100,000 dollars is not a lot of money.
it is also a lot more money than i will ever have. my student loans make up half of that - they're coming back, i'm told, like we all bounced back recently. the other day while paying for gas to go to work, i overdrew my account without knowing it.
i sat in the car and looked at the charge and tried to do the math. where the fuck is the money even going? i don't live extravagantly. i live in a hole in the ground, in an apartment the size of a sneeze; covered in ants. yes, i wanted to live close to a population center. maybe that's my fault. i've downloaded the apps and i've spoken to the experts and i've cut back on excess. i can't help the pharmacy bills or the medical debt.
i have a good, well-paying job. when i googled it to see if i was getting a fair salary, i found out i'd be making "upper middle class" money. which doesn't make sense - is "upper middle class" now just "able to afford a one-bedroom without a roommate". when i was younger, upper-middle meant a nice big house and a backyard and vacations and not flinching about eating at a resturant.
i was talking to my friend who is a realtor. he said 100,000 dollars is extremely cheap for housing. he's not wrong. 100,000 dollars would change my life. 100,000 dollars also won't really buy you anything. it could get you out of debt, potentially, if you were lucky and had a certain amount of scholarships to tack onto your degree. you could pay off the car and then have enough left over for "spending" money. how fucking amazing. one vacation, maybe two if you're thrifty. and then - like magic - the money would evaporate into nothing. people would sigh and tell you see, you should have put it into savings! like "upper middle class" people can't afford to value "actually living" over squirrelling wealth. you should spend your life only in scarcity. like that is what made the rich people all their real "actually a lot of money".
100,000 dollars would literally set me free. it also would just set me back to "earning normally" instead of paying down debt into infinity. god, do you know how many of us just want that? that our first thought is we could stop scrambling and just be free of debt if we won the lottery? that we don't even necessarily need to stop working - we just wouldn't have to worry about failing or falling?
and. at the same time. 100,000 dollars is next to fucking nothing.
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just a little something for the darling @yournowheregirl to wake up to! it sounds kinda dumb and insignificant, but i always appreciate your tags in the fun tag games that come across your dash and for always being one of the first that ask something from those ‘ask me’ posts i reblog! it makes me feel appreciated and i am super grateful every time 🥰����🥹
There was meant to be two beds.
Steve specifically got a double king room for the goblins, and another room with two queens for him and Eddie.
So of course as soon as they got into Milwaukee the night before the D&D themed nerd fest, the (actually very nice) woman at the front desk says: “We had to swap around the rooms, but the two will still sleep all you boys, don’t worry!”
Whatever. That’s fine, right? They’ll all have a spot to sleep the next two nights they’re here for the kids’ (and Eddie’s) dragon game convention.
He gets back to their rented minivan and passes the key cards to Eddie in the passenger seat.
The van was just the first point of contention between him and the kids’ beloved Dragon Meister, followed closely by…everything else.
The first thing Eddie said when Steve showed up in the rented van was “King Steve is coming along on our journey?”, to which Steve could only respond with “This ‘super cool’ guy you assholes have been going on about this whole time is Eddie “The Freak” Munson? Really?”
Following closely behind are: the tapes and tapes of loud garbled ‘music’ Eddie insists on playing, his absolutely tragic way of unwrapping Steve’s burgers for him when they stop for lunch, the wariness Steve has in the first place about this being the guy Dustin wouldn’t stop talking so highly about…this nerdy, obnoxious, third-time senior…great.
“204 is the Hellions’ room, 207 is us.”
Eddie bends an arm backwards into the feral beast enclosure the second two rows have become over the last six hours and Steve’s surprised he still has his hand when it returns to the front.
Steve gets the van parked in the hotel’s garage, and they head up to their rooms.
“Alright, assholes,” he says to the somehow still rambunctious masses, “This is you guys, Make sure you’re up by eight so we—“
“Yeah Steve, we got it,” Dustin scoffs, “As if we’d risk being late to this.”
Steve rolls his eyes with a “Fine, goodnight.” and shuffles the few steps across the hall to his and Eddie’s door, leaving the troops to file into theirs.
The only thought in his head is of laying down and getting the fuck to sleep. It wasn’t even that late but—
“Oh you’ve got to be shitting me.”
So that’s what brings them here. To their one barely queen sized bed.
“I guess I’m on the floor then, huh?”
“I’m not about to let you sleep on the floor.”
“Oh, the King has chivalry does he?” Eddie rolls his eyes and throws his duffle onto the armchair in the corner.
“As much as you, asshole; I just want you to have the energy to corral the gremlins tomorrow.” Steve scrubs a hand down his face. “Look, we’ll just deal with it tonight and I’ll get another room tomorrow.” he lies. As if he’s got the cash for that.
Eddie looks him over, and seems to come to whatever conclusion he needs to because he says “Fine, but you better not be a blanket hog.”
Eddie’s the worst blanket hog Steve’s ever had the displeasure of knowing.
He thought Robin was bad, but this is something else.
Eddie’s fully a burrito within an hour of laying down. After a hearty, but silent, game of tug of war over the worn duvet.
Steve falls asleep angry and cold, and wakes up on a cloud.
He’s so warm and so entangled in the comforter, he can’t help but snuggle deeper into the pillow he’s clutched onto.
The pillow hums back at him and scoots itself under his chin with a sigh.
Steve squeezes tighter onto the pillow momentarily, but his curiosity of why his pillow’s making noise gets the better of him.
He cracks his eyes open, looking down at the thing in his arms.
It shifts as well, and Eddie Munson blinks up at him with those (holy shit…beautiful, deep, dark) doe eyes of his.
“Hi.” Steve breathes.
Eddie’s eyes flutter shut, and shuffles himself back into Steve’s neck.
Steve chooses to blame the still sleepy bit of him for curving himself back around Eddie.
“How’d you sleep?” Steve whispers into the now-bared hairline under the other man’s bangs.
“Fucking amazing…” Eddie mumbles, snaking an arm over Steve’s waist and settling a hand in the middle of his back. “How ‘bout you, Stevie?”
“Stevie, huh?” Steve chuckles.
It’s only then that Eddie seems to come to his senses, his head shooting up before he scrambles away, falling straight onto his back between the opposite side of the bed and the wall with an “Oof!” and a “Fuck!”
“Oh shit!” Steve shuffles off the bed and helps Eddie back up, ”You alright, Eds?”
“Yeah..yeah, I’m fine..” Steve gets Eddie back on his own two feet and (reluctantly) lets him go once he’s stable.
‘Reluctantly? Why reluctantly? What the hell??’
“Sorry I was all over you, not the greatest thing to wake up to, huh?” Eddie says, huffing a sardonic laugh under his breath.
Steve hums nonchalantly, “It wasn’t all bad, I slept pretty fucking amazing too.”
Eddie hums an acknowledgment, then: “I wouldn’t—“ Eddie starts at the same time Steve says “I should—“
“You go ahead,”
Eddie’s hands come up between them, spinning the rings on his fingers nervously. “I was going to say that…I.. Iwouldn’tmindifyoustayedtonight..too.”
Steve blinks. “Good thing I was going to say that I really should save my money.”
Eddie’s smile is slightly nervous, but there’s a hopeful tinge to it that Steve can only assume means what he thinks it does (hopes it does).
“Leaves me with more to spend on the Gremlins, right?” he shrugs.
Eddie beams. “Glad to know we’re on the same page, Harrington.”
also, if you haven’t heard it recently: Alice, YOU’RE DOING AMAZING SWEETIE 🤩
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