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inkskinned · 1 year

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oh you know it's all latestage capitalism but the thing is. how are you supposed to be a person inside of this. a person trying to be a better version of yourself.

oh, you started working young, which was kind of hard, but it's just the way stuff works sometimes. and it was 2008 and your family couldn't afford heat. but it's fine, you grow a spine and get used to the professional world and besides it was the suburbs we're talking about here, like, your life could have been actually hard, so what if your father lost his job and you can't afford to move or turn the lights back on. and once you start making money, it's good. you keep doing that. because now they're relying on you. so you have to do that.

oh you were in thousands of dollars of debt at 17 years old so that you could go to school, because you have to go to school if you want to get a "real" job. you even did it "right", you worked parttime and attended community college before you transferred to a public school. you were under so many merit scholarships.

which is fine. you pick yourself up and you say like, okay. i graduated college. i'm holding down a job. i'm doing the Adult Thing, which looks and acts like this, according to all the books i've read. you start with the shitty job and then you climb that corporate ladder.

but the shitty job doesn't cover rent and you stretch yourself too-thin so you get sick. good luck with that. the shitty job no longer pays for your meals. everyone asks why you don't just move, but there's nowhere to move to. and with what money are you going to be moving? and then the loans come back, because they were never going to forgive them, because you were 17 and trying to do the right thing, which was stupid. people are now saying you shouldn't have even gone to school.

which is fine. but because you have no other option, so you do the shitty job, and you apply every day for like 5 new ones, and despite the fact everyone says "there's no one who wants to work!" it's actually just that nobody is fucking hiring so you can either work for 13 dollars an hour in the shitty place you know (where at least you have a passingly friendly relationship with the manager) or you can start from scratch again with a different 13 dollars an hour without knowing how much abuse from the new job you'll be taking.

and if you quit you lose your insurance. if you quit you lose your housing. if you quit, you'll be another burnout kid. the lazy ones. these assholes, look at them!

and you come home to a family dinner and you hear from your father the same old thing. how he worked hard at his job and yes it sucked for a while but he was able to provide for the family and then the house and the dog and the rest of barbie's dream vacation. how the insurance did cover some of it. how you just really need to start speaking up more in manager conversations so they know you're a go-getter. you want to tell him - did you know we're actually doing more now hourly than any previous generation? - but you can't remember where you heard that statistic, and you're far too tired for the fucking argument. and then he starts in on his usual bit. where's the house? where's your kids? where's your ambition.

the same job the same money the same hours doesn't do it anymore. the same nose-to-the-grindstone now just shreds your face off. there's no such thing as upwards mobility, not really. and as far as you're aware, the money certainly is not trickling. you do the soulless stupid shit you signed up for because you fucking have to or else you literally risk your life (food, the apartment, the insurance), but it's not getting you anything. you download the stupid "save more" app and you budget and you do every right thing and then the price of eggs is 7 dollars and you say - oh great! another thing i have to fucking worry about now!

and you go to your stupid job and everyone in your father's generation just tells you to be better about being an adult. they have their homes and their savings account and their bailout and they say. well have you tried not drinking starbucks. well your generation just spends too much on clothing. well you might just be too addicted to travelling. and you - because you need the job - you bite your tongue and don't say i am being held prisoner and you're suggesting i stop pacing my cell if i don't like the scenery and you don't say what the fuck do you think i've been doing with my money and you don't say i haven't spent a cent on something nice in literally forever much less coffee you arrogant asshole. you open and close your bank app and check your loans and check your credit score and check fucking zillow and ziprecruiter and apartments.com just one time more. and still they give you that demeaning little grin and say - see, what you need is -

what you need is for your meds to stop being so fucking expensive. what you need is for the housing bubble to explode into dust. what you need is for billionaires to choke on their wealth. what you need is actual help. what you will get is more economic advice from people who are older-and-wiser.

and above you, almost in a glimmer, you can see the wedged smile of your debt getting toothier, wider.

#i hate when people try to tell me i didn't do it right #what should i have done better #i did it ALL the right way #(not that there is a right way)#it's just that others feel comfortable believing that THEY did it the right way and that's how they made money #whereas i must have just committed a sin somewhere in there! i MUST be doing it wrong!!!#and i'm not a victim!!! im simply experiencing consequences!#and im like. where . where. wherewherewherewhere #i graduated top of my class. i was almost the student speaker.#i have always excelled at work and i work hard #i have been working since i was 13 #WHERE !!!!! IS MY FUCKING !!!! MONEY!!!!!!#ps please do not make the assumption i am ablebodied or neurotypical.#i am neither of these things.#it DOES get worse if u are either of those things. so fuckin much #but @ the one anon who was like ''u could be X that would be worse u don't know how lucky u are''#.... don't i?#do i need to be luckier than someone else #or is it possible we are BOTH victims?#and that we need to work TOGETHER to resolve it #not just wave it off since it COULD be harder for someone else... it can be true we BOTH deserve better

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m3talmunson · 1 year

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Steve Harrington is incredibly smart. It's not his fault nobody believes him. Or, well, maybe it is.

Steve used to be his parents pride and joy, everyone knew that. When he was young, doing his piano lessons, his mother would show him off at their house parties.

"Look at my Steven!" She'd say, and all the other mothers around would parrot something like "What a sweet boy!" and he would just keep playing. That night his father would commend him for keeping the ladies occupied, that he'd grow up to be a real ladies' man, and how great it was that he kept the women out of the men's hair. He'd never said "I'm proud of you," or "I love you," but that was as close as he got.

And for a while, Steve LIVED for it. He'd come downstairs, see his mother in her good pearls, her party pearls, and know that he'd be good for them that day. Be needed for something.

And then it got old. So he learned cello. That kept them entertained for a while, until it didn't. Then he learned flute. That one kept them occupied a little longer, Mr. Harrington could stand the fact that it was a "girly" instrument because it kept Steve's mouth shut. He got too good at talking while he played the other instruments.

Then he tried guitar, and well all the instruments just stopped impressing them, because they stopped having house parties. Instead, they'd started going out to them. Started going out and not coming back, for weeks upon weeks at a time. Steve was determined to give them something to show off, something to praise.

He had always been quite book smart, but he started really putting the effort in. Steve gave it a year and a half of straight A+'s, until he realized that his parents would never care. So he tried a new approach, called 'skating along right above failing'. It didn't get their attention one bit.

Even when Steve came home beaten and torn, from the upside down or a fight, they weren't even there to ever notice.

And sure, people like Joyce or Hopper would notice, check in on him until the black eye went away. But after that, they had lives to live.

So no, the adults in Steve's life didn't really give him much attention at all.

Of course he didn't mind it all that much. Some small part of Steve just figured 'I deserve it,' and he rolled with the punches.

He found solace in his instruments, still. He learned more and more. Piano was his best, but once you had learned piano you could learn just about anything else with some dedication. His guitar he could whip out at a couple of his high school parties. In private, alone in his room with a girl, he could strike a few chords and they would just obsess over it. Got him the companionship he so desperately needed for a while.

Even so, he never showed Nancy. She made it clear to him that she loved watching him swim, loved his muscles. The more masculine parts of him. So he never brought it out. When she asked about the shiny grand piano in his living room, he'd just say his mom played. He stashed away his other instruments in a spare room, so she wouldn't see them.

That's not to say he didn't want to show her one day. He wanted to, but once you get called bullshit once, you're pretty much over the vulnerability.

So he continued to hide it, hide his smarts. He skated through until graduation, nursing the wounds in his body and mind all alone. Then he met Robin.

And he was just too scared to show her that part of himself. His instruments had become his little secret, and he just wasn't keen on sharing.

Not until after the events of Vecna. He had lost enough by then. He didn't lose any friends this time, but he was close. Max regained some of her eyesight, wearing thick glasses that Steve paid for. He'd never let Max's mother do it. Eddie got his new government-supplied trailer, and walked the long road to recovery. And near the end of that road, Steve threw one damn good party.

It was early August. Steve and Robin had already celebrated a year of being best friends (and being free of Russian torture), but Max was having a harder time, so they waited a little longer, until the Byers-Hopper group had settled in, but before school started. It was pretty much a "Hey Hawkins is (Relatively) Safe!" party. Everyone had mostly recovered from the events of spring break, the Byers-Hopper clan had finally put the finishing touches on their home in Hawkins, getting a nice big house that someone left behind in the "Great Escape From Hawkins of 1986". Eddie had finished high school, a little bit with the pity of teachers who were sorry that they thought he was a murderer, combined with the pity that he was nearly killed in the "earthquake", but who's counting? It was his year.

It was all of their years, finally over with this upside-down business. So Steve threw a party.

The adults had left, calling in their bedtime at 9. The kids and the older teens were sleeping over though. Steve had more than enough space, and of course, the moment Joyce Byers closed the front door with her last "Call me if you need anything!" they had to break out the good old party games.

The kids insisted on truth or dare, and they got a couple rounds in before Dustin decided to single our Steve for once.

"You haven't been called on much, it's my turn to fix that." Dustin said. Argyle was the only person who had chosen Steve so far, since he was on vacation from California for the summer, staying at the Byers place after helping them move in.

"Yeah yeah just spit it out kid," Steve retorted, taking the last swig of his first-and-only beer for the night, always playing it safe in case he had to drive one of the kids home unexpectedly.

"Truth or Dare?"

Steve contemplated for a moment. He picked dare earlier with Argyle and it had been pretty simple. A truth might make him spill some of the secrets he was content to keep in his brain. Within the kids group half of the truths so far had been about crushes. It left Will stammering earlier, and he wasn't about to let the same thing happen to himself. He could admit he had... new feelings when it came to romance that he'd rather not let out in THIS room. What's the worst that could happen if he chose dare anyways?

"Dare. Hit me with your best shot kid."

"Damnit, I had only thought of a truth! Give me a second." Dustin fumbled, turning to Lucas and trying to think of a good dare.

"All that talk..." Eddie whispered into Steve's ear.

That was a new habit the older teens had gotten into. Whispered secrets behind flexed hands, like a little kid's game of telephone. Something that made them feel like kids again. Though if we're being honest, it was mostly Steve and Eddie.

"I know, right?" Steve whispered back. Admittedly, something about the whispering made the hair on Steve's neck stand up on end. It made him feel like he and Eddie were the only people in the world.

He always had to come back to reality though.

"I dare you-" Dustin interrupted, " -to show us something you've never shown anyone before. Like a hidden talent or something."

Steve thought about it for a second. Maybe he could finally be vulnerable with the group. He had gone to hell and back with these people, multiple times. Surely he could play some piano.

So Steve got up, passing his empty bottle to Nance who eyed it with a raised brow and set it on the side table next to her. He stepped over the boys' sleeping bags, all of them sticking around in the living room that night so the girls could have the basement. Steve chose to ignore when Mike fussed, saying that he got stepped on.

He sat down at the piano bench and cracked his knuckles, looking down at the keys before snapping his head up and asking, "Any requests?"

"Wait Steve you can-" Nancy started, before Robin blurted out a song.

"Take Me Home Tonight!" Robin shouted. It had become their collective favorite song recently, both of them singing it every day on the drive home from work.

"Yeah, I can do that one. Be my backup Robs?"

"You don't have to ask twice!" She swung up from her place next to Nance, stepping over the sleeping bags the same way Steve had.

When she made herself a comfy spot on top of the piano, swinging her legs back and forth, Steve started the intro.

Steve thought it sounded a little dinky on classical piano with no synth. He winced to himself as he played the intro, looking up to Robin for comfort. He just saw her jaw drop, and her mischievous smile go wider. He didn't have to look at anyone else, Robin's nod for him to start singing was all he needed to look back down at the keys.

Steve had never been a confident singer, always putting on a bit of a show, carrying a tune -but never doing his best- so if someone said it was bad, he could say he wasn't trying. This time though, he gave it his all.

By the first chorus he was throwing his head back and closing his eyes, putting on a show for a different reason, smiling as wide as he could whilst singing.

He took some liberties: embellishing a little on piano, changing "Ronnie" to "Robbie" because, honestly, who wouldn't have. He got to her solo and, playing the supporting chords with his left hand, held out his right hand and his fake microphone to Robin, who took his arm in her hands and let out her most dramatic "Be my little baby," straight from the heart.

Playing the intro to the next part, Steve remembered that there were people in the room besides him and Robin. He looked around at the faces of his friends. Lucas and Max were bopping along on the floor, Will, El, and Erica had been dancing haphazardly in the corner the whole time, El dragging her brother up by the arm. Erica followed; she had recently taken an admiring to the bitchin' girl with superpowers, plus both El and Max enjoyed having another girl at sleepovers. Dustin's jaw was still on the floor, although Nancy was more subtle about her shock, her mouth hanging in a little "o" . Jonathan and Argyle were nodding their heads along to the bass chords, having just the time of their lives. It was Eddie's face that made Steve's heart jump. He was marveling at Steve, and anyone could tell. It was enough to make Steve sing the next verse directly to him. It became all too real all of a sudden, and he wouldn't change it for the world.

Soon after, the game was ditched, all the kids rattling off songs for Steve to play for them, so they could sing along. After some Loverboy, Blondie, Grease, and their more-than-fair share of ABBA, the kids tired themselves out. Will and El made a point to thank Steve for his playing, Lucas, Max, and Erica whooped and hollered after every song, and the rest of them showed their thanks in other ways, in hugs goodnight or simple looks, eye contacts worth a million words. Then all the older teens headed upstairs. Jonathan and Argyle headed to their room early, but Robin and Nancy stuck around in the Steve's bedroom, where he was sharing with Eddie.

"When were you going to tell us you were a musical GENIUS?" Eddie asked.

"I'm no genius, I just- My mom wanted something to show off at parties when I was younger, I started learning when I was seven so I could be their free entertainment."

"Thirteen years, Steve?" Nancy felt pretty awful not knowing about something so personal to him.

"Yeah, this is my first time showing someone who wasn't at those parties though. Well, on the piano at least."

"What do you mean 'on the piano?' Do you play other instruments dingus?"

"Well, a couple others! Cello, flute, guitar, french horn, and drums a little. I can carry a tune on harmonica, but I mainly picked it up to learn Piano Man. Thought it'd be kinda funny."

"You are magical Stevie, did you know that?"

Those words, Eddie's words, bounced around in Steve's head for the rest of the night. Magical. Him? Magical.

"Seeing as we know a girl with superpowers, I doubt that I'm the magical one." Steve brushed it off.

The girls took their leave a while later, leaving Steve and Eddie to stew in their awkward nature around eachother.

"I guess I can give up on being the only cool guitar player in the group." Eddie said, faking a heartbroken look.

"You can still be the only cool guitar player, I'm just a guitar player."

"Oh c'mon Stevie! You know these kids think you're the coolest person on the planet."

"I think you've got that one covered, I'm just their ever-so-giving host and chauffeur." Steve tried to make a joke out of it, gave his best self-pitying chuckle and everything. Eddie saw right through it. Saw the tears cloud the edge of Steve's vision before he blinked them away.

"Hey, hey, hey, hey," Eddie stopped Steve, "You're so much more than a ride home and a place to stay to them, okay? I mean it, they think you're the coolest person on the planet. And they're not the only ones who think it."

"Ha, like you think it."

"I do, Steve. I do think it."

"I mean, come on Eds! There's really no redeeming factor," Steve let the tears fall freely, moving off of his bed where Eddie sat, and gesturing to himself,"I have a nice car, a big house, and a shit personality. I'm not good in conversation, I don't know any of their nerd games. I'm no good at keeping them safe from anything that isn't an interdimensional monster. I'm just kind of here. I'm not smart, or nice, or even funny, or magical like you said. I'm just here."

"Steve," Eddie started, this look in his eyes, trying it's hardest to tell Steve everything he means to them, means to Eddie. But Steve just closed his eyes, bowed his head, like Eddie had some power over him.

Steve just stood there, head bowed, flexing and unflexing his fists.

"Come here." Eddie commanded, patting the bed next to him. And, just like the little kid who learned piano to entertain his mom, Steve listened.

Steve sat down and Eddie immediately scooted him closer, putting Steve's chin in both of his hands. Making Steve look him in the eye.

"You are so much more to those kids. And even if I'm wrong, you're so much more to me. You are smart, you are kind, you are generous, and loving, and you care for each and every one of us more than anything or anyone in the world could reasonably ask you to." Eddie wiped Steve's tears as they fell, but he never broke eye contact. "You've saved their LIVES Steve. Many of them wouldn't be here without you. I wouldn't be here without you. You carried me out of that hell hole, and you've been here for me since. If there's anyone in this world qualified to tell you how much you mean to them, I think it's me."

"You really believe all of that?"

"Every syllable of every word."

See, Steve Harrington is incredibly smart. It's not his fault nobody believes him.

Not even himself.

But maybe, for the first time, he was about to make a smart decision.

So he learned forward, into Eddie. Pressed his lips into Eddie's and didn't doubt that Eddie would kiss back. And when Eddie did, Steve's heart soared. He put all of his gratitude, all of his feelings into kissing Eddie.

After he finally pulled away, Eddie just had to bring some light into the situation. He wiped away one of Steve's tears, and said:

"I hope I don't have to see those pretty eyes cry for that to happen again."

"You don't-" Steve leaned in again.

And if Robin found them suspiciously close in the morning, it was nobody's business but her own.

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