#bikereddiemunson

[bettyfrommars]

I'm on Fire//older!biker!Eddie Munson x fem!artist!Reader//90's au//Part 9

🚨18+Only, mature themes, violence, mentions of violent past, angst, blackmail, stabbing (not reader), brass knuckles, biker!Eddie, biker!Steve, bleeding, mention of blood, longing, mutual pining, knife wielding, biker gang, threats, sexual tension, bandages, relationship drama, reader thinks she's been cheated on, fear of loss, eventual smut (not in this chapter) Word count: 9.4k

Summary: Most of part 9 takes place within the span of one evening, with the exception of a flashback to the previous day. While you're trying to get a hold of Eddie, hoping for an explanation, he decides to take matters into his own hands, and ends up taking on several members of a rival gang. In the aftermath, you rush to Eddie's aid, and at the end of the day, a familiar foe brings you comfort. Another ST character is brought into the fold, as well as mention of others soon to appear.

Series Masterlist

A/N: OOF, I had planned to bring some other ST characters into this chapter but this one got too busy, so I decided to save them for the next one. The new character Astrid was created by I'm on Fire fan and friend @texasblues and I hope I did her justice. You can read more on her and biker!Steve here I know a lot of you have been hoping for some soft Eddie and reader moments, and they are coming, I promise, along with our regularly scheduled smut. Also, I meant to get this out an hour ago but decided to re-write a scene at the last minute 🙃Love you all.

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I'm on Fire Part 9: Fade into You

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10:25 on Friday night, after the photos arrived

There came a soft knocking at your door, and then there was Katie’s voice, asking if you needed anything. You were about to answer, “yeah, a new life,” but you settled for a bland no thank you.

You were on the floor with your back against the bed, cheeks wet with tears, looking down at the phone in your lap. To the left of you was the stack of incriminating photos, but they were face down now on the beige carpet—you couldn’t look at them anymore. You’d already gone to the bathroom to dry heave a few times, but then you realized you wanted to give Eddie a chance to explain himself, but per usual, you couldn’t get a hold of him. You considered that he was at Wayne’s house, and you thought about getting that number from Robin, but even in your distressed state, you’d didn’t want any drama to possibly interrupt time with his uncle.

And so, you waited. You waited for Eddie to get the message you’d left on his machine and call you back and tell you that the photos weren’t real, that none of this was, that it had all been a bad dream that you’d wake up from any second now. “Good morning baby. You were screaming in your sleep like you were having a horrible nightmare.”

Wanting to torture yourself a bit more, you grabbed a photo off the top of the pile and turned it over: it was one of the ones with him and Erica, and it made you shiver. He barely had any clothes on. Had they just fucked and she was saying goodbye to him? She held his face as they kissed, and he had his hand on her stomach. There was another one of her inside his apartment, coming out of the hallway, smiling, while Eddie stood near his dresser. As damning as these were, you wondered why whoever took them hadn’t just snapped photos of them in the act? Eddie was a cautious guy and would most likely think to close the curtains for the fornication portion of the evening, but still—something felt off to you.

You told yourself it was just your foolhardy naivete and lack of self-respect that had you trying to make excuses for him, even now.

You tossed that photo to the side and picked up another, your eyes narrowing on the woman who had her arms around Eddie that same night he made you cum under the cherry blossoms. Her hair was a bright, candy red; she had it up in a high ponytail, and she had a tattoo on her upper arm. He was on the edge of his bed facing the window and she was on her knees behind him, arms crossed around his neck, hugging him from behind. She was really pretty, and she was smiling---so was Eddie, for that matter, like he wanted her to be hugging him; like he was happy she was there.

A sob hitched in your chest, wanting to die all over again, but then you continued to examine the photo as if you could think your way around the fact that he clearly had a woman he liked in his bed at an ungodly hour. The photos of him kissing Erica in the hallway made you sad too, but the ones with the red head made you sick, because he not only invited her in, but he wanted her there. He looked very relaxed and comfortable, like maybe they’d had a thing going for a while---like they were close---and that tore you up more than any quick kiss in a hallway with a groupie like Erica would.

There was also something off about the photos with the red head, but you couldn’t quite place it. He still had his leather on over that white t-shirt and he was turning to her as if in surprise? Maybe he hadn’t expected her to lunge across the bed and hug him like that? Your mind was racing on fumes at this point, and your internal tires had no more tread.

What would his excuse be? That the woman was just a friend? But then, why was she on his bed hugging him at 2 in the morning? Wearing a skimpy tank top and tiny shorts? Did she spend the night with him? In his bed??

You shifted your eyes to the phone, willing it to ring, and then, as another tear slid down your cheek, you clawed at the receiver and yanked it up to call his place again.

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12:43am much earlier that morning

Eddie noticed a big rig parked in the lot when he got back from dropping you off, but it was over near the heavy equipment garages, and he figured one of the guys dropped it off, or it was waiting overnight to be repaired. Maybe it was one of the truckers he knew just pulling into the lot for a quick snooze? The semi truck was an expensive, privately owned red beauty with polished chrome, and it wasn’t carrying any freight. He looked around with caution, just in case, before entering through the garage space below his apartment and locking the door.

He appreciated having the top floor apartment all to himself, and living at work was on brand for him, but he hated having to come through the garage to get to his place; he yearned to smell something else besides motor oil and brake fluid right before bed. Thankfully, most of the car repairs and servicing happened across at the parking lot at the main garages, and the space below his apartment was used mostly for specialty work on custom build bikes. At the other side of the garage, across from the stairs, was a door that led to the clubhouse used by the Coffin Kings for meetings and socializing, and Eddie hadn’t been doing much of either. Not a single part of him missed his ex, but he did miss the house they’d shared together for less than a year before everything fell apart. There was a farm house out in the country that he had his eye on, and if it ever went up for sale, he’d be the first one in line, but until then—this half-assed studio above a garage would have to do.

He wondered if you ever thought about where you’d want to live. Did you prefer houses or apartments? Did you tend to move around a lot, or would you make Hawkins your home for a while? He wanted to ask you these things, but didn’t want you to feel like he was trying to interrogate or pressure you. His ex always accused him of trying to smother her and “dim her light” and the experience had made him extremely cautious about the words that came out of his mouth when he was around you. He didn’t want to get shouted at or told he was doing it wrong. In his heart, he knew that you were nothing like his ex, but the aftershocks of some traumas had a way of digging their heels in.

He flipped the round lock at the middle of the metal doorknob and hooked the security chain before heading for the stairs. That was when he cocked his head, noticing with a prickle on the back of his neck that the hallway light was on upstairs.

He never turned on that hallway light. Ever.

And then he heard footsteps up above in his apartment.

Goddamn, Eddie thought to himself, he was way too fucking exhausted for this, whatever it was. He just wanted to tug one out to the smell of you that still lingered on his shirt and then pass out, but no. His life was basically a circus, but with no really cute acrobatic animals to love on.

Was it Erica again? She didn’t have a key to his place though, and he couldn’t see her trying to break in, she might ruin her manicure.

With a heavy sigh, he put his palm on the handle of the knife sheathed at his hip and made his way up the steps, ears trained for any more movement from up above.

“Anyone here?” Eddie called out, hoping against hope that no one answered.

He got to the top of the stairs and waited, ears perked, listening to his own breathing, when all of a sudden:

“SURPRISE!”

Eddie’s knife came up with his hand reflexively, his back going flush against the wall at the top of the stairs, as a redheaded woman popped out of his apartment and into the hallway wearing a Michael Myers mask, brandishing a large kitchen knife.

“Oh, shit,” Eddie said on an exhale, lowering his weapon, his heart in his throat. “You crazy? I almost stabbed you.”

Max was laughing, wheezing, tongue pressing out between her teeth as she pulled the mask up and let it rest on the top of her head. “I wish you could’ve seen your face!” She crossed her arms at her stomach and bent over, winded in a laughing spasm. “Damn, that was so good. Did you shit yourself, Munson?”

“Ha. Ha. Ha.” Eddie pushed off the wall and crossed the distance on the wood floor in his heavy boots, wallet chain slapping against his jeans, and then gently took the kitchen knife from her before they exchanged a tight hug. He told her it was good to see her, and then, “how the hell did you get in here, Red?”

She pulled the mask off the top of her head as she followed him into the apartment. “You gave me a key, remember? 4 or 5 years ago, when Lucas and I broke up for a week and I needed a place to crash. That was before I had my rig.”

Oh sure, now he remembered. That was back when the apartment operated as a bit of a flop house for bikers who were too black out drunk to drive home, back when Eddie lived in Chicago for a stint. Lucas, who Max affectionately called “her old man”, was also a patched Coffin King member, but for the Indianapolis chapter. They weren’t married yet, even though Lucas had asked many times. Max had a bad taste in her mouth when it came to marriage, she felt like it was a curse, and so they compromised to be committed. They lived together, they had two dogs and a calico tabby cat that were their babies, and they were close enough that Eddie and Steve and Robin got to see them a couple times a year. Max had been an independent long-haul trucker for the past couple years; she loved the freedom and the power she had behind the wheel.

“Is that your new rig out there?” Eddie asked, unhooking his chain to put his wallet on the dresser.

Max put her fists on her hips, the mask still in one hand, and batted her eyes proudly. “Yep, that’s my new baby Big Red. She’s beautiful, right? Look---” she paused to pull her arm across her body to show Eddie her bicep. “---even had Steve put her in a tattoo for me.” Inked on her skin was her red rig surrounded by daisies. On the inside wrist of that same arm was the outline of a heart with the lettering: L.S + M.M. She was in a tank top and a pair of jean shorts, exposing the bursts of color from other tattoos on her ankle, thigh, and inner forearm. And of course, she had a lower back tattoo.

“You changed your hair,” Eddie said with a tip of his chin as he went around to sit on the bed facing the window to take his boots off. “I like it.”

“See, now,” she threw the mask on the sofa in front of the TV. “It only took you a few minutes to notice I changed the color. It took Lucas days.” It was a much more punk, bolder red than what she’d had her whole life, and so she was a little self-conscious about it, and it felt good to hear his compliment.

Eddie finished untying the first boot as he felt her crawl across the bed toward him, and before he knew it, she had her arms around him in a playful hug. “Eddiiiiiieeee I’ve missed youuuuuuu,” and then she swayed back and forth, taking his body with her.

He patted her arm, grinning; the kids always made him smile. Even though they weren’t kids anymore. Max was...what? 26 or 27 now? “I missed you, too, weirdo. You need to come around more often. Robin said she invited you two to the barbecue a few weeks back?”

She released him to jump off the bed and take a few steps over to plop down on the sofa with a bounce. “Ugh, I was taking a haul to Denver that weekend. I told Lucas to go, but he said he didn’t want to go without me, which is kinda sweet, I guess, but still.”

Eddie shrugged out of his leather with a cringe, his shoulder muscles aching, and then he got up to walk to the kitchen portion of the studio. “Beer? Soda?” He asked, rolling his neck.

She was flat on the sofa, so he couldn’t see her face. “You got any whiskey?”

As a matter of fact, he did, so he poured her a finger, and got himself a beer, and then went to sit in the old green armchair across from her that he had picked up at the Goodwill.

“So,” she sat up to take a sip of her drink with a clench of her teeth and a hiss, eyeballing him. “You gonna tell me who the girl is?”

Eddie looked dumbfounded. “Wait. What do you mean? How did you know?”

Max gestured to the collar of his shirt. “That’s not exactly your shade of red.”

He was still confused, but then he tucked his chin and pulled the front of his shirt out to see that there were two places where your lipstick had smudged, and a smile immediately jerked across his mouth.

“Oh, I know that look,” Max gave an open mouth grin, lifting her eyebrows a few times. “Hearts are gonna be breaking wide open all over the state tonight: Eddie Munson is in love.”

He tried to give her a stern look, but ended up falling miserably as he took a swig of his beer, unable to wipe the smile off of his face. “She’s...we’re just...it’s still new, but…”

Max cackled. “Eds! I need to know everything,” she coaxed, leaning forward. “Do not leave out a single detail.”

He cleared his throat and gave her the cliff notes version of his time with you, proudly showing off the painting you had done for him when he got to that point in the story. He left out the bits about Charlene, because Max was very protective, and he didn't want her to worry.

“Aw, dammit,” Max slapped her forehead. “You mean I would have met her if I’d gone to the barbecue? Now I really am bummed,” she took another sip of her whiskey. “Hey, did you hear about Suzie?”

Eddie cocked his head. “Dustin’s Suzie?”

“Yeah,” Max scratched her arm. “Dustin finally knocked her up. She’s due in a month I think? And they’re wanting to move home, back to Hawkins. Dustin’s mom hasn’t been doing good.”

Come to think of it, Steve had mentioned this to Eddie, but it must’ve slipped to the back of his brain somehow. Steve liked to talk on the phone a lot more than Eddie did, and the past year might as well have bee a few days long for how fast it had gone by.

“Steve’s pretty excited to be a Grandpa, I know that,” Eddie added, the long-standing joke being that Dustin was Steve’s other son: they even had matching nail bat tattoos on their shoulders.

They exchanged stories a bit longer, and then Max yawned.

“You want to take my bed?” Eddie asked. “I can sleep on the couch.”

“Hell no,” Max scoffed. “The bed in my rig is way more comfortable than that brick mattress.”

“Fair enough,” Eddie stood up to walk her out. “You want to get coffee in the morning, or?”

Max scooped up her Michael mask. “I don’t think I’ll have time, I gotta hit the road in a couple hours, actually. But we’ll make a plan to come visit in a few weeks? Maybe we can all get together when Dustin comes home? That would be nice.”

“That would be really nice,” Eddie said, sincerely, putting his boots back on to escort her down to the main door.

She was out of the building and on her way across the parking lot when she spun around. “Hey, tell that new girl of yours that if she breaks your heart, I’ll break her face.”

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“I warned you.” Charlene said, a hiccup of laughter in her voice.

And then, the message continued. “If you don’t know already, that poor girl of yours just got her heart broken, what a shame. And now she has the proof that you’re nothing but a dimestore gigolo who isn’t capable of being faithful to anyone. Sleep well, lover.”

Eddie called your place first, but the line was busy. Every fiber of his being wanted to run over to see you and hold you and tell you that he was being set up. Would you even believe him? He couldn’t though; he couldn’t fathom letting her go on with this bullshit for a moment longer. The fear and anger he felt squeezed his heart like a vise as he scrambled to throw some clothes on, figuring he’d go to your place right after he was done with Charlene. He’d tell you everything: about her threats, how she was to blame for you losing your job. God, what if you ended up hating him anyway for being the reason you got fired? He’d have to risk it, he was done letting this bitch run his life.

The whole getting you fired thing was bad enough, but to actually hurt you? Make you cry?? Eddie saw red in the way he does when he’s about to rip someones throat out and send them to the morgue.

He hated this side of himself. He wasn’t proud of the thoughts he was having as he got dressed, slipping his knife into the leather sheath at his side and putting the brass knuckles in his pocket. Those weapons weren’t for Charlene; they were for the security she hired to be with her 24/7, and he was almost positive they’d have to be dealt with in order to get to her. There was a monster inside of him, deeply breed into his DNA---a cold blooded killer---and it was the tendencies of that monster that he had done his best to keep in shackles most of his life.

His father, Ray Munson, one of the Coffin Kings original founders, would’ve done horrible, unspeakable things to any man or woman who dared to threaten him or do half the things Charlene had done to Eddie. Ray Munson was a bad man. A scary man who made everyone he loved, including his young son, fear for their lives at times.

Looking back, Eddie was glad that Ray went to prison when he did and Wayne was able to raise him, because god only knew where he would be without the aid of a gentle, loving hand. In prison too, for drugs or murder? Dead? Wayne taught him patience, and how to channel his rage through boxing and long rides on his motorcycle; through work and duty and routine. He taught him never to lay hands on a woman.

Jaw muscles clenching, his entire body vibrating, a voice in Eddie’s head told him to call Steve; call someone. Bones? Thumper? Let someone know where he was going, and have them ride with him or wait for him. Let them know the address.

A voice in his gut screamed at him not to go over to her place alone, but he didn’t listen.

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After Eddie took off to go to Charlene’s the message numbers on the answering machine jumped from 1 to 6 in the dark of his apartment as you continued to call, fully justified in deserving some kind of explanation from him. The more he didn’t answer, the more it somehow confirmed his guilt, to the point that it was starting to really piss you off. To the point that you finally just screamed FUCK THIS aloud, slammed the phone down, and went to grab your jean jacket and keys, deciding to go find him. “I’m coming for you, Eddie Munson,” you said under your breath with a curse.

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As Eddie revved his bike and pulled up to the side gate at Charlene’s, flanked by thick trees, he was not shocked to find three of Lucifer’s Own, a rival biker gang, guarding the gate, almost as if they were waiting there for him, expecting him. 3 to 1 odds didn’t faze Eddie one bit, especially with the amount of adrenaline pumping through his body at the moment. He parked his chopper on the other side of the quiet street and walked across, heavy boots clapping the pavement, wallet chain slapping his thigh.

One of the guys, the shorter one with the thick head of black hair, black leather chaps, and an orange bandanna around his neck, made his way over to meet Eddie after a lone car passed between them.

His hand was up with his palm out. “Listen bro, I know we’ve got beef, but I like your uncle, so I’m gonna give you a chance to walk away.”

“I need to talk to Charlene,” Eddie said, continuing his trajectory forward.

“Bro, are you deaf? She doesn’t want to see y----”

But he couldn’t finish because Eddie cracked him in the jaw with a brass knuckle. He had exchanged his rings for the duster because it gave him more support and there was less of a chance of breaking his fingers or hand.

Knocked out, the guy sank to the ground like a wet rag, and Eddie stepped over his body, flexing his hands, ready for the next two. Both wearing their biker cuts, one was tall, young, and pale with a nose pushed flat against his face like it had been broken 8 times, and the other one was stocky with a gray beard.

The taller one started screaming and charged at Eddie, yanking a knife from inside his vest, arms flailing. Eddie dodged the first swing of the knife as it came, blocked the second attempt with his arm, chopped the kid in the throat, and then rocked him with an upper cut. The tall one stumbled back, bleeding, dazed, and he dropped his knife, so Eddie picked it up and threw it over his shoulder.

“I can take you, Munson,” the guy with the gray beard and the meaty hands said with a snort. The older members of the clubs were always tough, grisly old bastards who had seen and done a lot. He had one fist up to guard his face and the other held his knife, ready to swipe. Eddie slipped his knife out of its holster, twirled it around in his fingers a few times, and gave the guy a tilt of his chin. They engaged in a bit of a knife dance for a bit, both swiping and missing, while Eddie patiently waited until he was able to swing his long arm in a left hook to the side of the dudes head. While the guy was still stunned, Eddie jammed the tip of his knife in to his shoulder and the guy howled in pain, and then Eddie stomped his foot against the side of his knee to make him go down.

The only problem was, Eddie had lost sight of the first guy he’d knocked out, and that one was on his feet now, and hooking his arm around Eddie from behind to try and get him in a chokehold. Taken by surprise, Eddie reeled back, and the skinny kid got in a few swings at Eddie’s gut and face while the other guy held him; the guy punching had rings on and Eddie started to bleed, a cut opening on his cheek.

Eddie planted his feet and bent forward, sending the guy flying in the air over his head, crashing into the old guy who was trying to stand up.

That was when it happened: the tall kid, who was relentless as hell, pulled out a knife from his boot, and came in fast from the side to stab it into Eddie’s stomach.

Eddie grunted as it sank in, and then the kid yanked it out and Eddie’s hand flew to the spot at his side where blood was already wetting the webs of his fingers. The kid looked worried, not because he’d just stabbed someone, but because Eddie looked like he was about to murder him.

With a growl, Eddie tackled the kid to the pavement, and secured a bloody hand around his throat as he pounded his face into the ground over and over again until he turned the kid’s lights out. Eddie found his footing to stand up with a cringe and a hiss, feeling the warm wetness soak his shirt, knowing it was bad, but not wanting to look at it.

Eddie had to punch the older guy in the gut one more time before all three stopped their advances; two of them were unconscious and the older dude was on his ass trying not to puke.

The security camera above the gate was pointed right at him, and he knew that Charlene had watched the whole thing from the safety of her mansion. Eddie shook his head slowly back and forth, making eye contact with her through the lens, his chest heaving, his eyes going black. He pressed as hard as he could onto the wound, and limped over to the intercom.

He pushed the white button on the small black box and put his mouth to the speaker. “Charlene!”

He stepped back to look up, and the mechanical arm rotated the camera to meet his gaze. He screamed her name into the electronic eye so that she could see how deathly serious he was about his anger: she had never witnessed this side of him before.

He went back to the intercom and pushed the button again. “I’ll come here every night and beat all of your security guards bloody if I have to. I won’t let you hurt her anymore.”

Warm, viscous blood oozed between his fingers and he new he had to get somewhere else before he got lightheaded on his bike and crashed. It was a good thing Charlene decided to hide because he would’ve put his hands around her throat and never stopped squeezing until she was dust.

One more push on the button, leaving a bloody fingerprint this time. “If you want a war, Charlene, you fucking got it.”

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Eddie wasn’t at his apartment. His bike was gone and the windows in his place were dark, and you wandered in circles for a bit in the parking lot, letting out a few good, frustrated screams, before getting back in your car. You had the music on listening to Something I can never have by Nine Inch Nails, and a strange force compelled you to start aimlessly driving around to places you thought Eddie might be. You checked down around the Velvet Hammer again, over at The Hideout, and then up over the hill where he took the scenic route on his bike, and then wound back around to the road that let to Munson’s Garage again. You’d camp out in his doorway if you had too; you weren’t going to let him ignore you.

But then, with a catch in your breath, you saw him: one car ahead of you, he pulled out from a stop sign. You’d know that long hair and big chrome bike anywhere. The car at the stop in front of you took too long to go and you honked, frustrated that you would lose him. After another stop, you came up behind him, noticing that he swayed a little on the bike, almost losing control for a second, which was not like Eddie; him and that bike were like one entity. He took a country back road, and you kept at a safe distance, wondering why he was going so slow. You noticed after a while that he wasn’t heading for the garage—you weren’t sure where he was going until you recognized the familiar street signs from the neighborhood Steve and Robin lived in.

You turned your head lights off a few cars away, as he parked the bike crooked, and then he fell.

He just went right down flat, one half of his body on their lawn, and the other half still on the sidewalk.

“Eddie!” You yelled, slamming your car door. You were running now, panic lighting a fire in your veins. Something was very, very wrong.

You skidded to your knees once you got close to him, clutching at his big shoulders to try and roll him over.

“Eddie, Eddie? Baby? Are you okay? Eddie!” You turned him over so that his head flopped into your lap, and then you gasped at how pale his skin was. Pieces of his hair clung to a bleeding gash on his cheek, and as your hand went lower, you felt his blood-soaked shirt that not immediately visible at night in his dark clothing, and you caught the scent of a coppery tang.

There were no lights on in their house, but you didn’t think you could carry Eddie all by yourself, and you didn’t want to leave him alone to go and find a phone. “STEVE! ROBIN! HELP!” You checked his face just as his eyes fluttered open to look at you, his lips sticky as he said your name.

“It’s okay, you’re okay,” you assured him, stoking hair back from his wet, clammy forehead, rocking him ever so softly. You sniffed back tears, “you’re gonna be okay, baby, I’m here. I’m here, baby, you’re doing good. Look at me.”

One of the lights snapped on in the house. “CALL AN AMBULANCE!” You screamed to whoever had just woken up. Across the street, someone else turned their lights on as well.

Eddie’s bloody hand grabbed your arm weakly as he struggled to talk, his voice a scratchy whisper. “No...no hospital,” he begged.

You stroked his hair and kept talking to him and by then, Robin and Steve were racing toward you from the house.

“Fuckfuckfuck fuck...Eddie! Man, what happened?” Steve bleated as he scanned Eddie’s body, his eyes blowing wide when he noticed the wound. “Was is the Reapers? The Villains? I’ll go fucking ape shit on their asses!” He exchanged a dire look with Robin that made you choke on your saliva and tears all at once. Steve took his shirt off and ordered for you to press it against the wound as hard as you could to help stop the bleeding.

The last thing Eddie saw before he blacked out completely was your face, and he was so out of it, that if he had been able to speak, he would’ve told you that he loved you before it was too late.

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A woman they called Astrid showed up at the house not 20 minutes later; she was the only person Eddie and Steve trusted for such an occasion. Robin had to calm you down from mild hysterics though, while you washed Eddie’s blood off your hands in the sink, because you were worried that if they didn’t get him to the hospital that he would die. Eddie was on the sofa atop several blankets, drifting in and out of consciousness, white as a sheet. You had helped Steve bandage up his side as much as possible, but he had already lost so much blood.

Robin grabbed your shoulders, shaking you gently. “Listen, Astrid will take care of him, okay? We trust her. The boys have known her for a long time, she’s a healer. She patches up boys at the fights all the time.”

“Robin!” You whispered curtly, your bloodshot eyes filling with tears. “He needs medical attention, not lavender oil and a vinegar douche!”

You immediately apologized for raising your voice at her, but she understood.

When Astrid stepped in the front door on a sandalwood breeze, you instantly felt calmed by the confidence she exuded. She had long, black hair and honey-cinnamon skin, with dark almond eyes that seemed to hold knowledge that was somehow ancient. She had a freshly scrubbed, dewy look about her with minimal makeup, and she seemed to be a few years older than the boys; either in years or wisdom or both. She wore a long, flowing black dress with red stitching, a cream shawl, and a necklace with a sigil around her throat. She had a medical bag with her that looked like it was from the 1940’s, and Oliver ran out to hug her when she arrived, pushing his tiny face into her skirt. Steve hugged her too, and they exchanged a kiss on the mouth before everyone got out of her way so she could get to work figuring out what she was dealing with.

The whole group exhaled a ragged breath after she cleaned the wound announced that the knife only pierced his side and it hadn’t grazed any organs. He’d need stitches though, and apparently Astrid had the tools and the skill for all that. She had a whole chest full of tinctures and natural salves, as well as a stash of modern medicines like pain killers and antibiotics.

Robin used her eyes to plead with you to distract Oliver with some art projects as she did her best to corral him back to his room, and you were happy to oblige, but you kept coming out every so often to pace the living room to check on Eddie, who was as comfortable as he could be in a morphine haze. You let Katie know what was going on and she asked if she could help, so Astrid requested some extra gauze and bandages. Robin fell into Katie’s arms the second she stepped in the sliding glass door holding grocery bags, wearing cut-off jean shorts and one of Robin’s Sleater-Kinney t-shirts. Robin let go of a few sobs into her shoulder that she’d been holding in for Oliver’s sake.

At one point you came out to get a glass of water because Ollie was finally tucked in bed with droopy eyes and asking for Robin to read him a story, and you caught sight of Steve kissing the back of Astrid’s head and stroking her hair while she tended to Eddie’s cheek wound. He hovered near her every chance he got, and you wondered what was going on there.

“They’ve been close since Steve was a kid,” Robin whispered an answer to your thoughts from behind you in the kitchen, referring to Astrid and Steve. “Her mom and Wayne used to have a thing back in the day.”

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Steve was in the kitchen making coffee by the time Astrid packed her things up to leave. His worn Levi’s were cuffed at his heavy, black boots, and he had on a white t-shirt that was so thin, you could see the landscape of his tattooed skin underneath. The adrenaline of the evening was wearing off and everyone’s eyes were drooping, feet dragging.

“I’m going to close my eyes for an hour or two before I have to go to work,” Robin announced, standing up from the kitchen table. She turned to Katie and held her hand out, “come be my big spoon?”

You’d been waiting for hours to be able to touch Eddie and be close to him again, and you finally had your chance now that he was out of the woods, but just then, Astrid came around to greet you, her dark eyes bright and curious as they met yours.

“You must be the one,” she offered, her full lips pressing together in a dimpled smile. “The one who will heal his heart.”

You were about to greet her in a normal way, so her words took you off guard and made you stutter a bit. “Do I...have we met before?”

The two of you exchanged a handshake, and introduced yourselves. Astrid’s hands were soft but surprisingly strong.

“In dreams, perhaps,” she answered, as if it were a common place to meet people. There was a unique, ornate red ruby ring on her right ring finger. “But, also, Steve told me about you.”

“Oh,” you lowered your head shyly, honored that you’d be mentioned to such a trusted family friend. “Well, I’m pretty fond of all of them. They’re growing on me.”

Astrid came in close, searching your eyes with a soft lift of her mouth, holding her medical bag in front of her with both hands. “Be gentle with this one...he’s been waiting a long time for you. He’s thick-headed, but his heart has nothing but the best intentions.”

You didn’t have to ask to know she was talking about Eddie. You wondered what Astrid saw in her crystal ball about why he had lied to you and disrespected you in regards to the photo evidence of him being player of the year. You were struggling to find good intentions there. Alas, this was not the time or the place for your ego or hurt feelings; you would be grateful to Astrid for the rest of your life after how tirelessly she had worked to take care of Eddie, and you told her that.

Steve was waiting a few yards away at the mouth of the kitchen to walk Astrid out to her truck. You watched as he intertwined his fingers with hers and kissed her, holding her close as they walked, whispering words of affection in her ear.

Fade into You by Mazzy Star played low from the radio mounted under one of the cabinets in the kitchen as you were finally able to make your way across the living room to Eddie. Even though you were feeling a lot better about his prognosis than you had when you first found him, it was still hard to see the bandages and gauze wrapped around his belly. Astrid left some antibiotics and pain meds with instructions, and advised that he’d be in and out of sleep and a bit groggy for a while. He needed supervision to make sure he wasn’t getting a fever, and to keep the wound clean, but if he didn’t improve, a hospital would be necessary.

He had fresh linens beneath him, and the blood had been diligently sponged away from his skin. There was also a big sheet of painters plastic at the very bottom of the blankets to protect the couch and carpet. You stood above him for a few seconds to take it all in: his dark, wavy hair was fanned out over the Star Wars pillow case, and his mouth hung open a bit, lips slightly dry, eyelids closed, but you could see his eyeballs dancing on the inside as if he were in the middle of a lucid dream.

The area under his eye above where his cheek had been cut was all bruised, there were a couple stitches in his cheek, and your gaze trailed down the dark tattoos along his strong chest, arms, and stomach, landing on the bandaged area where the knife wound was on the left side, above his hip, cut into a large dragon tattoo with a spade tail that whipped out over his bellybutton. You knelt down and hovered your hand over the bandages, feeling the heat emanating from it as his body worked over time to repair the damage.

You watched his chest move up and down with each breath, and that was comforting to you, helping you to remember with each inhale that he was still with you. Some of his fingers were taped up; his knuckles red with bits of skin torn off. You leaned your stomach against the couch and took hold of his hand that was closest to you, pulling it to your mouth. You planted tender kisses onto each knuckle, and then to the tip of each fingertip. You had your eyes closed, holding the back of his hand to your cheek, when you felt his fingers reflexively clamp down onto yours, and you looked up to see that his eyes were open, just barely, long dark eyelashes fluttering.

“Baby?” He muttered, voice scratchy, lips barely moving. “You…okay?”

You swallowed hard smiled at him, and it was a smile removed of any pain or doubt or sadness; it was just pure happiness to hear his voice.

“I’m okay, Eddie,” you reassured him, even though you were unwilling to return the use of a pet name. “Don’t you worry about me, I just need you back on your feet.”

He looked like he was using every ounce of his strength to speak, his voice nothing but a rasp. “Baby...I’m sorry. I didn’t---”

You softly shushed him and stroked his jawline with your thumb as you held his hand. “It’s okay, it’s okay...shushhhh...just get better for me, that’s all I want. We’ll talk about it all later.”

Truly, things were not okay. But, there would be a time and a place to deal with all of that, and you were a patient woman. The saddest thing, the thing that twisted in your gut like stage fright, was the fact that—no matter how much you cared about this man, no matter how right it felt with him, there was no way you could be with someone you didn’t trust. Even if he confessed to whatever he did with those women and came clean, there would always be the lie—the lie would always exist, and you could forgive, but you would never forget.

His eyes drifted closed again, and in less than a minute, you felt his hand go limp in your grasp as his breathing returned to that of someone entering a deep sleep cycle. You stretched his arm carefully across his body, and sat there on your knees looking at him for a bit longer before you got to your feet.

When Steve got back from saying his goodbyes to Astrid, you asked him if he needed you to stay for a couple hours and look after Eddie so that he could take a nap. Steve was wide awake, though, and was about to have his fourth cup of coffee, and he asked when your shift at the Hammer was.

“Four,” you told him, checking the clock in the kitchen. “I should go check on my cat and eat something.”

Steve gave your outfit a look over his coffee cup. “And shower and change your clothes, maybe.”

You looked down, startled for some reason to see dried blood on your shirt and thigh of your jeans. You had washed your hands several times, but there was still remnants of Eddie’s blood in the moons around your cuticles and the crook of your elbow.

“Oh, I don’t know,” you shrugged. “I think some of the bar patrons would kind of dig this look, actually.”

Steve snort-laughed at that, lip pulling up to expose his pearly whites with the exception of one gold incisor.

“But really,” you continued. “I can come by before work? Just call me if you need anything?”

Steve licked coffee from his lips. “Robin only works a few hours at the hotel, and Astrid will be checking in on him later. You go do your thing. You’ve done a lot already,” Steve tilted his head up on the inhale appraising you down the end of his nose. “Alls I can say is, Eddie’s a lucky man to have you in his corner.”

You bit your cheek and squeezed the defined muscles of his forearm in silent thanks as you walked by him.

“Oh, shit, wait,” Steve called to you, patting the pockets of his jeans as he turned to you with a look of concentration on his face. “That reminds me, some dude was asking about you at the bar yesterday. He left his card for you.”

“Oh?” Your mind raced trying to imagine who that could’ve been while Steve plucked the business card out of his back pocket.

“Yeah, he said you waited on him the other day. Older guy, sick blue eyes, like a comic book character.” Steve continued as he looked at the card and then passed it to you. “He said he bought a painting from you once and he wanted to commission another one.”

You stared at the card without breathing for a bit as your brain connected the man who had tipped you a hundred dollar bill with the name...John Gregson…

Was this really happening? Was he Charlene’s husband? Surely, that was too much of a coincidence. Maybe he was a brother-in-law or an entirely different family altogether. You didn’t know of any other wealthy Gregson’s in town, though, come to think of it.

“I figured you could use the cash, dude looked like he was loaded,” Steve continued, but you were having an out of body experience as you connected the dots.

Steve lowered his head to try and meet your gaze. “Is he cool? Or should I crack his head in next time I see him?”

You snapped out of it and shook your head. “No, this is great, Steve, you’re the best,” you held the card up. “I really appreciate this, you did good. Thank you.”

You didn’t want the chance of losing the card, so you stuck it in your bra as you took one final look at Eddie before exiting out the sliding door.

-----------

After his afternoon tennis match, John Gregson sat poolside under a yellow and white striped umbrella in his swim trunks while he read the paper. He’d hoped to enjoy some time alone, but it wasn’t long before he heard the clip-clop of Charlene’s heels on the cement as she approached him from the pool house. She had on a one-piece gold swimsuit that was low in the chest and high on the hips under a blue silk Kimono, and a wide brim straw hat. He did not acknowledge her when she sat down and continued to read his paper as he held it out in front of him.

A member of their staff followed Charlene to the table and she told them she wanted Perrier with lime as she brought out a nail file and started to work on her claws.

“Have you decided what you’re going to put in that big empty space on the wall in the den? It looks dreadful as it is.”

John licked his thumb and turned the page. “I do have something in mind, as a matter of fact. I’m having a piece of art commissioned for that space.”

Charlene stopped filing, her eyes darting up from her fingers. “When were you going to tell me about this?”

He finally turned so that her face was reflected in the mirror surface of his aviator sunglasses. “I’m telling you about it right now, Charlene.”

She put her nail file down on the table and sat back in her chair. “Which gallery are you commissioning it from? Because I promised Judith that I’d---”

“I’m not purchasing it from a gallery,” he interrupted, taking a sip of his iced coffee.

After 25 years together, what they had at that point was strictly a marriage of convenience. Convenient because Charlene would never make it on her own, and convenient for John because he had been nothing but a goofy, pussy-drunk kid when he married her, and hadn’t even considered a prenuptial agreement.

“Well,” Charlene intoned as a member of their staff brought her Perrier with ice in a glass and a straw. They poured it for her and it crackled in the glass. “I’d like to know what is going in there since I’ll be forced to look at it every day.”

“You rarely go into the den, Char,” he returned with a sigh, eyes scanning the pages.

John knew about Charlene’s other lovers and boyfriends; of course he knew, he wasn’t stupid. But it never bothered him because that meant he could do whatever he wanted, too, and he hadn’t had sex with Charlene in almost 5 years.

“You don’t have to be such an asshole about this, John,” Charlene hissed across the table at him while she slipped her over-sized sunglasses on. “It’s just that I’m a big deal in the art community, and I think I should know who my husband is buying artwork from. I don’t want you to embarrass me.”

Calmly, John took another sip of his coffee. “I’ll tell you about it once she agrees to do it.”

“Cancel the commission, don’t go through with it. I’ll buy us a piece from---”

John slammed his fist down on the table, causing everything on the surface to jump, and two empty glasses fell and shattered. “Charlene! I don’t want to hear another word,” he pulled his sunglasses down his nose so that she could see his cold blue eyes, and he pointed a finger at her with each syllable to emphasize his point. “Do you understand me? Not one more goddamn word.”

Charlene’s eyes bulged behind her sunglasses.

“Telephone call for you, Mrs. Gregson,” a member of the staff interrupted, handing her a Motorolla flip phone with a big antennae.

“Yes?” Charlene frowned at John as she took the phone. Her face lit up when she realized who it was on the other end. She got to her feet, knocking her chair over, and didn’t stop to pick it up as she walked away.

She kept her voice low as she headed toward the rose garden, one hand on her hip. “I guess you got my message,” she paused while the man on the other end said a few things. “I have another job for you.”

-------------

You weren’t able to fit a tiny snooze in that day before work because your mind wouldn’t stop racing. You got in the car only to realize you had put eye shadow and mascara on one eye, but not the other, so, you had to go back in and fix that. When Katie got home, she let you know that Eddie had been up to use the restroom and he didn’t have a fever, which was all fantastic news.

Also, she said that he had been asking about you.

“He was still tired and drugged up, but every time he opened his eyes, he’d ask where you were and if you were okay,” Katie told you. Of course, you and Katie were still both under the impression that Eddie was a lying, cheating scoundrel, and so you were taking his yearning for you with a bittersweet grain of salt.

“Did you ask Robin about it? The other women, I mean?”

“Sorry, babes, I didn’t have time. She was running late and had to leave in a hurry. I’ll ask her if she knows anything tonight, though.”

“It’s not a big deal,” you said, but also—it was a very big deal. “As soon as we know that Eddie is completely on the mend, I’ll have a talk with him. I mean, the evidence is pretty damning, but he still deserves a chance to explain himself.”

Katie leaned over and put her elbows on the kitchen island, resting her chin on her fists. “Does any man deserve it?”

You threw your bag over your shoulder as you headed for the door. “Eddie does. I hope so, anyway.”

--------

Shana was behind the bar that night, and Steve would be bouncing later, and you felt comforted by the promise of friendly faces a midst feeling emotionally put through the ringer and perpetually on the verge of tears. You were mad at Eddie and still hurt, but also worried sick about him. The thought of losing him put you in a very dark head space. The song Tonight Tonight by The Smashing Pumpkins came on the jukebox and you thought you were going to drop a tray of drinks and start sobbing right there in the middle of the happy hour rush. The secondhand smoke was especially thick that night as you coughed into your arm and cleaned out the ashtrays at the bar.

You were chugging a Pepsi in the back room, telling one of the dancers how tired you were, and she very kindly offered you a line of blow, but you declined. On your way back out from your break, you spotted none other than Erika coming in the front door, and you cursed, taking a sharp inhale of breath, continuing on with your work, planning to ignore her for however long she was staying.

To your horror, she made eye contact with you, and she didn’t look like she was happy to see you, either, but still, she started walking over to the hallway where you were. She had on a pink glitter dress, a faux diamond studded choker, and clear, stiletto heels. She was with two other girls who were dressed similar, and you watched her wave them away to get a table.

God, you rolled your eyes internally, you did not want to be dealing with this right now. What was Erika coming over to do? Gloat? To remind you that she would always get a piece of Eddie, no matter how many promises he made you?

In a huff, you grabbed your tray and bolted to move around her, but she stepped in your way.

“I heard that Eddie got hurt. Is he gonna be alright?” She asked.

Dead ass? Really? You didn’t owe her any Eddie news. “I’m working, Erika, please get out of my way.”

“Listen, girlie,” Erika touched your arm, and you looked down at her hand as if it were covered in feces, and recoiled. “I know we don’t like each other, but there’s something I need to tell you. It’s really been fucking with me, because I do care about Eddie, no matter what you think.” She liked to jut her chin out from side to side for emphasis as she talked.

What was this bitch on about? Telling you how much she cared about Eddie? Was she for real?

You swallowed, trying to keep your composure in front of the other customers. “Erika, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll get out of my face right now, I’m serious.”

She clucked her tongue and lifted her hands in surrender, letting you move passed her, but then she said: “Eddie was set up, okay?”

You froze; your entire body prickling with goose flesh.

Cautiously, you met her eyes again, a tremble on your parted lips, an ocean crashing in your ears.

“Did you get some photos of me at Eddie’s place?” she crossed her arms at her chest. “Yeah, well, he didn’t want me there, okay? Some guy paid me to go up to his apartment and force myself on him. Some scary lady named Charlene set it all up.”

You were listening, but you were also fading away.

“You gotta understand, I was mad at Eddie when I agreed to do it, but he’s always been good to me, and I wish I could take it back,” she continued.

Swaying on your feet, your vision became a pinwheel of color as you listened to her words, and then blackness closed in around your peripheral vision until it exploded in an electric burst. The next thing you knew, you were falling, and you hoped that the ground caught you before you tumbled in a free fall into outer space.

Part 10

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Thank you so much for those of you who have made it this far in the series, y'all make this world a joy to create, and I can't wait to see what it next for us ❤️

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my tagged lovelies:@mmunson86 @tenthmoon @notsobubblybaby @truffleshuffle12 @aysheashea @etherealglimmer @manicmagicmayhem @dream-a-little-nightmare @hellv1ra @ms1oftheboys @bexreadstoomuch @emxcast @lma1986 @kurdtbean @miarosso @falling-solar-system @seventhlevelofhell @whatwedontdointheshadows @corrodedcoffincumslut @lofaewrites @nope-thanks @stylesxmunson @ireidsmut @tlclick73 @lilpostatobean2 @hideoutside @munsons-mayhem28 @eddiemunson95 @micheledawn1975 @dandelionnfluff @sidthedollface2 @leilalaufeyson02 @kelsiegrin @layla-loves-ed @unfocused81

#eddie munson series #older eddie munson #bikereddiemunson #eddiemunsonfic #90s au #steve harrington #bikersteve #eddie munson smut #i'm on fire #eddie munson x fem reader #fem reader

[xxbimbobunnyxx]

I went down a deep deep Pinterest hole last night looking for photos for my Home Screen but I kept seeing pics that reminded me of @munsonology Biker!Eddie x Nunny so I started saving them and this was born ✝️🩸

#bikereddiemunson #biker!eddie munson #nun!reader #eddie munson moodboard

[bettyfrommars]

I'm on Fire//biker!older!Eddie x fem!artist!Reader//biker!Steve//90's au//Part 10

🚨18+Only, smut, oral (m receiving), talk of erection, size kink, swallowing, biker gang, biker!Eddie, biker!Steve, talk of drug use, threats, talk of violence, financial trouble, mention of jail, smoking cigarettes, alcohol consumption, trouble at home, co-parents!Stobin, suggested custody issues, angst, underlying fear of retaliation. Word count: 8.7k

This is mostly just a sweet lil chapter to heal some wounds, right before some old wounds start opening.

Series Masterlist

A/N: I tried to make this part completely void of angst, but alas, I did not succeed. I'm working on a summertime one shot idea for the boys to go to a bike rally with all of the shenanigans that could possibly ensue; it should be a wild one. Big love to my beta @michellecrusher for deciding that this chapter could use a touch of smut.

As always, I'm honored to be on this ride with you and look forward to any and all interactions. Comments, messages, reblogs; it all means so much to me and is what keeps this little world going ❤️‍🔥

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I'm on Fire Part 10: I got a bad desire

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Landing with your face on the puke-stained, beer dribbled carpet of the Velvet Hammer, dusted in a sprinkle of cigarette ash, was not how you wanted to start your evening. You hadn’t even realized you hit the ground until you heard Steve’s voice demanding everyone get the fuck out of his way as he parted bodies to get to you.

And then, Erika’s voice: “I don’t know what happened...she just...fell. I promise, I didn’t touch her!”

People were murmuring around you and Steve was saying your name as you started to come back to reality, taking a deep inhale, blinking back to life. He knelt and propped you up into a sitting position, and that was when the embarrassment of what had just happened began to wash over you, making you wish that a hole in the ground would swallow you up.

“Do you think you can stand?” Steve asked while his big hands found positions under your arms in preparation to lift you up. You turned your head to look at him; his wayfarer sunglasses had fallen from the top of his head to the tip of his nose, and they were about to slip off, but his concern was more with not letting you go.

“What happened?” He asked as he pulled you to your feet, taking a second to grab the sunglasses off his face and throw them on the bar. “Did someone push you?”

“Please. Get me out of here,” you begged as one of your arms went around his shoulders, and one of his hands secured itself at your waist.

He set you down on a chair in front of the employee lockers and told you he’d get someone to cover the door for him while he took you home, or he’d see if one of the girls could stop by.

With your hands between your knees and your shoulders slumped, you began to come to terms with everything as he picked up the phone in the office.

“Wait,” you stopped him. “I can’t afford to miss a day of work, Steve, I’ll be fine. Just...just give me a second to catch my breath.”

Steve understood what a hard spot that was to be in; he lived it almost every day of his life. He put the receiver back down on the cradle.

“What did that bitch say to you?” Steve asked, putting his foot up on the bench.

You shook your head. “That’s just it, she’s not a bitch,” you chewed your lip. “She just saved me from making a huge mistake. I owe her.”

Steve was on his way back out to the floor when you called to him. “Hey, does Eddie have any female friends who are redheads, that you know of? Really pretty, tattoo on her bicep? Someone he’d feel comfortable enough with to let stay at his place?”

Steve popped his knee out and put his hands on his hips, frowning. “No one that he’s...dated, I don’t think,” he rubbed his chin in thought. “But there’s Max, she’s more like a sister to us. I just tattooed her a few weeks ago. Her hair was like a bright, candy red. Why do you ask?”

You turned away from Steve and squeezed your eyes shut, a sob caught in your throat. The sudden rush of relief at so many groundbreaking realizations had your emotions on the verge of short-circuiting. Eddie still had quite a bit of explaining to do, but the tight bud of your heart was blooming like a rose in your chest once again, full of hope.

----------

Meanwhile, Eddie was officially going stir crazy. “I need to get out of this house,” he told Robin has he hitched through the kitchen, careful not to put too much weight on the hip was right below his wound. He was wearing his jeans unbuttoned, so they hung a bit low, bangs swept across his forehead, and one of Steve’s white wife beaters that was too small for him. The thin material exposed the tattoos on his chest and stomach, as well as the ones scattered from neck to hands. He’d spent the afternoon watching cartoons with Oliver, which was enjoyable, but relaxing and sitting still for long periods of time just wasn’t in his DNA.

Also, he wasn’t sure if it was an affect of the morphine, but he’d had another one of his nightmares early that morning, before dawn, and shouted himself awake, covered in sweat. It was the same dream that had tortured him off and on for over a decade; the one where he’s being attacked by a swarm of flesh-eating bat creatures, they’re all taking big bite out of his flesh, and he wakes up to the feeling of choking on his own blood.

“Over my dead body,” Robin challenged, moving from the stove with a wooden spoon covered in macaroni and cheese in her hand.

Eddie’s eyes traveled to the spoon and then back to her face. “That can be arranged.”

“Seriously, dude,” her shoulders sank. “Don’t make me hog tie you to the couch. I promised Astrid we’d keep an eye on you for another night.”

“I have a business to run, Rob,” he said as he hobbled over to grab his leather from the back of the one of the dining chairs. “If this were a hospital, they would’ve kicked me to the curb by now.”

Robin went back to the stove to stir the powdered cheese in with the noodles. She knew that no one could stop him if he wanted to go, and she really couldn’t blame him.

With her back to him she said, “if you end up getting some type of infection and your foot falls off, I won’t ever forgive you.”

Oliver came trotting out from the other room to say goodbye, and he raised his arms for Eddie to pick him up, which he did—and Robin glanced over just in time to see the grimace of pain flash across Eddie’s face as he settled the boy on the wrong hip at first before switching him to the other side. She shook her head, certain he would pop his stitches by the end of the day.

“Steve brought your bike up the hill,” she let him know, while she packed up some medications for him to take. “Your girlfriend is at work by now, I believe.”

Eddie’s eyes snapped to hers as he put Oliver down. “Why’d you call her that?”

“Isn’t she?” Robin challenged, raising her eyebrow. “I can tell you knew exactly who I was talking about.”

Eddie couldn’t help the smile that twitched across his lips.

----------

The Velvet Hammer was packed that night, and by the end of your shift, after very little food, no sleep, and one blackout, you were a bit wobbly on your feet. Steve had to work as security for a while longer, since there was a bachelor party in attendance that was getting a bit rowdy, but he demanded you let him walk you to your car while he had a smoke.

“So, I like Astrid,” you told him. He held out his cigarette to offer you a drag, but you declined with a wave of your hand. “What’s going on with you two?”

“Going on?” Steve put the cig to his lips with thumb and forefinger.

You adjusted your bag on your shoulder as you made room for a group of people to pass on the sidewalk. “You know what I mean,” you insisted, knowing full well that he did. “You two seemed really close last night. I was just curious.”

“Oh, I’m fuckin’ in love with her,” Steve announced with a shrug, as if it were common knowledge. “We just don’t have a conventional relationship, I guess. No one seems to understand it but us.”

You wondered, sincerely, how many women Steve had been in love with in his life. But, you could tell that there was, indeed, something special about the connection he had with Astrid. You wondered if Eddie looked at you the way Steve had looked at her last night.

Steve hung around to make sure you got in your car okay, and then you chuckled to yourself as he sauntered off, flirting with a group of women who were walking by, asking them to come by the bar and keep him company. You were about to maneuver your way out of the precarious parallel spot you were wedged in when your eyes locked on a piece of folded paper held to the windshield under one of the wipers.

At first, you thought it was ticket of some sort, like maybe you were in a no parking zone or something. But then, at closer examination, you realized it was made with blue-lined notebook paper.

It was a handwritten note.

The street was fairly busy that night with cars zooming around town, so you were cautious as you dashed out to pinch it free and pull it back into the safety of the car with you.

It was a...little paper origami duck? Or some kind of bird? You turned it around, inspecting the intricately folded parts, giggling curiously as you did so. You unfastened the delicate edges, careful not to rip it in haste. Finally, you were able to press a flat, albeit crumpled, half sheet of paper against your steering wheel, your heart shot into your throat, melting there like a fat stick of butter.

It was from Eddie:

I miss you. Come to my place so we can talk? It doesn’t matter how late.

-- E

P.S. Oliver wants to make this into a swan for you

Hopeful tears pooled at your lash line and you checked your watch; it was just after 11:30. Surely, they’d be keeping him at Steve’s for another night? But, if so, he would’ve said that and not, specifically “his place”. You tried to fold it back exactly the way it was, failed miserably, and ended up folding it in half without messing up any of the edges to place it safely in your middle console.

For a few seconds as you sat in your car with the radio on, listening to Nearly Lost You by The Screaming Trees, you wondered if you should play hard to get, if maybe rushing over to his place was not the right game to play. But really, truly, you didn’t give a shit about any of that.

You were blinking excessively and yawning, and you had this feeling like, if you rested your head back against the seat, you’d fall asleep right there in your car. But, you took a few deep breaths and patted your cheeks. You brought a can of Coke in your bag from the bar and cracked it open to guzzle some of it, thinking maybe you’d need to go home first and change? Or go straight to Eddie’s? Fall asleep in your car was still an option.

Fuck.

-----------

Earlier that day, around 5 o’clock, Eddie hissed as he dismounted his bike at the garage, clutching his side, trying to mask the spasm of pain, only to see Wayne watching him from the main garage. His uncle nodded in greeting, just wanting to make sure Eddie was okay, as he wiped his hands, and then turned around to finish what he was working on. So much of the communication they shared was silent, but understood.

He had the note in his pocket that Oliver had made into an origami animal, and he wanted to tidy up his place a bit before he did some work, just in case you did actually come over. If you didn’t, he wouldn’t blame you—it had been an especially long 24 hours. But, damn, he really needed to see you, to try and fix whatever had gone wrong, if he even could.

He still didn’t know what Charlene had done to upset you, but his mind reeled with the possibilities.

Eddie had ripped the bandage off his cheek on the way over, so there was just an angry gash there with a few stitches holding it together like a twist tie to a bunch of hammers, and he didn’t realize how much he resembled Frankenstein’s Monster until the new office assistance choked on her soda at the sight of him.

“Rough night?” She asked. Her name was Dana and she’d worked at garages before, but never for one that was affiliated with an MC.

“You could say that,” Eddie returned as he headed over to one of the metal filing cabinets to look for something.

Dana had a few “while you were out” slips of paper she had filled out with phone numbers and people who had wanted to speak with Eddie or Wayne, and she went over them with him while she chewed a red piece of gum.

She finished the last one and then, “oh, yeah, and someone called here looking for a…” she checked the piece of paper. “...Steve Harrington?”

Eddie nodded, taking something he needed out of the file before shutting the drawer. “He’s a buddy of mine. What’s the message?”

Dana scratched her head. “She didn’t say what it was about, just said that it was a personal matter,” she showed Eddie the pink piece of paper with a phone number and name on it. “Said her name was Christina? I don’t recognize the area code.”

“Could you look up Steve in the address book in that first drawer and relay the message for me? He’s in there under Dingus. I gotta run this out to the---”

Dana spelled out Dingus on the piece of paper, without questioning it, and then looked at the round clock on the wall, nervously. “Actually, I should’ve been gone a half hour ago. I need to pick up my daughter from--”

Eddie waved the papers in his hand. “Of course, I’m sorry I’ve been...distracted. Do me a favor and call him when you get in on Monday? I’m sure it can wait till then.”

The name Christina did not ring a bell at the time, but later on, he’d wish that it had.

--------

You decided to go home first to freshen up a bit, but also, you wanted to pick up the photos to show Eddie. Katie was asleep, but you made yourself some coffee and tiptoed around, wishing you had time to shower because you reeked of secondhand smoke, but then realized Eddie probably wouldn’t notice anyway.

You were nervous as you pulled into the gates of the compound; your heart was racing and your palms started to sweat. His black and chrome bike with the menacing, purple flock of bats on the tank was parked right up close to his door, and you angled your car right in next to it.

Once you turned your car off, you could hear the faint sound of music drifting down from the open window in his apartment. The song was Love You to Death by Type O Negative, and you glanced up just in time to see his shadow pull from the window, as if he’d been standing there, watching you drive up.

---------

Up in his apartment, Eddie cracked his knuckles, ignoring the fact that the skin on them was still raw and one of his fingers was probably sprained because it throbbed like a motherfucker. He wanted to make sure everything looked okay before he ran down to meet you at the front door. The TV was on mute, he’d been watching Unsolved Mysteries, but now an episode of the X-Files was starting. There were clean sheets on the bed—just in case---and he’d been on his hands and knees cleaning the bathroom for a good half hour. There was a vanilla candle burning on the nightstand, and he had lit some Nag Champa incense earlier to try and mask the fact that he’d just smoked a couple cigarettes to calm his nerves. He turned the music down a tad and wondered if Type O was too on-the-nose for such an evening, like maybe you’d think he was setting some tawdry scene, when in actuality, he listened to their music all the damn time. He had on the only pair of dark denim Levi’s he owned without holes in them, a black Faith No More shirt that had the neck and sleeves ripped off of it, and his black converse, which were a nice change from the heavy boots he always wore. He slipped his rings on and used his pinky to clean some sleep out of his eyes just before he headed down to greet you.

---------

You were just about to knock, knuckle poised in the air, when the door flew open.

“Hey,” Eddie stood there looking flushed, lips parted, dragging one hand down his stomach as his pupils dilated to take you in.

You gulped. “Hey. Is this too late? I wasn’t sure if you really meant---”

“Oh I really want you here,” Eddie stepped back, holding the door open with his body.

You were just going to walk through without making any physical contact, but then you found your body being sucked against his, as if by some gravitational pull, and you both sunk into each other. He was quick to put his arms around you, hugging you tighter, securing you to him as if your body was oxygen.

“I know we’ve got a lot to talk about,” he planted his lips on the top of your head, only removing them to speak. “I want to make it right, baby. I don’t ever want to hurt you, and I would never let anyone hurt---”

“I believe you,” you answered, moving further inside, wanting to get behind closed doors with him.

There were old, squeaky wood stairs that led up to the narrow hallway, and you held onto one of his belt loops as you followed him up, pausing so he could open the door and extend his arm for you to enter.

“So, this is where the magic happens,” you teased, taking in the open space that was bedroom, living room, and kitchen all in one. There were Iron Maiden and Slayer posters on the wall, a Harley Davidson plaque, as well as your painting, which was the first thing anyone saw when they walked in. Directly to your right was a hallway that looked like closet space and a door to a bathroom. It was a spacious, warehouse style loft with wood floors and a few round, woven rugs.

The windows...the windows were huge.

Eddie snorted at your comment, and was just about to turn around to take you into his arms again, when you bolted over to start busying yourself with lowering the curtains, starting with the window that faced the other side of the street.

“You really should keep these closed,” you told him, leaning over a table with a turntable and an 80’s style boombox. The pull did not work for the second curtain, and your frustration was mounting as you yanked at it, just as Eddie stepped over and put his hand on the cord.

“Let me do it, baby,” he met your eyes, trying to see if he could guess what had triggered such a frenzy.

While he finished dropping the blinds, you took the photos out of your bag, extending them when he turned around. You sat down at the end of the bed and watched his face as he slipped the contents out of the manila envelope to look at them.

He glanced at you a few times as he flipped through the photos, and his expression ebbed from confusion to anger and back again.

Eddie was shaking his head, hair hanging down, his strong fingers curling as if he wanted to crumple them up. “These aren’t...this is not what it looks like,” his eyes searched yours.

“I know,” you looked down, biting your top lip with your bottom teeth. “Erica told me you were set up. And Steve told me about...your other friend.”

The muscles in Eddie’s jaw tensed, teeth grinding, as his eyes narrowed on the window where most of the photos had been taken from. “Some fucker has been watching me this whole time?” The irrational part of Eddie wondered if the guy was over there, somewhere in the abandoned building, right at that moment. Maybe he should go over and introduce himself, possibly break the guys face with his own camera. Break his hands and throw him out the third story window while he was at it.

The photos were starting to make Eddie feel sick with rage, so he put them back in the envelope. Your bloodshot eyes fluttered and he could see how tired you were.

“Who would do this?” You asked, earnestly. “More importantly, why would they do it? I haven’t been here long enough to make enemies. Not of this caliber, anyway.”

Eddie put the envelope on top of the kitchen counter and sat down next to you on the bed with a heavy sigh. He had his hands resting on his knees, but then he took a chance and slid one arm over to interlace his fingers with yours, and you let him. He squeezed your hand. “It’s a long story, but a while back I made a mistake and got involved with this woman who--”

“Charlene Gregson?” She’d always been at the top of your list for someone who would have the motive for something so unnecessarily heinous.

“That’s the one,” he brought your hand over across his leg. “That’s where I went last night, to try and stop her, I suppose. I guess I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

That made a laugh bubble out of your chest for some reason. “What was your plan? Crash through her gates on your motorcycle on a cloud of smoke and seek vengeance?”

Eddie shrugged his shoulders. “Hey, it always works out in the movies.”

You giggled and pulled away, but then he tugged you back, and you were still smiling as he scooped his hand around your cheek and pulled you in for a kiss, little hiccups of laughter erupting between kisses tongues slipping in ever so gently; Mulder and Scully having a conversation on the TV in the background. You held onto his wrist, sinking deeper into the yearning that you always felt for him, pulling back only to rub the tips of your noses together, lips grazing.

“Stay here with me tonight?” Eddie whispered, pressing his forehead to yours. “I want to hold you.”

You were sure, you were almost positive, that you had just fallen asleep for a second while he was talking, and you blinked hard just as he lifted his eyes to meet yours.

“But I stink, I smell like the Velvet Hammer. I didn’t have a chance to shower,” you mewed, feeling your body slump further into hibernation mode as the adrenaline from the past two days wore off.

“You don’t stink,” Eddie assured you. “You can sleep in one of my shirts, and you can use my toothbrush, if you don’t mind my germs.” He had your hand in his and was holding it to his chest as he watched your face.

“I figured you’d have plenty of extra toothbrushes here for all of the copious amounts of women who sleep over,” your exhaustion was making you feisty.

Eddie gave an exaggerated sigh. “Well, I do have a few extras for emergencies. But I’ve never offered up my own personal toothbrush before.”

“Goodbye,” you chirped, standing up, ready to leave.

But Eddie chuckled and caught you around the waist, throwing you down on the bed next to him with a bounce and a grunt.

You were doing a poor job of stiffing your own laughter as you tried to keep a serious face, but then he moved to crawl on top of you and you watched his face seize in pain. He stiffened and put his hand over the area where his knife wound was, easing himself onto his back. While Eddie silently prayed that he hadn’t ripped his stitches, you went around the side of the bed to click the lamp off. You turned the TV off too; the music was on low, but that you didn’t mind.

“We are quite a pair tonight,” Eddie mumbled from the bed, slightly incapacitated, as he watched you moved around his apartment.

You loved the idea of sleeping in one of his shirts and hygiene and all that jazz, but in that moment—you weren’t sure you could last another second. Your lids were heavy and your conversation skills were at an all time low. With rubbery limbs, you climbed on the dark blue comforter of his bed and curled against him, making sure it was the side he hadn’t been stabbed on. Flat on his back, Eddie’s eyes never left you, and he was ready with his arm high and outstretched for your head to make a pillow out of his shoulder.

“I can’t keep my eyes open for another second,” you yawned. You grabbed his chest to pull yourself closer, like he was a pillow, and he kissed your forehead.

You kissed the gash on his cheek, nuzzling the hair just above his ear, planting more kisses as you went. Eddie felt his cock spring to life in his jeans and he was too exhausted to do anything about it. You cupped your hand on the side of his neck, kissed the corner of his mouth, and then finally let your cheek fall to his shoulder with a flop.

Eddie took hold of your leg at the crook of your knee to pull it across his hips, needing to feel your weight, not wanting to let you get away. He closed his eyes, drowning in the feel of your soft puffs of breath on his neck, your chest moving up and down on his arm. He planted his lips to your head again, giving a few audible smooches before he rested his torn cheek lightly against you.

He wrapped his arm around tighter, bringing you closer. “You know, Robin called you my girlfriend today,” he admitted, a low laugh rumbling from his chest.

The only response you could manage was, “mmmpfm?”

The stubble of his jaw grazed your forehead as he contemplated what he was about to say. He’d just been stabbed, and it made him consider his mortality, and the time he had left.

“I was thinking,” he breathed. “If you like the sound of that, maybe we could, make it official? That is, if you could ever see yourself having a dirtbag like me as a boyfriend.”

Your body had gone limp and, in the following seconds while he waited for a response, he heard a soft whistle in your nose and a snore catch in the back of your throat. A few drops of drool started pooling from the side of your mouth and made a wet spot on his shirt.

Eddie chuckled, peeking down at you, but trying not to move too much, not realizing he was about to drift off to sleep as well.

-----------

You weren’t sure what time it was when your head rolled off of Eddie’s shoulder, jerking you awake, but it was dark outside, and you were still in the same position you were when you passed out: hand loosely cupping his neck, and your leg stretched across his hips. His head had rolled to the side, away from you, full lips parted, and the blue glow from the stereo cast a moody light on his skin, making his cheek wound look like something out of science fiction.

Still half asleep, you kissed the exposed muscles of his throat, right at the spot where the dark lines from his back tattoo came up across his neck, and your hand slid down his chest; you didn’t have a plan, you just wanted to feel him. His breathing was steady and shallow, eyeballs dancing under his lids. Your hand met with the top of his jeans, and then your eyes widened at the bulge that was causing a huge gap from skin to denim.

You slid your leg off of him, letting your hand move down a bit further, and your hand had to widen over his clothing to pass over the expanse of his arousal there.

Without even realizing it, you had started thrusting your hips against him, working your core against his hip, and then you lifted up to kiss his chin, aching to find his mouth with yours. You’d gone over to his place with every intention of being intimate with him, and nature had intervened with other plans, but you still wanted him to know how bad you wanted him, how much you craved him every second of the day.

Eddie groaned awake to return your kiss, and one of his hands grabbed your face. “Who is this greedy girl?” He mumbled against your mouth, his eyes droopy.

You straddled him, keeping your knees low, at his thighs, careful not to hit his wound. You started to move your core up and down along the bulge under his jeans, and then you leaned forward to brush your lips against his as you spoke. “You’re so hard, let me take care of it.”

Eddie whimpered a little in the back of his throat. “You can take whatever you want, baby,” and then a visible shiver ran through his body at the mere thought of your mouth on his cock.

You inched your way down, sucking hickeys into the dark tattoos spread across his stomach and chest, avoiding the medical tape from his bandage. Eddie moaned and threw his head back as you licked along the inside of his hip, unzipping his jeans to pull them down.

No boxers underneath, his huge cock sprang free, and the sight of the pre-cum already dripping from the pink tip made your mouth water. Eddie bit his lip while he watched you from under hooded eyes as you took control, pulled his jeans down further, and straddled his leg.

You bent over, and kept eye contact with him as you licked all the way down the shaft, and then wet the tip with your mouth, flicking your tongue along the slit, cleaning up his primal release.

Eddie pupils were blown, his lips parted as he watched.

“Whose cock is this?” You asked, teasing the tip with your wet mouth, planting hungry kisses down his shaft.

Eddie choked a little in the back of his throat. “It’s—it’s yours baby.”

He was already rock hard—throbbing, even---and your core flowered open beneath your clothes, soaking your underwear to the point that you actually had to reach down and touch yourself as you sucked him. Eddie noticed this and it made him mumble, “fuckbabyfuck,” as his leg squirmed, digging his heel into the bed.

You worked the tip of his cock with your hand while you sucked one of his balls into your mouth, and you couldn’t help but smile a little at how crazy it was making him.

Somehow, between sleeping on someone else’s couch and working, Eddie had neglected to jerk off recently, and so he was about to….

“Fuck, baby, right there,” he hissed, bucking his hips. “You’re gonna make me…”

You went back to work, gripping him with hand and mouth in tandem, lips stretching to take all of him, eyes watering, swallowing his tip in the back of your throat every so often, as he watched you with a furrowed brow, cursing under his breath.

Suddenly, his breath started to hitch, and the fingers of one of his hands dug into the comforter. “Fuck, I’m gonna cum baby...if you want it...like that…”

He was warning you as if you’d pull your mouth off and jerk him the rest of the way, but you wanted all of it in your mouth. You moaned as you sucked at the tip, pulling the orgasm out of him, saliva dripping down his balls.

Eddie let out a whimper and his leg jerked just before he stilled, and you tasted the salty sweetness of his warm cum shoot into the back of your throat in bursts. You drank his spend like his dick was a straw, throat busy swallowing every drop, moaning as you did so. You milked the tip for all he could give you, and then you cleaned him up with your greedy tongue, planting kisses on his cock when he was done with his release.

Eddie stared at the ceiling, slightly shook. “How are you so good at that?”

You sighed a quick laugh, licking your lips, as you made your way to the bathroom to finally brush your teeth. When you came back out, he was already asleep.

------------

As your eyes opened and adjusted to a sliver of buttery light peeking in from the curtain, your mind put you in several places. First, you were in your childhood bedroom, feeling like you needed to get up and ready for school, and then you were in the more recent bed in the house you shared with Katie. But, then the Iron Maiden poster came into focus and you were slammed with the realization that you had passed out in Eddie’s bed and it was already morning. Your intention had been to take a nap for an hour or two, but now you were alert to the idea that Eddie might still be somewhere in the room.

You remembered falling asleep on Eddie’s shoulder, waking up hungry for his cock, but now you were facing in the other direction, there was a blanket over you, and someone had taken your shoes off. It was Sunday, so the garage was closed, but you could still hear voices down below and the sound of a car engine revving. You reached your hand behind you to pat the bed, but only found an empty space; either Eddie was in the bathroom or he had already gone downstairs to start his day. God, what time was it?

You rolled over to crawl across the bed to look at the digital alarm clock, inhaling the smell from Eddie’s pillow as you went, and choked a little when you saw it was almost 9:30.

“Holy shit,” you mumbled, throwing the cover off of your body. You couldn’t remember the last time you slept in for that long. A fear that you’d be late for work gripped you, but then you were reminded that you were no longer the director of a gallery, and your new job didn’t start until cocktail hour.

You found your shoes tucked neatly against the sofa, and on the kitchen counter in front of the coffee pot was a note propped up like a little tent with your name on it.

I had to run a tow.

I hope you’re here when I get back.

Thank you for taking it like a good girl last night.

-- E

Eddie and his little notes. You grinned as you folded it up and put it in your pocket, because of course you’d be saving any note he ever left you till the end of time.

It was then that a heavy fist started pounding on the door down below. “Helloooo? Anyone? What the hell do I gotta do to get some service around here?”

----------

Even though the mechanics were all off that day, the towing business was a 24 hour thing. There was another Coffin King named Lou who was usually able to cover some nights and weekends, but when Eddie found himself stuck with a pickup at the worst possible time, he tried to focus on the money and be grateful for it.

He’d considered waking you up to see if you wanted to go with him, but you were sleeping so peacefully, he didn’t have the heart to disturb you. He woke up with his cock so achingly hard thinking about what you did to him in the middle of the night, that he had to jerk off as quietly as possible in the shower that morning. He was sure you’d heard the grunt he barked when he came, thinking about filling you up, listening to you tell him how deep you wanted all of him inside of you.

The last time he went this long without having intercourse with a girl that he had feelings for was maybe his freshman year in high school. The crazy thing was, he was enjoying the feeling of waiting and making it special; even though the holding out part was totally accidental, and he would’ve jumped at the chance to bury himself inside you that very first night you met.

But the way you took care of him last night, holy shit: he couldn’t stop thinking about it. He couldn’t tell if he had really found the Holy Grail of women, or if his feelings for you had made it as intense as it was; possibly a bit of both. He was seized with memories of your mouth on him off and on while he was on the job, and he’d have to slyly adjust himself in his jeans. He couldn’t wait to get back to you.

He started to whistle as he rounded the corner to re-enter the compound, hoping that your car was still there, hoping that he could….

But he spotted a different car in the lot right next to yours that hadn’t been there before, and you were coming out from out of the garage with your hand shielding your eyes, looking deeply concerned.

------------

You considered just letting whoever it was keep on knocking, but at one point, the person yelled: “Eddie! I know you’re here! Don’t make me take your bike for a spin around the block!”

And so, you put your shoes on and went down, wholly unprepared for what you would find.

There were two smiling faces practically pressed up against the glass of the main door as you descended the stairs. One was a guy with a mop of brown curls, and the woman with him had beautiful olive skin, black hair, and wore glasses. They both waved enthusiastically, happy to finally be acknowledged.

------------

“What the hell, Henderson?” Eddie parked the tow truck and jumped down, wallet chain flapping against his jeans. Eddie waved to you across the way, as his mouth opened into a toothy grin, exposing actual cheek dimples, that you’d maybe only seen him wear once or twice.

“If it isn’t the Dungeon Master!” Dustin came toward him with his arms out. “What the hell is up with you and Steve? You’re the two hardest losers to find!”

They hugged, and then Eddie tousled Dustin’s hair, mussing it up. “You haven’t changed a bit, you little goblin.”

Next to you, under the shade of the awning was a very pregnant Suzie, who you’d also just met. She was in a purple floral dress with a white collar, and you’d pulled a chair around for her to have a seat.

“I love to see my Dusty Buns happy again,” she said, passing her hand over the globe of her belly as you both watched the two men embrace. “We should’ve moved back sooner, but life just got away from us.”

“How do you all know each other?” You were just barely able to introduce yourself before Eddie pulled up, and so you had no idea how close the gang was.

“I’m surprised the boys never mentioned Dustin to you? They went to high school together; they’re all really close. Steve is basically Dustin’s surrogate father,” she giggled, lifting her sweet moon-shaped face to you in a soft smile.

You did feel a little self-conscious about not knowing, but there was a good reason for it. “Well, I’m...Eddie and I are…kind of a new thing.” But then you remembered that you did know a little bit about one of their old friends. “They’ve mentioned Max to me. I guess she visited a couple days ago? I didn’t get to meet her though.”

“Maxine is a riot!” Suzie exclaimed. “You’ll get you meet her and Lucas when the baby is born. They said they wanted to be here for the actual birth, but who can really tell when that will be? I’m due in a week, but I was born two weeks early, and my sister’s newest baby was born almost a month late,” her eyes got glossy. “Boy, I really can’t imagine holding this baby in for another hour, let alone another month.”

Eddie had his arm around Dustin’s shoulders as they approached, and he gave him a playful knuckle rub to the head before they parted.

Eddie greeted Suzie, and she went to stand up to hug him, but Eddie quickly bent over and kissed her on the cheek so that she wouldn’t have to move. He swallowed as he took in the enormous state of her pregnant belly. “Shouldn’t you be...resting? Is it too hot out here? Should we go inside? Are you comfortable in that chair?”

Suzie laughed. “My god, Eddie, you’re as bad as Dustin. I’m fine, I promise. I’m trying to shake this baby loose; this little person has rented out my womb for long enough.”

Eddie met your eyes and kissed you on the lips before he put his arm around you and pulled you against him.

It was the wrong side, again, and he winced.

Dustin noticed the look of pain. “What the hell happened to you?”

“He got stabbed,” you volunteered with a sheepish look on your face, tilting your head to Eddie’s shoulder.

“Oh, of course he did,” Dustin said, his mouth wide. “What else would Eddie or Steve be doing on the weekends besides mortal combat?”

Suzie looked concerned, but Eddie assured the group that he was fine. He looked you in the face as he said: “So, did you two get to meet my girl?”

Your cheeks got warm, and you ran your hand up and down his back.

“Only briefly, before you rudely interrupted,” Dustin let him know, moving behind Suzie’s chair to put his hands on her shoulders. Dustin had been worried for a while there that Eddie would never move on from his ex, and that he would always be in a dark head space in regards to romance, and so seeing him with you made his heart feel light.

“You see Steve yet?” Eddie asked. “He’ll be pissed you didn’t come to see him first.”

“Um, not like we didn’t tryyyy,” Dustin raised both eyebrows. “No one was at the house and the tattoo shop wasn’t open yet. I talked to him on the phone a few weeks ago, but we weren’t sure when we’d be in town.”

Eddie thought about that for a second. It was very odd for neither one of them to be home, especially on a Sunday morning. But, there was a chance Robin took Oliver to a shift at work with her and Steve had spent the night at Astrid’s, depending on how early Dustin had popped by.

“I’ll find him,” Eddie assured them both. “Are you staying at your moms house.”

“Hell no,” Dustin responded almost too quickly. “I mean, I love my mother, don’t get me wrong, but she’s been driving us up the wall lately. We’re renting a house a few blocks away from her until everything is finalized at our new place.”

They all made a plan to meet up as soon as they could figure out where Steve and Robin were, and once they were gone, Eddie turned to you, cupping your neck to pull you against him.

“Is it okay that I introduced you as my girl?” He stroked his thumb across your chin as he asked it, chocolate eyes unsure if they should meet your gaze or watch your mouth.

You lifted up to brush your lips across his, tongue peeking out only slightly, making him groan a little. You searched his eyes, wrapping your arms around his shoulders. “Is that what I am?”

Eddie put his hands on your lower back and brought his head back, wanting to see your whole face. “You tell me. I wanna hear it. Are you my girl?”

You were nodding yes before he even finished. “I’ve been your girl for a long time now, silly boy.”

“Yeah?” Eddie breathed in a chuckle, his cock growing as he met your sweet, eager mouth. He paused only to admit, “I’ve wanted you to be mine since that first day we met.”

----------

Of all the places Steve had hoped to wake up on Sunday morning, a jail cell was not one of them.

He made bail, and Robin was there to pick him up, giving him a dirty look as she did so. He had his sunglasses on, his Coffin Kings cut in his hand, and a cigarette bobbing between his lips as he got into the passenger seat and shut the door. The “seek and destroy” tat on the side of his neck displayed loud and proud.

“Nice shiner,” Robin said under her breath.

“Yeah, well, you should see the other guy,” Steve said, cupping his hands to light his smoke. His black eye was the only visible mark on him, but the dude he had a tussle with had gone to town on Steve’s ribs, and there would definitely be bruises there.

She made a face as she backed out of the parking spot. “You smell like vomit.”

He ignored her observation. “Where’s Ollie?”

“I dropped him at Astrid’s,” she said as she pulled her own sunglasses down from the top of her head to cover her eyes. “I didn’t want him to see this.”

“Why are you acting like this was all my fault?” Steve blanched, flicking ash out the window as they turned out of the courthouse, Somebody to Shove by Soul Asylum playing on the radio. “You don’t even know what happened.”

“I don’t have to know, Steve, that’s the point,” she barked. Her frustration with him was also mixed with a generous amount of worry. “When are you going to grow up and start walking away from danger instead of headlong into it every chance you get?”

“Oh I get it,” Steve said sarcastically. “So, you don’t care that Tina is back in town, and this had everything to do with her?”

Robin hit the breaks and turned to him so fast, a chunk of her hair stuck to her bottom lip. “What do you mean Tina is back in town?”

“Now you care?” He tapped his knee as he took another drag.

Robin felt like she forgot how to breathe, so she pulled over to park haphazardly along the sidewalk at an angle.

She turned the car off but left the air on. “You know how I feel about Tina, but please tell me you didn’t hit her.”

“Oh, fucking of course not,” Steve balked, snapping his head to look at her. He gestured to his black eye with the two fingers holding his cigarette, “this was courtesy of her new fiance. I think they were both on crack. They were waiting for me when I left work last night. Now, all of a sudden, out of the goddamn blue, Tina wants to see Oliver.”

Robin was shaking her head, gripping the steering wheel. “No, no, absolutely not,” she said, definitively. “She disappeared when he was 3 months old. No. There’s no way. She’s a drug addict, she’s a narcissist, no. Not a chance in hell.”

“I know, Rob, believe me. It’s not going to happen, okay?” Steve assured her with a wave of his hand. “At least not until she cleans her life up.”

Christina, Oliver’s biological mother, didn’t have a nurturing bone in her body, and never wanted anything to do with her son, but the fear had always been in the back of his head that one day she’d pop up like a mean, STD rash.

Robin felt her eyes getting moist and she wiped at her cheeks angrily. “Where are her and her fleabag fiance now?”

“Oh I put that scumbag in the hospital so hard,” Steve threw the rest of his cigarette out the window and licked his lips. “He’s lucky I didn’t put him in a grave. I’m sure Tina’s already changed her mind, you know how fickle and selfish she is. They were most likely on a bender and thought they’d come through town and fuck with us. They’re probably on their way back to Memphis by now. I don’t want you to worry about it, okay?”

Robin swallowed a few times, trying to allow him to comfort her. She never expected or intended to fall into this roll and be a mother to Steve’s son. But, it happened. Oliver was their son now, and she loved him as much as if he had grown in her womb. And, she would fight to keep him safe with the same level of conviction.

Steve sniffed and adjusted himself in his seat. “Thank you for bailing me out, by the way.”

Robin snorted as she started the car. “Dingus, I could barely afford the gas to drive over here, and you think I had the cash to bail you out? Get real.”

Steve frowned. “Who was it, then? They said I made bail. Otherwise, I’d still be rotting in there.”

“I assumed it was Astrid? Or Eddie?”

Steve shook his head. “Eddie doesn’t know, and Astrid is in the same financial hole we are.”

Robin put the car in drive but kept the break on. “Well, who was it then?” She posed the question as both of them searched their collective data bank memories for a close friend nearby who had more than two pennies to rub together, or something valuable to use as collateral.

Hours later, they still couldn’t think of anyone.

----------

You left Eddie reluctantly so that he could go look for Steve, and you could take a long awaited shower and throw your nicotine-saturated clothes in the wash. The business card with John Gregson’s email, phone number, and private extension was on your dresser, and you stopped to pick it up as you walked across the room. You meant to bring up the situation to Eddie, but the timing was never right. Was John trying to mess with you in the same way his wife wanted to mess with Eddie? You didn’t get a bad feeling from him, but now, after everything with the photos and Charlene paying people off, you weren’t sure.

A voice inside whispered that John could be an ally if you impressed him, and he had the notion to take you under his wing. John was the one with all the power at the end of the day, and if Charlene could play with fire, well then, so could you.

You decided to give him a call first thing Monday, and hopefully make a consultation appointment with him to get a taste for what type of art piece would suit his tastes and needs. You wondered if it was for his office or home? If it was a piece for his personal space at home, would you bump into Charlene while you were there, commiserating with her husband? The idea of getting under Charlene’s skin and making her sweat a little scratched an itch in you that you had not been able to reach for a while.

---------

Part 11

Eddie after reader is done with him image courtesy of @tenthmoon

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It's so damn cool that some of you have made it this far and continue to want to know what goes on with reader and our boys! It warms my heart in a way I'm having trouble expressing in words xoxo

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Taglist for my other Hell's Belles and Coffin Kings ❤️‍🔥 @texasblues @sidthedollface2 @hideoutside @lilpotatobean2 @dandelionnfluff @munsons-mayhem28 @eddiemunson95 @tlclick73 @clincallyonline17 @kelsiegrin @stylesxmunson @nope-thanks @lofaewrites @layla-loves-ed @seventhlevelofhell @corrodedcoffincumslut @whatwedontdointheshadows @falling-solar-system @miarosso @kurdtbean @micheledawn1975 @lma1986 @emxcast @secretdryrose @bexreadstoomuch @ms1oftheboys @dream-a-little-nightmare @hellv1ra @manicmagicmayhem @etherealglimmer @unfocused81 @notsobubblybaby @trufflshuffle12 @aysheashea @leilalaufeyson02 @ireidsmut @trixyvixx @tenthmoon

#eddie munson x reader #eddiemunsonseries #eddie munson fic #bikereddiemunson #bikersteve #older eddie munson #older!eddie #eddiemunsonsmut #90s au #90s music #older steve harrington

[bettyfrommars]

I'm on Fire

older!biker!Eddie Munson x fem!artist!Reader

90's au//Part 6

🚨18+ Only, MDNI, smut, dry humping, thigh riding, squirting (not reader), implied smut, mild violence, jealousy, alcohol consumption, reader feels betrayed (not by Eddie), smoking cigarettes, mention of tattoo placement on reader, biker gang, mention of poverty, loved one in hospital, fear of loss, mention of sex with people other than reader and Eddie Word count: 6.8k

In the aftermath of the adrenaline rush of Fight Night, Eddie disappears again to take care of a family emergency. The two of you share another intimate moment and have a nice night together just before everything starts to unravel. The connection you two share, and everything in your little world, is about to be tested.

Series Masterlist here

A/N: This is turning into the biker!Eddie Munson soap opera I didn't know I needed. I have lots of storyline ideas ahead for this, hopefully I can execute them as well as I want to. As always, thank you for reading ❤️‍🔥 It's difficult to catch errors when I edit myself, but I do my best. Spotify playlist: here

Eddie was holding your face between his hands, kissing you deep, his tongue flicking in every so often to make contact with yours. This is really happening, you tell yourself, sliding one hand up into his hair, the roots damp with sweat, jaw muscles stretching to take each other deeper. He pulled back a few times to plant kisses on your mouth, the tip of your nose, and then he pressed his lips to your forehead and hovered there while your hands slid up his slick chest, his body radiating heat. The DJ played something by Jane’s Addiction and the world seemed to continue on around you, and then your finger began to trace the intricate bat tattoo on his chest, the mouth of it was ancient, feral, and dripping blood.

He leaned back to make eye contact with you and he winked, brushing his thumb over your cheek. “Damn, you’re so beautiful,” and then he cleared his throat and dropped one hand from your face as Steve stepped up near him.

“Sorry to interrupt, man, but I need a minute,” Steve Harrington said, cocking his head to the side.

Eddie squeezed your hand and told you he’d be right back while he motioned for Steve to walk with him. “Follow me back to my place. I need to put a shirt on.” He turned around when they were a handful of steps away to look at you again, and of course you were still staring at him; he stifled a smile.

Even though the fights and the entertainment were over, the crowd hadn’t thinned out very much. The music had started back up and groups were headed back for more beer. You took the opportunity to go over to the fence and spit out some of the blood still in your mouth, and Katie came over to ask if you were okay, her hand rubbing your back.

“Let me see,” she said, referring to you your mouth injury. She winced when she noticed that the lower part of your jaw was swollen. “Not a dull moment in this friendship. Sip of beer?” She asked, holding her cup up.

The thought almost made you gag for some reason and you shook your head. “Where’s Robin and Jeff? Are they okay?”

Katie tucked a piece of hair behind your ear and fixed the neckline of your shirt. “Jeff is somewhere with that young biker stud, and Robin went to bring the jeep around. You have everything you came with? The clown car is leaving.”

You hesitated, because you didn’t want to leave, but you had to be at work early the next day, and you needed to get some ice on your face to keep it from getting worse. “Sure,” you looked across the parking lot. “Just let me find Eddie and say goodbye to him.”

By the time the two of you took a few seconds to look for Jeff and made it through the crowd, Eddie was no longer at the compound.

“Munson? He left,” one of the Hell’s Belles with short black hair told you, a cigarette bouncing between her lips.. “He took off a few seconds ago. Like a bat out of hell.”

To say you were disappointed would be an understatement, but there had to be good reason. Plus, you knew the guy was exhausted; he wouldn’t just take off on a joy ride for the hell of it.

Steve had no clue where Eddie went.

“But, you were the last one to talk to him, right?” Your tongue licked out to feel the rawness of your lower lip. “What did you say to him?”

“Nothing,” Steve bleated, arms out in a shrug. His hair was usually slicked back and tight, but because of the brawl, it was adorably messy with a strand hanging down over his eyebrow, “Nothing that would make him bolt. I was just telling him which guys still owed money from the fights, but he didn’t really give a shit.”

You wondered if he lived the double life of a super secret agent: the 007 of bikers.

“He did get a phone call,” Steve offered. “But I didn’t hang around to hear who it was.”

Parked out at the curb, Robin honked her horn, and it looked like Jeff was already in the jeep with her.

Erika and her friends walked by, throwing you dirty looks as they went, but you really didn’t give a shit about them in that moment.

“Why is Robin in such a hurry all of a sudden?” Katie asked Steve, arms crossed over her stomach as the three of you shuffled to the gate at a trot.

“We hired a babysitter for tonight, a neighborhood girl, really nice, but Robin’s always annoyingly nervous to leave Ollie with new people.”

Robin honked again, even though she could see that you were all moving in that direction, but clearly not fast enough. You turned in a circle, taking one more look around for Eddie before you got in the jeep, but he had officially evaporated.

-------

By the next afternoon, you still hadn’t heard from Eddie, and so you had your other assistant watch the front of the gallery while you hid in the back room to call his place, only to find that there was no answer. The first unromantic gift you planned to get for him was an answering machine.

Robin, Katie, and Oliver showed up to the gallery event looking adorable, after you encouraged them with talk of fresh crab legs and expensive goat cheese from France you could barley pronounce. Steve was working at the tattoo shop, but Oliver looked extremely dapper in red trousers, a black, short sleeve button down shirt and a red bow tie. He was still getting used to you, so he was on the quiet side, but he showed an intense amount of interest as you explained the mediums that were used in some of the artwork.

“Ollie loves to paint and draw, don’t you Ollie?” Robin asked him, but when you made eye contact to hear his answer, he shyly tucked his chin. Toward the end of their visit, though, there was a tiny finger tap on the side of your leg, and you looked down to find two big brown eyes like saucers staring up at you from under long, dark lashes. The boy was irrefutably Steve’s clone.

He curled his hand a few times, motioning for you to bend down, closer to him. “That one is my favorite,” he told you, pointing to one of the really loud, colorful abstract pieces.

“That’s my favorite too,” you whispered, in all seriousness, which afforded you an impish smile and a few consecutive nods of the head before he traveled back to take Robin’s hand.

Katie held her wine glass to her lips to muffle her words as she leaned closer to you. “Judith is looking exceptionally MILF this evening, in a Morticia kind of way.” She was referring to the owner of the gallery, who only popped in once in a great while to boast her importance in the community. Just at that moment, Judith, with her black hair styled in a short, severe asymmetrical bob, made eye contact with you and offered one of those unreadable, passive-aggressive expressions that always made your mind scramble to figure out what you had done wrong. Nothing, you reminded yourself, you’d done nothing wrong. Except, maybe, steal a lover away from one of the wealthiest women in the state, who also just happened to be one of Judith’s country club pals. Had Charlene put the pieces together and realized who you were and where you worked? It wouldn’t be a herculean feat; it was a small town and there were only a handful of galleries in the area. But suddenly, it dawned on you, that it probably wasn’t the brightest career move to make, being that much of your current livelihood depended on the support from people in Charlene’s circle.

All the same, who sits around fretting over a reputation or a career when you could be with Eddie? Definitely not you.

“Still no word from Batman?” You asked Robin as the three of them headed for the door.

Robin pressed her lips together so that her mouth became a thin, pensive line, the silver ball from her lip ring sliding to one side, and she shook her head. “No, and I haven’t been able to get a hold of Wayne either, so we’re going to drive by his place once we leave here.”

You’d be at the gallery for another hour after the event was over to clean up, and so you gave Robin one of their business cards with the phone number on it. “Please let me know what you find out?”

When you said the final goodbyes, it was dusk, and you poked your head out the door to watch them trot off down the sidewalk: Oliver in the middle, with Katie and Robin on either side, holding his hands. At one point he jumped and they swung him a few feet, giggling as he went. You weren’t much of a crier, but for some reason, the sight made tears well up in your eyes.

Jeff had the weekend off, but you found out from your other assistant, Holly, that Judith had gone home, and the news made your shoulders drop with relief. The sidewalk was bustling when the two of you locked the doors, busy with couples and friends coming in and out of the various bars and restaurants on your street. There was that buzz of spring time excitement in the air; people coming out of their caves after a long winter, ready to shake off the cobwebs and show off their pedicures.

You told Holly to take home whatever she wanted from the leftover spread of food. “You can head home, I’ll finish the rest of this up,” you assured her. Holly had just turned 21 recently, and you knew she was aching to get out and enjoy her active social life. You, on the other hand, were daydreaming about a quality night stretched out on the sofa after the events of the previous evening. Holly went out the back door, and you stayed to watch and make sure she got to her car safely before locking yourself into the building, and that’s when the phone rang.

The floor was extra smooth in the back hall, and you slipped a bit as you quickly spun around, pushing yourself off the wall, arms pumping to gain momentum as you bolted for the beige landline mounted on the wall in the office.

“Thank you for calling Moon River Gallery, this is----”

At the other end was Robin. “Wayne was rushed to the hospital last night,” she said with a sniff, as if she’d just been crying. “He’s okay now, but I’m pissed that Eddie didn’t tell anyone.”

Your heart sank as you leaned your hip against the table. “Oh, no, what happened?”

She sniffed again. “I’m not really sure. I guess they put him on some different meds, and he got lightheaded and fell...and hit his head on the...on the….” her voice trembled and she couldn’t get it out, and so Katie took the phone.

“Hi, it’s me,” Katie said. “He hit his head on the kitchen counter as he went down and he’s banged up. It looks worse than it is though, he’s going to be totally fine,” you could tell she was saying it more to Robin than to you. “Sorry it took so long to call, we just got back from the hospital. He was sleeping, but we got to see him.”

“No, you’re good, I’m so glad you called,” you flicked the light switches that turned off all of the artwork spot lights and the main over head, so the only illumination was in the front windows, the back room where you were, and the deep blue glow from light strips on the main floor. You had not yet officially met uncle Wayne, but you knew how much he meant to all of them, especially Eddie. “What about Eddie? Was he at the hospital?”

“Eddie left when we got there,” Katie sounded confused. “He said he was going to find you.”

------

Getting a call like that from the hospital put Eddie’s head in a dark place. It sent him into survival mode; he couldn’t deal with anything else until he knew that Wayne was okay. He stayed by Wayne’s bed that night, wide awake, eyes bloodshot, knee bouncing, thinking about loving people only to lose them in the end. Fear curled its icy hand around his heart; Eddie had already lost so many people he cared about, he worried that one more would break him.

And then his thoughts rushed to you. The two of you were barely a thing, and already the idea of losing you made his eyes go black with the idea of an emptiness that had the potential to gut him beyond repair. His first instinct was to distance himself from you; he was eerily adept at closing himself off, blocking the world out, and pushing people away. In his life, whenever something good happened, he was always very suspicious about what type of disaster was right around the corner.

Yet, all he wanted in the world at that moment—besides someone to tell him that Wayne’s cancer was miraculously cured---was for you to be there with him in that dark, lonely hospital room. Machines beeping, the smell of antiseptic and bleach and dread. If you could be in his lap, he’d wrap his arms around you and close his eyes and put his head to your chest, and you’d promise him in that sweet voice of yours that nothing bad would ever happen to you, and you’d always be his. You couldn’t promise those things, and he knew that, but the idea of resting his face against the side of your neck did help him to get an hour of sleep in a very stiff chair that was too small for him.

Wayne woke up early in the morning, and Eddie was able to talk with him a bit, and get an idea of what to expect from the nurses. Once he knew that Wayne was in good hands, and he could stop spinning his wheels, he had to go back to work and take care of the three tows that were already lined up. There was one other driver, but business had been growing, and he almost needed to hire a third. Now, he also needed to find an office assistant, even though Wayne kept protesting the idea. No one could replace Wayne, but the part time help would lessen his burdens.

He should’ve called to let Robin and Steve know what happened, he realized that now, and he should’ve called you, but the day got so damn busy so fast, and since Wayne was okay, he didn’t want to alarm anyone needlessly. He’s lucky Robin didn’t slap him across the face, because she looked like she was about to.

By the time he finished up at the garage and went over to check on Wayne one more time, it was late---but he needed to see you. He had to see your face before his heart exploded.

--------

You had just hung up from the phone call with Katie and Robin when you jumped at the sound of a soft tapping noise. At first, you didn’t know where it was coming from, and your ear prickled as you tried to use it as an antennae to guide you to the sound. The main floor was full of shadows; only dark blue atmosphere lights that made you feel like you were in an aquarium, and the illumination from the front window.

Tap, tap, tap, tap.

You stepped around one of the big, freestanding artwork dividers, just as you realized the sound was coming from the front window.

And then you saw him.

Shrouded in the residual purple darkness of a sunset, standing at the front door with one knee out to the side, hand down low, knuckle casually but repetitively hitting the glass. Wearing all black; jeans, leather, shirt, the only color peaking out was from his tattoos. Your eyes found each other at the same time, just as you came into view, and it was all you could do not to start giggling and skipping along at how happy you were to see him.

You tried to wipe the smile off of your face as you headed for the door. “I’m sorry, sir, but we’re closed,” you were shaking your head, frowning, trying to act like you didn’t know who he was.

The stern look on his face slipped a little at the corners of his mouth, but he maintained intense eye contact with you, continuing the tap...tap…tap, with the hand that said “H-E-L-L” across the knuckles while the other knuckles spelled out “F-I-R-E”, until you got closer and there was nothing but a pane of glass between the two of you. You broke eye contact just long enough to twist open the double locks, and then he stood there in the doorway bit longer, bracing his arm high on the frame; shirt and coat rising to show the hint of a tattoo at his hip.

“Can I take you to dinner? Are you hungry?” He asked as you motioned him in. He was reluctant because he didn’t think he’d be allowed in there. Much like a vampire, he had to be invited.

“Sure, but, it’s late,” you said as you secured the door again. He turned to you, about to say something else, but then you closed in on him, grabbing onto his jacket with both hands, hips coming together, and he brought his hands to rest on the top of your shoulders. “I’m really glad Wayne is okay,” you whispered, regarding him with the utmost sincerity.

He played with a wisp of hair at the base of your neck. “I should’ve called you, but I--”

“You’re here now,” you beamed. His left eye was swollen, with a bit of bluish black discoloration, and there was a tiny butterfly band-aid over the small cut above his eyebrow.

“I’m here, sweetheart,” he returned in a low voice, bending down to kiss your lips, gripping one side of your neck as he did, his thumb stretching up over your jaw. You moaned against his mouth and the sound made his brow clench, stretching his other hand down to casually adjust himself in his jeans.

He moved his hand around the back of your neck as you pulled apart, his eyes trained on your mouth. “How is your tongue?” He almost couldn’t even talk about it, the idea of you getting hit in the face—even accidentally—made him want to start punching walls.

You raised your eyebrows a few times. “I could still eat, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“There’s that all night diner down a couple streets,” his voice a low mumble. “They have those vegetarian burger things, I checked.”

For some reason, that thoughtful gesture sent you even further over the moon about him, and you slipped one hand into his back pocket while the other one played with his wallet chain. “And what will you have? A big, fat steak?”

“The bloodier the better,” he said, running the tip of his tongue over his lower lip.

You planted another quick kiss on him, and then, “here, follow me. I just have one more thing to finish up and then we can go get some blood in your mouth again.”

The front desk against the wall was long and rectangular and came up to your waist. You pulled one of the stools out from under the alcove and placed it next to you so that he could have a seat while you finished sorting some invoices under the dim blue light. Eddie sat with his back against a filing cabinet, legs spread wide, one hand on his hip, the other forearm on his thigh, the hand with the digital wrist watch hanging down between. He tilted his head to watch you as you bent over several times to scribble something on a piece of paper.

“Hey, baby,” he whispered, and you threw him a bashful look over your shoulder. “Come to me,” and he slapped his hand on his leg a few times, directing you where to sit. “You’re too far away.”

He probably meant for you to side-saddle him like he was Santa Claus, but instead, you slid your skirt up your thighs and straddled his whole leg, facing him, like you were about to ride his thigh like a horse, hands braced on his chest. Eddie smirked at how you crawled onto him, he cupped one palm under your butt cheek and popped his knee a few times so that you were, indeed, riding him.

“I like it when you call me baby,” you told him as he brought a hand up to either side of your face, tucking hair behind your ears, brushing his thumb across your skin, metal rings cool as they scissored your ear.

“Yeah?” He asked, dark eyes searching yours. “What else do you like?”

You brought your hand up and ran your finger down his full lips, gently pulling the bottom one open as you went. “I like your mouth.”

He kissed your finger, said a quiet, “you can have it,” and then, with both hands, pulled your face to his, lips parting, tongues exploring, faces turning to avoid noses and lick deeper, hungry moans rising. You slipped a hand around the side of his warm throat, dipping your fingers into the downy hair at the base of his skull, his tiny silver cross earring grazing your hand.

It was only then that you became aware of the grinding you were doing on his leg, and by the time you were aware of it, you didn't want to stop. You needed it, you were drunk on the sweetness of his mouth, the spicy pine and leather of his scent. It was one of the first warm nights in a while, and so you weren’t wearing nylons or tights, and the thin material of your underwear was the only barrier between his denim and your cookie box.

Eddie knew what was happening from the first twitch of your pelvis, and one of his hands slid down to your hip, locking you there, encouraging it. You started to push off of the balls of your feet to deepen the friction as the need for stimulation increased.

“That’s my baby,” Eddie growled as you put your forehead to his. He slid his hand around to make a fist in your hair, pulling your head back so that he could have access to your throat. He sucked at your pulse point, groaning as he did so, while your other hand clung to his jacket for dear life.

The hair tug made you whimper. “That,” you breathed. “I like that too.”

He tightened his grip, taking control of your head, forcing your lips back to his for another deep kiss. He was lifting his leg to meet your needs now, anticipating the rhythm. “Good girl, I got you,” his voice was barely a murmur, lips grazing yours. You started to saw faster back and forth on his leg, slipping one hand down to his other thigh to anchor you, caught unaware at how good it felt and how close you were.

Outside, people were still passing by on the sidewalk, finishing up with their dinners and heading home, or to a bar, but the desk blocked you from view so no one could see that you were rocking like a cowgirl bound for hell.

Your underwear were soaked now, seeping onto his jeans; your cunt swollen and aching against the perfect mix of friction against his denim. You were breathless, mumbling the answer to an unasked question, “uh huh uh huh oh god,” as he put your forehead back to his, one hand still clenched in your hair. You were whispering incoherent parts of words, saying his name, and then you started to feel a spring bounce open inside of you. Eddie could feel it too; you trembled and choked his name one more time, and then you fell forward, curling against him with quickened thrusts.

He tilted his head so that your mouth could find his neck to use as a muffle for your scream, your tongue melting on the salt of his skin. His strong arms secured your body to his as you continued to grind on his leg. “I got you, baby, cum for me…” he coaxed, bracing your hip and the back of your head.

But it wouldn’t take much coaxing, because suddenly you were there: stiffening up against him, letting out a sharp cry just below his ear, one hand holding the other side of his head as if you were feeding on his jugular. His grip on you tightened as your body shuddered, going blind for a second, whimpering against his throat.

Eddie let out a guttural curse as the wetness from your warm pussy penetrated the skin beneath his denim, pre-cum soaking the tip of his cock inside his jeans in response. You let your full weight fall against him, safe, knowing he wouldn’t let you fall, pussy contracting in the afterglow, face buried in his neck and hair.

“Damn, what was that,” you gasped once you were finally able to speak, shoulders trembling in the afterquake. Should you be embarassed? You’d never cum like that before in your life.

He gave a throaty chuckle, his hand rubbing up and down on your back. “I won’t be washing these jeans for a while.”

You were starting to sit up, smoothing your hair back and licking your lips, when you noticed the cherry red glow of a hickey appearing on his neck surrounded by some teeth indentations. “Oops,” you ran your thumb over it, thinking it might be lipstick. “I marked you, now I guess that means you’re mine.”

“I’m fine with it,” his serious eyes found yours from under hooded, sleepy lids.

You were both starving by the time you locked up the gallery, and Eddie’s bike was parked close, so you agreed to ride with him, and then he’d bring you back to your car after. You had brought a change of clothes with you, as you always did so that you could get out of your fussy gallery clothes as quickly as possible, and now you were comfortable in jeans and a t-shirt with your black converse. You hadn’t thought to bring a change of underwear, but you would from now on.

Out on the sidewalk, you eyeballed the big beast of a bike with only a tiny space on the seat for a second rider. He lit a smoke and passed you the helmet that had been hanging on one of his handlebars.

You looked down at it. “But, don’t you need to wear this?”

He shook his head, cigarette pressed between his lips. “I only have one with me, and your head is more important than mine.” He zipped up his jacket and swung one leg over, mounting it.

He could tell you were hesitating. “We’re only going a couple blocks,” he assured you. “If you hate it, you never have to get on this thing again.”

“No, no, it’s not that,” you scrambled to find the right words as you strapped your bag across your body put the helmet on, tightening the chin strap. The helmet was way too big for you and you worried you looked like a real dork. “I’m just not sure...how to do this.”

He hitched his chin at you, planting his feet on either side to hold the chopper steady. “Grab onto the back of my jacket, put this foot here...and then swing the other one over.”

Once you were on, you adjusted your bum on the seat and held onto the sides of his leather, fingers clawing at him nervously, letting him know that you were ready.

Eddie kicked the beast to life with a hop and a twist of his fits on the handlebars; it growled its obedience loud and fierce. People stopped on either side of the street to turn and see where the noise was coming from, and most of them stayed to watch as Eddie walked the massive, menacing bike out to get a clean shot in through the passing cars.

He took one of your hands and brought it around so that it was at his stomach, your chin at his shoulder. “Hold on tight, baby,” he called to you over the roar, and then he lifted his feet and the two of you shot into the night, his discarded cigarette bouncing to the pavement in a dance of orange sparks.

A few cars away, down at the dark end of the street, a white Jaguar idled with the headlights off, and the blonde woman behind the wheel cursed under her breath as she watched the two of you go, anger and jealousy tightening her face. Charlene Gregson was smoking a cigarette, too, and on the exhale, she hissed, “I’m going to make her regret she ever met you, Edward Munson.”

---------

Katie’s eyes rolled back in her head as Robin’s fingers worked her in the perfect spot, “fuck, right there right there,” and then Robin put her other hand over Katie’s mouth to keep her quiet as her orgasm mounted. Oliver was asleep across the hall, and Steve was having a beer in front of the TV after just getting off work. Her cries properly muffled, Robin curled the fingers of her other hand deep in the honey pot and bent her head to find Katie’s nipple with her mouth.

Katie was trying to tell her something, heels digging into the bed, her body gyrating against Robin’s hand. Robin thought she was just really vocal in bed, but then she felt the warm spray coat her hand in bursts, and that’s when she found out, in a moment of awe, that Katie was a squirter.

--------

On Sunday, Katie was working on lessons plans for the first day back after break, but you convinced her to let you take her out to dinner. Later on, you showed up at the tattoo shop Steve worked at just as he was bent over inking a big lower back butterfly for a woman. You flipped through the flash in the tattoo books, talking about maybe getting matching ones. Katie had a tattoo on her ankle, and you had one on your shoulder blade in honor of your grandmother, but neither of you were close to the quantity and quality of work that Steve, Robin, and Eddie had, but you had to start somewhere.

“Did you know that Robin has had two of her girlfriend’s names tattooed on her?” Katie asked you, loud enough for Steve to hear.

Still focused on what he was working on, Steve joined the conversation. “Hey, I didn’t put those names on her, but I was excited when she let me cover them up.”

Robin was at work that afternoon; at one of her side gigs as a maid at one of the fancy local hotels, and it was optimal because she was always able to bring Oliver with her. He loved taking home the tiny shampoo bottles and soaps.

“I can always draw up a design for you girls, if you have something in mind,” Steve announced, looking up briefly as the two of you came up to the counter to say goodbye.

“What do you think?” Katie turned to you, one eyebrow up. “Maybe a dotted line across our throats that says ‘cut here’?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time I did that one,” Steve mumbled.

---------

On the opposite side of town in the industrial district, Eddie had a guy by the throat and was sliding him up a brick wall in an alley, holding him there, his feet off the ground, trying to kick out feebly.

“Did you think I wouldn’t find you?” Eddie asked him with a tilt of his head, voice calm but eyes narrowed.

The guy was struggling for air, spitting, face going blue, and all he could do was bare his teeth in a slobbery grimace.

“Check his pockets,” Eddie told the other two bikers that were with him, bracing the guy against the wall like he weighed nothing.

The object of Eddie’s chokehold was a weaselly snake of a man named Rollo who borrowed a large sum of money under Eddie’s name from the Coffin Kings, gambled it all away, and tried to split town. Eddie was supposed to bust his knee caps, but scaring the actual piss out of him, and taking his wallet was punishment enough, he felt. Eddie could be a very violent man if he wanted to, but only on his terms and never at anyone else’s command. Rollo’s two other friends were on the ground; one was unconscious and the other one was doubled over in pain.

“Look in my eyes,” Eddie told Rollo as the other guys found Rollo’s wallet and continued digging around for whatever else he had on him. “The next time you see these eyes, you won’t be able to walk away on two legs, do you understand?”

Rollo nodded a few tiny nods, and Eddie released his hand, letting his body slump to the ground against the wall, coughing, trying to swallow. He was stocky with a beer belly, but short, bald with a goatee.

“Now, get the fuck out of here,” Eddie grumbled as he turned on his heel. “Get the hell out of this town if you know what’s good for you.”

Eddie released a heavy sigh as he mounted his bike, pausing just for a second to remember how tight your body had been pressed against him the night before, the way you had clung to him for dear life, screaming a little when he turned corners. At dinner, you held his hand across the table, right in front of everyone, as if being with a grease monkey and a thug like him didn’t bother you at all. He didn’t know you’d grown up poor, with an alcoholic mother, and you had to learn to be scrappy as hell to get the things you wanted—nothing had been handed to you. He assumed that the two of you had grown up on opposite side of the tracks, in a sense, that you were perfect and polished, and one day soon, you’d realize that he was far from it.

He should’ve been on top of the world knowing that he had you to look forward to, but Eddie had a bad feeling in his gut that he couldn’t ignore. That ominous, invisible tug reminding him that something was about to go wrong was ever-present.

-------------

There was a downpour on Sunday night, and you were just about to check the answering machine to see if Eddie called while Katie started her yoga practice in the living room, when Jeff showed up at your door unannounced. The frantic knocking on the front window made you both jump, and then, there he was in a big, clear poncho with a hood over his head. He shook himself out on the porch before he came in all the way, unbuttoning his slicker to hang it on one of the coat hooks. Jeff had never been to your place before, so you were amused at how he just made himself at home. He took his shoes off before he stepped onto the carpet, even though that wasn’t something either of you required of your house guests.

“Why aren’t you answering your phone?” He demanded, clearly distraught, looking around as if to check and see where the phone in question was.

“We just got home a little bit ago,” Katie told him, sitting up on her mat to pull her knees to her chest. “What’s going on?”

“Did you listen to the message I left?” He pressed, eyes wide and blinking dramatically at you.

The light was flashing on the machine and your finger was on the button to play the messages back, but you hadn’t pushed it yet, and you flipped a glance at Katie, your heart racing a little.

“Jeff,” you sighed, exasperated. “Please, you’re here, just tell me.”

Jeff puffed out a long breath, hang high on his hip. “First, tell me why you’re leaving the gallery. Is it because of me?”

Disbelief took hold of you initially; you were sure Jeff had just overheard something wrong or made a mistake.

Jeff continued. “If it’s not because of me, and you’re just going to a better gallery, please, take me with you?”

“Hold on,” you put your hand up, trying to make sense of what he was saying as you sat down in the wood chair by the phone. “What made you think I was quitting?”

Jeff’s disturbingly bright blue eyes softened as they found yours and he realized that you didn’t know what he was talking about.

He went over and took a seat at one of the padded bar stools next to the kitchen island, and then he looked down at his hands, suddenly wishing he would’ve waited for you to check your messages.

“I had to go in and get my check late today because I was gone Saturday,” he paused almost as if that was the end of it, but then he lifted his head, an apologetic look on his face as he looked at you. “Judith said I needed to come in for a couple hours on Wednesday to train with the new manager because you were leaving.”

You froze, letting that sink in. Still an element of denial present, you wondered if maybe Jeff heard Judith wrong---perhaps another manager from a different gallery was visiting? But, if so, why wouldn’t you know about it? Why would Judith tell Jeff about it and not you?

“Hunny?” Katie called to you because you weren’t saying anything, your mouth was just hanging open. You snapped it shut abruptly and swallowed.

Jeff shook his head, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be the one to---” sure, Jeff loved a good gossip train, but he genuinely did not want to be the one to inadvertently break it to you that you had been fired without a warning. “I thought you quit, and you just didn’t want to tell me. I thought you already knew.”

Your mind went to Judith’s face at the art show on Saturday, how she had been throwing you dirty looks while simultaneously avoiding you. You were already fired then, and you just didn’t know it.

“I’m fine,” you breathed a forced laugh, hoping to calm everyone else in the room even though your stomach clenched with fear of the unknown. “Everything is fine, I’ll be fine. I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding.”

Jeff and Katie exchanged a look, and then they both turned back to you, but your eyes were focused on the floor, the tip of your tongue hovering on your top lip, pensively. Outside, a blast of thunder boomed so hard, there was the equivalent of a light bulb flash in the front window, and a few of the neighborhood car alarms went off, bleating like ominous warnings in the distance.

-------

Later that night, long after Jeff left and Katie had gone to bed, you sat out in the dark of the living room, alone, playing back the messages at low volume while rain continued its lullaby on the windows.

There were four: two from Jeff, one from a credit card company, and...one from Eddie. You had already played it several times, but you played it again, this time with your head tilted, ear close to the speaker of the machine, and your eyes closed.

“...hey, it’s me,” his deep voice wavered a bit and then he cleared his throat. “...damn, you know I hate these things….but I got home and wanted to tell you…that I was thinkin’ about you.”

You’d been holding the stress of the past few hours at bay, letting the knowledge of your abrupt and back-stabbing dismissal tighten in your stomach, but then the sound of his voice broke you a little, and your chest hitched a few times, a single tear making its way down the bridge of your nose.

There was a long pause where it sounded like he was stretching. “...you can call me...or not…I hope you had a good day. Mine was shit,” you could hear him whistle a bit and click his tongue, wondering what to say while simultaneously feeling stupid for talking to a machine. “Let me know if we’re still on for Tuesday night…I’d really like to...to see you again. Okay, later.”

And then, he was gone. You played it several more times before you went to bed, angrily wiping tears off your cheeks. You couldn’t talk to him just yet; you were still too confused and blindsided to get into it with anyone. Plus, you were exhausted, and triggered by rising feelings of abandonment and worthlessness. After you dealt with whatever lame excuse of a conversation Judith had in store for you when you went into work the next day, maybe you’d just stop by the garage to see him for a bit. Maybe he’d be able to fuck the pain away.

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Part 7

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Taglist xoxo @unfocused81 @manicmagicmahem @dream-a-little-nightmare @ms1oftheboys @emxcast @falling-solar-system @corrodedcoffincumslut @lofaewrites @nope-thanks @kelsiegrin @tlclick73 @truffleshuffle12 @aysheashea @etherealglimmer @hellv1ra @bexreadstoomuch @kurdtbean @seventhlevelofhell @stylesxmunson @ireidsmut @lilpotatobean2 @leilaloufeyson02

#eddie munson #older eddie munson #bikereddiemunson #eddiemunsonsmut #eddiemunsonseries #strangerthingseddiemunson #eddie munson angst #eddimunsonxfemreader #femreader

[bettyfrommars]

I'm on Fire//older!biker!Eddie Munson x fem!artist!Reader//90's au//Part 7

⚠️Cautions: 18+Only pls, MDNI, eventual smut, mention of smut, mention of erection, flirting, crushing on each other, reader gets fired, alcohol consumption, jealous!Eddie, biker!Eddie, boxer!Eddie, biker!Steve, relationship drama, threats against loved ones, hints at a violent past, vindictive exes, aggression (not at reader), mention of handgun, angst, mutual pining, slow burn. Word count: 7.6k

Series Masterlist

Suddenly unemployed and in the wind, you wander into the bar where biker!Steve Harrington works the door, and new opportunities arise. Just as you and Eddie are navigating getting closer, someone from Eddie's past drops a bomb on him that he can't ignore, and he does his best to protect you from the backlash. Dirty deeds get done not so dirt cheap. I'm on Fire 90's playlist here

A/N: Nothing really, just wanted to tell those of you who have been supporting and encouraging this story how much you all mean to me, and how much I love hearing from you. Big love to my bestie for helping me put together the playlist for this series, it's all I've been listening to lately. Oh ALSO, I'm working on a smutty oneshot in honor of biker!Steve's character in this story, a little companion piece, *cumming* soon 🫦 biker!Steve oneshot here

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I'm on Fire Part 7: The Velvet Hammer

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Your eyes flew open early on Monday morning as dawn was barely breaking, to find that the emotions of sadness and fear were gone for the moment: they had been replaced by a white-hot anger that burned in your chest.

In a burst, you cursed, threw your covers off, and had an imaginary conversation with your ex-boss Judith, complete with shaking your fist in the air, eyebrows jutting together. She couldn’t just let you go and replace you without any warning---the whole thing was absurd. You made your coffee and went back to your room so that you could avoid Katie as she got ready for work. You weren’t mad at her; you just didn’t want to have to answer any questions or mull it over. In the state you were in, you were worried that you might snap at her for no reason.

A tiny part of you still hoped (prayed) that it was all a misunderstanding, and maybe you had some vacation days coming that you had simply slipped your mind. That small glimmer of possibility was immediately stamped out with a waffle-sole, steel toe boot when you found your other assistant Holly already behind the front desk when she hadn’t originally been scheduled to be there until noon. Her presence alone was not the final straw---it was the look on her face. The second she saw you, she blushed and got flustered, pretending to organize papers, trying overly hard to appear nonchalant.

You were hoping for Judith, that was the bitch you wanted to see, but Holly informed you with quivering hands that she had just left a half hour ago to catch a flight to Cozumel for a “rejuvenation retreat”. You could tell that being involved in any type of conflict, even passively, was making Holly’s anxiety spike.

“She told me to give you this,” Holly said, reluctantly sliding an envelope across the desk, and then in a whisper, she added, “I’m sorry, I didn’t want to be the one to--”

You did your best to shake your head and smile and told her it wasn’t her fault. You walked to the other side of the gallery to check the envelope. It was your final paycheck, along with a typed note that basically said, “Thank you for the work you’ve done, but I’ve decided to hire another manager that is a better fit for the gallery. I am longer in need of your services. Best of luck in your future endeavors. Namaste, Judith.”

It was that Namaste that had you breathing out your nose like a dragon, crumpling the note up in a tight ball, nostrils flaring. The letter wasn’t even signed; Judith probably made Holly type it.

You went to get your things out of the cubby in the back room, and while you were there, you tried Judith’s house phone just in case, but there was no answer. That cunt really had the nerve to fire you out of the blue after working there almost a year, and didn’t even have the tits to say it to your face, forcing shy little Holly take the brunt of it. You were on the verge of going full Coffin King MC on her ass.

When you came out with your wire basket full of things, you apologized to Holly for putting her in the middle of this, as you reached around to take the mason jars full of colored markers, highlighters, and pencils that were on the desk dear the typewriter. “These are mine, I bought these. Tell Judith if she has a problem, she can come find me.”

You took one last look around the gallery that you genuinely loved, asked Holly to stay in touch, and had to swallow a lump in your throat as you crossed the street to your car.

-----------

Eddie worked a long day at the garage, running tows, fielding resumes for part-time office help, and thinking about you. There was a disturbance in the force, as they say, and he hoped to get a call from you later so that he would know that you were okay.

Instead, at around 8:30pm, he got a call from Steve. Eddie could tell by the music that he was at the Velvet Hammer, which was a well-known cocktail lounge, frequented by bankers and bikers alike, where Steve worked as a bouncer from time to time. The waitresses all wore skimpy, edgy outfits, and there was professional pole dancing and strippers offering lap dances on the weekends.

“Dude,” Steve said once Eddie picked up. “Your girl is here, just thought you’d want to know.”

Eddie had been digging around for a lighter in the drawer of his nightstand, in nothing but a pair of boxers, but at that, he froze and straightened up, his brow clenched. “What do you mean she’s there? Where? At the Velvet Hammer?” It wasn’t only the location that took him by surprise, but the fact that it was a Monday, and you weren’t one to bar hop in the middle of the week.

Steve lowered the phone while he shouted to someone, the song Low by Cracker blasting loud in the background. “Yeah, man. She was here when I came in, I don’t know, it seems like she’s having a bad day,” Steve tucked the phone into his shoulder so that he could ask someone for their ID. “There was some dude bothering her earlier, but I took care of it. I can’t watch her every second though---” Eddie cut him off, clenching the phone so tight, the knuckle of his hand went white. “Who was bothering her?”

Steve rested the phone with the long, spiral cord on his chest to talk to someone else for a second, but when he got back on the line, Eddie had hung up.

-----------

After you walked out of the gallery for the last time, you deposited your check, and as frugal as you normally were, you took a bit of cash out to treat yourself after getting canned in such a depressing way. You hung out at a B. Dalton’s for an hour and bought a book, and then you tried on some clothes at one of your favorite shops, but nothing fit right; you felt like you were crawling out of your skin. You went home and had lunch, took care of Charlie, did some laundry while watching daytime soap operas, started feeling worse about yourself, and then decided to go down and get a paper at the coffee shop to start hunting for a new job. You didn’t want to be home when Katie got back from work; you still weren’t ready to talk about it.

Coffee and a browse through the dismal job market turned into a walk around the park, and then you just kept going for 5 or 6 blocks until you realized you were standing on the corner across from a bar called the Velvet Hammer. Wasn’t that where Steve said he worked the door every so often? The exterior was black with dark red trim, and you thought maybe you’d been there for a drink once when you first moved to town, but you couldn’t remember. The sandwich board on the sidewalk out front said “Happy Hour menu Half off appetizers 3:30-6:30” and you decided to have a bite before you made the trek back to your car.

Steve was not there when you first arrived, and you were close to missing the happy hour cut off, so you ordered some food right away, and a cocktail to wash it down. The inside was also black and red, with a big chandelier hanging from the ceiling, a long mirror behind the bar, and an old fashioned jukebox lit up in a red and blue arch in the corner. There were two empty stages at the far back, with shiny poles down the middle, and a pretty, tattooed girl in a red leather romper waited on the scattering of customers that were there.

Whereas most bars played sports on TV, the Velvet Hammer played old black and white b-horror movies, and you were absorbed in a scene from Plan 9 From Outer Space when the bartender with the shaved head and double nose piercing asked with a dimpled smile if you wanted another drink.

Candy by Iggy Pop and Kate Pierson was playing, and it had you in a mood, so you nodded to say yes, please---I would love another.

A half hour later, you said yes to another refill and ate a few pretzels, looking around to see that the bar was filling up. There were two more cocktail waitresses there and each wore less clothes than the first. The movie on the TV now was The Creeping Terror from 1964, and just as one of the actresses turned to the camera and put her hands to her head for a silent, blood-curdling scream, someone tapped your shoulder and hissed, “BOO!”, right in your ear.

You whipped around on your bar stool, relieved to find out that the marauder was Steve Harrington.

He had his Coffin King’s MC biker cut on over a white t-shirt, exposing his heavily tattooed arms and hands, dark wash Levi’s, and he had his sunglasses on even though it felt like nighttime inside the bar.

He leaned over to hook his elbow on the bar, pushing his sunglasses into his thick head of hair to address you. “What’s up, lady friend? Who are you here with?” He looked around as he asked it, as if he automatically assumed you were with Katie or Eddie, and not just drinking alone at a bar on a Monday night.

You tugged at your ear self-consciously and palmed the new drink in front of you. “Just me, I’m afraid,” you took a sip, moving the red stir straws out of the way with your nose. “I’m about to light up that jukebox, you have any requests?”

Steve slapped the bar enthusiastically. “Hell yeah, I do, hold on,” he waved the bartender down and asked them to hand him some quarters. Apparently there was a stash of coins near the cash register there to keep the music going.

He clapped 10 or 12 quarters on the table in front of you. “Maybe some STP, anything Ozzy,” he continued, giving his requests. “I’m a sucker for that Alanis Morisette chick, too, but don’t tell Eddie,” he said with a wink.

“Anything you want, really,” he kept talking as he backed up, heading to his bouncer stool at the front door. “As long as it’s not fucking lame,” and then he smiled and flipped his sunglasses back down over his eyes.

A bit later, as you made your way back from the jukebox, some guy stepped into your path, immediately invading your bubble.

“Hey, beautiful, can I buy you a drink?” He asked, and his presence took you a bit off guard because you were so deeply concentrating on the song list you just put together, your head was in another world. The guy had slicked back, inky black hair, a teardrop tattoo under his eye, and incisors that looked like fangs.

“That’s okay, thank you,” you mumbled with a half smile as you went to walk around him.

But, he slid to the side, blocking your way again. “Just one drink? I hate to see a beautiful woman drinking alone.”

From across the room, Steve shouted at the guy with the fangs—apparently he knew his name---and when the guy snapped a look in his direction, Steve sliced his hand across his throat and shook his head, warning him to back off. Without a fuss, the fang guy ducked back into the shadows, hands in his pockets, sulking to find his table without so much as another glance in your direction.

Steve could see this shit coming a mile away; you were getting relaxed, and you were alone, and that level of vulnerability never failed to bring a bad element out of the woodwork. He didn’t mind keeping an eye on you, but it was getting busy for a Monday night because of the free darts and pool, and that was when he decided to call Eddie.

------------

Steve was smoking a cigarette when he waved Eddie in without a word, the two exchanging a quick hand grab in passing. Eddie’s gaze landed on you immediately; sitting at the bar, face tilted up to watch the TV, and that familiar thrill of being near you again stirred in him.

“Is this seat taken?” He was already straddling the padded stool as he said it, brushing up against your body as he did so.

You could feel someone approaching in your peripheral vision, and you were bracing yourself for another unwanted advance. But, then you smelled him; that unmistakable woodsy spice with bar soap and leather undertones. You felt his presence; big and sturdy and warm. There he was, right out of a dream, in his Coffin Kings leather, just like Steve’s, but with a long sleeve black shirt pushed up to the elbows, hair back in a knot so that it wouldn’t drive him crazy on the ride over, forearms and fingers patched in tattoos. He wasn’t wearing his chunky rings, and it made you wonder if he had been in a rush to leave his place. His knuckles were crisscrossed in raised white scars, as well as one particularly angry one that went all the way down his middle finger and back of his hand.

You made sure it was him first, and then you couldn’t wait to be in his arms. He turned in his seat to face you so that your hips fit in between his wide knees, and you fell against him, rested your head in the crook of his neck, closing your eyes for a second, soaking in the secure feeling of his arms locking around you.

He squeezed you so tight, something in your back popped, and then he loosened his grip, unsure of his own strength sometimes. “You okay?” He asked, his head turning so that his lips were pressed against the back of your head.

You had both of your arms against your chest so that your hands were balled up into tiny fists in between your two bodies. “I’ve been better,” you told him, shoulders hunched.

Some of your hair caught on the stubble of his jaw as you pulled back to find his lips with yours. You exchanged a few sweet kisses, foreheads locking together as you fingered the single earring dangling from his lobe, before stepping up onto your seat again. Facing one another, you each had a forearm resting on the bar, and Eddie cupped his hand over yours, protectively.

God, he was crazy about you, Eddie thought.

He could tell that you weren’t yourself. His eyes shifted around the room, jaw muscles flexing. “Did someone in here fuck with you?”

“No, no, it wasn’t that,” you avoided his eyes and looked at his hand that was on top of yours. “I got fired today,” you said as a reflexive, helpless smile flashed across your mouth.

Eddie set his head back an inch, lips parted, searching your face. “You’re joking?”

“Nope,” you offered a little snort. “Not this time, I’m afraid.” And then you gave him the Cliff Notes version of everything that had gone one from when Jeff came over the night before till now.

Eddie rubbed his thumb across your hand as you talked. He didn’t want to smother you, but if he wasn’t touching you, he thought maybe you’d just slip away. Was he touching you too much, or not enough? Healthy forms of attachment and displays of affection were not taught to him as a child; but he was an observant fuck, and a fast learner. The vulnerable side of him was the side that always got him hurt, heart trampled on, and so every time that natural urge showed itself, he would do his best to reel it back. There was something about you, though, that made him feel comfortable enough to show his affection in a way his heart ached to do.

The bartender brought Eddie a beer and set it on a napkin. He released your hand only to take a sip of it, thinking about what you’d just shared with him, and then his hand found yours again, giving it a reassuring pulse.

“By the looks of it, I’m not even sure she’ll even give me a good reference,” For all Judith’s faults, Moon River was one of the best, though, and you had dreamed about working there ever since you read an article about in Art World magazine.

“You should’ve called me,” Eddie put his other hand on your knee. “I would’ve come and picked you and---”

“Rescued me?” You gave him a shy look. “I know you would’ve. But you were working, and I’ve been trying not to make it a reality by talking about it. I haven’t even talked to Katie today.”

Much like Eddie, you weren’t used to reaching out to people when times got tough; your default was usually to hide and/or run as far away as possible. Even though you hadn’t done anything wrong that would warrant being fired in such a hasty manner, it still made you feel embarrassed, and you weren’t sure if you were ready to peel back all of those deeper layers with him in this early stage of dating.

There was a lull in the conversation as Creep by Stone Temple Pilots played in the background, and a bad feeling planted seeds in Eddie’s gut that had him wondering if maybe he had something to do with this. Was this Charlene’s doing? She had the reach, that was for sure, but to what end? She surely didn’t think that somehow hurting you would get him back in her bed. The math was not mathing, not by Eddie’s way of thinking, anyway.

He ducked his head to try and meet your lowered gaze, his fingers intertwining with yours on the bar. “Can I take you home after this?”

You took a deep breath and finished your drink in one final gulp, the melting ice crashing against your lips. You chewed a few bits as you answered him, “that’s probably a good idea. But I can call Katie, you don’t have to---”

“I’m taking you home.” His eyes were soft, but his tone let you know that he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

-------------

Katie came out onto the porch in a bathrobe like the concerned mother you never had as Eddie pulled the bike to the curb to let you off; you kissed him on the cheek as you dismounted. She worried that you’d been in a car accident or something by how late he was bringing you back. You had left her a note on the kitchen counter, but it said you’d only be gone an hour or two, not seven.

-------------

The only thoughts in Eddie’s head as he made his way back to the garage were wondering how he could help make things better for you. He couldn’t muscle someone into getting your job back, but there were plenty of people who would hire you at various places if he told them to. Then there was that office assistant he needed, but he wouldn’t be able to even pay you half what the gallery did---you’d be better off getting unemployment.

The bad feeling that all of this had been because of him blossomed into a full blown knee to the stomach when he saw the unmistakable polished, cherry red of Charlene’s Porsche parked directly across from the entrance to his apartment. She was leaning against the back, elbows on the trunk, feet crossed at the ankles, grinning like Satan’s spawn as she watched him pull in.

He took a minute to calm himself down as he parked the bike, slowly dismounting, keeping his back to her as he took off his helmet. God, he did not want to deal with this shit right now. He would never physically hurt her, and she knew that, and it felt like she was really shoving that fact in his face.

Every muscle in his body was tense as he headed in her direction across the mostly empty, dark parking lot, especially those in his face and hands.

“Trouble in paradise?” She quipped, looking down at her nails, fanning them out like claws. She was in a tight, leopard print pencil skirt halter dress, and a cropped, bolero style fur coat.

First, he wanted to make sure they were both on the same page. “Are you the reason she got fired?”

Charlene crossed her arms over her chest and shrugged. “I might have convinced a handful of people to ignore Judith and never spend money in her gallery ever again unless she let that girl go, so, sure, I guess maybe I did have something to do with it.”

“You’re disgusting,” Eddie said it on a strained breath, a painful look on his face, bile rising in his throat. It was almost hard for him to look at her in that moment, he hated her so much.

“And you’re a fucking liar,” Charlene spat, jutting her chin out a few times, stabbing her finger in the air at him. “You told me you cared about me.”

Eddie had so many residual regrets for the things his dick made him do sometimes, it wasn’t even funny.

He cocked one knee out to the side. “So, you thought that by hurting her, I’d somehow get back in your bed? You’re out of your fucking mind, Charlene.”

“Baby, don’t you remember how we used to---” she pushed off the car and dove to grab his arm, but he stepped back, out of her reach.

“Don’t call me that,” he warned, cringing.

“Fine!” Judith barked showing the palms of her hands in mocking surrender. “But I miss it, I miss us. I know you do too.”

Without hesitation, Eddie shook his head, his voice a deep murmur. “I don’t miss it at all. I don’t miss us, because there never was an us.”

“You don’t mean that,” she bit, pouting, trying hard to pull a few crocodile tears to the surface of her icy hazel eyes.

“Listen,” Eddie paused to chew his top lip. He didn’t want to knowingly break anyone's heart, not even Charlene's. At one point in their fling, he could tell that her feelings for him were way more intense than his were for her, and he should’ve called it off then, but the money made him greedy and careless. “I’m sorry you got hurt in all this, okay, we had some fun while it lasted. But you have to fucking fix this, Charlene, I’m serious.”

She rolled her eyes. “Fix what? It’s done,” she scoffed. “She’ll have to get a new job, big deal. It’s not the end of the world.”

“You’ve never had to work a day in your life. You wouldn’t last a week in her shoes.”

“I’d trade lives with her in a second,” she blurted. “If it meant you’d look at me the same way you look at her.”

He puffed out a long held, heavy breath. “It’s been fun catching up. I’m going inside. You know the way out.”

If he knew that any number of words—besides lying and saying he loved her---would get you your job back, or turn back the hands of time, Eddie would’ve stood there and negotiated all night, but he knew his efforts were futile.

He was a couple steps away when she called out to him again, and this time; her tone was frigid, void of any emotion.

“You should know it’s only going to get worse for her,” she promised. Eddie stopped in his tracks, flexing his hands, but didn’t turn around, and so she continued. “I’ll make sure she’s rejected by every gallery for a hundred mile radius, and then she’ll have no choice but to move away, or stay here with you and watch her dreams die.”

One of his hands clenched into a fist, knowing that it wasn’t a bluff, trying so hard to push down the violence he felt rising in him.

“And her friend, Kathrine Clayton,” Charlene continued, letting him know the creepy detail that she had somehow ascertained your roommates full name. “I wonder how the parents in town would feel about overhearing horrible rumors involving the woman teaching their kids.”

At that Eddie turned around slow, eyes narrowing, voice booming. “What do want, Charlene? You want us to go back to fucking again, is that what it will take?” He didn’t want to touch Charlene, let alone put his cock inside of her, but he’d do it one more time if it meant she’d leave you and Katie alone. Take one for the team, as they say.

“No, not really,” She shrugged, a bored expression on her face. “I’m fucking someone new now. He’s younger than you, and he can’t get enough of me. It took me a while to find a bent cock as big as yours, but I knew I would eventually.”

This bitch is fucking crazy, Eddie swallowed, full of shame for ever getting involved with her in the first place. “What did you do, put an ad in the paper?”

“I’ll tell you what I want,” Charlene continued, ignoring his second question. “It’s very simple. I don’t want you to see her anymore, I want you to end it. I hate knowing the two of you are...falling for each other, it makes me sick. Especially when I think it could have been us.”

Eddie’s temper flared, he slammed his fist into the palm of his hand and closed in on her in two big strides, forcing her back up against the bumper. “Why can’t you get it through your fucking head that you were nothing but a warm mouth to me? I care more about her after only a few weeks than I ever did about you.”

Seemingly unaffected by those words, Charlene sighed and dropped her arms to her sides. “Well, if you care about her as much as you say you do, I encourage you to think about what I just said,” she shimmied in her high heels over the driver’s side of her Porsche, opening the door. “If you continue to see her, I’m going to ruin her life and run her out of town, and it will be all your fault, big boy.”

She waved her fingers out the window as she zoomed away from the complex. Eddie stood in the shadows and watched her go, his eyes going black, considering what she said, and realizing what he had to do as a vast and familiar emptiness grew in his chest.

--------------

The next day, you were playing with the zipper of your hoodie, sitting at the window alcove in the kitchen, holding a pillow at your stomach, thinking about the phone call you just got from Steve.

You didn’t tell Steve you’d lost your job, but word travels fast in these friend circles. Katie must’ve told Robin, and Robin mentioned to Steve that she could get you a job at the hotel, but Steve had a better idea.

They were hiring servers at the Velvet Hammer, and apparently the bartender with the shaved head who met you the night before was also the manager, and she thought you were cute and funny and you already had an “in”. At first, you were ready to politely decline his suggestion to bring a resume by, being that you had only worked a waitress job once right out of high school, but you weren’t sure you qualified as a Velvet Hammer Girl—you didn’t even own a spiked collar.

But then he told you what the girls there made as far as income, and it gave you pause.

“The base is minimum wage,” Steve said. “But they make crazy tips, especially Thursday through Sunday. You could pocket a couple hundred bills in a night, easy.”

Sure, you’d be applying to other galleries, but that process took time. First of all, there weren’t any in the area looking for managers at the moment, but even to get your foot in the door as a receptionist would take a while. It took damn near a month and three different interviews before you got on at Moon River.

You also considered that perhaps this was a sign that the gallery world was no longer for you. Maybe it was time to get a side hustle just to pay bills, and then you could start painting again and get your portfolio up to snuff.

You told Steve how grateful you were for giving you the heads up, and he let you know the best times to bring a resume by. He also told you that the resume was basically just a formality because he had already vouched for you, but a necessity, nonetheless.

With all the drama, you almost forgot that it was Tuesday, and little cartoon hearts swam around your head when you remembered your date night with Eddie. You didn’t know where he was taking you, but he’d mentioned over the phone a few days ago that the place was new and supposedly hip. He told you to dress warm, and he’d pick you up in his Chevelle so you wouldn’t have to worry about clinging to the back of the bike in your dinner attire.

That afternoon, you were sifting through your closet for possible outfits, while simultaneously making a pile to donate to Goodwill, when the phone rang: it was Eddie.

Right away, you could tell that his tone was different; his words came out forced, like you were the last person he wanted to be talking to. You shook it off as him being distracted at work, because you could hear the other mechanics shouting in the background around the noise of electric drills and loud music.

Eddie’s eyes squeezed shut at the sound of your voice: the purpose for this phone call went against every fiber of his being. He’d been trying to convince himself that you weren’t special to him all day, but so far, it wasn’t working.

“Hey,” he stiffened, trying not to melt into a stupid grin at the way you said his name. “Something came up, and I have to cancel our thing tonight. Sorry.”

He wasn’t ready to let you go altogether, which was selfish, but he’d take it one day at a time until he could figure out a way to keep you. He had no way of knowing how much Charlene knew. He wouldn’t put it passed her to have a private investigator watching his ass 24/7. Even worse, she could’ve hired someone to watch you, and that kept him up at night.

Your heart sank, but you also understood how busy and complex his life was. “Oh, sure, Batman rides again, I get it,” you gave a little laugh, hoping to relieve any worries he had about having to cancel. You knew him well enough to know that he was a man of his word, and bailing on the date was probably the last thing he wanted to do. If only you knew the half of his anguish.

Eddie offered no retort, there was none of the flirtatious banter the two of you usually shared so effortlessly. He just cleared his throat, “anyway, that’s why I called. I have to run, talk to you later.”

You were just in the middle of saying something back when the line went to dial tone; your mouth hung open as you pulled the receiver away from your face to look at it, stunned. You blinked, turning to your cat Charlie who was stretched out on top of a pile of clean shirts on your bed. “Did he just hang up on us?” But Charlie only yawned in response.

Eddie did not, in fact, have anywhere to run to. He clicked the phone down and put his face in his dirty hands at the desk, hating himself.

-----------

Since your date got canceled, for whatever nefarious or benign reason, you decided to hike your resume over to the Velvet Hammer and introduce yourself properly to Shana, the manager with the shaved head and the fierce green eyes. She had clusters of black stars tattooed at her temples, and an anatomical heart tattoo on her bicep, right at her sleeve.

She basically hired you on the spot, but said they needed to give you a trial run for a night to shadow one of the girls to see if you could keep up the pace. She asked you to come in early for training on Thursday, and then you could start that same night if you were available. Paychecks came out every two weeks, but you’d be able to take home all of your cash tips immediately.

So, you had a job. A temporary one, to be sure, but still deeply appreciated, all the same. As much as it took a weight off of your shoulders, it also felt incredibly surreal. Also, you couldn’t help but wonder what Eddie would think.

-----------

“Steve did what?” Eddie barked at Robin who was standing in the doorway to the office, dropping off Oliver for an hour on Wednesday. He hadn’t meant for his tone to be so gruff.

She crossed her arms and leaned against the door frame. “She needed a job while she applied at other galleries, and he got her one. I thought you’d be grateful.”

He would be grateful, maybe later, when he was done seeing red with jealousy over all of the guys, he knew who would be hitting on you at that place. What if they tried to touch you? He couldn’t even think about it, he was about to pick the desk up and throw it across the room.

Robin snorted a laugh, watching him get so flustered, he dropped the same pen three times. “Dang, you really have it bad for this one, don’t you bubba?”

It occurred to him that he should talk to Robin about what was going on, about Charlene and the threats. She had always been a solid friend who afforded him years of good advice, but there was a part of him that didn’t want to get anyone else involved. It was his mess, and he needed to clean it up, if he even could.

That night, he sat in the chair by the window in his apartment with the TV on but the volume off, listening to I Stay Away by Alice in Chains, watching the phone as it rang, forcing himself not to pick it up. It was day 2 of trying to avoid you and pull away, and he was failing miserably at being cool about it. He had to say something to you, he couldn’t just make you suffer and not know what the fuck was going on in his head; that wasn’t fair to you. But then again, none of this was. It was official, he had inadvertently dragged you down into his filth.

He turned Charlene’s words over in his head, recalling the sincerity in her face as she said them, wondering how far she would take this. He’d seen her dirty deeds in action, he knew she was formidable.

The black phone under the singular light from the lamp on his nightstand started ringing again, but it cut off halfway through, as if the person calling had changed their minds or given up. As he sat there, he remembered how you rode his thigh the other night, the whimpers coming out of your mouth, and he had to palm his growing cock over his boxers. It was disturbing how bad he wanted you.

“Fuck it,” Eddie cursed, getting to his feet so that he could go over to the phone and call you.

But, just as he picked it up to dial, it was just about to ring, and there was someone on the other line.

“Eddie? Lover?” It was Erika. “You interested in a quickie to help you sleep? I drove by and saw your light on.”

-----------

After trying to call Eddie for the third—and decidedly final—time that night, you went out and flopped on the opposite end of the couch from Katie who was watching an episode of the show 3rd Rock from the Sun with a green beauty mask on her face.

“Still nothing?” She asked, peeling back a piece of string cheese. She knew you’d tried a couple times that night to get a hold of Eddie, and that he had canceled mysteriously on your date the night before.

“I know he’s got a lot on his plate,” you got comfortable, snuggling into the corner, ready to defend him even to yourself. “I just wish there was a way for him to let me know he’s okay. Send me an email or something. A few words, that’s all I ask.”

Your gut was telling you that something was definitely wrong, but, to be fair, you’d had your heart dragged through the mud before, and you worried that your gut was not a reliable source. You weren’t upset about the date being canceled, you didn’t even need to see him—even though that would be great----good communication was really all you asked for or needed. Your brain kept going back to the way he had been with you on Monday versus how he was with you on the phone yesterday; the two experiences were night and day. Had something happened between the time he dropped you off and the next afternoon? You checked with Robin, and you knew that Wayne was back on his feet. Maybe there had been some sticky Coffin King business that Eddie wasn’t at liberty to speak about.

You also tried to keep in mind that this whole little romance was as new as a spring daffodil, and even though you’d had a crush on him for over a month, you hadn’t progressed beyond kissing and heavy petting. Was there a chance you were reading the signals all wrong and he wasn’t as interesting in you as you thought?

Katie seemed to subliminally hear that question and answered you. “I wouldn’t worry about it, babes, the guy is nuts about you,” she turned to you and ate the rest of her cheese while there was a commercial on. “Robin said she hasn’t seen him this interested in a woman in years, and she’s known him since high school.”

“What else did Robin say?” This was helping you; this is what you needed. Why hadn’t she offered this information earlier?

She put two fingers to her mask to tap a few times, checking how tacky it felt, to know if she should wash it off yet or not. “She said that he got pretty jealous when she mentioned that you got the job at Velvet Hammer, and normally he doesn’t care what other women he’s dating do when they’re not with him.”

The silly truth was that, if Eddie told you he didn’t feel comfortable with you working there, you would’ve probably looked for something else. But, deciding to say nothing and be a ghost in the wind was not the right play to get what he wanted.

“I’m sure he’s just busy,” you announced, nodding to accentuate your point. “I’ll wait a day or two before I start freaking out.”

Katie gave you a thumbs up.

------------

Eddie told Erika not to call him again and practically hung up on her. It had been a while since they’d last hooked up, and if not for the incident with you at Fight Night, he would’ve all but forgotten about her.

Not twenty minutes later, shirtless in his boxers, he heard footsteps padding up the stairs to the floor of his apartment. This was particularly disturbing because it was late, and he wasn’t expecting anyone. He pulled his handgun out of its holster on the dresser and waited with it held low, standing just behind the door as the footsteps got closer.

“Who is it?” Eddie barked.

After a second of pregnant silence came the meek, “hi, it’s me. Erika.”

“Fuck my life,” Eddie hissed under his breath, holding the gun back and putting the safety on as he reached over to unlock the door and yank it open.

“I thought I just told you not to call or come over,” Eddie said, addressing her with raised eyebrows, just as he realized too late that he should’ve put a shirt on.

Erika was in a silver crop top and a pair of low-rise jeans, a pink heart dangling from her exposed belly button piercing. She was making a face and prancing back and forth a bit on each foot. “Can I please use your bathroom?”

Eddie blinked a few times, and then he scowled. “You came all the way over here in the middle of the night to use my bathroom?”

“No silly,” she giggled. “I came to see you. And to see if I left a pair of my earrings here the last time I came over.”

Eddie shook his head, slipping the gun back into its holster on his dresser with a sigh, and then shutting it in the top drawer. “I don’t have your earrings but go ahead. You know where it is.” What was he supposed to do? Make her pee out in the hallway?

He waited by the front door, standing holding it open, until he heard a flush, and then her high heels came clip-clopping back down the hall.

He pushed the door open further, holding his arm up high like an arch, making space so she could walk through. “Have a good night,” he said without meeting her eyes.

But she latched onto his chest, throwing herself against him, her lips grazing his neck, tongue lapping up to lick his earlobe. Eddie pushed her of reflexively but caught her so that she didn’t trip and fall, and now they were out in the main hallway that led to the stairs.

In perfect view of a large, street-facing window.

She was pouting, but he had her by both arms now, and he shook her a little, just enough to get her attention. “I don’t want this anymore,” his eyes were wide, searching hers. “Nod if you understand.”

But then she jutted her head forward, her lips making contact with his, her tongue flicking out dramatically.

“Fuck, STOP!” He growled pushing her away enough so that he could wipe his mouth with the back of his hand.

“But,” she gave him a coy look, adjusting her shirt. “I was thinking just one last time?”

She stole a quick side glance out the big window, but he didn’t catch it.

He composed himself, trying to imagine if he had a sister, how he’d want them to be treated in this moment, no matter how demented they were.

He took her hand in one of his and covered it with the other. “You’re a sweet girl, Erika. Go find a loyal, normal guy to care about you the way you deserve, okay? I’m not the one.”

He noticed a shift in her then, a sadness passed over her eyes; regret, maybe? Whatever it was, her appetite for him ceased and she seemed to curl into an invisible shell, shoulders sagging. She tugged her hand from his and tucked her chin, stepped forward only to hug his shoulder briefly as she went by.

“I’m so sorry, Eddie,” she said softly, pulling back to give him one last tortured look over her shoulder before she continued toward the stairs. “Please forgive me.”

Eddie stood there like a statue, hair hanging down his shoulders, hands paused in the air, wondering why the hell that had been so weird. Sure, Erika was a wild card, but showing up to use the bathroom, and then awkwardly trying to feel him up in the hallway, only to look like she was about to cry? It didn’t make any sense.

He followed a way behind her, and then made sure to put the bolt on the main door in the garage so that he wouldn’t have any more uninvited creeping visitors.

-----------

In the building across the street from Munson’s Garage, with a perfect view of the hallway outside of Eddie’s apartment, a man with a telephoto lens was taking pictures. Snapping what sounded like a billion at a time in the darkness of the abandoned warehouse. Click click click click click.

He was finishing up, packing his camera into its case, when Erika appeared reluctantly at the top of the stairs, her expression sullen.

“Here you go, dollface,” the much older, potbellied man said to her, pinching a wad of cash between his middle and index fingers and extending it to her. “You did real good.”

Erika swallowed as she took the money, her hands cold and shaking. Sure, she was upset that Eddie didn’t like her as much as she liked him, and she hated that new girl he was talking to, but she didn’t want to see anything bad happen to him.

“I don’t like this,” she told the photographer. “I wish I’d never agreed to do it.”

“Well,” the guy said, adjusting his fedora on his head as he put the strap of his bag over his shoulder, already out of breath from the mild exertion. “Sorry to be the one to tell you this, sweetheart, but no one gives a shit.”

------------

Part 8

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Taglist xoxox @sidthedollface2 @leilalaufeyson02 @lilpotatobean2 @ireidsmut @kelsiegrin @nope-thanks @stylesxmunson @lofaewrites @seventhlevelofhell @corrodedcoffinsmut @whatwedontdointheshadows @kurdtbean @falling-solar-system @emxcast @bexreadstoomuch @ms1oftheboys @hellv1ra @dream-a-little-nightmare @etherealglimmer @manicmagicmayhem @micheledawn1975@aysheashea @unfocused81 @truffleshuffle12 @notsobubblybaby

P.S. for some reason, half of these aren't tagging the people they are meant for, so I'm sorry if you find this and it seems like I didn't tag you 💗 I'm grateful for each of you.

#older!eddie #older eddie munson #bikereddiemunson #boxereddiemunson #eddie munson smut #eddie munson series #eddie munson fics #stranger things fic #the 90s #90s au #fem reader #eddie munson x fem reader #I'm on fire #eat the rich

[bettyfrommars]

stories from the I'm on Fire au

biker!Eddie + biker!Steve + Robin Buckley x fem!Reader

One Shots

Candy Necklace - biker!Steve x fem!Reader - Smut Ready Steddie Go - biker!Steddie x fem!Reader - Porn/No Plot Glory Box - biker!Steve x fem!Reader - Smut So Gone - Robin Buckley x fem!reader - Smut (but also fluffy) Monster Cookies - Steve's Family Fluff Santa Comes Once a Year - biker!Eddie as Santa smut

Bound by Blood - biker!Eddie x fem!reader + biker!Steve - biker Eddie in his 40's (by @tenthmoon) The Bell Tolls for Thee - biker!Eddie x reader - biker Eddie gets a special gift from reader (by @tenthmoon)

If you enjoyed the character Astrid, she was developed by @texasblues, and you can read more about her relationships with Steve, Eddie, and Wayne through the years here: biker!Steve x Astrid Masterlist

1971 - the early years for Wayne, the boys, Evelyn & Astrid - by @texasblues

biker!steve x fem!reader - teaser for possible future series

#eddiemunson #older eddie munson #older steve harrington #bikereddiemunson #eddiemunsonseries #eddiemunsonsmut #steve harrington smut #steddie oneshot #eddiemunsononeshot #steve harrington one shot #eddiemunsonfic #steddie #steddie smut #90s au #90smusic

[bettyfrommars]

UPDATE for Part 12 of I'm on Fire:

I foolishly underestimated my workload this week and said part 12 would be out by today (6/25), but it's just not going to happen, as much as it hurts me to say it. I know some of you aren't worried about it, but there are a few that were looking forward to it, and to them, I am truly sorry. There are some intricate scenes and new characters popping up in this part that needed more time to craft than previous chapters. It shouldn't be too much longer though, just a couple days ❤️

In the meantime, if you are missing the I'm on Fire au, there are a BUNCH of fun one shots inspired by the series that I've collaborated with other writers to create including filthy smut and fluff. You can find that masterlist HERE.

Also, I look at these moodboards when I want to escape to be with biker!Eddie, biker!Steve, and Robin:

The Velvet Hammer

Steve & Robin's House

Eddie's Place Above Munson's Garage

Love you, can't wait to hear what you think of the next part xoxox

#I'm on Fire #eddie munson smut #bikereddiemunson #biker steve #steve harrington #steve harrington smut #robin buckley smut #eddie munson series #eddie munson fic #older eddie munson #older steve harrington

[bettyfrommars]

Getting started on part 10 of I'm on Fire tomorrow, and I can't wait 🥹 Made this for some inspo and for my biker Eddie & biker Stevie fam ❤️ xoxoxox

#i'm on fire #eddiemunsonseries #older eddie munson #bikereddiemunson #ganggang

[bettyfrommars]

I honestly can't believe this, but Part 9 of I'm on Fire will be posted by this time tomorrow (Sunday, 11am pst), which is wild because I was sure that would be impossible. Happy 1 year anniversary of being obsessed with Eddie Munson, y'all 🥹xoxox

#i'm on fire #eddiemunsonseries #older eddie munson #bikereddiemunson

[bettyfrommars]

Part 10 of I'm on Fire ended up being almost as much about biker!Steve as biker!Eddie, and I'm looking forward to what you all think. I have no idea what time, exactly, but it will be posted tomorrow, Sunday, 6/4 ❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥

#I'm on fire #bikereddiemunson #bikersteve #eddiemunsonseries

[bettyfrommars]

Okay so the notes for part 8 of I’m on Fire are sending me, because not many people have even found this story, let alone read it, but the ones who have??? Y’all are literally GANG GANG in the comments and it warms my heart 😭 It’s like we are our own biker gang. Meet you at the Velvet Hammer for drinks later 🥹

#i’m on fire #eddiemunsonseries #older eddie munson #bikereddiemunson