Title: First Love: You Ought to Be With Me

Author: zeureka

Warnings:

Disclaimer: I don’t own That ‘70s Show. The subtitle and lyrics included are from Al Green’s ‘You Ought to Be With Me.’

There is absolutely no money to gain from this.

Author’s Notes: This one was a bit harder for me to write, as it involves characters I haven’t written much, but I think it’s as canon as you can get. I think you guys will enjoy it.

You Ought to Be With Me

you don't have to waste my time,

if you want to be a friend of mine,

you ought to be with me,

hey, you ought to be with me.

The day she fell in love with Eric was one like any other. It was the summer before her sixteenth birthday, and first time she’d really begun thinking of herself as a girl, different from the guys she hung out with. There had always been that friendly banter, the joking about the girl in their midst, but she’d maintained enough of a fearsome exterior to keep them mostly frightened of her. At the very least, they accepted her as one of them.

That day was different. For the first time, she’d put on eye shadow.

Pale green, complimentary to her eyes, she’d applied it inexpertly, smeared most of it off, then tried again and again until she thought it looked ok. On the very short walk from her house to Eric’s basement stairs, the August rain had washed most of it off, leaving just a shimmer on her eyelids.

She was painfully conscious of the shine on her eyes, even through the smoke in the room. She wanted to look like a girl; she wanted to disappear into the floor. She didn’t know what she wanted anymore.

She and Hyde and Kelso were in the basement, smoking something Hyde had scored that afternoon – he said it had flown in from Hawaii, and through her haze she found herself wondering what hands had picked the buds and put them onto racks to dry, who had put them into a brown bag and smuggled them into the country.

Whoa, she had better slow down, she realized suddenly. She was feeling completely fried, and for once it didn’t feel right.

At that moment, Eric stepped into view, towering above her (because she was sitting), holding toast with cinnamon and sugar and swimming in butter out to her. He’d run upstairs to make it after she’d told him how hungry she was, and when she reached out to take it from him –

Wow.

There was something that passed between them when his hand touched hers, and for a moment she thought, inexplicably, of the day, only weeks before, when she’d sat on his back, his face in the ground, and almost made him eat dirt.

The toast toppled out of her hand, onto the floor, and she ran out the door.

She heard Kelso saying something to her, heard distinctly the phrase “jugs-a-poppin’,” but she was out the door and into the storm before she could hear any more, or even react to it. Part of her wanted to run back and hit him; another part of her wanted to go home and…do something.

She stood, paralyzed in the rain, before choosing to go back down to the basement. As she shut the door, a huge crack of lightning hit somewhere nearby and, against all her desire to be calm and cool, she jumped.

They were all staring at her, dripping on the cement, and she felt awkward for a long, queer moment, before sitting back down. She stared them down in turn, glaring at them until they ripped their eyes away from her budding chest, which was painfully – at least to her – obvious under her wet shirt.

First Kelso, then Hyde looked away, their dirty smirks annoying her. But Eric looked at her with such frank wonder, she found it hard to find the will to intimidate him, to stare him down. For the second time that day – and ever – she found herself feeling sympathetic towards him.

More than that – she found herself enjoying the way he looked at her.

They smoked some more, passing a joint around in the circle until it was hardly anything at all. Hyde took the end and snuffed it out, then put it in his pocket, to smoke later. He and Kelso took off after a while, but she found Eric sitting next to her on the couch, pretending to watch television.

She couldn’t focus; no matter how goofy and annoying the Brady bunch got, she could feel something coming off him, some energy she’d never really noticed before. She felt as if she was vibrating against him. The heat coming off him onto her might as well have turned the damp still lingering in her hair to steam.

The Brady Bunch was arguing about something, the audience laughing, and somewhere in the background she became conscious of Al Green singing. Coming through the air in smooth, buttery waves, Al’s voice caressed her ears.

It felt like a very long time before she was able to process the sweet sounds into words, but finally she was able to hear the lyrics, to register what she was hearing. Hearing the word “friend,” she turned to look at Eric, unable to stop herself from thinking of her best friend.

There was something in his earnest, nervous expression when he looked back at her that was so charming she had to fight to turn her face back towards the television. She wanted to kiss him, wanted to run, wanted…she just wanted.

She wasn’t sure what, and so she decided to go home.

They continued their dance for weeks, getting three steps closer before taking two steps back. She found herself reluctant to roughhouse with him, didn’t want to tackle him the same way anymore.

More than that, she found herself painfully aware when they were alone together.

Kelso would go off to play with dogs, Hyde to do…well, whatever it was that he did when he wasn’t around, and she would find herself antsy, alone.

She would look over at him, next to her on the couch, or holding the basketball, or behind her in class, and she would find herself thinking of kissing him. She’d find herself dreaming in class about what his lips might feel like, or how he might smell close-up.

On one particularly awful day, she caught herself writing her name on her notebook – well, their name: Donna Pinciotti-Forman.

She knew then that she was sick, that she would have to do something about this. She didn’t dare say anything to him, didn’t dare ask any of their idiot friends whether he’d mentioned her. She knew Hyde would practically blackmail her with it, and Kelso would just spit it out.

At least, she didn’t mean to say anything about it. But as she was finding out bit by bit, intentions and reality didn’t always coincide.

It was Memorial Day, and Eric was upstairs helping his mom get things ready for the party that evening. Hyde hadn’t come over yet, and Jackie was – mercifully – at the lake for the weekend. So it was just her and Kelso, getting fried in the basement.

She’d been trying to be subtle, asking if Eric had mentioned any girls at school. Kelso hadn’t gotten the hint, had looked at her with a big, dumb grin. “Nah,” he said. “Just you, big D.”

Her heart leapt. It was in her throat and she had to force herself to stay calm as she asked him for more – or at least, she was going to, but she could practically see the light bulb go on over Kelso’s head. In a flash, he had gotten it all.

“You like him, don’t you?” He was dumb as a rock, but when he got something, she knew he wouldn’t forget or let it go.

“Nah. I mean,” shut up, shut up, she told herself, but her mouth was off again before she could stop herself. “He’s kinda cute and all, but-“

“Donna likes Eric, Donna likes Eric!” Kelso was singing, laughing, and she suddenly wanted to beat the crap out of him.

“Kelso, you say one word in front of him, and I will kick your ass!” She punched him, once, hard in the shoulder to show him she meant business. She moved back to her seat, ignoring his exclamations, and tried to forget what had happened.

It had been impossible, of course. Kelso had squealed like a stuck pig, and without anyone asking him anything. He had just spit it out when she tried a simple flirtation and she made a note to herself to kill him when she got the chance.

And then she lied about telling him anything, embarrassed and blushing at being put on the spot.

It didn’t make any sense though, and she knew it. She shouldn’t have lied, she should simply tell him how she felt. It was just that the words were never there when she needed them; she would try to say something and end up hitting him instead, or teasing him, or she would try to set him up and he would bypass her entirely.

She would find herself hating him for being so dense.

But the Rundgren concert. He was so cute in the dim and smoke, and the way he’d decided to go to Milwaukee even though he’d been told – by Red, no less – not to.

She knew what she had to do.

It was a perfect night, and after their friends walked away, she sat down on the hood of the car like she frequently did. He sat beside her, they lay back against the windshield – all normal, but tonight she could feel that tension again, that heat.

He was fairly radiating against her, and she would turn her head to look at him, but he was looking up, at the stars. Then she would look away and feel him turning to look at her.

Their faces were inches apart, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it, even though she could feel it now, as tangible as her hair or a twinkie.

If he couldn’t be man enough to hear her practically yelling at him inside her head to kiss her, then she wasn’t going to wait around.

“Well, I think I’m going to call it a night,” she was trying to hide how angry she was, how hurt, how scared, how much she wanted him, and she sat up and slid off the hood of the car. “Good night.”

She could feel him shifting his weight behind her, to her side of the car, and heard his good night, and it stopped her.

She had to try.

And so she went back, to give it a try.