried steps of one Michael Kelso, a gleeful note ringing through the vacant halls of the Grammar School.