#edison watts

However,

One day you’d walked into the club during off-hours with a skip in your step. You’d been coming a lot more often this week, unable to stop yourself from visiting either of your boyfriends while they weren’t working. A few laughs over sweet drinks, maybe a few stolen kisses to mix in…

God, you loved it.

So, you made your way there quickly, opening the door to the Breaker Box, humming a soft and lively tune under your breath. You glanced over at the bar, and was delighted to see that both Volt and Eddie were there, talking to each other quietly, Eddie resting his chin on his hand as his listened to Volt speak lowly, a hand tracing the rim of his glass languidly.

The quiet atmosphere was snuffed out quickly as you walked over with a “Hey, look who it is!”, a large grin on your face. Both men turned, though they looked…less enthusiastic than you were used to. They still smiled though, and Volt took his hand off his drink.

“Ah, live wire. Back…again? For the…seventh time in four days?”

“Yeah, I was just thinking about you guys, actually! So, Eddie, what are you making today? Some kind of mojito?”

“Actually, me and Volt—“

“Ooh, right! No alcoholic stuff before Volt’s done working, right? That’s a good rule, you know, could you imagine him mixing up his announcements? That’d be—“

“Live wire.” Volt cut you off, gentle, but firm. “Tonight we were thinking…just us.”

You blinked before smirking. “Ooooh, okay, I see, we’re doing a private act, huh? Ho—“

“No.” Eddie sighed. “…just…me and Volt. That’s what we wanted to do tonight.”

A silence fell over all three of you, not a word passing as Eddie stared into his drink with a cough, swirling it around in the glass. “..did I do something wrong?”

”No, no, it’s not like that at all. We just…need some alone time. Together, like old times. That’s all.”

“…oh. Okay.”

You stepped back from the bar slowly, looking between them, unsure of what more to say.

“I’ll uh…leave you two to it.”

You walked out without another word.

———————

You hadn’t visited the Breaker Box in two weeks. Yeah, it was kind of an asshole thing to do, you were completely ignoring your boyfriends after they asked for just one little date night. You knew maybe it wasn’t the best thing to do, looking back. But you couldn’t shake that ugly feeling in your stomach when you thought back to those words.

“Together, like old times.”

Old times?

You rolled over in your bed, where you’d been rotting for about a day now. Your eyebrows were drawn together as your brain repeated that same phrase over and over and over.

Like old times?

Those old times when they’d just had each other, when Volt and Eddie was just Volt and Eddie? Why had Volt said it like that? Like it was something he’d lost that he wishes he could have back?

Did they regret asking you to join them?

Was that it?

You were overthinking. You knew you were overthinking. It was one simple sentence, why were you so freaked out over it? It was probably just a slip of the tongue or something. That tone he’d said it in was probably different from what you remembered. Their smiles hadn’t looked that nervous when you’d come to see them, right?

You groaned into a fluffy pillow to yourself, a cocktail of frustration and gloominess swishing around in your brain.

They must’ve realized something about you they hadn’t known before they’d gotten into a relationship with you? Were you not as good-looking as they remembered? Too loud? Did you smell or something??

Well, you probably did now after lying in bed for almost 32 hours.

Ugh, why did everything have to be so—

“Live wire?”

You almost sprung up from the mattress in shock as Eddie’s voice sliced through your thoughts, right next to your bed. You yelled from under the sheets: “Jesus, warn me!”

“You didn’t warn us when you suddenly disappeared for an entire two weeks.” Volt spoke up next, his voice almost a scoff. “Is this where you’ve been?”

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up.” You grumbled, drawing the covers around yourself tighter.

Eddie let out a heavy breath. “We’re not here to laugh at you, we’re here because you’ve been avoiding us. What’s going on?”

“Nothing’s going on!” You retorted, firmly sticking to the protest as if you hadn’t been moping for almost a whole month. “I’m just tired, okay??”

“Bullshit.”

“Eddie—“

“No Volt, I’m calling bullshit. You can be tired enough to act like this for a day or two, not a week or two. Something else is going on, what is it?”

Eddie’s voice was strict, but you could feel the frustration came more from your lack of letting them help you than genuine anger. Maybe he didn’t like seeing people refuse help when they were obviously not fine.

Now isn’t that familiar.

You eventually cracked, your voice muffled from under the layers of blankets, but still intelligible.

“…you guys are better off without me.”

That caused an immediate screeching halt to both of their voices. Volt looked over at Eddie with an open mouth, and Eddie gazed back with a similar expression.

“What are you talking about?”

“You know, I’m not stupid. Everyone in this house always says ‘Volt and Eddie’. ‘Eddie and Volt’. It’s never just ‘Volt’ and never just ‘Eddie’. You two are like— not sold separately or some shit, you’re so damn perfect for each other that everyone else knows it. Says it. Constantly. But you know what it always is? It’s Volt and Eddie and THEN the homeowner. Eddie and Volt, side note: their partner too.”

Volt frowns. “That’s not true. You’re our partner just as much as Eddie’s mine and I’m his. Even if others don’t acknowledge that, we know it.”

“Yeah, sure.” You mumbled half-heartedly. “Like you guys don’t just wish it was you two.”

Volt’s frown disappeared, surprise coloring his face instead. “Excuse me?”

“Don’t do that! Don’t make me look stupid! You two have always had a bond that I can’t ever share with you! You’re literally made for each other! You’re literally two halves of the same whole. You guys are exclusively for each other, and when I’m thrown in the mic, I just don’t fit. I’m loud, and I’m clingy, and you guys miss your former lives that I wasn’t in because I just completely invaded that harmony you guys had! And I’m so fucking stupid for not realizing it earli—“

“Whoah, whoah, whoah.” Eddie interrupted, holding up his hands to stop you. He looked at you incredulously. “Harmony? You call the huge power fluctuations harmony? Volt almost disappearing harmony?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose.

“I can’t…you actually think that we were living all sunshine and roses before you came? Live wire… we loved each other, but my life was hell. Volt’s life watching it was hell. We were in a terrible place.”

Volt nodded along gravely. “I wish you could’ve seen it. All those nights before you first stepped into the Breaker Box. It was terrible. Horrible. Maybe we looked healthy enough, but the power was dying.”

You blinked upon hearing the words, peeking your head out of your little burrow in the sheets.

“…dying?”

Both men nodded somberly.

“Then, you came along.” Volt said softly. “And after such a short time in both of our lives, you became stability. And safety. More of a fix than I ever was, one that stayed with us as more than a solution. As a lover.”

“…but you guys said—“

Eddie didn’t let you finish, giving a side glance to Volt. “Yeah, Volt likes dramatic words. “Like old times” is mostly reminiscing. He just wanted to talk to me alone. We closed the club for the night, it was nice, peaceful. That’s all it was, just some one-on-one bonding. I get if it seemed kinda…dicky to do, but you’d been kind of coming in nonstop, and we wanted a little night all to ourselves, is all.”

“Oh…so you don’t want to go back to when I wasn’t involved with you two?” You asked carefully, silently praying they’d say—

“Yes.” Volt replied smoothly, a gentle smile on his lips. “We’d never, even once, think of getting rid of you. You’re much too important, 1/3 is a very large portion of us, after all.”

You didn’t move your eyes away from them, though they now began to fill with tears at the edges, despite your internal cursing when they did.

“Really?”

“Yes, of course. I mean, did you think we were joking about the Volt-Eddie sandwich thing of yours being welcome?”

“That’s kinda eh…”

“Fair.”

Eddie snorted to himself, before he looked back down at you.

“Are you feeling okay now?”

“Mmm…” you did, truthfully. It was nice to know that they really did care. But- “I’d be a looooot better if I got a Volt-Eddie sandwich right about now.”

Both men couldn’t help but let small laughs escape their lips. Volt pushed a bit of your tangled and messy hair back from where it’s been poking out from under your little blanket-hood.