Archive of Our Own

Being human is a truly fascinating experience. The ability to just exist without worrying that something will suddenly make you sputter and go out is something neither Eddie or Volt are used to. Sure, they're both aware that they're now mortal and will age and die eventually, but at least they're not literally being kept alive by a bunch of usually-faulty wires. Despite the strangeness of it all, there are usually more upsides than downsides to their new situation.

Usually.

“We need employees,” Volt says, the night after they open their new club - The Breaker Box , of course. It had only felt right to continue doing the job they loved now that they were human. Their first day had been decently busy, nothing compared to the club at the house, and yet it had somehow been more stressful than anywhere they'd worked before. Which, admittedly, was only one place. But it still counted.

“We've never needed them before,” Eddie protests.

“I wonder why that is,” Volt says dryly.

He's right, of course. Something Eddie refuses to admit to anyone other than himself. But one of the best bits of not being human was that, most of the time, reality simply did not apply to them. Just the two of them could run a whole club with at least 25 visitors a night while still taking breaks to talk to anyone they (Volt) found interesting, and even at maximum capacity they would just ask Beverly to help for a bit and they'd be fine. Unfortunately, that does not seem to work in the real world.

“Fine,” Eddie admits begrudgingly. “We can hire someone. How many people do you think we need?”

“More than two?” Volt suggests. He clearly has no idea either.

Eddie sighs. They should probably search up the basics of this so they don't crash and burn. Now he has to learn how to operate the computer that had just appeared in his and Volt’s office last week. Maybe he should call Mac.

Correction: force Volt to call Mac. This is his idea after all.

1.

Cassandra has had about 8 different jobs in the past year, each one arguably worse than the last. Her last one was at the Dollar Tree, and she quit when she turned a corner to find a random man pissing in Aisle 5. So, her standards for what counts as a good job are significantly lower than most people's.

Despite that, she's pretty sure she actually likes being at the Breaker Box. She's not fully sure if she remembers what it's like to enjoy work, but this feels close enough to count.

She'd honestly thought she was screwed when - in the middle of attempting to apply for a job she knew very little about - the shorter, angry looking man disappeared into the back for a few minutes, then came back to say, “So, you punched someone at your last job?”

Which, yes, maybe she did punch that random man in Aisle 5 but could you honestly blame her for that? Cassandra figured there was no point in lying since this man had somehow dug up information she never even mentioned, and resigned herself to trying somewhere else. Maybe McDonald's was hiring, she did like stealing fries while she worked.

Instead, the man looked at his friend. They stared at each other as if having a silent conversation, which went on long enough that Cassandra started to feel like she was intruding.

Then the taller man looked at her, smiled brightly, and said, “You're hired.”

Yeah, she has no idea why they hired her. But it turns out she makes a pretty good server, and her new bosses don't mind when she ‘accidentally’ spills a drink on a creepy guy.

The drama definitely helps.

“What exactly is going on with those two?” Kaleb says. He's the other server. Cassandra usually likes him, even if she thinks his fashion choices are a bit ridiculous. Currently, he's pointing towards Eddie and Volt. They're standing off to the side, as they always are. Eddie is motioning towards one of the ceiling lights with more intensity than Cassandra has ever seen a human regard a lightbulb with, and Volt is watching him with the exact same look in his eyes as he always has when Eddie goes off about a topic. Ridiculously fond.

“Something gross,” Cassandra says.

“You don't think it's romantic?” Lizzie speaks up from behind them, leaning across her bar to look as well. She doesn't stop working, pouring something brown and murky-looking into a glass and handing it to a customer.

“I do,” Kaleb sighs. “They kinda give me hope for my future.”

“Yeah, if someone can put up with Eddie , then you definitely have a chance,” Cassandra snarks.

Lizzie rolls her eyes. “How have you not been fired yet?”

“Hell if I know.”

A man comes up to the bar and Lizzie makes his drink with unrivaled speed. She turns back to the others as if the conversation never paused.

“But, seriously, what are your bets on their relationship?” she asks.

“Oooh, bets?” Kaleb says eagerly. “15 bucks they're in a weird situationship.”

“Do you even have 15 bucks?” Cassandra asks.

“I will when I win this bet. I mean, look at them. We've been here for a month and all they've done is gaze longingly at each other. They haven't even held hands! They're definitely in love and repressing it,” Kaleb insists.

“Hmmm,” Lizzie says. “I think they're just friends, but Volt likes Eddie.”

“Really? You don't think it's reciprocated?” Kaleb leans against the bar to talk to her, and Cassandra is reminded of when she was in middle school watching her friends giggle about how Stacy and Jeff kissed under the stairs.

That’s a lie, she didn't have friends. She did eavesdrop on other people's conversations though, which was basically the same thing.

Lizzie shakes her head. “Nope. We haven't seen anything from Eddie that indicates he likes Volt back, and Volt may be the least subtle person I've ever seen. Either Eddie is somehow just that oblivious, or he knows and he's sparing Volt’s feelings by not mentioning it.”

“Yes, but he obviously wouldn't mention it if they were both hiding their feelings, because then...”

Cassandra squints, letting the others’ voices blur into the background as she examines the two men they're bickering about. She watches as Eddie looks over at Volt, immediately raising an eyebrow when he sees the way the other is staring at him. Volt grins as he says something. Eddie rolls his eyes and jabs the screwdriver he's holding into Volt’s side, making him yelp. He never stops smiling.

“I think they're fucking,” she declares, interrupting what she's sure is a riveting conversation on the merits of secret gay love.

Kaleb blinks. “Seriously? Not something more poetic than that?”

“Nope. I think they're banging bits. Not in secret, they just haven't bothered telling us,” Cassandra says.

“Why wouldn't they say something?” Lizzie asks.

“Probably because you're gossiping about their lives instead of working,” Cassandra says.

Lizzie snorts. “Fair enough. You're putting money on that?”

Cassandra glances back across the room. Eddie has his arms crossed, saying something to Volt. His grin is so slight that she almost misses it.

“Absolutely.”

Much to Cassandra’s delight, it only takes three days for her to be proven right.

It starts with a drunk middle aged man at the bar. A regular occurrence, of course. Cassandra is waiting for Lizzie to finish the batch of drinks for her to deliver to the table in the corner, watching Eddie and Volt out of the corner of her eye. They're together, as usual, talking happily with the bachelorette party that just walked in. Well, Volt is talking happily. Eddie's standing at his side like an extremely awkward shadow. Cassandra is just waiting for the moment they do something that confirms her suspicions. She really wants that money.

Unfortunately, she's so preoccupied by calculating how many dollars it would take to buy a Dollar Tree that she doesn't notice the drunk man reaching for Lizzie until he almost knocks over one of drinks she's making.

Cassandra turns around in time to see Lizzie pry the man’s hand off her arm and push him back slightly.

“C’mon, pretty girl...” he slurs. “Jus’ one kiss.”

“Thanks for the offer, but I'm not interested,” Lizzie says, smiling stiffly. 

“Why not?” the man says, trying to reach for her again. She steps back slightly.

“I like girls,” Lizzie says bluntly. Cassandra snorts, and Lizzie shoots her a small grin.

The man does not seem to find this as funny as Cassandra does. His face screws up weirdly, twisting his features. He snarls at Lizzie, although it doesn't look that intimidating considering he's almost falling off his stool.

“Fuckin’ freak,” he says. “You're too pretty for that. I can show you a real man, y’know.”

He spits as he talks, Cassandra notices. Mainly because some of it lands on Lizzie's search. She's about to consider whether or not hitting this guy would make her lose her job when, right on time, Volt appears.

“Hey Lizzie, can you get those ladies another round of shots?” he says.

“You left Eddie alone with them? You're sure that's a good idea?” Lizzie says, pushing Cassandra's drinks to her and getting started on the shots.

“They think he's entertaining,” Volt says. Sure enough, Eddie says something most likely rude and deadpan that makes the table of women explode in drunken giggles. Eddie just looks uncomfortable. Volt's watching him with that silly, lovesick expression again. Cassandra and Lizzie notice, of course, because Volt is so obvious it's kinda embarrassing to watch. Unfortunately, that means the drunk man sees it too.

“God, you one of these fuckin’ people too?” he drawls. Volt blinks at him, confused.

“Sorry?” he says.

Eddie chooses that moment to walk over, for some reason.

“Hey Volt, what the hell is taking so long? You abandoned me over there,” he says. He looks over at the extremely angry man, visibly unimpressed. “What's going on?”

“Just a homophobe, don't worry about it,” Lizzie sighs. “Cassandra's probably gonna scare him away.”

“ ‘Homophobe’?” Volt repeats, like the word is foreign to him. He looks at Eddie. The other man just shrugs, seemingly also confused.

Cassandra frowns. What kind of gay men didn't know what homophobia was? Was she somehow wrong? No, she was never wrong. Impossible.

“Like, he hates all gay people and thinks they should go to hell or something,” she explains.

Somehow, that doesn't clear up their confusion.

“Oh!” Eddie says suddenly, realizing something. “The human explained this to us. Two men or two women dating. He doesn't like that.”

The fuck does he mean ‘the human’? Cassandra wonders.

“Oh yeah!” Volt says far too cheerily. “Huh, how strange.”

The man sputters as if he can't fathom why they're so unaffected.

“So what, you two really a couple of queers?” he says. 

Volt looks over at Eddie. Eddie looks back for a second, sighs, then nods. “Fine.”

Cassandra is expecting them to maybe fight the guy, probably just to throw him out. She's not expecting Volt to grab Eddie's shirt collar, shove him against the bar, and practically shove his tongue down his throat.

Lizzie almost drops a glass. Across the room, Kaleb trips and falls flat on his face. Volt and Eddie do not stop, apparently very passionate about each other's existence now.

The homophobe is watching them in silent horror. Cassandra has to bite her lip to keep from bursting out laughing.

When her bosses finally separate after long enough that she was beginning to worry they'd forgotten all about the full club of people behind them, both of them look sufficiently wrecked. Volt's hair is sticking up in twelve different directions and the first five buttons of Eddie's collar are somehow undone.

“Robbie!” Volt calls, cheerful as always. “Please escort this man out.”

Their bouncer is there in seconds. Unlike the other three, he seems totally unfazed as he grabs the man and hauls him out. Almost like he already knew about whatever Volt and Eddie have going on. Cassandra’s definitely harassing him into telling her more about that.

When Cassandra turns back around Eddie and Volt are already walking away, hand in hand. Volt's on the phone with someone and talking loudly over the music.

“Live Wire, why didn't you tell us about this strange thing called homophobia ...”

His voice trails off as the two men disappear into the back room, the door swinging shut behind them.

“Well fuck me, you were right,” Kaleb says, approaching her as fast as possible. “How did you know?”

“I have a fifth sense for this.”

“There are only five senses anyways.”

“I can't smell anymore, so I only have four. That makes this the fifth one.”

“Of course you can't,” Kaleb snorts, clapping her on the shoulder. “We'll get your money to you by tomorrow.”

“Good,” Cassandra says, but she's too preoccupied to even think about money right now. Because right before they started trying to eat each others’ faces, Eddie and Volt had mentioned someone they specifically referred to as ‘the human.’ As if they themselves weren't also human.

Cassandra sighs. She's getting the feeling this job won't be as easy as she hoped. At least it pays well. 

And, she glances at Kaleb, who's throwing a paper straw wrapper at a giggling Lizzie, maybe friends wouldn't be so bad.

2.

If there’s one thing Robert is good at, it’s minding his own business.

He thinks that’s one of the main reasons he was hired. The moment one of the others so much as motions him over, he’ll kick out whatever customer is bothering them, no questions asked. It makes him a good bouncer, but it also makes the other aspects of his job easier.

Robert knows the others spend half their shifts giggling by the bar, often about their bosses. Even Cassandra - who still insists she doesn’t care about those conversations - always ends up sucked in. They’ve tried involving him a couple times, usually after closing when they’re cleaning up, but after his first few noncommittal hums they usually give up. Cassandra did try interrogating him about Eddie and Volt's relationship and if he knew anything. He does know. The main reason he didn't participate in their bet, other than thinking it's stupid, is because he's almost certain Eddie and Volt are married. They have the same last name after all, which the others seemed to somehow forget. He did not tell her any of that because he knows how to keep his mouth shut.

For this reason, he’s seen a fair amount of strange stuff. Usually from customers, but sometimes from Eddie and Volt themselves. Odd conversations within his earshot or questions about things he’s pretty sure any normal person already knows. Despite all that, neither of them have confused him as much as they are now.

It’s two in the morning and the last few people have just left. Robert can hear Kaleb talking loudly inside and is already calculating how much time he has until he can go to sleep. He’s just about to step inside and shut the front door when Eddie suddenly appears, seemingly out of nowhere.

“Hi Robert,” Eddie says, approaching the door with something small and orange in his hands. Robert glances down and- is that a cat ?

Eddie is gone before he can even consider asking.

Robert sighs. He can’t exactly go home before helping with whatever is happening. Maybe he’s getting too old for this job.

When he steps into the almost empty club, Eddie is holding up what is in fact a cat. It’s right in front of a slightly freaked-out Volt’s face. Now that Robert can see it better, the cat looks a bit dirty. And concerningly skinny.

“What is that?” Volt hisses. The cat bats a paw at him.

“I think it’s a cat,” Eddie says. “Reminds me of some of Mateo’s inanimals. It’s ours now.”

Volt stares deeply into the cat’s eyes. It meows. He sighs.

“Alright. We can definitely figure out how to take care of a living animal,” he says. Eddie almost seems to smile, holding the cat close to his chest. “Where did you even get her?”

“An alleyway. Come help me get a blanket for it.”

The two of them head into the back room. Immediately, Lizzie whips around.

“Do they not know what a cat is?” she says. “Volt looked genuinely scared of it.”

“I guess not,” Cassandra shrugs, unbothered.

“And you don’t find this strange at all?”

“Honestly, I’m not fully sure they’re human.”

Eddie and Volt reappear, and there’s no time for anyone to ask what she could possibly mean. Robert doesn’t even want to try. He doesn’t want to touch the whole issue of what their bosses are. He’s hoping he can just forget about the whole thing and make it to the end of the week.

The next time Robert sees the cat is a few days later. Everyone has come in a bit early, purely by coincidence, just in time to see their bosses have brought their new cat in and are staring intently at it.

“Johnny,” Volt says, not even acknowledging their presence.

“Please stop suggesting the names of people we know, or at least suggest people we like ,” Eddie sighs. 

“I kinda miss Johnny, no one here sings quite as awfully as he does,” Volt sighs. “We could name it Larry.”

“That’s a horrible name for a cat.”

It’s very obvious they’ve been at this for a while. They don’t even react when everyone walks around the room and begins situating themselves wherever they’re supposed to be.

“Why did you bring your cat here? Aren’t loud noises bad for them or something?” Kaleb asks.

“We tried leaving her at home. She tore up our nice curtains,” Eddie says, finally acknowledging them. The moment he looks away from the cat, she clambers up his body and curls around his shoulders. “So, we’re going to put her in the back room and take turns monitoring her.”

The cat does not want to stay in the back room. Robert watches out of the corner of his eye as she breaks out half an hour into the night and crawls through the crowd to rub against Eddie’s legs. He sighs and picks her up, letting the young couple in front of him coo over how cute she is. He’s getting visibly antsy, the way he seems to be whenever anyone talks to him for more than two seconds. Robert knows he doesn’t have to step in and protect him the way he sometimes does with the servers, but it’s still second nature to monitor everyone in the club. He can see Volt hurrying over to free Eddie from the horrors of social interaction when the still-unnamed cat hisses loudly and bats at the couple.

They draw back, shocked. Eddie apologizes and motions towards something across the room. The moment he turns his back to the customers and begins walking away, Robert sees the smug grin on his face.

He turns back to the front, feeling significantly better about not focusing on Eddie for the rest of the night. The cat clearly knows what to do.

She keeps doing it too. Occasionally she'll join an uncomfortable Eddie and be generally unpleasant towards anyone he doesn’t want to be around. She even tries to scratch Kaleb during clean-up once, making him shriek and jump away. The only person the cat (and Eddie, by extension) never seem bothered by is Volt. Which comes as a shock to absolutely no one.

“We’re naming her Copper,” Eddie declares at the end of the night.

Volt snorts. “Really? An electricity themed name?”

“It’s fitting.”

He shrugs and tosses an arm over Eddie’s shoulder. The cat - Copper - nuzzles into his cheek.

“Sure. Whatever you want, spark.”

They only bring Copper around two more times before she very suddenly disappears.

Robert knows something is wrong when he walks into the club to see Eddie slumped over the bar, Volt pacing behind him and talking to someone on the phone. Neither one of them look like they’ve slept.

“-I know they’re not exactly the same, but do you have any idea where she could have gone?” he sighs. “Yeah, okay. Thanks for trying, Dolly.”

He hangs up and turns to Eddie. “She says it’s possible Copper went back to the alley where you found her. We can check there next.”

“Let’s go,” Eddie says immediately, almost knocking over the stool in his haste to get outside.

“What’s going on?” Lizzie asks.

“Copper’s missing. She’s probably- We’re looking for her,” Eddie says, rubbing at his eyes. “Can you guys get started by yourselves?”

“Um, sure. It’s a Wednesday anyway, shouldn’t be too bad,” Lizzie says. “I’ll tell Kaleb and Cass when they get here.”

“Great, thank you, we’ll be back,” Volt says hurriedly, following Eddie out the door.

Lizzie watches them go, biting at one of her painted-red nails. “Do you think Copper’s okay?”

Robert is not very good at comforting people. In fact, he’d say he’s notably bad at it. For a moment he regrets not spending more time with Lizzie, then maybe he’d know what to say to her now.

He pats her shoulder awkwardly. “I’m sure she’s fine. Probably just got cooped up from spending so much time glued to those two after a lifetime of living in alleyways.”

“Yeah, probably,” Lizzie sighs. “Well, no point in just standing here. I’m going to grab some paper from the back.”

Robert watches as she starts scribbling something on what he’s pretty sure is some unimportant paperwork, curious despite himself. “What are you writing?”

She holds the paper up to him. NO HOT CLUB OWNERS HERE TONIGHT, PLEASE DON’T GET MAD AT US. 

“You know as well as I do that there’s a good portion of our clientele who only come here to ogle at our bosses. I don’t want a drunk woman to cry at me because her gay boyfriend is missing,” she says.

“Has that ever happened before?”

“Twice, and it was even more awkward than the creepy men.”

A decent portion of people still come in, but thankfully it’s a small enough number that the four of them can handle it. No drunk women yell at Lizzie this time.

Volt and Eddie don’t reappear.

“Maybe they found Copper and took her home?” Kaleb suggests.

He’s proven false the next morning, when they walk in to see Eddie standing on a ladder replacing one of the lightbulbs. When Robert looks around, four other bulbs look completely different than they did yesterday and Eddie somehow looks even worse today. His eyebags look more like bruises than anything.

“Eddie?” Lizzie says slowly, like she's approaching a skittish animal. “What are you doing?”

“Working,” he snaps. Robert winces. Clearly they didn’t find Copper, and no one should bother Eddie today

“Those lightbulbs seem fine, I don’t think you have to replace them,” Cassandra says, not seeming to pick up on that. Then again, it’s fully possible she did figure out the same thing as Robert and decided to speak anyway.

“Yeah, well, it’s not your job to make those decisions, clearly. Otherwise you’d see that that one is obviously flickering,” Eddie points across the room to a completely stable light.

Robert steps away to the door, praying the others also give it up. None of them are capable of talking Eddie out of whatever state of mania he’s in, except maybe Volt, who’s nowhere to be found. 

Thankfully, he reappears just as Eddie is climbing down from the ladder. He's holding his phone again.

“Rebel has no idea either,” he says. 

Eddie blinks. “Why are you calling Rebel?”

“I don’t know, she used to be a duck, that’s kind of close to a cat, right?” Volt says.

A duck? Lizzie mouths to Robert, who shrugs helplessly.

Eddie nods as if this makes perfect sense. Robert sighs and opens the door. The moment it opens a crack, he feels something brush against his leg and almost jumps. Eddie and Volt don’t notice, not until Copper suddenly jumps into Eddie’s lap and dumps four kittens on him.

Eddie stares at her in shock for a few very long seconds, and Robert pretends he doesn’t see him tear up a bit.

“Oh my god,” Volt breathes out, collapsing face-first onto the nearest table. “She’s okay.”

“And she has babies !” Kaleb says, delighted. “Eddie, you’re a grandpa!”

“An uncle at most,” Eddie says, dazedly running a hand through Copper’s fur. She purrs, proudly nudging her babies forward. “Fuck, that was terrifying.”

Robert relaxes against the door, relieved. Copper’s sweet, and he obviously always wants the best for any animal, but seeing Eddie and Volt like that had been the scariest part of all this. He was pretty sure Eddie was about to start breaking light bulbs if she hadn’t come back.

“Now we have to name four more pets,” Volt says. He frowns at Copper, but his expression softens the moment she bumps her head against his arm.

“We could,” Eddie giggles, an absolutely terrifying sound that makes all four of the employees stare at him in horror, “we could name that one Electron.” He points to the smallest cat, a little white-and-orange one curled up on his knee. Volt bursts into the same delirious laughter. Robert is pretty sure the two of them are on the verge of a shared mental breakdown.

“What is it with you guys and electricity-themed names?” Lizzie says, recovering from her shock the fastest. Cassandra is still looking at Eddie like he’s been replaced by a demon.

“We met in a breaker box, so it's fitting,” Volt says, perfectly casual, still giggling. “We should sleep.”

“Yeah, probably.” Eddie scoops up two of the kittens, handing the other two to Volt. Copper curls back around his shoulders and they walk out the front door, leaving behind three very confused employees and an extremely tired Robert.

“Is it physically possible for someone to squeeze into a breaker box?” Kaleb breaks the silence.

“Have you seen Volt?” Cassandra says. “His shoulders are too big for that. And his tits.”

“I’m so confused,” Lizzie groans. “At least Copper is safe?”

“She just went home with two madmen. Maybe they meant something else by the box thing, they’re clearly sleep-deprived enough to be delusional,” Kaleb suggests.

“Kinda romantic, naming their club after the place they met. Whatever that means,” Lizzie says, sighing. “Cass, can you-”

“Yeah, I’ll go get the sign.”

Robert stares at the closed front door, brow furrowed in thought. Now that he’s thinking more about it, Volt isn’t exactly a normal first name. And last he checked, Volt and Eddie’s last name is Watts. All of that, combined with their animals’ names, the club, and the strange things they’d say sometimes...

He immediately shuts down that part of his mind. Nope. None of his business, and he’s not going to think about it. It's a ridiculous idea anyway.

Maybe he’s getting too old for this job.

3.

Kaleb has no idea how the hell he got this job. He does remember it, though vaguely. It was just two days after Lizzie and Robert were hired. His girlfriend broke up with him and he figured he may as well check out the new bar that opened up a few streets down, maybe get drunk enough to forget his now-failed relationship. Okay, maybe they hadn’t exactly been dating but it was close enough for him to be sad about it.

There was a man there. At least, he was pretty sure it was a man. Hard to remember now. Kaleb had been planning on getting a disturbingly neon cocktail and drinking it out of a crazy straw while he cried, but somehow he and that maybe-a-man ended up in a drinking competition. Kaleb lost track of how many shots he had, but he knows he didn’t throw up so it can’t have been that bad.

(Lizzie has confirmed it was, in fact, that bad. Apparently he’s a very loud drunk.)

He didn’t know how he got home, or how the hell Volt’s number ended up in his phone, but the next morning he woke up to see a text telling him he could start his first shift the next day. He went, of course, because money is good and he really wanted to quit his job at Walmart. A customer had already thrown a vacuum at him once and he didn’t want to risk that happening again.

So he did the work, realized he actually enjoyed being a server and screwing around with the others, and never asked Volt and Eddie why they hired him because he’s honestly a bit afraid of the answer.

Kaleb doesn’t think any of them (except Robert, of course, who’s actually qualified for this shit) actually got hired normally. Cassandra has told him about the very strange interview Eddie and Volt gave her, and Lizzie refuses to say what hers was like.

Staring at the new girl, Kaleb wonders what exactly Volt and Eddie’s hiring strategy is. She’s very different from everyone else he works with, mainly because she’s sweet. Visibly so, with that wide-eyed look that reminds him of a baby deer. And she’s clearly younger than him or the others, he’d be willing to bet she just recently turned 21.

“Everyone, this is Alice! Since things have gotten a bit busier lately, we figured it was about time we hired someone new,” Volt introduces. “Because, for some reason, drinks keep taking a suspiciously long time to get to people.”

He looks over at Kaleb and Cassandra, who pointedly avoid his gaze and pretend they don’t spend half their shifts talking to Lizzie. Maybe Volt has a point.

“Hi,” Alice says, a bit awkwardly but that’s expected. “It’s nice to meet you all.”

“And since she needs to actually get used to whatever you people have going on, Volt decided we should do a group bonding activity,” Eddie says.

“We decided,” Volt corrects. Eddie wrinkles his nose, but doesn’t bother correcting him. He’s a lot less grumpy-looking when he’s cradling a kitten, Kaleb muses. 

“Basically, we’re going to an escape room. Because there’s no better way to bond with people than to experience something incredibly stressful that makes you want to cry,” Eddie says.

“Are you even capable of crying?” Cassandra asks.

“I-” Eddie pauses, turning to Volt as if this is a question that requires serious consideration. “I know I can cry, but can you? Because before you’d just... sizzle.”

“Huh. I haven’t actually thought about that yet. We should find out when we get home,” Volt says. Kaleb coughs, trying to bring their attention back to their employees. Sometimes they’ll say things that make him wonder if they’re making odd innuendos only they understand, or if they’re just like that.

“Anyways, no work tomorrow. We’re going to lock ourselves in a room together. Get ready,” Eddie says. “Volt, come with me to feed Blackout.”

He walks away with the little black cat and Volt follows right behind him, as expected.

“Are they dating?” Alice says, watching them go.

“Unfortunately,” Cassandra gags. “Wanna join us to throw darts at pictures of our least favorite regulars until the club opens? We have a good fifteen minutes.”

“And we can teach you all about who you have to look out for, because the old ladies bingo club that comes in on Tuesdays is... a handful,” Kaleb winces.

“Robert won’t join us, but he’ll ominously lurk over our shoulders and listen,” Lizzie says.

“Um, sure,” Alice seems a bit baffled, but willing to go with whatever is going on. Very good trait to have considering she’ll be putting up with this for quite a while. “Do you vandalize their pictures or just throw stuff at them?”

“We don’t but we should. I’m grabbing a marker,” Kaleb says, delighted. Alice smiles a bit and he decides having her around will be fun.

The next morning, he finds himself in the waiting room of a large building, staring mindlessly at a wall next to Cassandra.

“Are we early, somehow?” he asks.

“I don’t know. You’re never punctual, and Robert drove me here.”

Kaleb blinks. “Where is he?”

“Staring at a tree outside. Avoiding us.”

“Ah. Understandable.”

The door swings open and the other four people file in. Kaleb lets out a sigh of relief.

“Where were you guys? The escape room thing starts in, like, one minute,” he says as he stands and stretches out his aching back.

“I drove Alice and traffic was awful . And these two were... distracted,” Lizzie says. Eddie and Volt don’t even look slightly ashamed, and for a moment Kaleb understands why Robert stays as far away from them as possible.

They get all their stuff in order, pay for everything, and in a blur of movement the seven of them have been locked inside a very small room to look for clues. There’s a storyline going on, something about them looking for a ghost in an abandoned science lab, but they stop paying attention to that pretty fast.

Kaleb has seen his coworkers at what he assumed was their most stressed, practically sprinting around the club to get drinks where they needed to go. He watched them crumble onto the floor and cry after That One Friday three weeks ago which they all vowed to never speak about again. He’s even seen Cassandra throw up once.

Each one of those events pales in comparison to what’s happening right now.

“The flashlight, get the flashlight!” Lizzie shrieks, shuffling through a mess of papers on the (probably dirty) ground.

“Where the fuck is it?!” Cassandra is wrenching drawers open with such intensity that Kaleb hears the wall behind them shake.

“I don’t know, I gave it to Robert!”

“Do not look at me!” Robert says, solving one of the puzzles in the corner with Alice. “I gave it to Volt!”

“I forgot what a flashlight was!” Volt yells. Eddie is behind him, muttering under his breath and poking at the wall, furthering Kaleb’s concerns that they’re all going crazy. Lizzie’s eye twitches.

“Volt, I don’t give a shit that you’re my boss, I will take one of those paintings and throttle you-”

“Hey guys?” Alice pipes up, holding up the box she and Roebert were working on. They’ve placed the weird magnets they found earlier on top of it, and the latch has fallen open. “We found the key.”

“Oh my god, Alice, I love you. Please take my hand in marriage,” Lizzie says, making Alice laugh. She takes the key and places it in indent behind the fireplace. They all watch eagerly as it opens into a door.

Alice goes in first, of course. Kaleb follows. The room is spacious enough that they can stand up once they’ve squeezed through the opening. It’s pretty cool, words written on every inch of the wall and menacing-looking science equipment in the corner.

“There’s writing on the walls!” she calls out. “And it’s all under a black light, I think some of the other stuff out there might be too!”

They spend the ten remaining minutes on the timer racing around, shining their new blacklight at everything and forcing Robert to memorize most of it. There is writing on the exact spot Eddie was evaluating earlier, which he’s very smug about. During the last minute, Kaleb ends up in the weird fireplace room with Volt, inputting a code into separate sides of the room as Cassandra reads it off the paintings.

There’s a loud buzzing. A panel in the wall opens up and Alice dives forward to slam the button behind it. A buzzing sound goes off, telling them that they’ve completed the escape room. Kaleb can hear cheers from outside, laughing as the others squeeze into the small room. Lizzie practically lunges to hug Volt, Cassandra is shaking Robert as she points maniacally at the wall, and Alice is bent over laughing.

Through the chaos Kaleb almost misses it when Eddie walks in, eyes automatically going to Volt, and freezes in his tracks. He’s staring at Volt, eyes wide with something Kaleb has never seen him express before. It’s unnerving.

Volt notices, tilting his head confusedly. He’s still smiling, but it flickers. “Eddie?”

“You-” Eddie pauses, like he can’t bring himself to speak. He walks forward slowly and threads his fingers through Volt’s hair. Kaleb knows that Volt’s hair is a bit weird. Lizzie asked him about it once and he just shrugged and said it was natural, didn’t elaborate. Kaleb figured he was albino or something, though he admittedly doesn’t know much about albinism. But under the black lights, the pure white hair looks extremely different. Almost like it’s glowing.

Kaleb thinks that’s pretty cool. Except, when Eddie pulls Volt’s hair forward enough that he himself can see it, he completely freezes. Volt raises a hand, touching his hair as if it could electrocute him. He runs a hand over the delicate strands with a sort of reverence.

“It’s glowing again...” Volt whispers, finally turning to meet Eddie’s eyes. The moment feels horribly personal, and Kaleb wants to be anywhere but here.

“Well, you did it!” a voice calls from outside the fireplace. The woman from the front desk, letting them know they’d completed the escape room. Everyone jumps a bit, clearly also having forgotten about her. They get out of the fireplace as quickly as possible. Kaleb is last to go, mainly because Cassandra shoves in front of him. He glances back for a moment. Volt has his eyes screwed shut, gripping his hair. Eddie reaches out and wipes something from his cheek, pressing his forehead against Volt’s and whispering.

Nope. This is way too intimate and Kaleb is leaving. He doesn't want to see his bosses be romantic, wnd he especially doesn’t want to see Volt cry .

The woman from the front desk congratulates them on their win and leads them out to take a picture. When Volt comes out of the fireplace he looks just as cheerful as usual. The only difference is that Eddie is being a bit nicer to him than any of them are used to. He’s holding Volt’s hand and muttering something into his ear instead of just standing grumpily at his side (and still holding his hand).

They take a picture to celebrate. If Kaleb didn’t know any better, he’d think everything was completely normal.

“Well, we gotta get home and feed the cats. It’s work as usual tomorrow, we’ll see you then,” Eddie says, then leads Volt to his car as if he’s trying to escape any questions they might have.

“Is that... normal?” Alice says hesitantly as she watches them go.

“Yeah. They’re...” Lizzie makes a vague gesture with her hand as if that explains everything.

“Fucking,” Cassandra butts in.

“I was going to say weird , but yes. That too.”

“Anyone want to go get drinks?” Kaleb asks, stretching. “I feel cramped.”

“We work in a bar,” Robert says dryly.

“Coffee then. No point in going home now, it’s only 4 in the afternoon.”

“I’m in. Alice should get to know us when Lizzie isn’t screaming her head off,” Cassandra says.

Lizzie huffs. “I wasn’t screaming.”

“You totally were.”

4.

Despite what Kaleb seems to think, Lizzie did not get this job through sinister or strange means. She’d spent her day binge watching My Little Pony, crying about the beautiful bonds of friendship, then got bored and walked into a random club. She just asked Eddie to hire her and, for some reason, he did.

She’s still not fully sure why he did that, but she’s certainly not complaining. By now it's been several years since she became a bartender, but the last place she worked was far from pleasant. The clientele were creepy, her boss was an old man that she’s pretty sure just wanted an excuse to hit on her, and worst of all it just smelled bad inside that building. Eddie and Volt are practically perfect compared to that.

Aside from that, they’re genuinely nice to work for. Sometimes she and Volt will talk during cleanup, trading little bits and pieces of drama they were able to dig up from customers. He’s great at gossiping.

Eddie’s main job is maintenance, keeping the place running and making sure everyone leaves with the same amount of limbs they entered with. But whenever they’re having a particularly busy night (or if he just has nothing to do) he’ll join Lizzie at the bar. He’s pretty good at making drinks, and sometimes she’ll force him to help her invent new recipes.

“This one’s really good, but maybe a bit less sweet. I can feel the sugar in my throat,” Alice says, leaning over to taste their latest concoction. “I like the mango, though.”

“Oh good, that's an easy enough fix,” Lizzie says, relieved.

“Tastes like shit,” Eddie says.

“You just have the taste buds of an old man,” Cassandra pipes up as she walks past.

Tonight, they have a good crowd. Not too many people. But Eddie’s done with repairs and comes over to her bar anyway. Lizzie suspects he just likes hanging out with them.

“Why don’t you try making something instead, we’ll let Robert judge it,” Kaleb suggests. “He’s probably got the same taste as you.”

He does not. Lizzie knows for a fact that Robert prefers the fruity cocktails she makes and drinks his coffee with a tablespoon of sugar. But, to be fair, she knows an incredible amount of information about everyone in this club and she’s not about to start spilling secrets now.

“Yeah, try something new for once,” she insists, nudging Eddie’s side. Copper isn’t on him tonight, instead clinging to Volt. He’s showing her off to their patrons the same way parents do with their newborns. Lizzie suspects he’s going to pull his phone out next and start swiping through pictures of the kittens next. They’re old enough that Volt and Eddie are finally integrating them into the club.

She raises a hand to her own shoulder and pats little Frayed Wire’s head. He’s her favorite right now, which is definitely not just because he scratched Kaleb earlier.

“I’ll get Cassandra to stop leaving those close up pictures of your nostrils in your office,” Lizzie continues. An offer she knows Eddie can’t refuse.

“Jesus, fine,” Eddie groans. “Just let me grab the-”

And that’s when half the lights in the club go out.

Kaleb sighs. “Damn. We haven’t had a power outage since we started, I thought we were on a good streak.”

“I’m honestly surprised it hasn’t happened yet, it’s been months,” Lizzie says. She turns to her side and frowns. “Eddie, you good?”

Eddie has stiffened completely, frozen for a second, before he’s suddenly sprinting away from Lizzie’s side with an urgency she’s never seen from him before.

“What’s wrong with Eddie?” Alice says. She’s watching their boss run away with the same concern as the others. Lizzie looks across the room. Volt is busy reassuring their customers that everything is fine. The table of old ladies is next to him, and Lizzie winces. Yeah, he’ll definitely be too swamped to go check on Eddie, even though she can see him glancing anxiously at where his boyfriend’s fled.

“The lights aren’t on yet, I’m going to go check on him,” Lizzie says. “If anyone asks, tell them I’ll be back in a few.”

Kaleb and Alice nod. She motions to Volt, indicating that she’s following Eddie. He responds with a relieved nod, Copper rubbing against his shoulder as if she can sense his distress.

Lizzie swings open the door to the maintenance room carefully. She probably wouldn’t if this was anyone else, but by now she knows Volt and Eddie well enough to understand that there’s something going on with them. Cassandra insists they’re not human. Lizzie isn’t fully sure she would go that far, but they’re certainly not normal. There’s some sort of past between them that goes much deeper than romantic partners or business owners, and sometimes she worries one of them will do or say something that brings it up in the worst way possible. For some reason, she feels like this is that moment.

She’s right to be careful, because Eddie is being strange again. He’s just standing in the middle of the room, staring blankly at the breaker box. Fitting, considering the name of the place.

Lizzie steps forward carefully but he doesn’t even seem to hear her.

“Eddie?” she says quietly. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know,” he hisses. He touches the box as if he can somehow fix the problem through that alone. His hands are shaking. “It doesn’t make sense. ”

Eddie’s steadily getting frustrated so Lizzie decides she needs to fix this, and fast. She peers into the box. There hasn’t been a lot of time to get acquainted with the electricity of the place, but Lizzie likes to think she knows the basics. Praying she’s touching the right switch, she leans forward and flicks the one that looks weird.

Immediately, the lights come back on. Eddie blinks, his eyes flickering. He slumps like a puppet whose strings have been cut. Lizzie almost reaches out to balance him before she thinks better of it.

“Are you alright?” she says instead.

“I- I couldn’t feel it,” he chokes out, and Lizzie feels a bit sick with dread. Especially when Eddie tips his head away from her in a motion she recognizes all too familiarly. She can do a lot, but she’s never been good at comforting crying people who aren’t drunken strangers. 

“I’ll go get Volt,” she says, a bit more panicked than she would like to admit. She hesitates, then pulls Frayed Wire off her shoulder and drops him into Eddie’s arms. There, hopefully that will keep him calm for the next few minutes.

Lizzie is out the door before she can even question anything, making a beeline for a relieved-looking Volt. She feels a bit bad for disrupting his newfound peace so soon, but she’s not about to leave Eddie having a breakdown with only an electrical panel for company.

“Sorry ladies, gotta steal him,” she says to the table of women eagerly thanking Volt. They don’t even get a chance to protest before she grabs his arm and drags him away.

“Lizzie, what’s-”

“It’s Eddie,” she mutters. Immediately, Volt’s expression shifts. “I don’t know what’s going on with him, but he’s by the breaker box and he’s...”

She trails off, unsure how to explain what she saw. Thankfully, Volt understands. Probably better than she ever could.

“I’ll go to him. Can you take care of-”

“Yeah, of course,” Lizzie agrees immediately. Anything to get rid of the image of Eddie staring uselessly at the breaker box, as if he was on the verge of losing everything just because he couldn’t flip a switch.

Volt is gone immediately, and Lizzie only regrets her decision to help a little bit when she turns to see the multiple tables eagerly awaiting her reassurance that everything is fine.

She sighs. The things you do for friends.

5.

Alice had never wanted to work at a bar. It wasn't even something she considered while she was growing up, but things have changed since then and she has to pay for rent somehow. Her roommate was the one who suggested The Breaker Box . She went every once in a while and had overheard the owners discussing their need for new employees. Alice had figured it was worth a shot.

She was a little surprised to be hired on the spot, but the owners seemed a little eccentric and none of her new coworkers were bothered by the way she stumbled through the first few days, so she didn't think too hard about it.

Nonetheless, she very quickly realizes that Volt and Eddie aren't just a bit strange. It starts in the escape room, when they get very odd very quickly. The others assure her that the two of them just get like that sometimes, as if there's something deeply painful in their past that binds them together in a way too complex for any of them to understand.

Well, they don't say exactly that, but Alice thinks it sounds far more romantic than Kaleb’s dry explanation of, “Something fucked up happened to them and now they make us all third wheel.”

Alice is curious about what exactly happened to Eddie and Volt, of course. She doesn’t pry about it, but anytime one of them mentions something off she mentally adds it to a steadily growing collection. Honestly, she thinks she’d be more tempted to ask questions if she hadn’t heard the horror stories about Lizzie’s old job. If Eddie and Volt wanted to whisper conspiratorially about how snow works - something Alice learned in second grade - then that’s their business. At least they don't make her uncomfortable.

Unfortunately, some of their customers are. She supposes it’s just an unwanted side effect of working in a bar. Alice is still getting the hang of being polite enough to get tips from creepy men without making them think she’s ‘leading them on.’ Obviously she knows she can just kick out anyone who makes her uncomfortable, but she always feels a bit guilty whenever she does that. Her coworkers do not share that sentiment. She’s seen Robert haul a shocking number of people out of the club in the few months she’s worked here.

And yet, they never seem to fully go away.

“Hey gorgeous, when does your shift end?” a man drawls, leaning across his table to leer at her. 

“Far too late for you to still be interested by then,” she says, trying to remain vague and polite. Hopefully he just lets it go.

“Oh, come on, you don’t have to play hard-to-get,” the man says. He reaches towards Alice and she steps away immediately. She doesn’t even like being touched on her best days, and especially not from creepy strangers.

The man sneers, still grinning. His friends laugh, and Alice feels slimy. She can see Volt out of the corner of her eye, standing at a nearby table and clearly tense. Hopefully he doesn’t come over, the thought of her boss having to step in because she couldn’t take care of a problem herself is making her stomach squirm uncomfortably.

“Hey, screw off.” Cassandra suddenly appears at Alice’s shoulder. Thank god, she needs someone meaner than her to deal with this. She could call Robert, but he’s all the way across the club dealing with three boys who seem determined to get inside despite being visibly underage.

“Oh, don’t worry, you two are both pretty. I don’t mind two girls at once.”

Alice is pretty sure her well-maintained calm expression contorts into something disgusted at that, because Cassandra snickers a bit. The man doesn’t seem to like that.

“Let’s go, Alice. Kaleb can get their drinks. Or Robert can kick them out when he’s done with that,” she motions to the front door.

The man reaches out just and grabs Cassandra’s wrist just as she’s steering Alice away. She just stares at him.

“Let go of me.”

“Why should I? It’s not like you’re getting action anywhere else, you prudish bitch. I bet I could fix y-”

Alice feels something in her stomach drop and knows exactly what’s about to happen seconds before it does. Volt clearly does too, based on the way he immediately abandons his table and begins speed walking over.

Neither one of them is fast enough.

Cassandra punches the man in the face.

The next few minutes are a blur. The man tries to lunge at Cassandra, Volt tries to get between them and gets hit instead, Robert practically runs over and tries to keep the man’s friends from getting involved, the three definitely underage boys by the door come in right behind him, Alice feels feels a hand close around her arm and almost pulls away before realizing it’s just Kaleb dragging her away from the fight, and their not-weird customers are freaking out somewhere off to the side.

It ends just as quickly as it starts. Robert tosses the group of men outside and Volt is finally able to let go of Cassandra. Alice thinks, in the back of her mind, that it’s a very good thing none of the cats were here tonight.

“What the fuck was that?” he says. Alice doesn’t think she’s ever heard him curse before.

“That guy was an asshole,” Cassandra mutters.

“Yeah and he deserved to get hit, but not by an employee ! You’ve dealt with way worse from people, why would you do that?” Volt says.

Cassandra shrugs, glancing off to the side. Volt blinks, staring at her, then deflates.

“We can deal with this later, after everyone’s left. You’re not fired, though,” he sighs.

Alice is able to make out surprise on Cassandra’s face, something she’s unfamiliar with. Eddie appears by Volt’s side, leaving Lizzie and Kaleb to deal with the rest of the bar. They’re already floundering. Alice thinks she sees Kaleb pull out a deck of cards and start attempting magic tricks.

“Nice punch, don’t do that again,” Eddie says simply. “Go help Lizzie and Kaleb. Consider it a punishment.”

“Yeah, fair enough,” Cassandra sighs.

“Alice, you’re innocent in all this so grab the first aid kit and come with us,” Eddie continues. He turns Volt around and steers him towards the bathroom, leaving Alice to flounder for a second before doing as he says.

When she walks into the bathroom, Volt is sitting on the closed lid of one of the toilets. Eddie is cradling his face almost gently, tilting it side to side as to examine him.

“Are you alright?” Alice asks as she passes Eddie the first aid kit.

“He’s mostly fine, just got hit once. The only reason you’re in here is because I don’t know how to use one of these,” Eddie says, motioning towards the red kit. “Farya always did this for us.”

Alice doesn’t bother asking who Farya is, mainly because Volt turns his head for her to get a better look at his injuries and she has to stare in shock.

“Why is your blood blue ?”

Volt brings a hand up to his cheek and looks down at his fingers. “Is that not normal?”

“Most people bleed red,” Alice says. Her voice is a bit shaky. She’d thought Cassandra was joking about them not being human, what the hell?

“Huh,” Volt says simply, before Eddie grabs his chin and forces him to look forward.

“Hold still,” he instructs, completely unfazed. “Alice?”

She explains how to clean a wound to him, grateful he doesn’t make her actually touch anything. She’s not a big fan of blood, even if it’s weird and blue. The gratefulness fades a bit when she’s forced to watch Volt smile stupidly as Eddie runs a alcohol wipe over his injuries.

“You know, it’s usually me having to take care of you. Bit fun to do this the other way around,” he says softly, clearly not intended for Alice despite her being two feet away from them.

“Oh shut up,” Eddie mutters, grinning back at him.

Alice is beginning to understand what Kaleb meant by the constant third-wheeling. She’s very thankful that it’s over soon and the three of them are walking out of the bathroom into a relatively calm bar.

“Thank god you’re back, Kaleb started pulling quarters out from behind people’s ears- why is your cheek blue?” Lizzie starts. The others (even Robert, who’s been hanging out with them more and more lately) all whip around to stare at Volt.

“Apparently he bleeds blue,” Alice sighs.

“I don’t know why you’re all reacting like this,” Volt says. “Horseshoe crabs have blue blood! They’re actually fascinating animals. We watched a documentary on them last night.”

Kaleb stares at them blankly. “They’re crabs .”

“I don’t see how that affects this conversation in any way.”

“Because you’re not a crab,” he says. “Like, you’re so not-a-crab it’s kind of insane.”

“We could all become crabs eventually, technically. Because of evolution,” Robert suggests.

“That’s not- what ?” Kaleb says, clutching his forehead.

“I told you,” Cassandra mutters.

Volt and Eddie both look confused, which Alice thinks is a nice change of pace.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t last long. It starts a few days later when what looks like an Elvis impersonator comes in. Which is very odd, considering they’re nowhere near Las Vegas.

“Um, we’re not open yet,” Robert says, trying to stop him. His serious facade slips a little when he sees the guy.

“Oh, I’m not here for the club. I’m Johnny Splash, and I needa see Eddie and Volt,” the man says. He even has the accent down. Robert reluctantly moves aside, casting a baffled look towards Alice.

“Hi, Johnny,” Eddie says from behind the counter, sounding exhausted. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh shucks, I was just in town ‘n figured I’d stop by, help you with those questions you had,” Johnny says.

“Questions?” Alice manages to ask.

“Yeah, darlin’, these two over here sent a message to our... whatcha call it... group chat!” he says. “Askin’ if any of us bleed blue, or are havin’ issues with our brand new human bodies.”

“Jesus Christ, Johnny, you can’t talk like that,” Eddie groans. Alice doesn’t have time to be baffled before Volt comes out of the backroom, two cats dangling from his arms this time.

“Johnny!” he greets, much more enthusiastic than Eddie. “I didn’t know you were coming over! Goodness, it’s been so long since we’ve seen you. How are you doing?”

Eddie’s head hits the bar with a thud. No one pays him any mind.

Johnny launches into a detailed explanation of his failed career as a singer but how people seem to love him in the fun sparkly city and keep calling him a king, which he doesn’t understand but he’s proud of. Apparently he has no idea who Elvis even is but people keep letting him officiate weddings. The others slowly arrive while he’s ranting, until the entire bar is just staring at him in silence.

“That’s nice, Johnny,” Volt says. He’s somehow still smiling. “So, you don’t bleed blue?”

Johnny is not the last deeply strange person to come over in the next few days. Next is a person with bright pink hair in a very odd, tentacle-themed, furry outfit. Eddie doesn’t seem upset to see them, which is definitely a step up from Johnny.

“Yeah, I’m coming over to see Betty, she’s one town over from you guys. I thought it’d be fun to stop by,” they explain. “We both bleed normally, but her ribs are still kind of built like a bedframe. And I think my fingernails are silicone. Look.”

They hold up a hand for inspection.

“Oh, and certain parts of my body have what I’ve learned are abnormal textures,” they add.

“Okay, thanks Ben-hwa, I think that’s enough,” Eddie says quickly. They laugh, kiss both men on the cheek, and leave.

The next person is a man dressed in a very odd outfit with- are those wings ? Alice has to double check with Lizzie that she isn’t hallucinating that one. When Eddie and Volt stare at him, he just motions towards his back in explanation and adds that - despite being perfectly healthy - his heart apparently does not work right at all and doctors have no idea how he’s alive. Then tells Eddie and Volt that he’s very disappointed their relationship is still thriving, which neither of them seems too bothered by.

Then there’s the man in the obnoxious bright gold outfit with spiky hair. The moment he enters the bar, Eddie is yelling at him to leave and threatening to hit him with a plunger, which Alice didn’t even know they had. The man leaves, calling back to them in a French accent that his hair is permanently blue and he has rubber nipples.

Personally, Alice’s favorite are the five men who come in holding a baby, apparently all named Hank.

“Yeah dude, we’re taking lil Hank 0 on a road trip to show him the sights,” the yellow one says. He holds up the baby proudly.  “Stopped by to check in with our homies.”

“Why do none of you just respond to texts normally?” Eddie groans. Everyone ignores him again.

“Um, that’s lovely, One, but where exactly did you get a baby?” Volt asks.

“Hank 5 gave birth to him,” the red one says. “It was totally radical.”

“Totally radical!” the purple one yells.

“And we did some searching when you sent that message and, dude,” the blue one grabs Volt’s shoulders and stares into his eyes. “We don’t have belly buttons.”

“Three, none of us have belly buttons because we were never born ,” Eddie sighs. No one in the bar even bothers reacting to that. They’re used to it by now.

“Oh. Then no, sorry bros, we’re normal.”

“Who the fuck are all these people?” Kaleb asks after the pink-haired woman who looks like a literal Greek soldier leaves. Why do Eddie and Volt know so many pink haired people? “And why do I kinda feel like I know them?”

“I know, right? That guy with the wings made me think of that time in high school when I asked a boy out and he started throwing pencils at me,” Lizzie says.

“Yeah, and the ginger girl with the soda tab necklace kinda made me want to get drunk,” Cassandra says.

“That might just be because we work in a bar,” Robert says.

Alice sighs, leaning back in her chair. “Should we just ask Volt and Eddie about this?”

Everyone stares at each other for a moment, then bursts out laughing. Yeah, as if they’d ever do something as easy as that . But, as it turns out, there are other things they can do to get answers.

+1

Neither Eddie or Volt have any idea why they hired these people. If they're being completely honest, the only reason some of them have this job is because they aren't fully sure what the hiring process is supposed to be. Eddie thought Cassandra was entertaining, Volt texted the wrong number and hired Kaleb but was too afraid to correct himself, Lizzie offered to bartend and Eddie was honestly sick of doing it by himself so he just accepted, and Alice's puppy dog eyes made Volt feel bad. Robert is literally their only qualified employee.

But it's been almost a year since they opened The Breaker Box and nothing has been permanently destroyed, so clearly their method is at least kind of working out. At least, that's what they would have said a few weeks ago.

“I think Lizzie tried dousing me with holy water today,” Volt says, flopping down on the couch next to Eddie. He stretches his legs out and drops his head in Eddie's lap. Immediately, Frayed Wire and Electron curl up on him.

“She's not even religious,” Eddie says as he gently runs a hand through Volt’s hair, detangling it.

“Yeah, but I guess they wanted to test out if I was a demon or not,” Volt says.

In the last week alone, Cassandra has tried to stick magnets to Eddie to see if he's a robot, Kaleb has prodded them both with various iron objects to see if they're fae, and even Alice scared Volt by shining a bright blue light in his face and then walking off as though disappointed by whatever she did or didn't see. Neither one of them asked her why.

“Should we just tell them?” Eddie asks.

“Isn't that one of the big things we're not supposed to do?”

“Yeah, but I seriously don't think they'll stop. I'm pretty sure Cassandra tried drawing some of my blood yesterday.”

Volt laughs. “Yeah, fair enough. So, explain everything to them tomorrow?”

“Maybe not everything,” Eddie amends. “Some of the things that happened in that house were...”

He trails off, clearly unable to think of a good way to describe what their lives used to be like.

“Traumatic?” Volt suggests. Eddie groans.

“Sure, if you want to use therapist talk, then yes thinking you were about to die was a bit traumatic,” he grumbles. 

“Could have been worse. Imagine being Sinclair,” Volt says lightly. Eddie shudders.

The next day, their employees are visibly confused when Eddie and Volt make them all stay after they're done working.

“This better be important, I should be in bed by now,” Cassandra yawns.

“Are you finally telling us what's up with you?” Lizzie says, practically vibrating.

“Yes, actually,” Eddie says. That gets everyone’s attention.

“You can ask any questions you want and we'll answer them,” Volt says.

“ Almost any questions,” Eddie corrects.

They explode in a flurry of words, only calming down after Eddie points expectantly at Alice.

“Who were all those people who came in a while ago?” she asks. “And where do you know them from?”

“We used to live together,” Eddie explains.

“There were like ten of them, how did you all fit into one house?” Kaleb says.

“That wasn't actually everyone. There were about 103 of us. And it was a normal two story house,” Volt says.

“What the hell, how did you fit ?” Kaleb yelps. They ignore him.

“Was it a cult? It would explain a lot if you were part of a cult,” Lizzie says. “Like how you don't understand what basic things like homophobia are.”

“No. It was a giant polycule,” Eddie says blankly.

“We weren't actually part of that bit though, we only dated each other,” Volt adds. He pauses. “Well, there were a few threesomes but that's to be expected.”

“The closest thing we had to a religious leader was the air fryer, but no one liked him,” Eddie says.

“Was your air fryer sentient or something?” Cassandra asks.

“No answer.”

“Still incredibly culty, but acceptable answer,” Lizzie nods.

“Were you two cursed to be a breaker box at some point?” Robert says suddenly, speaking for the first time.

Eddie and Volt go silent.

Volt opens his mouth.

“Volt, don't,” Eddie hisses.

“I didn't say anything!”

“Fuck, I knew we shouldn't have hired anyone actually competent,” Eddie groans.

“Is Robert right ?” Kaleb screeches.

“Oh my god, were those 103 people also cursed objects?” Lizzie says slowly, as if it's finally dawning on her.

“Sort of. It wasn't really a curse,” Volt shrugs. “More complicated than that.”

“Are you going to explain how it's more complicated?”

“No.”

“So I was kind of right,” Cassandra says, smug. “You aren't human.”

“Well, we are now,” Volt says. “We just used to be something else.”

Everyone goes quiet for a bit, processing. 

“I mean, it could be worse. We did briefly think you were aliens come to destroy Earth, at least you don't have any dreams of world domination,” Alice says. Her voice is only a bit shaky.

“At least not anytime soon,” Eddie says, more amused than anything.

“I mean, no wonder we came to some weird conclusions. Remember when we wanted to go to the beach and Volt acted like the water was going to kill him?” Kaleb says. “Not even in the dramatic way, you genuinely believed it.”

“Electricity and water don't mix well,” Volt says sheepishly.

“Johnny almost electrocuted him a few times when he tried performing,” Eddie says. No one bothers asking him to elaborate.

“Honestly, this makes a surprising amount of sense. You two are really weird sometimes,” Lizzie says.

“I still think the thing where they stare at each other and have a conversation through their eyes is the strangest,” Cassandra says.

“That's just regular couple things,” Alice says.

“No, Cassandra's right. You guys do it really often. It's like you're reading each other's minds,” Kaleb laughs.

“I promise whatever strange abilities being objects gave us, mind reading is not one of them,” Eddie says dryly.

“No, you're just codependent. I'm pretty sure I've witnessed you each have a minor heart attack the moment the other is out of sight,” Robert says.

“Yeah, next you'll try fusing into one person,” Lizzie says, snickering.

Eddie and Volt go silent.

Everyone slowly turns back to look at them.

“Guys?” Lizzie says, as though desperately hoping whatever she believes is wrong. “Why aren't you saying anything?”

“Well, technically... we already did that.” Volt winces.

There's silence for a moment, then-

“What the HELL?”

“Oh my god, are you kidding me?!”

“I hate this fucking job.”

“I should have just stayed at the Dollar Tree.”

This is going to be a long night.