Chapter Text
BEVERLY CAN’T HELP BUT FROWN as she removes the half-empty negroni you’ve been nursing for the last few hours out of your hand.
Don’t get her wrong, she’s spent plenty of nights in her own bar drinking herself into a haze over the usual hits: no customers, no direction, no clue what the hell she was doing. (And, let’s be real, most happy individuals who had their lives put together did not hang around a bar at 2:13 AM pickling themselves in gin.) However, the crumpled human strewn across her countertop— you— already had her beat for “biggest crashout in history” several hours ago.
If you told her a couple of weeks ago that she’d actually be cutting off a customer she’d honestly laugh in your face. No customers in all four re-openings— six actual openings, mind you— and now she was actually cutting one off? Beverly kind of assumed she’d need… at least twenty more regulars before it got to that point. But here she was anyway, seriously starting to regret offering you, her proprietor and first customer ever, free drinks for life upon her first meeting with you.
“No, no, no! Gimme more shotssss… Bev, puh- leaseeee…”
She replaces the negroni with a glass of water instead. She’s somewhat impressed, and also somewhat scared of you now; a double-shot negroni is no joke, and you’ve been chasing several tequila shots with them like no tomorrow. How you haven’t burned a hole through your throat is a mystery even to her.
“Here’s some water, moonshine. Just take it a bit easier for the next hour, okay? Last call is at 2 AM… or was, anyway,” she adds quietly, glancing over at the clock on the back wall that indicated it was fifteen minutes since.
You accept the water graciously, taking two large sips and hiccupping throughout them both. Either from the crying or your drunken stupor was hard to tell. At the very least, the nickname manages to get a small smile out of you. “Moonshine, huh? That’s a… That’s a new one.”
“Yeah, ‘cause you probably drank ten liters worth of it tonight.”
You laugh— just once, a pitiful, breathy thing— and then go quiet again, your hand curled tight around the glass like it’s the only thing holding you together.
It’s been established that Beverly is your minibar and bartender. Neither of the two really ask questions, so when you sauntered in the Tipsy Tumbler earlier that night looking like someone had told you that your cat had died, well… she could tell her services were required. Hands already flying to conjure up a drink, she asked you if it was a rough night (obvious question) and you’d warbled three words, “Eddie and Volt” (not-so-obvious answer) and followed up with three more: “Gimme your strongest.”
It took her so off guard that she briefly paused in the making of your drink— after all, it was no big secret among the dateables that you were more than a little bit smitten with the two men from your breaker box, and they with you.
That was from what she was able to pick up from the situation every time she was surveying the Breaker Box on her day offs, anyway (scoping out the competition, as they call it). Sometimes you’d be helping Eddie change lightbulbs and clean up behind the bar, other nights you and Volt were huddled up together on the top deck in one of the VIP lounges. So what the hell happened between the three of you that sent you stumbling onto her doorstep with all the joy and whimsy sucked out of your eyes?
Putting that aside, Beverly merely shrugged and said “Men— fuck ‘em, am I right? Nothing a little drink can’t fix” before pouring you the shots you’d requested. She’s like, supposed to be the party girl with the drinks— she’s your damn minibar, after all!
But then one shot became two, two turned into four, four became eight, and so on and so forth until you spiraled into the dribbling mess that you were in front of her right now.
Beverly chews on the inside of her lip. Before being your minibar and your bartender, she’s your friend— that’s what you guys are, right? She would hope so, after all the taste-testing and late night-promo work you’ve helped her with lately. Now, with you officially cut off and on your way to sobering up soon, she figures now would be a good time to pry out whatever went down between you, Eddie, and Volt while you were still drunk and open enough to talk about it.
After all, that’s what you do all the time, running around the house and trying to solve everyone’s problems, hers included… She quietly wonders when was the last time anyone ever had to sit you down and help talk you out of your problems.
She slides some fries across the counter for you eat to help with the alcohol absorption. Hopefully you won’t feel the full force of that hangover in the morning. “So… While the bar is still open, you wanna tell me what happened tonight?”
“Mmh, yeah, well…” You look up weakly from your lap, swishing the glass of water around.
Somewhere along the lines you’d gone from shouting expletives to sobbing self-deprecating things into your cup. Hiccupping quietly, you bring your knees up to your chest atop the bar stool. Beverly wants to really smack herself for not putting a stop to this sooner.
Instead, she settles on leaning against the bar to show you she’s all ears. It only takes a second for you to break out into another sob again.
“Fuck, I messed everything up. It— I was at the Breaker Box like usual, right? There was another power fluctuation—”
Looking back on it, that made total sense given the fact that Beverly herself had felt the temporary blackout all the way down here in your kitchen.
“—A-And I mean… I-I mean, it happens sometimes a-and I help Eddie with repairs and stuff but it’s never gotten this bad… Beverly, I fucked up. I fucked up real bad— Why did I say that to them?” You bury your face into your hands. “I think I killed Eddie!”
Beverly’s eyebrows shoot up past her amber-colored, perpetually flowing hair. It’s such an absurd notion a laugh almost escapes her— until she sees your face. “You what?”
“I don’t know! God, I don’t know! When I opened my eyes it was a-all black and Volt was all like… ‘Eddie’s gone,’ and I tried to apologize but no one would let me and it’s all my fault! I don’t know what to do!”
Despite your very intoxicated state you nearly perfectly nail Volt’s dumb accent and his deep intonation too. As much as she wants to, Beverly can’t afford to keep laughing; you’re starting to unravel again, so she gently pries a hand from your face and lifts the glass of water to your lips.
“Hey, hey, take another sip! Deep breaths and water, okay?” When you listen, she feels a twinge of satisfaction. “I’m sure it’s not all your fault. Eddie can’t die, not really— the lights in the house are still on and everything’s running just fine.”
You give her a sniffle. “Yeah, I guess that makes sense…”
“Do you want to start from the beginning now?”
“Yeah, I… Yeah.” You inhale deeply once again, and then all the words tumble out— from the blackout, to the insults flung back and forth, and the sound of many things fizzling out.
IT’S BEEN A LONG WEEK FOR YOU, so you’re more than happy to slip your Dateviators on and poke your head through the Breaker Box doors. You can already hear the faint jazz music from where you are, giving Dorian a polite smile as you walk a little further into the building.
Already you see Volt standing there, looking like he’s expecting something to happen. Once his eyes land on you, they widen and he flashes you a warm smile that almost has you thinking you might be that something.
“Live wire! Do we have the pleasure of your company for another evening?”
“Hi, yourself, Volt.” Jitters aside, you find yourself mirroring his smile. It takes you everything you have to keep yourself upright on those laminate floors, so you distract yourself by fidgeting with your red shirt. “Yep, I’m bothering you guys for another night.”
“Oh, I’d hardly call it bothering, sweetheart.” His voice takes a more knowing, smug turn as he extends his hand out towards you. “Be honest, you enjoyed yourself so much last time you just couldn’t stay away. Am I right?”
“The club is nice, yeah.” You take the hand with ease. Rather than looking up at him for longer than necessary lest you make a fool out of yourself, you distract yourself by admiring his perfectly painted nails as he walks you further inside. “It’s not the reason I keep coming back, though.”
“Is that so? What is it that has captured your attention, then? I’m dreadfully curious.” That smug lilt in his voice has increased tenfold as he feigns ignorance, and you regret even trying to answer him honestly.
You really do hate yourself for walking into that one. “Uh… You know, uh… I think you already know.”
“Do I, now? Perhaps you should enlighten me, just to be sure.”
You can tell he’s having too much fun. He even tilts his head lower so that his face is in your field of vision once more. Volt really does have a thing for eye contact, you realize, which is unfortunate for you because you feel like you might implode on the spot. “I— I, uh. I mean. Well, come on, you know already!”
“Mmm, but it’s so much more enjoyable to hear it directly from the source.”
Your brain short-circuits (pun not intended), a stammer making its way into your voice. You don’t know what to make of it. You don’t really know what to make of anything out of your time with the boys these past few weeks, honestly; you’ve heard from Eddie that Volt was usually like this to most newcomers to lure them inside for the show and a couple of drinks.
You don’t know how well you’d take it if it were confirmed that this was some sort of pleasantry that’d eventually wear off once you became a regular here. So you settle on a response that’s less definitive and more safe. “You…! You’re doing this on purpose.”
“You’re actually tongue tied,” he hums, almost sounding like he hadn’t expected to garner such a reaction out of you. “Aww, how sweet.”
This is quite frustrating, but fuck, if you had a voice like that you’d probably never shut up either. And Volt has both that and that sort of energy about him (God, you’ve really got to stop with these puns), that flair and charisma and something in his gaze that makes your cheeks heat up and your spine tingle. He makes it downright impossible for you to ever say no to him, and he knows it too, so when he asks for a dance it’s no surprise to anyone that your agreement is immediate.
Even if you don’t know the first thing about dancing it’s just so, so easy to let him whisk you away to wherever it was. With just one large, effortless hand settling on your hip, he has you feeling like you’re floating whenever he twirls and spins you around. Maybe it’s because he’s the embodiment of electricity in his house but your skin blooms with warmth wherever he touches too.
The song only lasts for a couple of minutes but it genuinely feels like it goes on forever. This must be some kind of torture, especially since you’re making a fool out of yourself as you bump into him a couple of times and even accidentally step on his shoes… twice… throughout the duration of the song. You try to apologize profusely each time you do, but all it takes is a quiet shush from him as he tells you to enjoy the song and you find yourself shutting up embarrassingly fast.
Truthfully, it’s quite hard to actually focus on the song when all you can think about is his warm palm pressing against the small of your back. You’re left feeling light-headed towards the end of it, looking up at Volt only to find him already staring at you with a somewhat heady expression. It honestly shocks you, though you don’t want to delude yourself into thinking that it’s… almost expectant of something.
For a second you glance down at his lips too, and your traitorous mind conjures up the idea of leaning in to close that tiny distance, but out of the corner of your eye you spot Eddie from behind the bar in the back.
Thankfully, his back is turned; he’s busy cleaning up before the headliner show actually starts and the orders start coming in. Thank God. If you think about Eddie having to watch you kiss his partner, boyfriend, whatever— for too long, you actually might die from embarrassment.
What if they’re dating? What if they’re off-limits? You’re not actually quite sure what they are, nor do you really care, is the conclusion that you’ve come to after weeks of stopping by the Breaker Box and helping with repairs. It’s shameful, and you know it, but embarrassment isn’t quite the thing you’ve been feeling late at night as you lie in bed— quietly entertaining the notion of kissing one, or the other. Or both.
“—I’m quite impressed,” Volt says, his voice snapping you out of your stupor.
You really hope you weren’t staring. Now you really wish your sunglasses were more opaque. “That I stepped on your feet so many times?” you laugh in a self-deprecatory manner.
He laughs with you, his voice still warm. “Don’t downplay yourself.” He nods over to the bar towards Eddie’s back. “You’re much better than that one, anyway.”
“—Hey, that one heard you, by the way.”
You and Volt quietly snicker at Eddie’s interjection. He’s frowning, but you’ve known him long enough to know that it doesn’t really mean anything, not really.
Volt then lets out a prolonged sigh as he checks out the pocketwatch he’d pulled out from beneath his large overcoat, before looking down at you quite regretfully. “Loathe as I am to say it, I must leave to start the show soon.”
You’re about to tell him it’s fine, it always is, when the power begins to fluctuate for the first time that evening. There’s that sizzling, crackling sound again as the lights above burn brighter for a couple of seconds, then dim out, then surge back to life again. It’s louder than it’s ever been before, and seems to go on for longer as well— causing the club patrons to gasp and whisper amongst themselves.
You whip around to do a quick scan over the bar, and Eddie is conveniently nowhere to be seen. God, you could never get these two in a single room together, could you? Turning back around, you survey Volt for any damage sustained— at least this guy, you could keep your eye on. “Are you okay?”
“Don’t let the surge fool you. My power is just fine.”
“But the—”
That’s when his smile falls. “I said, it’s just. Fine,” he asserts, his tone clipped.
You immediately shut your mouth.
As amicable and as easy going as Volt seems to be, he really does hate when people go poking their noses around in places they shouldn’t. You’d discovered this relatively quickly upon your first meeting with the two men from the breaker box. He’d snapped at you for inquiring a bit too much about Eddie, and you’d never brought it up again after that.
In hindsight, you had told yourself it was your fault, anyway— but being at the receiving end of either man’s ire is never a good feeling.
Volt must have registered the wide-eyed look on your face because his tense expression disappears as quickly as it came, though it still leaves you feeling like you’ve swallowed a cactus. You were never the best with conflict anyway, it’s something you’re trying to work on, but you hate yourself for feeling like you’ve been slighted somehow.
“Apologies, live wire. That was, ah, unbecoming of a proper host.” He coughs into his fist, trying to smooth over… whatever just happened with a wink and an apologetic smile. His hand rests on your shoulder. “I have to do a few stage checks, but I’ll be back. Enjoy the show, yes?”
“Ye— Yeah, sure! Just be careful, okay?” You return him a shaky smile of your own that you pray looks like you know less than you let on. But as soon as Volt’s hurried footsteps fall away you’re already darting past patrons to head for the bar.
You really hope that Volt can’t see you currently poking your nose where it doesn’t belong, else he’d really electrocute you this time. As much as you hate lying to him, you also know it isn’t exactly your place to tell him anything. The next best solution, you decide on, is making sure if Eddie’s alright.
“Eddie?” You stage-whisper as you peer over the counter. “Eddie, how are you feeling?”
“S’all good.” Much to your expectations, the black haired man is keeled over on his haunches, one arm clutching his stomach and the other gripping the countertop so hard his knuckles were turning white. Fortunately, the surge seems to come to an end the moment you come over.
Once it does he’s back on his feet like it never even happened— already throwing some whiskey, lemon juice, egg whites, and some simple syrup into a cocktail shaker with ice. “Same thing tonight, or what?”
“A-Ah, yeah.” His resilience both impresses and disquiets you. You also don’t know why he even asked you what you wanted when he’d already started making the drink, so you just nod dumbly. For a second, you forget what you came here to do. “About the surge…”
“It’s fine,” he says without even looking up, quicker than you can finish your sentence. It is, quite literally, word for word what Volt just told you before he had to run off for stage checks. Damn, sometimes those two were just so one in the same it drove you up the wall.
You’re not sure if you like the idea of being snapped at again, so you let him win this battle this time.
“Just give me the whiskey sour, then,” you sigh, sliding yourself into a seat, before tacking on a meek, “Please.” This seems to amuse him, somewhat, because the hard lines on his face seem to ease up a bit.
You try not to stare too hard at his hands— God, his hands — as you watch him shake the drink back and forth in the shaker.
“Whiskey sour, there you go.” Eddie slides the drink he’d just finished making across the smooth countertop, little wire and and maraschino cherry garnish go with it and all. He surveys you for a second before asking, “Long day or something, sparks?”
“Ah— Yeah,” you stammer. You’re still technically in job limbo as you battle it out with an AI chatbot, so there’s not much to do besides busying yourself with the happenings of the objects in your house… That, and the fact that having the Dateviators snatched up into the sky by some Valdivian drones was a very real possibility, apparently.
Eddie silently nods for you to elaborate.
“For starters…” You bring the rim of the cup to your lips with a pleased sound, completely missing how his gaze seems to flick downwards for a second. “I’m still trying to figure out what Sinclaire’s whole deal is.”
His face morphs into something thoughtful as his brows furrow. “Oh, that guy? This is the thing he’s got going on about not being a real sink, right?”
“Yep. I’m still kind of confused, nothing he says is really making sense. Even Maggie’s at a loss too.” You shrug, thinking about all the rooms you’ve been dragged to this past week. You’ve resigned yourself to this fate already. “Ah… well, other than that… the Hanks invited me to go paragliding again and I’ve been helping Beverly promote her bar more.”
“Helping the competition? My God, the betrayal.”
“And here I thought Volt was the one for theatrics,” you grin unapologetically, before dropping your voice to a whisper, “Though between the three of us, this place is my favorite spot to hang out around the house.”
He doesn’t really respond to that aside from letting out a small hum, but he’s doing that thing where he turns around and busies himself by wiping down the countertops when he doesn’t want anyone to see his face.
“—Good evening, my fellow objects and gentlethings!”
The two of you look up as the overhead lights start to dim, signaling the start of the show. Of course, with that comes the sound of Volt’s buoyant voice cuts across the quiet chatter of the Breaker Box, bringing its patrons’ murmurs to a close.
“Oh, it’s about to start!” You pick up your drink before shooting Eddie one last smile. “I, ah, gotta get back to my seat. See you after the show?”
“Yeah, sure, sparks.”
No sooner do you sit down does the power surge up once again. From up on the stage, Volt stumbles. Many members in the audience let out a collective gasp, including yourself, but the man is eager to smooth it all over with a strained smile.
“…R-Ready for an incredible performance! Tonight, we— …We have… We…”
He looks so uncomposed, so in pain, so unlike his usual self, like the wind had been knocked right out of him. It’s just as bad as the stage system, lights flaring and popping as the electricity surges to a dangerously new height. All you can do is watch as he falls down on to one knee and clutches his stomach in the same way you saw Eddie do just a few minutes prior. It looks like he’s about to get up, when—
Everything goes black.
Several people are now screaming in the dark, the earlier buzz of electricity from earlier replaced by the general chaos and panic. All you can hear right now are the sounds of chairs and tables scraping against the floor alongside the confused uproar of distressed club-goers stampeding towards the only illuminated exit like moths to a flame. You, unfortunately, were one of the very first people to get up out of their seats after seeing Volt nearly collapse on the stage and were now quickly reaping the consequences of that decision.
“Wait! I need to get to the back— I need to get to Volt and Eddie!” You’re pretty sure someone (or several someones, actually) just tripped over you, and something suspiciously wet and showerhead-shaped just whacked you upside the head as you fought against the current. “Excuse me… Hey, ow!”
Needless to say, there is only one of you, and like, fifty of them, so you don’t stand much of a chance. Also, you are pretty sure that you hear Freddy Yeti in the crowd somewhere and the alcohol is starting to kick in, so that just completely demolishes your chances of making it out of this stampede.
When you finally do come to again, you realize with a start that you’re not in the Breaker Box. It’s still dark, yes, but that’s the dark of your hallway. Your glasses sit askew on your head, having been knocked off Johnny Splash’s showerhead made contact with your forehead. There’s a small welt forming there, but you barely feel anything as you scramble to align them properly on your face.
Immediately you’re at the Breaker Box’s doors again, wasting no time to head inside. It’s pitch black, just like before— plus, your head is swimming— so you take a God-awful long time feeling your way through the dark to make sure you don’t bump into a chair or slip on a spilled drink. Once you’re close enough to the back you make out the familiar, faint glow along with a pair of hushed, pained voices.
“Stop— Eddie please— Just let me go out. You’re going to fry yourself completely!”
“I said no, Volt. I can fix this. I will.”
“Eddie…”
That’s where you find the source hunched over on the storeroom floor, Volt's hair emitting just enough light to illuminate the cramped space. You probably would’ve been marveling over the glowing hair for longer if the two of them didn’t look as exhausted as they did right now.
Eddie fiddles desperately with the power grid, shaking his head. “—Fuck’s sake, Volt, I’m not letting you go out, okay?! We both know what that could mean and… I’m not… I can’t… I can’t go back to being alone.”
“You can’t keep splitting yourself up like this. If you do, then…!”
“—Guys?”
They both stop talking at the sound of your voice. Volt squints at you in the dark, moving with great effort to stand once he recognizes it’s you, but Eddie holds him back. “Live wire—”
“It’s fine. She deserves to know.”
Eddie closes his eyes before exhaling deeply. He leans back against the controls, seemingly unable to even stand. “I’m failing. The power is failing, and I can’t stop it.”
Your heart breaks for him. You’ve never heard him sound any more defeated as he explains how it first happened— the small surges, random fluctuations. How he thought that if he could outlast it, everything would eventually balance out and everyone would be safe. Doing so, however, only exacerbated the problem.
“—Me. My faulty wire. I was the problem. But I couldn’t stop. Everyone around the house still needed me, and I needed help. So, I gave it to myself,” he continues, clutching his shoulder. “I… I split myself. So there was more of me to go around.”
“You made Volt?” you guessed, a bit too loudly as you blink between the two of them with eyebrows raised in drunken fascination. That… That kind of explained a lot. That self-sacrificial work ethic, the way the two deflected danced around their problems when things got heavy.
Your gaze flick over to the aforementioned man. “So, like… What does that make him?”
“Someone who is perfectly capable of hearing you, thank you very much.”
“Shit. Sorry,” you say quickly, frowning as embarrassment floods your cheeks. “I just… I was just curious. I just meant that… you’re important. Obviously. I care about the both of you, you know?”
Eddie grits his teeth. “We’re not one thing. But we’re not two things, either. We’re connected. Ugh, fuck…” The electrical grid behind him flickers and crackles once again, and he whimpers like he’s been shot. “This club has to run. It’s power, it’s light and heat and energy. It’s everything. And I have to have Volt to make it work.”
“It was supposed to be temporary,” Volt interjects, biting his lip as he steadies his counterpart against the wall. “It only slowed things down by spreading out the power. But then, even that became too much. And now maintaining me is draining him just as much as…”
“Just stop, I already told you.”
“—Eddie, everyone still needs you. It’s my job to protect you, even from yourself.”
“We’re not doing it, it’s too risky!”
You stumble a little closer to them, trying not to sway so much. “Okay, okay, no more yelling. Show me where it hurts. Tell me how I can help you guys.”
“The faulty wire,” Volt mutters quietly.
The mention of it sends Eddie scrambling back to his feet again, shaking his head vehemently. “Volt, don’t!”
“Listen to me. You have to fix the wire and reset the system,” Volt tells you anyway, calm and steady.
“—If you do that, Volt could disappear. I don’t know if I could bring him back! Please, you can’t!”
“If I fix the wire and reset the system…” you parrot, blinking hard as you try to grasp the proposed solution. Half your brain is still trying to catch up, slow and syrupy. You try to piece it together out loud as your eyes dart between the two of them. “So that would mean… we won’t need two versions of you guys anymore?”
There’s a pause. A long, cold pause.
Eddie stares at you like you’ve just punched him in the chest.
“What the fuck…?” he breathes, voice low and trembling.
Volt watches with a sigh, his expression unreadable. “That’s true…”
“What?” you ask, confused. You’re not sure why they’re looking at you like that, not really. The room tilts slightly, and it’s not because of the alcohol. “Why are you—?”
“That’s bullshit,” Eddie cuts in. His head snaps towards Volt, offended he’d even agree with you. “You’re seriously agreeing with that?”
That’s when it hits you, far too late, and it feels like someone’s dumped a bucket of ice over your head. The way you said it. The way they heard it. “Wait, wait— No, no, I didn’t mean…”
Your mind is racing a million miles an hour, trying to salvage the situation. Nothing but blunder after blunder tonight. Eddie’s called you tons of things before, but he’s never exploded on you like this.
“I’m sorry, Eddie, Volt, I wasn’t thinking—”
“No, you weren’t! Because you don’t think,” He turns back to you, his voice cracking as it rises. “You think this is some kind of broken toy scenario? You think you can press a button and it’ll all be fine? Fix the wire, toss the spare, and everything’s all good again?”
“That’s not what I meant,” you assert quietly, holding your ground as much as it hurts hearing these words.
“That’s what it sounded like,” Volt muttered, folding his arms as he looked away.
“Sure, sure,” Eddie continues, fighting back a particularly agonized groan as the circuitry behind him continues to buzz weakly. “You waltz in here playing savior when you don’t even know what the hell you’re saying!”
You gasp, hurt, but then something in you snaps too.
“Playing savior!”
You’re not sure where the hell you get the balls to talk back, but something in you refuses to just sit there and take it. Maybe it’s the whiskey sour still in your system. “Are you serious? I come here every week, every day. All I do is help! I do repairs, I change lightbulbs behind the scenes—”
“You what?” Volt blinks, clearly having been unaware of all the times you’ve stopped by the Breaker Box to help his counterpart whenever the power seemed especially weak. “Eddie, you let her—”
“Obviously, I’m realizing now that I never should have!”
“—I even play along with both your little games, pretending everything’s fine and dandy, sure!” You laugh airily, but it’s biting, even to you. “Yes, let’s all hold hands and sing kumbaya while the whole damn club falls apart around us!”
“Well no one fucking asked you to!” Eddie fires back. It stings a lot more than it should have.
“Oh, so that’s how you want to play it?” The alcohol fuels your voice as you blurt out things you know are damaging— things you don’t even mean. “Well! Maybe if you weren’t strong enough to handle things on your own, maybe Volt should just take over! Or maybe Volt is holding you back and making you worse! How about that, jackass?”
You’re heaving by the end of your little spiel.
The small, fleeting spark of victory you feel? It dies the second you see Eddie's curled lip. He doesn’t yell back like you’re expecting. “I— …I knew I shouldn’t have let you in.”
Then, just like you, that little bit of hurt explodes into white-hot rage once again. “The fuck do you know?” he shouts, louder than ever. “Get out. Get the fuck out!”
“Back to kicking me out?” you hiss, blinking rapidly. You’re not entirely surprised, but it doesn’t hurt any less. The tone of his voice is sobering.
“Alright, that’s it.” Volt, who had been silent the whole time, finally gets to his feet. His entire form is blue all over, swathing the entire storeroom in an harsh, blinding light. His hair is more out of control than ever, the coils crackling and popping violently as they weave erratically through the air like a nest of lethal snakes. The change makes you flinch in its abruptness.
“He said, LEAVE.”
“Oh, I’m fucking leaving, alright!”
Just before you can spin around (so as to not show them the hot tears streaming down your face), the sound of an explosion echoes throughout the room as the power surges— and then Eddie is gone.
YOU’RE REDUCED TO TEARS ONCE AGAIN as your story comes to a close, the events prior still so fresh in your mind, and all Beverly can do is sit there and rub circles into your back.
“And— And— And when I opened my eyes again it was just Volt and… he said I was exhausting,” you slur through your tears, burying your face in your arms once more. “I tried saying sorry, but— fuck, who am I kidding, I deserve it.”
“You don’t deserve it,” Beverly consoles, handing you another tissue from behind the bar. “I mean, they said some pretty shitty stuff too.”
“No, but I started it.” You take the tissue without even looking up, blowing your nose. “And I didn’t have to make it worse. It was bad enough already. I just had to fan the flames—”
“Which they poured gasoline right over,” she cut in, shaking her head, “Everyone was pissed off and running on fumes, right? Of course you’re all gonna say dumb things.”
“Yeah, I know that, it just… It just sucks, you know? I told myself I was alright just being friends with them, but I never wanted them to hate me!”
She watches as you let out another sniffle, miserably dragging a hand across your tear-streaked face. Seriously, once she gets her hands on the two idiots that made you this way, she would never let them hear the end of it.
“I mean— God, I thought I could handle it,” you keep rambling, your voice a trembling whisper, “I thought if I just made my peace with it, I could stay close to them and everything would be fine, but then I opened my mouth and ruined everything.”
You take a shuddering breath and close your eyes before your expression cracks again. It’s like you’re trying to convince her of this fact. She can tell it’s cathartic for you to tell someone who is actually listening, so she stays silent.
“I keep on replaying it in my head. It was like I was eager. For Volt to go away. I wasn’t, Bev!”
“I know you weren’t.”
“And I said all this cruel stuff about Eddie being weak, and— and Volt holding him back. I didn’t mean it.”
“I know you didn’t.”
“And I ruined everything. Eddie’s gone, Volt hates me— they both do— and I… I don’t know what to do.”
Beverly silently decides that she’s had enough of hearing you putting yourself down like this. Hate? Hate is Harper screaming about Dirk hooking up with the Hanks. Hate is the grudge Daisuke harbors because Scandalabra keeps spreading the rumor that his silverware was counterfeit. But this thing between you, Eddie, and Volt? Furthest thing.
“Look,” she sighs, choosing her words carefully. She doesn’t want you reaching for another bottle again. “Bottom line, you got flamed over a slip-up you made while you were tipsy. People say a lot of stupid things when they’re drunk. …Trust me, I know.”
So should Eddie— he made you that whiskey sour himself. He and Eddie were arguing with someone who clearly wasn’t sober. Tsk, tsk. Boys, she thinks.
“Well, what about the power?” You sniffle, the tears starting to dry. Finally it seems her words are striking a chord within you. “Volt said… He said, no more sacrificing for this ungrateful house.”
“Again, said while angry… He didn’t mean it.”
“I mean, I dunno. Sounded like he kind of did mean it after Eddie disappeared,” you mutter, crossing your arms. Your eyes widen as you grapple with the next thought: “Everyone’s gonna hate me once the power gets cut.”
She actually has to scoff at this one. You seriously have got to stop thinking everyone hates you.
“Moonshine, this is your house. No one’s going to hate you because Eddie and Volt cut the power.”
All you do in response is just let out a soft sigh. At least you’ve stopped saying you deserve it, so maybe that’s a little better?
“…Now what?” you ask after a couple of long seconds, finishing up the rest of the water in your cup.
Beverly hums, glancing back up at the clock. It’s 2:47 AM now. Like a good friend does, she helps you off the barstool and catches you when you stumble. “Let’s… just get you to bed so you can sleep it off. We can figure it out in the morning. Do you think you can walk upstairs on your own or should I call Dorian?”
“I’m fine, I’m fine, Bev,” you assert, as if you hadn’t just tripped over your own two feet just ten seconds ago. Right after the words leave your mouth, you bump into one of the tables.
“…Sure.”
She sighs as she slings one of your arms over her shoulder. Beverly has a feeling that the next few days are going to be some very, very long ones.