the door to the Formans' basement for the millionth time that summer, she finds Steven hunched over with a rectangular card clutched in his hands. The TV is shut off and he's the only one down there, unusual for the time of day.

Hyde startles into sitting, his back stiff as a board as Evangeline approaches him and shoves the card under a magazine on the table. His eyes follow her tanned legs as she strolls towards him. With one fluid movement she swings her leg over his lap to straddle him and draws his lips to hers in a slow, steady embrace. "No one's here right now, you wanna—" Evangeline waggles her eyebrows and nods her head in the direction of the back room with a sly wink.

Hyde buries his face in her hair and shakes it slowly. "Not now, Eve," he says, wrapping his arms around her waist and nestling his head in the crook of her neck.

Her arms drop from his hair and she pushes back against his shoulders. "Steven, what's going on? Y'okay?"

"I'm fine—it's nothing," he assures her, tightening his grip and brushing his lips against her cheek. Then he eases her off his lap and walks across the room to the TV, ruffling his unkempt hair as he switches it on.

Evangeline watches him from the corner of her eye, her legs curled underneath her hip where Steven set her down. "Are you sure? You seem—off."

Hyde plops back down on the sofa and throws his arm over the back, tugging at a strand of her golden hair and giving her an unconvincing smile. "Evie, I'm fine, okay?"

"It's just, you know, you never say no." Evangeline laughs quietly and shrugs, running her thumb smoothly over this cheekbone. "If there's something going on, I'm here for you, you know?"

Hyde takes a deep breath and closes his eyes; they narrowly open and he turns his head towards the deep freezer. "Listen, I don't need you to be there for me. I said there's nothing going on, so there's nothing going on, okay? Can you listen for once? Just leave it alone."

Evangeline retracts her arm, as if burned by his caustic words, and shrinks back into the other side of the couch. "I—sorry," she says quietly, pulling her knees up to her chest and laying her head on top of them. She feels tears pricking at her eyes from his sudden tone and takes a deep breath to keep them from falling.

Hyde blows out a breath and runs his hand over his face, immediately regretful and ashamed at having just bit her head off for a problem that she had no hand in causing. He glances over to her to see her attempt to subtly wipe her eyes and his heart sinks into his stomach. "Fuck, baby, I didn't mean—" he reaches his fingers toward her but leans away from his touch. "Eve, I'm—I'm sorry."

Evangeline stares blankly at the TV, not even focused enough to be aware of what show is playing. The last thing she expected was to come her and get turned down and then yelled at by Hyde, all within the span of a few minutes. Despite all the roughness about him—his appearance, his sarcasm, his devil-may-care attitude—she's never heard him raise his voice in anger.

"Evie, I—man, there's no excuse for that." He reaches for her hand again, slowly lacing his fingers through hers when she doesn't move away. Evangeline nods and looks up at him, questioning with her eyes. "I guess—I'm not okay."

Evie leans back against the arm of the sofa and pulling her legs into a criss-cross. "You think?" She breaks away from Steven's grasp to run a hand through her hair, fluffing it as his hand falls to her knee.

"Evangeline, I'm sorry." He trails his fingers across her skin lightly, staring straight into her baby blues. "I shouldn't have yelled at you."

"No, you shouldn't have." Steven swallows at the sharpness of her words and starts to pull his hand away, but Evie grabs it, softening her gaze. "I accept your apology, but don't do it again." Steven nods and squeezes her hand, a quiet thank you whispered into her fingers. "Are you gonna tell me what's bothering you?"

The two stare at each other silently, Evangeline with raised eyebrows and Steven with purses lips. Then he pulls away and twists around toward the coffee table, pulling the rectangular card from under the magazine where he hid it. He tosses it into her lap; a three-by-five postcard with a picture of the colosseum on the front. "What's this?"

Hyde snorts and crosses his arms over his chest. "A post card from Edna."

"She sends you post cards?" Evie flips it over a few times, examining the photo and glancing at the writing on the back, but not reading it.

"No." He points at the side with the writing and scoffs. "Read it."

Evangeline furrows her brow and shrugs, mumbling the words to herself as she reads his mother's scratchy writing. "Steven—Italy's great, having lots of fun. Switzerland next! Hope you're fine. Edna." She glances back up to see him staring expectantly at her.

"Great, isn't it?" He shakes his head and plucks the card from the blonde's hand, reading it again to himself.

"Isn't that good?" Evie purses her lips as she watches Hyde's movements. "That she's contacting you?"

Hyde chuckles dryly and flings the card onto the table again, it slides across the glossy cover of a magazine and flutters to the rug. "She up and leaves me, her and my dad. Then she dumps him—again—to disappear off to Europe with some guy she met at a bar with no plans of coming back anytime soon. And she sends me a post card."

"Steven—" Evangeline trails off at the dead look in his eyes, the one he uses to disguise the pain underneath. He spreads his arms back over the edge of the couch behind her shoulder and Evangeline grabs his hand and laces their fingers together.

"And it's not even just that," he adds, wiggling his fingers as the corners of his mouth quirk and fall again, "she's been gone, like, a year, and there's been no contact, no nothing, and then when she does all she has to say is hope you're fine. She knows where I am. She could have called—or something." The last part he adds quickly, as if trying to dismiss the fact that he truly wishes his mother would call him.

"I didn't think that bothered you that much," Evangeline says, scooting closer to him and reaching up to touch his face again, this time without him pulling away. "I guess that's kind of a dumb assumption, though, I mean she's your mom."

Hyde shakes his head sadly, eyes wandering to the lonely card laying in the grubby floor. "She may have given me life, but that's about where she stopped giving me things. Mrs. Forman's been more of a mom to me in the past year than she has my whole life."

Evangeline climbs back into his lap as he refuses to meet her gaze and grabs his face gently with the palms of her hands. "I thought we agreed we were doing fine without parents?"

His mouth tilts into a half-smile and he brushes back a strand of hair behind her ear, tugging on it gently as his hand falls back down. "Actually, if I remember correctly, I said that and you half-agreed." Evangeline pokes his nose with the tip of her finger and scrunches up her face into a teasing look, a tiny whatever filling the minuscule space between them.

"It still doesn't feel great," Hyde says, sobering slightly and placing a feather-light kiss on her forehead. "I hadn't thought about her for a while, for months, and then she sends me that—" he gestures in the generally direction of the card behind them— "and now I can't stop thinking about her."

Evie smirks and slides her arms behind his head, bringing their bodies impossibly close. Hyde can feel her breath on his ear as she breathes: "Maybe you just need something else to think about?" He shivers slightly and tightens his grip on her lower back.

"Evie, I'm just not feeling up to it right now," Hyde mumbles and kisses her cheek.

Evangeline giggles, pushing away from him slightly, raising her eyebrows at him. "Actually, I was talking about you figuring out what you're gonna get me for my birthday."

"It's your birthday?"

"Well, it will be next week." Evangeline smooths her fingers over the crease between Steven's eyebrows and gives him a cheesy grin. "Another year older, but none the wiser."

"Ain't that the truth," Hyde jokes with a snort, only to receive a loving shove to the head by the birthday girl. "I'm just kidding! How old are you gonna be again? Forty-five?"

Evangeline rolls her eyes and snuggles into his warm chest. "No, nineteen."

Hyde's eyes widen at the number, having forgotten she was older than the all of them. "Yeah, I always forget you're older than us."

"Yeah, and should be done with high school already, but I guess that's what happens when you're a slow reader." She, like Kelso, had been held back a year when she was younger because she wasn't reading as well as her classmates. It wasn't until about halfway through her repeat-year of first grade they figured out she has dyslexia. "My parents were pretty upset about having a kid who was stupid. Even if it was only for a year. I never seemed to get over that hurdle, though, in their eyes."

"Hey, hey—" Steven pecks her lips, his eyes boring straight into her soul. "You weren't and you aren't stupid, okay? And if I have to take my mind off my mom, then you have to take your mind of your parents too."

"Okay, so let's talk about birthday presents."

"Or," Hyde says, drawing the word out dramatically and poking her side to hear the sweet sound of her laughter, "we can talk about how you're a cradle-robber."

"I'm not a cradle-robber! I'm only like a year and three months older than you."

"Like I said: cradle-robber." Hyde kisses her pouting lips and pulls her down onto the couch. Every movement she makes above him send a new sensation of delight through his veins and his heart racing around in his chest. His hands wander from stroking her arms, down her side, brushing against her chest teasingly and lingering longer than someone not in the mood should.

"I thought you weren't feeling up to it?" Evangeline asks, disconnecting their lips for a brief second.

Hyde shrugs, playing with the hem of her thin, cotton tee shirt. "I changed my mind. Is that okay?"

"Only if you promise one thing," Evangeline says, twirling a strand of his hair around her index finger as he squeezes her waist and trails a line of kisses across the soft edge of her jaw to her ear.

"What's that?" Hyde asks, biting gently at the skin below her earlobe. "To never yell at you again? 'Cause I won't. Do it again, that is."

Evangeline breathes out a laugh, shivering as he drags his teeth across the sweet spot behind her ear. "No—well, yes, but not what I was talking about."

"Then what?" Hyde pauses, looking up at her underneath hooded lids.

"Don't let me go, okay?" Evangeline pulls her lips into her mouth, an uncertain look in her eyes.

Despite her quiet words that could be taken lightly, as a simple request for physical touch, Hyde feels the depths of her meaning. And though he isn't sure where this is coming from, he agrees wholeheartedly knowing that, despite his reservations towards love and relationships, he never wants to leave her side.

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don't have much of anything to say today

just, thanks for continuing to read this story, my faithful fellow 70s show fans 🤙🏼