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1. Winnifred
Winnifred waited patiently until the new impresario of the Breaker Box was distracted with Cam throwing a fit — secretly on her behalf, though he hadn’t needed much persuading. Apparently smoking cigarettes indoors was one of the trash can’s hobbies.
She tapped her nails on the bar and allowed herself a few seconds of watching this white-haired man who had introduced himself as ‘Volt’ to the house. Even clearly frustrated with Cam as he was, he was all smiles and exaggerated hand gestures. Cam seemed immune to his charms, but Winnie understood why many other objects in the house weren’t. Why Eddie wasn’t.
Certain Volt was sufficiently preoccupied, Winnie turned around and reached across the bar counter, brushing her fingers against the bartender’s wrist.
“C’mere, sugar,” she whispered, just for him. “Don’t argue. Just walk me back a minute.”
Eddie raised an eyebrow, but nevertheless obeyed, used to her ways. He put down the towel he had slung over his shoulder. She guided him to the back, stopping next to the walk-in where they were well out of sight from the bar room.
It had been a few years since she’d been in the backrooms of the Breaker Box. She used to come here all the time, helping Eddie carry heavy beer kegs or playfully teasing him about her ability to reach the high shelves without a stepladder.
She and Eddie were old friends, almost as old as the house itself. He used to be like a little brother to her — though if she had said so aloud, he’d have argued that he was installed a few weeks before her, so technically, he had seniority. That was back when they still bantered, when the circles around Eddie’s eyes weren’t quite so stark.
He was a different man now, just as the back hallway was different. She had caught wind of the plans of renovations, turning the dive bar into a well and true nightclub, complete with fancy lights and velvet curtains. Multiple objects in the hallway pointed to the shift already in motion. Uninstalled neon decorations with a new, flashy logo, coils of expensive-looking cables stacked by the mop sink, even a gleam of chrome from some DJ equipment waiting to be unboxed.
The old Breaker Box had always been a little ramshackle, just as Winnie liked it. Volt intended to sand down the rough edges, which was fine by her — he was co-owner now, apparently, and he had that right.
What he didn’t have any rights to, was Eddie.
She rested her hand flat against the cool steel of the walk-in door, then turned on Eddie. Not harsh, but close, close enough he couldn’t squirm away. “Tell me true. Are you safe with that boy? Do I need to run him outta here myself?”
Eddie blinked, clearly blindsided. “What?”
“You heard me.” She crossed her arms, trying her best to look stern, but failing because her concern was thick in her voice. “If you so much as feel cornered, if he’s pushin’ on you in ways you don’t want, you tell me now. I’ll handle it. You know I will.”
“For amp’s sake, Winn,” he muttered. He gave her that flat look he’d been perfecting since the seventies, the one that said don’t start. “Would you stop? I already told you—”
“No, Eds, you didn’t.” She stepped closer, searching his exasperated face. Less tired than usual, but that didn’t mean much. “You said you trust him. You said he’s helpin’ you. But I ain’t askin’ about trust or help. I’m askin’ if you’s safe. If he’s touchin’ you, pressurin’ you, twistin’ things so you can’t say no.”
“I’m not interested—”
“Just ‘cuz you don’t want people like that, don’t mean people ain’t gonna try.”
Please, she tried to find the words to say. Please know to accept help if you need it.
It wasn’t that she thought Eddie couldn’t hold his own. She had seen him deal with plenty of drunk objects over the years, some of whom had long since been thrown away because of how unstable they had been. Eddie had always dealt with them with little issue.
But this wasn’t about the in-your-face kinda aggression like that. This was the slow kind of taking — soft words, possessive intentions, favors that stack up until they look like debts.
Volt was new in the house, having suddenly sprung into existence, and everyone already loved him. They were all fine with Eddie saying he also owned the Breaker Box now. All fine with the way Volt touched Eddie’s waist in passing, with how he always seemed to be in Eddie’s vicinity.
Winnie was less fine with it. She cared about Eddie too much to just let this pass without throwing out some hard, ugly questions.
She could very well be dead wrong, but she’d feel better about having asked.
Eddie’s mouth tightened, lips a neat hyphen. He crossed his arms, closing himself off from her like he’d been doing for years. “He’s a friend. Nothing to it.”
“I’ve had folks look at me the way he’s lookin’ at you. Never had them wanna be just friends.”
“Look, I’ve talked with him. I trust him, okay? So quit fussing about me like my circuits are still new.”
Winnie took a deep breath, forcing the water in her tank to cool down a few degrees. Her first instinct was to push until she’d break through those walls of his, but that never went over well. She didn’t appreciate it when others did it to her either. So instead, she took a moment, and studied him.
He did… look better than the last time she’d seen him. More healthy, less tired. The circles under his eyes he’d worn for the last two or three decades were mostly gone, and his hands didn’t have their usual tremor in them.
Maybe… maybe this boy could be good for him.
“All right,” she said finally. “You’re grown. I trust you. Don’t you go makin’ me a liar though — if anything ever feels wrong, you call for me. I don’t care if it’s two in the mornin’ or hell’s bells itself is knockin’ at your door. I’ll be there.”
“Right,” Eddie sighed. “Sure. Thanks, Winn.” He made to walk back, but turned around halfway through. “And don’t give him whatever your version of a shovel talk is.”
She let a small smile curve her lips, just for herself, and hummed noncommittally in the back of her throat. “We’ll see.”
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2. Scandalabra
Scandalabra was having a brilliant time listening to the sound of his own voice, even though the music coming from the newly-installed speakers was just a tad too loud for his tastes. Yet this was his only point of criticism after the Breaker Box’s renovations; the old place had been turned into something truly magnificent, far beyond its drab past state.
Across from him sat Volt, one arm draped along the back of the chair. He was smiling — not the big stage smile he threw at the crowd during the Open Spotlight shows, but the small, indulgent one that meant you amuse me, so I’ll allow it. Volt wasn’t much for sharing gossip — a tragedy, because bartenders knew all the good stuff — but he usually didn’t mind hearing of other people’s escapades.
Today, though, Scandalabra had not simply come to supply. He had come to collect.
“Oh,” he began innocently after finishing his speculations of all the kinky shit he was sure Friar Errol was up to, “another rumor has reached my ears, through channels most labyrinthine, one that you might be interested to hear about.”
Volt just raised an eyebrow for him to continue on. Scandalabra set his glass of red wine down and steepled his fingers, gaze sharpening like a falcon homing in on prey.
“I heard that our dear Eddie has recently… how shall I phrase it… partaken in the most clandestine of trysts with none other than Kopi, purveyor of bean and froth! Imagine! The very audacity! The sheer intrigue!”
Utter fabricated bullshit, of course; Scandalabra had never heard of Eddison Watts doing anything remotely exciting or interesting in his life. But there had to be some freaky shit hidden underneath the floorboards of this bar, something related to the way those two would never answer a question straight, to how Volt looked ready to murder someone for breathing wrong in Eddie’s direction.
Volt tilted his head, a lock of white hair falling across his cheek. He regarded Scandalabra with that half-smile, the one that said he was more entertained than irritated — for now.
“Really now,” he said easily, “and where exactly did you hear this?”
Scandalabra let out a soft gasp, fluttering a hand to his chest as though Volt’s skepticism wounded him personally. “Why, from the whispers of the very air, my dear! From the murmurs between the steam and the beans themselves! But… I cannot help but wonder how such a revelation — truly scandalous, is it not? — might affect the… delicate balance of your own… associations with Eddie.”
Volt leaned back, an unimpressed grin tugging his lips up. “Associations, you say?” He allowed the word to linger, just long enough to make Scandalabra’s eyes glimmer with anticipation. “Interesting turn of phrase.”
C’mon, everyone knows you two are fucking. He very nearly rolled his eyes, but that wouldn’t be very ‘fancy silver candelabra’ of him, so he didn’t.
“So, what do you think of this shocking revelation? Any… reaction you’d care to share?”
Volt laughed. Not a charming chuckle, but a sudden bark, sharp and abrupt as breaking bone.
“Tell me,” he said, grin widening beyond what would count as natural, “do you ever tire of spinning threads that lead nowhere?”
For the first time all night, Jon felt the prickle of sweat at the back of his neck. Not that Scandalabra would ever let it show. He raised his posture, offended. “To suggest I, humble conduit of the house’s whispers, would invent! I merely polish the rumors until they sparkle.”
“Then I suggest you polish that one until it disappears.”
Shit, he was getting stonewalled. He needed a different route, maybe a more direct one.
“Very well, if you wish, I shall leave this rumor to lie dormant. But I must ask, how is the tempest within the waters of your noble heart at this very moment?” Scandalabra leaned back with the air of a courtier observing a duel. “One cannot help but wonder if there exists, perhaps, a certain… proprietary interest? A claim? Dare I suggest a possessiveness of the most delectable sort?”
Volt’s grin thinned. All of a sudden, the amusement was gone, and in its place was something quite intimidating.
“My dear, it seems you’ve mistaken your role here,” he said slowly, uncrossing his legs. “I listen to your stories. I do not perform them for your amusement.”
Scandalabra’s chest puffed out, instinctively ready to defend his courtly persona, but Volt wasn’t finished. He flexed his fingers, and a faint blue spark danced along his fingertips, casting light across the table.
“Do be careful,” he said. “Your tales are… delightful. But push them too far, and they tend to ignite.” He lazily moved the hand through the air, and the spark leapt a fraction toward the wick balanced precariously atop Scandalabra’s wax wig. With a soft hiss, the wick caught, flaring to life.
Jon froze.
“Ah… most… enlightening,” he managed, his fake accent slipping. “I will, of course, temper my inquisitiveness, before such a… misadventure befalls me.”
“Good,” Volt smiled, and he sat back with an air of dark satisfaction.
Okay, okay, maybe I need to cool it before I end up crispy, Jon thought.
Let those boys keep their secrets. It would only make it all the more juicy once whatever they were obfuscating would eventually come to light.
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3. Reggie
Reggie always boasted that he could smell heartbreak from a mile away. An exaggeration, perhaps, but it was true that there was always a particular scent in the air when he sensed the complicated emotions that came with a rejection.
He had expected to smell it in the Breaker Box — the bar was crowded, and there was always some petty drama happening between the many objects residing in this house. He had not, however, expected it to come from dear Eddie Watts.
Outwardly, the bartender was not showing any signs of it. No puffy eyes, no trembling lips. Yet Reggie had seen him refill his own glass of whiskey three times already. That was a bit much, even for a functioning alcoholic.
Reggie swirled his drink — a cosmopolitan, pink and perfectly frosted in its stemmed glass. “Eddie,” he purred, leaning forward over the bar top, chin propped in his hand. “My, my, my. You’re carrying something heavy tonight, aren’t you?”
“Dunno what you’re talking about,” Eddie responded evenly, not meeting his eyes as he poured a whiskey and Coke for another patron.
Reggie clucked his tongue softly, as if Eddie were a child fumbling through a lie. He sipped his cosmo, leaving a faint gloss print on the rim. “You know playing coy with me won’t work, Eddison. We all have our purposes. This is mine. I live for this. So tell me. Who broke your little, wiry heart?”
Eddie set the whiskey and Coke down and gave Abel, who kindly took it, a nod. Reggie closely watched him, and only because he was doing so, caught the way his eyes darted at Volt, chatting with a few patrons, being a good host.
“No,” Reggie fake-gasped, holding a hand in front of his mouth as if in total shock, as if he hadn’t guessed this from the start. “Don’t tell me you and Volt… Everyone was rooting for you two.” He tilted his head, letting the words drip with performative pity. “Your little lightning bug seemed so taken with you, too.”
“Drop it,” Eddie said again, firmer this time. “He didn’t reject me, ‘kay? So there’s nothing to talk about. We just aren’t… on the same page.”
The pause there was load-bearing.
“Right, right, mismatched chemistry. Happens all the time. One person burns bright, the other just—” he wiggled his fingers vaguely, “—doesn’t quite spark.”
Eddie’s jaw tightened, the muscles in his cheek twitching. He busied himself with pouring another drink, one no one had asked for, the bones of his knuckles sticking out as skin stretched pale around the glass.
Reggie relished the way he was pressing the other man’s buttons. “Mm, tragic, really,” he went on. “And I thought you two were adorable. But I suppose there’s always something, isn’t there? Something that makes people… less than ideal to love. So, Eddie, was it something you did, or was it simply because of who you are?”
“Shut. The fuck. Up.”
Reggie arched his brows, his smile widening. “Ohhh. Did I hit a nerve?”
The rag dropped. Eddie’s hand shot out, grabbing the heavy glass cocktail shaker beside him. Before Reggie could blink, it connected with his cheekbone. The force of it nearly sent him tumbling off his stool.
The bar went silent.
He straightened slowly, dabbing at the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. Blood beaded prettily on his lip. Yet still, he smirked. He was not above a catfight, enjoyed them, even. “Toucy, touchy.”
“Stay out of my business,” Eddie snapped, breath sharp through his teeth. His shoulders trembled with rage.
Bulbs flickered overhead.
Like being drawn by the sudden boom of thunder, all heads turned toward Volt, who stood across the room, eyes boring into Reggie, his skin taking on a light blue hue.
Reggie, dreads mussed, gave a brittle laugh, squaring himself up for another spat. However, when Volt stalked over, he did not head for Reggie, not at first. He went to Eddie.
“Hey,” Volt murmured, sliding in close behind the bar. With a hand, he held the back of Eddie’s neck, and pulled him toward him so their foreheads were touching. “Breathe with me, alright? In, out. Easy now.”
Eddie shut his eyes, chest heaving. He didn’t flinch away from Volt’s touch, almost seemed to lean into it, even.
Reggie blinked, his smugness faltering for the first time. This was not what rejection looked like. This was not how exes acted. Volt’s thumb was rubbing slow circles into Eddie’s tense muscles, his other hand gently prying the cocktail shaker from his white-knuckled grip.
“…Well,” Reggie drawled, but his tone lacked its usual bite. “That’s not exactly what I’d call mismatched chemistry.”
Volt finally turned his head toward him, still keeping a steadying hand on Eddie’s neck. His eyes glowed faintly, blinding white with an electric-blue rim, and the temperature in the room seemed to drop a degree. “You need to leave,” he said flatly.
Yeah, yeah. That was how things usually went for Reggie. He downed his cosmo, blew a kiss to Eddie just to be annoying, and left the bar, enjoying the ways half the crowd was watching him.
He did not mind the bar ban he assumed he’d won tonight. What nagged at him more was that it seemed like his ability to sense a failed relationship had failed him.
But, oh well. First time for everything.
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4. Betty
Betty laughed softly, almost giddy, as she let herself fall backward onto the soft mattress of her bed. Her hair fanned out against the pillow, and she stretched lazily, catlike, toes curling as a pleased sigh escaped her lips. “Wow, that was really something.”
Volt was already half-sat up, one hand swiping through his white mane, the other gesturing vaguely toward the ceiling as if to say, of course, what else did you expect?
For a few moments, neither of them spoke, chests rising and falling until their breaths evened out. Betty made a playful grab for Volt’s hand, and tugged him down to lie next to her. She tilted her head up, brushing a kiss against his jaw, then let her body melt into his. The warmth between them hummed like a cozy hearth.
Truth be told, this part of sex was always her favorite. Not the act itself, as thrilling and dizzying as it had been, but the quiet afterward. The little afterglow in which the world shrank to her, the softness of the mattress, and her lover.
She giggled into his skin, tracing idle shapes across the hard line of his collarbone. “You know,” she murmured, voice lazy-sweet, “I’m real glad you and Eddie are good about sharing. Makes things simpler. More fun too.”
Volt cocked his head, winding a finger through one of her ringlet curls. “Sharing?”
“Hmhmm. I really thought you two were exclusive, that’s why I was surprised, at first, when you, well… responded to me, the way you did.” She had flirted with Volt earlier this evening more out of habit than expectation, a little spark of mischief she never thought would actually turn into this. “Not that I’m complaining, of course.”
Volt gave an amused chuckle, shaking his head. “My sweet, I am positively flattered at your imagination — but no. Eddie and I are not lovers. We are merely friends.”
Betty propped her chin on her hand, watching him with a sleepy, knowing little smile. “Mm. If you say so.”
She knew Eddie, knew how closed off, how private he was. If he didn’t want anyone to know, she wasn’t about to push. Let those two boys play coy. She saw how they acted around each other.
Nothing “merely friends” about that.
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5. Nightmare
Nightmare rarely visited Volt specifically. She sometimes saw him, since Eddison Watts was a regular stop of hers.
Eddison was a complex case, yet one she frequently cracked. His fears were mostly of an existential nature, and that wasn’t fully her domain. There was overlap, though, and she was quite proud of the scenarios she had conjured up for him.
But the man he sometimes shared his bed with? He was an oddity.
By all means, Volt’s fears were quite straightforward, easy to play with. Losing Eddie. Simple as that. Yet his mind rarely called to her, and when it did, the nightmares she made never quite seemed to make an impact.
Tonight, she told herself, that would be different. She zoned in on Volt, ignoring the other man he was wrapped around in the bed. Taking a deep breath through all four of her mouths, she sank into her inky void, where reality was what she said it was.
“You are in the grid room,” she decided to start. Around her, Volt’s memories supplied her with the accurate surroundings. A claustrophobic room with switchboards lining up every space on the walls. “You are looking for Eddie, he should be here, where is he?”
The dream version of Volt looked around, worried, unaware of her presence, of how she was toying with him.
“Your heart turns to ice when you hear him. Hear him scream. A scream unlike you have ever heard before. It cuts through you. You start running, start chasing that sound.”
Though the grid room was in actuality not very large, Nightmare easily, almost lazily twisted the logic of this realm to make it an endless hallway, made the walls bend and twist like molten metal, stretching impossibly into shadows that swallowed the fluorescent lights. She let this hopeless chase continue for a while, until Volt’s desperate cries started to bore her.
“There he is,” she said softly, like whispering to a newborn. “You see him, lying prone on the floor. His face is pale, lips quivering, sweat glistening like tiny shards of glass across his skin. His screams have stopped. Why have they stopped? Is he better, or— is he dying? Are you too late?”
Volt’s eyes were locked on Eddie’s prone form. The light in the hallway warped and flickered, casting shadows that writhed like fingers over the floor. The impulse from Volt to sprint over to his partner was very strong, but Nightmare forced him to freeze, a simple sleep paralysis trick.
“Every second you are not strong enough to go to him, the agony deepens, and yet, Volt, you can’t move. Because you know it’s your fault. You would have broken the world for him. You promised, you swore, and here you are, utterly powerless.”
She let him stew in this delicious, all-consuming fear for a minute. His quickened heartbeat was like music to her theriocephalic ears. Then, like snipping a marionet’s strings, she undid the paralysis. He shot forward like an arrow, kneeling down next to Eddie, his lips forming words but making no sound.
“Your hands,” Nightmare continued mercilessly, “are empty, grasping at nothing but air. Then you do make contact, and you wish you hadn’t. His skin tears like paper under your hands. You are making it worse. You have always made things worse.”
Tears were rolling down his cheeks. How tragic. Could she make this more tragic? Push this so he would wake up with those wet streaks on his cheeks as well?
“Do you feel it, Volt? Every heartbeat that fails him, every breath that does not come— your hands are fire, your love is flame, and yet it burns him instead of healing. Do you see what you have wrought? A world where saving him is impossible, where your touch is destruction, where every attempt is agony made flesh.”
Volt’s sobs choked in his throat, his body trembling, but he could not look away. Eddie’s form flickered like a dying hologram.
“And still,” she murmured, close enough now that her voice brushed against his ear, “you press your lips to his. A kiss, anguished, desperate, full of the longing to fix what cannot be fixed.”
Volt followed her directions like an obedient actor. Nightmare licked her own lips in delight. Perfect. Now— the big finale, a terrible consequence for daring to think his tender touches could do anything but hurt. “He…” she began. And stopped.
…huh.
What?
Volt pulled back from Eddie’s lips, his brow furrowed. He blinked, eyes narrowing slightly. Something in her previous phrasing didn’t compute, an error even in this realm of dream logic.
“Confusion,” she mumbled aloud, having lost control of the narrative. “Why did you kiss him? You do not want to kiss him. Because he does not want you to kiss him. A paradox unfolds like feedback. It—”
And like that, the last dredges of her control slipped from her grasp. The nightmare melted away. The dream version of Volt looked up from Eddie’s form, dripping like wax, and met her eyes straight on.
“Nightmare?” he asked, still a little dazed. “What— why did you make me—?” His hands still hovered above Eddie, the room around them slowly solidifying into the actual memory of the grid room, simple and plain, instead of the twisted version of it Nightmare had made up.
He did not, overall, seem very perturbed by Nightmare having just made him go through his greatest fear. She could gather from his emotions that he knew it to be her nature, just as his was to surge. No, what he felt was a sort of affronted confusion; why did you make me kiss Eddie?
Nightmare did not immediately answer. She felt… uncomfortable, being observed and caught in the act like this. And yet, it was her own fault. She had acted on assumptions.
“You two are… not together,” she said slowly, attempting to lay it out clear for herself.
Volt did not answer. His emotions were a tangle Nightmare could not pull a conclusion out of. He was still crouched next to Eddie, almost blocking him from her in a protective manner, even though this was only a figment of his own imagination.
“You are aware you’re sharing a bed,” she argued against his glaring silence.
“You don’t visit him as much when we’re sharing a bed.”
That… was correct. Not an active decision on her part, of course — she simply felt the call to visit Eddie more often when he was alone. She cocked her equine head.
“I apologize,” she decided. “I will make sure any future nightmares will be more accurate.”
Volt sighed. It was not a happy sigh, but Nightmare was used to that response. “Wonderful.”
“Until next time,” she said, nodding her heads in goodbye. She released her hold on Volt’s mind, and the last tendrils of the dream unspooled, folding into black. In the physical realm, Volt jolted away, immediately checking up on the still-sleeping man next to him.
From the shadows, Nightmare watched how looking at Eddie’s sleeping countenance seemed to calm him down.
An oddity, indeed, she thought as she let herself drift away from the Breaker Box, to new infant horrors that needed her tending.
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+ 1. Livewire
Your chest was still racing from before, from desperately trying to convince Eddie to reset the power, from trying to fix the wiring against the clock. The adrenaline hadn’t fully let go; your palms felt a little damp, the back of your neck hot. But there was another reason your heart felt like a jackhammer just under your ribs, that reason being the way these two men looked at you, soft, wanting.
“We would be delighted to have you,” Volt smiled, offering out a hand as if he was inviting you onto a stage.
“Yes please, give me that Volt-Eddie sandwich!” you laughed, taking his hand and letting him twirl you on your feet.
His arm froze mid-spin as you said those words, and you stumbled a little before catching yourself, nearly crashing into a bar stool. You blinked up at them. Volt’s arm was still hovering, Eddie’s brow furrowed and looking away from you as though he’d just remembered he’d left the oven on. The energy in the room shifted — lighthearted a moment ago, suddenly more uncertain now.
You steadied yourself, then filled the silence with a truth that was waiting there anyway. “Oh. Unless you two are…” You gestured between them vaguely, your hand making a little loop as though it could tie them together. “Not like that.”
They shared a look that must be transferring some kind of telepathic message, with how meaningful it came across. Volt cleared his throat, and he gave you that showman smile, the one that never quite reached his eyes, the one you had started to learn was so, so different from the tenderness he could also display. “Correct. Eddie and I— we are not lovers.”
Eddie coughed into his fist, cheeks coloring faintly. “Or— uh, anything like that. I don’t… I don’t do sex. Not really interested. Never was. Kinda makes my skin crawl.”
Volt, smoothly, added, “And I do not… how shall I put it? Fall in love.” He gave a little shrug, seeming uncharacteristically apologetic. “Or at least, I never have, so far. But I do not think it will.”
“It’s…” Eddie started, grimacing like talking about this was like pulling teeth. “It’s not that we’re not aware we… look like that, I guess. People always assume. But it’s not what this is. We… tried.” That little light that had sparked in his eyes before had dimmed again, and he was back to seeming uncomfortable in his own skin. “It didn’t work out.”
“We are both attracted to each other, in our own ways. Sadly, not in the… compatible sense.” Volt’s voice was softer now, tinged with regret. He glanced at Eddie, as if to say should we even be explaining this at all? The fact that they even were talking about this meant that they trusted you deeply, that was very clear to you.
You nodded slowly, letting them both see you weren’t disappointed. “I get it. I really do.”
They both looked at you, unsure.
You took a deep breath. “I have this… friend myself. Sam. We’ve known each other since we were six years old.”
You smiled, thinking of her, of the strings of silly texts she sent you this morning. (Wait have you tried using your glasses on the labubu i sent you. Please tell me youve tried the glasses on the labububururu ive sent you. I need this information. (jessica law voice) i need it. I need it for the war)
“We have always been close. Like, really, really close. Inseparable. After college, we tried dating for a while, because there was clearly something between us, something that the people around us said was love.” You shrugged. “They were both right and wrong. We couldn’t make it work, but we didn’t need sex or romance to make what we had special, to be each other’s person. We are in a relationship. Just not the one people think of when they hear that word.”
You thought of Sam, of the way her college boyfriend had broken up with her because he couldn’t accept how much she loved you, too. Of how your parents still stumbled over what to call her, why you still spent Christmas morning together every year, why she was your emergency contact. It had cost misunderstandings and confusion, but it had been worth it.
You saw their faces change as you talked. Eddie’s frown had softened. Now he was watching you with that searching look of his. Volt’s exaggerated grin had turned into something more genuine, a little adoring around the edges.
“Have you… talked about what you do want from each other?” you ventured.
The glance they sent each other, another nervous little conversation happening in silence, confirmed to you that, no, they probably hadn’t. Made sense. These two seemed to be real pros at darting around hard and uncomfortable topics.
“Maybe do that first,” you smiled, and this time you couldn’t help but let a little disappointment slip through, because you felt compelled to add, “and don’t worry about me. If you don’t want me involved while you two figure it out, I totally get that.”
You had run into Reggie a fair amount already. Another rejection wouldn’t permanently shatter your heart. Not when it was for a good cause.
“We… appreciate that,” Volt said quietly, almost hesitantly. “It’s… tricky, to give words to this. We have not considered a possibility in which a label is not something that is required for us.”
Eddie nodded, crossing and uncrossing his arms, shifting slightly on his feet. “Yeah. We’re… not exactly the best at this. Talking, I mean. It’s awkward.” His gaze flicked to Volt again, who offered a reassuring tilt of his head. His ears had gone slightly red. “But— uh. That doesn’t mean I don’t… want to be with you. I do. Just… in my way. Which isn’t—” He gestured vaguely, frustrated with himself, then muttered, “It’s not what you might want from me.”
Volt put his hand on Eddie’s shoulder, giving it a slight squeeze. “And I,” he said, turning to face you once more, “would be delighted to share myself with you in my way. Which I assure you, will be plenty of fun.” He gave you a wink, one that suddenly made the insides of your thighs tingle just the slightest bit. “If you’ll allow such an arrangement.”
Your heart skipped a beat, and you clasped your hands together, holding them in front of your chest that swelled with hope. They still wanted you. Two halves of the same soul, each offering you a place in the middle.
Not the kind of sandwich you joked about earlier. But one that would be more true to all of you. And all the better for it.
“Then…” you said resolutely, “let’s figure this out. Together.”