Chapter Text
Volt was fairly well-versed in the art of breaking up arguments that inevitably arise in The Breaker Box; his easy charm and light personality made whoever it was forget about their troubles or, at least, leave the club to continue their fight without disturbing the other patrons. Something he wasn’t used to, however, was one of the raised voices belonging to his dear bartender.
Eddie kept himself to himself most of the time. Sure, he never really put up with other people’s bullshit, but he usually dealt with it quietly, choosing to rip them a new one with carefully placed insults and a seemingly calm demeanour. To hear him raise his voice was quite the rare event. Yet Volt could hear it over the chatter and laughter of the crowd, over the easy music and the clink of glasses.
Volt gently excused himself from the conversation he had been holding and began making his way towards the bar, eyebrows furrowing as the angry voices grew louder the closer he got. When he could finally make out the second voice, Volt stopped dead in his tracks. A shouting Eddie was rare, but for those shouts to be aimed at you? He had thought it impossible, careful as Eddie was to keep you happy.
“For fuck sake, this is ridiculous!” Eddie yelled, and Volt could see the lights above the bar flickering with every word. He started up again, this time more urgently pushing his way through a tipsy swarm of other objects to get to his two most beloved people.
“Drop it, Eddie! I don’t need to tell you shit!” You screamed back, leaning right over the bar, your nose inches away from Eddie’s. The crowd directly surround the two of you had grown silent, watching, creating a bubble of nothingness for the argument.
“I asked one fucking question!”
“Forget it!” You pushed away from the bar so violently, the bar stall behind you toppled over and crashed to the floor, causing a wider spread of silence mixed with the mumbling and whispering from other objects. “Next time I need someone to rely on I’ll go to Volt instead!”
Volt could see you both now clearly, standing just a few feet away, and he knew he was the only one who saw the way Eddie flinched at your words, saw the hurt in his eyes. Eddie hesitated.
“Fine!” He finally yelled back, though you were already storming towards the door. “You and Volt can go have a perfect fucking life together for all I care!” The door slammed shut behind you, this time silencing the entire club. The only sound was that of the music playing, but even that was becoming warped like a bad signal on a radio. Eddie ran a shaking hand through his hair before turning to the crowd. “Show’s over,” he grumbled. “Club’s closed. Get out.”
Volt’s heart was hammering in his chest at the display he just witnessed. The music had stopped and the lights above the bar were dim. Some had gone out entirely. The crowd was murmuring, asking each other what just happened and wondering if Eddie was being serious about the club closing for the night; it was only 11pm after all.
Volt scrambled to the stage. “Sorry about that folks!” He laughed nervously. “Unfortunately we will be closing early tonight due to… unforeseen circumstances, so please make your way to the exit.”
At that, the crowd started to move and soon the space was empty. The only thing Volt could hear now was Eddie, keeping himself busy, distracted , as he began to clean glasses and put them away. He was grumbling to himself, as he often did when something was plaguing him, and Volt found himself stuck on how to approach the situation. Asking Eddie outright could cause him to completely blow a fuse, meaning keeping the club closed for a night or two to work hard on maintenance and for Eddie to recuperate, but leaving him alone would mean Eddie would never say anything of it and keep it bottled up, which could lead to another situation like the one they had before you helped them reset the power. Another option was to gently try and pry it out from Eddie with pretty words and gentle touches, all of which Volt knew could melt right through Eddie’s toughest wires and get him to come clean, but that could lead to Eddie regretting everything that lead up to the argument and increase his self-loathing to the point where he would just shut down.
Volt took a deep breath as he ruminated on his options before finally deciding on the third; it was really the best one, and he could deal far easier with the possible fallout of that than the other two. He stepped down from the stage and began to clean up the tables, collecting glass, plates and cutlery and bringing them over to the bar where he began to help wash up.
“Love,” he began gently as Eddie stepped in next to him to wash up a wine glass. “Are you alright?”
Eddie was silent for a minute, and Volt didn’t push for an answer. Finally, Eddie placed the glass next to the sink and leaned over it, his hands pressed to the edge of it with his head hanging down, staring into the soapy water.
“I fucked up,” he whispered, and Volt wasn’t expecting that answer from him. He turned to look at his lover, opening his mouth to speak but closing it again; Eddie would talk to him about it, it seemed, but in his own time. “Volt, I really, really fucked up,” Eddie’s voice was shaking and the grip his had on the sink was turning his knuckles white. “She just wanted me to be here for her and I couldn’t even do that without snapping at her. No wonder she prefers you to-”
“Don’t,” Volt warned gently, placing a hand on Eddie’s forearm. “You know that isn’t true.”
Eddie scoffed. “Maybe not, until now. You heard her. She definitely won’t talk to me anymore, she probably hates me now. I knew it, I knew I’d do this shit, I knew I’d drive her away.”
Volt sighed and took Eddie’s hands, pulling them away from the sink and turning him so they were facing each other. Eddie didn’t look up at Volt, just kept his gaze to the floor. Volt moved a hand to hold Eddie’s cheek, gently soothing the skin just under his eye with his thumb. It was difficult for Eddie, Volt knew, to always feel the pressure to keep his stronger feelings at bay.
From the first moment Volt materialised in the house he could tell that Eddie was under a lot of pressure to keep things in perfect working order. He wasn’t like some of the others, who could go about their days not having to worry about what their actions do to affect others; Eddie supplied the power for the entire house. He had to hold it all together for everything, and it was running him ragged which put him right on the edge. Even after Volt came along, with his one purpose being to help take some of that pressure off Eddie, he still faced an uphill struggle. One that the both of them kept locked away from everyone. It made Eddie all the more tense, and he kept himself shut off from everyone else in an effort to protect himself. When you came along, pushing into their space and offering your help, Eddie pretended like your aid was nothing and that it didn’t matter to him, when really it like loosening the noose from around their necks. Even when that damned faulty wire almost killed them, you were there by their side, ready and willing to help however you could.
Despite all that happened after the reset, Eddie found it difficult to escape that headspace, to really feel safe again. He hadn’t felt well in so long, it almost felt wrong to be up and running how he should be again. He still put himself behind a wall with most people, and at the first sign of anything needing a repair he fixed it as quickly as he could without drawing any attention to it having been broken in the first place. Volt was doing his best to try and ease him out of it, and you of course were always there to reassure him with a gentle touch or kind smile, but he could still feel it crackling beneath his skin. The smallest thing seemed to tip him over now, and he found himself more often than not sitting in a dark room desperately repeating words of reassurance to himself until his skin stopped vibrating and he could breathe properly again.
He was feeling that way now, like at any second he would need to run from the bar and into a locked room, away from Volt’s hands, away from the look on your face when he raised his voice to you. He couldn’t bear it, it was too much , he had really fucked up this time all because of his stupid, stupid -
“My love,” Volt crooned, both hands now holding Eddie’s face gently, but not forcing him to look up just yet. “Talk to me.”
Finally, and slowly, Eddie raised his head to meet Volt’s eyes, and Volt felt his heart break. His dearest, his Eddie, was staring up at him with eyes full of tears, his cheeks red and his lips pulled into a deep frown. Volt didn’t see Eddie cry very often; in fact, he’d only seen it a couple of times before. Once right as he appeared in front of him for the first time, and again when he thought he might lose Volt forever.
“I hurt her, Volt,” he whispered, leaning his face right into Volt’s palms and bringing his own hands up to cover them. “I asked her something, and she got all defensive over it and I pushed too hard. Fuck , I don’t know why I got so pissed at her, I just…” Eddie took a shaky breath in as he squeezed his eyes shut, trying to push away the sound of your voice when you teared up. “I’m really struggling here.”
“I know, love, I know,” Volt replied, his thumbs soothing circles into Eddie’s cheek and catching a stray tear as it fell. “I know you’re still trying to catch up with us being good , and I know the memory of when it wasn’t is still fresh in your head.” Volt recognised that he had no idea what Eddie was truly like before he became overwhelmed and split himself, only having heard little pieces from the other objects, and he almost felt a little guilty about being the more confident one. It seemed that before it all went downhill, Eddie had everything that Volt did; open charm, an easy personality, and enough conversation in him to last a while. It must have been so difficult, Volt thought, to have lost all of that, and then to see it in someone else, someone he created, and to know that he was now known as the snarky bartender and unsociable owner of the Breaker Box. So, Volt endeavoured to have enough personality for the both of them, and he found that lately it had started to rub off on Eddie a little. It helped that when they touched, it was like plugging a string of lights in, and they could feel everything the other felt, to the point where they could discern what the other was thinking.
So, Volt did know how Eddie felt in this moment, as he held his face and Eddie held onto his fingers. “We can fix this,” Volt continued. “Like we always do. I know she’ll come back to us, and when she does, we’ll have a proper talk with her about all of this.”
“I don’t know if I can,” Eddie sniffed, his eyes still closed. “What if she comes back here to tell me she doesn’t love me anymore? What do I do then? I don’t think I could take it, Volt, I really don’t.”
“Oh, Eddie,” Volt sighed, leaning forward to press a gentle kiss to Eddie’s forehead, small sparks lighting up his lips. “You may not see it, but I and everyone else does. The way she looks at you when your back is turned, the way she speaks about you. Eddie, our sweet live wire is infatuated with you. A mere argument isn’t going to suddenly tear that away.”
Eddie was silent for a few moments, before he opened his eyes again to look at Volt, this time without the tears. “I guess so,” he mumbled.
“That’s my boy,” Volt smiled proudly, his white eyes glowing. “I’ll go and speak to her now and get her to come back. I won’t be a moment!”
Volt pressed a kiss to Eddie’s lips, pulling a small sound of satisfaction from the back of his throat, before he was bounding off towards the exit of the club. Eddie watched him go, exhaling sharply through his nose at the sight.
“Idiot…” he breathed, and turned to finish up for the night before heading to the stairs that lead up to his and Volt’s living quarters.