Hello, It's Me ? Steven Hyde

[36] - bye-bye basement

Finally, Red sighed. "Steven, it's seven damn thirty in the morning. What the hell are you doing here?"

"Red, be nice," Kitty wanted with a scowl.

Liz glanced at her father with a smile. "He moved back in, Daddy."

"You know, I did notice a dusting of curly hair on the floor," Eric realized with a slight smirk, "But I just wrote it off to my changing teenage body."

"I moved back in because my dad got transferred," Hyde explained after noticing Red's scowl.

"Transferred?" Red scoffed. "He's a bartender. Where'd he get transferred to, the jukebox?"

Hyde sighed, glancing down at his food. "You know, Red, if it's cool, I'd kind of rather not talk about it."

"Well, Steven, it's important to get these things out in the open," Kitty said.

"I tried telling him that, Mom," Liz said, shaking her head at the sheepish look he shot her. "He still wouldn't listen. He still won't tell me what happened."

"Oh, you women. Just let him do what's natural and keep his feelings bottled up." Red nudged him with a smile. "Atta boy."

"Well..." Kitty leaned over to press a kiss to the side of his head. "Welcome back, Steven. You know, maybe we can spruce up your old room since I decided to redo the basement."

Eric slammed his glass down in surprise, and Liz almost choked on her waffle. With wide eyes, they shared a look before both turning to their mother.

"What?" Eric breathed.

"You're redoing the basement?" Liz asked.

"Well, my loves, no one uses it," Kitty said, shaking her head.

The twins shared another confused look before exclaiming together, "We use it!"

"Every day," Liz added.

Eric pointed at himself. "It's my Batcave."

Red ignored them, smiling over at his wife. "I'll find you a good, cheap contractor."

"Oh, no, no, no, no." Kitty held up her hand. "This is something I want to handle myself."

"This is gonna be expensive, isn't it?" He asked, the smile slowly fading from his face.

She kept her eyes down. "Maybe."

"Don't you like anything cheap?"

"I like you." She smiled.

❁

"Yeah, I'm gonna miss it down here." Kelso sighed, glancing around the basement. "Lot of good times. Broke my foot climbing out of this dryer. And my head playing handball with the soap in that shower. Me and Jackie totally did it like a bajillion times on this old sofa."

The twins were quick to get up off the couch and move somewhere else, shuddering at the thought.

Jackie stood up, scowling up at Kelso. "Michael, that's private."

"I got news for ya. It wasn't that private," Hyde muttered, not even looking up from his magazine.

Liz pulled a face, crossing her arms. "Eww..."

"Oh my God!" Kitty cried, rushing out of the back room with a bucket in hand. "That is the biggest spider I have ever seen. I think it had a rat in its mouth!"

"You should've seen the one we saw by Hyde's bed one time. Now that was big," Liz said, slowly nodding.

Hyde chuckled at the memory. "Yeah, and Forman screamed so loud, I thought it was Lizzie."