Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Saturday.

Volt has awoken to the sound of Eddie’s pained whimpers before. It is, unfortunately, not an uncommon occurrence. Usually, it means the wiring is acting up again. Usually, Volt would curl closer, press a palm against Eddie’s side, and hum quietly against his skin until the tremors eased.

Tonight, though, the sound is more alarming. A strained hiss between clenched teeth. Volt shifts closer, instinctively reaching to brush the sweat-damp hair from Eddie’s forehead, and inhales sharply at the burn. Eddie’s skin is hot underneath Volt’s hand; not just warm-metal hot, but red-hot, like he’s been sitting under a welder’s arc. Eddie’s face is twisted into a pained grimace, but he doesn’t wake, mumbling in his sleep.

Volt leans in, trying to catch the words, but they’re nonsensical fragments of technical jargon strung together in a low, feverish murmur. His copper-thread lashes tremble as his shoulders twitch slightly every odd second.

This is… worrisome. He gently shakes Eddie, but the other man won’t wake up. He shakes him again, less gently this time, as a deep fear spikes through him. Still, nothing.

Then Volt smells smoke, and his stomach goes cold.

His bare feet hit the floor. Static jumps between his toes and the floorboards as he crosses to the hall. The smell grows stronger. He descends the stairs as quick as he can, skipping three steps at a time. The bar is dark, save for the flickering light streaming in from neon signs at the windows. Even in darkness, Volt can see smoke filling the space.

A dim, shifting orange light flickers at the far end. The grid room.

No. Any room but that. If they’d lose the bar, or their living quarters, that’s fine, those can be rebuilt and renovated. The grid room is Eddie’s beating heart.

Volt becomes aware of a loud beeping noise — Arma. He can’t tell how long she’s been yelling, but it has to have woken the resident up by now.

Volt breaks into a run, the soles of his feet slapping the floor hard enough to send little blue snaps of electricity scattering behind him. The air gets hotter with every step. The smoke clings to his tongue, sticks in his throat.

By the time he reaches the grid room door, the heat around him is suffocating. He throws the door open and light explodes in his face — angry, molten orange licking along the wall-sized breaker panel, cables and wires writhing as they blacken and split. Sparks spit and die against the dirt ground, the whole room a furious inanimal thrashing against its own cage.

From somewhere in the darkness upstairs, comes an agonized scream. Volt would recognize it anywhere. It cuts through him as though he’s experiencing the same pain his partner is feeling.

Shit, shit, SHIT. He needs to grab Eddie and get him out of here.

But— Eddie is the breaker box. If it completely burns down, until there’s no part left to salvage… then… what will happen to Eddie?

Volt eyes the fire, suppressing his panic. Heat presses against him, almost a physical object in itself, but it can’t burn him. Not really. Not like it could burn anything else.

He remembers the strange sensation he always experiences whenever he stands too close to Dante. He had assumed for a while that it was attraction — until he’d told Eddie this, and Eddie had explained with a chuckle that fire contains positive charged ions and electrons. It’s conductive. That’s why it seems to lean toward him, why it can almost be pulled by electricity.

Volt flexes his fingers, feeling his sparks coil and leap along his arms, drawn to the fire like moths to — well, fire. He can’t snuff it out, but he can redirect it, pull its path along currents he defines, keep it away from doing more harm than it’s already done.

He takes position, right in front of the main breaker circuit, the most critical part of the system. The heat is uncomfortable, but the flamers itself don’t burn him. His aim is to protect the main breaker circuit and the power supply cable above it as much as he can, but this means that he won’t be able to stop the fire from spreading to the bar and the rest of the Box. He just prays that it won’t claim Eddie as well, that he made the right choice in staying here.

It’s excruciating. There’s no end goal. He has no way of extinguishing this. All he can do is buy time.

His plan works, but not perfectly. It’s harder than he thought. The smoke fattens with ash, and it’s not just soot anymore; the flame’s hot gas ionizes, particles shedding charge, the room filling with little, mad conductors. The neat lines of electricity Volt has been drawing start to blur and shudder. He yanks one hand, trying to shepherd a blaze away from a circuit; the fire obeys for a heartbeat, and then, as if mid-thought, yawns and sprouts a new tongue three feet over where his hand can’t reach. Another arc leaps where he didn’t mean it to go, striking a melted cable and making the whole thing geyser sparks that flitter and scatter like nervous insects.

He has no idea how long he stands there, gritting his teeth against the heat, inhaling ash. It feels like hours. It can't have been more than minutes.

Finally, a different kind of light than the orange haze. Lux startles awake, hissing through their teeth. Volt barely catches what they say, too focused on the other voice that cuts through the haze.

“FUCK!” he hears, coming from someone Volt and everyone else is so very familiar with, though usually Volt only hears them muffled through the door of the closet. The human. They have come. Volt glances up at them, on some level aware that they can’t see him, but too happy to care. Their phone is clamped between their shoulder and ear, and in their hands they hold a fire extinguisher.

“It’s just, uh, it’s pretty bad. I mean, I’ll try, but— yeah, sure.”

Volt’s heart lurches with both relief and panic. The human’s hands shake slightly as they press the nozzle, sending a hiss of foam into the flames. A dense white cloud roars into the room, condensing the smoke, snuffing flames that had seemed impossible to quell.

Volt coughs. The CO₂ burns the back of his throat in a different way than smoke did — cold and bitter, numbing his lungs. The ionized fog that had been conducting his arcs collapses into inert mist; his currents that had been scattering now find clearer paths. He drives one last clean braid of energy along a dead circuit to keep stray arcs from jumping.

And finally, it’s over. Heat is still searing, metal is still smouldering and melting. But the fire is gone.

He collapses to the ground, panting for breath that’s in short supply. He coughs and coughs, feeling like he’s swallowed a duststorm. Eddie, he thinks. He needs to get to Eddie.

Before he can do so, a shadow is cast over his prone form. A hand, wrapped in a wet towel, reaches for the main switch.

Good, Volt thinks dimly. Less of a danger that way.

Then— wait, didn’t Eddie suspect that turning off the power would make me—

After that, he doesn't think of anything. There are no thoughts to be had.

The power is off.

Chapter Text

Sunday

“—try that again,” is the first thing Volt hears after weightlessly drifting around in something akin to nonexistence. The voice sounds like it’s coming from a mile away. “CLEAR!”

The world slams into him all at once, like someone jammed a roiling thunderstorm into his ribcage. Electricity rips through him, arcing across his chest, crawling up his throat until it bursts from his teeth in a strangled shout. Everything is whirring — muscles locking, nerves firing, every cell screaming power on.

The voltage feels strange. Too raw, too uneven, sparking in bursts instead of flowing in the steady hum he is used to. It smells like burning copper and tastes like wet plaster.

Volt bolts upright with a gasp, hair flaring into jagged arcs of white light. “EDDIE!” he screams. He twists, tries to shove himself off the cold, non-conductive tiled floor he finds himself prone on.

“Whoa, easy! Easy—” A pair of warm brown hands and arms covered in long chrome sleeves shoot out to hold him down.

Volt might not be as strong as Kristoff or Dasha, but he is well-built, and should by all means be able to break out of the grasp of this small figure holding him down. But every muscle in his body is misfiring — contracting at the wrong time, locking up when he needs them loose — and the uneven current in his veins keeps kicking his strength out from under him. He pushes once, twice, his arms trembling with the effort, but the hands on him don’t yield.

“Volt!” the figure blurts, voice high and urgent. His vision is still full of flaky afterimages, but he makes out dark cheeks and a beige bandage hijab. Farya.

“You’ve been out for a day,” she says quickly, like talking faster might keep him from fighting. “We had to— look, you can’t—”

“Let go of me!” Volt snarls, sparks spitting from his fingertips. “Where is he? What happened—” Fire. Fire happened. He remembers.

“Careful,” someone says from somewhere near his feet. “You fry yourself again, I’m not wasting a second round of jumper cables on your ass.”

“Tony?” Volt grunts. He blinks rapidly, trying to get rid of the phosphorus white brightness that’s causing his sight to dance. Exactly how many people are clustered around him?

Apparently, one more, because Lyric talks from somewhere near his left side. “He’s right, you’re not stable yet. A faint squeak of a pen on paper follows, and Volt catches the glint of his glasses as he jots something down, a joulemeter balanced in his lap.

“We got the charge back into ya,” Tony says, wiping sweat off his neck. “Wasn’t easy.”

He can see more clearly now. He’s in the downstairs bathroom, Tony and Lyric sitting around him on the white tile floor, Farya still thrown half-across his chest.

“Eddie is alive!” Farya yells, and that finally gets Volt to stop fighting. His hands loosen. The clawing arcs dancing through his hair settle to its usual thrumming. Farya sits back on her knees, breathing hard. “He’s… not good,” she says quietly, “but alive.”

Volt’s gaze sweeps between the three of them as he sits up. “Where is he?”

“Bedroom,” Tony snorts while the other two are exchanging conferring glances.

“Tony!” Lyric hisses reproachfully.

“What?” Tony shrugs. “Dorian’s not gonna let him outta this room anyway. Also, I was gonna tell him about the part where if he tries dashin’ to find his boyfriend, he’ll fizzle out halfway there.”

Volt narrows his eyes. “How so?”

Lyric shows him the joulemeter. “As of right now, to keep your form up you have 28 joules a second at your capacity. According to the breaker box manual, you need a minimum of 40 watts to have your cognitive and physical functions perform optimally.”

“That is… still way too low,” Volt mumbles. For a brief, surreal moment, his worry for his partner is displaced by the memory of Eddie’s voice reciting specs and safety thresholds. “I wouldn’t be able to power anything with that little.”

The three objects around him all look at each other, and there’s a hidden meaning behind their gazes that Volt can’t decipher.

Volt’s gaze snaps around the bathroom, feeling like he’s missing a puzzle piece. There, next to the sink, inside some kind of glass sphere, a fan-like wheel spins incredibly quick, connected to a contraption of coils and batteries. A long cord snakes from the machine to a pair of copper paddles that have fallen beside Farya’s knees. The ends of a separate pair of cables is pierced into Volt’s skin, much like an IV.

Ah.

“It’s not exactly OSHA compliant,” Tony says with a shrug when he sees Volt’s eyes trace over the jury-rigged contraption, “but Mac did the math, and it was enough to jump you back online.”

“Mac…?” Volt echoes.

“We couldn’t have brought you back without them,” Farya says. “They’re in power saving mode now. But before they went to sleep, they hacked into the neighbor’s WiFi and searched the internet for ways of generating electricity from scrap.”

“I conferred with them and checked my own sources,” Lyric says, not without pride. “Then I made copious notes and instructions, so Farya and Tony could get to work!”

“We’d hoped you’d be stronger, so you could wake up or recharge some of the others. But apparently, creatin’ electricity outta nuthin’s harder than it looks.”

The others?

Oh. Oh no.

“No one has any electricity,” Volt says, finally catching up.

The trio nods gravely. None of them need power, but many, many other objects in the house do.

“It’s so quiet,” Farya mutters.

Lyric sighs. “I never realized just how many of us are dependent on Eddison.”

This… This is Eddie’s nightmare. This scenario is exactly what he always feared, what kept him awake long after everyone else had gone asleep, what made him spend hours and hours in the grid room until his hands shook from overuse. This is the moment Eddie’s been bracing for his entire existence. The blackout that doesn’t end, the silence of the grid, the creeping inevitability of every reserve ticking toward zero.

And Volt has woken up in it. Without Eddie.

“…I need to see him.”

“In half an hour, you can go — under supervision,” Lyric says sternly, much like a disapproving school teacher. “Your levels are still fluctuating.”

“But—”

Farya fixes Volt with a look that’s equal parts plea and warning. “Eddie’s alive, Volt. That’s more than we thought we’d get. Don’t screw that up by frying yourself before you even see him.”

“You’ve seen him?”

She hesitates, then nods. “Yes. It’s not as bad as it could have been. The fire brigade briefly showed up, but by that point the situation was pretty under control. Apparently somehow the fire spared most of the main power circuitry.” She gives him a wobbly smile, as though that could ever comfort him.

Most of the important circuitry is still intact, then. Good. At least that means that his reckless escapade in the grid room had not been for nought.

“And Eddie himself? How is he?”

“Eddie— he’s not…” She drops her chin to her chest, avoiding his gaze. “I wish I could have helped him, but I’m a medical professional, not an electrician. There’s nothing I can do for him.”

An electrician, that’s right. There are specialized humans in this world, the wide and vast world beyond this house. Volt has never dealt with an ‘electrician’ himself, but he’s heard Eddie complain about them, about how annoying it is to be prodded and taken apart by ‘shitheads who think a flathead screwdriver makes them a god’. But, if they can heal him…

“Has the human already called for a repair service?” he asks. This is in the human’s interest as well. They couldn’t very well live without electricity either. Modern times, and all that. For the first time, some of Volt’s horror is replaced by hope.

That hope is promptly dashed to pieces when Tony scratches the back of his head and opens his mouth. “Ah, not exactly. ‘Cording to Phoenicia, the human’s talkin’ about leaving.”

“They’ve just gotten a new job, something that requires them to be online a lot,” Farya takes over. “That job starts tomorrow. While repairs could take multiple days. So they’ve been talking to a family member, to see if they can crash there.”

Volt tries to process that. “They’re leaving?”

Tony shrugs one shoulder, but his mouth twists down. “Not forever, probably. For a week at least. But yeah. If they can’t work here, they’ll go somewhere they can.”

Lyric adds quietly, “Which means Eddie’s not exactly their first priority right now.”

“Still a large one,” Farya says assuringly. “Just… it might take a bit before a repair service can take a look at the Breaker Box.”

Volt swallows hard. He can feel the despair curling around him, the static of it prickling his skin. Every part of him wants to surge, to lash out, to storm out of this room, force the human to stay. He could shock them into paying attention, into fixing Eddie, into doing the right thing.

Sharing this violent impulse with the rest of the room does not seem like the wisest plan, so he clenches his fists and sags back against the wall. The others wait for him to talk, and when he doesn’t, they fall into a slightly tense silence instead. Volt lets his eyes fall closed and turns his chin away, trying to think of calm, nonbelligerent things.

After he feels like this torturous artifice of meditation has passed for long enough, he stands up. “Has half an hour passed yet?”

“I… don’t actually know.” Lyric looks at the meter. “But your levels have stabilized. You are currently at 46 watts a second.” 

“Wonderful. That means I’ll be off checking in on Eddie now.”

“A couple of things first,” Farya interjects, and Volt has to fight the urge to groan. “Maybe, eh, manifest some clothes before you head out, so you’ll draw less eyes.”

“Oh.” For the first time since this ordeal, he looks down at himself. “Have I been naked this entire time?”

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Farya says quickly. “I see plenty of naked bodies in my profession.”

“Yeah,” Tony agrees, jiggling his eyebrows. “Absolutely nothin’ to be ashamed of. Got a good lookin’ set of tools under that belt, if you catch my drift.”

“It is appreciated, Tony,” Volt says, rolling his eyes.

He waves a hand, expecting to conjure up his Breaker Box uniform, including the stylish jacket he got from Eddie all those years ago. However, the air shimmers faintly — and nothing solidifies. Volt frowns, trying again, focusing harder, willing the outfit into being.

“Remember, even though you’re at base capacity, you’re still way below your usual levels,” Lyric notes. “Pushing too hard might backfire.”

“Fine,” Volt says through gritted teeth. Instead of his elaborate outfit, he settles for a simple nondescript white shirt and black trousers. He tugs at the shirt collar, frowning. “It’ll have to do,” he mutters, more to himself than anyone else.

“Good,” Farya nods. “Alright, second point of order — this here is your generator.” She movies to his side and gestures at the contraption. “It’s essential that you keep this with you at all times. I’ll make a sling for it so you don’t have to carry it in your hands the entire time, it’s quite heavy.”

While Farya takes out some long white bandages from her backpack, Tony gestures for Volt to take a closer look at the device itself.

In a clear fishbowl sits a wheel fashioned from a small fan, spun furiously a constant circular rush of water. Volt squints his eyes to see what causes this motion, and spots a rippling and refracting light that moves with steady speed in the circles. The swirling water powers the wheel, connected to a separate device of coils and batteries that produces a steady hum of electricity. It feeds right into Volt through a pair of jumper cables.

“Most of the parts are old junk from Lady Memoria. She says you owe her for it, b-t-dubs.”

Volt sighs. “Wonderful. Because owing Lady Memoria a favor has never worked to anyone’s detriment.”

Tony gives him a sympathetic pat on the back. “Yeah. Good luck with that, buddy.” He points at the wheel and the continuous movement of water. “So, inside a’this is a l’il guy called Ripple. I’ve been callin’ him Rip. He’s a fish, sorta, made out of, well, River. So he won’t tire, and will keep this swim up for as long as we ask him to.” They both stare at the inanimal for a few seconds before Tony clicks his tongue. “River wanted me to say that you really, really shouldn’t touch the water though, otherwise you’ll electrocute him, and Rip and you will probably both die.”

“Understood.”

Farya has fashioned some sort of yoke for him, which she carefully places around Volt’s shoulders. On one side, it balances the sphere with Ripple, on the other side the coils and batteries wrapped in terrycloth to keep them from clanking too loudly. The straps bite a little into Volt’s collarbone and it makes him look like a milkmaid.

“Not exactly fashionable,” he remarks, shifting the harness until it sits more comfortably. The faint hum from the generator vibrates through the bandages.

“It’s either this or dragging a shopping cart around,” Tony says with a grin. “You want style points, you’re talkin’ to the wrong guys.”

Lyric moves closer, inspecting the cables that run from the generator into Volt’s side. “This should give you a slow trickle recharge, so long as Ripple keeps swimming. Just… don’t run, jump, or get into a fight. Any hard impact could snap the housing.”

“I second that,” Farya nods, tightening the last knot in the sling behind him. “Now. Eddie.”

“Eddie,” Volt agrees. Finally.

Lyric knocks on the door. “Ah, Dorian, it’s alright. We’re done here.”

The lock clicks, and like a hotel porter, Dorian opens the door from the other side. His gaze is, as usual, unimpressed.

“They got you back up, then, did they?” He doesn’t sound that happy about it.

“Your concern is touching,” Volt says dryly. He steps out into the hallway. Farya follows behind him.

“I’m going with you,” she says as Volt heads for the stairs. “For today, I’ll be your chaperone.”

Volt slows down a little so she doesn’t have to match his large strides. He absently offers her his arm. “I’ll never refuse the company of a beautiful lady.” The flirtatious remark is lackluster, almost coming from autopilot. All he can think about is Eddie.

They slowly ascend the stairs. It is… harder than usual. The cordial arm he offered Farya turns into him having to lean on her instead. Every step he takes taps into his limited pool of energy. Volt can feel the eyes of various objects on him as he passes, but he doesn’t look at any of them, staring straight ahead.

He stills in the doorframe of the bedroom. The curtains are closed, a single strip of late-afternoon light falling over the bed, where an unconscious figure rests.

Volt finds he can’t move. The weight in his legs is different now — less about the climb, more about the sudden gravity pressing down on him. He tries to step closer, but his knees nearly buckle.

Eddie has sustained severe damage. The copper-and-steel housing along his chest is warped and blackened, the once-precise paneling bubbled in places as if it had been half-melted and then left to cool. The red and black wires that snake around the sleeves of his dress shirt are pulled taut, frayed and dulled like burnt hair.

Despite the ash and the wounds, the scariest thing is the quiet. Eddie is never quiet. In speech and demeanor, yes, but not in the humming undercurrent that is his lifeforce, which only Volt can hear. Now, it’s gone. No gentle vibration at the edge of his awareness, no steady rhythm thrumming beneath metal and skin.

Is he even really alive? Was Farya wrong, not understanding that even with some circuits having made it out mostly unscathed, even with his chest still moving up and down, Eddie could still be gone.

Volt’s breath comes in shaky stutters. He’s still leaning heavy on the smaller woman, who clears her throat politely as his weight becomes too heavy for her to support. Volt blinks, trying to force his legs to obey, but the world is tilting around him.

“Dorian!” Farya squeaks when Volt’s legs do give out on him. Immediately, strong, tattooed arms wrap around Volt from behind, keeping him from collapsing entirely.

“Steady,” Dorian’s gravelly voice says in his ear.

“I can’t hear him,” Volt stammers as Farya darts out underneath him. He feels as though he’s falling, falling, dropping into an endless void. His entire existence revolved around protecting this man, his creator, his greatest love. Being faced with his failure is too much.

Farya seems to understand what he means. “It’s alright. Really. I’ll show you.” She takes off her stethoscope and puts the ends in Volt’s ears. Then she jerks her head toward the bed, and guided by Dorian, Volt follows her.

He almost wants to protest as Farya puts the diaphragm on Eddie’s rising and falling chest — too scared of her being mistaken, of having his fears confirmed. But then he hears it.

It’s faint, more like faltering feedback than the usual dependent soft buzz. But it’s there. A tremor of life.

Volt crumples with relief. The universe braids itself back together, just a little. He sinks to his knees and brushes his forehead against Eddie’s chest, afraid to breathe too hard in case he shatters the fragile miracle of it. His trembling hands grab Eddie’s scorched palm and just hold him. A sob wrenches itself out of him. More follow. Tears stream down his cheeks, and people are watching him fully break down, but he does not care.

Eddie is alive. Volt is holding him. Nothing else matters.

Chapter Text

Monday

Despite Volt’s aggressive and downright violent intentions from yesterday, he does not lift a hand when the human, unaware of the drama playing out in the metaphysical space in their bedroom, packs one of Beau’s boxes with clothes, toiletries, and a few snacks. Instead, he just stays at Eddie’s side, unable to tear his eyes away from him. For hours on end, he feels like a deer in a pair of headlines, terrified that if he looks away, something will vanish — Eddie, the room, reality itself.

He only looks up when he hears the crunch of tires on gravel. Wyndolyn gives Volt a somber look as they both silently watch the owner’s car pull up out of the driveway and disappear down the road.

The sense of abandonment that follows snaps him out of his frozen state of gloom. Fine, then, he thinks, lips curling in disdain. The human can run away from the fallout of this disaster if they like, but Volt won’t.

With a newfound sense of purpose, Volt comes into action. He dampens a rag with warm water from the bathroom tap and returns, settling at Eddie’s side once more. As gentle as he can, he wipes the blackened streaks from Eddie’s cheekbones, clearing the faint dusting of ash from his hairline. He discusses with Barry what kinds of oils and lotions might soothe the burns and prevent irritation and which ones are best for getting rid of the persisting smell of smoke. He lets Farya show him how to wind new bandages over damaged flesh.

It’s not the first time he’s been his partner’s caretaker. Eddie’s episodes have been more frequent and intense the past few weeks. Bull-headed as he is, Eddie often ignored the warning signs. You’d see him leaning against the bar’s counter with a grimace, pouring drinks until he could barely stand. But sometimes, he would allow himself a moment to give in and stay in bed. Those days, Volt would close the bar and tended to him, pulling blinds against the light and brewing tea Eddie never drank.

But he could always talk with Eddie, then. Crack bad jokes and banter, pretend to be ruffled by his sarcastic and misanthropic attitude, though they both knew he was oh so fond of it. Now, he works in silence.

Over the course of the day, that silence gets dispelled. Many objects swing by to check in on Volt. Betty, of course, is around a lot. She offers to help nurse Eddie while he’s staying in her domain, but Volt declines, partly because he knows she wouldn’t truly enjoy the work, partly because the idea of relinquishing Eddie’s care makes his teeth ache. Prissy brings plastic plants to liven the space up, and Chairemi brings a cushioned seat for him to sit on as he’s by Eddie’s side. Johnny gives a ‘get better soon’ concert that Volts dissociates the whole way through. Amir and Bathsheba, some of Volt’s favorite conversation partners, try to cheer him up, but eventually drift away when it turns out Volt’s somber mood can’t be brightened by a few sweet words and flirtations.

Mayor Celia makes time in her busy schedule to pay a visit to them. She looks tired, as though the past two days have already taken everything out of her. There are some small spots of black soot on her pristinely white form. She doesn’t mention them, and he doesn’t ask. To fill the silence, she informs him about the state of the house. Every device and application reliant on electricity is unresponsive, locked in some sort of slumber mode. They can’t be interacted with at all. It has caused plenty of social friction and tension, but luckily it has not been the cause of any physical harm.

To many of the remaining objects, the largest problem is Lux not being able to turn on. It makes the night an oppressively dark and quiet place. Scandalabra is one of the most popular beings in the house all of a sudden, the only one able to still produce some flicker of a steady light. According to Celia, he is enjoying the attention quite a lot.

When she heads out, she lingers for a moment, hinting — gently — that Volt might try his hand at charging some of the others, but she doesn’t press the matter. Volt can’t even think about that task yet.

No one shows up specifically for Eddie. The bartender doesn’t have a whole host of people he would call his friends. All those who resemble something close, each require electricity; Kopi, Hoove, Rainey on her good days. Which means that they can’t show up to offer Volt their hollow apologies and stilted smalltalk.

There is one exception. She shows up when the sun has begun setting. Volt has been expecting her.

Like a queen, Winnifred strides into the room, head held high, hands folded in front of her. Her gaze folds with sorrow when it lands on Eddie.

“Ah, how I hoped this day would never come,” she whispers to the sleeping man, ignoring Volt. She walks up to the head of the bed. Volt scoots his chair to the side so she can reach out and run her hand through Eddie’s hair. “Though, sleepin’ like he does, he looks more at peace than I’ve seen him in years.”

“He’s in pain,” Volt shoots back through gritted teeth.

A long, rueful sigh, like steam being released. “He’s been in pain a long time. Least right now, he’s got a li’l respite.”

Winnifred and Volt do not get along well. Something about water and electricity not being a good idea together, as she’d put it. Still, she is Eddie’s oldest friend, and Volt always attempts to be cordial toward her.

She studies Eddie, the almost imperceptible tremor in her hands when she brushes his arm. It awakens an ugly green thing within him when she does so. He doesn’t like getting a sense of the depth of history between them that he can’t even fathom.

“Has he ever mentioned that time somethin’ like this happened before?” she asks conversationally.

“He… has not.”

“Yeah. Winter of ‘89,” she says, reminiscing like she’s opening an old photo album. “Cold year. Lotta electric blankets, space heaters… Poor Hector workin’ his tail off, same as Eddie here. Constantly fixin’ and fussin’, keepin’ things he could.” The small smile at the memory fades when she glances down at Eddie again. “It wasn’t as bad as this, of course. Not his fault either, whole neighborhood power grid failed. Still, power was gone for nearly three whole days. He didn’t take it well. Ed still took care of the electricity, back then, so it was like half of him had fizzled out.”

“I was not aware.”

“Hmhmm. Think that incident’s what got him so obsessed with the work. It used to just be a job, y’know, but after that it became his life.”

They sit in silence for a minute, as Winnifred solemnly looks at Eddie’s face, no doubt thinking about some precious moment from the past. Volt watches her.

Sometimes he wishes that when Volt split off from Eddie, he’d retained all of Eddie’s memories. For one thing, it would help him understand his partner better, give him a clearer picture of why Eddie’s work always loomed in the background of any interaction Volt ever had with him. For another, it would mean he wouldn’t feel this irrational jealousy, this tight coil that flares whenever someone else touches Eddie, speaks of him, remembers him in ways Volt cannot.

“Did you know he was suffering?” he asks.

Winnifred raises one sharp eyebrow at his dark tone, but does answer his question. “He never said it plain. But I ain’t blind. He didn’t look healthy, the handful of times I saw him after the turn of the millennium rolled around.”

“If you were as close as you say, why weren’t you checking on him more?” he presses. “You knew where to find him. Maybe he’d have listened to you.”

She turns to him, the exasperation clear in her voice. “Honey, I was up to my eyeballs in my own chores. Had more than enough keepin’ me chained to my li’l room. Besides,” she adds, “the bar, it ain’t exactly my kinda spot these days.”

Volt lets out a scoff worthy of an insulted monarch. He knows what she’s implying. “I wasn’t solely responsible for turning the Breaker Box into an establishment that actually attracts customers, you know. Eddie was just as much behind it.”

“‘Course he was,” Winnifred says. “That man don’t rightly know when to call it quits. I’d’ve told him so.”

“You could have, yes. And yet you didn’t.”

Volt can’t say that he was ever opposed to the fact that Eddie and Winnifred only spoke with each other a couple times a year, these days. It meant that more of Eddie’s attention was on Volt. So maybe it’s a little hypocritical that he feels that resentment now. But it’s true. She could have kept better contact with him, been a closer friend to him.

Winnifred gives a small, pitying tsk. “Well, I reckoned, he’s got someone else to watch out for him now, someone who’ll pull him back ‘fore he gets too close to the edge.”

“I tried!” Volt snaps, standing so quickly his chair legs screech against the floor. So much for being cordial. “You know how stubborn he is!” He laughs once, the sound near-manic to his own ears. “Stubborn, damn near suicidal, and I wanted to drag him back, chain him if I had to, tie him to the bed, anything, anything to stop him from burning out! I could’ve been his jailer if only—” he stumbles over the words. “If only I didn’t love him so ruinously. If only I weren’t so weak for him.” Something a little too close to introspection burrows through him, and he quickly shoves any possible incoming revelation aside. “How can you still call yourself his friend if you did not care that he was suffering?”

Winnifred raises one unimpressed eyebrow. “Careful there, spitfire. Lotta sparks flyin’ off ya there.”

It takes him a moment to realize she’s being literal. A faint, hair-thin blue glow traces the curve of his forearms where his skin is tight with tension. His hands are clenched so hard his knuckles are pale, the air around them buzzing faintly.

Damn it. Volt breathes out hard, forcing his fingers open. He doesn’t have the luxury of wasting his watts on anger. He can already feel himself grow light-headed.

“Boy, you’re wound up tight. You’d have already caused Ripple a heart attack, if he had one.”

“You know Ripple?” Volt asks, flicking a glance at the fish bowl at his side, in which the iridescent fish is still swimming laps like a tiny hurricane trapped in a jar.

She chuckles. “‘Course I do. Who d’you think talked River into lendin’ the sweet thing to ya?”

Volt’s mouth forms words that don’t come. He sits back down again.

She… is not his enemy.

Of course she is not his enemy. That’s preposterous. Volt might not like her, but it’s not like him to rant and rave at someone like that. He supposes he’s not used to people looking at Eddie with the kind of love and adoration Winnifred has in her face when she gazes on him. It got his wires crossed.

“My apologies,” he mumbles, looking away. “I got carried away.”

“I see blowin’ off that steam did ya good.”

Volt lets out a little huff, pressing his knuckles to his lips. “I… tend to run hot, when it concerns Eddie.”

“Not always a bad thing, sugar — so long as you don’t go layin’ it all at my feet,” she says, her voice softer now, though still with some steel running through it. She purses her lips, crosses her arms, and sighs. “And you’re right ‘bout some of it. I could’ve reached out more. I felt him driftin’ and thought the kindest thing was to give him space.” She shakes her head. “I was caught up in my dalliances with River and Washford, and tendin’ my own patch, and I didn’t see he needed a friend as bad as he did. That man—” she tips her chin toward Eddie “—he’ll pull back soon as he’s hurtin’, and once he’s done that, it’s like tryin’ to turn steam directly into ice. You can pound ‘til your fists bleed, he’ll still be sittin’ inside, actin’ like nobody’s home.”

Volt lowers his head and can’t help but chuckle in his fist. It is a very accurate description of Eddison Watts.

She sighs, a slow release that seems to deflate her posture, as much as possible, at least. “That’s why I was so glad when you showed up.”

Volt almost thinks he misheard her. His head snaps up.

“Now, don’t go twistin’ my words now — don’t like you much, never have. But you’re good for him. You keep him movin’, keep him outta that deep, dark hole he digs when nobody’s watchin’.”

It’s clear she doesn’t intend it as a compliment to Volt, but he is a glutton for praise and will take it as such.

A bit of an awkward silence follows. Volt shifts in his chair, straightens his cuffs for something to do. Winnifred, for her part, taps her nails against her forearm in a slow rhythm.

Finally, she says, “With the human gone, my workload’s lightened a whole lot. Maybe, next time you need a break, I could step in. Keep an eye on him.”

Volt’s eyes narrow. “I will not be needing a break.”

Winnifred laughs. “Well, I’ll be. Knew you had a theatrical streak, but didn’t know your impressions were that spot on. Could’ve sworn I just heard Ed speakin’ right then.”

Volt rolls his eyes. The idea of letting someone else take care of Eddie still makes his teeth ache. But… Eddie would probably want this. He has always talked about Winnifred with fondness. And… it would be good for Eddie to have another friend at his side.

“Alright. Maybe,” he acquiesces.

Winnifred tilts her head, another eyebrow shooting up.

He closes his eyes briefly, and amends, “…Yes.”

A slow smile tugs at her mouth — not smug, but pleased. “Good. Might be you’ll thank yourself later.”

Volt hums but doesn’t answer. The silence feels different now, not entirely unpleasant.

After a moment, he glances up at her. “Can you share another story about Eddie? From before I met him?”

“Oh.” Her mouth quirks like she wasn’t expecting the request. “Sure, sugar. Lemme think.” She taps her chin, and her eyes brighten. “Well, there was that time in ‘96, when Eddie didn’t cut Wallace off in time. ‘Fore you know it, he’s dealin’ with a drunk 260 pound brick of a wall demandin’ another round. So what’s he do?” She’s already laughing at her own tale, toying with the tube of her ponytail as she talks. “He just turns off all the lights at once. Boom, dark as a pocket. Wallace, bless his head, figures that must mean it’s nappin’ time, and promptly falls asleep on the bar. Wouldn’t wake up, not even after the lights were raised again! Eddie’s tearin’ at his roots, tryin’ to figure out how to get this sleepin’ giant outta his bar.”

“Am I hearing the origin of why there is a broken forklift in our backroom?”

“Shush, I’m gettin’ to that part. So, anyways, there our Ed is, practical as ever, deciding to pull out the big guns…”

After that story ends, another one follows. And another. Volt listens with rapt, desperate hunger, drinking in every scrap of the Eddie he never knew.

Chapter Text

Tuesday.

Where the neon sign used to buzz “BREAKER BOX” in slender, flickering letters, there is nothing left but a blackened frame and the stubborn, crooked arc of one lone ‘B’. 

Volt runs a hand through his hair as he stares at the burnt out remains of the outside of the fuse box. Seeing it like this gives him a physical ache, a knife being twisted.

Fire. One of the universe’s fastest reminders that entropy always wins and also, fuck you.

Behind him, Dorian looms in the closet doorway, arms crossed, his gaze not quite a glare but something close. “Probably looks worse than it is,” he remarks.

Volt doesn’t turn around to look at him. “Oh, I assure you, it is exactly as bad as it looks.”

He steps closer, fingertips grazing the warped metal of the outside walls. It’s not warm to the touch anymore, but the air still smells faintly of burnt rubber and ozone.

“I took a hit keepin’ that fire from spreading to the hallway. Not my idea of a good night,” Dorian grunts, shifting his weight. “You’re lucky it didn’t take the whole wall.”

Volt tilts his head, eyes tracing the blackened veins spreading outward from the blast point. Lucky. Maybe. He gives a humorless hum and steps through the threshold. The last time he was in the bar, the fire hadn’t reached it yet, still contained to the grid room. But while he’d been trying to keep it from consuming the main circuitry, it had greedily feasted on the dark gray carpets and fake wooden panelling. The space looks like the aftermath of an explosion. The walls are a patchwork of blistered paint and exposed studs. What wiring, decorative or functional, remains, hangs in melted, tangled clumps, like dead vines.

Oh, how this would break Eddie’s heart.

Eddie still has not stirred from his coma-like slumber. According to Farya, when he was first taken out of the Breaker Box, he was grunting and mumbling a lot, but at some point, he fell still. Ever since, he’s been quiet as a mouse. His unresponsiveness hasn’t stopped Volt from talking to him, just in case he can somehow still hear.

It hurt Volt to leave him behind so he could check on the Breaker Box, but Winnifred assured him she’d take good care of him. They both know their ardent vigiling is pointless. Eddie is comatose, and doesn’t require someone to sit at his bedside and brush a thumb over his forehead. Still, neither of them can help it. It’s all they have in their power to do, and so they do it.

Without any real goal in mind, Volt starts to sort through the wreckage. He picks up the things that can’t possibly be saved — twisted metal chairs, shards of scorched bottles, bits of wiring — and piles it all haphazardly in a corner. It’s hard, heavy work, with little reward because it does not feel like he’s really making a change. It stains his soft hands. He doesn’t stop.

He’s been at it for about an hour when someone enters. Arma, a vivid slash of white and red against the blackened walls. She has a wild look in her eyes, her hands clutched against her chest.

Volt freezes mid-lift, an iron strut dangling in his grip. For an extended moment, they simply stare at each other. Then Volt’s hosting instincts take over, a half-genuine, half-forced grin breaking out on his face. He is still the impresario of this place, open or closed, whole or burnt. “Arma!” he says, putting the strut down and invitingly spreading his arms. “Wonderful to see you. As you know, the Breaker Box is currently not exactly operational, but is there anything I can do for you?”

Arma gives a small, awkward smile, shifting from foot to foot. “I just… I just wanted to see.”

“Ah, yes. Well, it’s not quite the sort of ambiance I once promised my patrons, but—” he forces a mirthless chuckle “—I suppose it does make a certain impression.”

Arma steps further in, hugging her elbows as her eyes roam over the blistered walls and dangling wire. She doesn’t say anything. Just breathes in the acrid sting of char.

Volt watches her, and softens his gaze. “I heard from Shelley that you rushed in and got Eddie out, before the human even used the extinguisher.” He presses a hand to his chest. “I will never be able to repay you for that. So, free drinks on the house for you. At least until Eddie wakes up and tells me that’s a terrible business model. Is there anything you’d like? Peated whiskey is your usual poison, right?”

Instead of the smile Volt expects, Arma doesn’t meet his eyes and fiddles with the hem of her jacket. “Thanks, Volt,” she mumbles. “That’d be great.”

Volt nods, brushing ash from his palms onto his already-ruined shirt. “Coming right up.”

The bar itself has mostly remained intact. He steps over a fallen barstool and ducks behind the counter. “Fortunately,” he says, rummaging through the mess, “fire didn’t get all our stock. Still have a lot of the good stuff.” He pulls out a squat bottle of whiskey and splashes a measure of the amber liquid into a glass. It’s grounding, doing something as simple and familiar as this. It almost makes him feel normal. “So I can still pour you something that’ll warm you up.” He stops and reflects on that phrasing. “Ah. Pun not intended, of course.”

Arma takes a seat on a stool of which the vinyl has started to peel. Her eyes dart around the room. “It’s… worse than I pictured,” she admits quietly. “The smell is still so strong…”

Her eyes go glassy, and her breath hitches like she’s halfway to swallowing something jagged. Volt watches the muscles in her jaw work as she forces them still.

He softly sets her glass down in front of her. “You were very brave.”

Arma’s fingers close around the glass, though she doesn’t lift it. “I tried to find you too. Before I realized the human had turned the power off, I mean. I was looking so hard, and when I couldn’t find you…” Her voice trembles. “…I panicked,” she finishes quietly, her voice barely above a whisper. Her shoulders hunch, and she tucks her hands into the sleeves of her jacket. “I thought I’d failed you. Like I failed—” She sputters to a halt, looking away, her face red.

Volt lets out a long breath. “I’m fine. At least… as fine as I can be after all this.”

Arma wipes quickly at her eye with the back of her sleeve, then knocks back a big gulp of whiskey without savoring it. “I just… I hate feeling useless. I couldn’t do anything when it started, and I felt like— like I lost before I even got here.”

Despite being an excellent bartender, Volt has never managed the whole ‘listen to people spill all their emotions while pouring drinks’ part. Beverly’s bar is a better place if you want to go have a mental breakdown and be coddled during and after. Still, it’s part of the job. He nods along and pours a drink for himself. The sound of ash and broken glass crunches faintly under his boots. They both drink in silence.

Finally, he has an idea. Not necessarily a good one, maybe, but even his worst ideas usually have the tendency of brightening someone’s day. “Would you perhaps like to help me clean up a bit? I could use an extra set of hands.”

For a moment Arma looks like she might refuse out of politeness, but then her mouth quirks into something relieved. “Yeah,” she says, pushing up from the stool. “Yeah, I’d like that. Better than just sitting here.”

Volt gives a short nod. “Good. We’ll start with clearing the tables. Keep your hands off the wiring, though. I’ll handle that.”

To no one’s surprise, Arma is a hard worker. Harder than Volt, in any case, and much more discerning too. She knows which wood beams are just scorched on the surface and which ones have been cooked hollow. She knows that glass shattered by heat spilled razor edges into the carpets, which will need to be thrown out. She’s good at this, but every few minutes she hesitates, her breath catching. In those moments, her hands tighten to fists, then unclench, and she forces herself forward again, working thrice as hard. Volt would be intimidated by her single-minded determination, if he wasn’t feeling the same thing.

By the time another hour has crawled past, the tables are stacked, chairs cleared, and Arma has started cutting out the carpets. With the bar in good hands, Volt decides to see how the second floor has been holding up. It’s strangely difficult to do so, as though there is something he greatly fears waiting for him up there. There is not, and he pushes his irrational nervousness aside.

When he finds that the fire hasn't touched this floor, he expects to feel glad. Instead, when he looks at their bedroom, with its clean sheets, drawn curtains, and Eddie’s books stacked on the nightstand, he feels… sad. Their bed looks as if nothing has happened at all. Volt stands in the doorway longer than he means to, swallowing around the cork in his throat, staring at the dented pillow where Eddie’s head usually rests. He can imagine the man’s steady breathing, the little half-snore that always kicks in when he’s too exhausted to fight it.

Another one of those sharp, painful pangs flashes through his chest. This is what normal is supposed to look like. Untouched. Safe. He chokes on his own melancholy, lingering there another breath. Then he turns sharply on his heel and heads back.

When he comes back downstairs, he sees that a third figure has entered the bar. She’s looking around with her head cocked and her lips slightly pursed, like she’s doing calculations in her head.

“We are actually closed, you know,” Volt says, less warmly than he’d greeted Arma. The red-haired woman who looks up at him is not exactly someone he’s happy to see, though he supposes her presence makes sense, in the same way that it would make sense for a coroner to be near a dead body.

“Hello, Volt,” Maggie says. “I’m here to ask you some questions.”

“I’m busy,” he says in an irritated tone. Without looking over at her, he goes back behind the bar and starts stacking unbroken glasses into a crate.

“You can continue your work,” Maggie says, stepping closer so she’s back in his line of sight. “I won’t get in your way. It’s just gonna be a couple minutes.”

Ugh. “Suit yourself,” he sighs, knowing that there is little he can do to stop her. “What are these questions about?”

“What caused the fire, of course.”

Volt goes very still. He sets the glass he’s holding down too hard; it clinks off its neighbors. “You should bother Arma with that instead of me. She is more knowledgeable about these kinds of things.”

“I already interviewed Arma yesterday.”

He huffs through his nose. “Well, then I don't see how I could be of use.”

Maggie doesn’t look deterred in the least. She pulls a small notepad from the inside pocket of her coat, flipping it open with a flick of her wrist. “On the contrary,” she says, “I think you’re the most useful person I could be speaking with.” She taps her pen lightly against the page. “Walk me through that night. What made you aware something was wrong?”

Yay, reliving traumatic memories. His favorite. He stacks little shot glasses into a larger beer glass, hair falling in front of his eyes. “I woke up because Eddie was in pain. He was hot to the touch, and muttering in his sleep.”

“What was he saying?”

What was it again? Something technical, the kind of mutterings Volt heard from him all the time. “I don’t remember. Something about an overload.”

“Interesting. What happened after?”

Volt recounts a general version of that night — his run to the grid room, his desperate attempt to shield the breaker circuit and the cable, the human extinguishing the fire before it could devour more. Maggie doesn’t interrupt, her hand moving speedily across the paper, jotting down every clipped word he offers.

When he’s done, she closes her pen with a quiet click, her eyes still on him. “So, what do you think happened that caused the fire?”

“Don’t know. Bad luck, maybe. Wires get old. Things happen.” He sets the crate aside, drags another empty one closer.

“There has to be more to it than that,” Maggie says lightly, almost casually, but her eyes are sharp as a hawk, unblinking. “You’ve run this place for years without a single electrical hiccup. Every time I see Eddie, he’s working on some maintenance problem or another. Now it just… happens?”

He straightens, meets her gaze for half a second, then resumes his work. “Like I said. Bad luck.”

“Could I see the grid room for myself?”

“No.”

“But—”

“The grid room is Eddie’s room. No one is allowed in there without his say-so.”

“Not even you?”

He doesn’t answer. Just hefts the two heavy crates on his shoulders and starts toward the drink storage room, trying to get away from her.

“You’re being dodgy.” She follows on his heels, because of course she does. “You’re usually a talker. Always ready with a story, a joke. But now? Clammed up. That’s not like you, Volt.”

“Maybe I simply do not feel like performing today.”

“It’s making you look suspicious.”

He scoffs, deciding to take offense. “Oh, come on, Maggie. The Breaker Box is my home. Do you really think I would set it on fire? Whyever would I do such a thing?”

“I’m not saying you were the perpetrator. I’m saying you might know more than you’re letting on.”

He drops the crates to the floor, the glasses rattling inside, maybe cracking as well. Nose pulled up, he spins around, his face not far away from hers as his eyes grow dark. “Well, and I’m saying I’ve had enough of your prodding and poking into me and Eddie’s private business. You’re leaving. Now.” 

“But—” 

Volt straightens. “Go. Before I decide I’ve had enough of polite warnings.”

“I will get to the bottom of this,” she says as she takes her leave.

“I would not recommend it,” he responds, watching to make sure she actually turns the corner and departs the closet. 

Once she’s disappeared, Volt lets some of the tension in his body go, and schools his ugly, angry expression into something more neutral.

He’s learned to deal with the probing questions, the ‘something is off here’-statements. There have always been whispers about him and Eddie — a certain mistrust because of the way they ran things. Sure, it was strange that Volt just showed up one day, completely unprecedented even. And sure, neither of them ever acknowledged the frequent power fluctuations, always brushing it off whenever that topic came up. But whispers are just that. Baseless rumors that do no actual harm. Questions are another story. Those try to dig up things that are better left buried.

He takes a long, deep breath. It would probably be more effective if he could breathe in clean air, but instead he gets a lungful of something that just reeks of smoke, which leaves him feeling worse than before. His mood soured, he goes back to the bar, this time focusing on the glassware he can’t salvage.

“Wonderful work, Arma,” Volt says, setting his hands on his hips as he surveys the room. It’s not as though the Breaker Box has been restored to its former glory, but it looks noticeably less like a ruin. The worst of the fire’s scars have been pushed to the backrooms or piled into neat heaps for disposal. Tables are upright again, exposed wires taken care of, broken glass swept into buckets. Eddie would be proud, if a little disgruntled that someone who wasn’t him had been the one to do the tidying.

Arma seems to be doing better than she was before, a healthy blush back in her cheeks and those tears that had nestled in the corners of her eyes long forgotten. It seems to have done her good, being able to do something in the aftermath of the fire. 

She pulls off her gloves, wipes her hands down her jacket, and gives Volt a small, almost sheepish smile. “Glad I could help,” she says. “If you ever need me again — anything at all — just call.” Volt clasps her shoulder warmly, and they exchange their farewells.

Before going back to Eddie’s side, he does one last round around the place, locking up the drink storage room and the empty crates room. It’s a little strange, going through these familiar motions that don’t serve a purpose in the slightest anymore — what sorts of intruders would waste their time on a place like this, now?

Or at least, that’s what he thinks to himself. But he finds the door to the grid room is open. Not much, only the slightest bit ajar. Nevertheless, Volt immediately stops in his tracks.

Ah, for amp’s sake, how did she get in here.

Slowly, silently, he pushes the door open. The room beyond is always an impressive sight to behold, even in its scorched state. Floor-to-ceiling breaker banks and switchgear line up like metal ribs, covering nearly every bit of wall space. Thick power cables like arterial veins rope across the ceiling and down the walls, their insulation split and weeping a tarry sheen. Bus bars gape where they’ve been sheared; meters are melted to glassy, bubbled blisters; warning and categorization stickers with Eddie’s handwriting have been reduced to ash.

There is a reason why Volt has not entered this place yet. It is too confronting, to see the extent of the damage. To know that every burned wire and connector, every melted fuse is what is causing the pain Eddie is currently in. He is staring at the open wounds of his partner, wounds that he has no idea how to heal.

Crouched on the ground, her magnifying glass held before her eye as she inspects a certain patch of wiring that has haunted both Eddie and Volt for many nights, is Maggie.

Volt lets the door fall closed behind him. The heavy thud startles Maggie, only just noticing him, too laser-focused on her snooping.

“You shouldn’t be in here,” he says, voice low and stripped of its usual theatrical shine.

Maggie rises slowly, chin tilted. “You knew. This wiring— it’s been like this for months, hasn’t it?”

“Yes.” He steps forward, the shadows of the room swallowing half his face.

“But why not repair—”

Volt chuckles darkly, shaking his head as though warding off a headache. “You and your ceaseless questions.” Another step closer. This time Maggie moves back as well, her back pressed against the wall. “Fine. You want to know what caused this? I did.”

Maggie’s eyes widen in alarm, but Volt is not finished. She wishes to know the truth? Very well.

“I am the reason the fire started. Eddie would not restart the power to fix the grid, because he was afraid of what would happen to me.” His voice crackles, not a pathetic crack of emotion but of that lightning. He’s aware of how his skin has started taking on a dangerous blue hue. “It was dangerous. It was hurting him. And I let. It. Happen.”

He was supposed to protect Eddie, even from himself, and he failed. All of this is his fault. He’s not even sure he’s still talking to Maggie anymore as he continues, the words spilling from his lips.

“Worst of all, Eddie was wrong. The power went off, and I’m still here, but he’s dying. All of this could have been prevented, if only I’d—” He cuts himself off with a sharp breath, his jaw clenched so tightly the cords in his neck stand out.

Maggie doesn’t move, doesn't speak, doesn’t breathe. Her face is whiter than usual.

“Are you happy now?” he snarls. “There you go, case solved, you’ve found your villain. Does it feel good? Prying into someone’s affairs like you do?” His hand slams against the wall beside her head, the impact rattling dust mixed with ash from the rafters. “No one asked you to get involved in this.”

Maggie has remained silent throughout his whole monologue. Now she lifts her chin to meet his eyes and, calmly, speaks. “Are you going to hurt me?”

The words catch him off guard. He blinks, then laughs, bitterly. “What?”

He probably couldn’t hurt her even if he wanted to; he doubts his generator is powerful enough to cause any kind of destructive electrocution. But she doesn’t know that. She’s a small woman, locked in a room with her only exit behind Volt. In her mind, it would be impossible to read Volt as anything but a threat.

“I—” Maggie swallows, caught between her professionalism and the fear that has to be curling in her stomach. “Will you let me leave, now that I know this?”

Volt’s chest heaves once, twice, then stills. He removes his hand from the wall. “Let you leave,” he echoes, and for a moment his tone is so flat it could be mistaken for refusal. Maggie stiffens, her breath shallow. Volt studies her face. Her jaw has a faint tremor in it. She looks so tiny, cornered.

He drags in a breath, shoulders sagging under its weight. “Of course I’ll let you leave. I’m not some monster from a story, Maggie.” He takes a step back and turns his back on her, on the grid control panels. “But I do need you to understand. If you tell anyone about Eddie’s decision not to fix this wiring, it will ruin him. He is not neglectful, nor incompetent. This was an exception, and I will not have misconstrued versions of the truth out there, not when at this very moment, he is fighting to simply breathe.”

“I do understand,” she answers slowly. For a moment, Volt relaxes. Then she continues. “But Volt. For the safety of the house, I have to know. When Eddie wakes up, and things go back to normal… is this going to happen again?”

“No,” Volt immediately says.

“Why?” Maggie shoots back. Volt really hates that word with a passion.

“Because,” he replies, “I say so.”

“I’m sorry, but that’s not good enough.” She rubs her temples. “Look, if you don’t want me to, I won’t tell anyone else about the faulty wire. But only if you and Eddie make a plan to prevent this from happening again. If you don’t have a fail-safe installed next time I check in, I will go to Mayor Celia with this.”

“Fine. Yes, we’ll do that.” He waves his hand. When Maggie’s expression remains unconvinced, he adds, “Trust me, I want this to never happen again just as much as you do.”

Maggie slowly nods. “Alright. I believe you.” She takes one cautious step forward. Volt doesn’t stop her. “And, for what it’s worth… I don’t think you’re to blame for this, Volt.”

He scoffs. “Get out.”

Maggie circles around him, slowly backing toward the exit, never taking her eyes off him. Volt watches her retreat, still humming with an undercurrent that seems to have its own violent intents. When she’s clear of the threshold, she quietly closes the door behind her.

Alone again, he leans against the wall. The grid controls buzzes beside him in the same rhythm as Eddie’s essence. So faint, so unreachably far away.

He eyes the patch of faulty wiring that’s been the source of all this misery, and for the first time since this disaster, tears spill from his eyes. It’s as though having said it out loud, the feeling has gained strength. The guilt. The knowing that Volt’s existence caused this, while his existence was created to protect, to stabilize, to hold Eddie together.

In the dark of the grid room, he makes a promise to himself. He will get Eddie back and restore the Breaker Box to life.

Even if it kills him.

Chapter Text

Wednesday

Mornings have sort of started taking on a routine. Volt wakes beside Eddie, and before he even draws his first full breath of the day, he leans close with Farya’s stethoscope, listening to the steady hum that still sings in Eddie’s chest. It’s not music exactly, but to him no symphony could compare. Then he gets up out of bed and fills in the checklist Farya made for him with his observations about Eddie’s current condition. He changes Eddie’s sheets and dampens a cloth with warm water, careful not to let it drip, and runs it gently across Eddie’s face, down his arms, and along the lines of his ribs where the hum of power pulses most strongly. He changes his clothes and his bandages, lying to himself that the burns are getting better. They're not. That's not how it works for them.

By that point, Betty is usually awake, and the two of them have breakfast together as they talk about non-painful things. This morning, he talks with Betty about the idea of moving Eddie to the bedroom in the Breaker Box, now that he’s confirmed that the fire left it alone. It excites him, the prospect of some more sense of normalcy, but when he proposes it to Farya, she is reluctant. Moving a comatose body through a smoke-infested, possibly structurally unsound metaphysical building is not what she recommends. Volt bows to her judgment, swallows his disappointment with grace, and continues to accept Betty’s freely given hospitality.

His afternoons are less structured. He mostly just sits, sometimes engaged in conversation with various objects that decide to pay him a visit. He talks with people who he only ever had casual, surface-level interactions with before. It almost surprises him how kind everyone is being, how ready they are to support him. Has the house always been this much of a community? He always thought most objects could barely stand each other, and that tensions were regularly running high.

Then again, Volt and Eddie mostly stuck to the Breaker Box, didn’t they? Eddie doesn’t like mingling in crowded events, and for Volt an outing loses most of its fun if he would not have Eddie beside him. The only time he remembers seeing the house come together like this, was at Chappy’s funeral.

Nothing like tragedy to bring folks together, he supposes. Yet there’s more to it than merely that. Beverly offers to donate some of her stock, Abel says he can whip them up some new tables no problem, and Celia assures him that if he needs anything else, he need only name it, and she will use her influence to make sure of it. All without expecting anything in return. There’s something to their actions that Volt does not understand, something he is missing out on that all these other objects do have. What drives them to show up for each other like this? Volt can’t quite grasp it. They aren’t bound by necessity, yet they give freely anyway; time, company, scraps of energy they could’ve hoarded for themselves. He can’t pinpoint what it is, but suddenly, he wants it.

And he feels himself caught between two sensations: the warmth of being held in that web of community, and the itching ache of realizing he and Eddie always stood apart from it. The Breaker Box was theirs alone, and while it had its many comforts, it was a kingdom of two.

He finds himself wishing Eddie could see it now; how it feels to be cared for not just as individuals but as part of a whole. Maybe, when he wakes up, Volt can find the words to explain it. To Eddie, but also to himself.

Volt is reading a graphic novel Lyric recommended to him when Mac wheels into the room. Their face is almost waxy in its pallor, lit only by the faint, feverish glow of the indicator lights along their chest panel. The fans inside them rattle thinly, the blades dragging as though moving through syrup.

Volt rises to his feet, his signature smile spreading across his face like instinct, despite a nervous serpent coiling through his stomach. Mac should be resting, conserving however much battery they’ve got left. They would only be here if they had news to share.

“Volt,” they say. Their voice has a burr to it, fuzzing faintly like static. “We need to talk.”

Ah. That does not sound good. Volt’s smile twitches just the slightest bit, but with a roll of his neck it loosens again. “Well, I’m all yours. Please, come in, make yourself comfortable.” He pushes his chair to the side so Mac has the space to roll in and settle without bumping into anything.

“Phoenicia contacted me,” they begin, not meeting his eyes. “She’s doing good. Well-charged. The message she sent me included a lot of pictures of the home of the human’s aunt.”

“That’s wonderful to hear,” Volt says patiently. Mac is clearly stalling, circling around what they’re here to say. Volt has no qualms playing along. It’s survival, in a way. “I assume our human has been faring equally well, what with their surprise workation?”

“Yeah, I think so. They don’t seem to like the work, but their aunt’s been very welcoming.”

Volt steels himself. “And… has Phoenica overheard anything regarding Eddie’s upcoming repairs?”

Mac doesn’t immediately answer. “Yes. Uhm… They called an electrician and talked with some contractors about— about the fuse box situation. Apparently the damage is so extensive that they’re considering completely replacing the breaker box with a newer one.”

For a moment, Volt doesn’t understand. His charming grin stays plastered on his face a little too long, a painted mask. The words stack but refuse to form meaning. Replace. New. His mind claws against them like they’re a foreign language. Then the sense slams home and knocks the breath out of him.

“No.” He shakes his head, violently. “No, no, no, they wouldn’t. They can’t. Eddie is the Box. You don’t replace him like— like any old lightbulb. He’s not disposable!” Volt’s glow sharpens until it paints harsh shadows across the walls. He’s losing control again. “I won’t let them touch him.”

“Volt—” Mac starts.

“No!” Volt’s voice cracks like the first slam of thunder during a quiet night. He braces both palms flat on the bedframe, bowing his head, voice trembling. “He’s not gone. He’s not gone. He’s still humming. You hear it, right? He’s still here.”

Mac takes a long look at Eddie, at the burns on his skin, at the brittle ends of wires that no longer connect to anything. They tilt their head, listening. Their fans sputter again. They slowly shake their head. “I don’t hear anything.”

Volt jerks upright, his glow flaring. “Well, I do. I hear him. He’s alive.” His hands curl, restless, furious.

Mac takes a long inhale. “You might electrocute me for saying this, but someone’s got to.” They wheel around to sit next to him, both of them looking out at Eddie. “He hasn’t woken up a single time yet, right?”

“No.”

“Maybe… maybe he’s not gonna wake up again. I don’t want that to be the case—” they quickly say when Volt turns on them like a flash of lightning, his expression murderous, “—but it’s a possibility. Maybe he can’t be repaired. Have you considered that?”

No. Volt hasn’t. Because he quite literally can not. The mere thought alone is blocked from his brain like a current running into a non-conductive slab of stone. Even being able to think it would be the worst kind of betrayal.

He presses his lips into a tight line and does not address that question. “If money is the problem,” he bargains instead, “can’t you — I don’t know — hack some online lottery and make them win whatever the human would need to repair him?”

“Even if such an action didn’t go against my programmed ethical conduct codes, it’s not gonna work. Eddie is old, Volt. He was installed when this house was built, in the sixties. Any sane contractor is going to recommend replacing that system, for safety reasons, or simply because it could be damaged, or experiencing issues like frequent tripping or overheating. Which, well, all of those apply here. It doesn’t matter how much money we wish into existence.” They make a helpless gesture. “Maybe this is just the way things have to be.”

“Don’t say that,” Volt hisses. “Don’t you dare say that.”

Mac puts a hand on their chest, the glow underneath the keyboard buttons on their jacket briefly flashing a dark vermillion, before turning off. “Volt, understand where I’m coming from. I have to think about myself here, and I’m the only one who can give a voice to all the other objects that need your electricity.”

Volt stares at them like they’ve grown two heads. “The ingratitude,” he snarls, “is staggering. You, and those leeching ‘others’ you claim to speak for — Eddie bled himself dry to feed you. He was killing himself for you. And now, in his hour of need, you would disregard him like scrap?”

Mac scoffs. “Of course not. I don’t take it lightly, what Eddie and you do for us.” Their hands were gripping the armsrests of their wheelchair with force, but they let go and almost seem to sag in on themselves with fatigue. Still, they manage to look at him with something like pity. “No one’s casting him aside,” they murmur. “But you’re not seeing it, Volt. You never look away from him long enough to see the rest of us. No matter how monumental, keeping the power steady remains your job. Everyone is walking on eggshells around you, and I understand why. I’m very sorry that you’re in this pain. But the fact remains that without a working breaker box, about twenty-five percent of us can not live.”

“You cast this blame upon me, as though a few days in the dark is somehow consequential.”

“It is consequential, Volt! Of course it is!” Mac’s voice pitches upward. They swallow hard. “It is not simply being ‘in the dark’. It’s a loss of autonomy. We have no control over what happens to us. Every time one of us shuts down, the possibility lurks of not coming back. Not waking. Not existing anymore.”

“But you will come back! Nothing is going to happen! The only being actually in danger is Eddie, not any of you!”

“I thought you’d understand where I’m coming from, now that you’ve faced that nonexistence yourself. When I was informed of what caused the power outage, the very first thing I did was seek ways to bring you back, so you could actually help some of us. Instead, all you’ve done so far is standing at his bedside, not even having made as much of an attempt to bring anyone back. My power is draining as I stand in front of you, and you could have lent me some electricity at any point, but you haven’t. It’s like—”

“Like I don’t care about anyone but Eddie?” Volt cuts them off. He cocks his head in mock wonder. “Fascinating. It is rather like that, is it not?”

It’s been nice, these past couple of days, having the other objects of the house come seek him out and offer their aid, their camaraderie. They’ve all been oh so very kind to him. Really made him yearn for a new path in life, one in which he could let the persona of the happy, licentious showman fray a little, become someone more congruent with the person he feels inside.

But never at the cost of Eddie. 

In that second, Volt realizes what it is that all the other household objects have, and which he does not. It is empathy. 

“You should go,” he says at last, low and almost kind, though there is not a single soft feeling to be found within him. “Before your battery collapses entirely. Thank you for informing me of the current state of affairs.”

Mac stares at him for a long moment, as though searching for some remnant of reason inside his blazing eyes. Whatever they find — or fail to find — makes their shoulders drop further. “I can’t believe you. Are you really—”

“Enough.” The glow around Volt’s form surges, flooding the room with blinding light. “You mistake my presence for obligation. You mistake Eddie’s dedication to his work as some communal resource to be divvied up among parasites. I will not be divided like he was.”

Mac shoves their chair back from Eddie’s bedside. They let out a long breath through their teeth, a frustrated, disappointed sound. “Fine. I’m not wasting more of myself on this.”

Volt doesn’t answer. He doesn’t even twitch as Mac leaves, the faint hum of the wheelchair fading into the hall until the only sound left is the hollow buzz of his own current, jittering, uneven.

Then silence.

Volt exhales. He sinks down, knees folding under him, until he’s crouched beside the bed where Eddie lies.

“Eddie,” he begs, grabbing Eddie’s hand and squeezing it with all his might. “Eddie, darling, my love, you have to wake up.” It is the only hope there is. If Eddie will just wake up, they can make a plan together. No one understands the Breaker Box better than Eddison Watts. With one unimpressed glance, he will confirm that, yes, it can be repaired, a replacement isn’t needed at all.

Eddie remains motionless. Volt still can’t hear him, not without aid. He’s barely there at all.

Carefully, like trying to lift something that is made of broken glass, Volt lets himself conjure images of a future in which Eddie is replaced with a different fuse box. His place taken by someone who doesn’t stare at Volt with steel-gray eyes and a smirk that is only for Volt and no one else. Someone whose lifeforce Volt can’t hear. Someone who he doesn’t share a tether with. His insides lurch. A void opens up beneath him. His mind has to reel back before it self-destructs.

And reel back it does, back, back, back. Back all the way to the beginning, as far away from the current reality as he can. He remembers the unbearable weight of Eddie’s agony like it was his own, the only memory of Eddie he inherited, the night Eddie staggered half-mad with exhaustion, bent double under pain that no one was ever built to carry. He remembers the breaking point, the prayer screamed not to the heavens but into the hollow pit of despair itself. And then—

Light. Sparks. Existence, split into something separate through pain. Born from that scream, from that plea, his essence torn from Eddie’s chest and given form. He remembers the burn of it, the blinding surge of being wrenched into flesh and current, while Eddie gasped like a drowning man granted air. Volt was the miracle. He was the only reason Eddie endured.

How did Eddie put it once? Volt was his fix.

And now— now that miracle is crumbling. It has undone itself, slowly over the years, as agony slithered back into Eddie’s body, as the work never finished, the fix no longer strong enough. Volt has not fulfilled his purpose, Eddie has suffered, and now Eddie will be discarded because Volt could not uphold his end of the bargain.

Desperation. Perhaps the strongest of emotions, if it had the capacity to split a dying man in two and save his life. The power it holds… Volt bows his head over Eddie’s limp hand, forehead pressing to the cool skin. His grip tightens until his knuckles blanch, the electricity in him buzzing erratically. He’s always felt a pull toward Eddie. Light, but noticeable. Attraction, Volt would tease. Conduction, Eddie would counter. It’s both. It’s more. And it’s calling for him now.

A thought spirals and consumes him. What if the reason Eddie is not waking up is because he is not whole?

Volt… could fix that. He is Eddie’s missing fragment. If Eddie cannot wake by his own power… perhaps another could grant it.

It would mean the end of him, the annihilation of everything he is. But isn’t that better than this? Better than watching Eddie fade, powerless to stop it? What if instead, he could crawl back into Eddie, become one with him once more? The thought terrifies him. It thrills him. He is shaking, torn between terror of the void and devotion so fierce he almost chokes on it. The glow of his hair gutters, unstable, like a candle on the edge of snuffing itself out.

All he knows, is that he will not let Eddie be replaced. Eddie lives. He has to. Volt’s purpose, his existence, was never for himself. Maybe miracles aren’t meant to last. They flare, they dazzle, and they vanish, leaving behind the life they bought.

And suddenly, he’s certain. It’s like an infant knowing how to breathe, a fundamental truth of his creation that has been lying dormant all along. Desperation was his origin, and desperation will be his undoing.

A stillness blooming from within him, Volt reaches for the cables that attach his generator to his left side, its copper wire ends sharpened into a thin needle that feeds into his veins. Slowly, he draws them free from his skin, fizzling drops of plasma leaking out of the puncture wounds. The power Ripple is still generating doesn’t leave him yet — the circuit is still unbroken, his hands still connected to the ends.

Those hands find Eddie’s again, both of them this time. Volt’s palms press Eddie’s hands flat against his own chest. 

“Take it,” he rasps. His eyes blaze white-hot for an instant, then falter to dim gold, then flare again. His breaths come shallow. “It was yours first. You made me— I was only ever a piece of you. Let me… let me be that again.”

Eddie’s fingers twitch under his, reflexive, and Volt swears he feels something: a shudder of life, a thread of pulse stirring. His grip tightens, laser-focused, forcing the contact, forcing the generated current he feels buzzing in the cables into the absence. Forcing his own current, his essence, his spark, to flow with it. In a way, it is like manipulating the fire that had been eating away at the grid room; it takes an active effort that drains his energy, like blood spilling out an open artery, each second leaving him paler, dimmer. He funnels everything down through the bridge of their joined hands, into the silence of Eddie’s body.

He leans down. His lips brush Eddie’s — butterfly light at first, then firm, sealing them together. Tears drip onto Eddie’s cheeks.

A buzzing swells. The song of electricity, of power without resistance. It comes from Eddie’s chest. It blares like an orchestra, the most beautiful thing he has ever heard. Volt could cry.

Eddie’s body convulses, a strangled gasp tearing from him, and his eyes snap open, alive. Confused, then terrified. He pulls away from Volt’s kiss, but he doesn’t wrench his hands away quick enough.

“Volt, what the fuck are you—”

Volt drops the ends of the cables. The circuit breaks.

For the second time this week, Volt’s lights go out.

Chapter Text

Still Wednesday.

“ABEL!!” Betty is screaming. “Get Farya! And— and Winnifred!” She bites her lip, nervously glancing over her shoulder back into the bedroom. “And, ah, tell them that it’s an emergency.”

Eddie ignores her — or, no, to do that he would need to be able to hear her. He can’t. He’s not there, not living in that same moment as her. He’s a few minutes in the past, wedged and thoroughly stuck. He can still see him. Can’t stop seeing him. See those stupid soft glowing eyes staring down at him, full of love and apology, saying ‘take it’ like it was a gift, like it was wanted, and then—

Gone.

Like he’d never been there at all. Like Eddie dreamed him.

He’s sitting upright in a bed. His skin is blistered and peeling, and every drag of air he takes makes his chest feel like it’s under a thousand pounds of pressure, but none of that compares to the collapsed void inside of him, the feeling of all his organs having imploded; the feeling of, for the first time in years, being alone.

Eddie’s hands shake as they claw at the sheets, the pain in his muscles screaming, but he doesn’t stop. “No, no, no, no—” His voice breaks, half a sob, half a growl. “Don’t you fucking do this to me— Volt, don’t— fuck—”

His nails scrape against burned flesh, tearing at the bandages clinging wetly to him. He rips them aside with shaking hands, breath hitching, tears mixing with sweat.

The pain is incandescent, white-hot, but he doesn’t care. He wants it. Wants and needs it to split him apart. The burns rend open as he digs, hot copper-colored blood slicking down his torso, staining the sheets. He barely notices. His fingers hook against his collar bones like he could pry them open, like if he just tore deep enough, Volt would be hiding inside his ribs, safe and whole and there.

His chest heaves. His vision blurs. It’s not enough. None of it is enough.

Somewhere at the edge of the haze, Betty pleads, hands reaching for his shoulders, but he wrenches away from her touch, dragging his own hands back to the ruin of his chest. His nails slip in the blood, skid against bone. He digs harder, choking out words between sobs, each one breaking on his tongue. “He’s mine. You can’t— he can’t— just— leave—”

“Shh, shhh,” he hears a new voice, one that brings with it a sense of warm nostalgia that feels antithetical to the feverish horror coursing through him. Russet brown hands grab his, her hold strong as steel. “It’s all right, honey. It’s all right.”

The visage of Volt’s loving smile is still etched on the back of his eyelids, and when he opens them, the image of him is briefly overlaid on the sight of Winnifred’s round, worried face. For a moment, he can’t tell which one is real.

“Winn?” he whispers, unsure, delirious. God, he’s in so much pain.

“Yeah, baby,” Winnifred says gently, brushing sweat-slick hair back from his forehead. Her tone is the same one she used to talk in decades ago, when she was still Freddie and he was her Eddie. What year is it? Has Volt even ever been real? “It’s me. Winnie. You know me. I’ve got you, hun.”

His breathing stutters. He blinks furiously, as though he can force Volt’s face to stay over hers, to keep from losing him. But the harder he tries, the more the image fades. He feels so damn cold, all over, even with Winnie’s warm hands in his.

Betty is hovering behind Winnie, wide-eyed, twisting her fingers until the knuckles bleach bone white. Another person is there as well. Eddie barely registers Farya kneeling next to him, nor the sharp sting at the crook of his arm.

The fight drains from him. His lashes flutter once, twice, before finally sinking closed. His grip on Winnifred’s hands softens, the tremors quieting as the sedative pulls him down into oblivion.

Chapter Text

Thursday.

The sedative Farya gave Eddie granted him a better sleep than he’d ever had in his life. Maybe he should switch out the whiskey for a shitload of benzos. It’d kill him faster, but then again, what’s life worth living for anymore anyway.

His fingers absently trace the fresh moist bandages around his chest and arms and the gauzed bandages around his collarbones. He must have been administered a horse-dose of painkillers, because the pain is noticeably less severe than what he remembers from that hazy moment before, when— when…

Don’t think about that. Don’t think about him. Box it up, shove it down, for now. Compartmentalize. He’s good at that. First things first.

His head is cocked sideways, and in the darkness of night he can just make out the lamp on the nightstand. On, he mentally commands.

Nothing happens. Not even Lux telling him that he should stick to his own business.

With a soft groan, he turns to face the other way.

Winnifred sits slumped in a chair beside him, chin tilted toward her chest. The water in her tank sloshes slightly, with the occasional bubble popping to the surface. A few of the white corrugated tubes that form her hair have escaped her updo and hang in front of her closed eyes. Her hands are folded in her lap, but her whole posture screams exhaustion — like she didn’t mean to sleep, like her body finally betrayed her.

He shifts slightly, teeth gritting at the flash of pain that scorches across his chest and arms. A hiss escapes him. Winnifred doesn’t stir.

He licks his dry lips. His voice, when it comes, is a rasp. “Winn.”

Nothing.

He swallows hard, tries again. “Winnie.”

This time, her lashes flutter. She lifts her head slow, as though wading through thick water, and focuses on him with eyes still glazed from sleep. Then she sits upright, awake all at once, her gaze snapping over him.

“Eddie?” Her voice is soft, full of a worry he doesn’t think he deserves. “You’re awake. How— how are you feelin’?”

He huffs a sound that might almost be a laugh, if it weren’t sandpaper-thin. “Like I got set on fire.”

From the way Winnifred presses her red and blue lips together like it’s a joke she didn’t find particularly funny, he figures that is exactly what happened to him. It makes sense. Electrical fires have always been a hazard in Eddie’s line of work. But even with the faulty wiring acting up as it had recently, he never really thought it would get this far. Careless. His fault.

“You’re alive,” Winnifred says quietly. “That’s what matters. You’re here.”

Alive. Eddie snorts derisively. Hah. Sure. His eyes drop to the ceiling. Slowly, accompanied by the feeling of his skin being stretched way too tight, he pushes himself to a sitting position, leaning against the headboard. “I gotta get to the Breaker Box.” It’s the reason he woke her. Not for comfort. He needs to leave this space, this bed. He can barely feel his legs — it’s doubtful he could walk home, nearby though it is.

Winnifred reacts as he’d both expected and feared. “Ha. Like hell you do.”

“You don’t understand—”

Her drawl cuts him off sharp. “Honey, you know I do. You know I might be just about the only one in this house who does. Like I ain’t ever sprung a leak, or got dried up ‘cuz of a heat wave.”

“This isn’t about work!” The shout rips out of him before he knows it’s coming, burning his throat raw. It startles him, the sound of his own voice that loud. He can’t even remember the last time he raised it this much. “I don’t give a fuck about the work right now, Winn.”

“You sure as hell clearly don’t give a damn ‘bout your own hide neither. You oughtta be restin’.”

“Look me in the eye,” Eddie says, voice ragged, “and tell me you wouldn’t do just about anything right now if River was gone.”

Winnifred stills. Her lashes flicker, but she doesn’t look away. “Y’know, I prob’ly would.” She exhales slow, a large bubble rising and breaking at the surface of her tank. “That’s why I’m mighty lucky to have friends smart enough t’keep me from makin’ a damn fool of myself. ’Cause Lord knows you and I are old, but we ain’t that wise. Still got plenty of stupid left in us.”

His throat tightens. The room swims faintly, not just from the pain or the meds but from the ache in his chest that feels like it might crack him open.

“I’ll crawl.”

“No you won’t. You’re beat. I know it. I can see it in you.”

He glares at her, but it’s weak. His chest heaves with the effort of breathing around the bandages, around the cavernous space in between his ribs.

Winnie softens the slightest bit. “Look, it ain’t gon’ do you no good to run yourself ragged. Jus’… jus’ close them eyes for now, alright? It’s still nighttime. Ain’t nothin’ goin’ anywhere fast. Come mornin’, when the rest of the house is up and about, we’ll figure out the mess together.”

Anger curdles bitterly in the back of his throat, but there’s nowhere for it to go. He doesn’t have the strength to throw it at her. It just festers inside him, burning without flame. He hates that she’s right. He hates needing her.

His head falls back against the headboard, eyes squeezing shut against the faint swim of the room. The sedative’s residue still clings to him, fogging his thoughts, weighing down his limbs. Even if he did manage to haul himself out of bed, what then? Collapse in the hallway, maybe. Pathetic.

When he opens his eyes again, she’s still watching him. There’s a stubborn tenderness in her gaze that unsettles him more than her scolding did. Not with pity, she knows better than that, but it’s close enough to make him want to turn away. He doesn’t. He can’t. He just lets his shoulders sag into the pillow and tries to let the silence carry what his pride won’t let him say: Fine. You win.

“You want me to join you?” she asks, voice gentle.

“I don’t really care.”

“Well, I care about this chair bein’ ‘bout as comfortable as a cactus to snooze in. So if you don’t mind neither way, I’ll snuggle.” She sits down onto the edge of the bed, careful not to jostle him. With a tone that’s less of a tease, she adds, “You don’t gotta say yes if you don’t want to.”

Eddie looks at her, not responding. She waits with a sweet smile, but he sees how she’s fiddling with her ponytail — something she only does when her mind is either in the gutter or when she’s trying to downplay her nerves. He doubts the former is the case.

They’d done this before, the platonically sleeping together, like teens at a slumber party. It was decades and decades back, when Eddie was a different man, lighter and more free with his affection. But that chapter of his life was over, out of his reach for good.

They had been so close once. Two of the first few objects residing in this house, opposites in many ways but still making it work. Yet though opposites might attract, that didn’t mean they’d stay attached. Winnie and Eddie had grown apart, quietly, almost imperceptibly at first. Eddie had been too preoccupied with the tasks of his job to spend time with her, struggling under the increasing workload as progress reared its relentless, impatient head. Winnifred’s attention had drifted toward other friends and lovers whose vibrant personalities matched her own energy, her constant warmth. Despite him managing the power to the lights, she had always been the one whose radiance outshone him. Eddie had accepted from the beginning that he would never be enough to keep her at his side, that his quiet presence would always be eclipsed by the brightness of someone else. He had turned it into his own self-fulfilling prophecy.

Ever since, Eddie didn’t do friends anymore. Growing friendlier with someone — like Kopi, with her endless love for espresso martinis, or Hoove, who’d tease Eddie on his subjectively terrible sports opinions — made him think of the day they’d get tired of his unpleasant attitude and busy schedule, and decide he wasn’t worth the effort.

No. Eddison Watts doesn’t really do friends. He’s too gruff, too unlikable, too selfish.

It’s that selfishness that makes him say, “Yeah, okay. Alright.”

Because more than any of these things, Eddie is lonely. Desperately, shamefully lonely.

Now more than ever.

Winnifred stops fiddling with her hair. She exhales softly through her nose, almost like a sigh, as she settles her bulk on top of the sheets. Being the water tank means she is no featherweight — the frame creaks and the mattress dips hard toward her side — but she adjusts to a position that doesn’t look particularly comfortable, all so Eddie won’t roll into her by accident. There’s a safe buffer between her and his bandaged burns. Her torso leans just close enough that her presence is felt, but there’s no pressure on his damaged skin.

He lays still, staring up at the ceiling. The faint slosh of her water shifting in its tank occasionally reaches his ears.

Despite Eddie doing everything in his power not to think about him — because if he thinks about him for too long, it would mean he’d fall apart — he realizes that the hours of slumber before this were the first he’s spent alone in a bed in almost four years.

He’s grateful that doesn’t have to continue, not for now, at least. He doesn’t voice that gratitude. Instead, he mutters, “You’re heavy as hell.”

Winnie laughs. “You commentin’ on a lady’s weight? Your manners are lackin’, old man.”

Eddie huffs something that could theoretically be construed as a chuckle. No sarcastic reply comes to mind, so he stays quiet. Winnie radiates warmth, as she does, and it chases away some of the cold that paradoxically chills Eddie’s bones. He shifts his head, slightly, wincing when a nasty burn in his neck protests. Winnie seems to sense what he’s doing, and meets him halfway. Their temples meet and rest against one another.

Winnie doesn’t say anything either, doesn’t tease, doesn’t even move except for the slow rise and fall of her breath.

His eyelids grow heavier. Sleep never used to come easy to him, it usually had to be coaxed with multiple glasses of whiskey and maybe a good, exhausting fuck. It’s really a testament to the state of him how quickly he can feel himself being pulled under.

“I swear,” he mumbles as his sensations are already fading, “if I’m woken up by a certain someone trying to drown me in a bucket worth of water, I’m blaming you.”

“That only happened that one time. She since lost that jealous streak o’hers. Unlike your spitfire; that boy could—” She abruptly cuts herself off, as though she thinks better of it, but she needn’t have bothered.

Eddie has already passed out again.

Farya brightly enters the bedroom, looking down at her clipboard as she flips a page. “Good morning, I’m here to replace your banda— maadhwhat are you two doing?!”

“Mornin’, Farya.”

“Heya, doc.”

She gesticulates wildly. “He should not be out of bed!”

Winnie has her arm hooked firm around Eddie’s ribs, propping most of his weight against her side. He’s hunched, sweat already breaking across his temple even though they haven’t made it past the nightstand. He thinks it’s absolutely bullshit that a live personification of an object can get muscle atrophy, but whatever sick god is out there clearly has it out for Eddie.

“C’mon, Farya dear, Ed’s been lyin’ on that there mattress for nigh on five days now,” Winnie drawls. “He’s just standin’. No harm done. Didn’t you say you wanted to make him do some stretches when he was awake anyway?”

“Yes, because he needs physical therapy, under professional supervision.”

Eddie rolls his eyes at how the ladies are talking like he’s not right there in the room with them, but then again, it’s not like he feels like contributing to the conversation.

It hadn’t taken as much convincing as he’d feared for Winnifred to help Eddie up. She mostly needed to be assured that Eddie wouldn’t immediately go find something sharp so he could pry open his ribcage and slice around in whatever he found there. Apparently the fit he threw right after he snapped out of his coma had made her quite concerned about his mental state.

She has absolutely nothing to worry about. Eddie’s mental state is fine. Eddie is fine. Or he will be. As soon as he can get to the Breaker Box.

It looks as though today is not gonna be that day. Farya fusses over him as she forces him to sit back on the side of the bed, Winnie next to him for support. A series of simple tests follows. Farya checks his grip strength, asks him to flex his feet, bend his knees, lift his arms. It’s tedious and it hurts, but Eddie is used to functioning while suffering.

Though, usually, he had to find his own ways to cope. Five days is the longest in decades he’s been without a glass of whiskey. Farya has prescribed him meds before to soothe the neuropathic chronic pain that seems so minute compared to the beast of agony that looms over Eddie now, only warded off by the painkillers still lingering in his system. He never used to take them because they didn’t mix well with the alcohol that was Eddie’s narcotic of choice.

He thinks about asking Farya for more of whatever she gave him, but he expects Winnifred to see straight through his intentions no matter how innocent he’d phrase the question. Damn woman knows him and his self-medicating habits too well.

Physical therapy goes on for an hour, during which he gets reacquainted by his legs, which feel like lead, and his arms, which are so sensitive that even the feeling of being exposed to the air hurts. At the end, he is completely out of breath, and scoffs down the pills Farya gives him like a man drinking water after having traversed a desert.

He fluctuates between restful sleep and consciousness some more after that. Even in his fractured dreams, he is working on the equation of what his next steps are going to be. How he’ll get to the Breaker Box and make everything alright. It’s a lot like one of his many maintenance projects. He obsesses over every detail, running through the possibilities in his head. Calculates what he’d need. Who he’d need — preferably no one, but that might not be feasible.

Occasionally, he catches Winnifred looking at him with her eyes narrowed, like she suspects him of plotting something. But she keeps the topics of their sparse conversations on lighter things, as though she still thinks the pressure of her judgemental gaze is enough for him to crack and spill open. He’s not that kid anymore, though.

Over the day, a handful of objects swing by to tell him how glad they are that he’s awake. Eddie wishes they wouldn’t, and Winnie manages to quickly send them all off before they can start asking questions about when Volt will be back, when electricity will be restored. The only one who doesn’t seem to understand her insistent hints that Eddie needs rest, is Johnny, who performs an improvised song about how much the Breaker Box means to the household. It sucks. Winnie has to kindly threaten to cut off his water supply just so she can get him to leave.

Tony comes in and says something about a generator not working. Somewhere, Eddie understands what he’s saying, but he closes himself off from the meaning, doesn’t let it sink in. When Tony leaves, Winnie stares at him for a long time. Eddie isn’t sure how long his expression has been carefully blank, but longer than is usual, he guesses. He schools it into his usual frown, and time goes on.

Eventually, late in the evening while they’re both sitting on the bed playing a round of poker, Winnie capitulates. “So, when we gon’ talk ‘bout the elephant in the room?” she asks airily, putting her cards down.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Eddie replies, not looking away from the terrible deal he’s been dealt this round.

“Hmhmm. And I’m the queen of Sheba.” Another silence, an invitation for him to open up so she doesn’t have to drag it out of him by force. He doesn’t rise to it, so she sighs. “You’ve been dancin’ around as much as the name of his ever since you woke up. What happened?”

“It doesn’t matter.” He snaps his teeth shut and throws his cards down as well. Fine if she doesn’t want to play anymore. He’s over it anyway.

“Course it matters!” she exclaims, genuinely surprised by his reaction. “He’s your— well, I don't know what label the two of you are usin’, but he’s important to you."

‘Boyfriend’ sounds so juvenile, doesn’t it? Volt’s voice. Eddie tries to will it away, but the memory assaults him, too vivid to bear, complete with the smell of ozone in his nostrils and the sensation of a hand running through his hair. Partner is better, but I mean, we’re already business partners. People could get confused. Then Volt grabbed his hips, Eddie is sure, grinding their cores together. Let’s just stick to ‘yours’.

The cave-in that is Eddie’s chest collapses a little further. He rubs the heel of his palm over his eye, which only causes it to sting more.

“Listen, I— I just can’t talk about him, okay? So leave it.” Don’t think about him. You’ll stop functioning if you think.

He thought that’d be enough to make her stop asking any further questions; she places great value on boundaries, both her own and other’s. But she shakes her head.

“Darling, I’m sorry, but no. I’m not gonna let this one slide.” She straightens herself. “You ain’t a machine. You can’t just shove grief into a drawer and bolt it shut. Not without it eatin’ you alive.”

“Not a machine,” he repeats, scornfully. “We’re objects, Winn. Things. Meant to be used until we’re not useful anymore, and then tossed in a landfill. If I say something doesn’t fucking matter, it’s because nothing fucking matters, okay?! Not me, not you, not—”

“—not him?” she cuts in gently.

He clenches his jaw so hard it creaks.

“Nihilism’s a terrible look on you, Watts,” she notes dryly. When Eddie doesn’t reply, mostly because he can’t get his jaw to open, she goes on. “I’ve known you too long to buy this act. You don’t get this angry ‘cause you don’t care. You get this angry ‘cause you care so damn much you think it’s gonna kill you.”

Eddie makes a noise that’s mostly a scoff and partially something very sad and pathetic. His fingers rake through his hair until they snag at the roots.

“Quit tryin’ to out-stubborn me,” Winnie says, softer now. “What happened to him? Betty told us what she saw while you were out, but we don’t understand much of it.”

Shit, shit, the burn in his eyes is getting worse. He takes a deep inhale through his nose and forces his gaze to focus on Winnie without blurring. It only half works. “He kickstarted something that was malfunctioning inside of me. By… fusing. Merging. By going back to what he once was.”

Winnifred is the only one Eddie ever told about Volt’s origins. Mostly because she was the only one ever who worried Volt would hurt or misuse him. But he kept the details vague and downplayed just how dire his situation had been. This time, he doesn’t.

He tells her everything. About the faulty wire, about how it ate away at him, every day a little bit more. The temporary fix Volt granted him, and how Eddie had gotten addicted to his comforting presence. And like any addict, he refused to quit even when his body started giving out on him again.

“Why’d your spitfire never try his hand at fixin’ that patch?” Winnie asks when Eddie is momentarily out of breath. Her lips are pursed in faint disapproval. “He came at me all stronglike, tellin’ me I should’a done more, but seems like he could’a helped you out himself.”

Eddie rubs the back of his neck. gaze dropping to the floor. “He… he couldn’t. He didn’t know how. I never taught him how to do maintenance.” He shifts, feeling a pang of shame at this topic not for the first time. But… “If he knew, if he could fix the fault… he would’ve. And he would’ve turned off the power to do it. And I… couldn’t risk losing him. So I kept him in the dark.”

“Throwin’ away the one chance of someone helpin’ you with the work,” Winnie sighs. “Lord, Ed, why’s you tryin’ to be clever always makin’ things harder for yourself?”

Eddie crosses his arms, mostly to feel the comforting warmth of his own skin, and doesn’t answer. Doesn’t know how to.

“We’ve gotten lost in the weeds,” Winnie says quickly, looking like she regretted saying what she just did. “Please, go on.”

Eddie does, skipping forward to last week. He doesn’t remember anything being especially off, last Saturday, nothing that could have alerted him of any red flags. He had an episode earlier in the evening, yes, but those were all too common. Yet the nightmare he had that night was of his current feeling like insects in his skin, burrowing, biting, destroying. Sparks like rain and the smell of burnt hair.

He doesn’t remember the nightmare really ending. He just knows that suddenly there was a flash of white, and ozone filled his lungs like poison. Even before his eyes shot open, he already knew what was happening, because it was the same sensation he experienced all those years ago, when he stood broken and screaming in the grid room. When his eyes opened he saw— he saw—

He can’t continue talking for a good minute. Winnie doesn’t push.

One or two tears have slipped out of the corner of his eyes by the time he picks the thread of his tale back up. The disgusting display of weakness mortifies him, even though Winnie is polite enough not to make a fuss over it. He keeps furiously wiping at his eyes, wishing he could control the voltage of the electrical signals in his brain the way he controls the current in a wire. If he could just clamp down on the synapses misfiring in grief, dim the static that hisses in the back of his skull, then maybe he wouldn’t feel so awful. But his neurons are intractable. They insist on broadcasting what Eddie would rather mute.

“I thought I’d somehow be able to feel him, back inside. Instead, there’s just this void.” To emphasize, he makes a clawing motion at his chest that startles Winnie into action, quickly taking his wrist and pulling it away. She must have seen a flash in his eyes of what’s still gnawing at him; the need to tear, to rip apart his skin, to expose himself either to bring Volt back or to simply burn out and stop functioning for good.

Oh. That’s what the void is, isn’t it? The thing he’s been trying not to stare directly in the eyes.

A lack of will to live.

Needing to function has consumed Eddie’s entire life. It’s almost… freeing, to no longer care.

Winnie holds his wrist a moment longer as she studies him in that careful way of hers. There will be no convincing her that he’s fine. He can practically see the gears turning behind her eyes. Her thumb presses lightly against his pulse, and Eddie has the absurd thought that she’s counting.

“Right,” she breathes as she lets go of his arm. “So then. Whatcha cookin’ up t’fix all that?” She says it like it’s the most natural thing in the world, like there is no other possible outcome than Eddie already scheming.

“What makes you think I got a plan?”

“Baby, that’s who you is,” Winnie fires back without hesitation. “You break, you solder. You fry a circuit, you patch it with chewing gum and wherever else you got lyin’ around until it runs again. Ignorin’ that one exception, you don’t just sit with a fault. Not in nobody, not in yourself. So go on, now. What’s the plan?”

He closes his eyes. He almost tells her to shove off. Almost. But the exhaustion is bone-deep. And she’s right. He is scheming, though “scheming” feels too purposeful for the half-formed ideas rattling in his skull. His throat works once, twice, before he forces out words, flat and cold: “I can think of only one way to bring him back.”

“I’m listenin’.”

“A full power reset.”

Funny, right? How it’s the same solution as it’s always been. How the thing that could have prevented all of this still circles back around like it’s mocking him, showing just how much of a coward he is.

There’s not something like a strict code of conduct for household objects, no constitution of laws they have to adhere to. In their metaphysical spaces, they’re allowed to do just about whatever the fuck they’d like. In the actual reality the house occupies, there are, however, a few things that are taboo to meddle with. Ancient, unsaid rules every personification just… knows. Dorian can’t open his doors when locked. Hector can’t just willy-nilly play around with the levels of the thermostat. And most of all, the master water valve and the main power switch are strictly off limits.

Briefly turning the power off and on again, less than a handful of seconds, fell within the parameters of permittance, especially when it was for maintenance purposes. Eddie had done it countless times before, back when Volt wasn’t in the picture yet, and the power company just wrote it off to power fluctuations. Turning the main switch on when it was explicitly off by the hand of the homeowner? Akin to beating up a stranger on the street and robbing them of their money. Morally not-done.

“That’s dangerous ground, Ed,” Winnifred warns him.

He laughs, tired, joyless. “What the fuck do I got left to lose?”

“You still got yourself.”

“Not all of me.”

Winnifred purses her lips, then clicks her tongue. “So, how you gettin’ to do all that? Far’s I remember, the main switch weighs more than you, and you look like holdin’ a glass of water is gon’ tip you straight over.”

“I…” He hasn’t figured that out yet. His first idea was that maybe he could manipulate Tony into helping him — that man would do just about anything if you made it sound like a competitive game, or if you shamed him enough. But Tony isn’t that stupid, and Eddie isn’t that cruel. “I’ll find a way.”

“‘Kay. So, why’s this gonna work? If he gave you his spark, if you’re back to factory reset, why’s turning the power off ‘n on matter?”

Eddie scratches at the bandages around a burn on his forearm. “I don’t… think I’m back to what I used to be.” He lifts his hand, reaching for the lamp on the ceiling. He visibly strains, face screwing up with effort, a vein standing out in his arm. Nothing. Not even the faintest buzz of current in the bulb. Winnie watches, lips pressing thin. He holds it a second longer, until his arm starts trembling, then lets it fall heavily back into his lap. “See? Before Volt… even during blackouts, I could make at least it flicker. Now—” he spreads his hands, fingers twitching uselessly “—nothing.”

“Maybe it’s the grid bein’ down.” Winnie suggests, not looking convinced. “Or maybe it’s just ‘cause you’re a mess, Ed. You’re runnin’ on fumes.”

Maybe she’s right. But Eddie has to believe his own instincts, has to hold on to the little hope he has like water slipping through his fingers. Mustering confidence, he says, “If there’s one thing I know, it’s power. I don’t have it. It’s still somewhere else. A reset could bring it, and him, back. I’m sure of it.” 

He’s not.

“You really thought this through, huh.”

Eddie gives her a wan smile. “Like you said. It’s what I am.”

“Hm.” Winnie tilts her head, tapping her chin. “Tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow what?”

“We’ll do it tomorrow, you an’ me.” She catches Eddie’s stupified look and mistakes it for reluctance. “What, you think we gon’ go out there now? It’s pitch black out. We don’t got power, we don’t got light, and I ain’t fumbling around in the dark with something that could spark. Uh uh. You want this done right, it waits till tomorrow. Besides, some more bedrest ain’t never hurt nobody.”

“You… don’t mind?”

Her mouth quirks. “What, me? Breakin’ rules? Eddie, please. That’s half the fun.”

He stares at her, uncomprehending. He’d braced for resistance, for lectures, for her to talk him down or drag him back to bed like he was some errant child. Instead she’s sitting there with a glint in her eye, like it was still the sixties and he’d just told her he wanted to turn the Breaker Box into a speakeasy.

“You realize what I’m asking you to do,” he presses, voice low. “This isn’t… it isn’t like that time we snuck into the crawlspace. It’s—”

“Forbidden fruit, blah blah blah,” she interrupts, waving her hand. “I ain’t deaf. I heard you.”

“You really want to do this.”

“Sure do.”

“To help Volt.”

“To help you,” she corrects. “Still find that spitfire offputtin’. You can do better, that I know, but you’ve got a penchant for ignorin’ my advice and goin’ ahead with whatever you’ve got in your mind anyway. But I’m not gon’ sit back while you chase after the one thing still keepin’ you goin’.” Her smile fades. “Besides, without him wakin’ you up… I fear we really might’a lost you there. I owe him something for that, at least.”

Eddie exhales a long, deep breath. With it, some of the tension in his body gets relieved. “Thank you,” he mumbles.

“Don’t mention it, sugar.” The warm smile returns, a little jittery as though it only partially banishes any dark thoughts. She leans back on her hands. “I think it’s quite sweet, what you’re up to. Romantic, really.”

Eddie lets out a brittle laugh, though it sounds more like a cough. “Don’t start.”

“Nah, really. Look at you, a lovesick fool, breakin’ the rules to be with your boo. Straight outta some cutesy ballad.”

When she puts it like that, Eddie can almost find it in himself to agree.

Of course, what’s not romantic or heroic is the part he purposefully doesn’t tell her. The part where turning on the power with the Breaker Box as it is might short circuit a damaged fuse and cause another fire. One the absent homeowner won’t be able to douse. One that could consume the entire house, and all the objects in it.

He doesn’t tell her that part. Let her believe in the love story a little longer.

Better he shoulder the hounding possibility of tragedy on his own.

Chapter Text

Friday.

Breaking into his own bar is not something Eddie has ever thought he’d have to do. Unfortunately, when Volt changed Eddie into a fresh pair of pants, he took Eddie’s keys out of his pocket, and Eddie has absolutely no clue where he put them.

Before Winnifred can stop him, Eddie slams his shoulder against the door. It’s not an impressive clash, but the impact still jolts all the way down his spine. He bites back a hiss, yet the sound nevertheless escapes through clenched teeth. The lock rattles, holding firm.

“Goddammit.”

“If I’d’ve known you were gon’ do that, I’d’ve stopped you.”

“I know.” Before the element of surprise is completely gone, he tries again, with just as little success. This time his knees nearly give, and he’s forced to grab the knob just to stay upright.

Winnie sighs the long, patient sigh of someone watching a sick dog try to chase cars, and intervenes. She puts an arm around his shoulder, effectively keeping him prisoner in her grasp. “You keep that up, sugar, you gon’ knock yourself out.” She glances around the porch, then at the ash-stained, still intact window not six feet away. “Meantime, there’s easier ways inside.”

“Do not break my window.”

“You were ‘boutta break down your own door!”

“Fixing a door is way easier than repairing a window!”

“Boy,” Dorian says from behind them. “You two are just not subtle at all, are you?”

The two of them whirl around like children caught with their hands in the cookie jar. For a moment, Eddie fears that Farya’s there as well, about to tear into him. She can be way scarier than Winnifred or Dorian combined, and if she saw him try to ram in a door in the state he’s in, she’d probably drag him back to bed herself. This morning, he compliantly did another bout of physical therapy. His muscles still slightly quiver from the exercises, but at least he can walk without leaning too hard on the wall.

According to Farya, his muscles are rebuilding their strength very well, quicker than a human would. One upside to mostly being made out of copper and steel, he guesses. Still, movement isn’t pleasant, and the painkillers Farya had pressed into his hand before leaving are the only reason he isn’t folded up in bed right now.

Once Farya was gone, Winnie had helped him dress, and they’d set forth to the Breaker Box. Winnie is all calm confidence, like she meddles with the power grid all the time, but Eddie isn’t quite as composed. Now, under Dorian’s sharp gaze, he feels like he’s shrinking into himself. The man doesn’t even have to say anything else — he’s never trusted, or even liked Eddie, and Eddie knows it. Hell, Eddie can’t blame him for it.

“Dorian,” Winnie says pleasantly, like she couldn’t be happier to see him. “Just the man that could help us outta this pickle we find ourselves in.”

“‘S that right?” Oh, he is enjoying this. “Way I’m lookin’ at this, looks like you two are trying to break into this fine establishment here.”

Eddie scowls, heat prickling at the back of his neck. “It’s my bar. I don’t need permission to walk into it.”

An elbow digs sharp in his side, and Winnie sends him a glance he tendentiously interprets as ‘I love you, but shut it and let the people with actual charisma do the talking’. It’s a look he often got from Volt as well.

“Now,” Winnie says, turning her attention back to Dorian with a dazzling smile that would’ve sold ice to a snowman, “you know how it is. Sometimes doors don’t cooperate, keys go missin’.” She pats Eddie’s chest once, gently, like she’s fond of him despite the foolishness. “But lucky us, we ran into someone who knows their way around a lock.”

Dorian snorts, amused.

“You’d be doin’ us a real kindness,” Winnie goes on, voice sugary as sweet tea. “And I’d be much obliged.”

Dorian snorts again, the corner of his mouth twitching like he can’t quite hold back a grin. “Yeah. Alright,” he says, casual as a shrug.

Instead of doing some bullshit door magic that Eddie doesn’t care about, Dorian kneels down in front of the door. From somewhere in his jacket, he produces a bent bit of metal — paperclip or full lockpick, Eddie can’t tell — and fits it into the keyhole.

“You… know how to pick locks?” Eddie blinks.

He chuckles mysteriously. “An old flame taught me a few tricks of the trade.”

“Dorian, hun, we know you mean Keith. We been around while the two of you were all over each other like a pair o’teens.”

Eddie scratches the nape of his neck. He hadn’t known the old skeleton key and Dorian had been together.

“Ahem.” There’s definitely a slight tinge of red around Dorian’s cheekbones. “Here you go.” He steps aside, holding the door open with a tilt of his head. “After you.”

“Are you coming with?”

“Nah. I’m good.” Dorian doesn’t move from the porch, leaning one shoulder against the doorframe like he owns it now, which irks Eddie to no end.

They step past him, and Eddie kicks the door closed behind him a little harder than probably necessary. For a moment, dealing with Dorian made Eddie forget about what he was walking into.

His home, his work, his life, is burned to ashes.

Eddie is well known in the house for having a critical, perfectionistic streak, and how nothing in the Breaker Box ever escapes its scrutiny. For years, the place had been a living checklist, one that never truly let him rest. There was always some lightbulb to switch, always some pipe to tighten, some hinge to oil, some godforsaken ballast in the back hallway to replace. His head would itch with the sight of it, a compulsive need burrowing in until he got up, grabbed a tool, fixed it then and there.

Now, though — standing in the charred hollow of what used to be his second skin — there’s a strange, almost guilty comfort. The whole bar is broken. Nothing works. Everything demands his attention, and because of that, nothing actually requires it.

He breathes out, slow, the way a doomed sinner might after stumbling into a church.

This is his home, and he’s back, and somehow, being here brings peace.

“Holdin’ up okay?”

“Yeah,” Eddie responds. “C’mon. Let’s go.”

He walks heel-to-toe, each footfall systematic so the room doesn’t wobble with him. One careful step, a pause to straighten his shoulders, another step. His fingers trail the singed counter of the bar for a line to follow. Winnifred’s hand hovers, offered, and Eddie pretends not to see it, eyes fixed on the long hallway that leads to the backrooms where the grid room resides.

Before they fully leave the bar area, Eddie glances over his shoulder, making sure Dorian isn’t following them. “I don’t like that he knows we’re here.”

“He ain’t a mindreader. Got no clue what we’re up to. Prob’ly just thinks we gon’ check out the spot, see how it’s holdin’ up. Everyone knows how much this bar means to you.” She says that last part with only a faint hint of disapproval.

Eddie snorts under his breath. She means well, of course. Always has. Always will. But it’s still a little aggravating, the way she started avoiding the bar once Volt waltzed in and the Breaker Box got turned into something luxurious and alive. Not just because it wasn’t her vibe — though it wasn’t — but because she’d seen how far gone he’d gotten in the pursuit of keeping it all together. How he’d bend over backward, over the edge, over anything that could remind him there was a hurting body to care for, a life to preserve beyond the walls and wires. She’d said so herself, and Eddie had rolled his eyes at the worry in her tone, not wanting to admit to her or himself that he had a problem he needed help with.

The door to the grid room groans when Winnie pushes it open. Inside, the air is heavier, hotter, as if the smoke has never fully cleared. The walls and switchboards are streaked black, the floor littered with melted insulation. At the far side of the room, sits the great grid control. Switchboards covering the entire wall, stretching corner to corner like a cathedral organ. The heart of the place, the heart of him.

For a moment he doesn’t move. Just stares. The thought sneaks in uninvited: Can this even be fixed?

The answer is yes. Eddie is walking and breathing and thinking, so it can. Enough of the breakers and cables have been spared for Eddie to live. Theoretically, the damage could be mapped, traced, contained. Circuits rerouted. Lines patched. Wires re-sleeved. It would require a lot of effort on Eddie’s part, as well as that of a professional electrician.

But it might not be worth it. Maybe the electrician will decide to rip the entire box out and replace it with a new one.

The thought doesn’t wound him, not really. Objects don’t live forever. They exist, and then they don’t. They serve a purpose until someone decides they’re done serving it. Same as people die, objects get discarded. He’s old — one of the oldest in this house.

There were years, not so long ago, when he actively welcomed it. When the pain was constant, unrelenting, when he lay in bed not knowing if he’d ever have enough strength to move and get up again, he’d thought often of how easy it would be to just let all wires short-circuit and burn through for good. To be shut down. To stop existing. He’d almost taken that step. He probably eventually would have, if his own electricity had not ripped itself out of him to hold his hand and say, shh, I will make sure you live.

No one to hold his hand now. Maybe it’s not as active and pressing of a want, but it does not scare or deter him the way it should either.

It seems kinder, the deal humans were dealt. They lose their youthfulness as their bodies slowly break down, yes, and while Volt would probably proclaim that as terrifying, to Eddie, it seems more fair. They have the signs that their end is drawing near. Objects, they last. Long past the hands that built them, sometimes. Long past the people who first gave them purpose. And yet, their end is usually unexpected and abrupt, more casual: the twist of a wrist unscrewing bolts, the scrape of metal against the bottom of a dumpster. No rituals, no mourning, just a swap-out.

He pushes the existential thoughts aside before they start consuming him. Almost as though on autopilot, his body so used to heading this way, he walks to a where a specific tangle of wires used to sprout from a single-pole breaker near the base of the wall. It’s fully gone now, the first victim of the fire it caused.

Winnie rests a hand on his shoulder. “That where it all began?”

He hums in confirmation. “Y’know, it’s weird. For all the trouble and pain this patch caused me, there’s still some part of me that’s kinda… grateful for it.”

She nods like she immediately understands what he means. “Lotta good things come from bad situations. Don’t make the bad any better, but does mean there’s some unwanted grief when they end.”

Eddie swallows the lump in his throat, remembering suddenly why they’re here. He looks up at the main power switch, high on top of the grid like a crown. 

“I’ll get the ladder,” he mumbles.

“No need, I know where you keep it.”

Winnie disappears into the hall and returns dragging the aluminium foldout ladder. It squeals faintly against the ruined floor as she props it against the wall, then looks back at him for a second — as if she’s checking one last time if he’s sure. Eddie doesn’t answer, just gestures up toward the breaker.

It’s a little tricky to smoothly ascend for her, with the cylindrical metal skirt that forms her tank. But step by step, she manages. “Alright,” Winnie calls down. The switch looms above her, the size of her torso, its handle charred but intact. “Tell me what to do.”

“You’ll have to use both hands,” Eddie says. His voice comes out more confident than he feels. “It’s heavy, and it’s meant to stay down unless someone really means it. Put your shoulder into it if you have to.”

She nods, determined. Eddie swallows hard. His mouth tastes like metal.

This could spark. Could catch. Could bring the whole place down in under ten minutes. The thought sinks its teeth in. The image flashes unbidden: fire racing through the walls again, the grid screeching as it faces its final destruction with Eddie and Winnie as its first victims. But another image swells up right alongside it — Volt’s face, bewildered, tired, alive.

He won’t say a word. Nothing matters but that second image.

Winnie braces her hands on the metal and tests its weight. Eddie watches her muscles tense, then relax again. A shiver races down his spine, his instincts warning him of everything that could go wrong, but his eyes stay locked on the switch.

The room seems to hold its breath with him.

Winnie draws in a steadying inhale. “Here goes.” She begins to push—

Footsteps.

Winnifred stops and cocks her head. Eddie freezes, eyes narrowing. Dorian, he thinks immediately. But it isn’t Dorian. A figure appears in the doorway, small and alert. Maggie.

Shit.

“Eddie, Winnifred,” she greets them calmly, but Eddie already knows they’re fucked.

“What are you doing here?” Eddie says, voice flaring harshly with accusation, which is probably not helping his situation.

“I asked Dorian to inform me of any suspicious activity happening around this box. And this qualifies.” Her tone sharpens, her glasses glinting as she steps forward, catching what little daylight there is in this room. “Please, please tell me the two of you are not trying to turn the power back on.”

“That’s none of your business,” Eddie growls.

Winnie offers a kindly smile, trying to smooth the air. “Look, Maggie, we know it ain’t proper, but it’s for a good cause. It’ll just be a couple seconds. It ain’t the nicest thing, but the human won’t mind the few pennies from the power company that turning this on’ll cost them.”

“That is not the issue!” Maggie exclaims. “I’ve interviewed Arma about this, and right now, the breaker box is a single point of failure. If power goes through it in its current state, it could short out instantly. You’ll set off a fire faster than anyone can blink.”

“…Oh.” Winnie’s hand falls to her side. She turns to Eddie with narrowed eyes. “You didn’t mention that, Eds.”

He shrugs, feigning indifference he doesn’t feel, blood thudding in his ears. “Must’ve slipped my mind.”

Winnifred lets out a deep sigh as she pinches the bridge of her nose. “Lord have mercy, should’a seen somethin' like this comin’. Never just the straightforward path with you, is there?”

“Do you have any idea how reckless — how selfish — you’re being right now?” Maggie stares at Eddie, and when he meets his gaze without a flicker of remorse, just annoyance, she throws her hands in the air in exasperation and turns to the woman still on top of the ladder. “Winnifred, you flip that switch and the wires could light up like tinder. There’s no human to put it out. The whole house could be ash in minutes.”

“It won’t,” Eddie says quickly, steady, trying to sound like the authority he knows he is. “I would know. I am this place, Maggie. If there was danger, I’d feel it first. I wouldn’t let it happen.”

“That’s not how fire works, Eddie! You can’t control it once it starts.”

“Don’t tell me how my body works.” His voice drops and he presses a hand to his chest. “I’ve lived inside these wires since before the glassblower of your lens was even born. I know what is and what isn’t safe.”

Winnie holds up her hands, trying to ease the growing edge in the air. “Okay, okay. No one’s saying you don’t know your stuff.” Her eyes, though, betray her hesitation as they flick to Maggie. “But… if she’s right—”

“She’s not.” His hand darts out, gripping the cold rail of the ladder as if to anchor himself. His eyes plead up at Winnie, trying to burn through her doubt. “Winnie. Please. I need this. I need him. If we walk away now, I’ll—” He cuts himself off, teeth grinding together. “If I don’t at least try to bring him back, I’m already gone. I can’t live grieving him.”

She worries her lip between her teeth, eyes flicking between the two of them as if watching a tennis match. “Maybe I can holler to River? If a fire does break out, she can douse it.”

“No!” Eddie and Maggie both yell at the same time. “Water on an electrical fire is the fastest way to make this whole place a lightning show you don’t wanna be in,” Eddie snarls.

She lifts a palm, waving at him to calm down. “Alright, alright, sugar. I run on gas, don’t know much about these things. Didn’t think y’all’d be gettin’ all riled up like a pair of tomcats.” 

“Winnifred, don’t do this,” Maggie says, carefully taking a few steps forward. “The risk is not worth it.”

Eddie glares at her, wishing she’d just shut up. Tearing into her won’t turn the power on, though, so he suppresses his fury at the interloper and turns back to his friend. “Winnie. I’ve never asked you for anything, even when I should have. I’m asking now. Begging. Please.”

Winnie closes her eyes, as though a wave of fatigue has washed over her. For a heartbeat, silence swells in the room. It makes Eddy dizzy, the world drawing in and out of focus.

The silence is broken when she exhales long and low, shaking her head. “Lord help our foolish souls.” She lays both her hands firmly on the switch. “I trust you, sugar. Against my better judgment, I trust you. Don’t prove me wrong.”

“No!” Maggie lunges, her eyes blazing with panic and frenzy. “Don’t—”

She sprints in the direction of the ladder, intending to topple it, but Eddie moves without thinking. Pain lances through the burns on his shoulders as he throws himself into Maggie, driving her sideways, away from the ladder. The impact sends both of them crashing to the floor, dirt grinding into his bandaged arms and the raw skin beneath. He hisses through clenched teeth, holding her down as best he can.

“Stay down,” he growls, chest heaving, every nerve screaming. “This isn’t your choice.”

Above them, Winnie bites her lip, glances down once more at the two of them. Then she pushes the switch. She throws her shoulder into it; it gives with a wrenching sound. Metal grinds. The lever snaps upward in an arc. For a sliver of a second the entire grid seems to back away from itself — the house inhales.

A surge of power hits Eddie like a sack of bricks to the chest.

A pressure wells inside his ribs, not electrical but structural, like tendon and metal remembering the purpose of their existence. The room vibrates through him; low, a bass note that hums a questioning call along the walls of the building and answers assuringly in the hollow of his chest. The places where his insulation had melted against the steel of him throb as if somebody’s fingers are drumming along them. He tastes heat and iron. Every hair on his arm stands on end.

He can feel the flow, the resistance, the capacitance, sure as a riverbed feels water rushing above it. 

It’s going through him. But it is not coming from him.

Still atop Maggie as she struggles to wrestle out from under him, he clenches his fists and shuts his eyes, forcing the amperes to lower, to redirect the current along intact paths, anything to mitigate the risk of a short-circuit. The magnitude of effort it requires causes a scream to be ripped from him; it is the pain that’s had him in its claws for decades, times a hundred. Yet he does not stop. He won’t let anyone down this time.

He hears Winnifred shout his name, hears Maggie’s heavy breathing and muttered curses as she scrambles upright. His body trembles as he forces himself on his knees and wills the thrum of electricity to face him, to speak to him, to be something, someone, beyond the natural phenomenon linked to atoms and magnetism.

The hum escalates, weaving tight around his spine, and for a heartbeat, he swears he feels a shape, a presence. Warm, familiar, impossibly near.

He chases it, reaches for it, instinctively loosening his hold on the careful restraints he’s imposed on the wiring. Is this a fata morgana, or is this real?

Then the grid screams. A flash of white tears across the breaker panel, illuminating the room in a strobing glare. Eddie’s lungs seize. Sparks crawl along the walls, jumping from wire to steel. He tastes smoke in his mouth and knows, in that instant, that he’s lost control.

His vision tunnels.

And then—

Everything flashes white.

Chapter Text

…Friday? Maybe? Could Also Be Thursday. Or Wednesday. Maybe It’s Already Saturday. If That’s The Case, Rainey, Play ‘One Week’ By The Barenaked Ladies

Mac had described ‘non-existence’ as a blackout, a loss of autonomy and identity, a devastating lack of certainty of what or who you are. A slumber you don’t know you’ll ever wake up from.

Volt’s experience of it is… a little different.

“Oh. Hey Sparky. You’re back.”

Volt blinks his heavy eyelids open. It is dark. It is very, very dark, an unpiercing vantablack absence of light all around. Yet despite this, he can see his own hands just fine. He can also see another figure, less than ten feet away from him.

Sitting on the floor, criss-cross-applesauce, scrolling on a phone, is a… man. Sort of. He is half-naked, wearing only a pair of ripped denim jeans. His head is a perfectly spherical white orb. This registers as ridiculous, but Volt has served drinks to a man with a sink for a head, so who is he to judge?

“Where am I?” he calls out.

The man looks up, severely unimpressed. “Uhh, The Void. Duh.” He goes back to looking at his phone. “Don’t you remember? Your expression looks really dumb right now, b-t-dubs.”

Volt has to struggle not to gape. “I… haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.”

“Then you’re somehow more of an idiot than I already thought.”

Volt huffs through his nose. What an unpleasant figure. He pushes himself upright, brushing invisible dust from his trousers out of habit, though the floor doesn’t feel like anything. Not cold, not warm, not hard, not soft. Just there. “The Void,” he repeats, slow and skeptical. His voice bounces strangely, like there are walls somewhere far, far away. “So I’m… dead?”

He had not expected to be anything after his dramatic return from whence he came. He thought that trying to crawl back into Eddie’s skin would be the end, a fizzling into nothing, a brief crackle and then silence. Maybe, if he was lucky, a lingering sense of closeness with Eddie to follow him into eternity. Not… this. It’s not bad, just… confusing.

“We’ve already been through this, Sparky,” the orb-man sighs, lowering the phone. “No, you’re not dead. This here is The Void, Capital T, capital V. What’s so hard to get about that.”

Irritated, Volt holds up a hand, motioning for the man to slow down. “Hold on. What do you mean, we’ve already been through this? I don’t recall having ever met you before.”

“Haha, good one. Like anyone would ever forget meeting the Doug.” The man — Doug — snorts. When Volt merely raises a lightning-shaped eyebrow in response, he groans. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, really? Ugh, fucking typical. Well, I don’t feel like explaining it again, so deal with it.”

Memory loss? How odd. Volt has never experienced such a thing before in his life. Must be connected to the nature of this place. “What did we talk about last time?”

“You were going on and on about your boyfriend, like, a lot. Nice to see you’re in less of a state. Can’t stand those hysterics. Makes me think of my ex.” He blinks, and adds as an afterthought, “Oh, and we also banged, for like, an hour.”

“We did not,” Volt replies immediately.

“Okay, yeah, we didn’t really. Still could, though. If you’re into it.”

Volt rolls his eyes. “I’ll pass.” He hears a loud squelching sound coming from the other man’s phone, and walks closer to see what he’s doing. “What are you… are those slime videos?”

“ASMR, bro.”

“Right. Fascinating. While you’re doing that, could you perhaps tell me if there is a way for me to leave this scintillating Void?”

If Volt is alive, maybe that means that Eddie is still in his coma. But, no— Volt had seen his eyes snap open, had heard him speak, had felt his spark buzz. Even with the pull that tethered him to his other half cut off, he is overwhelmed with the need to go back to him, to see how he’s doing, to hold his face in his hand and kiss those chapped lips. For a single moment, he had been closer to Eddie than ever before. It’s cold all over, the way they’re so impossibly far apart now.

Doug swipes to a new video, this one of someone tapping their long red nails on a piece of plastic. “Sure. Just do the same thing you did last time.”

Volt rubs his temple. “Which was, remind me?”

“I dunno. You said you heard voices, and then you just kinda got yanked outta here.”

Is he talking about when Tony, Farya and Lyric brought him back using the generator? That would line up to the only previous time he could have been here. Apparently this is where he goes when there’s nothing keeping him grounded to the physical world. Briefly, he wonders if perhaps he originated from this place as well.

Doug chuckles, not even sarcastically this time. “Would be fucked up, right? Thinking you’re all bright and sparks, only to have come from something that sucks up light like a black hole with a straw. People, objects, whatever, they think an origin would explain everything. It never does. The origin’s always uglier than you want. More ambiguous too.”

Volt stiffens. “How did you—”

“Know you were thinking about that?” Doug fills in. “Don’t worry, Sparky, I can’t read everything you’re thinking or some sci-fi bullshit like that. Wouldn’t want to anyway. All I can hear are the little existential tremors, the dread that creeps in when you’re losing hope.” He shrugs, as though that wasn’t a horrifying thing he just said. “It’s a living.”

Volt folds his hands behind his back and starts pacing. This is ridiculous. He needs to remove himself from this place before he will start to go insane. Another priority is removing himself from the unpleasant company of this overly familiar lout. But first, he needs more information.

“Previously, I did not leave this place on my own volition or initiative. Outside forces had a hand in bringing me back. Is there a way to depart independently?”

Doug makes a sticky little sound, like chewing gum behind his teeth. He seems less distracted by his phone, more willing to converse with Volt since getting a glimpse of his thoughts, as if somehow — and Volt has never gotten this impression from anyone before in his life — Doug was bored with him earlier, and now he isn’t. “Could be. Dunno of one, though.”

“How do you not know? Are you confined here as well?”

“Nah. Can leave anytime. Just gotta feel the tug of someone thinking about death and existence a li’l too much, and there I go.” He makes a whistling sound like a bottle rocket. “And there’s always some sucker out there thinkin’ about that, one way or the other. Humanity runs on masochism. Love it.”

Volt glares at him. “So you can leave whenever you want, and yet you’re… here?”

“Sometimes,” Doug says with a shrug. “The Void’s where Concepts like me go to hang and not-include ourselves in reality for a bit. Gotta come back to the big ol’ dark to recharge. Like a spa day, but cheaper.” He lets out a bark of laughter that doesn’t echo at all. “Apparently you, as a natural force, also get an invite. Good for you. It’s pretty exclusive, this club.”

“I have my own club, thank you very much.” He pauses. “Also, what does that mean, I get an invite? Does this place want me here, somehow?”

The Void does not feel loving, nor does it feel cold. Volt, who has only ever lived in the Breaker Box and the house surrounding it, didn’t even know a place could be this impersonal.

Doug stretches his legs out, phone vanishing into the dark as though The Void itself swallowed it. He taps the side of his smooth head. “Look. You and I aren’t stupid, run-of-the-mill household objects. We’re the things that can’t die. You’ll always end up back here — or out there — because that’s how physics work. They hang around forever. Like gum on the bottom of the universe’s shoe. Won’t kick the dust till the big freeze or heat death.”

Volt bristles, offended at being likened to gum. However, the ‘always’ and ‘forever’ Doug mentioned are a little more pertinent.

“Are you implying I am immortal?”

Doug points both fingers at him like he’s cracked the joke. “Bingo. Eternal recurrence, baby. And you thought you were just sparks in a wire.”

That revelation is overwhelming to grasp. Volt has never pondered this. Never reflected on his nature enough for this to land fully. He tries to think back on his interactions with fellow natural phenomenons like River and Airyn, tries to remember if they ever dropped hints for this to be the case. Perhaps they had, and Volt had simply shrugged it away. He was only a few years old; why worry about such things?

He worries now.

Eddie… He will outlive Eddie. Even if Eddie survives this ordeal, one day he will still be gone. And Volt won’t be.

Doug watches silently, letting him stew in it, an obnoxious smirk playing on the edge of his orb-face. “See? Told you. Little tremors.”

Volt decides that he’s officially had enough of Doug, of all of this existential business, and he starts striding away without a word.

“Won’t work,” Doug condescendingly calls after him. Volt pays him no mind.

Walking, at the very least, clears his spinning mind.

The Void stretches out endless and black, but there has to be something. If not a door, then a seam, a crack, a thin place in the fabric where he can slip back through to Eddie. He walks until his legs ache. Every direction looks the same, but he keeps going anyway.

He doesn’t know how long it takes. It could be minutes, hours, even days. When he finally notices movement ahead of him, a flicker of white in the black, his chest lurches. Maybe he’s found it — his exit, a way out. He breaks into a sprint—

—and nearly collides with Doug, sitting criss-cross-applesauce again, or perhaps still, scrolling on his phone like nothing happened.

Volt stumbles back. “You— how did you—”

Doug snorts. “Told you. Can’t walk away from me here. You’re stuck, bro. Circle of futility. Round and round.” He gestures lazily with his phone. “But hey, at least it’s good cardio.”

Volt very nearly grabs him by the shoulders to violently shake him, to demand answers, but what’s the point? His words would only bounce back at him, warped by Doug’s disinterest.

Instead he sits down heavily, rubbing his face with his hands.

“There you go,” Doug nods sagely. “Best to just accept it.”

“That is not what I’m doing,” Volt snaps.

Doug hums something tuneless, thumbs flicking across his screen, content. Volt exhales hard. He doesn’t want acceptance, doesn’t want to settle. He just… needs a break.

With a lack of motion, he can’t help but feel his determination drain from him. Even if Volt did find a way out, should he even take it? He had already given his life so Eddie could live. That was supposed to be enough. That was supposed to be the end of him. There is a possibility that going back means splitting Eddie apart again, subjecting him to pain.

And yet here he sits, overwhelmed with the selfish desire to return. To be held again, to be wanted. To hear Eddie say his name. The thought of never seeing the cold steel residing in Eddie’s eyes melt with fondness again, never feeling his calloused hand against his cheek, never hearing one of Eddie’s startled snorts of laughter, like it was a surprise to be happy… it hollows him out. The selfishness burns. He wants.

He curls his fingers in the emptiness beneath him, fingers digging into nothing as he leans back. “What now?” he asks aloud.

Doug shrugs. “Same thing you did last time. Wait. Sooner or later, somebody’ll yank on your string. Or not. Either way, waiting’s the only card you’ve got.”

Waiting. Volt wants to scream at the cruelty of it. But there is nothing to scream at. No ears to be subjected to his frustrations but Doug’s, and he won’t grant the man the satisfaction.

Waiting is agony.

There’s nothing to do, nothing to tell the time with. The concept of time quickly loses its meaning. Volt asks if time is equilateral here to the physical realm, and Doug almost refuses to reply because Volt used the word ‘equilateral’, but when he does answer he just says, “Nah. Time’s weird, Sparky. Sort of a soup.” He does not elaborate.

He tries pacing again, like a tiger in a cage, but it fails to satisfy him. He tries humming to himself, attempting to soothe himself with the timbre of his own voice. That attempt is slightly more successful, mostly because it irritates his companion, which makes Volt feel like he has a little more control of the situation. He even asks Doug once if they can play a game, if only to pass the time, but the man produces a paddle ball and starts bouncing it with perfect, infuriating rhythm — thock, thock, thock — for what could be hours or days, until Volt nearly begs him to stop.

Maybe he shouldn’t have hummed so much.

He thinks of Eddie. Always Eddie. The memory of his face goes soft at the edges, like a photograph worn thin from too much touching. Volt presses his hands over his eyes and tries to remember harder, as though that might preserve him. He whispers Eddie’s name aloud, over and over, until the sound becomes meaningless syllables.

Doug calls this “good entertainment.” Volt calls it madness.

Sometimes, Doug leaves.

At first, Volt thought this would be a relief. No more loud videos with fragmented screeching sounds, no more snipes and condescension. But solitude in The Void is not peace. It is suffocation.

When Doug is gone, the silence is not merely quiet; it’s absolute. Without Doug’s aggravating presence, he realizes just how empty this place truly is. A silence so total it presses against his body, stretching over him like a vacuum-sealed sheet.

He finds himself happy each time Doug eventually returns. It’s something, at least.

There’s not much that makes him happy anymore.

Time sloshes, bends, breaks apart. He cannot mark the difference between yesterday and a thousand years ago. He wonders if he’s already forgotten things, pieces of himself chipped away by the sheer blankness.

And then—

—he feels it.

Power.

In his mind’s eye, he sees a glowing road stretch out in front of him, a clear pathway for his current to traverse. The world, the real world, calls to him again, and he almost weeps from the pull of it. He is wanted. Needed.

“Go on then,” Doug says, waving him off like he’s letting a dog outside. “See you next time.”

Volt vehemently hopes there will not be a next time.

He reaches for the current and lets it swallow and drag him along like a roiling river.

Something is wrong.

Volt’s essence slides through the conduit, but the lines aren’t as clear as they should be. The breaker box hums angrily in the far distance, its circuits overloaded.

Everything is hot. Hotter than it should.

Volt surges along, feeling Eddie’s touch in the electrical resistance he faces. Eddie. His face flickers in Volt’s mind. He wants. He wants. He wants.

In this in-between, in this ionized space of electrons and photons, those wants are a primal base instinct. A field of energy seeking the lowest resistance. Desire compresses him, forces him forward.

He’s flowing too fast. Accumulating too much heat.

But Eddie is so close. The craving is so strong. Slowing down might mean losing his window for good.

Strangely enough, Volt thinks of Arma, in that moment. Of how she’d looked around the burned-out skeleton of the Breaker Box, struggling not to cry. Her hands trembling. Haunted.

He thinks of the fear he’d felt when he first smelled the smoke.

But… Eddie… that base desire sings.

He thinks of Eddie, skin blackened and unconscious.

Volt clamps down.

He slows.

Before last Saturday, he would not even have considered it, would have let himself be ruled by his wants. But… he can not — will not — repeat that night. Not for Eddie, not for Arma, not for anyone.

So he tempers himself. Spreads. Diffuses. Moves slower, less of a tidal wave smashing through and more like a ship navigating rocks.

Desire is still there. Pressing, insistent, humming in every oscillation of his field. But control is easier now. He does not want to overload Eddie’s damaged wiring. He does not want to burn the house again. He wants to arrive whole.

All this happens in less than a nanosecond, Volt’s thoughts and electromagnetic waves travelling with near the speed of light. His time in The Void is already fading from memory.

Four years ago, Volt found himself in the grid room of the Breaker Box for the first time; dazed, confused, unaware of what he was.

This time, he knows. He is Eddie’s.

He crashes into the grid room like a lightning strike, the world erupting in a burst of white so bright it feels like the shutter of a thousand cameras. His body knits itself together just in time for his newly corporeal hands to find Eddie’s face.

He cups it reverently, fingers tracing the line of Eddie’s jaw and the curve of his lips. Eddie lets out a little gasp, his mouth falling open, the hint of tears in his eyes.

Sparks shower around them, tiny arcs of blue and gold dancing in the charged air, settling like glitter on every surface. They’re harmless; unconsciously, Eddie and Volt are working in tandem to make sure they are. Perfectly synchronized.

The kiss that follows is synchronized too; equally relieved, equally desperate, equally hungry. It is the response to finding something you nearly lost forever. Volt can’t see clearly; everything is fuzzy and white and too much, but the magnetism between them is blindingly clear. It pulls him in, stronger than current, stronger than gravity. Eddie is the pole he was born to orbit, the grounding wire to his storm. Eddie’s lips are familiar and brand new all at once, anchoring him as much as they ignite him.

Volt’s chest soars with the force of it — if he even has a chest right now. He feels himself dissolving into the kiss, jagged arcs leaping, charges built from scratch in Eddie’s hands.

Eddie holds him like he might vanish again, knuckles white in Volt’s hair, shoulders trembling. Their mouths part only to crash back together. Volt lets himself sink into it, feeling the subtle thrum of life and wiring and warmth all around him. Sparks flicker along the tips of Volt’s fingertips, darting across Eddie’s skin, floating and dancing like tiny, obedient fireflies — they don’t burn, don’t sizzle. They are celebration.

He is vaguely aware he is naked. He is vaguely aware there are two other figures in the room.

He does not care.

They part once more with a soft pop of their lips, and rest their foreheads against each other, sharing breaths. Volt does not know how his hands will ever be capable of letting go of Eddie’s skin.

“You called?” he murmurs, Eddie’s breath hot against his smiling lips.

“You came,” Eddie whispers back.

Volt kisses him again. Sparks scatter like stars.

Chapter Text

Saturday again.

Never in the history of the house have there been this many people in the grid room at the same time.

It’s always been Eddie’s private sanctum. Volt is allowed in, of course, but anyone else? Absolutely not. It had taken literal decades before Winnifred had set foot in here, and that was only because a heavy switchboard had fallen on top of Eddie and he hadn’t been able to drag himself out.

But now there are six of them, and Eddie is sort of… okay with it. Not thrilled. He’d rather be here on his own, a bundle of Romex slung over his shoulders and a soldering iron in hand, sweat dripping down his temples as he’d lose himself in the work.

But he’s spent. His whole body aches, and every movement, quick or slow, causes a wave of dizziness to wash over him. Even sitting in the chair he’s in feels like gravity is fucking with him, being way heavier than normal just to spite him. The power has been turned off once more, and with it went the desperate boost of energy Eddie briefly had, the boost he used to break into his bar and save Volt. It’s costing him now.

And yet, instead of resting in a bed, like Farya insisted on, he’s here, instructing and supervising five other objects, most of whom have never touched a pair of wire stripers in their lives.

“Tony, shrink tubing first. Don’t touch the panel till that’s set.” Eddie gestures toward the half-exposed wall, trying to keep irritation out of his voice.

“Yeah, yeah,” Tony mutters, rummaging in the toolbox that is, in some sense, also him. He pulls out the wrong gauge of tubing twice before settling on the right size. “Got it. Easy.”

“Not easy,” Arma corrects him quickly, on her knees already, sliding one length of tubing carefully over a frayed segment of copper. Her tongue pokes out of the corner of her mouth as she lines it up perfectly. “It has to fit snug. If there’s a gap, the whole thing could… y’know. Overheat again.”

Tony lifts up a palm like he’s being sworn in at court. “Alright, alright. No shortcuts. Jeez. You people act like I never done electrical in my life.” He mutters under his breath, “Which is true, but y’know.”

Eddie makes a small approving grunt. He’s kinda glad Arma volunteered to help with re-insulating the wires. She’s meticulous and slightly obsessive, which, though occasionally worrisome in its extremes, is something Eddie can actually rely on right now.

It’s also a little confronting, sometimes.

It had not been his idea to bring others into the Breaker Box to help with repairs, but when Dascha had brought with her a message from Mac — briefly restored to life during Eddie and Winnie’s stunt — he started to see that there was no other way. The news from outside the house was that tomorrow, the human will come back home, and this Monday an electrician will take a look at the fuse box, deciding its fate. As much repairs as possible needed to get done before then, and seeing as how Eddie can barely lift his arms, he begrudgingly allowed the extra manpower.

Despite Volt having corralled the four other objects to show up, he himself is barely pretending to help. He drapes himself over Eddie’s shoulders, chin resting lazily atop Eddie’s crown, arms wrapped lightly around his chest from behind. “I like it when you’re being bossy,” he teases, lips brushing against the curve of Eddie’s ear.

Eddie exhales through his nose, trying to focus. “Volt,” he says warningly.

“Yes, Eddie?” 

“My shoulders don’t need insulation.”

“Debatable,” Volt grins, and presses a kiss to Eddie’s jaw, before slipping down into Eddie’s lap, arms wound around his neck.

“Get. Off.”

Volt kisses his lips instead, quick and shameless, before sliding back onto his feet. “To the sound of your authoritative voice? Easy,” he says, soft enough so only Eddie can hear him.

Eddie glares at him, but his ears burn pink.

It’s like Volt is drunk on being back, drunk on Eddie, light in every sense of the word. He’s constantly grinning like he’s on top of the world, bouncing on the balls of his feet, his energy humming like he can’t keep his own charge contained. Eddie has to keep reminding him to calm down, before he accidentally shatters the sphere with Ripple generating his power.

Eddie is not sure if it’s the generator that’s caused it, but Volt’s appearance is slightly different after having gone out twice. It’s hard to pin down, even for Eddie, who knows every muscle, every angle, every quirk of him more intimately than he knows his own. He’s brighter, less static-fuzzy, like an already beautiful painting having undergone restoration.

And he will not stop touching Eddie. A hand on his shoulder when Eddie leans forward to get a closer look at a particular junction. A hug from behind, chin resting lazily atop Eddie’s crown, ignoring Eddie’s muttered complaints. And now, having removed himself from Eddie’s lap, he’s still holding onto his hand, like letting go of direct skin contact would be a tragedy. Eddie squeezes Volt’s hand as hard he can — not very hard — and Volt squeezes his back — also not that hard, but it hurts like it is. 

Eddie doesn’t complain.

He feels it too. The need to be close, the electromagnetic attraction that calls for them to touch, closer, closer. Volt seems to revel in it. Eddie understands why, it’s a good feeling, like an extra boost of energy every time he lays eyes on his partner, but it also worries him a little. There’s a hunger to it, something that might just spiral out of control if Eddie lets it. It whispers take more, take it all in. It frightens and thrills him at the same time.

It thrills him maybe a little too much, if he’s being honest. But he will keep that feeling in check. He’s got control. It’ll be fine.

“Volt,” Tony calls, snapping Eddie back to the present, “stop bein’ cute and come over. Gotta get some juice to get the heat gun started.”

“Naturally,” Volt responds languidly, walking over. “Eddie, how much?” he asks, looking over his shoulder as he has a hand wrapped around the plug at the end of the cord.

“As much as you can safely give, but you need to keep the voltage steady.” He slips back into his instructor voice, the one he’s been using all day to explain the basics of electric maintenance. “And Tony, remember, this is a heat gun, not a welder.”

Tony rolls his eyes. “Relax, boss, I got this.”

Eddie, characteristically, does not relax. He inhales sharply when Volt seems to wane, color draining out of him. He shoots Eddie a bold grin, as if to assure him that he’s fine. His current bleeds into the gun. Its coils glow red within seconds, humming like a stove element at full heat.

“Steady,” Eddie barks again, sitting forward despite the ache dragging through his ribs. “You overshoot the tubing, it’ll carbonize. That sleeve’s rated for about ninety celcius. Gun can spike to double that if you’re sloppy.”

“When am I ever sloppy?” Tony chuckles.

“Usually after only one beer,” Volt says, his voice a little thin but not any less amused. “Though you seem to manage while sober just as fine.”

Arma shushes them both, eyes locked on the tubing. She leans in close, practically breathing down Tony’s neck to make sure he keeps the gun moving in smooth, even arcs. “Safe wire means no fire,” she keeps whispering under her breath. That mantra seems to do her good.

“Y’know,” Winnifred says from the other side of the room, where she and River have been flirting loudly and shamelessly. “I could help a hand with that, would make it go a whole lot faster.”

Winnie and River have spent the past hour cleaning the bar area of the Breaker Box, washing away all the soot and ash, and are taking a little break right now. River had not seemed very enthusiastic about her task, but Eddie had seen how every now and so often Winnifred would say something under her breath to her, and River’s scowl would twitch into a smile she immediately hid, lest someone else saw. Winnifred always noticed anyway, laughing in a little burst of bells that made River duck her head like she’d been caught, a purple flush around the blue of her cheeks.

“You just want to show off,” she says now, arms folded.

“Not showin’ off,” Winnie replies sweetly, leaning back against the wall beside her. “Just efficient. Why waste power when this good ol’ gas heater can do the trick five times as well as that toy?”

Tony looks instantly offended. “Hey, don’t knock the gun. This thing’s got precision.”

“Sure,” Winnifred says, a sly glance thrown toward River. “But sometimes a little hands-on heat is better.”

River shakes her head, muttering under her breath, but her cheeks go purple once more.

Eddie gives Winnifred a thumbs-up, trusting that she knows how to handle a flame around insulation. He watches closely, professional eyes narrowing as Winnie cups her hands around the two metal rods on her right breast, which start to glow when she flicks on her pilot light. After a few seconds, the brown in her palms is interspersed with orange streaks of heat. She places her hands just above the tubing. The air ripples faintly, and the polymer responds at once, tightening smooth and perfect around the wire. No scorching, no uneven ridges. Just a clean seal.

Arma mutters, grudgingly impressed. “Okay… that’s actually better than the gun.”

Winnifred beams. “Told you.”

Tony keeps focused at his own work, which is progressing less quickly. “Spotlight jabber,” he mumbles. Volt laughs kind-heartedly at it, patting him on the back so hard Arma cries in alarm when the tip of the heat gun almost touches a wire.

River shifts from her spot across the room and comes to stand beside Eddie, crossing her arms and keeping her gaze straight forward. She and Eddie have never spoken much, but he likes her. She’s an elemental force of nature besotted with a simple, decades-old workhorse— of course he likes her. 

“You really think you can patch this place up enough in time?” She sounds doubtful, but not intentionally mean. 

Eddie huffs. “Fixin’ this place is what I do. I got this.”

“Hm,” she replies, which could mean just about anything, but it doesn’t seem satisfied. Despite her literal transparency, River is a hard person to read.

He follows her gaze; she’s not looking at Winnifred, who’s going through her spools of tubing at a rapid pace. Instead, she watches Volt, who is standing in between Arma and Tony, head tilted as he studies the work. He looks curious, nodding along as Tony is chattering on about the difference between fish tape and electrical tape. His usual provocative charm is stripped back; in its place is a focus Eddie has rarely seen. It is obvious he wants to learn. Wants to help. Wants to share in this piece of Eddie’s world.

I should teach him, Eddie thinks. He should have taught him a long time ago.

And suddenly he thinks he can translate River’s previous response. “I mean we,” he corrects himself, a little belatedly. “We got this. Yeah. I’m sure of it.”

Saying so makes him confront something uncomfortable; he could not have fixed everything in time on his own. It would be too much work, too little hands. Volt was right.

The cynicist in him whispers at him that the others are just doing this for their own gain, for the electricity. Winnifred is helping because she wants to reconnect, and River because she loves Winnie. Arma is just scared of a fire, and Tony feels happiest when he’s in charge of the tools. All selfish reasons to be here. But… that’s not the full picture.

They’re also here for him. Not for the power, not for the vibrants clubnights — for Eddison Watts. Because he is a familiar face they would miss. Because Eddie has been serving them drinks since the first moment they arrived in the house, has seen each of them with a few glasses too many and never held their drunk confessions or actions against them.

He’s never thought of himself as a staple. But apparently, as this day is proving him, everyone else has.

That’s… nice. That thought makes that cynical voice, the one that’s kept him far away from people because they would only discard him, seem so useless and minute.

Eddie is his purpose. But he’s also a person.

Volt meets his gaze from the other side of the room, having been handed the heat gun and, like any eager student, looking for approval from the one whose opinion matters most to him.

Eddie lets his features soften with a rare smile.

He’s starting to understand something terrifying and grand.

That he, as a person, is loved.

Volt is enjoying the shared solitude of the quiet bedroom just as much as he thought he would. 

Betty’s metaphysical space, where he has spent all his nights the past week, has an open door policy; sensible, given the nature of what she is, given the kind of comfort she offers. He never begrudged it, but it did mean that there were very few times in which he could be sure it was truly only him and Eddie.

They’re alone now, in their own bed upstairs of the Breaker Box. Volt is holding Eddie, both his arms carefully wrapped around the other man. Today’s repairs had healed some of his wounds, though in all likelihood many of his scars will remain.

Volt finds no diminishment in them. If anything, Eddie looks burnished, like a blade tempered in fire.

“I like being back in this bed,” he confesses into Eddie’s hair, whispering as though using a normal volume would shatter the preciousness of the moment. “It’s like the framing here makes you ten times more attractive than you already are.”

Eddie snorts softly, the sound muffled against Volt’s collarbone. “Smells like bullshit.”

“Anything can smell ambrosial as long as you perfume it enough.”

“I’m too tired to argue against such a stupid argument,” Eddie murmurs. His hand slides over Volt’s ribs in a slow, absent-minded stroke.

Volt tilts his head back enough to look at him, catching the faintest smirk tugging at the corner of Eddie’s mouth. It’s tired, sure, but it’s genuine. And that — this — quiet mutual closeness in their own bed, uninterrupted, is something Volt hadn’t realized he’d been starving for.

He presses a kiss to Eddie’s temple. “Missed this,” he says. Who knew that one week could feel like such an eternity?

Eddie makes a humming noise in the back of his throat, not disagreeing.

They drift into companionable silence, neither of them wanting to fall asleep and put an end to this emotional and blissful day just yet.

The six of them had gotten every piece of exposed wiring re-sleeved and replaced many of the copper runs that had warped in the fire. What hadn’t needed replacing had been cleaned, scrubbed, polished until it gleamed. He thinks about the moment when Eddie finally leaned back, surveying the breaker box with that quiet brand of satisfaction, and when he said, yeah, this will hold for now. Tomorrow, we can start with the breakers.

Something odd had happened when the group patted each other on their backs and said their goodbyes. Volt had been drawn to River, of all people. An urge compelled him to take the woman aside, not only to thank her for Ripple, but also to ask her about something strange, something Volt has never before wondered about.

He asked her how she deals with the knowledge that one day, Winnifred will be gone, and River will continue on.

At the core of that urge were vague, fuzzy flashes of white-on-black, of a condescending tone. There’s deeper something there, a memory, but like remembering a dream, it removes itself from his reach when he tries to grasp for it.

River had looked at him knowingly, and said she would like to have that conversation with him, but it would take some time, time that she didn’t have at that moment because she was going to — and here she blushed — ‘clean up’ with Winnifred after having scrubbed the bar area clean of ash. Good for her.

It feels a little foreboding, the thought of a long conversation about such things. But… maybe necessary too. Volt is very proficient at looking away from the things that make him feel uncomfortable. It’s a habit he’ll need to kick, for Eddie’s as well as his own sake.

“What are you thinking about?” he asks Eddie, because the other man seems just as deep in thought as Volt just was.

“What I’m gonna tell Celia next Monday,” Eddie says with a rueful sigh that deflates him against Volt’s chest. “Don’t know how to spin this whole fucking mess so she won’t shut us down.”

Eddie had filled Volt in on the Maggie situation. After Volt had returned and Winnie had sprinted to Tony so they could get his generator running as quick as possible so the main power could be turned off once more, the disgruntled detective had left and informed Mayor Celia of today’s events and the chain of decisions that led to it straight away.

Perhaps Volt ought to resent her for that, for threatening what they’d built here. But when Eddie told him what he’d done to bring him back, all Volt could feel was a twofold rush: fear, icy and cold, for Eddie’s suicidally reckless gamble… and adoration for the devotion that had fueled it. Eddie had risked everything, even the Breaker Box itself, just to bring him home. 

How could Volt summon resentment when Eddie’s arms are still around him, warm and alive? With Eddie pressed against him like this, breathing steady in the dim bedroom air, Volt feels only forgiveness, only joy. The world could throw its harshest judgment at them, and still he would not let go.

In his blessed out state of mind, even Maggie’s actions seem fair. Eddie had chosen to take a great risk, and Volt hadn’t helped when his intimidation had inadvertently challenged Maggie to keep a close eye on the Breaker Box. Maybe it’s for the best that Celia knows of the faulty wire, of Eddie’s dangerous determination. She could be an extra pair of eyes to keep him in check, one stricter and less forgiving than Volt’s.

That is, if she will allow Eddie and Volt to keep their bar open.

Florence had come to the Breaker Box with a message from the Mayor this afternoon. It basically told them that the Mayor was not going to interrupt any of them from their repair and reconstruction efforts this weekend, since she sincerely wished for Eddie to finish his work so he could remain a part of this house. However, she was furious with him for risking the house, and they were in serious trouble. 

“We’ll need safeguards,” Volt mutters, thinking back to what Maggie told him in the grid room. “We can not be a single point of failure system any longer.”

“I— we won’t be. I can install arc fault interrupters, they’ll shut the power down instantly if something goes wrong.”

They’ll shut you down, Eddie doesn’t say, which is sweet of him, although Volt doesn’t need protecting like that. He’ll happily go out again to prevent a fire — as long as Eddie can bring him back.

“A promising start,” Volt says, stroking a thumb over Eddie’s cheekbone as though smoothening away the shadows there. “Ah, but, Eddie. Perhaps…” He swallows, his throat tight, his eyes blithe to the darkness and drinking in every detail of Eddie’s face — the strand of hair and wire falling across his forehead, the stubble that’s on the verge of becoming more beard than stubble, eyes gray as charcoal. “Perhaps it would also be prudent for you to take a step back.”

Eddie stiffens just the slightest bit under Volt’s touch, but he does not pull away. That’s a good sign, at the very least.

“What do you want me to do,” he says tonelessly. “Close the bar?”

“No, no, of course not,” he says soothingly. He puts a finger underneath Eddie’s chin and lifts it up so their gazes are interlocked. “That is not what I am implying.”

He would never take the Breaker Box away from him; even being a piece of Eddie’s soul doesn’t give him that right. And yet, as he breathes in the faint scent of Eddie’s hair and skin, he realizes he does not really care whether the club closes its doors or not. He loves the velvet nights here, the golden lights and music spilling across the floor, but all of that pales against the sight of Eddie’s molten gray eyes being open and looking at Volt. If it were a choice between the two, Volt knows where he would fall. He loves the club, but he loves Eddie more.

“What I mean is that you take too much on yourself, and it leaves no room for error. If there were… someone else, someone you could reasonably trust with a fraction of it, the work wouldn’t crush you.”

“I have you.”

“You’ve always had me,” Volt says patiently, brushing a stray lock of hair from Eddie’s brow. “And that will never change. But I… do not think I have the willpower to hold you accountable. One pleading look from you and I will fold.” He gives him a lopsided smile to underscore his fondness, to try to get across how his heart feels too large for his chest every moment he sees his love.

Eddie blinks slowly, and is quiet for a long time after that. Too long. The kind of silence that starts as a thoughtful pause and stretches until Volt feels his spine tingle. He can’t read him. He had secretly hoped that after his attempt at fusing with Eddie’s spark, he would somehow be more attuned to the other man’s emotions, would feel Eddie’s emotions as his own. But he can’t. He is—a separate person. Connected, but not the same. It’s proven beyond a doubt at this point. Volt doesn’t know if that confirmation of identity makes him feel grief or jubilation.

He almost opens his mouth again to fill the gap, to apologize for pressing, to say something foolish and distracting, when Eddie finally speaks.

“…Arma,” he says, like testing the sound of it aloud.

Volt cocks his head. “Arma?”

“She could work here. If she wants.” Eddie shifts, just enough to look at him more squarely. His tone is careful, like he’s walking a thin line between concession and defense. “She seemed to enjoy it. Being useful. Having something to do other than stand watch. Might even make her feel like she’s making a difference instead of waiting for the next fire to start.”

Volt studies his partner. Eddie’s eyes are hooded, but there’s a sharpness under the fatigue — a restless energy he can’t ever seem to switch off.

“She reminds you of yourself, doesn’t she?” Volt asks gently.

Eddie huffs defensively. “Not everything I say is me fucking projecting, Volt.” Then, softer, a few seconds later, “Maybe a little.”

Volt doesn’t press the topic — he’s pleasantly surprised he even managed to coax a compromise out of Eddie at all. Eddie has always been hesitant about accepting any kind of help, even Volt’s, but, well… this week has been excruciating. It can never be repeated. Maybe Volt can’t read Eddie’s thoughts the way he’d like to, but he knows Eddie knows this, that he’s willing to change for it. They both are.

So instead of talking, he brings his lips to Eddie’s, and gives him a long, uninterrupted kiss, one that tastes of copper and ozone with not even the littlest hint of smoke behind it. It feels like bathing in warm sunlight. His entire being sings. Eddie’s humming undercurrent harmonizes, forming that perfect synchronicity.

When they pull back just slightly, Eddie’s forehead rests against Volt’s once more. “I missed this,” Eddie says, echoing Volt’s words from earlier.

“More than anything,” Volt whispers back.

The last Saturday of June ends like this, the two of them intertwined, grateful for the days still ahead of them.