Robin who thinks Steveβs straight, so when she realizes Eddie has a crush on him she starts trying to help him get over it. Which means butting in when Steveβs doing βfriendlyβ flirting and continually suggesting other guys for Eddie to date
Meanwhile Steve thought he and Eddie were about to get together and doesnβt know why Robinβs decided to get in the way
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shoutout to the words "overmorrow" and "ereyesterday". english losing these words was stupid. "the day after tomorrow" "the day before yesterday" clunky-ass constructions. revolting. i'm bringing overmorrow and ereyesterday back in my idiolect and there is nothing you can do about it
Every day I handle more money than I will ever make. Every day.
At the start of my employment, my boss showed me videos of people stealing, and we both had a chuckle about it. How silly they were! There was a camera overhead, and itβs not to watch the shoppers. See, we canβt actually stop shoplifters. They get away with it maybe nine out of ten times. But we, who are watched and tallied and witnessed? We are always caught.
At first it was hard to hold one hundred dollars bills. An amount I had never seen before. An amount that didnβt exist in my household. Itβs normal now. Here is something that is not for me.
βWhat the hell, Iβll take another,β says the man, pondering our 200 dollar watches. What the hell. Total comes to 580 and not even a flinch in his face. I have been working for 11 hours today and made only 110 dollars. It will go to my rent. Today I work for free, it feels. When I get my check, I will have 35 dollars left for food and saving.
The six hundreds he hands me go into the cash register. For a moment, I imagine having money. Then I put it away, counting out his change.
I know for a fact we sell our products for double what they are worth. That I could be making commission. That they could hand me those 580 dollars and change my life and not even mark the difference in their checkbooks. Heβs not the only sale they make today, but I am the reason they made it. Heβs not the only one spending 600 dollars, but if I hadnβt spent two hours with him telling me about his life, he wouldnβt have spent any. I go home. I donβt own a watch.
I have watched and rewatched a video on how to make salmon four ways. My shopping list is always the same. Pasta. Rice. Tuna. If I can afford butter it was a good week. I dream of the world I will never walk in, where I can throw the best fish fillet in the cart with a shrug. I hold hundreds in my hand and look up at the camera. I put them under the cash drawer.
I go to work. I scrap together my savings. I eat my bowl of rice slowly. My manager takes a paid week off from work just for his birthday. He owns a yacht.Β
i wrote this while i was working at orlandoβs walt disney world parks.
i was part of their college program. i moved to the state for it. they legally owned the building i was living in and still charged me rent. i ostensibly was being charged to work for them. it was a 2 bedroom apartment and they placed 6 adult women in it in forced triples.
as many as one in ten disney employees have experienced homelessness while working for the company. despite huge efforts to unionize, strike, or otherwise demand fair treatment; disney has refused to increase employee quality of life.
disney admits publicly that a good portion of their success is because the employees (βcast membersβ) are dedicated, passionate, and selfless. this is never reflected in pay. even βfaceβ characters (ie those that are princesses etc) make barely above a minimum wage.
at the time that i worked there, i made $8.50 an hour. at one point i was asked to create a human shield around a bag because a bomb dog had alerted to it. for eight fucking dollars an hour.
i now work a very cushy office job. i have bought the salmon and cooked it all four ways.
i go to the store. i am nice to the person behind the counter. she looks up at the camera while she counts out my change. there is nothing fundamentally different about her and i.
Modern-ish steddie au where Eddie covers common people by pulp with his group and dedicates it to Steve from the stage, so he knows that he doesnt believe he has changed and is actually interested in him.
Steve face falls as he listens to the lyrics, he leaves as soon as the song is finished.
Dustin lets Eddie know after the show about how Steveβs parents have completely disowned him and he's been living with him and his mum because he was left with nothing.
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Eddie hears that Steve likes bad boys and thinks oh thisβll be easy. But he forgets that Steveβs seen him terrified running from Vecna and telling the dumbest jokes ever to make Dustin laugh
it's so wild when your parent changes when you become an adult. my dad is very cordial and non confrontational - he regularly helps me with adult stuff like changing the oil or providing insurance tips. he's always smiling when i call him on video and providing jokes when i complain about college
when i was a kid, i would have to tiptoe around his anger issues often, sometimes running quietly past his work table until he got his own place completely separate from our family, locked away for days. every so often he would start screaming in the car and trying to hit me or my brother for talking too loud while my mom attempted to calm him down as he swerved on the road. and now he, smiling, helps me with car insurance.
like oh, this is just who you are when you have power over someone, and this is who you are when you dont have power over someone. no wonder you can have a normal life, friends, work while scaring the shit out of your kids and wife. i see it now. i see why no one would have believed me. that, i think, is one of the core fears of trauma - seeing the outside of it from the perspective of other adults that brushed you aside, and understanding. of course, that understanding gives the opposite of solace; it just gives you more grief with nowhere for it to go
i genuinely don't think there's much, if anything, hotter than someone clearly having a blast doing something they're really good at. doesn't really matter what it is. the combo of competence and joy is absolutely lethal to me
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They're arranged out on the Hopper-Byers lawn, the whole crew of them, for the kids' graduation party.
Steve sits with Robin at a picnic table pushed under an oak tree. They have empty cans of Miller Lite at their elbows and full ones in their hands, keeping up a running commentary at the expense of the other guests.
They only stop when Dustin hoists himself on the tabletop.
"What're you doing?" He asks.
"Talking." Steve and Robin deadpan in unison.
Dustin rolls his eyes. "You could, I dunno, mingle?"
"Why?" Robin says in actual horror. "I hung out with most of these people yesterday."
"So? You hangout with Steve every day."
He's about to tell Dustin to leave them alone when he spots someone coming around the side of the house.
It takes him half a second, less, to recognize the long hair and leather jacket of Eddie Munson. They haven't spoken in three years, since that disastrous drive from the airport, and the sight of him rankles something sour and unresolved in his chest.
"I thought he couldn't make it?" He says to Dustin, trying to keep the sneer out of his voice as much as possible.
"He said he'd do what he could." There's an unmistakable, childish bubble of delight in Dustin's voice that only makes Steve feel worse.
"Yeah? Guess he found a plug for all that co--"
"Drop it," Robin says.
He does, but mostly because Dustin leaps off the table and shouts, "Eddie!"
"Aren't you going to go say hi?" Robin asks.
His mouth twists without him meaning it to. "Why would I?"
"I don't know, Steve. Maybe you could just try not to hate him."
"I don't hate him!'
"Really?" She snorts. She takes her sunglasses off to look at him.
He chews his lip, isn't sure how to explain. "You think he's changed?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, you know. The interviews with People magazine and showing off his house and his dog and his life coach, and the whole thing."
"I don't think he's faking it."
"You saw the picture." He doesn't need to say which one.
"Yeah, but I don't think something that showed up in National Enquirer really counts."
"There were drugs on the coffee table!"
"He wasn't alone."
"Right, cause he was hanging out with Vince Neil and staying sober?"
"I think maybe you could give him the benefit of the doubt."
This is a fight they've already had, one he knows he won't win. He doesn't know how to explain that Eddie's new lifestyle seems like it's only skin-deep.
"I think there's more to it," is what he ends up saying.
After a beat, Robin says,"He looks good."
He does, and Steve can't think about it, has never been able to. It's an attraction he refuses to let blossom. He can't let Eddie be that to him when it's already--whatever it is.
He's let off the hook for replying as courtesy and being guests at someone else's home have them joining the group around Eddie.
---
Steve heads out to his car as the sun's going down, the last to leave. Eddie's standing in the driveway, smoking a cigarette, because of course he is, because of course he couldn't escape without seeing Eddie alone.
"Thought you left hours ago," he says.
"Van wouldn't start, and then I got caught up with Henderson and Wheeler."
"You still have that old thing?"
"Some of us value our possessions, Harrington. As old and rickety as they may be."
He looks at his paint-faded BMW, the dents and rust that accumulated over the past decade and too many monsters. "Sure, man."
Eddie takes a long drag before tossing the spent butt on the ground and grinding it out with the toe of his boot. "So, uh, can I get a ride?"
Steve barely suppresses his snort and doesn't say anything about old and unreliable vans. "You sure you want to? After last time, I mean."
"It's only ten minutes."
"Your funeral."
They're barely out of the driveway before Eddie says, "You didn't seem happy to see me."
He makes a sound with his tongue against his teeth. "I thought you said you couldn't make it."
"Plans changed. You're avoiding what I said."
He doesn't want to get into this. It doesn't matter what he thinks. It--"I'm not sure if you should keep coming around. You can't put Dustin through that again."
"C'mon, Harrington, you still jealous he likes me better?"
"It's not about that." Steve's eyes don't leave the road.
"No?"
"No." He pulls to a stop sign, doesn't say anything right away. Isn't sure he wants to push it. Can't help himself. "I saw the picture."
"The pi--oh, that." Eddie laughs. "You really are such a mom. Those drugs weren't mine."
"Really?"
"You a cop? Yeah, really. I've been to rehab."
"I remember." Steve's laugh is bitter.
"I'm not going to overdose. Jesus Christ."
"I don't think you've really changed."
Eddie lights another cigarette. Steve rolls the window down. "Didn't you read the article?"
"I also saw the coffee table and the lines of coke."
"It's not heroine." Eddie flicks ash out the window.
"Does it matter?"
"Course," he scoffs. "Don't gotta worry about me, Harrington. I'm a big boy."
"I don't. You'll break Dustin's heart."
"Leave Henderson out of this."
"I literally can't."
"You aren't his parent, man. He doesn't have to hate me because you do."
"I don't hate you." Steve glances out the window. Why does he keep having to say that?
"Bullshit."
"And you've always liked me."
"C'mon, Harrington. You know you're stuck up. Spoiled. Spending daddy's money and living without a care."
"Things fucking changed." He snaps. He hasn't been that guy, the one Eddie described, in years. "I haven't spoken to my parents since Vecna one."
"That must be real hard for you."
"This isn't high school anymore, Munson!"
"Sure, cause your problem with me is just right now, just cause of the drugs."
"No, it's that you say you're sober and we both know you're not!"
"I've changed." Eddie's arms cross over his chest.
"Bullshit."
"Why are you always making such a big goddamn deal about me?"
"Because!" Steve shouts. They're on Wayne's street now. "Because you almost died and it nearly killed Dustin, and you keep just--" Steve waves his hand, unable to come up with the words. "You never fucking learned."
"You think I'm not trying? How would you feel if you had to deal with all this, huh? You think it's easy?"
"I have dealt with it. Since 1983!"
"And you were never declared legally dead! You didn't have mobs trying to kill you for a full fucking year afterward. Jesus Christ, Harrington!"
Eddie slams out of the car and Steve follows.
"So, that's why you ran away at your first chance? You thought leaving would erase all of it, and when it didn't you had to do every drug within arm's reach?"
"Like you and your charmed fucking life could ever understand!"
"You aren't the only one messed up after the Upside Down."
Eddie turns to him, fast, bringing them face-to-face, too close. "You don't fucking know anything. You're a spoiled, good-for-nothing prick, just like you've always been."
"Yeah? Well, despite all your self-improvement, you're still an asshole."
"Fuck you," Eddie shoves him.
Steve shoves back, but Eddie grabs him by the biceps, fingers digging into his skin. "I fucking hate you," he hisses.
"I don't give a shit," Steve snarls. He yanks himself from Eddie's grasp. It takes more effort than he expects--Eddie's thin, but strong. "Stop fucking over the people who care about you."
"Don't start pretending you care now."
"I don't. But our other friends do. They believe in you. Don't let them down." He starts to walk away.
Eddie's hand fists in his hair, yanking him back. Surprise and a shocking rush of desire has his knees giving out, and he sways into Eddie's chest.
"Shit," Eddie says. His voice is different, deeper, and rough. "You like this, Harrington?"
"Fuck you," he says. It's too high, too breathless, and Eddie laughs.
"You fuck men?"
Steve shakes his head.
"You like to be fucked by men?"
He nods, slow.
"You like it a little rough?"
He freezes. How could Eddie read him so easily, how could he know, how--Eddie tugs at his hair, hard, and it brings them close enough their lips are nearly touching.
"You know how often I think of holding you down and fucking you until you can't move?"
It wakes him up and Steve pulls against the hand holding him until tears burn at his eyes. "I know you're all talk."
Eddie laughs again, low, dangerous, sending shivers up Steve's spine and a lightning bolt to his dick.
Pleased to report that after a day of this i am not longer craving caper brine and my mouth is not dry as usual. There's some good suggestions in the notes too that I want to try.
-ancient roman posca: water, red or white wine vinegar, honey, salt, herbs (coriander, mint, thyme)
-switchel: water, ginger, vinegar, sweetener, lemon, salt
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i need to get off tumblr iβm at the aquarium admiring the fish and my brain goes βposts that make you want to get in the waterβ what are you talking about. these are live fish in the room with you. what post.