#cha.eddie

"Live wire! So good to see you here again, tonight. I trust, then, that you had a wonderful evening the last time you were here?" Volt approaches you when the show is closer to starting, placing a heavy hand on your shoulder. You jump at the small shock it produces when his skin makes contact with yours. "I did, yes." You smile at him, eyes flitting from Eddie to Volt. "Both of you have been really nice and welcoming! I get why this place is such a success around the house." "Just doing my job," Eddie mumbles, but a slight flush has settled on his cheeks. "Are you ready to move over to your seat? I've reserved it especially for you. Best seat in the house!" His hand glides down from your shoulder, along your upper and lower arm, where it comes to rest somewhere around your wrist. The tip of one of his fingers rubs a circle near your pulse point. Eddie scratches the side of his neck. "Or... You could sit here. During the performance. With me." It's more of an awkward request than anything like shyness. You hate sounding so self-important but, thanks to the Dateviators, the objects around your house bickering (or worse) about you and your preferences has become far from an uncommon occurence. When you look at Volt, though, he only seems to be smiling brighter. His eyes practically glow. "Oh, yes, certainly!" Volt says before you have any chance to choose one way or the other, lifting his hand away from you. "Well, have fun you two!" He says with a knowing tone and look in Eddie's direction. (In hindsight, this would end up being your first hint towards the fact that they're more closely bound together than any other dateable in the house.)

Eddie gives you a running commentary on most of the contestants. His judgments of most of the acts aren't... The most positive, but he brings it across in such a manner that you find yourself laughing. He has some 'behind the stage' pointers about most of them, too. Eddie keeps refilling your drink. By the end of the evening, you are noticeably intoxicated and might end up being able to pull from Eddie the reason why he always looks so tired. He expects you to forget the next day, but you show up to help despite being a bit worse for wear.

Eddie is one of the dateables whose demeanour undergoes a large shift from his usual because of Skylar's influence. Because of this, he's much more likely out of the two to have moments of clarity. He's incredibly torn by what his mind is desperately, frenzily urging him to do, and what he knows would be the right thing to do. It makes him feel like his head is splitting apart... And he'll tell you to leave, take the Dateviators off and come back later. (Before he does something he'll regret, he adds quietly to himself.) Perhaps it'd be better for him to urge you to turn around and never return to the Breaker Box, but... He simply can't get those words past his lips.

To summarise, Eddie is one of the dateables who tries to keep his impulses regarding you restrained. He can't completely control himself, though. When you work together on cleaning up around the Breaker Box, he might work more slowly to spend more time around you. He'll explain things multiple times, put his hand on you to steady you, and, maybe, even actively sabotage some of the work when you're not around. All to ensure that you're coming back.

Similarly to how he struggles with keeping the electricity throughout the house going, he keeps his mouth shut about what he feels. Thinks that if he just ignores it for long enough, or spends enough time in your presence, he'll manage to calm down. To act normal. But because of this attitude, everything he's suppressed might come bursting forth at once... It's only thanks to his 'other half' that things never get that far.

Volt

Whereas Eddie tries to hold his feelings back somewhat, Volt is the exact opposite. There'd been a sense of trepidation he had before ever meeting you. Volt was made to protect Eddie, and part of the reason that Eddie is always pushing himself so hard is, well, you. To keep the electricity going around your house. You never seem to stop needing it. But, thanks to the Dateviators' influence, those thoughts are driven to the background. It helps that you seem nice, too.

For Volt, his (over)protective tendencies are something that's always lurking in the back of his mind. Protection is the reason he exists. While he only truly cared about Eddie in that way before, your presence and your glasses' influence get the wires crossed a little in his brain. He doesn't care any less for Eddie whatsoever, mind you, he just also becomes increasingly protective of you in an incredibly short amount of time. He doesn't truly trust most of the objects who spend time around you. Suffice it to say that he wouldn't allow Amir to try out his knife-throwing demonstration with you.

He's incredibly touchy with you, almost to the point of pushiness. Volt just utterly loses himself in your presence. Still, he never goes quite to the point that you'd be able to say it has exactly sexual intent. He likes to hover near you with a hand on your shoulder (or your waist, if you allow it), guides you by the wrist or hand whenever he wants to show you anything around the Breaker Box, and greets you with a hug plus a kiss on the cheek (or the lips, again, if you allow it.)

Any rejection or affection of his is waved away hardly seems to register to him. He's overcome with a rock-solid belief that you'll eventually warm up to him. There's very few people who dislike him, after all. This is the reason that, in this situation, he doesn't visibly get upset at denial. He'll simply slightly adjust his strategy, and tries again. Volt does not get discouraged whatsoever.

He loves showing the two of you and your affection for each other off, especially if you're accepting of his advances. Knowing that others around the two of you are stirring with jealousy, excites him just a little. He thinks a lot about pulling you on stage alongside him and doing something unapologetically romantic, like dipping and kissing you or dancing, pressed up close together with you, in front of a live audience.

Eddie & Volt

These two absolutely make each other worse. Frankly, it's mostly Volt who tells Eddie to act more on his desires, but Eddie also stirs Volt's protective instincts by mentioning every little trip or scrape you encounter while working around the bar. They talk about you quite a bit to each other when you're not around. Volt is incredibly pleased when he manages to get Eddie to spill more details about what he likes so much of you. He considers it a first step in allowing him to be more honest with you, too.

While certain dateables around the house are pretty open to sharing, these two aren't. Though it's pretty much unavoidable with the current... Circumstances around your house, they don't want to hear or see any of it. With the whole house obsessed with you though, it's not exactly like you have a choice in the matter whether or not someone is fawning over you. It's going to happen, and there's nothing you can do about it.

If Volt's overprotective tendencies get kicked into overdrive, he'll 'stash you away somewhere safe' for a little bit. It's essentially kidnapping. In any other situation and, probably, any other person would be panicked when trapped in a little room up above the Breaker Box, but this isn't the first time you've been 'trapped' somewhere. The Dateviators offer an extra layer of protection from any of these events. Even with wires loosely binding your wrists together (to protect you from yourself, Volt had said with sparking eyes), you're not particularly worried. This is far from the first time something like this has happened for you. At this point, you know how to handle it.

You perk up when Volt and Eddie enter the room. It's at least a lot less boring when they're around, compared to when you're sitting here on your own. Eddie avoids your eyes, shifts his weight from one feet to the other, a crease in between his eyebrows. But he does not advocate for your release. Volt is on you in a moment, checking the bindings around your wrists and kissing you on the mouth. "They're not too tight, are they, live wire?" "No, they're fine," you say with a small smile. You lift your bound hands and drop them down to your lap again. "But... Can we talk about this? The whole 'putting me in a secluded room' thing?" "You seem awfully calm about all of this," Eddie says, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "Yeah, well... You both get that the Dateviators will eventually run out of charge, right? Sooner rather than later. I'm not really trapped here. And I'm also not really here." The reason you're not scared is that you're not truly 'kidnapped' or 'trapped' to begin with. Your body is safe out there, in reality, blearily staring out at the wall. The Breaker Box isn't real. None of this is real. If you followed Skylar's explanation correctly, you're mentally in tune with the fuse box right now. Nothing more, nothing less. Volt grins in a manner that shows teeth. "I hope you did not forget what I am made of." A spark of electricity shoots off of the tip of his finger, the air around him buzzes with tension. "Perhaps I might be the only one in this house capable of recharging this special device of yours." You swallow thickly. That is... A topic you hadn't yet considered. In these situations, ultimately, you have always had the control, always had an emergency exit. Having that wrested away from you leaves you off-balance. The beat of silence shows Volt all he needs to know. "You can't keep me in here," you say slowly, pressing your back against the chair. "I'll die. Even if you feed me, my real body is out there. It doesn't-- I just can't stay here for long. That's not how it works. ...You want to keep me safe, right? It won't work out like this." You're rambling, showing even more of the genuine stress you're starting to feel. "...What made you upset?" You ask softly. "We can talk about it. It doesn't have to be like this."