A Basement Life
Their world is a basement, and it means different things to all of them.
Pre-Season 8, just because I still like to pretend that it didn't happen. Also, the format was inspired partly by coffeevixen84's amazing Project Restoration.
Disclaimer: None of it belongs to me. Except Hyde. He's mine.
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Long Walk Home
Nobody ever really thinks about it, but it's a long walk home for Jackie Burkhart. Donna's right next door, of course, and Hyde's been in the basement for so long he seems as though he belongs there. Michael's house is only two streets over, and even in the Wisconsin snow, it isn't a bad walk. Nobody's really sure how Fez gets anywhere, or even where he lives; Jackie asked him once and he gestured vaguely and said, "Down there," in his very thick accent, so that she got the feeling that it wasn't all that far away.
But Jackie's posh neighborhood is quite a distance away from the Formans', so far away that she was never one of the group when she was younger simply because councilmen's daughters from one of the mansions on Wickshire Lane didn't mix with the kids who lived in the split-level ranch houses and bungalows blocks away. She played with them once or twice as a little girl, and she always saw them around school, but she didn't enter their world till she started dating Michael and was reluctantly dragged into this entire universe that is the Formans' house, revolving in its own orbit with the basement as its center.
Michael picked her up at first, when it was all new and cute and every day was like a date. But after a while, after she really started to belong, it was sort of understood that she would be there in that basement anyway, even if Michael wasn't, and all of a sudden she had to fend for herself.
All of a sudden, Jackie found that instead of going to the mall with her bevy of cheerleading followers, she was catching a ride in a beat-up old piece of junk to a house that was—to be perfectly honest—cheap and boring, all to hang out in a basement with people she never would have talked to before, and then, on top of all that, walking three miles home at night.
She wonders if any of them know that. She kind of wishes that they do; that they understand. Because the first time she found herself walking back home in two feet of snow at ten o'clock at night and not complaining about it, even in her mind, she realized that those people were, for the first time in her life, her friends. She had never had friends before, only companions with similar interests or enemies she believed in keeping close, and she wouldn't have walked three yards for any of them.
But this bunch of losers, for some reason she cannot fathom and does not really think about, is worth it. Worth the chapped lips and raw hands in the winter, worth getting hot and a little…glisten-y in the summer, worth walking three miles in high heels for.
That's friends.
Or maybe…that's family.
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Winners
Sometimes he wonders if they're all losers. Sure, they go to school and to jobs and everyone except him and Eric goes home at night, but when it comes right down to it, they all really live in that basement. Their whole lives, the ones that matter, revolve around that house and those people, and everything else is just something that has to be gotten through before they can get back to their real lives: six teenagers hanging out on drooping sofas and old lawn chairs.
He feels like there's something wrong with that. He feels like he should be wanting more than that, planning for more—enjoying it while he can, but realizing that it can't last forever.
Instead, though he would never admit it, whenever he thinks about this life, he prays that it will last forever.
He doesn't want anything more. This is the only life he would ever be happy with: talking about nothing, going on road trips and getting lost, arguing over music, getting yelled at by Red, painting the water tower, eating greasy burgers at the Hub and Mrs. Forman's fantastic dinners, burning each other and doing the circle, getting into more trouble than any other group of people in the history of Point Place or maybe Wisconsin.
It's not that he really resents responsibility, though he would say he does, simply because responsibility is the number one characteristic of the Man and he has a reputation to maintain. It's just that he can't imagine anything better than having five other people who understand you so well that half the time you don't have to say anything and the other half, you're all talking about something different than the words that are coming out of your mouth, a million things that you would never say out loud, but everyone knows you mean. What could be better than living your life surrounded by people who have been there right beside you as you did every stupid thing you could ever think of, people who have all seen each other at their crabbiest and drunkest and most selfish and for some reason still love each other anyways? He'd never say any of that, never let anyone think that he believes it, but it's true.
Maybe Red's right. Maybe he's lazy. Maybe he just doesn't want to have to try. Maybe this is comfortable and easy and anything else would mean stepping out and making some effort and choosing a different life than the one he's lived all his life.
Or maybe he's not quite as cynical as he pretends to be. Because maybe this life is as much work, these people are as hard to get along with as anyone else would be, and maybe he's just willing to fight for them because they're his family now.
And maybe they're not losers after all.
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Respect and Pixie Sticks
He has been planning his triumphant return for years. Even before he left to come to America, he would lay in bed at night and dream, not of his life in the land of Wisconsin itself, because that was beyond his imaginings. Instead, he dreamed of his homecoming, getting off the plane after a few years, dressed in the latest American fashions, speaking fluent English, and bearing sweet gifts for the members of his village. He dreamed of the whole village coming to the airstrip to greet him, laughing and applauding and welcoming him home. But most of all, he dreamed of how they would look at him, with respect and a little bit of awe because of all the things he had done and seen, things no one in his village ever had.
He sometimes still dreams about that, though the dream has taken on particulars. He will wear this shirt and use this American slang word and bring back this kind of candy—the candy shifts often, depending on what he's been eating lately; right now it's Pixie Sticks. But the dream has lost a lot of its appeal for him. Yes, he still wants to return home, to greet his friends and distant members of his family, to be looked upon with admiration and wonder.
But those dreams have begun to melt away like chocolate left in the Vista Cruiser in the summer heat. Much more often, he dreams of staying here, of this life, of discovering new kinds of candy and earning that admiration from his friends. Because his life is here, now, and if he should ever return home, it would only be for a short visit. He does not think that he could ever fit in there; he would not know what his place was, and once the glamour wore off, he would just stick out. His home is Point Place, Wisconsin, and it always will be. Sometimes he wonders if life before Point Place was really a dream; maybe he really didn't exist before Hyde helped him down from that door hanger, and all the memories of his home country and the trip to America are just implanted memories like in that movie he watched with Eric that once. If he found out that this were true, he would not truly be disappointed.
Back in his homeland, there was no chocolate or The Love Boat or roller discoing. But more than that, back home, there was no Fez. He was just another dusty little boy running around the village, with a name that was too long for even the other natives to remember. Here, he is part of the Group. And though they often laugh at him, they count him as one of them. He has their friendship, and one day, perhaps, he will have their respect.
And as long as he has that and candy, he will be perfectly happy.
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Spring Cleaning
Dad's always been after him to clean out all that junk in the basement, and this year, Mom is just as excited about the idea, clapping her hands—"We could have a yard sale!" There is really no arguing with that, so he heads down to the basement on one of those rare days—so rare as to be almost nonexistent—when no one is there, not even Hyde back in his tiny room. He's dressed in an ancient Spider-Man shirt and a pair of holey jeans, and he's determined to actually do it this time, if only to get Dad off his back.
But the first thing he sees when he gets down the stairs is the Stupid Helmet. He picks it up and looks at it and can't quite remember when he first got it. Maybe Grandpa gave it to him when he was little, or maybe it belonged to one of Kelso's brothers and was left behind in the yard one day, or maybe it was one of those "gifts" that Dad used to give him when he was younger, gifts that were more like hints, back when Dad still held some hope that his only son wouldn't turn out to be a girly dumbass. It really isn't useful for anything anymore; they almost never make Kelso wear it because if he had to wear it every time he said or did something stupid, he'd have it on all the time. He holds it for a moment, then puts it in a box that Mom labeled "Sell."
But then he can't concentrate on anything else because the whole room just feels wrong without it in its regular place. So he gets it out of the box and puts it back.
He examines Hyde's chair. It really is a piece of junk, banished from the upstairs years ago to languish with the couch where no one important would ever see it. They should just throw it away and buy something new. But Hyde would kill him. Oh, he'd pretend not to care that it was gone, pretend that he was frogging him for something completely different, something that Steven Hyde could get mad about without ruining his reputation, but everyone would know that he was really furious that anyone would touch his chair. Hyde was as sentimental as anyone else, underneath it all.
He decides not to put it in the "Trash" box. He kind of likes having the use of his arm.
There are the posters on the walls, Led Zeppelin and an old Star Wars one and the Packers '69 season, and they're all torn and dusty and stained from all the…activity in the basement. But the walls would be kind of bare without them. There are all of his old models and GI Joes and the old dirty magazines under the sofa, but he's spent so many happy hours with all three. And there are some albums by the record player that he would be ashamed if anyone saw, but Jackie would kill him if he got rid of Carly Simon or Billy Joel.
He gets yelled at and called a dumbass by Dad that night at dinner because all that's in the "Trash" box are old cups from the Hub and candy wrappers and mysterious paper bags, and the "Sell" box is empty except for a punctured football and Laurie's old Barbie dolls.
But he thinks that it's kind of worth it.
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Diametrically Opposed
She's kind of ashamed of it. She's always been a big supporter of what Jackie used to call "all that feminist crap," even before her Mom went through that phase before she left. And she knows that the way that she feels is in complete disagreement with the whole creed, at least as much as the "Hot Donna" thing is, and that if any of her more liberal friends found out about it, they would think she was betraying the cause.
But she can't help it. She's always thought that Mrs. Forman has the best life in the entire world.
Sure, menopause has been rough and Red is hard to get along with a lot and she drinks more than she should and Laurie is a slut and that job at the hospital can't be all that great. And Donna's never been that much into cooking and cleaning and things like that, though they became much more necessary after it was just her and her dad. Kitty Forman probably doesn't think of her life as perfect, probably doesn't see it for what it is.
But Donna knows better. Because Kitty never turns anyone away, never lets anyone leave the house hungry, never allows an unkind word to be said in her hearing without letting the recipient know that they are loved. She, with help from Red, saved Hyde from neglect and gave Jackie the emotional support that she needed to get through the mess that was her life and made Fez feel like America actually was his home and gave Kelso the room to find a place of his own outside the shadow of his brothers. And she raised Eric to be the wonderful person that he is. And she has always been there, every step of the way, for Donna, being a second mother, one that she really needed.
And Donna wants all that. She hopes that someday her home, hers and Eric's, will be like this one: a little worn and not at all elegant, but always full of food and extra chairs at the table, with kids, both her own and their friends, trooping in and out endlessly, popping in during the middle of breakfast or the middle of the night or at the most inappropriate of times. She hopes that her house will be one where everyone always feels at home, that it will mean to other people what that basement means to her. She still wants to be a writer, still plans on doing that, working hard at it and being successful, but she suspects that she will spend a great deal of time in the kitchen or being a confidant to a confused kid or inconveniencing herself to make someone else happier and that she won't regret that time that could be spent in front of the typewriter.
She knows that that isn't at all in the ground rules, that she probably shouldn't dream about it, but she hopes that she can be the one who gives all of that, who makes a life like that possible.
Because, after all, she's not sure that there's another life worth living.
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Attention to Detail
Michael Kelso's not as dense as most people think he is, and there are a lot of things that he's noticed.
He's noticed that all the other kids at school, with their carefully constructed and maintained social hierarchy, don't know what to think about the six kids that hang out in the Formans' basement. The A crowd would more than willingly invite him into their midst, and they've been wanting Jackie back for years. And the girls' basketball team has been after Donna since eighth grade when she told them that she wouldn't play because it would take too much time away from her friends. If it weren't for the Group, Hyde would probably never go to class at all but hang out behind the gym with all the burnouts, and Forman would most likely be in the Chess Club with no chance of ever getting a girlfriend, and who knew who Fez would be friends with—he'd probably eat alone every day. But somehow the Group crosses lines of interest and "coolness" level and just is. And even he can tell how rare that is.
He's noticed that when there's tension, they all feel it. When one of the couples is going through a rough patch, everyone is snippy and short and slightly paranoid. When Jackie's parents pretty much ran out on her or when Donna's mom and dad were having trouble or when Bud was back in town when they all still thought he was Hyde's dad, everyone felt on edge, and he's not sure that any of them could get a full night's sleep. Whenever any of them fight, whenever any one of them is worried, whenever anyone has a big decision to make, the whole vibe of the Group is off till it passes. And whenever anyone is happy, everyone else is, too. He's noticed that they never talk about that.
He's noticed that many times Jackie, in complete disregard for her social standing, has refused to go shopping or roller-discoing with the other cheerleaders because she was hanging out in the basement that night. He's noticed that Eric used the money he was going to spend on a new Star Destroyer model to go with his Millennium Falcon on the biggest bag of candy ever to cheer Fez up after that whole Caroline thing. He's noticed that whenever Hyde gets a hold on something illegal or a great stash of beer that he could easily put away by himself, he shares it. He's noticed that Donna, who hates shopping even if she enjoys the stuff afterwards, goes out with Jackie whenever the other girl needs to forget that her mom hasn't written in months. He's noticed that Fez is always willing to go along with whatever stupid or dangerous plan the rest of them come up with—even though he really wants to be a good American while he's here and would rather be eating candy and looking at a dirty magazine—all because he loves being part of the Group. And he's noticed that he, Kelso, has set himself up for a good burn on purpose when Hyde has been in a bad mood and needed someone to take it out on.
He's noticed, but he doesn't really understand it. He's not sure he ever will—maybe he's not smart enough. But brains or not, he's smart enough to know that he's glad that that's the way it is, because it's just about perfect.
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I apologize profusely if I got any details wrong. Hope you enjoyed!