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THE MUSIC TONIGHT WAS SMOOTH, low, and easy to ignore. Just the way you liked it when you were working. Jazz filtered through the ceiling like warm air through a vent, somewhere between syrupy and sleepy. You figured Volt was the one who queued the playlist. He always had a flair for whatever matched the mood.
The Breaker Box had been packed since noon. A busy crowd, full house. Even Dorian was sitting down with a drink for once. Laughter and conversation echoed against the club’s soft-lit walls. The electricity in the room was both literal and social.
Then thunder rattled through the floorboards.
The dateables jumped slightly at the sudden noise as the lights flickered overhead. You frowned, head turning just in time to see them stabilize again. The lights were steady again, but not confidently so.
Gnawing on your lip, you glanced toward the stage. There was that barely-there wrinkle in Volt’s expression. He was smiling, of course, but something about it didn’t quite reach his eyes.
There’d been a tropical storm hanging over your heads all week. Nothing you could fix, not directly. Power had been temperamental ever since. All anyone could do was ride it out.
Still, your brain wouldn’t stop spiraling. You started running through your mental list, instinctively cataloging all the things you might have to deal with. Hector was still keeping the place warm—bless him. Wyndolyn and Dorian were tucked safely inside, even with the storm. Wallace was holding steady, and you trusted him to keep the foundation solid. Freddy’s pantry stock could last another week if no one got greedy. Everything was holding.
But for how long?
Before you could get too deep into the thought spiral, you felt the press of a familiar thumb smoothing out the worry line between your brows.
"You’ve got that look on your face again," Eddie said, voice low as he slid a glass toward you. Clear soda, fizzy and cold, with a swirly straw already tucked inside. You took it with a sigh, leaning forward to take a sip.
"What look?"
"That look that says you’re about to do something stupid."
"Am not…" you mumbled, but it sounded weak even to you.
The soda was just sweet enough to cut through the buzz of nerves you hadn’t realized were building in your chest. You shifted deeper into your bar stool, knees drawn up against the rung, fingers tapping the condensation on the glass.
The overhead lights flickered again. Barely. But you caught it.
Eddie did too. You could see it in the way his shoulders went tense for just a second before he rolled them back.
The mental checklist flared back to life. The panels in the hallway. The fuse. The fridge temp. Eddie had patched the second-floor lighting loop yesterday but hadn’t looked rested since. Volt hadn’t slept more than four hours in a row all week.
"Don’t," Eddie muttered, like he could hear the thoughts scraping across your brain again.
You didn’t respond.
He leaned in, elbow brushing yours, and reached for the rag in his back pocket like he needed something to do with his hands.
"I didn’t even say anything," you murmured into your straw.
"You don’t need to. I know you." Eddie’s voice softened.
And then—without warning—he leaned in and kissed you.
It was gentle, brief, and entirely grounding. You froze, just long enough to feel it. His lips warm against yours, steady in a way that made the air go quiet in your chest.
When he pulled back, he didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to.
The jazz was still going, curling through the bar like smoke. Volt had shifted the vibe. It was something lighter now, playful and bright. You could hear his voice from the stage, teasing and smooth, filling the room with practiced ease.
You leaned your cheek into your hand. "I just wanna get ahead of things, that’s all. Check the system, run diagnostics, and tighten the grounding lines. It’s not like I’m gonna climb onto the roof during the storm."
"You say that like I haven’t seen you do worse. Remember that time you tried to clean the roof?"
Your face scrunched. "That was one time."
"You nearly fell into the chimney and down into Dante."
"I didn’t! I—" you paused. "...Okay, yeah, I almost did. But that was months ago."
Eddie raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. He didn’t argue. Just passed you a coaster and started wiping down the edge of the counter.
"You always think it’s your job to keep this whole place running. Storm or no storm."
You shifted in your seat. The ice in your glass crackled as it settled.
"I mean, I am the homeowner. Kind of comes with the territory, doesn’t it?"
Eddie made a sound—half snort, half sigh—as he leaned both elbows onto the counter beside you. "That doesn’t mean you’ve got to run yourself into the ground every time the lights flicker."
You didn’t answer right away. The soda fizzed gently between your hands, cool against your palms. Somewhere beyond the curtain, you could hear Volt sweet-talking Keyes into playing again. His voice was always so lilting, persuasive, impossible to say no to.
Eddie didn’t press. He never really did. He just waited, steady and present in the way only Eddie could be. After all, he was wired into the house as much as the breaker box was.
After a beat, you shrugged. "I don’t like sitting still when I know something’s off. You know that."
"Yeah," he said, voice low. "I know."
You both fell quiet again, letting the buzz of the bar fill the space between you. The soft glow of the club shimmered off the countertop. Overhead, the lights gave another little twitch, subtle enough that most people wouldn’t have noticed.
But you noticed. And Eddie noticed you noticing.
You caught his eye before he could say anything. "Just let me take a quick look at the panel. Five minutes!"
He frowned, but only for a second. "Ten minutes," he said. "And if you’re late—even by a second, I’m locking you out of the club."
"Har har," you muttered, rolling your eyes as you slid off the barstool.
You were halfway to removing your glasses when Eddie reached out, catching you gently by the wrist and pulling you closer. He pressed a kiss to your forehead. It was soft, lingering, a silent plea buried in the touch.
"Be careful," he murmured.
"I will," you said, offering a small smile before finally slipping the Dateviators off.
The club vanished in an instant.
Velvet walls dissolved into drywall. Swirling lights became a single flickering bulb overhead. The hum of conversation and jazz cut out like a severed cord, and suddenly you were back in your closet.
You took a breath. Let your eyes adjust.
It always smelled like copper and old detergent in here. Always a little damp, too. It was like the inside of a forgotten washing machine. The fusebox stood open in front of you, wires fanned out like ribs, humming faintly in the quiet.
You knelt and reached for Tony by the handle.
He rattled in protest as you dragged him closer, the sound bouncing off the cramped walls like a warning.
"Just help me out," you sighed, giving his lid a fond pat before popping him open with a familiar, quiet click.
Inside was your usual mess of tools and knick-knacks. They were well-loved, slightly disorganized, but reliable. You got to work without hesitation, sleeves rolled to your elbows, fingers moving with the kind of ease that only comes from years of hands-on labor. It was muscle memory by now. Deep in your bones.
Back in Valdivian, when you worked maintenance for the old residential towers, they’d throw you into half-dead substations at two in the morning with nothing but a rusted flashlight and shitty instant coffee. This? This was nothing. No voltage rating too weird. No wiring tangle too impossible. You’d handled worse on four hours of sleep and a vending machine granola bar.
The breaker panel creaked open.
Inside, it was warm.
…Too warm.
You tapped the voltage reader to a grounding line and frowned. That was way too much draw.
"Okay…" you murmured, eyes narrowing. "Where are you bleeding from?"
You isolated the cluster and went in, easing the insulation aside with your pliers. At first glance, the wire looked fine—dusty, maybe a little worn, but intact.
Then you turned it. Just slightly.
It snapped clean through.
There wasn’t even time to react.
The spark hit fast and hard, punching through your glove like it wasn’t even there. Heat shot through your palm and then the pain followed; Tight, bright, and crawling up your arm like it was trying to burrow beneath the skin.
You jerked back with a choked gasp, slamming into the opposite wall of the closet. The impact knocked the breath right out of you.
"FUCK—!"
You crumpled halfway down the wall, hand clutched to your chest, breath coming shallow and fast. The pain pulsed up your arm, hot and deep. Your fingertips were tingling now, and not in a good way.
Something had torn through. Maybe an arc fault, maybe a surge from the backup line. Whatever it was, it hit harder than you’d expected.
Tony rattled behind you in alarm, one of his hinges clicking open like a gasp.
"I’m fine," you muttered automatically, voice too thin to be convincing.
Tony didn’t buy it. A screwdriver rolled out of his open mouth and tapped your ankle.
You exhaled sharply through your nose and shoved yourself upright again, ignoring the sting climbing up your wrist.
You flexed your fingers. Still moving.
...Eh, that was good enough.
"Right. Just let me finish," you hissed, more to yourself than anyone else.
Tony let out a long creak of protest as you bent back over the panel.
The wire ends blurred slightly as your vision swam, but you blinked it away. You worked one-handed at first. Then both, when you couldn’t reach the fuse clip without your dominant hand. The scorched skin near your knuckles protested every touch, nerves whining under your skin like a frayed cable, but you didn’t stop.
You were in too deep. Literally and figuratively.
The load was unstable, yes—but manageable, if you could redistribute it manually until the storm eased off. You adjusted one of the terminal screws, moving slow and careful to avoid another live burst. Your fingers trembled the whole time, but you forced them steady.
"I’ve got you," you whispered to the wires, not sure if you meant the house or yourself.
Tony squeaked again, louder now.
"Shush," you muttered, not looking back. "I’m already done."
Finally, with a slow exhale, you tightened the last connection. The screw clicked back into place under your trembling fingers, and you reinforced the grounding line with a fresh strip of tape. Your hands weren’t steady, but they were sure. It was done. Stable now.
Or at least as stable as anything could be, with the wind still howling against the siding and the gutters outside wailing.
Looked like the storm had knocked out one of the outdoor subpanels. It sent a surge straight back through the grounding loop. No wonder the readings were jumping earlier. Honestly, it was a miracle the club hadn’t gone dark mid-Volt’s opening.
You sagged back against the wall, letting out a low, shaky breath. "Alright. That should hold. Just need to monitor the current and—"
"Ow!" you yelped when something thwacked you in the shin.
You looked down just in time to see the Dateviators get nudged your way. They scraped across the floor and bumped gently against your foot.
You blinked at them. Then at Tony, whose lid had popped all the way open now, one tiny hinge trembling like a furious eyebrow.
"I know, I know…" you murmured, dragging the glasses toward you with your good hand.
You barely got them to your nose when the space in front of you shimmered. It flickered once and then Tony materialized, right where the fusebox used to be.
"You absolute manic lunatic, what the hell do you think you’re doin’? Huh? This what we’re doin’ now? Fryin’ your fingers like mozzarella sticks on a Tuesday? Do I look like I enjoy seein’ your nervous system light up like Lux!?"
You blinked up at him. "Hi, Tony."
"Don’t 'Hi, Tony' me. Don’t you even start with me right now! You shoulda been toast! I was five seconds away from launching a wrench at your forehead!"
You sat there on the floor, scorched hand cradled carefully in your lap, Tony’s voice ricocheting off the breaker box walls like a one-man riot.
He waggled a finger at you. "Oh-ho-ho, wait till Eddie and Volt sees this. They’re gonna short their whole damn panel—melt the floor—detonate, maybe! I should pop you like a lightbulb myself and save 'em the trouble—"
"Don’t tell them!" you blurted, tugging your jacket sleeve down to cover the burn. "Please, just—just let me fix it before they find out. I can wrap it, I’ll be fine."
Tony stopped mid-stride, arms folding over his strong frame. The look he gave you was somewhere between pity and rage.
"Look, sweetheart. Get your boys to yell at you before I do," he said flatly.
You hesitated. Glanced down at your hand again. The skin was darkened and red, the ache still pulsing from wrist to elbow.
You looked back at Tony. "...They’re gonna freak out."
He raised a brow. "Good."
The Dateviators sat heavy on your nose. Tony just glared.
You sighed. The long, exhausted kind that came from knowing you were very much not in control anymore.
Then you aimed the glasses at the fusebox.
And the world shifted again.
Velvet walls folded in back around you. Warm golden lights washed over polished wood. The club pulsed with life again. There was laughter, clinking drinks, and a low buzz of energy rising.
You swayed a little on your feet. The warp was sharper than usual. It was like the space hadn’t fully settled around you yet. Or maybe that was just the part where your arm still felt like it was on fire.
Tony was still stepping into the fusebox behind you, muttering something under his breath, but you didn’t wait. You slipped away, moving fast through the side hall, ducking through one of the back passages to avoid the club floor. The last thing you wanted was attention. If you could just make it to the storage room, grab some bandages—
"Live wire?"
Eddie.
His voice cut through the air like a breaker snapping back into place.
He didn’t speak, not right away. His boots scuffed once on the tile, and then he just stood there, staring. Like the air had been sucked out of the room.
His eyes found your wrist—burned, half-wrapped in your sleeve—then tracked slowly up to your face.
For a moment, his expression didn’t shift. It didn’t go soft or angry or worried.
It just… paused.
Then he crossed the distance.
"What the hell," he said, voice quiet and flat, and it was somehow so much worse than shouting. "What the hell is this, huh?"
You opened your mouth, but nothing came out. The adrenaline had worn off completely now. Your pulse was crawling, the burn was starting to throb in full force, and all the justifications you’d rehearsed in your head suddenly felt stupid and small.
Eddie didn’t wait for an answer.
"Sit down." He was already dragging a bar stool over, one-handed, like it weighed nothing. "Sit back. Don’t argue."
"I wasn’t gonna—"
"Baby, you're always gonna," he muttered, crouching beside you. His hands were already at work, digging behind the breaker cabinet where he always stashed an emergency kit. "You always do this. Can’t leave well enough alone, can you?"
"I had to—"
“You didn’t.” He didn’t snap it, but the sharpness was there—clean and cutting, wrapped in worry. “You just wanted to. Don’t twist it.”
You tried to explain, voice small. “I didn’t want the load to jump to the upper panel. Volt’s been compensating for the storm. If it caught the stage loop—”
“Oh, so now it’s his fault?” Eddie barked, louder now. “That your wrist looks like it brushed up against a goddamn arc weld? That you didn’t call anyone? You think we wouldn’t have dropped everything?”
“I think you’ve both been working yourselves sick for a week straight,” you said, biting back tears. “And the last thing either of you needed was—”
“Eddie? Live wire?”
Volt’s voice broke through the air like a wire snap. There was a pause, and then his footsteps followed.
"I heard something," he said, rounding the corner. "Tony said something was..." His voice faltered, then dropped.
You didn’t turn. You didn’t have to.
Volt’s eyes landed on your wrist—and he went still. The air around him shifted.
Then his outline flickered.
"What happened."
Blue.
Brilliant, sharp, electric blue. It crawled up his spine in jagged pulses, lighting veins beneath his skin like glass tubing, like lightning caught in a bottle. The whites of his eyes burned.
"Oh. No. No, no, no," he said. But his voice was warping now. It was buzzing at the edges, tinged with a crackle like voltage under strain. He stepped forward, and every step left behind the faintest scorched mark on the floorboards. "You’re joking. You’re—this is a joke, right?"
"Volt—"
"Live wire," he breathed. And your name, on his tongue, was a current. "You’re burned."
"It isn’t—" you started.
"Don’t." His finger pointed at you, trembling with charge. Arcs of light whispered across his knuckles. "Don’t you dare say it wasn’t that bad."
"It was just the panel—"
"Just the panel!?" he echoed.
The lights in the room surged then dipped low. You heard a crack-pop behind the wall. Somewhere behind you, a wire sparked.
You flinched.
Volt was glowing now. His entire form buzzed, casting a ghost-light onto the walls. Blue and unearthly. His voice, when it came, was low and shaking with something barely held back.
"You were working alone," he said, every word echoing, "on a surge panel. In a storm. While both of us were just floors away. And you thought that was fine? That we didn’t need to know?"
You curled in on yourself. His anger wasn’t hot. It was storm-born. Dangerous in the way of lightning you could feel before it hit.
Eddie saw your fear immediately.
"Volt. Calm it," he said tightly. "I let them go. Just didn’t think they’d be this reckless about it."
His voice wasn’t defensive, but it was a grounding wire. Eddie stood firm, and Volt, for all his buzzing edges, met the look and froze. Like he hit resistance.
"They're already hurt," Eddie said again, firm. "Don’t make it worse."
Volt blinked. The light in his skin flickered then dimmed. The hum dropped a few notches, no longer shaking the air.
He exhaled sharply, and the energy recoiled from his hands like it had been shocked. His glow softened to a simmer.
Then he dropped to his knees beside you.
His hand hovered, still faintly glowing. "I’m sorry, live wire," he murmured, voice ragged. "I just—Gods. When I saw your wrist—"
"I know," you whispered. "I just didn’t want to worry you."
Volt made a broken sound and sat down hard beside you.
"Sweetheart," he muttered, dragging his hand down his face. It left a trail of fading light. "That’s the only thing you accomplished."
Eddie didn’t speak right away. He focused on your wrist, peeling your sleeve back carefully.
"Let me see." His voice was back to its steady, quiet steel. "Pulse is fine. No full conduction. Burn’s surface-deep but could’ve been worse. We cool it now."
You hissed when the cold pack hit. Eddie braced your arm gently.
"You scared the shit out of us," he muttered. Still working, still checking. "You didn’t just brush a line. That’s an exit burn. You’re lucky it didn’t arc through your ribs."
"You said ten minutes—" you whispered.
"I said ten minutes," Eddie repeated, "not 'go get electrocuted in the closet.'" His glare wasn’t mean, but the exasperation in it ran deep, richer than sarcasm, heavier than anger. "You could’ve passed out. Alone. We could’ve found you goddamn hours later."
"Tony was with me. And I had it under control," you murmured, guilt crawling up your throat.
You blinked fast, trying to shake it off, but the tears came anyway. You hated crying in front of them. Hated the tight quiver in your chest, the way your breath wouldn’t stay even. But with Eddie bracing your wrist and Volt kneeling beside you, electricity still faintly humming through his skin, you couldn’t stop it.
"I thought I had it," you added, voice cracking.
Volt made a sharp sound and reached up to brush a tear from your cheek with the back of his knuckle.
"I mean, for someone supposedly in control," Volt said slowly, "you did come out looking like a fork that kissed a socket."
He tilted his head. "Oh, dear. If we weren’t the ones fussing over you, Daisuke would’ve had your head."
You let out a weak laugh, rough and wet. Volt’s grin softened, flickering to life again like a current catching.
"There you are," he murmured, tilting your chin up. "You know I can’t function when you cry. My circuits short. I start sparking in weird places."
Eddie rolled his eyes, but didn’t pull away. His thumb pressed softly into the crook of your elbow. "You need to lie down."
Volt nodded. "You've read my mind, darling."
He reached forward, one arm sliding under your knees as Eddie steadied your back. You let them lift you, careful and warm. Your injured arm stayed elevated, the cold pack still pressing against the burn.
"You can yell at us later," Volt said, adjusting you against his chest. "For now, let us take care of you."
"You’re just gonna lock me in your room," you mumbled into his shirt.
"Absolutely," he said, brushing a kiss to your temple. "Fuse privileges officially revoked. Until further notice."
"Indefinitely?" you croaked.
"We’ll renegotiate at the end of the fiscal year," Eddie muttered, brushing the back of your hand. "Assuming you survive your next bright idea."
They moved together, seamlessly syncing their steps. You sagged into their support, letting the last of the panic bleed out of you.
"Spark," Eddie said again, low and just for you. "Let us be scared. Let us be here."
You didn’t have an answer. Just another trembling breath—and a nod.