If I Can't Have You…
Author's Note: Alright, so we're going way back to Season One's "That Disco Episode" and I'm gonna have some AU-Creative-Liberties-Fun with it. Essentially the premise is the same, but all the details are tweaked to my liking, meaning a J/H twist, and I'm trying to layer it with deeper meanings and stuff like that so I get to play with it a little longer. A couple of lines are lifted from the script, simply because I loved them, but for the most part it's all shiny and new. I don't think it's as well written as most fics I've done, or even read, but I think the concept is fun, so please give it a try. Love it or hate it, let me know what you think. I hope you enjoy!
Disclaimer: Neither the show, the characters, nor the groovin' disco tunes are mine. Though, I must admit, I am a diva.
Remnants of smoke lingered in the air of the Forman Basement as an expression of sincere focus and concentration was set deep upon Michael Kelso's face.
Everyone else looked impatient. They'd been waiting for their King to draw his new cards for at least ten minutes.
"What cards are wild again?" He finally asked innocently, lifting his eyes, rich with confusion, to the red-headed dealer beside him.
4 friends groaned in unison.
"Deuces, Kelso. For the last time." Donna rolled her eyes in exasperation.
Kelso nodded in understanding, much to the relief of the rest of the gang. However, their reprieve was only short lived. Another loud sigh escaped Donna's lips as he asked, "What's a deuce again?"
"Michael, you idiot, it's a two." Jackie said flatly, not even bothering to look up from the Cosmo she'd been paging through for the last hour. Everyone else turned to look at her, perched on the washing machine, as she broke her unusually extended silence.
"Jackie, don't you want to play?" Donna asked as her friend, for lack of a better word, finally put aside her magazine and hopped down.
"No thanks, I don't know how."
Donna and Eric both turned to each other and mouthed "Thanks" with the same incredulous face.
Unfazed or unnoticing, Jackie crossed to the coat rack and slowly put on her cardigan. "I should be leaving anyway, I'm meeting my mom to go buy a dress for the new disco they opened in Kenosha."
"Disco? What is disco?" Fez asked, his accent thickened by his curiosity.
"A Disco is a dance club, that conveniently plays music also called Disco. What they lack in originality, they make up for with obnoxious back beats and horrifically tight pants." Eric scooped up the cards from the coffee table, deciding it was time to put Kelso out of his misery and deal a game of Go-Fish.
Slouched back in his chair, Hyde added words of his own disdain. "Disco is from hell, man. And not the cool part of hell with all the murderers, but the really lame ass part where all the really bad accountants live."
"I don't know, a disco could be fun. It'd be nice to do something different." Donna didn't even notice when two sets of eyes brightened at the sound of her voice.
Still standing near the door, Jackie gave a small smile. "Michael's promised to take me in two weeks. You should come too, Donna. You and whoever."
For the second time in five minutes Donna was surprised by Jackie's seemingly genuine, if uncharacteristic, pleasantness. And turned to the boys with a big smile.
"What do you guys say? You up for it?" Her smile stretched even wider. "Or are you too scared you can't dance?"
"Oh, Fez can dance!" Donna laughed as their new foreign friend clapped his hands happily.
"Eric?"
All he had to do was take one look at her smile and he caved. "Sure, I'll go."
It took Steven Hyde a few moments to pull his eyes from Donna's full, red, beaming lips, but when he did, after coughing nervously, he grumbled something to the effect of, "Sure."
Donna turned back to Jackie, just in time to see the last of sadness on the younger girl's face before an expertly constructed veil of superficiality and blankness overshadowed it.
"Well, that's all settled. Now, I'm off to buy the dress to ensure I'm the hottest girl there. See you guys later." Jackie paused one last time at the opened door. "And Eric, will you thank your mom for me? Dinner was really nice."
And she was gone without a glance at the room full of shocked faces.
"Man, gas to Kenosha is going to suck." Eric wined as he loaded up a child's wagon for bottles and cans out of the Forman garage. Kelso and Hyde simply nodded sympathetically.
"But will it not be worth it to shake it?" Fez asked brightly, happily plopping his lollipop back in his mouth.
Hyde's eyes narrowed with disgust. "Fez, real men don't shake "it." Real men don't shake anything."
"Yeah, men go to dances and discos to watch girls shake it…and well, them." Eric motioned to the area breasts would be and was joined by his friends in a moment of reverie.
Snapping out of it last, Kelso smiled goofily. "Yeah, I'm so gonna pick up like ten girls there. I love it when girls shake."
"But, Kelso, I'm sure Jackie will not like that." Fez's face was one of innocent concern.
"Oh, I'm breaking up with Jackie."
"Yeah, right, man. She'd kill you if you dumped her." Hyde then made his voice as thin and high as possible. " 'Mich-ael, you do not break up with Jackie Burkhart. You marry Jackie Burkhart. You ride off into the sunset on a unicorn with Jackie Burkhart!'"
"Yeah, Kelso. I never thought I'd say this, but she may the only girl when it's actually a good idea for me to tell her you died."
While the other 3 shared a small laugh at Jackie's expense, Fez's face darkened sadly. "But why would you want to break up with a goddess? Do you not see she's beautiful?"
"Look, Fez. Jackie may be hot and all, but that doesn't change the fact that she's stupid, shallow, and annoying, man. And it's worth it to go for someone a little less hot just to get some peace and quiet."
Fez shook his head, as he followed Eric and Kelso from the garage in the search for more cans.
Once his friends were out of sight, Hyde turned to make his way into the Forman house.
Finding Red in the kitchen, he did his best not to show his nervousness to his domineering near-father-figure. He'd thought about taking back his agreement to go with them all to the disco at least fifty times since the night before, but every time he did he could only think of one thing. Donna, looking as beautiful as ever…dancing with Forman all night. And as much as hated doing this to a friend, his best friend, he wasn't ready to bow out just yet. So he sat quietly down at the kitchen table, in a home that wasn't his, and asked a father who wasn't his, for help.
"Uh, Red. How important is it to know how to dance? I mean you're a man, a real man. And you can dance. Isn't that kind of like, and oxymoron or something?"
Red smirked as he set down the paper and looked to the young man beside him. Eyes narrowing playfully, Red sized him before saying, "I take it you can't dance at all."
Defensive under Red's scrutiny, an indignant, if not hesitant, "I can dance," escaped Hyde's lips.
"Not one step."
"No sir." Hyde's eyes fell to the tabletop.
"Well, then you got a problem, son. 'cause women wanna dance. They always wanna dance. Always."
"Why?" Hyde's face was a mix of disbelief and disgust.
"Cause. They can get close and wiggle their bodies around in front of a man in a safe atmosphere."
"See, I don't really wanna wiggle around in public."
"Well, of course not. You're a man. My point is, you're going to have to learn. Otherwise later on in life, you're gonna be wiggling all by yourself."
Hyde took in a deep breath and sighed it all the way out. "So, if I'm going to this disco with everyone else, and if I ever want to have a chance with D-, I mean a girl, then you're saying I should suck it up and learn to dance…even if it kills me?"
Red nodded.
"And how do I do that? Learn to dance, I mean?"
"Well, you find someone who knows how and they show you, then you practice." Red stood up from the table and patted Hyde's shoulder paternally. "I'd suggest Kitty but she's been working more and more extra shifts down at the hospital."
Hyde nodded sadly, as Red exited the kitchen, knowing his alternatives were few, only one to be exact. And she was not going to make this easy on him…if she even agreed to do it.
Sauntering up to her locker, Hyde tried forcefully to stifle his self-disgust and push the anxious feeling in his gut away. Reaching her, where she stood giggling quietly with a few other cheerleaders, he cleared his throat a few times to get her attention. When she turned to face him he saw the obvious confusion she made no effort to mask.
"Jackie, can I talk to you? Alone?"
Taking a moment to find her voice she replied with a soft, "Yes," before sharing a shrug with her friends, mouthing 'I don't know' in their direction, and following him out of the school.
They made their way to the bleachers in an awkward silence. When they sat they both made a conscious effort not to be too close, and the uncomfortable quiet hung heavy around them. Feigning interest in the football team's practice, Hyde knew he was stalling.
Jackie turned to him with expectant eyes, and in the snotty air she was as famous for as her looks asked, "Did you lose a bet?"
Hyde let out a low, appreciative chuckle and she smiled slightly at his reaction.
Though thankful for the slightly lessened tension, he still gave a reluctant groan before addressing what he came for.
"Jackie, I know, uh, well, we pretty much hate each other. And don't get me wrong, I think that relationship works for us. But I need a favor, and you seemed to be the girl to ask."
It would have been a bold faced lie for Jackie Burkhart to suggest she was anything other than edge-of-her-seat intrigued.
Hyde let it out in one forced breath. "I can't dance."
"What?"
"I can-"
"I heard you."
He rolled his eyes at her interruption and worked up the attitude for his thin alibi. "Look, we're going to this Disco and well, I've never let my idiot friends show me up at something and I'm not about to start now…"
"Oh my God! You like Donna!"
His face fell at her squeal and he moved quickly to protest the accusation, but she skillfully cut him off.
"Oh, don't deny it, you do. If you really just wanted to show up Michael and Eric and Fez, you'd have said you were too cool to go. But you didn't, because she asked you to come. And now you want me to teach you to dance so you can impress her! Oh, Hyde that's so romantic!"
"It is not romantic." His tone was sharp but she was oblivious to his glare as she giggled beside him. And he hated that he was as transparent as, well, a cheerleader.
When her giggling subsided she turned to him. And he knew what was coming; she was a Burkhart after all.
"So, what's in it for me?"
He nodded at her predictability. "I'll let you name your price." He gave a little smirk, "So long as it isn't anything I don't want to do."
She thought about it for a second, forehead creased as she pondered.
"Well, at the end of the month there's a dinner at the Country Club. Michael will be out of still for the Kelso Family Thanksgiving in Minneapolis, but my mom said I can't go if I don't have a date. Apparently a single daughter is as socially unforgivable as an ugly one. If you'll go, then I'll teach you to dance."
"Jackie, there's no way in hell I'm going to some stuffy Country Club dinner."
He watched the bitchy cheerleader expression appear on her face, and he knew what it meant as she raised an eyebrow at him, urging him to think carefully about this.
He caved. " Fine. But nobody is to know about this. Not the lessons or the dinner. Especially not Kelso."
She nodded and offered him a genuine smile as she extended her hand to shake on it.
As they got up and made their way back towards the school, Hyde paused a moment and looked at her suspiciously.
"You know, I was actually expecting a more unreasonable demand on your end."
She smiled. "Oh, I thought of some doosies. But, I mean, I know Eric likes her too and all, but Donna deserves options. She's really great, in her own way, and I don't want her to feel like she has to take up with the first scrawny guy who comes along."
Hyde's suspicious stare only deepend.
"What? Okay, I know I don't always act like it, because I'm not used to being friends with people like her. But I do like her, and I think we could end up being good friends, you know, once it starts to stick that wearing that much flannel is a no no."
He was surprised when he saw sincerity in her eyes, and not about the downsides of excessive flannel. And he smiled.
Walking again, Jackie smoothly changed back to the subject at hand. "Alright, I have cheerleading until 6, so if you want to come over anytime after 6:30 we should be good."
"You want to start tonight?" he asked incredulously. He'd been so worked up about asking Jackie that he'd forgotten he was going to actually have to spend time with her doing the learning part.
"Of course."
He rolled his eyes behind his glasses. "Fine, I'll be there around 7."
She offered him another small smile. "See you then, Hyde." And then she jogged off towards her locker.