Chapter Text
Date Everything. That was what I was supposed to be doing. This was meant to be some fun little game, something harmless, something with no real risk and no real consequences. Just a way to build confidence for the real world.
So why did it all feel so real?
“Spark?”
A concerned, charismatic voice called sweetly, and I looked up at Volt. His white hair was threaded with electric currents, little flickers of light running through it, and somehow it still looked soft enough to sink my fingers into. His eyes were a sharp titanium silver, bright against his pale skin, and the suit he wore looked like it had been spun from silver and wire, elegant enough to distract from what he really was whenever I had the glasses off.
“Live wire,”
Eddie said from behind the bar, blunt as ever, the words rough but not unkind. He tried to hide his worry behind that usual flat tone, but I could hear it anyway. He looked so much like Volt and nothing like him at all, sharing the same silvery eyes, but with black hair instead of white, tanned skin instead of pale, and the kind of unshaven jaw that only made him look more dangerous. His vest and button-up were woven in shades of gray and copper, like the inside of a fuse box dressed up to pass for a man.
Their voices snapped me from my thoughts and pulled me back to the two handsome men who loved me.
My breaker box, of all things, had my heart skipping like a tripped circuit. They felt too real. Glasses on or off, they were still in my thoughts. Still warm, caring, looking at me like I mattered. And that was the problem, wasn’t it?
Everything in me knew they were not real, knew none of this should have reached under my skin the way it had, and yet I smiled anyway.
“Im fine,” I said, but even to my own ears it didn’t sound believable. I was supposed to be out around the house, making new friendships, new enemies, maybe even new loves. Instead, I was here, standing in the Breaker Box Club like I’d been drawn back by some current I didn’t know how to fight.
“The stage needs me, but I shall be right back, darling,” Volt said, his platinum eyes flicking to Eddie in a silent message. ‘Help her.’ His hand slipped from my cheek before he turned and disappeared back toward the stage, toward the lights and the music and the place he always seemed to shine brightest. He looked like he belonged there, all silver flash and easy charm, like the whole club was wired to brighten for him.
Eddie’s answer, as always, was simpler.
“How about a drink, live wire?” I smiled despite myself.
That was part of why I loved them both so much. They covered each other’s weak spots without ever needing to say it out loud, and even when they were on their own, they still somehow managed.
“Sure, Eddie.”
“So what’s on your mind?” he asked, sliding a drink toward me. His hand stayed over mine for a second, thumb rubbing slowly across my palm, rough and reassuring all at once. I rested my head against my fingers and gave him an amused smile.
“Now look who’s all chatty.”
“Whatever. Just spit it out, won’t you?” he muttered, blushing anyway, and I curled my hand around his for a moment.
I hated being the one to give him trouble. After everything that had happened with Volt not too long ago, I had promised myself I would not become another source of grief for him. We had been impossibly lucky; everything had turned out fine. A happy ending all around. For Volt. For Eddie. For me.
A throuple I had never expected, never asked for, and now could not imagine living without. I pulled my hand away and wrapped both of mine around my drink instead. It was easier that way. Easier than lying while holding his hand. Easier than lying while looking him in the eye.
“Not a thing.”
“Spark.” His fingers caught my chin, careful but firm, tipping my face up until I looked at him. The neon behind the bar buzzed softly, a low hum under the music. “You were right before. I should’ve talked to Volt. Lying to him wasn’t the way to go. But I’m asking you now, trust me. Trust Volt. We only want what’s best for you.”
My throat tightened. Tell him, then. Tell him about all the friendships I’d been making. How no one seemed to understand that to test it, to really test the power of these glasses, I had to romance others, too. Not just them.
The thought made my pulse skip. It would upset them. It should upset them. And sitting there in the Breaker Box, under the flicker of neon and the distant throb of Volt’s voice onstage, I couldn’t tell what frightened me more, telling the truth or what they would do with it.
But this was not real. The touch on my skin that left me burning, the kisses pressed to my cheek, the bite marks that made me feel like I would come apart at the seams, all of it vanished the second the glasses came off.
“Thanks, Eddie.”
“Are you alright, darling? Did Eddie perk you up?” Volt asked the moment he hopped off the stage, every word dipped in warmth and concern.
“Yes. Me and Eddie talked, and he knows I am completely, perfectly, fine.”
“I never said perfectly,” Eddie muttered as he cleaned a glass behind the bar.
Volt looked about as convinced as Eddie, which meant not at all.
Before I could say anything else, Volt slid in behind me and wrapped his arms around me, leaving me caught against the barstool and his chest.
“I just worry about our sweet girl.” His voice was light, teasing, and affectionate, but it still sent heat through me all the same. “That charming smile caught me in your electric web in seconds. Who knows what it’s doing to everyone else in that house.”
That was the problem.
It wasn’t.
Skyler had been nagging me again and again to try romancing other people. To actually play the game the way it was meant to be played. I really should get to work. For that I would need sleep, to reject my emotion that attached itself so strongly to Eddie and Volt.
Tomorrow, I decided, I would skip the club.
Tonight, I would be enjoying my boyfriend’s company for the last time.
“I should probably get some rest.” I slipped off the stool, and Volt waited patiently for the kiss I always gave him and Eddie before leaving. Instead, I stepped back, pretending I had forgotten, as if I could ever do something that careless.
“Till tomorrow, darling,” Volt called after me as I hurried toward the exit.
“Hey, you forgot something, live wire,” Eddie called out, the missing kiss he craved.
I kept moving, disappearing into the crowd as the club pulsed around me, all light, all chatter.
Yeah.
This was for the best.
Tomorrow came and went, and the only thing missing were the moments when anything felt real. I felt like I was playing a part the whole day, the whole week, becoming whatever everyone else expected of me.
A cheerleader for Stepford until he won that medal he deserved. I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy spending time with him, because I did, but it was hard confessing love when there wasn’t any.
The Hanks were nice. Friendly. Fun. Life-endangering, I thought with a shudder. But Hank #5 wanted to be a dad. A dad. Before we had even agreed to date, I was using him when he had such a pure dream, and that made something sour twist in my chest. But this wasn’t real. None of it was. There was no way Hank #5 could ever actually be a dad.
Odd how Tony Advice kept coming in handy. The outside mattered, while the inside kept getting ignored.
I missed the Breaker Box. I missed Eddie’s broodiness, Volt’s shameless flirting, the easy comfort of standing beside them where I belonged. How I was plugged into something steady and warm instead of stretching myself thin trying to spark for everyone.
“So, will you join me? I wish to show off my singing to you,” Johnny Splash said, taking my hands in his. I didn’t have the heart, or maybe the guts, to tell him that I had heard him sing before.
Onstage at the Breaker Box. Eddie had once promised to throw him out if I so much as blinked twice, and Volt, even while helping others with their “talents” in that sweet voice of his, had made sure Johnny was banned. I guessed that had been lifted. No ears to shield now but my own. It was a conundrum, as Volt would call it. Eddie would probably just say it was fate. But to secure his love, I nodded anyway.
“I would love to.” I tilted my head and smiled, already making a mental note not to forget my earplugs.
I was dressed and ready, and it still felt otherworldly that inside this small closet stood a whole club. The place was already in full swing, crowded with other people from around the house, all of them gathered for drinks or conversation or just somewhere to let the night carry them.
In and out.
I stepped inside, looking for Johnny, but had no luck. He had told me his show was going to be at nine sharp, yet the stage stood empty of him. Instead, I felt arms slide over my shoulders.
“I promised Johnny one last chance to sing. It went terribly, darling, but I knew he would bring you by if I let him try,” Volt whispered into my ear. His electric white hair seemed almost lifted with agitation, each strand looking ready to ignite.
“Volt?” I asked in surprise, caught off guard by the low, dangerous note in his voice. It was not his usual playful warmth. It sounded frayed, like a wire stripped bare.
“What have you been up to, live wire? Eddie and I missed you so much.” He pressed hard on the word much after brushing a strand of hair away from my face.
“I, I...” My thoughts snagged. It was hard to reach for any excuse while Volt’s arm tightened around my waist and guided me toward the bar as if there had never been any other place I was supposed to be.
Eddie was already there, serving drinks, but one sat waiting the moment I was settled on the stool. His titanium eyes narrowed on me, silent and simmering, before he slid the glass across the bar. He said nothing. Somehow, that made this worse.
Volt kissed me.
It was not sweet, not in the easy, teasing way he usually did, stealing affection like it was a game only he knew how to win. This kiss felt deliberate. Possessive. A claim laid over my mouth in front of the whole club, hot enough to make my pulse stutter. His hand stayed firm at my waist, keeping me in place as if he could feel every thought of escape before I even had it.
When he finally pulled back, his smile was there, bright and beautiful and just a little too sharp around the edges.
“There,” he murmured softly. “Much better.”
Eddie leaned against the back bar, arms folded now, his gaze fixed on me with a heaviness that settled straight into my chest. “Drink,” he said.
It should have sounded rude. With Eddie, it somehow sounded like concern sharpened into an order.
I wrapped my fingers around the glass, suddenly all too aware of the way they were both looking at me. Like they had been waiting. Like they knew more than they should. Like the whole room had gone charged and humming, the air thick with the warning that came before a fuse blew.
And sitting there between them, I couldn’t tell if I had just come home or walked straight into a trap.
“You forgot this,” Volt said, meaning the kiss I had neglected to give them last time. His hands tightened on my shoulders, keeping me on the stool, making me stay and face the music. “In such a hurry to run off, darling~ Why was that?”
“I wasn’t trying to escape,” I said, squirming in my seat. “I was just tired. Like I am now.”
Volt smiled down at me, but there was nothing soft in it.
Eddie suddenly slammed both hands against the bar. “Everyone who isn’t Y/n, get the fuck out. We’re closing early.”
It was a sharp reminder of why Eddie worked the back end of the bar. One look at him, one word in that tone, and people listened.
The room stirred all at once. Some people scurried for the exit without a second glance. Others looked almost disappointed, wanting tickets for whatever show, about to happen. One glare from Eddie had them moving fast enough.
Volt locked the door behind the last of them.
The click of it settling into place made me freeze.
Now it was just me, and two pairs of eyes fixed on me.
Volt looked furious. Not loud yet, not wild, just furious in that quiet, dangerous way that made the whole room feel charged. “You promised to come back tomorrow.”
“Sorry,” I said quickly. “I got busy with work, and stuff.”
Volt leaned in, caging me in with his presence, looking over me like he was trying to strip the answer right out of my skin. “Who is stuff? We already know one of them is Johnny.”
“No, it’s no one. Stuff is just stuff,” I said nervously, trying to look anywhere but at him.
“It sounds like someone.” His voice sharpened, and the lights overhead gave an ugly flicker. “Are we not enough for you?”
The question hit harder than his anger.
Before I could even think of an answer, Volt’s hand twitched, a pulse of electricity snapping through the air, and Eddie was moving. He caught me by the arm and pulled me back, away from Volt’s reach.
“Volt,” Eddie warned, his voice low and hard. “You’ll hurt her. It’s not the same as when you’re with me.”
Volt looked like he was vibrating in place, electricity crawling over him in restless waves. “I am calm!” he snapped.
A bulb above us burst with a pop.
Neither Eddie nor I looked convinced.
Volt stared at us both, chest rising and falling, fury bright in his pale eyes. “Fine,” he spat, the word bitter enough to sting. Then he turned and stormed upstairs to the apartment above the club, leaving the whole room buzzing in his wake.
Eddie kept an arm wrapped around me until the stomping upstairs finally stopped. Then he sighed, tired and heavy, and it pulled me right back to that day the club had shut down. That day, everything had almost fallen apart.
“Did we do something wrong?” he asked quietly. “I’ve been wrecking my brain trying to figure it out.”
“No. You and Volt didn’t do anything.” My voice came out smaller than I wanted. “It’s my fault. I wouldn’t blame you if you hated me.”
Eddie’s expression tightened. He lifted a hand and pressed it to my cheek, rough palm warm against my skin. “We don’t hate you.”
The words should have soothed me, but something in the way he said them only made my chest ache more.
“We really need you tomorrow,” he said.
My fingers tightened around his hand at once. “Is something wrong? Is it the fuses?” I asked, worry rising fast. “Did something happen?”
“Tomorrow,” Eddie repeated.
“You’ll tell me then?”
He looked at me for a long second before finally giving one small nod. “Okay.”
Then he patted my head, gentler than a man like him ever seemed like he should know how to be.
He pressed a kiss to my forehead before letting me go, and I left without hearing the conversation Volt and Eddie shared behind me.
The door clicked shut.
Volt stayed at the bottom of the stairs, eyes fixed on the empty space where I had been, the smile he wore for me gone like someone had flipped it off.
“She promised to come?” he asked quietly.
Eddie did not look away from the door. “She did.”
Volt’s fingers curled against the rail, knuckles whitening. “Good. Our little spark keeps forgetting something important.”
Eddie finally glanced over. “What’s that.”
Volt’s lips twisted into something that was almost a pout, almost a snarl. “She is ours. How dare she flirt with anyone else. Smile at them like that. Let them think they can touch her, or hear her voice, or keep her attention for more than a second.” His voice dropped, darker. “Her laughs, her songs, her eyes when she light up… they do not belong to them.”
Eddie’s jaw tightened, then he nodded slowly. “They do not deserve it. They do not know how to take care of her.” His arms folded over his chest, shoulders broadening with quiet resolve. “pulling her in every direction, making her pretend to be something she is not. They overload her and then wonder why she burns out.”
Volt breathed out a shaky little laugh that did not sound amused at all. “I do not like the house touching her. It’s all trying to draw all her power away from us.” He leaned into Eddie’s side, eyes still hot with anger. “She was made to shine here. With us. On our stage, at our bar, in our bed, nowhere else.”
“We will fix it,” Eddie said. “We will take her back.” His gaze slid to the lights overhead, to the empty club, to the door. “We will keep her here where we can see her. Where nothing can hurt her. Where no one can lie to her or ask her to play some stupid game with her heart.”
Volt hummed, soft and possessive. “We will teach her, gently at first. Remind her who she belongs to. Remind her she does not need anyone but us.”
“And we will spoil her,” Eddie added. “She will have everything here. Her favorite drinks, her favorite food, her own room upstairs, music when she wants it, quiet when she needs it. She will not have to pretend for anyone. Just us.”
He gave a small, humorless smile. “Why would she ever want to leave if we make this place perfect for her?”
Volt’s eyes softened at that, though the obsessive shine never faded. “Yes. We will make it so she cannot even imagine walking out that door again. So that when spark thinks of safety, she thinks of the Breaker Box. When she thinks of love, she thinks of us.”
“And when she thinks of running,” Eddie said, voice low and steady, “she will remember there is nowhere in this little world that can protect her better than we can.”
Volt nodded once, decisive with his hands folded in his lap. “Then it’s settled. Tomorrow. We pull her back in.” He tilted his head. “You will get everything ready for our spark?”
“I will,” Eddie said.
He stepped closer, the anger fading into something softer as he looked up at Volt. Then Eddie bent up and pressed a kiss to Volt’s forehead, lingering there for a brief, quiet moment.
Volt’s shoulders relaxed. Their hands found each other, fingers lacing together.
They started up the stairs to the apartment above the club, the empty space at their sides feeling wrong, incomplete. Something was missing.
Y/n.
But not for long.